Bowden Collection

The Bowden Collection features compelling oral histories recorded by Ros Bowden, capturing the lives of women working on the land and some of Australia’s most influential comic artists. These candid interviews, supported by striking photographic portraits, offer rare insight into everyday resilience, creativity and life beyond the spotlight.

Local history

Key items in the collection

Highlights from this collection demonstrate its historical significance and variety.

Women of the land

Ros Bowden recorded Women of the land in 1995 as an initiative of ABC Radio’s Rural Department, supported by the Library. The project includes 33 interviews with women from every state and the Northern Territory. Some had lived in rural areas all their lives, while others had moved from cities or overseas. Several were widows. Most were farmers—raising cattle, sheep, goats and pigs, or growing dairy and potatoes. Others worked as a journalist, academic, public servant or counsellor. All interviews were transcribed. Selections from 24 interviews were published in Bowden’s 1995 book Women of the land.

Comic artists and illustrators

The Comic artists and illustrators project includes 7 interviews with elderly cartoonists and comic strip artists:

Jim Russell
Tony Rafty
Yaroslav Horak
Stan Pitt
Monty Wedd
Les Dixon
Eric Jolliffe.

Bowden took a large number of photographic portraits of the women interviewed in the Women of the land project. The Library acquired 117 black and white photographs.

About Ros Bowden

Ros Bowden was born Rosalind Geddes in Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) in 1940 and spent part of her childhood in India. In 1952, she emigrated to Australia with her family, who settled in Tasmania.

Education and early career

Ros studied nursing in Sydney and later worked in a hospital in Singapore. While there, she reconnected with Tim Bowden, whom she had known in Tasmania. Tim was working as the ABC Talks Officer in Singapore, and they married in 1968.

Journalism and radio work

In the 1970s, Ros began doing part-time journalism and later became a freelance interviewer for the ABC. She went on to work for many years in ABC Radio’s Social History Unit and contributed to The Coming Out Show, a long-running feminist radio program.

Contributions to social history

Ros conducted interviews and produced a number of notable radio programs, including:

Her work focused on sharing diverse personal stories and exploring issues of health, identity and gender in Australian society..

Background to the collection

Ros Bowden Collection was purchased in 1995.

The Oral History Collection contains the Women of the land recordings and transcripts and Comic artists and illustrators recordings

The Pictures Collection has the participant photographs from the Women of the land project.

The Mitchell Library in the State Library of New South Wales holds 78 reels and 90 cassettes of interviews recorded by Bowden for radio programs and documentaries between 1975 and 1989.

This guide was prepared using these references: