Nell Musgrove
Australian Catholic University, Arts, Faculty Member
- Nell Musgrove is an Associate Professor of History at Australian Catholic University (Melbourne). Her research is par... moreNell Musgrove is an Associate Professor of History at Australian Catholic University (Melbourne). Her research is particularly concerned with the human experiences of people whose lives have been shaped by their interactions with welfare systems, and with methodological questions about how historians can hear voices from the past, especially those whose perspectives are often obscured in the historical record. Her two major monographs - The Slow Evolution of Foster Care in Australia (2018) and The Scars Remain (2013) - examine child welfare policy and practice over the course of more than a century to highlight the ways in which successive generations have been harmed by systems which claimed to protect them, and the extent to which historical failures have been recognised and addressed.edit
The Scars Remain presents the long history of placing Australian children in institutions, putting a human face on child welfare systems which have, over the course of more than two hundred years, touched the lives of hundreds of... more
The Scars Remain presents the long history of placing Australian children in institutions, putting a human face on child welfare systems which have, over the course of more than two hundred years, touched the lives of hundreds of thousands of children as well as their families and friends. It explains how institutions which claimed to care for children could do greater harm than good, and challenges the national mythology of egalitarianism which often shapes Australian histories.
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A three year old boy, born in Melbourne, Australia, in 1892, lived the final months of his life in an abusive foster home. His death barely made a ripple in the press, and the system proved unable or unwilling to deal with much of the... more
A three year old boy, born in Melbourne, Australia, in 1892, lived the final months of his life in an abusive foster home. His death barely made a ripple in the press, and the system proved unable or unwilling to deal with much of the most disturbing evidence about the perpetrators of abuse. This article argues that cases like this one are more than just historical curiosities. They expose abuse which so often lay hidden from the public gaze, and reveal important information about how and why it was allowed to occur. Such cases demand the historian’s attention, not because they are scandalous stories, but because they are sites of historical injustice. They also provide opportunities to understand why systems intended to protect children can fail them so badly, a question which remains pertinent today.
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This article examines two periods in the history of Victoria's child welfare system—the years following the implementation of a government-run system of industrial and reformatory schools in 1864, and the World War II era—with a... more
This article examines two periods in the history of Victoria's child welfare system—the years following the implementation of a government-run system of industrial and reformatory schools in 1864, and the World War II era—with a particular focus on exploring the ways in which families resisted the ‘solutions’ imposed by the state. Although these periods were widely separated in time, both were marked by a high dependence on institutional placement, which presented families with particular opportunities for contestation. They were also eras in which the relationships between families and welfare authorities were experiencing rapid change, meaning that authorities were, out of necessity, more willing to negotiate with parents than during times when their authority was less challenged.
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... DOI: 10.1080/01576895.2012.668840 Shurlee Swain * & Nell Musgrove pages 4-14. ... 41 41. Forgotten Australians submission 245; submission 464, Ella Street. View all notes. Particularly upsetting are the letters from family... more
... DOI: 10.1080/01576895.2012.668840 Shurlee Swain * & Nell Musgrove pages 4-14. ... 41 41. Forgotten Australians submission 245; submission 464, Ella Street. View all notes. Particularly upsetting are the letters from family seeking to maintain some form of contact. ...
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Quiet suburban streets, white picket fences, Mum, Dad and the kids: these are the most popularised images of Australian domesticity in the post-second world war years, yet one must not forget that in the midst of the postwar prosperity... more
Quiet suburban streets, white picket fences, Mum, Dad and the kids: these are the most popularised images of Australian domesticity in the post-second world war years, yet one must not forget that in the midst of the postwar prosperity that permitted increasing portions of the population to attain economic security, there were many Australians whose lives did not fit with
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Teresa Wardell was a leading figure in Catholic social welfare provision in Melbourne during the mid-20th century. She was part of the push to expand the recognition of social work expertise into the field of child welfare and also helped... more
Teresa Wardell was a leading figure in Catholic social welfare provision in Melbourne during the mid-20th century. She was part of the push to expand the recognition of social work expertise into the field of child welfare and also helped establish standards of practice for professional Catholic social workers in Australia. This chapter places Wardell within the broader history of social welfare and examines the ways in which she contributed to the development of her profession.
