From Archives to Wikipedia: Documenting Australian Feminism Through Radical Acts
Radical Acts: Including Australian feminist activism in the historical record is the title of a new State Library of Victoria (SLV) project, funded by a Partner Project grant from Wikimedia Australia. This funding has enabled the SLV to host two Wikimedians-in-Residence, Kerrie Burn (User: Kerrieburn) and Ellie Watts (User: AdaWoolf), who have worked together to create new Wikipedia biographies, improve existing articles, and link Wikipedia content with SLV catalogue records. In this way, Radical Acts aims to address gender bias on Wikipedia and in SLV records by improving the representation of Australian feminist activists and their associated organisations and movements. This work will raise the visibility of Australian feminist activism across Wikimedia platforms. The linkages between these platforms and the SLV will hopefully raise the visibility of feminist activists and movements and increase access to the library’s holdings of materials in these subject areas.
Kerrie and Ellie have been able to draw from the SLV’s extensive collection of Australian feminism and Women’s Liberation materials, as they researched the subjects they were writing about. The Wikimedians have worked both remotely, and onsite at the SLV, where they could access required resources from the collection. References for Wikipedia articles have been sourced from books available to access in the La Trobe or Redmond Barry Reading Rooms, requested items from the SLV Manuscripts collection, which could be viewed in the Heritage Collections Reading Room, as well as items discovered by searching Trove and other online resources.
What was achieved
Before the commencement of the residency in February 2025, a dashboard page was created to capture the outputs of the project and the work of the two editors.
At 28/04/2025, the dashboard recorded the following results:
- Articles Created - 27
- Articles Edited - 86
- Total Edits - 721
- Words Added - 64.5K
- References Added - 462
- Article Views - 10.5K
- Commons Uploads - 12
New articles created include 14 Wikipedia pages and 13 Wikidata items:
| Wikipedia | Class | Wikidata |
|---|---|---|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alva_Geikie | C | Q132471923 |
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Franchise_League (significantly improved) | B | Created 2013 |
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_Women's_Suffrage_Society | S | Created 2023 |
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_Rennick | B | Q133783450 |
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_Wilmot_(physician) | C | Q132532976 |
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helen_Hart_(suffragist) | B | Created 2015 |
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joan_Curlewis | C | Q132536837 |
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Anne_Merson | C | Q132472308 |
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thelma_Solomon | C | Q132561850 |
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Council_for_State_Suffrage | B | Q133281663 |
| United Council for Woman Suffrage (redirect to United Council for State Suffrage) | ||
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victorian_Women's_Suffrage_Petition | C | Created 2019 |
| Woman’s Anti-Franchise League of Victoria (redirect to Anti-Franchise League) | ||
| Woman’s Anti-Suffrage League of Victoria (redirect to Anti-Franchise League) | ||
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women's_suffrage_in_Victoria | B | Q134139332 |
| Hilda Wager Bull | Q133260182 | |
| Louise Mackay | Q132631740 | |
| National Council of Women of Victoria | Q133281530 | |
| Victorian Women’s Suffrage League | Q133281710 | |
| Women Justices’ Association of Victoria | Q134100613 |
In addition to the Dashboard page, the Wikimedians also created a shared folder on Google Drive at the start of the residency to facilitate access to shared documents. This folder included a spreadsheet that captured a large amount of initial data, and that could be built upon as the project progressed. Both the spreadsheet and the dashboard have provided an easy way to document activities and to record the outcomes of the project.
The SLV’s initial application had identified nine individual women and two organisations. As Kerrie and Ellie conducted their research, they added further names. The spreadsheet now includes the names of 168 additional Australian feminists, all trailblazers in their own right, whether that be for their roles in women’s rights activism, advocating for equal pay for equal work, in politics, in the community, or within the suffragist or women’s temperance movements. In addition to the tab for Women, the spreadsheet also includes tabs for Admin, Organisations, Wikidata (includes a list of relevant statements and properties), Categories & Lists, Timeline, SLV collections, and Bibliography. This spreadsheet will be a useful resource for the SLV to build upon after the residency, if they wish to do so.
As well as creating new articles, many others have been improved during the residency. Improvements include enhancing textual content, adding links, citations, and info boxes. Images have been uploaded to Wikimedia Commons and then added to Wikidata items and Wikipedia articles. The “archives at” property (P485) was added to relevant Wikidata items, for women whose papers were available at the library. Links to items in the SLV collection have also been added to relevant Wikipedia articles, both within the text of pages and in the External links sections. As a result of this editorial work, the rating level of many articles has also been increased.
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Helen Hart, Suffragist, campaign photograph for Thomas Bent, 1894
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Cartoon of Women's Anti-Suffrage League of Victoria and suffragist Vida Goldstein in 1900 by George Henry Dancey in Melbourne Punch
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Victorian Women's Suffrage Society, executive committee, c. June 1884.jpg
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Bridgetina "Brettena" Smyth's headstone.
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Victorian Suffrage Declaration Committee, commemorative photograph 1908
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Brettena Smyth, Australian suffragist
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Women's suffrage deputation heading to the Legislative Council of Victoria, 1898.
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Hilda Bull, aged about eighteen, c.1905
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Grave maker of Helen Hart, (1839-1908), Suffragist, Boroondara Cemetery.
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The Radical Acts project has also provided an opportunity for both Wikimedians to pursue areas of individual interest. This has included a focus on the history of women’s suffrage in Victoria, and making connections between individual women and their associated groups. Another focus of the project has been on enhancing Wikidata items and Wikipedia pages so that they refer back to SLV catalogue records and relevant archive and manuscript collections. The ultimate goal of creating these linkages between wiki platforms and library records has been to improve the visibility of and access to the library’s rich and significant collections related to Australian feminist activism.