Celebrate the release of a powerful new history of Australian motherhood this Mother’s Day weekend!

When she first become a mother in 2013, historian Dr Carla Pascoe Leahy looked around her for stories of how mothering had changed over time. She was shocked to find that no one had written a history of Australian motherhood.

This ambitious and compelling book remedies this glaring omission in our understanding of motherhood in the past. Through more than 60 interviews with a diverse group of Australian women, Carla has charted the ways in which mothering has shifted along with wider Australian society – and the ways it has stayed the same.

Join us for the launch of Becoming a Mother: an Australian History with oral historians Professor Alistair Thomson and Dr Deb Anderson.

Photo: Mothers and babies at the Drouin Infant Welfare Centre, Victoria, circa 1944. Photo by Jim Fitzpatrick. National Library of Australia U-429-122.