Helen Palmer (publisher)

Helen Palmer
Born
Helen Gwynneth Palmer

(1917-05-09)9 May 1917
Kew, Victoria, Australia
Died6 March 1979(1979-03-06) (aged 61)
North Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
Occupation(s)Schoolteacher, publisher
Websiteadb.anu.edu.au/biography/palmer-helen-gwynneth-11333

Helen Gwynneth Palmer (9 May 1917 – 6 March 1979) was a prominent Australian socialist publisher after the Khrushchev Secret Speech of 1956 and the USSR's invasion of Hungary of the same year, which caused many leftists to leave the Communist Party of Australia.[1]

She was responsible for the financial and editorial publication of Outlook,[2] a non-dogmatic magazine of Australian socialism. Palmer's significance is her cultivation of an inclusive and tolerant left intellectual network in Sydney and Australia more broadly, which contributed strongly to the emergence of the Australian new left of the late 1960s and early 1970s.

Palmer was additionally an author, educator, servicewoman, trade unionist and communist activist.[3]

Contributors to Outlook included the writer Stephen Murray-Smith[4] and the historian Ian Turner,[5] who wrote an article, "The Long Goodbye" for the final issue. "How to review over 13 years, 82 issues, of Outlook?" his article began. "For 13 years, Outlook has been a significant element in the vanguard, standing on the ground of socialist humanism; is there anything that can take its place," he ended.[6]

  1. ^ Helen Gwynneth Palmer
  2. ^ Helen Palmer's Outlook, a collection of essays with an introduction by Robin Gollan. Edited by Doreen Bridges. ISBN 0-9593352-0-X
  3. ^ The Australian Women's Register biography
  4. ^ "Stephen Murray-Smith (1922–1988)". K. S. Inglis, 'Murray-Smith, Stephen (1922–1988)'. Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University. 2012. Retrieved 21 December 2017.
  5. ^ "Ian Alexander Turner (1922–1978)". D. B. Waterson, 'Turner, Ian Alexander (1922–1978)', Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, adb.anu.edu.au/biography/turner-ian-alexander-11895/text21305, published first in hardcopy 2002, accessed online 8 December 2014. National Centre of Biography, Australian National University.
  6. ^ Room for Manoeuvre: essays on history, politics, ideas and play, selected and edited by Leonie Sandercock and Stephen Murray-Smith, Drummond, 1982, ISBN 0-909081-64-6