Needlework was a defining female occupation in the nineteenth century, at odds with the deeply masculine casting of life on the diggings. Yet, though they rarely acknowledged it, most male diggers sewed: to make tents and keep them warm and water-tight; to kit themselves out in the outfit that might, if chance was on their side, help them make their fortune; or to maintain their clothing in wearable condition until they next struck gold or tired of trying.
Dr Lorinda Cramer is Postdoctoral Research Associate on the ARC Discovery project Men’s Dress in Twentieth Century Australia: Masculinity, Fashion, Social Change at the Australian Catholic University. Her research in dress, fashion and textile history focuses on class, gender and material culture.
Image: Henry Hainsselin, (Prospector’s Hut) Balaarat [Ballarat], c. 1853–1854. Collection: State Library Victoria, Melbourne, H83.106.
