The role of midwife has been an integral part of the culture of childbirth in Queensland throughout its history, but it is a role that has been modified and reshaped over time. This thesis explores the factors that underpinned a crucial aspect of that modification and reshaping. Specifically, the thesis examines the factors that contributed to the statutory regulation of midwives that began in 1912 and argues that it was that event that etched the development of midwifery practice for the remainder of the twentieth century. In 1859, when Queensland seceded from New South Wales, childbirth was very much a private event that took place predominantly in the home attended by a woman who acted as midwife. In the fifty-threeyears that followed, childbirth became a medical event that was the subject of scrutiny by the medical profession and the state. The thesis argues that, the year 1912 marks the point at which the practice of midwifery by midwives in Queensland began a transition from lay practice in the home to qualified status in the hospital. In 1912, through the combined efforts of the medical profession, senior nurses and the state, midwives in Queensland were brought under the jurisdiction of the Nurses' Registration Board as "midwifery nurses". The Nurses' Registration Board was established as part of the Health Act Amendment Act of 1911. The inclusion of midwives within a regulatory authority for nurses represented the beginning of the end of midwifery practice as a discrete occupational role and marked its redefinition as a nursing specialty. It was a redefinition that suited the three major stakeholders. The medical profession perceived lay midwives to be a disjointed and uncoordinated body of women whose practice contributed to needless loss of life in childbirth. Further, lay midwives inhibited the generalist medical practitioners' access to family practice. Trained nurses looked upon midwifery as an extension of nursing and one which offered them an area in which they might specialise in order to enhance their occupational status and career prospects. The state was keen to improve birth rates and to reduce infant mortality. It was prepared to accept that the regulation of midwives under the auspices of nursing was a reasonable and proper strategy and one that might assist it to meet its objectives. It was these separate, but complementary, agendas that prompted the medical profession and the state to debate the culture of childbirth, to examine the role of midwives within it, and to support the amalgamation of nursing and midwifery practice. This thesis argues that the medical profession was the most active and persistent protagonist in the moves to limit the scope of midwives and to claim midwifery practice as a medical specialty. Through a campaign to defame midwives and to reduce their credibility as birth attendants, the medical profession enlisted the help of senior nurses and the state in order to redefine midwifery practice as a nursing role and to cultivate the notion of the midwife as a subordinate to the medical practitioner. While this thesis contests the intervention of the medical profession in the reproductive lives of women and the occupational territory of midwives, it concedes that there was a need to initiate change. Drawing on evidence submitted at Inquests into deaths associated with childbirth, the thesis illuminates a childbirth culture that was characterised by anguish and suffering and it depicts the lay midwife as a further peril to an already hazardous event that helps to explain medical intervention in childbirth and, in part, to excuse it. The strategies developed by the medical profession and the state to bring about the occupational transition of midwives from lay to qualified were based upon a conceptual unity between the work of midwives and nurses. That conceptualisation was reinforced by a practical training schedule that deployed midwives within the institution of the lying-in hospital in order to receive the formal instruction that underpinned their entitlement to inclusion on the Register of Midwifery Nurses held by the Nurses' Registration Board. The structure that was put in place in Queensland in 1912 to control and monitor the practice of midwives was consistent with the policies of other Australian states at that time. It was an arrangement that gained acceptance and strength over time so that by the end of the twentieth century, throughout Australia, the practice of midwifery by midwives was, generally, consequent upon prior qualification as a Registered Nurse. In Queensland, in the opening years of the twenty-first century, the role of midwife remains tied to that of the nurse but the balance of power has shifted from the medical profession to the nursing profession. At this time, with the exception of a small number of midwives who have acquired their qualification in midwifery from an overseas country that recognises midwifery practice as a discipline independent of nursing, the vast majority of midwives practising in Queensland do so on the basis of their registration as a nurse. Methodology This thesis explores the factors that influenced the decision to regulate midwifery practice in Queensland in 1912 and the means by which that regulation was achieved. The historical approach underpins this research. The historical approach is an inductive process that is an appropriate method to employ for several reasons. First, it assists in identifying the origins of midwifery as a social role performed by women. Second, it presents a systematic way of analysing the evidence concerning the development of the midwifery role and the status of the midwife in society. Third, it highlights the political, social and economic influences which have impacted on midwifery in the past and which have had a bearing on subsequent midwifery practice in Queensland. Fourth, the historical approach exposes important chronological elements pertaining to the research question. Finally, it assists the exposure of themes in the sources that demonstrate the behaviour of key individuals and governing authorities and their connection to the transition of midwifery from lay to qualified. Consequently, through analysing the sources and collating the emerging evidence, a cogent account of interpretations of midwifery history in Queensland may be constructed. Data collection and analysis The data collection began with secondary source material in the formative stages of the research and this provided direction for the primary sources that were later accessed. The primary source material that is employed includes testimonies submitted at Inquests into maternal and neonatal deaths; parliamentary records; legislation, government gazettes, and medical journals. The data has been analysed through an inductive process and its presentation has combined exploration and narration to produce an accurate and plausible account. The story that unfolds is complex and confusing. Its primary focus lies in ascertaining why and how midwifery practice was regulated in Queensland. The thesis therefore explores the factors that influenced the decision to regulate midwifery practice in Queensland in 1912 and the means by which that regulation was achieved. Limitations of the study The limitations of the study relate to the documentary evidence and to the cultural group that form the basis of the study. It is acknowledged that historical accounts rely upon the integrity of the historian to select and interpret the data in a fair and plausible manner. In the case of this thesis, one of its limitations is that midwives did not speak for themselves but were, instead, spoken for by medical practitioners and parliamentarians. As a consequence, the coronial and magisterial testimonies that are employed constitute a limitation in that while they reveal the ways in which lay midwifery occurred, they relate only to those childbirth events that resulted in death. Thus, they may be said to represent the minority of cases involving the lay midwife rather than to offer a broader and perhaps more balanced picture. A second limitation is that the accounts are recorded by an official such as a member of the police or of the Coroner's Office and are sanctioned by the witness with a signature or, more often, a cross. It is therefore possible that the recorder has guided these accounts and that they are not the spontaneous evidence of the witness. Those witnesses and the culture they represent are drawn predominantly from non- Indigenous working class. Thus, a third limitation is that the principal ethnic group featured in this thesis has been women of European descent who were born in Queensland or other parts of Australia. This focus has originated from the data itself and has not been contrived. However, it does impose a restriction to the scope of the study.

