While researching Trove for April’s 1952 Year Club, I came across some articles about an American Fulbright scholar’s critique of Australian culture, and thought it a worthy topic for my occasional Trove Treasures series. The scholar was John Hough, who was Professor of Classics at Colorado State University, and he was finishing his year’s scholarship at University of Sydney.
Grafton’s Daily Examiner (22 November 1952) titled its article “Criticised aspects of Australian life“, while the Newcastle Morning Herald and Miners’ Advocate (also 22 November 1952) titled theirs “Australian ways slated by American“. It was also reported, along similar lines, in Sydney’s Sun and The Daily Mirror, and Melbourne’s The Argus. According to the Daily Examiner, Hough was speaking at an Australian-American luncheon at the Trocadero, and had said “he was appalled at the prejudice that had grown up against migrants”. He said that migrants to America “came of their own accord, and had to take their chance of making a living” but there was “no need for Australia to make the same mistakes”. And then he identified a number of other aspects of Australian culture that he felt were going wrong:
- Mistakes in the treatment of aborigines.
- The almost exclusive use of American and other imported songs, and records of oversea artists on the radio.
- He did not know why Australia did not make more use of its own songs and singers, instead of listening to people who “occasionally croon, sing, and cry.”
- The attitude of Australian “upper-level society” to Australian culture, which it belittled, and the denial that there was any such thing as Australian literature.
None of the articles expanded much on these, and when they did it was brief and focused on Hough’s critique about migrants. For example, the Daily Mirror (21 November) explained that
He said America had made terrible mistakes in migration, but that there was no reason why Australia, should make them. He said he regretted the tendency to stress that a man was a New Australian when he got into trouble.
The Sun (21 November) reported it a little differently:
“In America our migrants came of their own accord, and had to take their chances of making a living,” he said.
“We also did not have the benefit of the study of sociology available today”.
A couple reported that he’d been to the Greta migrant camp, and hadn’t liked what he’d seen. Most of the other issues were either ignored in the reports, or were listed as “other” aspects.
However, a few days later, on 8 December, the Daily Examiner, took on Hough’s comments – the only one to do so as far as I’ve found – and discussed them in an article simply titled, “Australian culture“. They argued, for example, that Hough had criticised Australia for not being “very hospitable towards migrants or new ideas” but had also said, contradictorily, that “we make exclusive use of American and imported songs and records of overseas artists on the radio”.
The article continues that Hough “emphasises” that while “we have our own rich array of local talent”, we “prefer to ignore Australian artists … and listen to those who croon sing and cry!” It doesn’t disagree with this preference. Its point, rather, is that this is “easy enterment [sic] but it isn’t culture”. This narrow idea of culture is not uncommon I think.
Anyhow, the article then takes on Hough’s statement that Australia’s upper-level society “belittled Australian culture and denied that there is any such thing as Australian literature”. It argues that this “belittles our land as much as it belittles our people”. Then, in its parochial way, says:
We in Grafton are rightfully proud of our Jacaranda Festival. Not only because it provides gay and whole-some entertainment, but because it sets a standard of culture that is lovely and fundamentally Australian.
But there’s more … it argues that Australian has “many scientists, inventors, physicians, writers, artists and musicians whose names and works shine like gems in any hall of culture” and calls these people “true Australians from the land they love”. Ignoring them, the paper says, “does them and their nation grave disservice”. Then, in another statement that comes straight from its times, it points out that:
Australia Day for example might have a more popular appeal if we used it to praise our famous men, the glory of their times.
There’s more, including a them-versus-us statement which promotes the value of the “country Press”, and has a dig at the metropolitan Press which, it claims, “frequently says that writings about Australia have no publicity value”. The result is that
… our mighty land mainly goes unhonoured and unsung, and Australian literature and art is said not to exist. The great deeds of the pioneers, the fortitude, skill and’ patience of the modern countryman are overlooked. The essential loveliness of our land is side-tracked. Yet these things form the basis of our culture, and until they are recognised and publicised our mighty land will remain a Lilliput among the nations of the world.
It’s a beautiful bit of self-defence that turns Hough’s criticism into, at least in part, a pat on their own regional backs for writing about – for recognising, in other words – the true value of Australian culture.
I do enjoy Trove.
Whispering Gums 
