australian history
Uploaded by joeydaprof on Jun 12, 2006
Chapter One
• The most important areas of development before 1900 were ports, roads and railways. A country as big as Australia would soon be crippled if its products could not reach local and overseas markets. Therefore, the development of transport was critical to the growth of the wool, sugar, beef, mining and dairy industries.
• In 1900 Australia had ridden `on the sheep's back'. This meant that Australia's wealth came mainly from primary industry wool was still Australia's most important industry, with over half of the money made in exports coming from the wool industry.
• The most important invention for Australia was refrigeration technology, which allowed the transportation of goods in a frozen state. Primary or farming products could now be sent great distances and even sold at overseas markets, especially in Britain. The beginning of refrigeration technology was the key to strengthening Australia's primary industry.
• An increase in the manufacturing of heavy and light industrial products in factories had created a boom time in the 1880s and strengthened Australia's economy. Up until the, Australians had imported the goods they needed from England. This meant that Australians were spending too much money on British imports, supporting the English economy rather than the Australian economy.
• The growth of manufacturing industries in cities provided employment for unskilled workers and made moving to the city an attractive option.
• Cities grew and so did infrastructure needed to support factories and manufacturing.
• Negative impacts about factories and cities were:
o Wages low (making them live in poverty)
o Factories were dangerous (which if got injured wives or children had to be the bread winners)
o In the cities people were living in poverty in housing that had become
Overcrowded and over crowded
• Skilled workers and their families belonged to the middle classes and lived in the growing suburbs that sprang up around the cities. Breadwinners from this group could afford a mortgage and the cost of travelling to work each day.
• The infrastructure of a society refers to basic needs of society, such as roads, hospitals and water
• primary industry, especially sheep and wheat,
the driving force behind Australia's growth a nation in 1901. But not all people
Benefited especially from this in the early years of the century.
• The Depression of the 1890s followed...