AustLit

In early twentieth century Sydney, a group of women, all well provided for financially, all influential, and all residents of the eastern suburbs, played an active role in the city's cultural life. As high cultural practices in late nineteenth-century Britain were identified with middle-class lifestyles, it is possible that class interest in part motivated the concern Sydney women culturalists felt for the creative and intellectual life of the city and its residents. This article argues that upper middle-class women living in the eastern suburbs of Sydney practiced a particular type of patronage characterised by signs of new womanhood and a variably progressive concern for the cultural welfare of both individuals and the nation. (Sighted: 3 July 2009)