Bertha McNamara photographs, clippings and other material, 1922-1967

PXA 7669
MLMSS 9417/Folder 1X

fonds

1922-1967

Textual Records, Photographs, Clippings, Graphic Materials

971289

8 photographic prints
8 drawings - pencil
0.02 metres of textual material (1 outsize folder) - watercolour - 70 x 56 cm

Matilda Emilie Bertha McNamara (1853-1931), socialist agitator, feminist and bookshop-owner, was born on 28 September 1853 at Posen, Prussia (Poland). She migrated with her family to Victoria in 1896.

Her first husband died in 1888, and she moved to Melbourne where she provided for the children by working as a travelling saleswoman, selling mainly jewellery and sewing machines. At this difficult time in her life, she turned to radical politics. In Hobart in 1891, though her English was still imperfect, she published Home Talk on Socialism, one of the earliest socialist pamphlets produced in Australia.

She married William McNamara in 1892 and she returned with him to Sydney, where they opened a bookshop in Castlereagh Street that became a famous gathering-point for radicals. In the 1890s Bertha was a leading member of the Social Democratic Federation of Australasia and of the Womanhood Suffrage League of New South Wales. Two of her daughters married Henry Lawson and Jack Lang.

PXA 7669
Newspaper clippings concerning the death of Bertha Matilda McNamara, 1931-1932 and Henry Lawson, dated 1978.
Signed souvenir programme of the Henry Lawson Centenary, 16 June 1967 and Official inauguration of the Henry Lawson Labor College by Hom W.J. Mckell, M.L.A, Premier of NSW, 4 February 1945.
Photograph of Henry Lawson memorial, Botanic Gardens, Sydney by S.J. Hood and photographic portrait of Henry Lawson
Invitation to a 'testimonial and social evening...tendered to Mrs. Bertha McNamara of the Railway Institute', 19 April 1928 and 'Socialisation your only hope!' the last message to Labor of the mother of the Australian Labor Movement
Two photographic portraits of Bertha Matilda McNamara printed on card, after August 1931
Photograph of McNamara's Literature Centre. Inscribed 'This is 221 Castlereagh St, our home for 30 years. Taken before leaving Xmas day 1922. Compulsory annexation by Federal Government for Public Building purposes, B.M. McNamara' on verso.
Photographs of McNamara's cheap bookshop. Inscribed 'The bookshop at Paddington with Cissie about 1923' on verso
Two photographs, possibly relating to the launch of the Ten Dollar note, taken by Sydney Morning Herald [1966]. The woman and the man on the right are probably the children of Henry Lawson, Bertha and Joseph.
Pencil drawings mainly caricatures by unknown artist

MLMSS 9417/Folder 1X
Illuminated address presented to Bertha McNamara from the Labor Women's Organising Committee, 28 August 1928 / signed by Susan Francis President, Lucy Cassidy and Lena Lynch Secretary

Copyright status:: Out of copyright - photographs created before 1955<br>In copyright - photographs created after 1955
Copyright restrictions may apply: to some of the textual material
Please acknowledge:: Mitchell Library, State Library of New South Wales and David Pura

Information upgraded as part of the Manuscripts Unprocessed eRecords Project 2013-2014

Transferred from MLMSS 9417 except for illuminated address, August 2023.