Melanie Nolan
Biographic Data
| ID | 3840741 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Melanie Nolan |
| GIVEN NAMES | Melanie |
| FAMILY NAME | Nolan |
| SIGNATURE | NOLAN M |
| AFFILIATIONS | Australian National University |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-6621-8382 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 34 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 34 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 32 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 2 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1991 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 3 |
Charity initiatives and statutory measures: Mary Paley Marshall, Florence Ada Brown Keynes and the Cambridge circle of educated women philanthropists
Remaking a Scholarly Elite? Insiders, Transnationalism, Outsiders and Australian Women Historians
Thinkers, writers and kinds of intellectual biographies: Contribution to a symposium on Sophie Scott-Brown’s Colin Ward and the Art of Everyday Anarchy
The Politics of the Social Biographical Approach to Working-Class Leaders
In this paper, I consider John French's biography, Lula and His Politics of Cunning: From Metalworker to President of Brazil (2020). French discusses his methodology, which he characterizes as “a social biographical approach”. I argue that this methodology is already in historians’ toolkit. Historians writing biography seem to start with first premises rather than building on what went before. I thus contextualize the methodology, situating Frenc…
Being an Inclusive Researcher in a National Consultation Exercise-A Case Study
This paper presents a case study of the Inclusive Research Network (IRN), an inclusive research group founded by the Centre for Disability Studies, contributing to a National Disability Research Agenda (NDRA) setting project. IRN members with ID carried out their own consultations with disability stakeholders. This paper sets out the experiences of the IRN members in facilitating focus groups as part of phase 2 of the NDRA project. As this projec…
B
in Vienna, eldest of three children and only
Australian Dictionary of Biography, Volume 19: 1991–1995 (A–z)
Volume 19 of the Australian Dictionary of Biography (ADB) contains concise biographies of individuals who died between 1991 and 1995. The first of two volumes for the 1990s, it presents a colourful montage of late twentieth-century Australian life, containing the biographies of significant and representative Australians. The volume is still in the shadow of World War II with servicemen and women who enlisted young appearing, but these influences …
Sarah Bellamy, the women transported to Botany Bay, biographical genres and the Australian Dictionary of Biography
Surely using different kinds of sources results in different kinds of writing? Of course it is a matter of degree with both imagination and empirical research informing novels and biography on a continuum: sometimes novelists research and historians sometimes imagine. Charlotte Bront's novel Shirley (1849) was based on her research of the Leeds Mercury newspaper of 1814 to 1816. 2 Some historians, while wary of crossing genres and writing fiction…
Neville Kirk, Transnational Radicalism and the Connected Lives of Tom Mann and Robert Samuel Ross
Montgomery, a Communist Party activist in a pre-academic working life, became the Farman Professor of History at Yale University, leading labour historian and editor of the journal, International Labor and Working-Class History. [...]while Ross was consistent over militarism Mann stepped back from anti-war agitation for the duration. [...]these two friends allow Kirk to consider the wider radical transnational world which he argues historians hav…
Lives in Transition: Longitudinal Analysis from Historical Sources
Lives in Transition: Longitudinal Analysis from Historical Sources." Australian Historical Studies, 48(1), pp. 126–127
“Super” Debates within the Antipodes? Explaining Differing New Zealand and Australian Retirement Policies in the late Twentieth Century
As others have shown, for much of the twentieth century, “although to different degrees in different periods and to different degrees in the two countries”, New Zealand and Australia shared a peculiar approach to social protection internationally. In particular, Francis Castles has published widely on the Antipodean “wage earners’ welfare state”. He has also shown, however, that New Zealand and Australia took quite dissimilar paths in refurbishin…
Welfare limbo? Social welfare and citizenship debates about New Zealanders living in Australia
For most of the twentieth century, New Zealanders could cross the Tasman Sea freely to live and work in Australia, with access to citizenship and social welfare benefits, similar to those enjoyed by Australians who moved to New Zealand. Migration was not difficult as the systems were similar. From 2001, however, while Australians living in New Zealand could still gain access to citizenship with social welfare benefits, many New Zealanders moving …
The ADB's Story
The ADB’s Story
'The Australian Dictionary of Biography captures the life and times and culture of this country in an absolutely distinctive and irreplaceable way. It is the indispensable record of who we are, and of the characters who have made us what we are. I could not be prouder of ANU's continuing role as custodian of this crucial part of our national legacy.' Professor the Hon. Gareth Evans AC QC, Chancellor, The Australian National University 'A mature n…
Inequality of Luck: Accident Compensation in New Zealand and Australia
