How a newspaper column was Facebook for 1930s rural women

Throughout the 1930s, rural women found their own social support networks through letter writing.

Key points:

Detailed letters to The Weekly Times' 1930s column showcased life in rural Victoria

Ruth Ford discovered the letters while researching another project

Upon digging deeper, Dr Ford realised the letters weren't entirely reflective of reality

Contributing to The Weekly Times' Women's Information Bureau, which was edited by "Miranda", the letters detailed life on the farm for women, shared tips and tricks of motherhood, and allowed contributors to ask others for help.

The page worked much like today's social media forums.

Latrobe University senior history lecturer Ruth Ford became fascinated by the letters when she came across them while researching another project.

"I was just completely captivated by them because they talked about everything: farm work, ploughing, milking cows," Dr Ford said.

The Women's Information Bureau was a safe space for rural women in the 1930s.(ABC Central Victoria: Shannon Schubert)

"Some women wrote about how beautiful the countryside was or humorous anecdotes about their children. Other women wrote in saying, 'I need some boots for my kids'. It ranged from the utilitarian to the very kind of poetic.

"I got lured into reading letters for a very long time."

Reality not as it seemed

Through her research, Dr Ford began investigating the women behind the letters through piecing their words together and working with local historians.

Eventually she discovered that the women's letters didn't paint the exact picture of the lives they were living.

"Because some of the women were regular contributors over 10 years, they would let little bits of information slip; it might've been the names of their children or where they lived," she said.

The letters give a glimpse into women's issues and rural life in the 1930s, but not the whole picture.(ABC Central Victoria: Shannon Schubert)

"One of the regular contributors depicted herself as Heather and a mother of nine children, a grazier's wife, on a property between Swan Hill, Deniliquin and Hay.

"But, of course, what you get from that is the things she chose not to reveal in her letters."

In this case, Heather was Violet Nesbitt.

"What she didn't mention about the nine children was that it was a blended family; six were children from her husband's first marriage, one was her child from an earlier relationship and two were children with her current husband.

"But then I did more digging and I found out she was actually the housekeeper, caring for the six children of this widower and then married her employer. And then you do a bit more digging and find out she was actually a deserted wife who then got divorced.

"There's this whole kind of scandal because divorce for anyone in the 1930s was really taboo.

"Behind the image of the grazier's wife with nine children, there's a whole story that shows the struggle women had at that time," Dr Ford said.

Dr Ford pored over letters, photos and documents to track down the women's stories.(ABC Central Victoria: Shannon Schubert)Rural life in the 1930s

The column began in The Weekly Times in 1931 and Dr Ford said Miranda made it clear some topics were not up for discussion, such as family limitation; what we know as contraception.

"Then, there's the self-censorship of women. They wrote about their children and maybe getting children to eat or do jobs," she said.

"But they didn't write about bodily experiences of birth or breastfeeding or labour. Women were withholding what they saw appropriate for publication."

But what Dr Ford found, was the letters showcased a yearning for connection and these women managed to find it; though not in the way we know it today.

"I think what it shows is that they faced incredible isolation and obviously it's not the instantaneous nature of social media now that you can get a response back," she said.

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"But I think what's similar is the emotional support they provided through this form of writing letters.

"The women's voices come through so strongly. We hear their voices and their perspective of what it was like being a rural woman."

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