Miriam Joyce Dixson (born 1930) is an Australian

social historian Social history, often called the new social history, is a field of history that looks at the lived experience of the past. In its "golden age" it was a major growth field in the 1960s and 1970s among scholars, and still is well represented in his ...

and the author of ''The Real Matilda: Woman and Identity in Australia 1788 to 1975''.

Early life and education

Miriam Joyce Dixson was born in

Melbourne Melbourne ( ; Boonwurrung/Woiwurrung: ''Narrm'' or ''Naarm'') is the capital and most populous city of the Australian state of Victoria, and the second-most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Its name generally refers to a met ...

in 1930. She graduated from the

University of Melbourne The University of Melbourne is a public research university located in Melbourne, Australia. Founded in 1853, it is Australia's second oldest university and the oldest in Victoria. Its main campus is located in Parkville, an inner suburb nor ...

with a BA in history in 1950 and an MA from the same university in 1957 for her thesis, ''The strike of waterside workers in Australian ports, 1928, and the lockout of coal miners on the northern coalfield of New South Wales, 1929-30''. She was awarded a PhD in May 1966 by the Research School of Social Sciences at the

Australian National University The Australian National University (ANU) is a public research university located in Canberra, the capital of Australia. Its main campus in Acton encompasses seven teaching and research colleges, in addition to several national academies and ...

for her thesis, ''Reformists and revolutionaries: An interpretation of the relations between the Socialists and the mass labor organisations in New South Wales 1919-27, with special reference to Sydney''.

Career

In 1969 Dixson published a book based on her PhD thesis, ''The role of ideology: Lang and Labor's faction war 1920-1927'', followed in 1975 by ''Greater than Lenin: Lang and Labor 1916-1932''. Dixson was appointed a lecturer in history at the University of New England, and in 1975 she offered Australia's first course on the history of women. In 1976, Penguin published ''The Real Matilda: Woman and Identity in Australia 1788 to 1975''. When its third edition came out in 1994 it was considered one of four key volumes of Australian women's history, along with Beverley Kingston's ''My wife, my daughter, and poor Mary Ann: Women and work in Australia'', Edna Ryan and Anne Conlon's ''Gentle Invaders: Australian Women at Work, 1788-1974'' and Anne Summers' ''Damned Whores and God's Police: The Colonization of Women in Australia''. As one writer commented, "in .. the Australian context, you can't discuss women in history as though ''The Real Matilda'', or ''Damned Whores And God's Police'', had never been written." A fourth edition of ''The Real Matilda'' was published in 1999. Dixson's papers are held by the

National Library of Australia The National Library of Australia (NLA), formerly the Commonwealth National Library and Commonwealth Parliament Library, is the largest reference library in Australia, responsible under the terms of the ''National Library Act 1960'' for "mainta ...

. In 1997 Dixson was awarded an honorary

Doctor of Letters Doctor of Letters (D.Litt., Litt.D., Latin: ' or ') is a terminal degree in the humanities that, depending on the country, is a higher doctorate after the Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) degree or equivalent to a higher doctorate, such as the Doctor ...

by the University of New England.

Works

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References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Dixson, Miriam 1930 births Living people Australian National University alumni University of Melbourne alumni University of Melbourne women Australian women historians