Jill Julius Matthews
Jill Julius Matthews is an Australian social and feminist historian. She is an emeritus professor in the College of Arts and Social Sciences at the Australian National University.
Life and education
Matthews was born in Adelaide in 1949. She studied at Grange Primary School and then won a scholarship to Methodist [Ladies' College, Adelaide]. She went to the University of Adelaide where she began a law degree, then changed to arts/law and graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in 1970.While tutoring at Flinders University, Matthews began a PhD, supervised by Hugh Stretton, at the University of Adelaide. While completing her PhD, she worked as part-time tutor and lecturer at a number of tertiary institutions in Adelaide.
Career
Matthews rewrote her PhD thesis to be published as Good and Mad Women: The Historical Construction of Femininity in Twentieth Century Australia by Allen & Unwin. In her 1987 review of the book, British historian Catherine Hall considered it to be an "essential starting point for British readers into the rapidly extending world of Australian feminist history."Matthews was awarded a Nancy Keesing Fellowship by the State Library of [New South Wales] in 2004. Her 2005 book, Dance Hall and Picture Palace, won the prize for best monograph presented by the Film and History Association of Australia and New Zealand. It was also shortlisted for the Queensland Premier's Literary Award for History.
Her papers are held in the Australian [National University Library#ANU Archives|Australian National University Archives].