Claire Lowrie | University of Wollongong (original) (raw)
Papers by Claire Lowrie
Slavery and Abolition, 2024
Journal of Social History, 2024
In a 1931 report investigating the status of labourers in British colonies, the Colonial Office d... more In a 1931 report investigating the status of labourers in British colonies, the Colonial Office declared that the system of indenture had been abolished across Malaya. This claim belied the realities of labour practices on the ground. On plantations, mines and in colonial homes, Chinese workers continued to labour under formal indenture and to endure indenture-like practices well into 1930s. This article explores the slow decline of Chinese indenture in Malaya, concentrating on the rubber industry in the Unfederated Malay State of Kelantan during the interwar years. The Chinese migrant workers that were brought to Kelantan in that era signed contracts for one year with the terms of the contract enforced by colonial administrators. These workers endured poor working conditions and high death rates. Those that sought to escape faced criminal conviction and punishments including fines and incarnation. By showing the continuation of indenture in Kelantan, this article challenges the assumption made by historians that Chinese indenture had ended globally by the early 1920s. It also develops new understandings of the fragmentary and complex process of abolition.
Journal of Social History, 2024
This article explores the emergence of cocktail culture in interwar Singapore. Mixed alcoholic dr... more This article explores the emergence of cocktail culture in interwar Singapore. Mixed alcoholic drinks were consumed by British men in Singapore from at least the 1910s, including the famous "Singapore Sling." However, it was not until the 1920s that cocktails became the drink of choice for elite men and women from Singapore's Chinese, British, and Eurasian communities. The consumption of American popular culture and exchange with American colonists in the Philippines helped the cocktail to become a symbol of tropical modernity. At the same time, the possibilities of home entertaining were transformed by the increasing availability of American-made domestic refrigerators in Singapore from the mid-1920s. Multiethnic elites, accustomed to frequenting bars and caf� es to enjoy cocktails, began to host their own cocktail parties with the help of their Chinese servants. The interwar cocktail party offered the wealthy a means to display conspicuous consumption and cosmopolitan modernity. They did so in a way that unsettled but did not overturn colonial hierarchies based on gender, race, and class. The "Singapore Sling"-a concoction of gin, cherry brandy, lime juice, pineapple juice, Cointreau, and Benedictine, finished off with a dash of Angostura bitters-holds a central place in the global history of the cocktail. It is, perhaps, the most iconic cocktail of Asian origins. Singapore's Raffles Hotel has long claimed that the cocktail was created by Hainanese "bar boy" Ngiam Tong Boon at their famous Long Bar in 1915. 1 In the last few years, historians and journalists have questioned this version of the legend. 2 Whatever its origins, the Singapore Sling was undoubtedly the port city's first foray into American cocktail culture. The use of the term "sling" (used interchangeably with "cocktail" in the United States from the nineteenth century) highlights this American cultural influence. 3 Indeed, the United States had its own version of the "gin sling" though it differed to the pink (or red) Singaporean invention. 4
Australian Historical Studies, Jan 2, 2018
History Australia, Apr 3, 2017
Sold and stolen: domestic 'slaves' and the rhetoric of 'protection' in Darwin Sold and stolen: do... more Sold and stolen: domestic 'slaves' and the rhetoric of 'protection' in Darwin Sold and stolen: domestic 'slaves' and the rhetoric of 'protection' in Darwin and Singapore during the 1920s and 1930s and Singapore during the 1920s and 1930s
... expertise. I would like to thank Robert Aldrich, Damien Cahill, David Carment, Cynthia Coyne,... more ... expertise. I would like to thank Robert Aldrich, Damien Cahill, David Carment, Cynthia Coyne, Kathy De La Rue, Christine Doran, Catriona Elder, Richard Howsen, Victoria Haskins, Margaret Jolly, Lai Ah Eng, Sue Stanton and Glenice Yee. ...
