Why would early 20th-century Australian women travel across the Pacific to the United States? And if they left, why wouldn’t they go to England, the “mother country”, where there was a proper cup of tea? The US was no feminist utopia. It did not give federal voting rights to women until 1920 – 18 years after Australia.
The ten Australian women Yves Rees profiles in Travelling to Tomorrow: The Modern Women who Sparked Australia’s Romance with America felt differently. For good reason. Australia, Rees writes, gave women the vote, but it gave them little power or influence to achieve their dreams outside the home.
