Struggletown Public and Private Life in Richmond 1900–1965

'The old Struggletowners, if they could see it now, would not believe their eyes.' In Struggletown, Janet McCalman takes us into the inner-city industrial working-class suburb of Richmond, in Melbourne, before the gentrification of the 1970s. This is a narrative richly informed by the voices and memories of those who lived there during this time—the Struggletowners themselves—as well as by McCalman's familiarity with the objects, buildings, and topography of their physical environment and her impressive awareness of larger social forces, structures, and patterns. As urban life continues to develop in new directions and complex human and political relations suggest new futures, the difficulty and necessity of remembering, now, also lends this classic work a palpable new relevance.

Janet McCalman is known for her award-winning books, Struggletown, Journeyings, and Sex and Suffering, all published by MUP. As a Redmond Barry Distinguished Professor in the Melbourne School of Population & Global Health, she has always been fascinated by the experience of historical cohorts and the interplay between private life and the public world of politics and policy. In 2018 she was made a Companion of the Order of Australia.