Early Childhood Education in Australia: Maybanke's legacy in the 21st century

Abstract

Maybanke Anderson initiated social reforms, which have improved the lives of countless women and children in Australia. If this were the United States, by now there would have been a Hollywood feature film about Maybanke Anderson, no doubt with Meryl Streep playing the lead role. But this is Australia, so when women vote on election day they do so without knowing that at the time of Federation Maybanke's strategic intervention opened the door for Australian women to be able to vote in the new Commonwealth, nearly three decades earlier than was possible for women in the United Kingdom, for example. But votes for women was only one of the social reforms for which we can thank Maybanke Anderson, as documented in the 1997 biography by Jan Roberts.