Authentic leaders: Women and leadership in Australian unions before world war II

What literature there is on women's trade union involvement in Australia in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries emphasises the barriers to women's activism. This article considers case studies of women who did become activists and leaders and argues that they shared a number of commonalities, especially related to family and community and to political convictions. It also analyses the strategies they employed to overcome a range of obstacles to their full participation in the union movement, and the extent to which they were successful.