Patriotic Performances: Wartime fundraising in South Australia during WWI

This chapter focuses on the role of women performers as active agents of wartime patriotism and fundraising in South Australia during World War I.1 In particular it presents two case studies of little known but highly significant women in the South Australian musical and performing arts scene before, during, and after the war. Although Miss Gertie Campbell and Miss Adelaide Primrose are unrecognised today, they were well known during their lifetime. Astonishingly, neither have Australian Dictionary of Biography entries, generally a hallmark of historical importance and recognition. Both women knew each other at least in a professional capacity and worked together at various times throughout their lives in Adelaide. They are excellent examples, perhaps, of how Australian women and their contributions to the war, on the home front and the war front, have been marginalised and neglected in our otherwise voluminous literature on World War I.