Signs of Italian Culture in the Urban Landscape of Carlton

signs of italian culture in the urban landscape of carlton by THIS IS PART TWO OF A RESEARCH Melbourne, was originally inhabited by PROJECT CONDUCTED BY THE AUTHOR the Wurundjeri people, members of the ALICE GIULIA DAL BORGO Woiwurrung language group. European IN MELBOURNE IN 2004 IN ASSOCIATION settlement caused irreversible damage to WITH THE INSTITUTE OF HUMAN the ecosystem on which the Wurundjeri GEOGRAPHY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF depended as well as to their social and MILAN AND WITH THE ASSISTANCE OF cultural systems. The colonists claimed THE ITALIAN AUSTRALIAN INSTITUTE Wurundjeri lands for grazing, forcing the (IAI) IN MELBOURNE. THE PROJECT WAS traditional owners into areas populated SUPPORTED BY A SCHOLARSHIP FROM by other clans and into conflict with these THE EUROPEAN UNION’S MARCO POLO communities. Such was the feeling of PROGRAMME. IN CONDUCTING HER hopelessness and displacement between RESEARCH, DAL BORGO DREW HEAVILY the 1840s and 1850s that Wurundjeri ON RECORDS FROM THE ITALIAN parents practiced infanticide. A last vain attempt to regain the land taken by HISTORICAL SOCIETY COLLECTION Europeans was met with gunfire. The AND ON KEY SOURCES INCLUDING indigenous community was further ravaged SAGAZIO’S ‘A WALK THROUGH ITALIAN by infectious diseases, such as smallpox, CARLTON’ (1988) AND ‘YULE’S CARLTON: influenza and venereal diseases introduced A HISTORY’ (2004). by the colonisers. By the end of 1850, the remains of the Wurundjeri community had IN 2001, DAL BORGO OBTAINED A retreated to a small pocket of land to the DEGREE FROM THE FACULTY OF ARTS north of the city. In 1863, by government AND PHILOSOPHY, MILAN UNIVERSITY, edict, this group was relocated to a MAJORING IN ENVIRONMENTAL property near Healesville. GEOGRAPHY. HER THESIS, ‘CULTURAL GEOGRAPHY OF THE CIMBRI ENCLAVES The history of Carlton is inexplicably tied to IN ITALY,’ WAS PUBLISHED IN 2004. the gold rush and the increasing number of immigrants seeking accommodation IN 2002, SHE OBTAINED A MASTERS IN in the City of Melbourne. Carlton first MANAGEMENT OF THE ENVIRONMENT appears on a map in the early 1850s as a AND OF THE LANDSCAPE: KNOWLEDGE, city extension 2, drawn by General Robert COMMUNICATION AND ACTION FROM Hoddle as a rectangular grid not unlike that THE INSTITUTE OF HUMAN GEOGRAPHY, of the city centre. Although a proposal to MILAN UNIVERSITY. SHE IS NOW create a suburb called Carlton was tabled UNDERTAKING A PHD IN ENVIRONMENTAL in the Victorian government gazette of 1852 and the sale of plots of land began in the QUALITY AND ECONOMIC REGIONAL same year, the area continued to be known DEVELOPMENT AT THE UNIVERSITY OF as North Melbourne. In the two decades BOLOGNA IN ASSOCIATION WITH THE that followed, the suburb was transformed MILAN UNIVERSITY. DAL BORGO IS A by a combination of planned and, at its TUTOR AT THE DEPARTMENT OF ARTS farthest reaches, unregulated building. AND PHILOSOPHY OF MILAN UNIVERSITY. Historians dispute the origins of the name Carlton; what is known is that by the 1870s the suburb had taken on the boundaries To understand what Carlton means to the which identify it today. Italians of Melbourne, one must have experience with emigration; From the 1850s to around 1880, wealthy have suffered the solitude, developers bought pockets of land in the lack of understanding and at times, Carlton on which they constructed homes disdain; and factories in bluestone, brick and wood. to arrive in a place and feel completely lost. During this time, the first of the suburb’s To feel like a nobody. characteristic Victorian terrace houses Carlton has been the cradle of our appeared. Throughout the nineteenth migration to Melbourne; century ‘reverence for Italy and symbols of the gathering place for those arriving Italian culture was reflected in the attitudes migrants who knew that someone, of middle and upper class Australians and somewhere, was waiting for them, in their fondness for buying Italian goods that some voice was speaking the same and emulating Italian cultural styles’.3 The language.1 bourgeoisie learnt Italian and merchants ITALIAN HISTORICAL and farmers built their residences in the SOCIETY The area known today as Carlton, a ‘Italian-style’, decorating them with Italian 2 JOURNAL suburb at the northern edge of the city of statues, marble and furniture. SIGNS OF ITALIAN CULTURE IN THE URBAN LANDSCAPE OF CARLTON Alongside major traffic intersections was a to find work and accommodation. Chain network of secondary streets and lanes and migration, hostility from the Anglo- it was here that unregulated building saw Australian community, proximity to the speedy construction of densely packed employment and the lack of assistance dwellings amid poor sanitary conditions. from the Australian government were all These were the so-called slum pockets factors which guided the Italian migrant to which would be earmarked for demolition Carlton. in the 1930s. By the end