Australian Women’s interests covered

My main hobby is tagging (adding subject headings) to the National Library of Australia’s Trove platform. This week I’ve been tagging the covers of the Australian Women’s Weekly here. It’s been interesting to see how tastes and priorities have changed and in some ways stayed the same. Royalty, for example, has long been a focus – Princess Margaret (who as a toddler appeared on a cover in the first year), and later Princess Anne, Prince Charles, not to mention other royals from Monaco, Iran and more were favourites of the readers for decades.

The 1930s

Issue 1 of The Australian Women’s Weekly sold for 2 pence (a bargain, I would think), and contained images of women wearing furs and other fripperies, which were likely out of the reach of most readers. Like a newspaper, the cover contained articles, and in this first issue the cover stories were about equality of the sexes and there was the promise of knitting patterns in future issues. The Weekly was published every Saturday, and I imagine many women would have combined the weekly purchase with the social atmosphere of going to town with their families.

http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-page4602692

Issue 2 also had photographic examples of fashion, plus dieting tips – something which still grabs magazine headlines today. Other covers in the first year contained sports stars, movie stars, illustrations of people having elegant parties and competitions – anything to take people’s minds off The Great Depression. The state of the economy wasn’t totally ignored, with cover stories including time-payment.

http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-page4604495

Part-way through the first year, covers began to be made up of an illustration (usually by Boothroyd or Wynne W. Davies) and a poem by P. (Phyllis) Duncan-Brown. Most of the covers in 1936 consisted of an illustration and poem.

http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-page4603999

By the time three year-old Princess Margaret appeared on a cover in Jan 1934 (below), the covers were more like they are today – one main image and just enough text to make one want to buy the issue and find out more.

http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-page4603393

Yet the magazine wasn’t just about hats, weddings and babies. Serious issues such as the barriers of women joining politics and an investigation into girls who go missing were covered in the first year, and wouldn’t be out of place in today’s magazines.

http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-page4605159

In the first couple of years the format of the covers changed dramatically, and the editors must have been looking for ways to make The Weekly stand out from other magazines on the newsstand. By 1935, illustrations were coloured.

http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-page4607496

By 1936 wedding scenes were appearing, and continued over the decades.

http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-page4613984

Women who were pushing boundaries, in academia or the workforce, often found they were still expected to be easy on the eye, sweet of disposition and on the look-out for a man

http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-page4610480

http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-page4611688

Sometimes the fashion on the covers were wacky, however I can say I love this one:

http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-page4610948

Sometimes the illustration was enough, such as an issue in 1937 which just carried an illustration of a woman painting and no text.

http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-page4615407

The first issue of 1937 was a beach scene, and this also has been a persistent theme over the decades. The issue of 8 Jan 1938 is remarkable – a mixed media picture of fabric and paper.

http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-page4622417

By the first issue of April 1938, a somber, military-like image dominated the cover.

http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-page5792242

A Jan 1939 issue shows a woman paddling an outrigger, with a man half-hidden behind her. Men were rarely seen on the covers until late in 1939.

http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-page4627077

On 3rd September 1939, the Australian Prime Minister declared the country had entered the Second World War, yet the covers of The Weekly for awhile continued to be uplifting and aspirational, with illustrations of naughty, playful children, beautiful women or couples playing sports.

http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-page4623709

On 21st October, the cover image showed an illustration of a ghostly woman with men representing the three military forces in the foreground. The caption was “Sons of Australia, steady and strong.”

https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/page/4626445

For some reason, the covers in the following weeks showed playful puppies and stylish women, but it wouldn’t last.

http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-page4624245

To find out how The Australian Women’s Weekly represented the next six years – the war years – follow my blog or track me on social media using #StoriesFromTrove to receive the next installment of the history of the covers of The Australian Women’s Weekly.

Copyright statement – images from The Australian Women’s Weekly 1933 to 1955 are in the public domain.

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