The Dictionary of Sydney was archived in 2021.

Women in focus

2012
Filling in the details along Pitt Street, from 'Sands & Kenny's map of Sydney and its environs' 1858, National Library of Australia nla.map-rm1272
Filling in the details along Pitt Street, from 'Sands & Kenny's map of Sydney and its environs' 1858, National Library of Australia nla.map-rm1272
One of the more unusual articles added recently to the Dictionary is Catherine Bishop's exhaustive piece on the women of Pitt Street. Catherine takes readers on a virtual walk up Pitt Street in 1858, peering in the shop doors and windows to find the women who live, work and play there. It's a fascinating snapshot of the range of businesswomen, employees, servants, landladies, teachers, and others, who were manufacturing, selling, cleaning, teaching and generally making a living in mid-nineteenth-century Sydney. Catherine has made full use of the possibilities of searchable digitised resources like Trove and the New South Wales Births Deaths and Marriages indexes to follow these individuals and save them from 'the enormous condescension of posterity', to use the phrase coined by EP Thompson. It's a fascinating way to experience Pitt Street.              
Categories
Blog