The romance and liberating effects of the rise of the modern transport and industrial systems have attracted more attention than how accident victims, and their dependents, coped. Every modern society has a system of dealing with "blood on the bitumen"and
Books
There is no more imposing figure in the history of Australian anthropology than W.E.H. ('Bill') Stanner (1905-1981). While some of his contemporaries produced more ethnography, none matched his skill and eloquence in describing the life-worlds of Aboriginal people. While others of his age were just as closely involved in arguing for the defensibility of Aboriginal society, none did so with such convincing passion. With these two legacies in mind,…
Classic Third Way or Before its Time? The New Zealand Labour Party in Local and Transnational Context
The exceptionalist debate in labour history has concentrated upon the distinctiveness of a country’s labour, its uniqueness and historical contingency. Some historians are concerned that the current popularity of transnationalism in comparative history achieves exactly the opposite: it, ‘flattens and schematizes the richness, messiness, complexity, and the individuality’ of the case study. In this paper I consider politicians’, political scientis…
Transnational Labour in the Age of Globalization
Introduction: Transnational Ideas, Activities, and Organizations in Labour History 1860s to 1920s
When a society like ours considers themes for its meetings and conferences there is inevitably a discussion about what is current in labour history. Transnationalism has emerged as something of a vogue concept in recent years and much good work has been produced under its umbrella. Yet Labour History Review has overwhelmingly concentrated on British history
Gender and the Trans-Tasman World of Labour: Transnational and Comparative Histories
With some exceptions the striking similarities of labour history in Australia and New Zealand have traditionally been examined through the lens of separate national narratives. More recently, however, we have witnessed a recovery of the 'trans-Tasman world of labour'. Such historical analysis has enabled the emergence of significant insights into the parallel development of labour market legislation, policy formation and wage fixation. This artic…
The Reality and Myth of New Zealand Egalitarianism: Explaining the Pattern of a Labour Historiography at the Edge Of Empires
The growing alarm in New Zealand over the development of a visible 'underclass' is underpinned by a wider concern in the face of the country's dramatic relative decline in the postwar period.In the generation after 1945, New Zealand was said to have 'full employment', the third highest standard of living in the world and an enviable record in the area of free education to university level.According to a popular selfimage, and a central plank of N…
Revolution: The 1913 Great Strike in New Zealand
Kin: A Collective Biography of a New Zealand Working Class Family
A Professional Myth: Personal Continuity of Care and New Zealand General Practice in the Twentieth Century
In this article, we question the narrative of a 'diminishing class' of family physicians providing continuity of care. A case-study of general practitioners in Wellington, New Zealand, suggests that there has been less change than many believe. We seek to establish that treatment by traditional family doctors constituted a minority experience. Alternative accounts tend to focus on continuous practices but these probably represent just over a thir…
Commentary: Pacific Currents in the Tasman: Comparative and Transnational Perspectives on New Zealand Labour History
This paper explains the current, comparative perspectives on New Zealand. It deals with the new world comparisons and implications of Pacific-Rim history comparison
The Reality and Myth of New Zealand Egalitarianism: Explaining the Pattern of a Labour Historiography at the Edge Of Empires
The growing alarm in New Zealand over the development of a visible 'underclass' is underpinned by a wider concern in the face of the country's dramatic relative decline in the postwar period.In the generation after 1945, New Zealand was said to have 'full employment', the third highest standard of living in the world and an enviable record in the area of free education to university level.According to a popular selfimage, and a central plank of N…
Transnational Labour in the Age of Globalization
Introduction: Transnational Ideas, Activities, and Organizations in Labour History 1860s to 1920s
When a society like ours considers themes for its meetings and conferences there is inevitably a discussion about what is current in labour history. Transnationalism has emerged as something of a vogue concept in recent years and much good work has been produced under its umbrella. Yet Labour History Review has overwhelmingly concentrated on British history
Unstitching the New Zealand State: Its Role in Domesticity and its Decline
Studies of domesticity tend to take a simple view of the state's role. If the state made reforms, it was because some interest group forced it to do so. These studies risk a charge of functionalism by emphasizing that the state necessarily acted to further capitalist or patriarchal interests. In this paper I argue that the state's response to interests was neither as coherent nor as predictable as is suggested by these approaches. The state is a …
Sex or Class? The Politics of the Earliest Equal Pay Campaign in Victoria
Peer-reviewed
Being an Inclusive Researcher in a National Consultation Exercise-A Case Study