International Review of Social History, Jun 24, 2020
Chinese men working as servants in colonial Singapore were a largely unregulated group of workers... more Chinese men working as servants in colonial Singapore were a largely unregulated group of workers and, as a result, few traces of their lives have been preserved in the colonial archive. Rare cases in which Chinese domestic workers were accused of murder compelled the colonial state to directly intervene in their lives. This article explores the experiences of Chinese migrant men who worked as domestic servants in Singapore by analysing three murders that occurred between the s and the s. Details of the crimes and the arrests, along with the processes of conviction and sentencing, were reported in detail in the local newspapers. In addition, testimonies of the accused and of witnesses were preserved in Coroner's Court records. This rich criminal archive is used to shed light upon aspects of domestic servants' lives that would otherwise remain obscure. * I would like to thank the anonymous reviewers and the Editorial Committee for their excellent feedback. I also wish to thank Victoria Haskins, Samita Sen, Brenda Yeoh, and the members of the Centre for Colonial Settler Studies at the University of Wollongong for their detailed feedback on draft versions of this article. I am also grateful to Nitin Sinha and Nitin Varma who funded an EHSC conference panel on Domestic Service and Regulation as part of their ERC project on "Servants' Pasts" where I presented an early version of this article. . All quoted material and the names of victims and perpetrators are drawn from newspaper records rather than Coroner's Court Records.
Journal of Northern Territory history, 2012
Review(s) of: Contact zones: Sport and race in the Northern territory, 1869-1935, by Matthew Step... more Review(s) of: Contact zones: Sport and race in the Northern territory, 1869-1935, by Matthew Stephen, Charles Darwin University Press, Darwin, 2010, ISBN 9780980665079, xiv + 249 pp, paperback, $44.00.
Introduction: This paper contemplates the similarities in the working lives of two very different... more Introduction: This paper contemplates the similarities in the working lives of two very different girls.1 It focuses on part descent Aboriginal girls of Darwin working as domestic servants in European homes, and the mui tsai or girl slaves2 of Singapore working for Chinese families. These girls share the common experience of being removed from their families, trafficked a great distance from their homes and forced into domestic service. This paper will consider the common governmental responses to these girls in terms of “protection”. For the mui tsai protection involved potential rescue from forced domestic service. For part-Aboriginal girls, protection resulted in enlistment into forced domestic service. The reasons behind the strikingly different outcomes of protection in Singapore and Darwin in the 1920s and 1930s can be attributed to the different issues which the administrators in Darwin and Singapore faced, culminating out their distinct colonial experiences
Examining the role of Asian and indigenous male servants across the Asia Pacific from the late-19... more Examining the role of Asian and indigenous male servants across the Asia Pacific from the late-19th century to the 1930s, this study shows how their ubiquitous presence in these purportedly 'humble' jobs gave them a degree of cultural influence that has been largely overlooked in the literature on labour mobility in the age of empire. With case studies from British Hong Kong, Singapore, Northern Australia, Fiji and British Columbia, French Indochina, the American Philippines and the Dutch East Indies, the book delves into the intimate and often conflicted relationships between European and American colonists and their servants. It explores the lives of 'houseboys', cooks and gardeners in the colonial home, considers the bell-boys and waiters in the grand colonial hotels, and follows the stewards and cabin-boys on steamships travelling across the Indian and Pacific Oceans. This broad conception of service allows Colonialism and Male Domestic Service to illuminate trans-colonial or cross-border influences through the mobility of servants and their employers. This path-breaking study is an important book for students and scholars of colonialism, labour history and the Asia Pacific region.
... were living and the rules of that society, for example, in administering discipline to their ... more ... were living and the rules of that society, for example, in administering discipline to their convicts. ... 292 Making Film and Television Histories | Buffalo Legends 4, 1720 Bulletin, The 160 Burns ... 8 Goldson, Annie 94, 11316, 197, 240, 25762 Goodall, Heather 13 Governor, The 89 ...
