Suburban heaven and hell (by Deluca Lawson-Matthew)

Suburbanisation in Australia came into fruition in the aftermath of World War II. Several factors led to suburban life becoming a viable alternative to the reported slums and poor living conditions of inner city that many were all too familiar with. However the appeal, from the growing Australian middle class, for a large, modern and comfortable home, which was associated with suburbia, had overlooked a basic human necessity; a sense of belonging within a community.

In the late 1940’s and 1950’s, the cornerstone of mainstream Australian culture - which one could argue is still paramount in the modern day – was that as an Australian, one had he right to a good life, which had been fought for by Australia’s founders and those who had defended the nation in times of war. Embedded in this notion was private ownership of land and the ability to exercise one’s autonomy over the land in which they resided. The concept of “the Suburban Dream” (Pascoe 2011) provided a conceivable reality to allow Australian citizens to fulfil this engrained belief. 

Pascoe (2011) discusses how Robert Menzies’ the then Australian Prime Minister (image 1), gave the growing middle class of Australia a sense of envisagement through presenting Australian Suburbia as a quintessential cornerstone to the individuality and freedom that was entrenched into the white Anglo-Australian way of life. Menzies’ emphasised that suburban life would provide the means to a healthy family life and a perfect environment to raise children. Suburbanisation would, in conjunction with juxtaposing the congested living conditions of inner city living, contributed to the mass consumption of household appliances that was directly a result of the post World War II economic boom (Scollay 2012). Thus only aiding to the perception of consumerism and intemperance that was paramount in the middle of the 20th Century. 

One could argue that, consumerism and a yearning for intemperance lured people to Suburbia. However, the utopian notion of this re-envisaged Australian way of life that was sold to prosperous Anglo-Australian family and the realities of suburban life in the 1950’s never seemed to align. The realities of suburbanisation were that people were forced to fit into stereotypes. No particular stereotype greater than that of the suburban housewife. Deemed to take control of all the domestic requirements, the housewife of suburbia was essentially trapped to the private environment that encompassed the idea of ‘home’. Both Pascoe (2011) and Scollay (2012) emphasise the distinction between the public sphere that was dominated by males and the private domestic sphere that women and children were bound to. A paradox was thus conveyed. Despite government rhetoric and the popular mainstream culture presenting suburbanisation as the most logical method of exercising one’s ‘individuality and freedom,’ some very traditional values were embedded into suburban life, none more apparent that that of the domesticated housewife. The potential for social isolation was paramount. Whilst the household male would engage with other males in the public sphere, women were expected to prepare the ‘home’ for when the husbands returned to rest (Pascoe 2011). This conception was heavily embedded into rhetoric of suburbanisation. Personally the mentality of suburbanisation that was being portrayed by the Government, specifically Robert Menzies and the assumed popular culture stood for the exact opposite to realities that being exercised by many Australians. The ideas of individuality and freedom were the façade to an environment that demanded citizens fit into a modular idea that was perceived to be for the betterment of all individual and families involved. However in order to reap the benefits, one and one’s family had to conform. Conforming itself is a contrast to the perceived individuality and freedom that was apparently paramount to the Anglo-Australian way of life. As Scollay (2012) discusses, much of the feminist literature of the time suggested that suburbia presented a situation of “one step forwards, two steps backwards.” Nevertheless, despite it being critiqued as backward, many of the women who had relocated to Suburbia felt comfortable fitting into a more traditional role, with minimal disinterest in continued employment in the post war era.
 

Scollay (2012) depicts a group of women, specifically housewives in Lalor, a suburb that was established in the 1950’s six kilometres to the north of Melbourne’s CBD, who banded together, through their collective sense of isolation, effectively established a community. The Lalor Women’s Social Club (LWSC) would in due course set up childcare facilities, with minimal funding from Lalor councillors, to accommodate for the children in the area. These local councillors were by majority male farmers and provided resistance to the LWSC. The councillors held a conservative stance toward any type of change, especially change that would not fit into their linear ideas for the direction of the suburb. Through sheer determination to provide themselves and their families with a sense of community, the LWSC provided a clear yet rare example of a minority who broke away from the modular ideas that surrounded suburbanisation. This movement was conducted through the willpower to break through the concealment of the private domestic household and it’s engulfing sense of isolation.

Whilst the white Anglo-Australian middle class were relocating to newly found suburban areas of the country’s major cities, there were foreign immigrants from a wide array of cultural background moving into the cities and specifically into the inner-city areas. These immigrants appeared to, mostly likely though sheer unfamiliarity with Australian society and ideologies, modified many inner-city dwellings to better suit their needs and way of life. Pascoe (2011) describes how the Italian immigrants in Carlton completely reconstructed the built environment in which they found themselves. These immigrants, unfamiliar to the political pull and the popular Australian culture of the time, saw the inner-city environment through unbiased eyes for what actually present. These people saw a convenient location to reside, relocate their wider families and an ideal place to conduct business.
 

To surmise, the idea of suburbanisation that was conveyed and sold to the public varied immensely from the backward and linear realities that Australian Suburbia in the post World War II era presented.




Reference List:
Delstein, S. 2015 A visual remix of the American Dream as pictured in Mid-Century media, viewed 7 May 2015,

 http://envisioningtheamericandream.com 

News Corp Australia, 2014, John Howard’s Homage to hero Robert Menzies, The Australian, Sydney, viewed 7 May 2015,

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/arts/visual-arts/john-howards-homage-to-hero-robert-menzies/story-fn9d3avm-1227026098789

Pascoe, C. 2011, ‘One Little Piece of Earth: Ideals and Realities of 1950s Homes’ in Spaces Imagined, Places Remembered: Childhood in 1950s Australia, Cambridge Scholars Publishing, Newcastle, pp. 89-111.

Scollay, S. 2012, “Lalor Women’ in Lalor, UNSW Press, Sydney, pp. 212-240.