And mend the clothes, stretch the housekeeping money, write down the recipe, feed whoever turned up, and keep the family going. That work built Australia, but so much of it never made it into the history books.

We have this long and continuing habit of not counting women’s work, yet that work left traces everywhere: in notes scribbled in the margins of recipe books, in community cookbooks sold to fund the local school or hall, in the pages of the Australian Women’s Weekly, and in family recipes carried across oceans.

Some kitchens were recorded far more carefully than others. Magazines and government pamphlets drew a picture of the “Australian” home, and migrant women mostly appear in that record being taught how to fit it. Their own recipes and stories lived on around the dinner table, well away from the library shelf.

So what got written down, and what got left out? When history survives in a cookbook with fifty contributors, or a recipe credited simply to “Mum”, who goes unnamed? How did those choices shape our idea of the Australian home, and of what it means to be Australian? And whose stories are still missing?

Sita Sargeant is joined by food historian Dr Lauren Samuelsson and writer Durkhanai Ayubi. Lauren’s research on the Australian Women’s Weekly shows how a magazine helped define what Australian food and family life were meant to be. Durkhanai is an award-winning author who brings the family recipe as an archive in its own right, carrying women’s stories across generations and continents.

About She Shapes History at the National Library of Australia

Where are the women in the story of Australia?

The answer might surprise you. The National Library of Australia holds one of the richest collections of women's history in this country: diaries, court records, photographs, oral histories, union files, objects, and more. Many Australians have no idea what's there. And much of what's in it has never been seen by the general public.

Over four years and twelve talks, She Shapes History founder and CEO Sita Sargeant is partnering with the Library to change that. Along with the events, we'll develop a digital hub with research guides and reading lists so by the end of the series you won't just know more about Australian history. You'll know how to find it yourself.

Join us for the entire journey, or come along to any one (or more!) of the events to hear from incredible speakers shaping history in their fields.

About Sita Sargeant

Sita Sargeant is a social entrepreneur, author, and one of Australia's leading voices in women's history. In 2021, she founded She Shapes History, a company making women's history accessible and engaging through walking tours, digital content, and partnerships with historic sites and cultural institutions. She Shapes History currently operates in four cities: Canberra, Sydney, Wollongong and Melbourne with plans to be in eight by the end of 2027. She published a book by the same name in 2025 sharing the stories of over 250 women who helped shape 31 towns and cities across Australia. In 2026, she was named the ACT Young Australian of the Year.

About the speakers

Lauren Samuelsson is an Associate Lecturer in History at the University of Wollongong. Her award-winning academic research sits at the intersections of food, gender, popular culture and media history. Passionate about ensuring that historical knowledge is accessible to all, her work has been published in The Conversation and she regularly appears in print, and on television, radio and podcasts. Her first book, A Matter of Taste: The Australian Women’s Weekly and its Influence on Australian Food Culture, was published by Monash University Publishing in 2024. 

Durkhanai Ayubi is an Afghan-born writer. Her work is committed to making conscious the historically generated asymmetries that distort our shared realities, by drawing on her lived experience as a refugee to Australia and through reclamation of her own ancestral voice. Her first book, Parwana: Recipes and Stories from an Afghan Kitchen (2020) received global acclaim. Her new book, She Who Tastes, Knows (2026) offers a resurfaced language of collective possibility through following the nature of food.