This chapter explores the relationship between domestic service, violence, and colonial masculini... more This chapter explores the relationship between domestic service, violence, and colonial masculinities in the settler colony of Darwin and the exploitation colony of Singapore. The chapter analyses representations of assault and abuse of domestic servants by their British, white Australian, and Chinese masters in order to illuminate the ways in which violence could challenge or sustain colonial patriarchy. The central argument is that the ways in which violence towards Chinese and Aboriginal servants was either justified or ignored by the press, colonial officials, and ordinary colonists reflected an underlying agenda to protect the reputation of ruling-class men and the colonial venture as a whole. By comparing Darwin and Singapore, this chapter aims to illuminate the shared and particular preoccupations that underpinned settler and non-settler colonial projects.
Review(s) of: Contact zones: Sport and race in the Northern territory, 1869-1935, by Matthew Step... more Review(s) of: Contact zones: Sport and race in the Northern territory, 1869-1935, by Matthew Stephen, Charles Darwin University Press, Darwin, 2010, ISBN 9780980665079, xiv + 249 pp, paperback, $44.00.
Within our growing knowledge economy, students increasingly encounter disciplines such as history... more Within our growing knowledge economy, students increasingly encounter disciplines such as history, politics, philosophy, and education through the intersection of new media technologies and popular culture, rather than through the once typical encounter with 'the book'. Visual culture dominates everyday experience and is becoming increasingly important in teaching and learning (Goldfarb, 2002). Recognising that we live at a time when students prefer to engage with visual media rather than written text, Rosenstone (2001) has dubbed the present age 'post-literate', an age where everyone can read but no one will. Prensky (2007) describes the current generation transitioning from schools into the workforce and tertiary education as 'digital natives', for whom graphics precede written text as one of the defining features of their engagement in learning. This project recognises the significant work using visual media texts in teaching and learning occurring across the humanities and social science disciplines of the contemporary academy in areas such as history (
Asian migrations: sojourning, displacement, …, 2005
... tendencies of white women in the work of both Maugham and Prichard is the notion of sexual je... more ... tendencies of white women in the work of both Maugham and Prichard is the notion of sexual jealousy (Morse, 1988: 92; Knapman, 1986: 6 ... Catriona Elder argues that representations of the " half-caste" emerge alternately as the embodiment of" the best of both worlds" or" lost in ...
The Twelfth International Convention of Asia Scholars (ICAS 12)
This paper aims to shed new light on the history of the abolition of Chinese indenture by analysi... more This paper aims to shed new light on the history of the abolition of Chinese indenture by analysing the relationship between domestic service and penal sanctions in Singapore. In response to international pressure, legislative reforms designed to abolish Chinese indenture were introduced in Singapore from 1914. The reforms brought an end to long contracts and criminal convictions for breach of contract. In the period after the First World War, the global campaign against indenture stepped up pace, spearheaded by the International Labour Organization (ILO). Seeking to assess whether indenture had indeed been abolished in British Malaya, the ILO commissioned a report in 1927. In their assessment of Singapore, the ILO concluded that "labour is free" except in the case of domestic servants who could be fined or imprisoned for leaving their place of employment without giving notice, or, for being wilfully negligent or disobedient in their duties. This paper explores why it was that Chinese domestic servants in Singapore were treated as a special category of labour for whom the provisions of indenture remained necessary. I argue that one factor in the continued use of penal sanctions was the perceived need to discipline a group of workers who were renowned for their collective bargaining and individual acts of rebellion.
Pacific Historical Review, Nov 1, 2012
From the first years of the American occupation of the Philippines, the American colonial elite r... more From the first years of the American occupation of the Philippines, the American colonial elite ran their households with the help of Chinese servants. The preference of government officials, including Governor William Howard Taft himself, for Chinese domestic labor was in flagrant disregard for the policy of Chinese exclusion as well as the principle of "benevolent assimilation," according to which the Americans claimed to be "uplifting" the Filipino people by providing them with the opportunity to experience the dignity of labor. In opting for Chinese rather than Filipino domestic labor, elite Americans were replicating the traditions of the "Old World" colonizers, particularly the British in Asia.
Slavery and Abolition, 2024
Journal of Social History, 2024
In a 1931 report investigating the status of labourers in British colonies, the Colonial Office d... more In a 1931 report investigating the status of labourers in British colonies, the Colonial Office declared that the system of indenture had been abolished across Malaya. This claim belied the realities of labour practices on the ground. On plantations, mines and in colonial homes, Chinese workers continued to labour under formal indenture and to endure indenture-like practices well into 1930s. This article explores the slow decline of Chinese indenture in Malaya, concentrating on the rubber industry in the Unfederated Malay State of Kelantan during the interwar years. The Chinese migrant workers that were brought to Kelantan in that era signed contracts for one year with the terms of the contract enforced by colonial administrators. These workers endured poor working conditions and high death rates. Those that sought to escape faced criminal conviction and punishments including fines and incarnation. By showing the continuation of indenture in Kelantan, this article challenges the assumption made by historians that Chinese indenture had ended globally by the early 1920s. It also develops new understandings of the fragmentary and complex process of abolition.
Journal of Social History, 2024
This article explores the emergence of cocktail culture in interwar Singapore. Mixed alcoholic dr... more This article explores the emergence of cocktail culture in interwar Singapore. Mixed alcoholic drinks were consumed by British men in Singapore from at least the 1910s, including the famous "Singapore Sling." However, it was not until the 1920s that cocktails became the drink of choice for elite men and women from Singapore's Chinese, British, and Eurasian communities. The consumption of American popular culture and exchange with American colonists in the Philippines helped the cocktail to become a symbol of tropical modernity. At the same time, the possibilities of home entertaining were transformed by the increasing availability of American-made domestic refrigerators in Singapore from the mid-1920s. Multiethnic elites, accustomed to frequenting bars and caf� es to enjoy cocktails, began to host their own cocktail parties with the help of their Chinese servants. The interwar cocktail party offered the wealthy a means to display conspicuous consumption and cosmopolitan modernity. They did so in a way that unsettled but did not overturn colonial hierarchies based on gender, race, and class. The "Singapore Sling"-a concoction of gin, cherry brandy, lime juice, pineapple juice, Cointreau, and Benedictine, finished off with a dash of Angostura bitters-holds a central place in the global history of the cocktail. It is, perhaps, the most iconic cocktail of Asian origins. Singapore's Raffles Hotel has long claimed that the cocktail was created by Hainanese "bar boy" Ngiam Tong Boon at their famous Long Bar in 1915. 1 In the last few years, historians and journalists have questioned this version of the legend. 2 Whatever its origins, the Singapore Sling was undoubtedly the port city's first foray into American cocktail culture. The use of the term "sling" (used interchangeably with "cocktail" in the United States from the nineteenth century) highlights this American cultural influence. 3 Indeed, the United States had its own version of the "gin sling" though it differed to the pink (or red) Singaporean invention. 4
Australian Historical Studies, Jan 2, 2018
History Australia, Apr 3, 2017
Sold and stolen: domestic 'slaves' and the rhetoric of 'protection' in Darwin Sold and stolen: do... more Sold and stolen: domestic 'slaves' and the rhetoric of 'protection' in Darwin Sold and stolen: domestic 'slaves' and the rhetoric of 'protection' in Darwin and Singapore during the 1920s and 1930s and Singapore during the 1920s and 1930s
... expertise. I would like to thank Robert Aldrich, Damien Cahill, David Carment, Cynthia Coyne,... more ... expertise. I would like to thank Robert Aldrich, Damien Cahill, David Carment, Cynthia Coyne, Kathy De La Rue, Christine Doran, Catriona Elder, Richard Howsen, Victoria Haskins, Margaret Jolly, Lai Ah Eng, Sue Stanton and Glenice Yee. ...
