'I buy this piece of ground here'
eBook - PDF

'I buy this piece of ground here'

An Italian market-gardener community in Adelaide, 1920s–1970s

  1. 320 pages
  2. English
  3. PDF
  4. Available on iOS & Android
eBook - PDF

'I buy this piece of ground here'

An Italian market-gardener community in Adelaide, 1920s–1970s

About this book

'I buy this piece of ground here' is a group biography that examines the lives and work of a cohort of Italian migrant families from the Veneto region who arrived in Australia in the 1920s and formed a new community and identity as market gardeners in outer suburban Adelaide.

This book investigates the settlement processes in a period of Australian migration history often overlooked in favour of post–World War II studies of mass migration and multiculturalism. It considers the impacts of the Depression, fascism, World War II, the White Australia environment that excluded southern Europeans and, ultimately, the suburbanisation that overtook their community.

Drawing on 65 oral histories with sons and daughters of the first generation, archival and published records, the narrative reveals what it felt like to work market gardens that became economic and emotional anchors for a new community. The first generation raised families, worked and bought the land, planted vegetables, bartered for glasshouses, sold produce at market, celebrated in packing sheds and established a stable, resilient community between the wars.

The Veneto families developed successful commercial market gardens and created a self-contained village or paese in a small area west of Adelaide. Withstanding marginalisation, the market gardeners lived and worked together in a small community, prospered and created an economy, a sense of belonging and a future for their children.

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Yes, you can access 'I buy this piece of ground here' by Madeleine Regan in PDF and/or ePUB format, as well as other popular books in History & Australian & Oceanian History. We have over one million books available in our catalogue for you to explore.

Information

Publisher
ANU Press
Year
2025
eBook ISBN
9781760466701
Edition
1

Table of contents

  1. List of illustrations
  2. Acknowledgements
  3. 1. Building a group biography
  4. 2. Beginnings in Adelaide
  5. 3. Attachment to land
  6. 4. Family life and labour
  7. 5. Life within the community
  8. 6. Community in times of crisis
  9. 7. Pathways: The 1.5 and second generations
  10. 8. Transforming the paese
  11. 9. Conclusion: Continuity of the paese
  12. Bibliography
  13. Index