Penal transportation from England to Australia from the late 1700s to the mid-1800s was used to expand Britain's spheres of influence and to reduce overcrowding in British prisons. The male convict experience is well-known, but the Cascades Female Factory (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cascades_Female_Factory) in Hobart is at the center of a shift in how Australians think of the role that female convicts played in the colonization of Tasmania.
Dr. Jody Steele, the heritage interpretation manager for the Port Arthur Historic Site Management Authority (https://portarthur.org.au/about-us/), which includes the Female Factory, says that having a convict ancestor used to be considered shameful. But in the past 20 years, attitudes have shifted dramatically. Sites like the Female Factory (https://femalefactory.org.au/), the Female Convicts Research Centre (https://www.femaleconvicts.org.au), and a general interest in geological research have helped the public better understand how the forced labor of women built the economy of the island.
Today, the museum is on the cusp of a major renovation (https://femalefactory.org.au/event/cascades-female-factory-design-and-interpretation-centre-project/). Dr Steele describes how the proposed design, chosen by an all-female panel, will present the female convict experience in Tasmania.
This month on Museum Archipelago, we’re taking you to Tasmania. For the next three episodes, we’re conducting a survey of museums on the island, and exploring how each of them relates to the wider landscape of museums. Subscribe to the podcast via Apple Podcasts (https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/museum-archipelago/id1182755184), Google Podcasts (https://www.google.com/podcasts?feed=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cubXVzZXVtYXJjaGlwZWxhZ28uY29tL3Jzcw==), Overcast (https://overcast.fm/itunes1182755184/museum-archipelago), or Spotify (https://open.spotify.com/show/5ImpDQJqEypxGNslnImXZE) to never miss an episode.

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Topics and Links
00:00 Intro
00:15 This Month, Museum Archipelago is Taking You To Tasmania
00:46 Cascades Female Factory
01:00 The Male and Female Convict Experience
02:26 Dr. Jody Steele
02:48 Why It’s Called The Female Factory
04:30 Being A “Respectable” Women In Colonial Society
06:10 Interpreting the Site
07:05 The Lack of Artifacts at the Site
08:50 Australia's Changing Attitudes Towards Convict Ancestors
09:38 History and Interpretation Center Design Competition
11:12 Female Convicts Research Centre
12:15 The Reminders of Convict Labor in Hobart
13:20 Join Club Archipelago
14:00 Outro


Transcript
Below is a transcript of Museum Archipelago episode 61. Museum Archipelago is produced for the ear and the only the audio of the episode is canonical. For more information on the people and ideas in the episode, refer to the links above.



View Transcript



[Intro]

Museums on the Australian island of Tasmania are a microcosm of museums all around the world. They struggle with properly interpreting their colonial past, the exclusion of First People from telling their stories in major museums, and having a large, privately owned art museum reshape a small town.

This month on Museum Archipelago, we’re taking you to Tasmania. For the next three episodes, we’re conducting a survey of museums on the island, and exploring how each of them relates to the wider landscape of museums.

Today, we begin with the Cascades Female Factory in the Tasmanian capital city of Hobart. It’s at the center of a shift in how Australians think of the role that convicts played in the colonization of the island.


Jody Steele: The male convict story is the story that everyone’s heard about and everyone wants to discover something about it. So I think it’s odd that the female story is equally as fascinating and as intricate as the male story, and yet until r