Nell Musgrove
Biographic Data
| ID | 611899 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Nell Musgrove |
| GIVEN NAMES | Nell |
| FAMILY NAME | Musgrove |
| SIGNATURE | MUSGROVE N |
| AFFILIATIONS | Australian Catholic University |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-5070-8766 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 13 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 8 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 12 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 1 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2003 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 2 |
Nurses, Foster Mothers, Businesswomen, and Baby‐Farmers: Market‐Based Infant Care in Pre‐WWI Australia
In 19th‐century Australia, there were few childcare options for mothers who needed to work. Residential institutions emerged as the colonial society’s preferred mode of placing older children, but they did not accommodate those below the age of two or three years. Thus, a private foster care market comprised of women prepared to take payment for nursing infants came to provide an essential service. Although the existence of this foster‐mother wor…
Convict Orphans: The Heartbreaking Stories of the Colony’s Forgotten Children, and Those Who Succeeded Against All Odds
Emotion as a tool for humanising histories of the marginalised: A case study of industrial schools in Colonial Victoria
This article examines archival documents, government papers and newspaper reports relating to the first three years of the government-run child welfare system in the Australian colony of Victoria (1864–1866) to present a case study that explores how historians might use emotion as a conceptual tool for engaging with the humanity of marginalised voices from the past, particularly for periods beyond living memory. It argues that studying emotion in…
Activism and institutional care: History, Heritage and Social Memory
The activist movement led by adults who experienced welfare-based 'care' as children is now several decades old, and has been through a succession of evolutionary 'waves' to the present.In this themed edition of International Journal of Heritage Studies, the history, diverse methodologies and outcomes of that movement are discussed and analysed.From grass-roots 'kitchen-table' beginnings, through increasingly public lobbying of policy-makers, to …
Closing the cell door: Where are the Histories of Care-leavers at the old Melbourne Gaol
The Old Melbourne Gaol maintains a crucial place in social histories of the city. The Gaol ceased operation in 1924 and, as a heritage site, locates its history firmly in the nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries. While the exhibition invites a moral consideration of modes of punishment implemented in the gaol, its critique suggests resolution: these are not practices that we engage in now. By presenting these kinds of closed or finished narra…
Settler colonial expansion and the institutionalisation of children in Victoria, Australia
Recent histories have underlined the importance of understanding the nineteenth-century gold rushes which took place in various parts of the anglophone world in relation to settler colonialism, and this work has advanced understandings of gender, race and Empire in significant ways. However, the field has yet to seriously grapple with questions about the role, treatment and positioning of children. This article will examine the Australian colony …
Trove and the history of childhood – combining microhistory and big data
The experiences of children are notoriously elusive in the sources on which historians traditionally rely. This paper will discuss several projects in which Trove has expanded the history of childhood in Australia, uncovering a nation-wide trade in children through adoption advertisements, and enriching our knowledge of out-of-home care, and the many inquiries into its failings. Trove has democratised the practice of history – allowing care leave…
Children’s Voices from the Past: New Historical and Interdisciplinary Perspectives
Twice forgotten: Assessing the scale and nature of foster care coverage in Australian historical newspapers
This article uses a combination of discursive and quantitative big data analysis of digitised historical newspapers to present new findings about the representation of foster care in the Australian press from 1865 through 1954. It argues that despite child welfare more broadly rating as a significant social issue in Australian historical newspapers of this period, the topic of foster care itself was much neglected. This is particularly important …
Imagining foster families
In the late nineteenth century, child welfare advocates in both England and Australia were publicly debating the benefits of foster care over institutional placement of children and in the process revealed a great deal about how they understood the role of the family in society. This article examines a range of concerns around foster care that emerged from this nineteenth-century literature and offers reflections on how this resonates with public…
Every Time I Think of Baby I Cry’: Dislocation and Survival in Victoria's Child Welfare System
This article examines two periods in the history of Victoria's child welfare system—the years following the implementation of a government-run system of industrial and reformatory schools in 1864, and the World War II era—with a particular focus on exploring the ways in which families resisted the ‘solutions’ imposed by the state. Although these periods were widely separated in time, both were marked by a high dependence on institutional placemen…
Private Homes, Public Scrutiny: Surveillance of ‘the family’ in post-war Melbourne, 1945–1965
In the years following World War II, the idealised notion of the suburban nuclear family became central to the ways in which Australians imagined and understood themselves. This post-war image of ‘the family’ was invariably considered to be centred within ‘the home’, which was posited as a private space. However, the homes of people whose lifestyles were seen as potentially threatening to the social norms and virtues which the family was believed…
Filthy’ homes and ‘fast’ women: Welfare agencies’ moral surveillance in post‐second world war Melbourne
Activism and institutional care: History, Heritage and Social Memory
The activist movement led by adults who experienced welfare-based 'care' as children is now several decades old, and has been through a succession of evolutionary 'waves' to the present.In this themed edition of International Journal of Heritage Studies, the history, diverse methodologies and outcomes of that movement are discussed and analysed.From grass-roots 'kitchen-table' beginnings, through increasingly public lobbying of policy-makers, to …
Twice forgotten: Assessing the scale and nature of foster care coverage in Australian historical newspapers
This article uses a combination of discursive and quantitative big data analysis of digitised historical newspapers to present new findings about the representation of foster care in the Australian press from 1865 through 1954. It argues that despite child welfare more broadly rating as a significant social issue in Australian historical newspapers of this period, the topic of foster care itself was much neglected. This is particularly important …
