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Jessie Street

National Women's Library

Jessie Street

Jessie Street

The Library is named after Jessie Street (1889-1970) an activist who worked tirelessly to improve the status of women, both in Australia and overseas.

The decision in 1989 to establish a national women's library for Australia coincided with the centenary of the birth of Jessie Street. Jessie Street was a vigourous activist, campaigning for equality of status for women, equal pay, appointment of women to public office and their election to parliament. She was interested in the plight of Jewish refugees, the social and political status of the Aborigines and the question of peace.

Jessie was well known internationally, attending women's conferences in Britain, the US and Europe and working with different groups there. She was the sole woman on the Australian delegation to the founding conference of the United Nations in San Francisco in 1945. With other internationally known women, she was instrumental in having the United Nations establish a permanent Commission on the Status of Women and became Australia's representative on this.

"It is clear that Jessie Street was a woman ahead of her time. Her causes were simple but enduring - equality, justice and peace - and the context in which she considered them was progressively international." - R.J.L.Hawke

With the support of Jessie Street's family, the Jessie Street National Women's Library and the Jessie Street Trust Lenore Coltheart has just edited Jessie Street: A Revised Biography. There will be events in both Sydney and Canberra to mark the launch of the book. The biography is based on Jessie's 1966 autobiography, Truth or Repose. Lenore Coltheart aimed to create a reader friendly, accurate and historically contextualised edition of Jessie's work.

The Library is excited to promote Jessie Street, her life and legacy. This biography is one way of ensuring that future generations are aware of her incredible contribution to social justice in the Twentieth Century.

Jessie Street: A Revised Biography
Edited by Leonore Coltheart
2004
The Federation Press (paperback)
RRP $30


For further information on Jessie's life please contact the Library.

To keep women's words, women's works, alive and powerful. - Ursula Le Guin

Last update: 7/8/2003