International Review of Social History, Jun 24, 2020
Chinese men working as servants in colonial Singapore were a largely unregulated group of workers... more Chinese men working as servants in colonial Singapore were a largely unregulated group of workers and, as a result, few traces of their lives have been preserved in the colonial archive. Rare cases in which Chinese domestic workers were accused of murder compelled the colonial state to directly intervene in their lives. This article explores the experiences of Chinese migrant men who worked as domestic servants in Singapore by analysing three murders that occurred between the s and the s. Details of the crimes and the arrests, along with the processes of conviction and sentencing, were reported in detail in the local newspapers. In addition, testimonies of the accused and of witnesses were preserved in Coroner's Court records. This rich criminal archive is used to shed light upon aspects of domestic servants' lives that would otherwise remain obscure. * I would like to thank the anonymous reviewers and the Editorial Committee for their excellent feedback. I also wish to thank Victoria Haskins, Samita Sen, Brenda Yeoh, and the members of the Centre for Colonial Settler Studies at the University of Wollongong for their detailed feedback on draft versions of this article. I am also grateful to Nitin Sinha and Nitin Varma who funded an EHSC conference panel on Domestic Service and Regulation as part of their ERC project on "Servants' Pasts" where I presented an early version of this article. . All quoted material and the names of victims and perpetrators are drawn from newspaper records rather than Coroner's Court Records.
Journal of Northern Territory history, 2012
Review(s) of: Contact zones: Sport and race in the Northern territory, 1869-1935, by Matthew Step... more Review(s) of: Contact zones: Sport and race in the Northern territory, 1869-1935, by Matthew Stephen, Charles Darwin University Press, Darwin, 2010, ISBN 9780980665079, xiv + 249 pp, paperback, $44.00.
Introduction: This paper contemplates the similarities in the working lives of two very different... more Introduction: This paper contemplates the similarities in the working lives of two very different girls.1 It focuses on part descent Aboriginal girls of Darwin working as domestic servants in European homes, and the mui tsai or girl slaves2 of Singapore working for Chinese families. These girls share the common experience of being removed from their families, trafficked a great distance from their homes and forced into domestic service. This paper will consider the common governmental responses to these girls in terms of “protection”. For the mui tsai protection involved potential rescue from forced domestic service. For part-Aboriginal girls, protection resulted in enlistment into forced domestic service. The reasons behind the strikingly different outcomes of protection in Singapore and Darwin in the 1920s and 1930s can be attributed to the different issues which the administrators in Darwin and Singapore faced, culminating out their distinct colonial experiences
Examining the role of Asian and indigenous male servants across the Asia Pacific from the late-19... more Examining the role of Asian and indigenous male servants across the Asia Pacific from the late-19th century to the 1930s, this study shows how their ubiquitous presence in these purportedly 'humble' jobs gave them a degree of cultural influence that has been largely overlooked in the literature on labour mobility in the age of empire. With case studies from British Hong Kong, Singapore, Northern Australia, Fiji and British Columbia, French Indochina, the American Philippines and the Dutch East Indies, the book delves into the intimate and often conflicted relationships between European and American colonists and their servants. It explores the lives of 'houseboys', cooks and gardeners in the colonial home, considers the bell-boys and waiters in the grand colonial hotels, and follows the stewards and cabin-boys on steamships travelling across the Indian and Pacific Oceans. This broad conception of service allows Colonialism and Male Domestic Service to illuminate trans-colonial or cross-border influences through the mobility of servants and their employers. This path-breaking study is an important book for students and scholars of colonialism, labour history and the Asia Pacific region.
... were living and the rules of that society, for example, in administering discipline to their ... more ... were living and the rules of that society, for example, in administering discipline to their convicts. ... 292 Making Film and Television Histories | Buffalo Legends 4, 1720 Bulletin, The 160 Burns ... 8 Goldson, Annie 94, 11316, 197, 240, 25762 Goodall, Heather 13 Governor, The 89 ...
This chapter explores the relationship between domestic service, violence, and colonial masculini... more This chapter explores the relationship between domestic service, violence, and colonial masculinities in the settler colony of Darwin and the exploitation colony of Singapore. The chapter analyses representations of assault and abuse of domestic servants by their British, white Australian, and Chinese masters in order to illuminate the ways in which violence could challenge or sustain colonial patriarchy. The central argument is that the ways in which violence towards Chinese and Aboriginal servants was either justified or ignored by the press, colonial officials, and ordinary colonists reflected an underlying agenda to protect the reputation of ruling-class men and the colonial venture as a whole. By comparing Darwin and Singapore, this chapter aims to illuminate the shared and particular preoccupations that underpinned settler and non-settler colonial projects.
