Louisa Lawson example essay topic

Louisa Lawson was a newspaper owner, journalist, poet and feminist. She was a prominent figure in Sydney's suffragette movement as well as founding Australia's first magazine for women. Louisa Lawson was a great influence on the changes made in Australia at the turn on the 20th century. Louisa Lawson was born near Mudgee in New South Wales. As the eldest daughter of nine surviving children, she was forced to leave school at thirteen, leaving her desire to become a pupil teacher. In 1866 Louisa married Niels Larsen (Peter Lawson) and moved to a bark hut on the goldfields with her husband.

Her life there was hard and lonely. Her husband was often away, leaving Louisa alone to bring up their five small children on very little money. One of her children was the famous writer Henry Lawson. In 1883, she left her failing marriage and moved to Sydney with her children.

As she was a single mother Louisa spent the rest of her life working to help other women. She ran groups to improve their health and the way they lived. She always encouraged them to help themselves. After running boarding houses she managed to buy a share in a small radical newspaper, The Republican by 1887 and took over as editor. In 1888 Louisa Lawson started and became the manager and editor of The Dawn, a journal for women, written, edited and printed by women the first of its kind. Through The Dawn, Louisa Lawson began to emerge as a key figure in the suffrage movement being name as 'The Mother of Suffrage in New South Wales'.

The Dawn advised women on women's issues, discussed divorce and women's right to vote. The paper also contained short stories, fashion notes, sewing patterns and reports on women's activities around the country and overseas. The Dawn made it possible for Louisa to overcome her poverty, being sold for three pence during its 17 years it was an instant success, selling across Australia and eventually overseas. Through The Dawn she promoted women's rights, especially the right to employment and the right to vote, and gave extensive coverage to women's activities in Australia and overseas. In the first issue, Lawson wrote: "Half of Australian women's lives are unhappy, but there are paths out of most labyrinths and we will set up finger posts... we shall welcome contributions and correspondence from women... it is not a new thing to say there is no power in the world like that of women". During its seventeen years of existence, The Dawn's political and social impact played a major role in promoting legislative changes that affected the lives of Australian women at the turn of the century and influence many famous suffragettes.

Unlike other women's activists of the time, such as Rose Scott who came from privileged backgrounds, Louisa's poor rural working class background shaped her views and gave her experience so that she could relate to a number of women. Louisa Lawson also established the Dawn Club in 1889, a reform club for women, which marked the beginning of the female suffrage movement in New South Wales. The Dawn Club membership became the nucleus of the New South Wales Women's Suffrage League formed in 1891 to actively campaign for and finally achieve the vote for women in 1902. And addition to her journalism, Lawson wrote a collection of poems, The Lonely Crossing (1905).

She also published her son's first collection Short Stories in Prose and Verse (1894). The new century saw Louisa Lawson involved in an accident which she never completely recovered from. Louisa was thrown from a tram in January 1900. She suffered severe spinal injuries.

With her absence from The Dawn for a year, the magazine never recovered its enthusiasm and originality. Faced with decreasing advertising, Lawson closed the magazine in 1905. In her retirement after 1905 Louisa continued to write articles, short stories and poems for magazines. She died in Glades ville Mental Hospital in August 1920.

She was buried in a pauper's grave. This was a tragic end for an inspirational woman of great courage who worked tirelessly to improve the lives of oppressed women. During the International Women's Year in 1975, Louisa Lawson was included in an issue of 10 c stamps featuring six prominent Australian women..