The Female Factories: Australia’s Forgotten Prisons for Women скачать в хорошем качестве

The Female Factories: Australia’s Forgotten Prisons for Women

In the early years of colonial Australia, thousands of convict women passed through institutions known as the Female Factories. Established in New South Wales and Van Diemen’s Land, these facilities functioned as hiring depots, labour houses, maternity wards, and prisons. Women were classified, confined, reassigned, punished, and sometimes married out of their sentences. Over time, overcrowding, riots, infant deaths, and public controversy reshaped the system. From the improvised confinement above Parramatta Gaol in 1804, to the purpose-built factory designed under Governor Lachlan Macquarie in 1821, and through to the final closure of the Cascades Female Factory in the 1850s, this documentary traces the full history of Australia’s female convict institutions. This is the story of how the colony managed imbalance, imposed discipline, and built a system that would shape generations.