'Mrs Street -- Now There'a a Subject!': Historicising Jessie Street

The life of feminist Jessie Street that is chronicled in her autobiography Truth or Repose is explored in terms of her various roles as feminist echo, zeitgeist, & tragic prophetess to argue that history has assigned her to the role of an echo of Australian feminism. Jean Devanney's Bird of Paradise recording of Street's activism as a fantasy echo is related to the role of history in the development of political identity. Further analysis of Devanny's book represents Street's personal belief that her activism was sensible rather than radical, & and that her early experiences with gender roles cemented her feminism for life. The lampooning by the press of Street's enduring obsessive feminism & of her conversion to communism are related to the difficulty of promoting her autobiography. As an icon of a particular form of Australian feminism that was vulnerable to the press, Street is concluded to have been confined to the history of making remnants, or echoes, of that distinctive feminism. J. Harwell