A celebrity decorator with blue hair. A single mother who advised JFK in the Oval Office. A Christian nudist with a passion for almond milk.

A century ago, ten Australian women did something remarkable. Throwing convention to the wind, they headed across the Pacific to make their fortune. In doing so, they reoriented Australia towards the United States years before politicians began to lumber down the same path.

For the artist Mary Cecil Allen, this meant spreading the word about American abstract expressionism. For the naturopath Alice Caporn, it meant evangelising fruit juices and salads. For the swimmer Isabel Letham, it was teaching synchronised swimming. Others imported the latest thinking in dentistry, fashion, economics, law, music, medicine and more. They were rebels, they were trailblazers, they were disruptors. Individually, they have extraordinary stories; together, they change the narrative of Australian history.

Featured in the Australian Book Review’s 2024 Books of the Year and the SMH/The Age’s Best Books of 2024.

Listen to Yves discuss this book on the New Books Network podcast.

“[C]aptivating life stories of ten bold Australian women” — Prof Peter McPhee AM

“[I]ntimate, vibrantly told histories of remarkable women in the vein of Anna Funder’s Wifedom.” — Books+Publishing

“Travelling to Tomorrow is a rollicking, bouncing read…Rees begins with the determination that these women – who made such a splash on an international stage – should have their names recorded for posterity, their contributions remembered. In those ambitions, this effort wildly succeeds.” — SMH/The Age

“Yves Rees’s accessible, entertaining study blends personal experience with rich archival research…Rees brings their stories to life in a study that balances narrative energy with academic rigor…Rees has a storyteller’s knack for engaging the reader.” — Kirsten Tranter, Australian Book Review

“Read this book because you are a feminist. Read it because you believe history tells a story about now. Read it because it is inspiring and thought-provoking. Read it because the women listed in this very readable, engaging book should be known by name – they paved a new path for each of us.” — Chris Gordon, Readings

“[A] cracking, never-before-told tale.” - Nicole Abadee, SMH/The Age

“Rees’s priority is recovering the stories of their ten subjects, and the book does this brilliantly. These accounts are underpinned by years of painstaking research leavened with imaginative reconstruction…The reader feels like a charming guide is leading a tour of interwar America. All this makes the book an engrossing read.” — Barbara Keys, Inside Story

“In personal, exquisitely written interludes, Rees breaks with the dispassionate tradition of historical writing.” — The Conversation

“With the meticulousness of a historian and the intimacy of a memoirist, Rees unfolds the stories of these Antipodean women….the stories are informative, entertaining and very tender.” — ArtsHub

“This book is a knockout. Yves Rees is that rare historian who thinks like a scholar and writes like a dream – the literary equivalent to floating like a butterfly and stinging like a bee. You will want to meet these fearless and feisty women: women not only before their time in forging new geocultural paths to independence and but also making their times by putting flesh to the bones of modernity. Rees gives us their stories in full-bodied, hot-blooded fashion. A sheer delight.” — Professor Clare Wright OAM

“Fresh, captivating, and full of fantastic women. Yves has somehow managed to assemble the greatest fantasy dinner party you never knew you needed, whilst also uncovering a fascinating and untold side of our history. A real treat.” — Zoe Coombs Marr

“Yves Rees has the remarkable ability to bring history into the present, reminding us all that the only thing that really separates the generations is a linear notion of time. Travelling To Tomorrow gives voice to the women at the forefront of Australia’s own “American Revolution”. What I love most about Yves is how they bring an unwavering commitment to human rights in their exploration of history, the language of equality ever present in their handling of the past. In Rees, we have found an historian of rare skill - the ability to tell us something we didn’t know about something we thought we did.” — Clementine Ford

“Thoughtful and curious, critical and kind, Yves Rees’ study of these globetrotting Australian women richly renders their lives and times, as well as contemplating how we reach across time to read them today.” — Professor Anna Clark