Ann Curthoys

Significance: Ann Curthoys is an Australian historian who has researched, taught, and published extensively about Australian history. Some of her areas of focus include feminism and Aboriginal history. In 1965, she was part of the Freedom Ride, a demonstration and bus tour that visited towns with a history of racial discrimination in New South Wales. The diaries of her experience during the Freedom Ride are published online on the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies website, which calls the collection an essential piece of historic material. Curthoys also wrote several books and papers, including a 2002 book chronicling the Freedom Ride.

Background

Ann Curthoys was born in 1945 in Sydney, Australia, to Geoffrey Carlton Curthoys and Barbara Lindsay McCallum. Her father taught chemistry at the University of Newcastle, and her mother was a psychologist at Stockton Mental Hospital. Both of Curthoys’ parents were members of the Communist Party until 1970. Her mother was also a member of the Union of Australian Women. Curthoys was first introduced to Aboriginal activism through her mother, who advocated for Aboriginal rights and helped establish the Newcastle Trades Hall Aboriginal Advancement Committee.

Curthoys graduated from Newcastle Girls’ High School before attending the University of Sydney, where she studied modern history. During her third year, she participated in the 1965 Student Action for Aborigines Survey and Demonstration Bus Tour, known as the Freedom Ride. The tour, led by a group of students, went through some New South Wales towns that had histories of racial discrimination. It sought non-violent direct action against such discrimination, including directly challenging a ban against Aboriginal veterans at the Walgett Returned Services League and local laws that barred Aboriginal children from entering the Moree and Kempsey swimming pools.

Curthoys completed her degree with honors in 1966. She also became involved in the women’s movement in 1970, writing about feminist theory and history. She later earned a diploma in education from Sydney Teachers’ College. In 1973, she received a doctorate in the history of race relations in New South Wales from Macquarie University. Her research compared British colonists’ attitudes about Chinese immigration with those about Aboriginal people. During her studies, Curthoys was a sessional tutor at the university.

Life’s Work

After submitting her thesis, Curthoys traveled to Asia. She moved to London in September 1973 and did clerical work. She returned to Australia and worked as a sessional tutor at Canberra College of Advanced Education. In 1975, as part of International Women’s Year, she became a research assistant on the Women in Australia project, which created a series of guides concerning Australian women’s history.

In 1976, Curthoys established the Women’s Studies Program at the Australian National University. Starting in 1978, she taught courses in Australian history, women’s history, and social theory at the New South Wales Institute of Technology (which became the University of Technology, Sydney, in 1988). In 1988, Curthoys helped create a graduate program in applied history. She was also hired as the dean of the faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences. She stayed in this position for three years. In 1995, she became chair of history at the Australian National University. There, she taught a special course on Aboriginal history along with Australian history and theory. Then, in 1997, she was elected to the Academy of Social Sciences in Australia. From 2003 to 2004, she was the G08 visiting professor of Australian Studies at the Center for Australian and New Zealand Studies at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. Also in 2003, she was elected to the Australian Academy of the Humanities. In 2019, the Australian Historical Association created the annual Ann Curthoys Prize in her honor, and in 2021, Curthoys became a Member of the Order of Australia.

Over the years, Curthoys has received several grants for her work, including a 2021 award from the Australian Research Council/Special Research Initiatives: Australian Society, History, and Culture; and a 2007 award from the Australian Research Council/Discovery Projects.

Impact

Curthoys is known as a leading scholar on Australian and Aboriginal history. Her most notable contributions to the field include her numerous publications, including books, book chapters, papers, and articles. Her 2002 book Freedom Ride: A Freedom Rider Remembers, chronicles the 1965 bus tour that she took part in as a university student. It draws upon her recollections of this experience as well as a detailed diary that she kept. That diary is also published online on the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies website, which calls the collection an important piece of historic material that “provide(s) insight into this watershed moment in Australian history.”

Curthoys is also outspoken about feminism and what she perceives to be the movement's shortcomings. In 1988, she published a book called For And Against Feminism: A Personal Journey into Feminism Theory and History, in which she lambasted radical and careerist feminists, and questioned how these “socialists” could have become blind to the struggles of the working class and/or colonized men. The book collected her writings about feminism between 1970 and 1986. She also appeared in the critical yet humorous documentary Brazen Hussies, giving an account of herself and her feminist friends during the 1970s.

In 2005, Curthoys published Is History Fiction with her husband, John Docker. The book was republished in 2010. Another book, Genocide in Tasmania: The History of an Idea, was published in 2008. Taking Liberty: Indigenous Rights and Settler Self-Government in Colonial Australia, 1830-1890 came out in 2018. In 2022, she published The Lives and Legacies of a Carceral Island: A Biographical History of Wadjemup/Rottnest Island, with Shino Konishi and Alexandra Ludewig. She has also contributed her knowledge to media outlets like the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC). In October 2020, she published an article with several other scholars that appeared on the ABC website that gave a brief history of Aboriginal incarceration and enslavement. In 2025, she published The Last Tour: Paul and Eslanda Robeson’s Visit to Australia and New Zealand in 1960.

Personal Life

Curthoys married John Docker in 1971. The couple had one son.

Bibliography

“Ann Curthoys’ Diaries.” Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies, aiatsis.gov.au/collection/featured-collections/ann-curthoys-diaries. Accessed 6 Apr. 2026.

“Ann Curthoys Prize.” The Australian Historical Association, theaha.org.au/awards-and-prizes/ann-curthoys-prize/. Accessed 6 Apr. 2026.

Christopher, Emma, et al. “No Slavery in Australia? The Dark Legacies of Slave Ownership Persist Long after Abolition.” ABC, 8 Oct. 2020, www.abc.net.au/religion/australia-and-the-dark-legacy-of-slave-ownership/12744288. Accessed 6 Apr. 2026.

Curthoys, Ann. “The Freedom Rides, 60 Years On.” ANTAR, 3 Mar. 2025, antar.org.au/blog/the-freedom-rides-60-years-on/. Accessed 6 Apr. 2026.

Curthoys, Ann. “The Last Tour: Paul and Eslanda Robeson’s Visit to Australia and New Zealand in 1960.” Melbourne University Publishing, www.mup.com.au/books/the-last-tour/9780522879896. Accessed 6 Apr. 2026.

Fieldes, Diane. “Brazen Hussies and the Weaknesses of the Women’s Liberation Movement.” Red Flag, 14 May 2021, redflag.org.au/article/brazen-hussies-and-weaknesses-womens-liberation-movement/. Accessed 6 Apr. 2026.

Harrison, Sharon M. “Curthoys, Ann (1945 - ).” The Encyclopedia of Women & Leadership in Twentieth-Century Australia, www.womenaustralia.info/leaders/biogs/WLE0504b.htm. Accessed 6 Apr. 2026.

“1965 Freedom Ride.” Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies, aiatsis.gov.au/explore/1965-freedom-ride. Accessed 6 Apr. 2026.

“Professor Ann Curthoys.” The University of Sydney, profiles.sydney.edu.au/ann.curthoys. Accessed 6 Apr. 2026.

Thorne, Alison. “For and against Feminism: A Personal Journey into Feminist Theory and History.” Freedom Socialist Party, Summer/Autumn 1990, socialism.com/fsb-article/book-review-ann-curthoys-for-and-against-feminism-a-personal-journey-into-feminist-theory-and-history/. Accessed 6 Apr. 2026.