(Katherin) Wendy Lowenstein (1927-2006) was born in Melbourne, the daughter of Douglas and Rita Robertson. While attending Box Hill Grammar School, she joined the New Theatre and the Eureka Youth League and became deeply involved in radical writing, theatre and art. She worked first as a journalist and was for many years a teacher and teacher-librarian. In 1947 she married Werner Lowenstein, who was born in Germany and had come to Australia on the Dunera. They left the Communist Party after the Soviet invasion of Hungary in 1956, but remained committed to socialism and the peace movement.

Lowenstein became interested in folklore after seeing a performance of the play Reedy River in the early 1950s. She was one of the founders of the Folklore Society of Victoria and the Victorian Folk Music Club and from 1964 to 1976 edited their newsletter Australian Tradition. In 1969 she and her family spent a year travelling around Australia by caravan collecting folklore. Always a fierce campaigner, she was active in many organisations, including the Colonial Bush Dance Society, the Oral History Association of Australia, the Friends of the Earth, Arts Action for Peace, People for Nuclear Disarmament and the Palm Sunday Committee.

Most of Lowenstein’s writings were based on oral history interviews. She was the author of:

Weevils in the flour; an oral record of the 1930s depression in Australia (1978)

Under the hook; Melbourne waterside workers remember working lives and class war 1900-1980 (1982)

Weevils at work : what’s happening to work in Australia; an oral record (1997)

The immigrants (1977)

Acquisition

Wendy Lowenstein’s association with the National Library lasted for nearly thirty years. In 1973-75 the Library purchased copies of many of the recordings she made relating to the Great Depression of the 1930s and in 1983 it acquired her tapes on the Melbourne waterfront. In 1991-93 the Library bought her collection of folklore recordings, most of which dated from 1969. From 1994 to 2000 the Library helped fund her oral history project on Communism and the Left in the arts and the community. In 1994 she transferred the records of People for Nuclear Disarmament. The Library purchased Lowenstein’s manuscripts and personal papers in 2001 and received some further papers from her family in 2006.

Description

Oral History

TRC 246

The collection comprises 172 tapes of recollections of life during the Depression of the 1930s, recorded by Lowenstein in 1972-76 and used in her book Weevils in the flour. The interviewees lived in all States and included bagmen, shearers, station hands, cane cutters, builders, plumbers, labourers, policemen, nurses, teachers, solicitors, shopkeepers and housewives.

TRC 1957

The recordings were made in 1979-80 when Lowenstein was writing her book Under the hook and consist of 60 tapes containing interviews with 17 Melbourne waterside workers. The most substantial interview is with Tom Hills, the President of the Retired Waterside Workers Association in Melbourne. Some of the interviews were transcribed.

TRC 2785

In 1991 Lowenstein recorded a lengthy interview with Ron Edwards, the noted folklorist, collector and publisher. There are 13 tapes.

TRC 2915

Lowenstein assembled her folklore collection in 1968-72, mostly in 1969 when she travelled round rural Australia recording songs, recitations, dance tunes, stories, myths, children’s rhymes, slang, medical lore, industrial folklore and oral history. There are 121 tapes.

TRC 3111

The Communism and the Left in the arts and community collection, recorded in 1992-96, comprises 63 digital audio tapes, 4 reels and 3 cassettes. Among the 50 interviewees are painters, writers, musicians, teachers, actors and public servants, including Shirley Andrews, Martha Ansara, Jean Blackburn, Betty Collins, Vera Deacon, June Factor, Alex Hood, Elliott Johnston, Chris Kempster, Clem Millward and Nancy Wills.

Manuscripts and Personal Papers

The papers of Wendy Lowenstein, which mostly date from 1953 to 2003, include correspondence, research material, transcripts, interviewee files, manuscripts, press cuttings, photographs and publications. It is arranged in 13 series:

  1. Correspondence
  2. Research files
  3. Weevils in the flour
  4. Under the hook
  5. Folk Lore Society of Victoria
  6. Folklore
  7. Arts Action for Peace
  8. People for Nuclear Disarmament
  9. Social activism subject files
  10. Shirley Andrews papers
  11. Posters
  12. Press cuttings

Organisation

The Wendy Lowenstein oral history collection is held in the Oral History Collection. Apart from the interviews in TRC 3111, only a small number of the recordings have been catalogued individually. A 60 page list summarising the contents of the folklore collection (TRC 2915) is available in the Oral History Collection. Many of the recordings require preservation treatment and are therefore not immediately accessible. The manuscripts and personal papers are held in the Manuscripts Collection at MS 9968. A  finding-aid is available online at https://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-369339175/findingaid.

Related Collections

Copies of many of the oral history recordings are held in the La Trobe Library at the State Library of Victoria.

Reference

Factor, June, Dedicated worker with words (obituary), The Australian, 27 October 2006, p. 14

Lowenstein, Richard An ear for the ordinary folk (obituary), Sydney Morning Herald, 26 October 2006

First posted 2008 (revised 2019)

The National Library of Australia acknowledges Australia’s First Nations Peoples – the First Australians – as the Traditional Owners and Custodians of this land and gives respect to the Elders – past and present – and through them to all Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.

Cultural Notification

Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people are advised that this website contains a range of material which may be considered culturally sensitive including the records of people who have passed away.

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