283 pp. volume on workers' housing, scattered illustrations throughout including a handful of folding plates and maps. Octavo (8 3/4 x 5 3/4 inches). Later brown cloth with original front wrapper mounted to cover. Handling wear, light scattered toning and foxing, hand-written inscription dated March 1915 to title page, overall very good. Sydney: W.A. Gullick, 1913.

Robert Francis Irvine (1861-1941) was a Scottish-born economist who emigrated to New Zealand with his family as a child before moving to Australia around 1892. He served as headmaster of several schools, was friends with artists and writers such as Arthur Adams, Christopher Brennan, George Lambert, and Thea Proctor, and founded Australian Magazine in 1897. He became the first professor of economics at the University of Sydney in 1912, In 1897 he was appointed examiner and inspecting officer to the Public Service Board, and from 1900 was on the board of examiners for public service. As special commissioner appointed by New South Wales Premier W.A. Holman, Irvine visited Europe and the United States and published his findings in this volume in 1913.

Divided into thirteen chapters, this work touches on topics including "The Housing Problem", "Housing by the State", "Municipal Housing", "Housing by Industrial Companies", "Garden Cities", "Tenement or Block Dwellings versus Cottages", "Possibility of Building Good Houses Cheaply", and "Town-Planning as a Preventive of Future Evils." There are illustrations scattered throughout, depicting the "slums" of Sydney as well as residential homes and apartment blocks in America and Europe. There are also floor plans of New York City apartment buildings and tenements, a "cottage" development in England called Port Sunlight, and single-family homes.

The volume also has a number of folding plates, including a plan for the Dacey Garden Suburb in New South Wales; a plan for a proposed village at New Earswick near York; a ground plan for a Krupp Colony near Essen; a map for the Hampstead Garden Suburb outside of London; a color-printed plan of the Brentham Garden Suburb from Ealing Tenants Ltd in the UK; and a large color-printed map depicting the "Town Area of the Letchworth Estate of First Garden City Ltd".

A fascinating overview of working-class housing and architecture in the United States and America in the early 20th century, from an syndicalist economist.

Book ID: 53457

Price: $650.00