Page 10 - Demo

8INTRODUCTIONOne of the things you won%u2019t find in this book isthe Hills Hoist. It%u2019s not that our beloved clotheslineisn%u2019t important %u2013 it is. The Hills Hoist means agreat deal to many. It%u2019s been well represented inAustralian folklore, and I have a personal softspot for swinging on them, but they don%u2019t trulyrepresent Australian innovation. They weren%u2019teven our design %u2013 far from it. They were justincredibly popular in a country blessed, for aperiod of time, with backyards for everyone, andtheir story has well and truly been told.Instead, in this book you%u2019ll find a wide range ofAustralian designs that tell a story about a timein Australia%u2019s history when many of our everydayitems were designed and made locally. It was atime when %u2018Australian made%u2019 wasn%u2019t a marketingslogan but an expression of national pride.From the early twentieth century almostuntil%u00a0 its close, design in Australia thrived.These%u00a0 decades were a heyday of innovationand %u00a0 creativity, and buyers gobbled up whatour%u00a0 designers had to o%u00a0 er. Australia%u2019s ability todesign was born of necessity %u2013 we were a longway from everywhere else, and we needed stu%u00a0 .After World War II, the thinking was: %u2018What sortof country can%u2019t make things for themselves?%u2019We%u2019d been left high and dry when supply chainswere cut o%u00a0 during the war, and we weren%u2019t goingto let that happen again.The manufacturing boom of the late 1940sand 1950s was the golden age of consumerism.The tyranny of distance (both geographicallyand through tari%u00a0 s) meant there was a continuousprocess of adopting, adapting and inventing.