This paper presents a case study of the Inclusive Research Network (IRN), an inclusive research group founded by the Centre for Disability Studies, contributing to a National Disability Research Agenda (NDRA) setting project. IRN members with ID carried out their own consultations with disability stakeholders. This paper sets out the experiences of the IRN members in facilitating focus groups as part of phase 2 of the NDRA project. As this projec…
Welfare limbo? Social welfare and citizenship debates about New Zealanders living in Australia
For most of the twentieth century, New Zealanders could cross the Tasman Sea freely to live and work in Australia, with access to citizenship and social welfare benefits, similar to those enjoyed by Australians who moved to New Zealand. Migration was not difficult as the systems were similar. From 2001, however, while Australians living in New Zealand could still gain access to citizenship with social welfare benefits, many New Zealanders moving …
Inequality of Luck: Accident Compensation in New Zealand and Australia
The romance and liberating effects of the rise of the modern transport and industrial systems have attracted more attention than how accident victims, and their dependents, coped. Every modern society has a system of dealing with "blood on the bitumen"and
Gender and the Trans-Tasman World of Labour: Transnational and Comparative Histories
With some exceptions the striking similarities of labour history in Australia and New Zealand have traditionally been examined through the lens of separate national narratives. More recently, however, we have witnessed a recovery of the 'trans-Tasman world of labour'. Such historical analysis has enabled the emergence of significant insights into the parallel development of labour market legislation, policy formation and wage fixation. This artic…
Commentary: Pacific Currents in the Tasman: Comparative and Transnational Perspectives on New Zealand Labour History
This paper explains the current, comparative perspectives on New Zealand. It deals with the new world comparisons and implications of Pacific-Rim history comparison
Transforming Unionism by Organising? An Examination of the 'Gender Revolution' in New Zealand Trade Unionism since 1975
Sex or Class? The Politics of the Earliest Equal Pay Campaign in Victoria
Peer-reviewed
Making Clerks and Re-shaping the White-Collar Workforce in the Twentieth Century
Clerical work in all western industrial countries has expanded and feminised since the nineteenth century. Feminisation is the shift in workforce composition from male to female. In Australia the proportion of clerical workers who were women rose from one per cent to 70 per cent between 1881 and 1981. There has been a steady stream of North American and British studies from 1974 analysing aspects of the white blouse revolution. Recently and belat…
The white blouse revolution: Heroic and anti‐heroic interpretations of the feminisation of work
There is a growing debate in the historiography between what could be described as heroic and anti-heroic interpretations of the feminisation of work. At issue is whether a paid labour paradise was won or lost for women at the turn of the century and the state's role in its development. Early feminists took pride in the opening up of respectable employment avenues for women. At the turn of the century, womenwere restricted to a narrow band of occ…
Barmaids: A History of Women's Work in Pubs
Unstitching the New Zealand State: Its Role in Domesticity and its Decline
Studies of domesticity tend to take a simple view of the state's role. If the state made reforms, it was because some interest group forced it to do so. These studies risk a charge of functionalism by emphasizing that the state necessarily acted to further capitalist or patriarchal interests. In this paper I argue that the state's response to interests was neither as coherent nor as predictable as is suggested by these approaches. The state is a …
A Subversive State? Domesticity in Dispute in 1950s New Zealand
Recently, historians have begun to question whether the 1950s were the high tide of domesticity. They have reconceptualized the 1950s by distinguishing the immediate postwar period from the later 1950s. They have distinguished between groups of women and shown how some contested familialism, albeit sometimes unwittingly. But they have not considered sufficiently how the state is conceptualized. State policies changed in the 1950s. The state was n…
Transforming Unionism by Organising? An Examination of the 'Gender Revolution' in New Zealand Trade Unionism since 1975
Breadwinning: New Zealand Women and the State
Reflections in colonial glass? women factory inspectors in Britain and New Zealand 1893-1921
This article explores the establishment of women factory inspectors in the wake of a common sweating furore in Britain and New Zealand. Sweating reformism was not simply transplanted in New Zealand from the motherland. It is argued that Britons and New Zealanders developed related illusions about anti-sweating which had important implications for the confinement of women's work. In New Zealand female factory inspectors were held to be symbols of …
A Professional Myth: Personal Continuity of Care and New Zealand General Practice in the Twentieth Century
In this article, we question the narrative of a 'diminishing class' of family physicians providing continuity of care. A case-study of general practitioners in Wellington, New Zealand, suggests that there has been less change than many believe. We seek to establish that treatment by traditional family doctors constituted a minority experience. Alternative accounts tend to focus on continuous practices but these probably represent just over a thir…
