Pioneer Women Pioneer Land

Yesterday’s tall poppies

by Susanna de Vries-Evans

Angus & Robertson, 1987, [First Edition], ISBN 0949135127, colour and black and white photographs throughout, illustrated endpapers, hardcover, dustjacket

Very Good Condition, a little edge and shelf wear, a little rubbing and bumping to edges and corners, no inscriptions, dustjacket shows a little edge and shelf wear with a little rubbing and bumping (see photographs)

“Among the many women whose tenacity and courage helped to open up this country where more than a handful who stood tall beside their sisters – a group of women whose achievements were remarkable and enduring.  These early settlers were an admirable mixture of gentility, refinement, resourcefulness and extraordinary toughness.
Esther Johnston, the First Fleet convict who became a Lieutenant Governor’s Lady; Mary McConnel, founder of the Royal Brisbane Children’s Hospital; Mary Penfold, the pioneer of the South Australian wine industry; Louisa Meredith, the talented artist, writer and conservationist; Elizabeth Macarthur, the first lady of Australia and a cofounder of the wool trade; Georgiana Gordon McCrae, a Duke’s daughter and professional artist; and Georgiana Molloy, the early research botanist who helped introduce out native plants to the Old World.
These women, together with Caroline Louisa Atkinson, Mary Ann Friend, and the Bussell sisters were all pioneers who left their mark on a pioneer land.
Looking at their lives with hindsight, it is a wonder that they ever survived floods, fires, pestilence, childbirth and the impossible conditions they were forced to endure.  Did these challenges produce the character that these women exhibited or was the character already there for them to surmount such odds?”