Petersen, Alicia O'Shea (1862–1923)

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Petersen, Alicia O'Shea (1862–1923)

Australian reformer and political candidate. Born Alicia Teresa Jane McShane on July 2, 1862, in Broadmarsh, Tasmania, Australia; died on January 22, 1923, in Hobart, Australia; daughter of Hugh McShane and Jane (Wood) McShane (both farmers); married Patrick O'Shea, in 1884 (died 1886); married Hjalma Petersen (a mining investor), in 1891 (died 1912); children: (first marriage) stepson Francis Patrick.

Became first woman political candidate in Tasmania (1913); established the Bush Nurses and Child Health Associations; campaigned for social reform; ran for Tasmanian House of Assembly (1922).

Descended from convicts sent to the penal colony of Australia, Alicia O'Shea Petersen was born to Catholic farmers on July 2, 1862, in rural Broadmarsh, southern Tasmania, Australia. A cousin with whom she grew up, John Earle, may have influenced her interest in politics, for he later became a founder of the Workers' Political League and the first Labor premier of Tasmania. Petersen worked as a machinist in a clothing factory, an industry infamous even then for its poor conditions, before marrying Patrick O'Shea, a widower with one son, in 1884. He died two years later, after which she continued to live in Wilmot Terrace, Hobart, with her stepson Francis and, after 1891, with her second husband Hjalma Petersen, a mining investor from Sweden who died in 1912.

Influenced by her work experiences, Petersen was a prominent speaker for the Citizens' Social and Moral Reform League in 1906 when the group campaigned for a government inquiry into terrible conditions in clothing workshops. (The League's other goals, which she also supported, included temperance, "social purity," and improved housing for the poor.) While she worked with both the League and with the Women's Political Association, Petersen was a determined independent and affiliated herself with no party. She founded and served as life president of the Australian Women's Association, was a strong proponent of free university education and a councillor of the Workers' Educational Association, and held a sanitation certificate from the Royal Sanitary Institute.

Women in Australia had gained the right to vote in federal elections in 1902, and in 1913 Petersen became the first woman political candidate in Tasmania when she ran for the federal seat of Denison. The press trumpeted her advocacy of the interests of women and children while ignoring the rest of her platform, and opposing candidates brought in women from other cities to campaign against her; she received only 261 votes. Petersen went on to help establish the Bush Nurses and Child Health Associations, under the aegis of the Women's Health Association. She also organized the women's antidraft campaign in 1917 and headed a campaign to raise the age of consent, both of which issues were contrary to much of public sentiment. Petersen again became a political candidate in 1922, when women were first allowed to run for the Tasmanian House of Assembly. The press was equally hostile to her second candidacy. When, on principal, she defied a court charge of contempt during a lawsuit she was involved with, newspapers labeled it a publicity stunt. She then became ill with abdominal cancer and was unable to campaign publicly. Petersen lost heavily at the polls, and died at her home in Hobart on January 22, 1923.