Caroline Archer

Caroline Archer was born at the Aboriginal reserve in Cherbourg, Queensland, the daughter of Norman Brown and her Aboriginal mother Lillian Masso, later Fogarty. Archer was raised under the supervision of the Queensland Department of Native Affairs which segregated people of Aboriginal descent on reserves. Archer was educated at the reserve school to fourth grade, a level considered sufficient for an Aboriginal girl. At fourteen, Archer was employed in domestic service by the Kay family at Whetstone station near Inglewood, Queensland, where she was paid the equivalent of a white worker's wage not the less amount prescribed for Aboriginal servants as well as encouraged to continue her education. == Career ==

After working as a domestic servant for the Kay family, Archer moved to Brisbane and worked in a private home. She then worked at the Canberra Hotel from 1935 to 1949 where she learned to operate the telephone switchboard. In 1950, she was employed as a PMG switchboard operator. In Brisbane, Archer was the city's first Aboriginal person to operate a trunkline switchboard as a public servant. By the force of her own efforts, she was able to gain full citizen's rights by obtaining an exemption from the Acts regulating Aborigines; official approval was based on an examination of the applicant's conduct and standard of living. Archer developed a particular interest in teaching both white Australians and younger Aboriginal people an appreciation for Aboriginal culture. Archer later opened and ran a gift shop in Surfers Paradise, Queensland, called Jedda, named after the protagonist of the 1955 film Jedda by Charles Chauvel, where she sold indigenous artefacts, crafts, and arts obtained directly from indigenous sources. Archer opened and ran this shop in order to provide an incentive for the practice of crafts and a training ground in business skills for young Aborigines as Archer believed in the need to patent Aboriginal arts, crafts, and designs to avoid commercial imitations. == Activism ==

Archer took an interest in reviving the Miss OPAL Quest and conducted a deportment course for Aboriginal models. The Miss Opal quest had initially been popular, with the winner entering the Warana festival quest, but interest had fallen away. Archer worked in Canberra where she addressed schools and other groups on aspects of Aboriginal culture. As the Queensland Department of Education allowed her to visit schools, she would ask the children to consider how people who could survive in the bush must have had some way of passing on the knowledge. == Recognition ==

In August 1977, Archer was awarded the Queen Elizabeth II Silver Jubilee Medal for her contributions to the community. == Personal life ==

On 29 December 1951, at the Baptist City Tabernacle she married Frederick Archer, an English-born aircraftsman and photographer. They had two daughters and a son. She was returning to her home in Brisbane for Christmas from Narrabri at the time of the accident with her husband, son, and two daughters who survived the incident. She was cremated. ==See also==