The Sydney Feminists

It’s the game we bring out for guests or late at night on holiday with family, the staple for board-game-day with friends: Monopoly. If you take a closer look at the label, it says this game was created in 1935 by Hasbro Games. But, in reality, Monopoly was created 32 years earlier by the long-forgotten and uncredited Elizabeth Magie. Elizabeth Magie was born in 1866 in Illinois. She was the daughter of a newspaper publisher and orator, James Magie, who travelled with Abraham Lincoln in the 1850s. She inherited her father’s passion and said she was “described as ‘a chip off the old block’”, which she took as a compliment.  She also disregarded gender stereotypes in that she did not try to find a husband until age 44, and instead chose to work as a stenographer by day and a comedian by night. She was reported to draw huge laughs from the crowd. Image description: a black and white portrait of Elizabeth Magie as an old woman.  Her father, James, ran for of...

Dorothy Hill. Image Source:  https://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-10-04/dorothy-hill/9015194 Scientist Dorothy Hill was was hugely influential in Australian geology. She was a crucial part in the first major studies of the Great Barrier Reef and was the first woman to become a professor at an Australian university. A lot of her work took place at the University of Queensland (UQ). The Engineering and Science Library there was named in her honour. Hill was born on September 10 th , 1907, to Robert Sampson Hill and Sarah Jane Kington. She was the third oldest of seven children and grew up near Brisbane. Hill excelled in school and had ambitions of becoming a medical researcher when she was older. Teachers noted her natural intelligence and drive. Brisbane Girls’ Grammar School, Hill was awarded the Phyllis Hobbs Memorial Prize for English and History. As high school came to an end, Hill contemplated what she wanted to do for the rest of her life. The only medical de...