The Dictionary’s articles have been included in the National Library of Australia’s invaluable Trove service for the first time, and we are thrilled to be playing a small part in this important national endeavour.
Of course, we’ve been correcting away on the Australian digitised newspapers that we use all the time, and sending readers and researchers off to Trove at every chance we get, but it’s very nice to have our content suddenly available to the world through this trusted search resource.
If you haven’t become an addicted user and browser in Trove, you are missing out. It’s the place to discover all things Australian. And as the Dictionary grows, we’ll be adding more to it, and including more kinds of content in the federated search.
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Steel frame of AWA building and old Mangovite Belting Ltd building c1938, by Frank Hurley, courtesy National Library of Australia nla.pic-an23478366
The Dictionary of Sydney, like the city, is based on the built environment. From our first commissioned articles (over 600 suburbs each with demographic information), to our essays and entries, some of the most important parts of the Dictionary deal with buildings, spaces, precincts and the themes of built environment, planning, housing and suburban development.
To understand a city, you need to know how it grew. We have essays on Sydney’s roads in general, and on the arteries that lead north, south, south west, east and west. Along these (and along the railways) grew the townships that became suburbs. Along the way, specific streets, like Broadway, Market Row and Martin Place, became sites of commerce, development and change. The Dictionary also includes two quirky and creative takes on city infrastructure and how people interact with it, Reading the roads, and The decorated footpath, by Megan Hicks.
The Dictionary is able to get down to real specifics: individual buildings, both well known ones like Central Station, or the GPO, and some that might be less familiar to many, like the Hero of Waterloo Hotel, or the Baha’i House of Worship. There are references to and articles on individual architects, builders, engineers, developers, and planners.
Norman Selfe's Approaches to bridge and Scheme for remodelling The Rocks 1891, courtesy State Library of NSW a1528551 / SSV/47 - click on the image to zoom in
And it isn’t all a story of improvement.
Much was lost in the modernisation and growth of Sydney. Buildings long demolished, such as the Theatre Royal, and the Hotel Australia, live on in the Dictionary of Sydney. We also tell the stories of resistance and activism, with articles on the Green Bans which saved much of historic Sydney, including buildings in Glebe, The Rocks and Woolloomooloo, and its pockets of bush, such as Kelly’s Bush.
Eastern Suburbs Railway line viaduct construction in the 1970s, City of Sydney Archives SRC 14517
Along the way, people who came to Sydney brought their ways of building, socialising and living with them, changing the city around them. While most of the early colonists were English, with English tastes and styles of building, later immigrants, such as the Chinese, Italians, Greeks, Croatians, Germans, French, Lebanese and Dutch, as well as the Vietnamese, Cambodians and Lao, brought different styles to the city, with their churches, mosques, schools, clubs and other community buildings. Our entries on cultural groups relate how the city was changed by these new Sydneysiders.
So if you are interested in how the built environment of our city came to be, there’s no better place to start than the Dictionary. And as the city continues to grow and change, so will the Dictionary.
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Mug shot of Neville McQuade (18) and Lewis Stanley Keith (19), North Sydney Police Station, early June 1942, from the Justice & Police Museum Collection, Historic Houses Trust of NSW Rec: 31234
At this time of year in Sydney, dressing up is high on the agenda for a lot of Sydneysiders, who are working out what to wear in the Mardi Gras parade, or to the various parties and events.
But the story of drag in Sydney goes back a lot further than Mardi Gras, and illuminates a history of gender-role policing, persecution, resistance and fabulous frocks that dates back to convict days.
Garry Wotherspoon‘s article on Drag and cross dressing in Sydney outlines this fascinating story, with multimedia that ranges from a Sidney Nolan painting to mugshots and newspaper clippings, as well as oral history about Sydney’s drag venues.
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In Mardi Gras month, it’s good to remember that Sydney has always had people of varying sexualities, and despite efforts to police them, they’ve always been here.
The Dictionary’s article on Lesbians in Sydney is by Rebecca Jennings, and traces the stories of female same-sex desire in Sydney from before the Europeans arrived. Rebecca’s work is based on both archival research and oral history, and adds greatly to understandings of what was, for much of the period, a hidden and private culture. Castigated as sinful and immoral in the nineteenth century, lesbianism was medicalised in the twentieth century and considered to be a psychological disorder. At the same time, the tabloid newspapers revelled in the sensational stories of lesbian murderers (such as Eugenia Falleni) or gangsters (like Iris Webber).
'Lesbian Brides' marching group, Mardi Gras 1994 by C. Moore Hardy. Contributed by City of Sydney Archives (061-061352)
With the advent of renewed movements for women’s rights and gay liberation, the lesbian underground became a public subculture and an important part of the city’s fabric. Women produced lesbian publications, such as Lesbians on the Loose, or LOTL as it is now known, plays, films and novels in Sydney, creating a vibrant cultural space in which lesbian issues were debated, often contentiously. These women were crucial to the development of second wave feminism in Sydney.
Lesbian activists were part of the Mardi Gras from its beginnings in public protest, and remain stalwarts of the festival, as parade participants, artists and cultural producers, activists and fans out to have fun.
Have a great weekend!
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