Kirstie Ross: Thomas and Mary Moore: Re-writing lives with objects

 On 13 January 1889, five days after their marriage, Tom and Mary Moore arrived at their newly constructed cottage west of Strahan. The town’s residents quickly offered Mary ‘a hearty welcome’, hoping that she would be ‘pleased with [their] beautiful bay’ and would ‘enjoy many years of wedded happiness in her new home’. But Tom’s aversion to settled life meant that these good wishes came to nothing. By the time the couple marked their third wedding anniversary, Tom had resumed the track-cutting and prospecting of his bachelor days, which took him away from his family for months at a time. By 1913, Mary had shifted permanently to Hobart without her husband. Tom’s biographers portray Mary as a victim of her husband’s emotional shortcomings. However, this talk will present another version of Mary, as well as the social milieu rejected by Tom. By contextualising two silver napkin rings owned by the couple within genteel practices of gift-giving, dining, and housework, it will highlight domesticity and respectability in the late 19th century. In doing so, this talk will also demonstrate the utility of objects for writing about women whose lives have been overshadowed by accounts of their pioneering husbands.

Jointly sponsored by the State Library and Archive Service of Tasmania and the Professional Historians Association Vic & Tas, the Libraries Tasmania Talks are a series of monthly public lectures held at the Hobart Library. They can be attended free at the Allport Library and Museum of Fine Arts or viewed online via the Webinar.

To register for the event visit the Allport Library and Museum of Fine Arts website.

You can listen to all previous lectures on their Soundcloud website.