Overview

Baby booms have a long history. In 1870, colonial Melbourne was ’perspiring juvenile humanity’ with an astonishing 42 per cent of the city’s inhabitants aged 14 and under - a demographic anomaly resulting from the gold rushes of the 1850s. Within this context, Simon Sleight enters the heated debate concerning the future prospects of ’Young Australia’ and the place of the colonial child within the incipient Australian nation. Looking beyond those institutional sites so often assessed by historians of childhood, he ranges across the outdoor city to chart the relationship between a discourse about youth, youthful experience and the shaping of new urban spaces. Play, street work, consumerism, courtship, gang-related activities and public parades are examined using a plethora of historical sources to reveal a hitherto hidden layer of city life. Capturing the voices of young people as well as those of their parents, Sleight alerts us to the ways in which young people shaped the emergent metropolis by appropriating space and attempting to impress upon the city their own desires. Here a dynamic youth culture flourished well before the discovery of the ’teenager’ in the mid-twentieth century; here young people and the city grew up together.

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9781409432449

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Reviews

Marvellous Melbourne , a precocious new world city of the late nineteenth century, is the site for this rich and acute study of how young people carved out their own spaces in the urban outdoors. Simon Sleight draws on a remarkable range of sources to illuminate the subversive perspectives of Melbourne's youth. The book contributes to the burgeoning international scholarship on young people's historical experiences, and is recommended reading for historians, geographers and sociologists alike.'Stuart Macintyre, University of Melbourne, Australia

'... this book reveals much about the everyday mobility of young people in colonial Australia, and offers a fresh and timely perspective on the historical dimensions of urban spaces. ... Sleight's ability to delve into the historical experiences of young people has led to a vividly written, well-illustrated and instructive book about childhood in late colonial Melbourne.' Journal of Historical Geography 'What Sleight's study refreshingly presents before the reader is a history of childhood which concentrates on children's experiences rather than adults' view of children.' Australian Historical Studies '... the book contributes significantly to understanding the spatiality of young people in the past. With young people largely silent in the archives, historians of children and youth are constantly challenged by scarce sources. But Sleight is a skillful detective, mining municipal records, diaries, photographs and more to bring his subjects to life. He demonstrates a painstaking capacity to sift through voluminous archives and texts, extract meaningful fragments and weave them into an evocative picture. In doing so, Sleight accords the young Melburnians at the heart of his research agency, humanity and vitality.' Journal of Australian Studies ' Marvellous Melbourne , a precocious new world city of the late nineteenth century, is the site for this rich and acute study of how young people carved out their own spaces in the urban outdoors. Simon Sleight draws on a remarkable range of sources to illuminate the subversive perspectives of Melbourne's youth. The book contributes to the burgeoning international scholarship on young people's historical experiences, and is recommended reading for historians, geographers and sociologists alike.' Stuart Macintyre, University of Melbourne, Australia 'There is no doubt at all in my mind that this book will become a classic in the genre.' Reviews in History 'Any architect, any student, or any historian who is eager to ask what a city is, who wants to understand the lived experience of urban children, or who wants to make cities more welcoming places for them should read Young People and the Shaping of Public Space in Melbourne.' Journal of Architectural Education [Sleight's] simultaneous consideration of age and urban space is both long overdue and well crafted ... This book is a skilful blend of academic debates on youth, cities and space, and it sets the benchmark for future studies in this area. Social History Sleight is to be commended for producing a book that is at once a rich local history and a work of international relevance. ... this book is meticulously researched and eloquently written and should be read by anyone interested in urban history or the history of childhood. It also offers an insightful depiction of Australia in the making and of the rapid changes underway in a modernizing urban environment around the turn of the twentieth century, through the lens of youth. Journal of the History of Childhood and Youth

Author Information

Simon Sleight is Senior Lecturer in Australian History at King's College London and Adjunct Research Associate at Monash University in Melbourne. He is also Co-founding Director of the Children's History Society in the UK.

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