In this concluding chapter, Musgrove and Michell reflect on a number of recent and disturbing cases from Australian foster care—the deaths of Taihleigh Palmer and Braxton Slager, and the disappearance of William Tyrrell. By linking these... more
In this concluding chapter, Musgrove and Michell reflect on a number of recent and disturbing cases from Australian foster care—the deaths of Taihleigh Palmer and Braxton Slager, and the disappearance of William Tyrrell. By linking these cases with themes and examples from across the 150 years examined in the book as a whole, they offer a commentary on the importance of the public remaining vigilant, and demanding better and more transparent treatment of children in foster care. The chapter also identifies some recent examples of grassroots activism trying to improve foster care, and argues for the importance in shifting both practices of, and attitudes towards, foster care and foster children.
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In this chapter, Musgrove and Michell examine the experiences of people who grew up in foster care from the 1940s to the early twenty-first century, with a particular focus on the original oral history interviews with former foster... more
In this chapter, Musgrove and Michell examine the experiences of people who grew up in foster care from the 1940s to the early twenty-first century, with a particular focus on the original oral history interviews with former foster children conducted for this book. The chapter takes an unflinching look at the combinations of poverty, illness, trauma and abuse which led to children being placed in foster care, and exposes the lifelong legacies of abuse, mistreatment, neglect, placement instability, poor access to education and relationship fragmentation in foster care. Importantly, the chapter positions these often-harrowing narratives as stories of survivors who have made lives for themselves sometimes with, and sometimes without, the help of their biological and foster families.
Research Interests: Psychology and Forgetting
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Teresa Wardell was a leading figure in Catholic social welfare provision in Melbourne during the mid-20 century. She was part of the push to expand the recognition of social work expertise into the field of child welfare and also helped... more
Teresa Wardell was a leading figure in Catholic social welfare provision in Melbourne during the mid-20 century. She was part of the push to expand the recognition of social work expertise into the field of child welfare and also helped establish standards of practice for professional Catholic social workers in Australia. This chapter places Wardell within the broader history of social welfare and examines the ways in which she contributed to the development of her profession.
Research Interests:
In this chapter, Musgrove and Michell ask who has undertaken the work of being foster carers over the 150 years, or so, that statutory foster care has been part of Australian child welfare systems, and what has motivated them to do it?... more
In this chapter, Musgrove and Michell ask who has undertaken the work of being foster carers over the 150 years, or so, that statutory foster care has been part of Australian child welfare systems, and what has motivated them to do it? The chapter examines changing attitudes towards payments for foster carers, and argues that even in the nineteenth century, when the notion that foster carers might make a modest profit from the work was not especially controversial, foster care was still not generally understood purely as a financial transaction. The final part of the chapter draws on oral history interviews to examine the experiences and motivations of foster carers from the 1960s onwards, and their view is clear: it is not about the money.
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In this chapter, Musgrove and Michell present a microhistory of the Thomas family to show how nineteenth-century foster care systems understood the value of both parent–child and sibling relationships. The chapter argues that while... more
In this chapter, Musgrove and Michell present a microhistory of the Thomas family to show how nineteenth-century foster care systems understood the value of both parent–child and sibling relationships. The chapter argues that while welfare authorities made an effort to keep siblings together in foster care, the ultimate logic and smooth functioning of the system was more important. Also considered in the chapter is the state’s attitude towards reuniting mothers with their children through the stories of two of the Thomas sisters who fell pregnant while they were wards of the state. Finally, the chapter explores the meanings of familial relationships for people who grew up in foster care through more recent autobiographies and oral histories, and Australian governments’ slow progress towards supporting family reunion.
