Description:

Description:
Clare Wright's award-winning research challenges the myth that the Australian pub is a maledomain, revealing the enduring and dynamic presence of female publicans behind the bar. Wright takes the reader on a pub crawl through this history- from Sarah Bird, the 27-year-old convictwho was Australia's first female licensee, to Big Poll the Grog Seller, the miners' darling on thegoldfields, to Cheryl Barassi and Dawn Fraser in recent years.
Handsomely illustrated and weaving oral history interviews, archival sources, folk songs, bushballads and other popular literature throughout the narrative, this groundbreaking book exposesthe remarkable visibility and dominance of women in Austalian hotel-keeping culture.