Matrons Behind the Bar. "Beyond the Ladies' Lounge: Australia's Female Publicans" by Clare Wright [review]

Abstract

"Beyond the Ladies Lounge" is a solid work of social history, but overall it left me disappointed. It remains chained to the thesis it once was, while it has been marketed as a readable popular history. This may seem overly harsh: it is a fine scholarly work, and presumably was judged an outstanding PhD thesis. It just feels like a missed opportunity given Wright’s evident skills and the current vogue for narrative history among the reading public.