The Plan for Aug 2017 to July 2018 - An Australian Women's Weekly Year

I've been watching my sister Tanith's Trove Pattern Project with much interest. I spent a long time trawling through microfilm issues of Australian newspapers and journals during my honours and PhD theses. Part of me wishes more had been digitised at the time, so my research could have been more focused, but there was a certain charm in browsing through whole issues, being able to read the fiction and advice columns as well as the advertisements I was ostensibly there for.

Australian Women's Weekly, Aug 9 1947. 

While I've enjoyed doing vintage crochet patterns from the Trove archive, particularly the Australian Women's Weekly, I also wanted to explore some recipes, some fashion ideas...

You know I'm going to have to test out those pineapple sandwiches.
Australian Women's Weekly, Oct 18 1947, p41

My plan, starting in Aug 2017, is to work through the corresponding months of 1947-1948. I'll spend that month going through the issues on offer, trying out some appealing and not so appealing recipes, working up some of the craft projects, looking at the fashion. I'm planning on weekly posts - for each month, one on craft projects, one on recipes, one on fashion and beauty and one to cover anything else that catches my eye - although this may be flexible. It will depend on what appears in the magazine!

We can talk about how gorgeous these coats are.
Australian Women's Weekly, Feb 14 1948, p11. 

One thing I do feel the need to say before I start is that although I am a historian of business and advertising, I won't be analysing the contents of the magazine in an academic way often. This is going to be a more casual and less rigorous reading of the contents than I did while I was studying.