'A chance to be of some use to my country': Stanner during World War II

When war was declared in September 1939 Stanner hurried back to Australia from Kenya. He was thirty-four years of age, had recently completed his PhD at the London School of Economics, and was eager to find a place for himself in Australia. He had been destined, until then, to find work with the British academy and the British colonial service. There were no positions for anthropologists in Australian universities. On his return in October 1939 he spent the first few months writing up his African research and undertook lecture tours for the University of Sydney Extension Board. Before the war he had worked as a journalist in both Sydney and London, and so he prepared scripts for broadcast on 'political and military matters' for the Australian Broadcasting Commission (ABC). This in turn led to his employment with the Department of Information preparing propaganda scripts for the ABC (Barwick, Beckett & Reay 1985, p. 13), such as 'War morale: a challenge to Australian youth' (MS 3572, item 69).