Vital Connections: Melbourne and Its Board Works
Australian History Local History Cultural History Young Adult Non-Fiction Urban History Australian Non-Fiction Infrastructure Studies Industrial Archaeology
“Vital Connections: Melbourne and Its Board Works” is the 1991 first-edition hardback that collectors and Australian-history buffs prize for its rarity and depth. Across 432 illustrated pages, urban historians Tony Dingle and Carolyn Rasmussen map the hidden arteries—water, sewerage, gas, electricity, transport—that turned a colonial frontier town into a modern metropolis. Because the book was produced as a limited-run government reference rather than a mass-market title, clean copies with the original dust jacket seldom surface on the secondary market, making this very-good copy a genuine find for anyone building a serious Australiana library.
Unlike celebratory city biographies, “Vital Connections” is a forensic true story told through board minutes, budgets, and the first-hand voices of engineers, workers, and householders. Readers witness the political battles, financial panics, and public-health crises that shaped Melbourne’s suburban sprawl from the 1880s land-boom to the 1990s. The authors balance scholarly rigour with vivid narrative, so young-adult students can grasp the human stakes while adult enthusiasts enjoy the rich social detail—why a sewer vent stack ignited class warfare, how electric trams re-wired gender politics, or which inner-city slum became the template for Australia’s first public-housing estate.
Beyond antiquarian appeal, the book is a practical toolkit for heritage consultants, urban planners, teachers, and family historians. Maps, technical drawings, and rare archival photographs pinpoint every bridge, pumping station, and power corridor still traceable on foot, giving readers a ready-made field guide to Melbourne’s living industrial archaeology. Whether you need primary evidence for a school project, local-history talk, or professional report, “Vital Connections” delivers authoritative, citation-ready data no online archive can match.
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