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Dictionary of Sydney

The Dictionary of Sydney
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Economy
Fourth sector industry
Domestic economy

The Dictionary of Sydney was archived in 2021.

Domestic economy

Subject

Transcript: Mrs Constance Jewell remembers economising with meals during the Depression

Transcript: Mrs Enid Borowsky recalls washing laundry in coppers and kerosene tins in the early twentieth century

EAW Cookery Book

Masters' and Servants' Act 1845

Electrical Association for Women

Story, Ann Fawcett

Chinese laundry, Surry Hills 1880

Electrical Association for Women Cookery book 1936

Electrical Association for Women Cookery book 1936

Immigration; or Where are the Immigrants? 1869

Pikelets being made at the Electrical Association, 1936

Ruth Park writing at home, one of her children under the table, September 1951

The all electric cookery book compiled by Mrs FV McKenzie for the Association for Electrical Development 1949

Woman doing laundry at the Parramatta Female Factory c1844

Women doing laundry at the Parramatta Female Factory c1844

Mrs Constance Jewell remembers economising with meals during the Depression, interviewed in 1986

Mrs Enid Borowsky, interviewed in 1986, recalls washing laundry in coppers and kerosene tins in the early twentieth century

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Domestic economy

Transcript: Mrs Constance Jewell remembers economising with meals during the Depression

Mrs Constance Jewell was born in 1896 and interviewed in 1986 for the 'Looking Back at Liverpool: An Oral History of the Liverpool Region 1900 to 1960.' She moved with her husband to Hammondville, a housing settlement for families in difficulty during the depression. She recalls economising with meals during that time.

Transcript: Mrs Enid Borowsky recalls washing laundry in coppers and kerosene tins in the early twentieth century

Mrs Enid Borowsky was interviewed, with her husband Carl Borowsky, in 1986 for the 'Looking Back at Liverpool: An Oral History of the Liverpool Region 1900 to 1960 ' project. They recall washing the household linen and clothing in coppers and kerosene tins in the early twentieth century.

EAW Cookery Book

full record »

An early 'all-electric' cookbook which ran to 7 editions after its publication in 1936.

Masters' and Servants' Act 1845

Legislation to regulate labour relations by requiring loyalty and obedience from contracted servants, and which in reality disciplined employees and repressed combination of workers in labour unions.

full record »

Electrical Association for Women

Educational association founded by Violet McKenzie to promote the use of electricity to make women's household work easier.

full record »

Story, Ann Fawcett

Cookery instructor who influenced school and technical education in Sydney and later in Victoria.

full record »

Chinese laundry, Surry Hills 1880

full record »

From the collections of the

State Library of New South Wales

Electrical Association for Women Cookery book 1936

full record »

Contributed By

Private collection

(Electrical Association for Women Cookery Book, compiled and published by Mrs FV McKenzie, Director of the Electrical Association for Women (Australia) Sydney, published by The Electrical Association for Women (Australia), Sydney 1936, p 4-5)

Electrical Association for Women Cookery book 1936

full record »

By

Violet McKenzie

Contributed By

Private collection

(Electrical Association for Women Cookery Book, compiled and published by Mrs FV McKenzie, Director of the Electrical Association for Women (Australia) Sydney, published by The Electrical Association for Women (Australia), Sydney 1936)

Immigration; or Where are the Immigrants? 1869

full record »

From the collections of the

State Library of New South Wales

(Sydney Punch, 22 May 1869 p4) (Mitchell Library)

Pikelets being made at the Electrical Association, 1936

full record »

Contributed By

Private collection

(Electrical Association for Women Cookery Book, compiled and published by Mrs FV McKenzie, Director of the Electrical Association for Women (Australia) Sydney, published by The Electrical Association for Women (Australia), Sydney 1936, p 98-9)

Ruth Park writing at home, one of her children under the table, September 1951

full record »

From the collections of the

State Library of New South Wales

[ON 388, Box 055, Item 084]

(Mitchell Library)

The all electric cookery book compiled by Mrs FV McKenzie for the Association for Electrical Development 1949

full record »

By

Violet McKenzie

From the collections of the

State Library of New South Wales

[a3112001 / ML 641.586/22]

Woman doing laundry at the Parramatta Female Factory c1844

full record »

