The Australian War Memorial Collection. Test site
This poster was issued by the 'Save Our Sons' group in response to the Vietnam War. Save Our Sons was a woman's organisation set up by Joyce Golgerth in Sydney in May 1965. Golgerth had started contacting women who had sons of conscription age as the National Service Act was being prepared in October 1964. The organisation was set up to oppose conscription for overseas service and more specifically the use of conscripts as part of Australia's involvement in the Vietnam War. Save Our Sons was part of a much larger tradition of women's mobilisations against war dating back to groups such as the Women's Peace Army, which opposed the conscription referenda of 1916-17. Save Our Sons members took an active part in many demonstrations where they would distribute leaflets to protestors. During the May 1970 Moratorium Save Our Sons published and distributed 50,000 copies of their leaflet 'Mothers in Mourning'. Other activities of the group included attending the court hearings of conscientious objectors and establishing vigils at army depots, goals, Commonwealth government offices and courthouses. In Victoria during April 1971, five members of Save Our Sons were charged with trespass for handing out leaflets outside the National Service Centre and subsequently sentenced to fourteen days imprisonment in Fairlea Women's Prison. A 24 hour stoppage by waterside workers closed the Port of Melbourne and the Seaman's Union of Australia went on strike in protest against the women's imprisonment.
This text-only protest poster, addressed at law-makers and enforcers, highlighting the mothers' attachment to their sons and objection to them being forcibly conscription against their will.
This poster was created by Save Our Sons, a protest group largely comprising mothers of men that were of conscription age during the Vietnam War. This poster was likely created by one of their members
Joan Coxsedge (DOB 1931) was one of the first two women to serve in the Victorian state parliament (1979-1992). She grew up in a Ballarat working class family. On leaving school, she worked as a comm
Marion Henderson b 1924 was active in the Union of Australian women in Perth after World War II and then during the Vietnam War in Save Our Sons, representing the Perth SOS at national SOS conference
Hazel Wilson was an active member of Mothers for Peace, a women’s anti-war group based largely in southern Sydney’s Sutherland Shire. The group cooperated with Save Our Sons in anti-conscription prote
Depicts a poster of a clenched raised fist. The accompanying text advertises a week of rallies, forums and speakers as a demonstration against conscription. The poster was issued by the Draft Resister
The silhouette of a man in goal holding the bars of his cell. The accompanying text advertises a demonstration march leaving the University of Melbourne in protest at the goaling of Geoff Mullen for r