Eva Bacon

Eva Bacon (1909 – 23 July 1994), born Eva Goldner, was a socialist and feminist based in Brisbane, Australia, who was most active between the 1950s and the 1980s. Raised in Austria and a member of several leftist political organisations in her youth, Eva Goldner escaped Nazi occupied Austria in 1939, eventually migrating to Australia. Goldner remained involved in local and international politics and joined the Communist Party of Australia (CPA), Throughout her career Bacon was an active member of the CPA, and the Union of Australian Women (UAW), where she was heavily involved in International Women's Day campaigns, including attending the 1975 UN World Conference on Women in Mexico celebrating International Women's Year. Bacon was also an active member of the Women's Electoral Lobby (WEL), the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF). She was passionate about childcare issues, she worked to help victims of fascism. They married in 1944 in Brisbane Ted and Eva were heavily involved in the CPA as shown by the hundreds of leaflets, pamphlets, typed speeches, and letters from protest, rallies, events, and meetings contained in their personal Archive.

While Bacon insisted that her Communist leanings did not affect her work with other political groups such as the UAW, and she and Ted remained committed members throughout their lives.

Joh Bjelke-Petersen Sir Joh Bjelke-Petersen was the Premier of Queensland from 8 August 1968 – 1 December 1987 who personally objected to Eva Bacon's political activities and her membership of the Communist Party. His attitude towards political activists, and groups such as the Union of Australian Women was paternalistic: “...all these protest groups consist of the hard-core activists who hide behind the gullible, the naive and the well-meaning.” The Women's Liberation Movement's pamphlet ‘Female Sexuality and Education’ was considered to be obscene by Bjelke-Petersen, and was confiscated from the Brisbane offices of Communist Party of Australia by the ‘State Licensing Branch’ of the Queensland Police Department at 5 p.m. on Friday 8 October 1971.

Women's rights

Union of Australian Women The Union of Australian Women was, and in Victoria remains, a feminist activist organisation that relies on letter writing, petitions, marches and demonstrations to gain its objectives. Some of these objectives were as follows: to achieve and maintain an enhanced status for women to obtain higher living standards for all for the government to improve the welfare of its citizens for public infrastructure to be shared by all (regardless of gender or race) the right for women to work to obtain fertility control for the equality of indigenous Australians to oppose the White Australia Policy Although believed to be a faction of the Communist Party of Australia by the Premier of Queensland at the time, Joh Bjelke-Petersen, the Union of Australian Women has always maintained its independence from the CPA.

In 1958 Bacon was involved in with the UAW's International Women's Year celebrations which drew a crowd of hundreds to hear speakers Dymphna Cusak and Dame Sybil Thorndike, a celebration which also addressed women’s influence on history, socialism, and world peace. Eleanor Roosevelt sent a message about this meeting to the UAW, among others. In this year a World Conference on Women was held in Mexico for international government representatives to take part in and a Tribune simultaneously for other groups and interested parties Bacon was the only representative from Queensland chosen to take part in the Tribune,

Childcare Throughout her activist career Bacon lobbied for children’s rights and for the establishment of appropriate childcare facilities through every party she was involved in. The collection includes publications, literature and personal archives of key groups and figures of the movement including that of Eva and Ted Bacon. The Bacon archive was donated in the late 1980s in the hope of protecting the documents in the face of a still heavily anti-communist public sphere. 'The Magic Circle', 1964, June–September issue. 'Tropical Fruit Salad', 1965, March–May issue. 'The Language of Flowers', 1965, June–August issue.