Populating the Nation: A Genealogy of Colonial Australian Character Types

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This project investigates the vast array of character types mobilised by colonial writers in Australia from the mid-1800s to the beginning of the First World War. Rural Australia saw numerous character types introduced into the landscape (the rouseabout, the selector, the bush parson, and so on), but the cities also saw a proliferation of types that turned metropolitan Australia into a fluid, complex and often spectacular social space. This project examines colonial character types across print and visual culture as a matter of national investment, conceived in terms of their capacity to contribute to a rapidly-growing and increasingly modern colonial cultural economy.