Trade unions and the depression : a study of Victoria 1930-1932

Abstract

The traumatic experience of the depression of the early 1930s has excited the attention of remarkably few historians in Australia. This close study of the Victorian trade union movement is a pioneering investigation which, it is hoped, may encourage scholars to review conditions in other States during the time of economic crisis. For some readers the work will revive bitter or humiliating memories. Later generations of the affluent society may find here a meaningful commentary on the gulf of suffering that separates them from their elders.