- Title
- Introduction
- Creator
- Cushing, Nancy; Eklund, Erik; Bennett, James
- Relation
- Radical Newcastle p. 1-14
- Relation
- https://www.newsouthbooks.com.au/books/radical-newcastle/
- Publisher
- NewSouth
- Resource Type
- book chapter
- Date
- 2015
- Description
- This collection demonstrates that the recent rapid, organised and effective responses to a variety of issues is not surprising within Newcastle and its surrounds. It unearths the radical history that laid its groundwork and explores its distinctive features. Many of the patterns of protest and dissent will be familiar to those who have knowledge of such matters from other places in Australia and elsewhere. From the time of Newcastle's founding in the first year of the 19th century, political and social protest became an increasingly global affair, and the shape of organising and protesting ever since has had strong links to the United Kingdom and later America. But in Newcastle, the distinctive features of the city and its social and economic makeup meant that this radicalism manifested in specific ways. The dominance of coal mining ensured that the miners loomed large over union organisation from the 1850s onwards. The presence of a seaport provided employment for a waterfront workforce, who also became heavily unionised and occasionally industrially militant. These dual pillars of the local economy were joined by manufacturing, particularly with the growth of the BHP steelworks after 1915. The manufacturing sector was the heartland of industrial militancy after 1945. This diverse labour force helped create a vigorous and complex local society. It also produced, often, a sense of grievance, since this was a regional city in a state heavily dominated by Sydney. Newcastle radicalism, then, was always tinged with a strong desire for autonomy and self-determination. Its distinctively regional manifestations of radicalism are reflected in the rich and diverse stories that our authors have to tell.
- Subject
- Newcastle; activism; radicalism; local history
- Identifier
- http://hdl.handle.net/1959.13/1309497
- Identifier
- uon:21892
- Identifier
- ISBN:9781742232591
- Language
- eng
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