Areas of expertise

• Historical Studies 2103
• Biography 210304
• Australian History (Excl. Aboriginal And Torres Strait Islander History) 210303

Research interests

Biography

Researcher's projects

Publications

• Fathi, R & Oppenheimer, M 2023, 'The Shoken Fund and the evolution of the Red Cross movement', European Review of History, vol. 30, no. 5, pp. 812-831.
• Fathi, R, Oppenheimer, M & Rosental, P-A 2023, 'Voluntary organizations, the Red Cross and the features of humanitarian reconstruction in Western Europe after the World Wars', European Review of History, vol. 30, no. 5, pp. 665-684.
• Brazil, L & Oppenheimer, M 2022, 'Saving 'Ireland's children': voluntary action, gender, humanitarianism, and the Irish White Cross, 1921-1947', Womens History Review, vol. 31, no. 7, pp. 1169-1189.
• Oppenheimer, M 2022, ''In the Service of Others Her Life Was Spent': ReCreating the Humanitarian Life of Lady Helen Munro Ferguson', Cultural and Social History, vol. 20, no. 3, pp. 385-403.
• Oppenheimer, M, Schech, S, Fathi, R et al. 2021, 'Resilient Humanitarianism? Using Assemblage to re-evaluate the history of the League of Red Cross Societies', International History Review, vol. 43, no. 3, pp. 579-597.
• Lockstone-Binney, L, Holmes, K, Meijs, L, Oppenheimer, M et al 2021, 'Growing the Volunteer Pool: Identifying Non-Volunteers Most Likely to Volunteer', Voluntas, vol. 33, no. 4, pp. 777-794.
• Oppenheimer, M 2020, 'Patriotic Performances: Wartime fundraising in South Australia during WWI', in Anna Goldsworthy and Mark Carroll (ed.), Beyond the Stage: Creative Australian stories from the Great War, Wakefield Press, South Australia, pp. 56-69.
• Oppenheimer, M 2020, 'Realignment in the aftermath of war: The League of Red Cross Societies, the Australian Red Cross and its Junior Red Cross in the 1920s', in Neville Wylie, Melanie Oppenheimer, and James Crossland (ed.), The Red Cross Movement: Myths, practices & turning points, Manchester University Press, Manchester, pp. 130-147.
• Oppenheimer, M 2020, 'Nurses of the League: the League of Red Cross Societies and the development of public health nursing post-WWI', History Australia, vol. 17, no. 4, pp. 628-644.
• Wylie, N, Oppenheimer, M & Crossland, J, eds, 2020, The Red Cross Movement, Manchester University Press, Manchester.
• Oppenheimer, M 2020, 'The historian activist and the Gift to the Nation project: preserving the records of the Australian Red Cross', Archives and Manuscripts, vol. 48, no. 2, pp. 171-185.
• Oppenheimer, M, Schech, S, Fathi, R et al. 2020, 'Resilient Humanitarianism? Using Assemblage to re-evaluate the history of the League of Red Cross Societies', International History Review, vol. 43, no. 3, pp. 579-597.
• Oppenheimer, M 2020, 'Reflections on the Easternisation of the Red Cross Movement: The Role of the Japanese Red Cross and the League of Red Cross Societies, 1907-1926', Pacific and American Studies, vol. 20, pp. 23-39.
• Oppenheimer, M & Collins, C 2019, '"People Power": Social Planners and Conflicting Memories of the Australian Assistance Plan', Labour History, vol. 116, no. 1, pp. 189-213.
• Oppenheimer, M 2019, 'The Professionalisation of Nursing through the 1920s and 1930s: The Impact of War and Voluntarism', in (ed.), The First World War, the Universities and the Professions in Australia, 1914-1939, Melbourne University Publishing Limited, Victoria, Australia.
• Haski-Leventhal, D, Oppenheimer, M, Holmes, K et al. 2019, 'The Conceptualization of Volunteering Among Nonvolunteers: Using the Net-Cost Approach to Expand Definitions and Dimensions of Volunteering', Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, vol. 48, no. 2S, pp. 30S-51S.
• Eklund, E, Oppenheimer, M & Scott, J, eds, 2018, The state of welfare: Comparative studies of the welfare state at the end of the long boom, 1965-1980, Peter Lang AG, Oxford.
• Oppenheimer, M 2018, 'Volunteering the Voluntary Principle', History Australia, vol. 19, no. 4, pp. 637-648.
• Warburton, J, Moore, M & Oppenheimer, M 2018, 'Challenges to the Recruitment and Retention of Volunteers in Traditional Nonprofit Organizations: A Case Study of Australian Meals on Wheels', International Journal of Public Administration, vol. 41, no. 16, pp. 1361-1373.