of World War II, Carlton’s demographic makeup consisted mainly of large working class families living Initially, the majority of Italian migrants were in rented Victorian and Edwardian cottages. male. Those from the north of Italy found employment in the construction industry, From its early days, Carlton has been a while southerners worked in suburban neighbourhood of new arrivals: Jews, factories, market gardens or in the Italians, Greeks, Lebanese and latterly hospital and cleaning sectors. Many were Ethiopians have made it their first port of musicians, grocers, fruit and vegetable call, marking their passage through Carlton merchants, barbers, restaurateurs and with their own indelible style. According bakers. Migrants from Friuli and Veneto to historian Celestina Sagazio, the Italian were experts in terrazzo making as well as community established itself in Carlton in bricklaying and carpentry. Italian women three successive waves: the first phase in the main worked from home, taking in occurred between the second half of the sewing or running boarding houses for nineteenth century and World War I, the newly arrived migrants. From the 1950s second between the two World Wars and onward, many Italian women also found the third after World War II. The earliest work in the clothing and textile industry. arrivals were musicians from Basilicata in the south of Italy, followed by friuliani, In 1891, Italians represented 1% of the trevisani and vicentini from the north. The population of metropolitan Melbourne and first arrivals settled in the heart of Carlton even by 1914 their numbers did not exceed and to the south, while those who arrived 100. However, between 1921 and 1947 after World War II, from Sicily, Calabria the Italian population rose dramatically and Abruzzo, chose the north of Carlton. from 237 to 1,612, and in June 1960 the Together, these migrants formed the Italian number soared to 5,000 or 20% of the total community. During the 1950s, the Jewish population of Carlton. Although these are population began to leave Carlton for other approximate figures for the municipality suburbs. These are the years when Italian as a whole, they indicate a growing Italian settlement was at its most conspicuous: presence in the area. As affirmed by demographer F Lancaster Jones: ‘In the 1950s and 1960s, Carlton became the first and best known “Little Italy” ‘In 1945 only 14 shops in Lygon Street in Australia. It was in many ways the between Queensberry and Elgin Streets Italians’ home away from home. Some had Italian proprietors [….]. The 1960 historians argue that by 1960 the various Melbourne directory lists 47 Italian groups of Italian migrants had formed shops in the same area, including nine an Italo-Australian community. The espresso bars, three hairdressers, three concept of community was widely used butchers, two electrical goods retailers, by Italian newspapers, political leaders two photographers, two estate agents, and by the public. The term embraced all people of Italian descent living in a chemist, a florist, a motor mechanic, a Australia. It assumed that they had more large emporium, and even an Italian hotel in common with each other than with other proprietor. Elsewhere in the Carlton area, an Australians’.4 Italian priest, Italian doctors and solicitors, and a multitude of Italian tradesmen completed what is for many Melbourne’s At this point one may ask why Carlton was Italians a home away form home. For by the first port of call for many migrants. The the middle of 1960 at least one-quarter of majority of Italians migrating to Australia, as Carlton’s population was of Italian origin’.5 well as to other parts of the globe, did not arrive under the Australian government’s Assisted Passage Scheme. Instead, Until 1971, the Italian-born population they paid their own way, gravitating to of North Carlton was 28.5%. Today, this those areas where other Italian migrants, percentage has dropped to 4%. From the ITALIAN sometimes from the same town, had end of the 1960s, Carlton Italians moved to HISTORICAL already established themselves. These the outer suburbs where they built spacious SOCIETY established paesani helped new arrivals houses on larger blocks. Nonetheless, JOURNAL 3 SIGNS OF ITALIAN CULTURE IN THE URBAN LANDSCAPE OF CARLTON the sense of community and village life the exterior walls were plastered in green created by Carlton’s Italian community is or pink, a practice which recalled domestic still evident to both visitors and residents of architecture in the land of origin. Façades Carlton.6 were squared off [Fig.3], porches were repaved with tiles that in Italy were used for paving sunroofs [Fig.4], wrought-iron ARCHITECTURE: friezes were removed from the front porch THE CHANGES MADE BY ITALIANS [Fig.5] and picket or wrought-iron fences From the 1950s to the 1960s, newly were replaced with rendered concrete arrived Italian migrants generally found or exposed bricks [Fig.6].

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