A Wealth of Women: Australian Women's Lives From 1788 to the Present by Alison Alexander with Prue Torney-Parlicki

Book Description

Secondhand. Very good condition. Minor wear to book corners and edges. Pages are sunned. Interior and binding are also very good.

Drawing on the lives of hundreds of real people, Alison Alexander has created a mosaic in which private and domestic matters are more important than the public affairs covered in most history books. It is the story of all sorts of people, from Indigenous women who watched the First Fleet arrive through the increasingly diverse experiences of later immigrants.

Their experiences include humour and stoicism, tragedy, and occasional despair. The themes that emerge are of hard work and endurance. Until the 1870s, almost all women married and had an average of seven children. While the birthrate started to drop after that, the most significant changes in women's lives did not come until after the Second World War.

The book is enlivened with brief and sometimes funny stories of particular women's hopes and experiences. At the same time, a series of snapshots remind us of changes in particular areas of women's lives, from trimmed bonnets to jeans, from family roast to Asian takeaways. (book flap)

Commissioned by the Commonwealth Office of the Status of Women.