Suzanne Baker papers, 1882-2003, and Sally Baker Clinch papers, 1950-2000

MLMSS 8062/Boxes 1-2, 4
MLMSS 8062/Box 3X

fonds

1882-2003

Textual Records, Graphic Materials, Objects, Ephemera, Photographs, Clippings

446668

0.55 metres of textual material, approximately 100 photographs, including unbound and incomplete album, and 1 badge (3 boxes, 1 outsize box)

Suzanne Baker (1939- ), journalist and film producer, is the eldest of two daughters of notable print journalists, Sidney J. Baker (1912-1976), and his wife, Sally (Eena Dale Young). Her parents divorced in 1950, and, in 1971, her mother, Sally Baker, married newspaper editor Lindsay Clinch (1907-1984). Suzanne was educated at Sydney Girls’ High School. She worked as a documentary maker and television journalist in London and New York before returning to Australia in the early 1970s. In 1971 she was appointed editor of 'Look!', the women's section of the Sydney Morning Herald. She was a founding member of the Media Women’s Action Group, established in Sydney in 1972 to collect and analyse evidence of discrimination against women in the media. From 1974 to 1984 she held the position of movie producer at Film Australia where she produced 'Leisure', a film based on the drawings of Bruce Petty about changing recreational habits, which won the Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film in 1977, and gained her the distinction of the first Australian woman to win an Oscar. In the late 1970s she produced a documentary series on China called The Human Face of China. Suzanne Baker graduated with a Bachelor of Arts, History, Hons, in 2006 at the University of Sydney.

References:
Compiled from the collection
Library correspondence file

BOX 1
Folder 1
Correspondence, 1970-2003, including letters received from Bill Carty, 2003, and Valerie Lawson, 2003, with enclosed draft entry on Lindsay Clinch for the Australian Dictionary of Biography

Folder 2
Congratulatory telegrams and letters received on winning the Academy Award (Best Animated Short Film), for Leisure, based on the drawings of Bruce Petty, 1977

Folder 3
Cuttings of the column ‘This Week in London with Zannie’, June 1970-Jan. 1971, published in Woman’s Day

Folder 4
Papers relating to Media Women’s Action Group, 1972-1973, including bulletins, correspondence and printed material

Folder 5
Newscuttings and printed material, 1957-2003, including personal mentions, and newspaper obituaries of Joan Reeder (1922-1999) and Muriel Flora Moody (1920-1996)

Folder 6
Newscuttings, 1988-1989, relating to various topics of personal interest

BOX 2
Folder 1
‘Miscellaneous Papers re Look! & Film Making’, 1972-1989, being black plastic folder with plastic sleeves including typescripts of articles and talks

Folder 2
‘Miscellaneous papers, marriage cert[ificate]s, etc.’, 1882-1995, being black plastic folder with plastic sleeves including photograph of Constance and Nesta Smith, 189-; certificates of birth, death and marriage of, among others, the Baker, Clinch, Young, Clinch and Smith families, and biographical note on welfare worker, journalist, social reformer and political activist, Jeanne Forster Young (1876-1955), with attached badge: ‘Vote 1 for Mrs. Young & Proportional Representation’; and small handwritten recipe book with name ‘Anna Phipps Stanton, South Australia 1882’ inscribed at front

Folder 3
Typescript and carbon typescript articles for magazines and newspapers, and incomplete scripts for television segments and programs, 1970-1973

Folder 4
Identification and press cards, and Australian and British passports, 1959-1994

Folder 5
Miscellaneous papers, 1902- 2002, including notebook, 1968, 1980; photocopies of her essays on Catherine Helen Spence (History 2004) and second wave feminism’s impact on newspaper reporting about women in the early 1970s, reflecting on the new Look! (History 2014), Sydney University, 2002; and greeting card with Baker’s list of ‘Books & Pamphlets of S.J. Baker Estate 1976’

Folder 6
Papers relating to Look!, women’s section of the Sydney Morning Herald, 1971-1973, including correspondence with Fairfax editorial staff, including David Bowman, and readers, and typescript articles

BOX 3X
Issues of Look!, women’s section of the Sydney Morning Herald, 1971-1973

BOX 4
Photographs mainly of Suzanne Baker, and of her family, friends and associates, ca. 1880-2003, including photos of Baker with her mother Sally Baker; American ventriloquist Edgar Bergen, and his puppet Charlie McCarthy; actor Danny Kaye; film directors Alfred Hitchcock and Ken G. Hall; her graduation at Sydney University, 17 Oct. 2003; staff of Smith’s Weekly, 193-; and Sally Baker with Gough Whitlam and Margaret Whitlam

Papers of Sally Baker Clinch, 1950-2000, including letters received from ‘Zannie’ (Suzanne Baker), 1954-1960, and Lillian Roxon, ca. 1961; autobiographical reminiscences titled ‘Journal (working title). Chapter one (first draft)’ being nine-page typescript with photocopy; carbon typescript notes on journalists, Lindsay Clinch, Rita Dunstan, Mary Falloon, Lennie Lower, Brian Penton and Joan Reeder; and copies of various certificates

Copyright status:: In copyright - This collection has multiple rights owners
Research & study copies allowed: Applies only to material in which Suzanne Baker owns copyright