Bold Types (Patricia Clarke, NLA Publishing)

Patricia Clarke started her career in journalism in 1951, a time when the industry was very much a man’s world but women were making inroads. In Bold Types, Clarke gives a history of women in Australian journalism through 13 remarkable portraits spanning the 19th century to the 1950s. Following an introduction by Guardian Australia political reporter Amy Remeikis, the book begins in 1870 with Anna Blackwell, Australia’s first foreign correspondent, illustrating how these trailblazing journalists often showed extraordinary courage travelling to foreign locales when transport could be rough and ready. Despite the fact that female journalists were usually relegated to what was known as the ‘women’s columns of fashions, frills and frivolities’, some worked as war correspondents—Edith Dickenson, who covered the Boer War, even carried a gun. Men controlled newsrooms and getting assigned to an interesting story outside of the women’s pages required male patronage and permission, so women staked out new territory on their own. Entrepreneurial Frances Taylor created her own successful magazine, Woman’s World. She secured advertising to ensure the project was self-sustaining and that it survived many years after her death. When workplaces weren’t child-friendly, working mothers made do; editor and journalist Connie Robertson put her newborn baby in the filing cabinet when she wrote. An enlightening series of biographies focusing on gutsy and tenacious women, Bold Types is an accessible book that will appeal to readers of Australian history.

Chris Saliba is the co-owner of North Melbourne Books.

Books+Publishing pre-publication reviews are supported by the Copyright Agency Cultural Fund.

Category: Reviews