Rising Damp: Sydney 1870-90

In the economic boom of the 1870s and '80s, many Australian workers believed fortunes could be made in the antipodes--the "worker's paradise"--and this belief drove thousands of men and women clear across the continent to burgeoning cities such as Sydney. In Rising Damp, the author confronts the assumption that employment was easy and a high standard of living prevailed in Sydney during the boom decades and illustrates the ways in which these assumptions hindered social and urban reform and exacerbated the problems accompanying such rapid expansion.