Commentary: Pacific Currents in the Tasman: Comparative and Transnational Perspectives on New Zealand Labour History
This paper explains the current, comparative perspectives on New Zealand. It deals with the new world comparisons and implications of Pacific-Rim history comparison
The Reality and Myth of New Zealand Egalitarianism: Explaining the Pattern of a Labour Historiography at the Edge Of Empires
The growing alarm in New Zealand over the development of a visible 'underclass' is underpinned by a wider concern in the face of the country's dramatic relative decline in the postwar period.In the generation after 1945, New Zealand was said to have 'full employment', the third highest standard of living in the world and an enviable record in the area of free education to university level.According to a popular selfimage, and a central plank of N…
Revolution: The 1913 Great Strike in New Zealand
Kin: A Collective Biography of a New Zealand Working Class Family
Gender and the Trans-Tasman World of Labour: Transnational and Comparative Histories
With some exceptions the striking similarities of labour history in Australia and New Zealand have traditionally been examined through the lens of separate national narratives. More recently, however, we have witnessed a recovery of the 'trans-Tasman world of labour'. Such historical analysis has enabled the emergence of significant insights into the parallel development of labour market legislation, policy formation and wage fixation. This artic…
Introduction: Transnational Ideas, Activities, and Organizations in Labour History 1860s to 1920s
When a society like ours considers themes for its meetings and conferences there is inevitably a discussion about what is current in labour history. Transnationalism has emerged as something of a vogue concept in recent years and much good work has been produced under its umbrella. Yet Labour History Review has overwhelmingly concentrated on British history
Books
There is no more imposing figure in the history of Australian anthropology than W.E.H. ('Bill') Stanner (1905-1981). While some of his contemporaries produced more ethnography, none matched his skill and eloquence in describing the life-worlds of Aboriginal people. While others of his age were just as closely involved in arguing for the defensibility of Aboriginal society, none did so with such convincing passion. With these two legacies in mind,…
Classic Third Way or Before its Time? The New Zealand Labour Party in Local and Transnational Context
The exceptionalist debate in labour history has concentrated upon the distinctiveness of a country’s labour, its uniqueness and historical contingency. Some historians are concerned that the current popularity of transnationalism in comparative history achieves exactly the opposite: it, ‘flattens and schematizes the richness, messiness, complexity, and the individuality’ of the case study. In this paper I consider politicians’, political scientis…
Transnational Labour in the Age of Globalization
The ADB's Story
The ADB’s Story
'The Australian Dictionary of Biography captures the life and times and culture of this country in an absolutely distinctive and irreplaceable way. It is the indispensable record of who we are, and of the characters who have made us what we are. I could not be prouder of ANU's continuing role as custodian of this crucial part of our national legacy.' Professor the Hon. Gareth Evans AC QC, Chancellor, The Australian National University 'A mature n…
Inequality of Luck: Accident Compensation in New Zealand and Australia
The romance and liberating effects of the rise of the modern transport and industrial systems have attracted more attention than how accident victims, and their dependents, coped. Every modern society has a system of dealing with "blood on the bitumen"and
Welfare limbo? Social welfare and citizenship debates about New Zealanders living in Australia
For most of the twentieth century, New Zealanders could cross the Tasman Sea freely to live and work in Australia, with access to citizenship and social welfare benefits, similar to those enjoyed by Australians who moved to New Zealand. Migration was not difficult as the systems were similar. From 2001, however, while Australians living in New Zealand could still gain access to citizenship with social welfare benefits, many New Zealanders moving …
“Super” Debates within the Antipodes? Explaining Differing New Zealand and Australian Retirement Policies in the late Twentieth Century
As others have shown, for much of the twentieth century, “although to different degrees in different periods and to different degrees in the two countries”, New Zealand and Australia shared a peculiar approach to social protection internationally. In particular, Francis Castles has published widely on the Antipodean “wage earners’ welfare state”. He has also shown, however, that New Zealand and Australia took quite dissimilar paths in refurbishin…
Lives in Transition: Longitudinal Analysis from Historical Sources
Lives in Transition: Longitudinal Analysis from Historical Sources." Australian Historical Studies, 48(1), pp. 126–127
Political science (24 works) · Sociology (23 works) · Law (20 works) · History (16 works) · Australian History and Society (13 works) · Politics (11 works) · Labor Movements and Unions (10 works) · Law (10 works) · Gender Studies (9 works) · Political economy (8 works)