A Struggle for Survival

Abstract

The struggles of the 1890s have been told and retold in the pages of Australian historiography. The defeat of the great strikes, the emergence of the Labor Party and the disappointment of political radicalism have preoccupied successive generations of scholars and activists. Indeed some have shaped the 'legend of the '90s' into a national mystique; a cause for celebration or regret.1 For all the debate which surrounds this formative period of Australian history,2 our knowledge of the 1890s is alarmingly incomplete. Notwithstanding the achievements of recent scholarship, social histories of the depression remain comparatively few. We still have a very inadequate understanding of those the depression hurt the most: the unemployed Show more