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In this chapter, Musgrove and Michell identify the paucity of Australian literature taking up stories of foster care. The chapter relates this partial silence to fashions in publishing, but also points to a failure on the part of... more
In this chapter, Musgrove and Michell identify the paucity of Australian literature taking up stories of foster care. The chapter relates this partial silence to fashions in publishing, but also points to a failure on the part of Australian audiences to embrace the few examples of foster-child heroines in Australian works, even those whose appeal appears very similar to hugely popular figures such as Anne of Green Gables. This matters, they argue, because rethinking representations of foster care in popular literature could play a role in challenging the stigma so often associated with being in out of home care. The capacity of recent autobiographical and testimonial trends to change public perception is examined to conclude the chapter.
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In this chapter, Musgrove and Michell present a microhistory through the story of John Wood Pledger who died in his foster home at just three years of age. In 1890s Melbourne, John’s 26-year-old single mother was left with few choices but... more
In this chapter, Musgrove and Michell present a microhistory through the story of John Wood Pledger who died in his foster home at just three years of age. In 1890s Melbourne, John’s 26-year-old single mother was left with few choices but to surrender him to the state. Tragically, a combination of individuals’ actions and systemic failings of the government’s foster care system led to the boy enduring shocking abuse, for which nobody was ultimately held responsible. The chapter considers how foster care systems responded to suspicions of physical and sexual abuse, particularly when ‘problem’ children were the victims, and identifies some disturbing parallels between the cases of John Wood Pledger (d. 1896) and that of another Australian foster child, Luke Anthony Borusiewic (d. 2009).
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In this chapter, Musgrove and Michell examine the philosophical and ideological motivations for implementing foster care as the core method of providing for children within Australian child welfare systems from around the 1870s, arguing... more
In this chapter, Musgrove and Michell examine the philosophical and ideological motivations for implementing foster care as the core method of providing for children within Australian child welfare systems from around the 1870s, arguing for the importance of understanding this period in a transnational context. The chapter goes on to show how welfare authorities’ assessments of families as ‘deserving’ or ‘undeserving’ could determine whether or not parents were separated from their children, and demonstrates that assessments of character profoundly shaped people’s journeys through the system well into the twentieth century. The chapter extends this discussion of ‘character’ to its consequence: stigma. In discussing stigma, the chapter exposes the way child welfare systems criminalised and stigmatised children, demonstrating the huge toll this took on people’s lives.
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PurposeThis article considers the impact of competing knowledge structures in teaching Australian Indigenous history to undergraduate university students and the possibilities of collaborative teaching in this... more
PurposeThis article considers the impact of competing knowledge structures in teaching Australian Indigenous history to undergraduate university students and the possibilities of collaborative teaching in this space.Design/methodology/approachThe authors, one Aboriginal and one non-Aboriginal, draw on a history of collaborative teaching that stretches over more than a decade, bringing together conceptual reflective work and empirical data from a 5-year project working with Australian university students in an introductory-level Aboriginal history subject.FindingsIt argues that teaching this subject area in ways which are culturally safe for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander staff and students, and which resist knowledge structures associated with colonial ways of conveying history, is not only about content but also about building learning spaces that encourage students to decolonise their relationships with Australian history.Originality/valueThis article considers collaborativ...
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In this chapter, Musgrove and Michell use the state of South Australia as a case study for assessing the current state of out of home care, and foster care specifically. The chapter argues that despite formal apologies to care leavers,... more
In this chapter, Musgrove and Michell use the state of South Australia as a case study for assessing the current state of out of home care, and foster care specifically. The chapter argues that despite formal apologies to care leavers, and formal inquiries into the abuse of foster children in both the past and present, child protection is still plagued by problems. It traces the state’s retreat from traditional foster care in favour of kinship care and models of permanent care, engaging with the views of current carers on the desirability and viability of changes. To conclude, the chapter looks at outcomes, particularly with respect to education, recognising the value of the small but growing number of targeted supports for care leavers to attend university.
