Australia: a Cultural History (Third Edition)
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AUSTRALIA A CULTURAL HISTORY THIRD EDITION JOHN RICKARD AUSTRALIA Australia A CULTURAL HISTORY Third Edition John Rickard Australia: A Cultural History (Third Edition) © Copyright 2017 John Rickard All rights reserved. Apart from any uses permitted by Australia’s Copyright Act 1968, no part of this book may be reproduced by any process without prior written permission from the copyright owners. Inquiries should be directed to the publisher. Monash University Publishing Matheson Library and Information Services Building 40 Exhibition Walk Monash University Clayton, Victoria 3800, Australia www.publishing.monash.edu Monash University Publishing brings to the world publications which advance the best traditions of humane and enlightened thought. Monash University Publishing titles pass through a rigorous process of independent peer review. www.publishing.monash.edu/books/ach-9781921867606.html Series: Australian History Series Editor: Sean Scalmer Design: Les Thomas Cover image: Aboriginal demonstrators protesting at the re-enactment of the First Fleet. The tall ships enter Sydney Harbour with the Harbour Bridge in the background on 26 January 1988 during the Bicentenary celebrations. Published in Sydney Morning Herald 26 January, 1988. Courtesy Fairfax Media Syndication, image FXJ24142. National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication entry: Creator: Rickard, John, author. Title: Australia : a cultural history / John Rickard. Edition: Third Edition ISBN: 9781921867606 (paperback) Subjects: Australia--History. Australia--Civilization. Australia--Social conditions. ISBN (print): 9781921867606 ISBN (PDF): 9781921867613 First published 1988 Second edition 1996 In memory of John and Juan ABOUT THE AUTHOR John Rickard is the author of two prize-winning books, Class and Politics: New South Wales, Victoria and the Early Commonwealth, 1890-1910 and H.B. Higgins: The Rebel as Judge. Janet McCalman has described his innovative book about the family of Alfred Deakin, A Family Romance, as ‘elegant, discreet and imaginative’ and ‘scholarship of skill and sensitivity’. Rickard has written widely on Australian culture and biog- raphy. In his youth he worked as an actor and singer. He is an emeritus professor at Monash University. CONTENTS Cover About the author .............................................vi List of illustrations ..........................................viii Acknowledgements ...........................................x Preface .....................................................xi Part 1 Sources . 1 Chapter 1 Aboriginal Australians ............................3 Chapter 2 Immigrants ....................................20 Part 2 Interactions: 1788–1901 . 39 Chapter 3 The environment ................................41 Chapter 4 Society ........................................67 Part 3 The culture: 1901–1939 . 101 Chapter 5 Loyalties. 103 Chapter 6 Political institutions .............................133 Chapter 7 Relationships and pursuits. .162 Part 4 The culture questioned: 1939–2016 . 187 Chapter 8 Dependence 1939–1988 ..........................189 Chapter 9 Diversity 1939–1988 ............................209 Chapter 10 Vision ........................................232 Chapter 11 The view from the twenty-first century ..............252 Further reading ............................................285 Index ....................................................294 Back cover LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Map 1 Colonial and state boundaries, with principal settlements. .....xiv 1.1 Bark painting from Oenpelli, Western Arnhem Land. .11 2.1 The principal settlement on Norfolk Island, 1796 ...........23 2.2 ‘From a distant land’ by David Davies, 1889 ...............33 3.1 ‘Governor Phillip’s House’ .............................44 3.2 Aboriginal people at Oyster Cove in the 1860s .............58 3.3(a) ‘Shearing the rams’ by Tom Roberts ......................64 3.3(b) ‘Weighing the Fleece’ by George Lambert .................65 4.1 Two Francis Greenway buildings ........................69 4.2(a) The High Street, Fremantle ............................90 4.2(b) Samwell Street, Croydon ..............................91 4.3 Gold-diggers in Kalgoorlie, Western Australia, c.1895 ..........94 5.1 A cartoon from the Bulletin, 1901 ......................108 5.2 The Melbourne Shrine of Remembrance ................. 117 5.3 The aviator Kingsford-Smith and his partner, C. T. Ulm ......131 6.1 ‘The evolution of a Labour Member’, Melbourne Punch, 1894 ...136 6.2 Joe and Enid Lyons and their family .................... 