The thesis is a critical reading of pedagogical and biographical texts by and on violinists, written in the early twentieth century. It contributes to historical and discursive studies by providing a limited engagement with a largely neglected group of historical sources relating to musical performance, and further advances the historical research on subjectivity, the body, pathology, and erotics, in relation to discourses of music. The thesis also contributes to studies of performance practice, and empirical and psychological studies of musical performance, in that it engages with discursive notions of theoretical and performance categories, such as tempo, melody, vibrato and portamento. By taking a hermeneutic approach to detailed discussions of performative practices, primarily found in pedagogical texts, the project aims to provide a more nuanced assessment of many of the topics that have played a central role in the ongoing research on early twentieth-century performance (which principally consists of recordings analysis). The project does this by demonstrating the extent to which these practices are culturally and historically mediated. Following an introduction, chapter 2 demonstrates that notions of consciousness inform writers’ notions of musical virtuosity, and shows that Nietzschean and Wagnerian notions of self underpin the idea of the violinist as a superior producer of art. Chapter 3 argues that these ideas combine with metaphysical notions of melody to make the concept of ‘tone’/Ton the cornerstone of string playing during this period, which in turn has important implications for how writers conceive of tempo, rhythm, vibrato, portamento and dynamics. Chapter 4 demonstrates that writers perceive their ideal of tone to be threatened by moral and physiological disease, manifested in individual/social bodies, which leads to a very different articulation of these same practices. Chapter 5 explores traces of notions of intersubjectivity, arising from metaphors of erotic desire, which challenge the hegemonic ideal of universal mind. The conclusion frames the discourse as a problematic attempt to posit an authoritarian model of string playing. It also includes a preliminary study of early twentieth-century discourses of cello playing, and engages with the research to date on national styles of violin playing in the same period.

This thesis explores the development of a series of posters created by Howard Chandler Christy during the World War I era. During this time, Christy was a Department of Pictorial Publicity (DPP) committee artist commissioned by the committee chair, Charles Dana Gibson. The DPP was part of the Committee on Public Information (CPI) developed by the Woodrow Wilson administration to generate the propaganda necessary to gain the support of the American people to enter World War I. The CPI was headed up by George Creel, a journalist and politician, who used advertising techniques to create the first full-scale propaganda effort in United States history. American poster images of women during World War I represent an era when propaganda posters came of age. These iconographic interpretations depicted in political propaganda helped shape the history of the twentieth century. While exploring these portrayals of women, the observer looks through a historical lens to contemplate the role of propaganda in the American war effort, while considering the disparity between images of women and the reality of their experiences in the patriarchal society in which they lived. Howard Chandler Christy's war-related posters represented the gendered rhetoric of a social order that functioned under the well-established assumption that men and women both had their place in society based on gender-specific stereotypic characteristics. Women were central to propaganda posters from this era; their images were widely used in posters encouraging Americans to support the war effort. With few exceptions, these representations perpetuated traditional concepts of appropriate gender roles. Posters often used women as icons characterizing the nation in time of war. For example, a beautiful woman, with a backdrop of the United States flag or sometimes even dressed in Old Glory, suggested why the nation was fighting. Some posters explicitly used beautiful women to signify that America's honor was at stake and we needed fighting men to protect it. The poster art form spread rapidly during the early twentieth century, putting a woman in her place rather than challenging the historical circumstances that created the complex, problematic issues related to the visual representation. Reading these posters as cultural texts, it is apparent that women's images are central to gaining an understanding of the social norms and cultural expectations.

During the twenty first century the enthusiasm among the general public the turn of the century 1900’s kitchen has increased in Sweden. Since around 2010 media is overflowing of imagery that cater to and perhaps even with an intention to further stimulate interest in the century 1900’s kitchens. The wallcovering plays a huge part in achieving that estetic. With the increase of serious interest in properly reconstructing and rebuilding these kinds of spaces the scientifically based conservation is vital. But how accurate is the public picture of the turn of the century 1900’s kitchen? How accurate is even the more academically recognized image of the kitchen in Sweden between 1890 to 1920? With this thesis, my intention is to expand the view and knowledge regarding wall coverings in the private kitchens in Sweden between 1890 - 1920. Also to increase underlying information to proper conservation for buildings. The knowledge in both private and state funded conservation in this aspect is, according to findings during the course of writing this thesis, is lacking due to the spars scholar level interest in this subject. This bachelor thesis purpose is to contribute to the advancement of scientifically based knowledge of the private kitchen wallcovering between 1890-1920 in Sweden and compare the popularized image of the kitchen wallcovering, with the result from my study. With different types of archive material, both figurative and written, this bachelor thesis aim at broadening the popularized image of the wallcovering in Sweden's home kitchens between the years 1890-1920. Iconology/iconography, conservation, pop culture and feminist theories have been considered when making this thesis. One among several findings, as presented in this thesis, is that the popularized image of wall covers in home kitchens in Sweden between the years of 1890-1920 differs significantly from their usual appearance.