Retailing and the home in 1960s Sydney

The retail industry is intimately tied to demography. In the 1960s, as the car drove populations outwards from the urban core, Australia’s big city stores watched their sales stagnate. The market had moved to the suburbs and companies with the vision and opportunity followed. Using examples from Sydney, this paper examines the idea of home through the lens of this rapidly changing retail geography. It argues that by reading retail we can gain fresh perspectives on our understanding of the early postwar home in Australia.