By

Edward Winstanley

From the collections of the

State Library of New South Wales

[a2255004 / DL PXX 66]

(detail from 'Ways and Means or the Last Shift, cartoon featuring Parramatta Female Factory c1844') (Dixson Library))

Women doing laundry at the Parramatta Female Factory c1844

full record »

By

Edward Winstanley

From the collections of the

State Library of New South Wales

[a2255004 / DL PXX 66]

(detail from 'Ways and Means or the Last Shift, cartoon featuring Parramatta Female Factory c1844') (Dixson Library))

Mrs Constance Jewell remembers economising with meals during the Depression, interviewed in 1986

full record »

Mrs Constance Jewell was born in 1896 and interviewed in 1986 for the 'Looking Back at Liverpool: An Oral History of the Liverpool Region 1900 to 1960.' She moved with her husband to Hammondville, a housing settlement for families in difficulty during the depression. She recalls economising with meals during that time.
Transcript

CONSTANCE: In the dole days you had to be so careful because you had to stretch things. Three penneth of neck o' mutton and three penneth of soup vegetables and a handful of barley made a good dinner. The woman next door she put her dirt tin out one day and it was full of tins! I said 'What are you doing with all the tins?' She said 'Eat, of course!' I said 'They're twice as dear as what two dinners are the way I cook.' Sometimes you'd put a dumpling in it, sometimes you'd buy a neck of mutton and chop it all up and make a stew and then lift the bones out of it and that type of thing. Or you'd buy bacon bones and make pea soup. We used to make a cake, we couldn't afford eggs or anything like that, but I had one that I didn't have to put eggs in it. It was dripping mixed with sugar and you'd beat that up. And if you had eggs you were lucky. You put that in and a handful of fruit or whatever you had and some flour and a pinch of baking soda to darken it.

Contributed By

Liverpool City Library

(Excerpt from interview with Mrs Jewell from the 'Looking back at Liverpool : an oral history of the Liverpool region 1900-1960' conducted in 1986 by Liverpool City Council, editor and project co-ordinator Catherine Johnson ; researchers Angela Imbrosciano, Verica Miiosavijevic, Kathleen Smith)

Mrs Enid Borowsky, interviewed in 1986, recalls washing laundry in coppers and kerosene tins in the early twentieth century

full record »

Mrs Enid Borowsky was interviewed, with her husband Carl Borowsky, in 1986 for the 'Looking Back at Liverpool: An Oral History of the Liverpool Region 1900-1960 ' project. They recall washing the household linen and clothing in coppers and kerosene tins in the early twentieth century.

Transcript

INTERVIEWER: How did you do your washing Mrs Borowsky?

ENID: Well, we had a copper, the fuel with the copper, and then after that I got a gas copper.

INTERVIEWER: How big would the copper have been and what did it look like?

ENID: Well, it only had a bowl very much like the bowls you get in the washing machines today, and you used to use a stick to keep probing the clothes all the time while they're boiling, and you'd have to take them out and put them in cold water, and then just rinse them in cold water and then put them in the blue water, and rinse in the blue water and then wring them all out by hand; and then you hang them out on the line.

INTERVIEWER: And so you'd put wood under the copper is that idea?

ENID: Yes, that's right, wood under the copper and she'd boil away there, and I would say your clothes would be beautiful, they really were.

INTERVIEWER: What is blueing the clothes?

ENID: We used to put sticks of blue, in the cold water; what wanted blueing we used to put in that.

CARL: It makes your clothes white.

INTERVIEWER: Your mother's washing: how did she do that and where?

ENID: They used kerosene tins and they had a half a dozen bricks with a couple of bars across them, and they used to boil it. They never had a copper. That was the way they washed, in kerosene tins. And their washing was every bit as white as it is coming out of the washing machine today.

INTERVIEWER: What sort of wood would you put under the copper?

CARL: Apple cases, fruit cases, threepence each; smash them up and boil your washing with them.

Contributed By

Liverpool City Library

(Detail from interview with Mr Carl Borowsky and the Borowsky family from the 'Looking back at Liverpool : an oral history of the Liverpool region 1900-1960' conducted in 1986 by Liverpool City Council, editor and project co-ordinator Catherine Johnson ; researchers Angela Imbrosciano, Verica Miiosavijevic, Kathleen Smith.)

Fourth sector industry