• Fitzpatrick, M, Kevin, C & Oppenheimer, M 2018, 'From the Editors', History Australia, vol. 15, no. 4, pp. 635-637.
• Kevin, C, Oppenheimer, M & Fitzpatrick, M 2018, 'From the Editors', History Australia, vol. 15, no. 3, pp. 397-398.
• Oppenheimer, M, Kevin, C & Fitzpatrick, M 2018, 'From the Editors', History Australia, vol. 15, no. 2, pp. 214-215.
• Fitzpatrick, M, Kevin, C & Oppenheimer, M 2018, 'From the Editors', History Australia, vol. 15, no. 1, pp. 4-6.
• Oppenheimer, M 2018, ''A golden moment?': The League of Red Cross Societies, the League of Nations and contested spaces of internationalism and humanitarianism, 1919-1922', in Joy Damousi and Patricia O'Brien (ed.), League of Nations: Histories, legacies and impact, Melbourne University Press (an imprint of Melbourne University Publishing), Melbourne, Australia, pp. 8-27.
• Eklund, E, Oppenheimer, M & Scott, J 2018, 'The welfare state at the end of the long boom, 1965-1980: Themes and issues', in Erik Eklund, Melanie Oppenheimer and Joanne Scott (ed.), The state of welfare: Comparative studies of the welfare state at the end of the long boom, 1965-1980, Peter Lang AG, Oxford, pp. 1-16.
• Oppenheimer, M 2018, 'Opportunities to Engage: The Red Cross and Australian Women’s Global War Work', in Kate Ariotti and James E. Bennett (ed.), Australians and the First World War Local-Global Connections and Contexts, Palgrave Macmillan, NSW Australia, pp. 85-101.
• Kleinig, M & Oppenheimer, M 2018, 'His 'hostile origin and associations': the internment of Rudolph Tummel, 1916-1918', Journal of the Historical Society of South Australia, vol. 46, pp. 27-45.
• Oppenheimer, M, Collins, C & Eklund, E 2018, 'The australian assistance plan and the canadian connection: Origins and legacies', Australian Historical Studies, vol. 49, no. 3, pp. 324-340.
• Haski-Leventhal, D, Meijs, L, Lockstone-Binney, L, Oppenheimer, M et al. 2018, 'Measuring Volunteerability and the Capacity to Volunteer among Non-volunteers: Implications for Social Policy', Social Policy & Administration, vol. 52, no. 5, pp. 1139-1167.
• Scott, J, Oppenheimer, M & Eklund, E 2018, 'A program of such potential: The Australian assistance plan', in Erik Eklund, Melanie Oppenheimer and Joanne Scott (ed.), The state of welfare: Comparative studies of the welfare state at the end of the long boom, 1965-1980, Peter Lang AG, Oxford, pp. 85-104.
• Oppenheimer, M & Kleinig, M 2017, 'Progressive conservatism and boundless optimism : South Australia on the eve of war', in Melanie Oppenheimer, Margaret Anderson, Mandy Paul (ed.), South Australia on the eve of war, Wakefield Press, Mile End, South Australia, pp. 1-16.
• Oppenheimer, M, Fitzpatrick, M & Kevin, C 2017, 'From the Editors', History Australia, vol. 14, no. 4, pp. 513-515.
• Kevin, C, Fitzpatrick, M & Oppenheimer, M 2017, 'From the Editors', History Australia, vol. 14, no. 3, pp. 326-328.
• Fitzpatrick, M, Kevin, C & Oppenheimer, M 2017, 'From the Editors', History Australia, vol. 14, no. 2, pp. 153-154.
• Oppenheimer, M, Fitzpatrick, M & Kevin, C 2017, 'From the Editors', History Australia, vol. 14, no. 1, pp. 3-5.
• Oppenheimer, M, Anderson, M & Paul, M, eds, 2017, South Australia on the eve of war, Wakefield Press, Mile End, South Australia.
• Fitzpatrick, M, Kevin, C & Oppenheimer, M 2016, 'From the Editors', History Australia, vol. 13, no. 4, pp. 459-461.
• Kevin, C, Fitzpatrick, M & Oppenheimer, M 2016, 'From the Editors', History Australia, vol. 13, no. 3, pp. 319-320.
• Oppenheimer, M, Fitzpatrick, M & Kevin, C 2016, 'From the Editors', History Australia, vol. 13, no. 2, pp. 193-194.
• Scates, B & Oppenheimer, M 2016, The Last Battle - Soldier Settlement in Australia 1916-1939, Cambridge University Press, victoria.
• Oppenheimer, M 2016, 'Red Crossing for War: Responses of Imperial Feminism and the Australian Red Cross during the Great War', in Michael JK Walsh, Andrekos Varnava (ed.), Australia and the Great War. Identity, Memory and Mythology, Melbourne University Publishing Limited, Melbourne.
• Eklund, E, Oppenheimer, M & Scott, J 2016, 'Developing a community soul'?: A comparative assessment of the Australian assistance plan in three regions, 1973-1977', Australian Journal of Politics and History, vol. 62, no. 3, pp. 419-434.