Filthy’ homes and ‘fast’ women: Welfare agencies’ moral surveillance in post‐second world war Melbourne
Emotion as a tool for humanising histories of the marginalised: A case study of industrial schools in Colonial Victoria
This article examines archival documents, government papers and newspaper reports relating to the first three years of the government-run child welfare system in the Australian colony of Victoria (1864–1866) to present a case study that explores how historians might use emotion as a conceptual tool for engaging with the humanity of marginalised voices from the past, particularly for periods beyond living memory. It argues that studying emotion in…
Private Homes, Public Scrutiny: Surveillance of ‘the family’ in post-war Melbourne, 1945–1965
In the years following World War II, the idealised notion of the suburban nuclear family became central to the ways in which Australians imagined and understood themselves. This post-war image of ‘the family’ was invariably considered to be centred within ‘the home’, which was posited as a private space. However, the homes of people whose lifestyles were seen as potentially threatening to the social norms and virtues which the family was believed…
Private Homes, Public Scrutiny: Surveillance of ‘the family’ in post-war Melbourne, 1945–1965
In the years following World War II, the idealised notion of the suburban nuclear family became central to the ways in which Australians imagined and understood themselves. This post-war image of ‘the family’ was invariably considered to be centred within ‘the home’, which was posited as a private space. However, the homes of people whose lifestyles were seen as potentially threatening to the social norms and virtues which the family was believed…
Filthy’ homes and ‘fast’ women: Welfare agencies’ moral surveillance in post‐second world war Melbourne
Every Time I Think of Baby I Cry’: Dislocation and Survival in Victoria's Child Welfare System
This article examines two periods in the history of Victoria's child welfare system—the years following the implementation of a government-run system of industrial and reformatory schools in 1864, and the World War II era—with a particular focus on exploring the ways in which families resisted the ‘solutions’ imposed by the state. Although these periods were widely separated in time, both were marked by a high dependence on institutional placemen…
Imagining foster families
In the late nineteenth century, child welfare advocates in both England and Australia were publicly debating the benefits of foster care over institutional placement of children and in the process revealed a great deal about how they understood the role of the family in society. This article examines a range of concerns around foster care that emerged from this nineteenth-century literature and offers reflections on how this resonates with public…
Children’s Voices from the Past: New Historical and Interdisciplinary Perspectives
Twice forgotten: Assessing the scale and nature of foster care coverage in Australian historical newspapers
This article uses a combination of discursive and quantitative big data analysis of digitised historical newspapers to present new findings about the representation of foster care in the Australian press from 1865 through 1954. It argues that despite child welfare more broadly rating as a significant social issue in Australian historical newspapers of this period, the topic of foster care itself was much neglected. This is particularly important …
Trove and the history of childhood – combining microhistory and big data
The experiences of children are notoriously elusive in the sources on which historians traditionally rely. This paper will discuss several projects in which Trove has expanded the history of childhood in Australia, uncovering a nation-wide trade in children through adoption advertisements, and enriching our knowledge of out-of-home care, and the many inquiries into its failings. Trove has democratised the practice of history – allowing care leave…
Settler colonial expansion and the institutionalisation of children in Victoria, Australia
Recent histories have underlined the importance of understanding the nineteenth-century gold rushes which took place in various parts of the anglophone world in relation to settler colonialism, and this work has advanced understandings of gender, race and Empire in significant ways. However, the field has yet to seriously grapple with questions about the role, treatment and positioning of children. This article will examine the Australian colony …
Convict Orphans: The Heartbreaking Stories of the Colony’s Forgotten Children, and Those Who Succeeded Against All Odds
Emotion as a tool for humanising histories of the marginalised: A case study of industrial schools in Colonial Victoria
This article examines archival documents, government papers and newspaper reports relating to the first three years of the government-run child welfare system in the Australian colony of Victoria (1864–1866) to present a case study that explores how historians might use emotion as a conceptual tool for engaging with the humanity of marginalised voices from the past, particularly for periods beyond living memory. It argues that studying emotion in…
Activism and institutional care: History, Heritage and Social Memory
The activist movement led by adults who experienced welfare-based 'care' as children is now several decades old, and has been through a succession of evolutionary 'waves' to the present.In this themed edition of International Journal of Heritage Studies, the history, diverse methodologies and outcomes of that movement are discussed and analysed.From grass-roots 'kitchen-table' beginnings, through increasingly public lobbying of policy-makers, to …
Closing the cell door: Where are the Histories of Care-leavers at the old Melbourne Gaol
The Old Melbourne Gaol maintains a crucial place in social histories of the city. The Gaol ceased operation in 1924 and, as a heritage site, locates its history firmly in the nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries. While the exhibition invites a moral consideration of modes of punishment implemented in the gaol, its critique suggests resolution: these are not practices that we engage in now. By presenting these kinds of closed or finished narra…
Nurses, Foster Mothers, Businesswomen, and Baby‐Farmers: Market‐Based Infant Care in Pre‐WWI Australia
In 19th‐century Australia, there were few childcare options for mothers who needed to work. Residential institutions emerged as the colonial society’s preferred mode of placing older children, but they did not accommodate those below the age of two or three years. Thus, a private foster care market comprised of women prepared to take payment for nursing infants came to provide an essential service. Although the existence of this foster‐mother wor…
Sociology (10 works) · Australian History and Society (9 works) · Law (9 works) · Political science (9 works) · History (7 works) · Law (6 works) · Welfare (6 works) · Historical Studies on Reproduction, Gender, Health, and Societal Changes (4 works) · Gender Studies (3 works) · Genealogy (3 works)