Pioneering Olympic swimmer Mina Wylie was "arguably Australia's greatest swimmer" and UTS PhD candidate Grace Barnes is ready to write her back into Australian sporting history with the help of the prestigious Clare Burton Scholarship.
Barnes, undertaking a Doctorate of Creative Arts in the School of Communication, is the first UTS student to be awarded the Clare Burton Scholarship to support her research in the area of gender studies.
Wylie was one of Australia's first two female Olympic swimming representatives at the 1912 Olympics in Stockholm, along with friend Fanny Durack.
"My research is to bring Mina Wylie back into the public consciousness by rewriting her, and her achievements into Australian sporting history, an area where women are notably absent," says Barnes.
"Sporting biographies celebrate men more often than women, and my research seeks to redress this imbalance."
Barnes, who shares Wylie's passion as a competitive swimmer, will write a biography focussing on her own personal relationship with competitive swimming and Mina Wylie's achievements as a female athlete. The biography will make up the creative component of her doctorate.
"When Mina Wylie retired from competitive swimming in 1924, she had held more records in more strokes than any other female swimmer and was arguably Australia's greatest swimmer."
Barnes says while Wylie retired as a champion swimmer, she is almost forgotten today; her achievements overlooked by less successful male athletes in a sporting culture, which undeniably favours aggressive male sports over sports classed female appropriate.
"I want to celebrate a female athlete who succeeded in a sport that does not fit the aggressive sport paradigm."
In the academic component of her doctorate, Barnes investigates female athleticism in a largely male-dominated sporting society from a trove of archival sources in Australia and the US.
"How did swimming come to be regarded as national sport in Australia? Does swimming form part of a constructed Australian identity? When female athletes are routinely, underfunded and their achievements trivialised, how do women perform identity in The Sporting Nation?"
The Clare Burton Scholarship will enable Barnes to travel to the UK in 2016 to interview women who are preparing to swim the Channel.
"I feel honoured to have won the Clare Burton Scholarship. She did incredible work towards gender equity in the workforce."
"I am very proud that the trustees considered my research worthy of Clare Burton's legacy."
- Clare Burton Scholarship winner, UTS PhD candidate Grace Barnes, is setting out to return pioneering Olympic swimmer Mina Wylie to the public consciousness and Australian sporting history
- When Wylie retired from competitive swimming in 1924 she had held more records in more strokes than any other female swimmer and was "arguably Australia's greatest swimmer"