Hopewood, the History Makers
- Publication Type:
- Thesis
- Issue Date:
- 2022
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Hopewood was one of the strangest children’s homes ever run in Australia. It was established in 1941 and was home to 43 boys and 43 girls. It was a unique institution, created not for the benefit of the children housed there but as a method of proving a eugenic theory: that ordinary children could be brought up to be “super” men and women.
In this work, I examine how the history of Hopewood was purposely created as a historical “event” and carefully curated over a period of 60 years. I chart the emergence of counternarratives that challenged the accepted version of this history from the 1960s, and how that led to a contest for control of the narrative. My principal argument is that as the contemporary landscape changes over time, the meaning of events also shifts and dissonant or ‘forgotten’ experiences are able to be articulated in public. It is also that fixed memories themselves change over time as they are developed and structured to entrench a preferred narrative as the dominant narrative. Hopewood provides an important example of how these fixed and changing memories operate. This is a study of the power dynamics that underlie those shifts, and how those dynamics impact different participants, some of whom were deeply traumatised by their experiences.
There are three main concepts which drive this analysis. First, I draw on an understanding of “history-making”, ie how vernacular histories are built by individuals and groups, and reinforced over time through repetition, shared reminiscing and other forms that make up collective memory. Next I applied the theory of “mnemohistory”, specifically how cultural and communicative memory operate and why such remembering is important. I have attempted to underline the integral and related nature of the epistemologies of memory and history. The third lens is the concept of testimony and its emergence as a significant challenge to dominant memories.
Hopewood is an important part of Australia’s social history because it illuminates how significant a force eugenics was until the mid -twentieth century; the relationship of eugenics to white Australia’s nation building; how easily a private misguided ‘experiment’ could be carried out by an unqualified individual but authorised by experts; and how the courageous act of speaking out, being a witness to events, does not necessarily result in resolution or forgiveness when there is a lot at stake in maintaining a particular version of the past.
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