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Article: From bush battler to city editor: Louisa Lawson and the 'Dawn.'(Battlers and Stirrers)
- Article from:
- Journal of Australian Studies
- Article date:
- September 1, 1997
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1997 Australia Research Institute, Curtin University of Technology. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Louisa Lawson was formidable. She had to be. She was born into grinding poverty
in rural New South Wales, where her parents ran a shanty house and her father
was a drunkard. From an early age both parents urged her into marriage as a
means of finding financial security. Wed, reluctantly, at eighteen, she then
had her first child in a tent on the goldfields. As the myth goes, it was a
dark and stormy night, and after the birth the tent collapsed under the
combined force of wind and rain -- but this may well be apocryphal, especially