Rise and Fall of Marvellous Melbourne, The

AUSTRALIANA

In the 1880s, a generation after the gold rushes, Melbourne rose to become Australia’s most populous, modern and self-consciously ‘metropolitan’ city. Its offices and warehouses leapt skyward, its suburbs sprawled and the tentacles of its commerce reached across the continent.
In the 1890s, the housing boom burst, depression struck and Melbourne’s population and influence declined. In this classic work of Australian social history, Graeme Davison explores the economic, political, social and cultural consequences of the meteoric rise, and calamitous fall, of the city dubbed ‘Marvellous Melbourne’.
Twenty-six years after this much-acclaimed book was first published, Davison offers a reappraisal of his original ideas in a new preface and epilogue. The book has also been enhanced by a series of picture essays exploring the response of contemporary artists and photographers to the transformation of city and suburbs.

382 p., [16] p. of plates. : ill., maps. ; 24 cm. #170822

• 1 ‘From Men to Money-grubbers’ 20
• The Gold-rush Merchants-the Rise of the Agency System-
• the Mercantile Community-the Counting House and the
• Commercial Office-Problems of Succession-the Drift
• of Trade-Balancing the Books
• 2 ‘The Old Spirit Has Gone Out’ 47
• A Sense of Disparity-the Pattern of Industrial Growth-
• ‘Captains of Industry’-Apprenticeship in Decay-Industrial
• Conflict-Manufacturing in Depression-Class Formation
• and Industrial Development
• 3 ‘This Modern Babel’ 85
• The ‘System’ and Its Enemies-Architects and Builders-
• Journeymen and Masters-the Torsion of the Market-
• the ‘System’ Returns
• 4 Professions and the Public 114
• Professional Status: the Attack from Within-the New
• Professions-Professional Status: the Attack from Outside
• 5 ‘A Great Quasi-mercantile Establishment’ 137
• The Rise of the Patronage System
• Civil Service Rebfrm-
• the Boom and the Bureaucrats-Retrenchment and Reaction
• 6 The Social Dynamics of a Metropolis 158
• Part Two THE SUBURBS 164
• 7 Suburban Dreams and Urban Realities 166
• ‘The Advantages of Country and City Life Combined’-the
• Social Functions of Domestic Privacy-Patterns of
• Residential Segregation-Factors in Suburban Growth-
• the Public Transport Revolution-the End of the Sprawl
• 8 ‘A City of Freehold Homes’ 212
• A Home of One’s Own’-the Pattern of Ownership-
• Compulsory Tenants and Reluctant Landlords
• 9 Making Ends Meet 231
• Foundations of a Plutocratic Society: the Structure of Means-
• Anticipatory Spending: the ‘Marriage Question’-Patterns of
• Expenditure-the Depression: a Multiple Crisis of Means-
• Drastic Remedies-a New Fashion of Austerity
• 10 ‘Marvellous Melbourne’ 279
• The Ideal and Its Critics-History and Prophecy-
• the Fall of the City and the Rise of the Rural Ideal.

Bibliography: p. 365-371.

Melbourne (Vic.) — History.  |  Melbourne (Vic.) — Economic conditions — 1851-1901.