141 6.3 ‘The Country Party’: a cartoon in the Pastoral Review, 1913 ...143 6.4 Special constables during the Brisbane general strike of 1912 ..149 7.1 Marriage, Australian style ............................166 7.2 Suburban house types ................................168 7.3 Ginger Meggs ......................................170 List of illustrations 7.4 Country Women’s Association group meeting in Emerald, 1939 ..............................................173 7.5 ‘Australian Beach Pattern’ by Charles Meere ..............184 8.1 Prime Minister Chifley inspects the first Holden ...........198 8.2 President Johnson and Prime Minister Holt at Canberra Airport, 1966 ......................................201 8.3 The opening of the Sydney Opera House .................206 9.1 Australian Home Beautiful, 1956: ‘TV in your home’. 211 9.2 Billy Graham in Australia ............................214 9.3 Mrs Petrov at Mascot Airport, Sydney, 1954 ..............215 9.4 The ‘Aboriginal Embassy’ in Canberra, 1972 ..............223 10.1 ‘Kelly Head’ (1947), by Sidney Nolan ....................234 10.2 Barry Humphries as (Dame) Edna Everage ...............239 11.1 The new Parliament House, Canberra ...................254 11.2 ‘Manning Clark’s History of Australia — The Musical’ .....256 11.3 Aboriginal footballer Nicky Winmar ...................276 11.4 Aboriginal Olympian Cathy Freeman. 277 – ix – ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The author and publisher would like to thank the following for permission to reproduce illustrative material: Art Gallery of New South Wales (2.2 and 7.5); Bridgeman Images (10.1); David Moore Photography (8.2); James Cook Uni ver sity (4.2b); Fairfax Media Syndication (8.3, 9.2, 9.3, 10.2, 11.3 and 11.4); Geoff Cook (11.2); Lauraine Diggins Fine Art (10.1); Miranda Latimer of Ginger Meggs (7.3); GM Holden (8.1); John Gollings (11.1); State Library of Queensland (6.4 and 7.4); Museum Victoria (1.1); National Gallery of Australia (3.3b); National Gallery of Victoria (3.3a and 5.2); National Library of Australia (3.2, 5.3, 6.2, 7.1 and 9.6); Natural History Museum, London (2.1 and 3.2); News Corp and Newspix (5.3); Royal Western Australian Historical Society (4.3); State Library of Western Australia (4.2a); Viscopy (7.5) and Young and District Family History Group (7.1). While every effort has been made to trace the owners of copyright material, in a few cases this has proved to be problematic and so we take this opportunity to offer our apologies to any copyright holders whose rights we may have unwittingly infringed. PREFACE This book has itself had a history. I had been approached by Longman in 1981 about writing a short history of Australia, one of a series the English publisher was planning. I was probably flattered to be asked and gave the invitation some thought. There had been a procession of such introductory texts since the Second World War, and, seeking some new approach to dis- tinguish my possible effort from its predecessors, I lighted on the idea of ‘a cultural history’. I worried at first whether this sounded pretentious – which is a comment on 1980s attitudes to our history – but I soon warmed to it, feeling that the cultural perspective would give me much more freedom to create a narrative that reflected my own interests. The result was Australia: A Cultural History which was published in 1988, though having no association with the bicentennial celebrations. It did well enough to merit a second edi- tion; however, within a few years Longman was taken over and integrated into Addison Wesley Longman. Thankfully, my friends at Longman had survived the take-over and saw the Second Edition through in 1996. Alas, the cannibalism of the publishing world continued, and Addison Wesley Longman was in turn swallowed up by Pearson Education, who had little interest in the book, and it languished in the shadowy world of ‘print on demand’. Now Monash University Publishing has come to the rescue to give it a new, revised lease of life. In the original Preface I assumed ‘a broad, anthropological understand- ing of culture’, telling ‘the story of Australia through an examination of its evolving values, beliefs, rites and customs’. In doing so I sought to distance myself from some of the standard clichés of Australian history: Much Australian history has been preoccupied with the quest for national identity – a preoccupation which is itself revealing – and has, as a result, often concentrated on that which is seen as being distinctively ‘Australian’: so a self-fulfilling model of national growth is embraced which defines and limits the narrative. My assumption has been that a provincial culture is by definition derivative, and that it is necessary to keep in view the continuing relationship with the metropolitan culture. The paradox is that if one focuses on the derivative, one gains a new perception of what might ultimately be seen as ‘distinctive’. Thus, for example, the Californian bungalow was an architectural importation, yet in its local