Edit position

Last set 2 weeks, 2 days ago. Manual moves override automatic placement until the next shelfie/spine match.

Repression, reform & resilience : a history of the Cascades Female Factory

by Alison Alexander (Editor)

This historical account traces the development of the Cascades Female Factory in Hobart from its establishment in 1828 to the present day.

Accession 9780995359901 ISBN 9780995359901 Publisher Convict Women's Press Inc., Hobart

Book Images

Reference and live side by side Hover to see live images

Reference

Repression, reform & resilience : a history of the Cascades Female Factory spine

Repression, reform & resilience : a history of the Cascades Female Factory cover

Live

No live

CONNECTIONS

No connections

State

on_shelf: True
position_updated_at: 2026-05-05 17:11
orientation: vertical

Details

Physical

binding_type: Hard Back
dimensions: none captured
spine_text: JOHN KILLICK REPRESSION, REFORM & RESILIENCE: THE CASCADES FEMALE FACTORY ALISON ALEXANDER Focus on

LOCATION HISTORY

B 4 Current vertical

2 months, 3 weeks ago

B 4 vertical

3 months, 1 week ago

B 4 vertical

4 months ago

B 4 vertical

5 months, 1 week ago

Book Location

Updated 2 weeks, 2 days ago

Book Images

Reference and live side by side Hover to see live images

Reference

Live

No live

Vernon snapshot

Frozen copy of Vernon's record from the last sync. Fields tagged → flow back into the Pulse record.

Never synced from Vernon

Identity

name→ title

Repression, reform & resilience : a history of the Cascades Female Factory

vernon_id

—

accession_no→ accession_number

—

vernon_slug

—

Drives Pulse state

curr_loc_status→ on_shelf

—

location_name

—

location_reason

—

isbn_issn→ isbn (when valid)

—

Descriptive

production_date

—

object_type

—

object_status

—

brief_description

—

Subjects & people

authors→ author (initial fill only)

—

tags→ tags

—

subject_people

—

subject_objects

—

Topics and Themes

1. **Women's Incarceration & the Colonial Penal System**
The Cascades Female Factory was a site of confinement for female convicts transported to Van Diemen's Land (Tasmania), housing approximately 60% of the 13,700 women sent there. The book examines how this institution operated as a mechanism of punishment, labour extraction, and social control within the broader British colonial penal system.

Connect to books about: convict transportation, colonial penology, prison history, carceral studies, British Empire.

---

2. **Gender, Power & Social Control**
The factory was used not only to punish crime but to regulate gender — confining women deemed morally deviant, sexually transgressive, or socially disruptive. The book interrogates how institutions shaped and enforced norms around femininity, sexuality, and respectability in colonial society.

Connect to books about: gender and punishment, feminist history, sexuality and the state, moral regulation.

---

3. **Resistance, Agency & Survival**
Despite harsh conditions, many women actively resisted authorities during their time at the factory and went on to rebuild their lives. The book centres convict women's resilience and individual agency rather than treating them solely as passive victims of the system.

Connect to books about: subaltern resistance, survival narratives, agency and oppression, everyday resistance.

---

4. **Institutional Reform & the Politics of Welfare**
The Cascades site evolved over time — from female factory to house of correction, hospital for the insane, lying-in hospital, boys' reformatory, and more. The book traces how reformist ideas about punishment, charity, and welfare shaped the institution's changing character across the 19th century.

Connect to books about: penal reform, social welfare history, moral reform movements, institutional history.

---

5. **Colonial Australian & Tasmanian History**
The book is rooted in the specific history of Van Diemen's Land and the colonial project in Australia, exploring how convict transportation shaped the society, demographics, and culture of what would become Tasmania.

Connect to books about: Australian colonial history, Van Diemen's Land, settler colonialism, Tasmanian history.

---

6. **Women's History & Feminist Historiography**
Compiled by members of the Female Convicts Research Centre, the book is a deliberate act of feminist historical recovery — restoring overlooked women's voices and experiences to the historical record through biography, vignette, and collective history.

Connect to books about: women's history, feminist historiography, recovering hidden histories, biographical history.

---

7. **Marginalisation, Poverty & the "Undeserving" Poor**
The women confined at Cascades were largely drawn from the poorest and most marginalised strata of British and Irish society. The book explores how class, poverty, and social stigma shaped who was criminalised, transported, and institutionalised.

Connect to books about: poverty and crime, social class, Irish and British working-class history, criminology.

---

8. **Heritage, Memory & Public History**
The Cascades Female Factory is today a recognised heritage site. The book engages with questions of how this difficult history is remembered, preserved, and interpreted — and what it means to communities with convict ancestry.

Connect to books about: dark heritage, public history, memorialisation, convict genealogy, place and memory.

Repression, reform & resilience : a history of the Cascades Female Factory

Book Images

TAGS

CONNECTIONS

State

Details

LOCATION HISTORY

Book Location

Book Images

Vernon snapshot

Topics and Themes