Backbencher

In this extra lecture we heard from Dr. Troy Whitford, via the video class, who was in Wagga Wagga talking to us at 5am his time. His lecture was titled, "Australia: A Short History of Mentalities". In this lecture we talked about key historical events in Australia that included; settlement and the colony as an open goal, The Eureka Stockade, Federation, The 1920s, and the Post WWII Era. In the settlement topic he talked about the transfer of British culture and social values from the 18th century to Australia. We went over the convicts and how they could obtain land if they had a wife and children. A lot of this was review from one of our early lectures. The only new information was about the orphans. Even if children had a mother they were still considered orphans because to them a family had to consist of a mother and a father, which I found really odd. Dr. Whitford then talked about the Eureka stockade in 1854. It was a rebellion against taxation by self employment. This was thought to be their "working man's rebellion" even though it was a short lived revolt that ended with 22 casualties. Next was the Federation, which was the uniting of colonies to form one nation. It wasn't for ideological reasons that they became a nation, but rather for economic ones. Fourth was the 1920s which was about 'Australia Unlimited'. This time period was all about wealth and capitalism. The Prime Minister Stanley's formula was 'Men, money, and markets'. The last topic was Post WWII and dealt with recovering from the depression that the wars had brought about. A lot of money went into housing development at this time. Homeownership was promoted as the key to 'responsible citizenship'. Overall I really enjoyed this lecture, mainly because we got to hear first hand from someone in Australia what it is like over there. I thought it was funny when he talked about American football - our helmets and cheerleaders. The only question I still have is what do they teach their students in Australia about our history here in America?