"The best place in the Commonwealth" : the lives of mothers in post-war Canberra

Abstract

The principle point of departure for this study was my personal experience of life w ith two small children in a part of Canberra built in the early 1950s. The house we moved into in 1985 was in its original condition - wooden and uninsulated, with cold water only taps in the laundry and a wood-burning stove in the kitchen. The backyard was big and bare and. at the front of the house, no fence secured the property. The walk to the closest shops was long, and torturously uphill for the return journey. In these respects 1 faced the kind of challenges that had confronted mothers of small children living there when the suburb was established thirty-five years earlier.