This chapter analyses changing approaches to “hearing children’s voices” within the historiography of childhood, including interdisciplinary connections with anthropology, archaeology, geography, psychology and sociology. It examines... more
This chapter analyses changing approaches to “hearing children’s voices” within the historiography of childhood, including interdisciplinary connections with anthropology, archaeology, geography, psychology and sociology. It examines theoretical shifts, such as the challenges poststructuralism posed to concepts of “experience” and “truth,” the ways in which the resulting focus on discourse threatened to obscure any possibility of uncovering children’s voices, and the consequent resurgence of survivor narratives revealing a range of institutional abuses suffered by children. The chapter argues that the rise of age as a category of analysis has intersected with other shifts within history, including investigations of gender, memory, space, mobility, emotion, religion, colonialism and transnationalism. Finally, the chapter considers the challenges of different sources, including institutional records, interviews, artwork, diaries, letters, memoirs and objects.
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In this chapter, Musgrove and Michell identify the paucity of Australian literature taking up stories of foster care. The chapter relates this partial silence to fashions in publishing, but also points to a failure on the part of... more
In this chapter, Musgrove and Michell identify the paucity of Australian literature taking up stories of foster care. The chapter relates this partial silence to fashions in publishing, but also points to a failure on the part of Australian audiences to embrace the few examples of foster-child heroines in Australian works, even those whose appeal appears very similar to hugely popular figures such as Anne of Green Gables. This matters, they argue, because rethinking representations of foster care in popular literature could play a role in challenging the stigma so often associated with being in out of home care. The capacity of recent autobiographical and testimonial trends to change public perception is examined to conclude the chapter.
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Publikationsansicht. 43962053. The time of their lives : the eight hour day and working life (2007).Kimber, Julie. Abstract. Labour history; working life; 19th century; 20th century; politics of work; eight hour day; working hours; trade... more
Publikationsansicht. 43962053. The time of their lives : the eight hour day and working life (2007).Kimber, Julie. Abstract. Labour history; working life; 19th century; 20th century; politics of work; eight hour day; working hours; trade unions; work/life balance. Details der Publikation ...
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In the middle of the nineteenth century, Australian responses to children in need were significantly influenced by the belief that such children posed a threat to society. At the beginning of the twenty-first century, child welfare... more
In the middle of the nineteenth century, Australian responses to children in need were significantly influenced by the belief that such children posed a threat to society. At the beginning of the twenty-first century, child welfare legislation states that ‘the best interests of the child must always be paramount’ (Children, Youth and Families Act 2005, Victoria). This paper surveys some of the local and overseas influences which directed child welfare practice and policy towards a philosophy in which the wellbeing of the child is central. It suggests that the concept of the…
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... The generous support of the Victorian Aboriginal Education Association Incorporation (VAEAI) 1 Catholic Education Specialist representative, Aunty Delsie Lillyst, has been an invaluable support for both Indigenous and non-Indigenous... more
... The generous support of the Victorian Aboriginal Education Association Incorporation (VAEAI) 1 Catholic Education Specialist representative, Aunty Delsie Lillyst, has been an invaluable support for both Indigenous and non-Indigenous staff. ...
Research Interests: Business and Indigenous
Abstract The experiences of children are notoriously elusive in the sources on which historians traditionally rely. This paper will discuss several projects in which Trove has expanded the history of childhood in Australia, uncovering a... more
Abstract The experiences of children are notoriously elusive in the sources on which historians traditionally rely. This paper will discuss several projects in which Trove has expanded the history of childhood in Australia, uncovering a nation-wide trade in children through adoption advertisements, and enriching our knowledge of out-of-home care, and the many inquiries into its failings. Trove has democratised the practice of history – allowing care leavers and abuse survivors to research their own histories – and enabled new avenues for identifying microhistories. However, this article also argues that Trove-focused history without an understanding of context can be misleading.