Projects and Grants

Grants information is drawn from ARIES. To add or update Projects or Grants information please contact your College Research Office.

• Developing a national rural volunteering roadmap (Secondary Investigator)
• Resilient Humanitarianism: The League of Red Cross Societies, 1919-1991 (Primary Investigator)

Related websites

• https://sites.flinders.edu.au/resilient-humanitarianism/
  

  I am the Lead Chief Investigator on this ARC funded project, DP190101171, Resilient Humanitarianism: The League of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, 1919-91. Co-CIs include Dr Romain Fathi and Professor Susanne Schech (Flinders University), Dr Rosemary Cresswell (University of Strathclyde) and Professor Neville Wylie (Stirling University).

  This four-year project aims to advance the concept of ‘resilient humanitarianism’ through an historical investigation of one humanitarian body, the League of Red Cross Societies, from its inception to the end of the Cold War.

  The League of Red Cross Societies (from 1991 the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies) was established by the national Red Cross societies of the United States, Britain, France, Italy and Japan on 5 May 1919. Led by banker and Chairman of the American Red Cross War Council, Henry Pomeroy Davison, the League sought to mobilise and build up Red Cross national societies for peace time work.

  The concept of ‘resilient humanitarianism’ will advance our understanding of humanitarianism in general, and provide global policy makers and NGOs with historical insights to help inform, shape and transform future humanitarian debates. This work will result in a significant reshaping of our current scholarly understanding of humanitarian and transnational exchanges of knowledge in the 20th century.

• https://stmarkscollege.com.au/news/professor-melanie-oppenheimer-gives-j-c-bannon-oration-on-volunteering-for-the-ages/
  

  Professor Oppenheimer delivered the 2022 JC Bannon Oration in Adelaide on "Volunteering for the Ages". The full JC Bannon Oration can be viewed through the link.

• https://www.facebook.com/profile/100064851515765/search/?q=Melanie%20Oppenheimer
  

  In July 2022, Professor Oppenheimer presented on 'The Imperial Power Couple: the Personal and Political Lives of Lady Helen and Sir Ronald Munro Ferguson', as part of her National Library of Australia Fellowship. Melanie is currently writing a biography of the pair - one of Australia's most important vice-regal couples.