Miles Franklin's secret life as a 'boy sober' undercover maid

Conversations

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22d ago 48:30

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Journalist Kerrie Davies with the story of how novelist Miles Franklin went undercover as a maid for a year, in Sydney and Melbourne's wealthy houses, well before gonzo journalists became household names.

The real-life story of novelist Stella Maria Miles Franklin had an unexpected chapter after publishing My Brilliant Career.

In 1903, Miles became a 'girl stunt reporter' by going undercover as a servant.

For a year, she lived as a maid in Sydney and Melbourne's wealthy houses and wrote about the humiliations and drudgery in the daily lives of servant girls, or 'slaveys'.

During her experiment she hand-rolled heavy, wet clothes through a washing mangle; served her employers pre-breakfast tea and toast in bed, which she thought was an obscene indulgence; she cleaned guest rooms and parlours; helped at high-society balls and kept fires burning in winter.

The manuscript Miles wrote about this year pre-dated George Orwell's Down and Out in Paris and London by three decades, yet it never found a publisher.

Journalist Kerrie Davies has investigated this little-known chapter of Miles' life, finally bringing this story to life in her own book.

This episode of Conversations explores feminism, suffragettes, biography, books, servants, writing, Australian fiction, boy sober, class warfare, adventures, adventurous women, risk-taking, origin stories, gonzo journalism, Nellie Bly, Rose Scott, early 20th century Sydney, Chicago, women's rights, trad wives, motherhood, partnership, self-partnering.

Miles Franklin Undercover is published by Allen and Unwin.

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