MS 2683 comprises: 1. Personal and family correspondence, 1914-1967. 2. Personal documents, 1934-1967, and other papers. 3. Drafts and other papers relating to Jessie Street's autobiography, Truth or repose. 4. Papers relating to Street's feminist activities, 1916-1968, including the United Associations of Women. Correspondents include Bessie Rischbieth, Irene Greenwood, Linda Littlejohn and Robert Menzies. 5. Material relating to the peace movement, 1931-1966. 6. Papers relating to the United Nations, 1945-1966, including material on the UN Commission for the Status of Women.
7. Papers relating to Street's membership of the Australian Labor Party, attempts to gain election to federal parliament and subsequent resignation from the ALP because of her refusal to abandon her pro-Soviet stance. 8. Papers relating to Street's interest in and numerous visits to the Soviet Union including material on the Australian-Soviet Friendship Society, 1946-1968, and the Russian Medical Aid and Comforts Committee, 1941-1945. 9. Papers relating to the Women's Forum for Social and Economic Reconstruction, 1941-1945, Immigration Advisory Committee, 1940s, and National Social Insurance, 1930-1952. 10. Papers relating to Aboriginal rights and race relations, mostly 1956-1968, including the 1967 Aboriginal Referendum (31 boxes, 3 fol. boxes).
Feminist and social activist. Jessie Mary Grey Street (née Lillingston) was born in India in 1889. In 1915 Street founded the New South Wales Social Hygiene Association, concerned with informing women about birth control and sex education. In 1929 she was elected first president of the United Associations of Women which lobbied governments on equal pay and other women's issues. She accompanied H.V. Evatt to the United Nations founding conference held in 1945 in San Franscisco where she successfully lobbied for a charter of women's rights. She was the unsuccessful candidate for the House of Representatives seat of Wentworth, 1943 and 1949. Jessie Street's autobiography, Truth or repose, was published in 1966. Street died in Sydney in 1970.
Find in other libraries at Trove