Review(s) of: Contact zones: Sport and race in the Northern territory, 1869-1935, by Matthew Step... more Review(s) of: Contact zones: Sport and race in the Northern territory, 1869-1935, by Matthew Stephen, Charles Darwin University Press, Darwin, 2010, ISBN 9780980665079, xiv + 249 pp, paperback, $44.00.
Within our growing knowledge economy, students increasingly encounter disciplines such as history... more Within our growing knowledge economy, students increasingly encounter disciplines such as history, politics, philosophy, and education through the intersection of new media technologies and popular culture, rather than through the once typical encounter with 'the book'. Visual culture dominates everyday experience and is becoming increasingly important in teaching and learning (Goldfarb, 2002). Recognising that we live at a time when students prefer to engage with visual media rather than written text, Rosenstone (2001) has dubbed the present age 'post-literate', an age where everyone can read but no one will. Prensky (2007) describes the current generation transitioning from schools into the workforce and tertiary education as 'digital natives', for whom graphics precede written text as one of the defining features of their engagement in learning. This project recognises the significant work using visual media texts in teaching and learning occurring across the humanities and social science disciplines of the contemporary academy in areas such as history (
Asian migrations: sojourning, displacement, …, 2005
... tendencies of white women in the work of both Maugham and Prichard is the notion of sexual je... more ... tendencies of white women in the work of both Maugham and Prichard is the notion of sexual jealousy (Morse, 1988: 92; Knapman, 1986: 6 ... Catriona Elder argues that representations of the " half-caste" emerge alternately as the embodiment of" the best of both worlds" or" lost in ...
The Twelfth International Convention of Asia Scholars (ICAS 12)
This paper aims to shed new light on the history of the abolition of Chinese indenture by analysi... more This paper aims to shed new light on the history of the abolition of Chinese indenture by analysing the relationship between domestic service and penal sanctions in Singapore. In response to international pressure, legislative reforms designed to abolish Chinese indenture were introduced in Singapore from 1914. The reforms brought an end to long contracts and criminal convictions for breach of contract. In the period after the First World War, the global campaign against indenture stepped up pace, spearheaded by the International Labour Organization (ILO). Seeking to assess whether indenture had indeed been abolished in British Malaya, the ILO commissioned a report in 1927. In their assessment of Singapore, the ILO concluded that "labour is free" except in the case of domestic servants who could be fined or imprisoned for leaving their place of employment without giving notice, or, for being wilfully negligent or disobedient in their duties. This paper explores why it was that Chinese domestic servants in Singapore were treated as a special category of labour for whom the provisions of indenture remained necessary. I argue that one factor in the continued use of penal sanctions was the perceived need to discipline a group of workers who were renowned for their collective bargaining and individual acts of rebellion.
Pacific Historical Review, Nov 1, 2012
From the first years of the American occupation of the Philippines, the American colonial elite r... more From the first years of the American occupation of the Philippines, the American colonial elite ran their households with the help of Chinese servants. The preference of government officials, including Governor William Howard Taft himself, for Chinese domestic labor was in flagrant disregard for the policy of Chinese exclusion as well as the principle of "benevolent assimilation," according to which the Americans claimed to be "uplifting" the Filipino people by providing them with the opportunity to experience the dignity of labor. In opting for Chinese rather than Filipino domestic labor, elite Americans were replicating the traditions of the "Old World" colonizers, particularly the British in Asia.
This groundbreaking book brings together two key themes that have not been addressed together pre... more This groundbreaking book brings together two key themes that have not been addressed together previously in any sustained way: domestic service and colonization. Colonization offers a rich and exciting new paradigm for analyzing the phenomenon of domestic labor by non-family workers, paid and otherwise. Colonization is used here in its broadest sense, to refer to the expropriation and exploitation of land and resources by one group over another, and encompassing imperial/extraction and settler modes of colonization, internal colonization, and present-day neocolonialism. Contributors from diverse fi elds and disciplines share new and stimulating insights on the various connections between domestic employment and the processes of colonization, both past and present, in a range of original essays dealing with Indonesian