- Pattern of the National Type: Australians, the Beach, and the Rise of the Lifesaver in the Interwar Period
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- The Australian experience of the beach is like no other. Not only has the beach been a formative and spiritual site in the development of the Australian citizen, but it has also shaped the nation state. For many, the popular image of an Australian is embodied in the beach, as encapsulated in Max Dupain’s “Sunbaker”: a man whose smooth, muscular physique is bronzed by the sun and hardened by the climate. This essay examines how the beach became the lens through which Australians interpreted their own character, and how the surf lifesaver became the placeholder of national identity in the interwar period. It does so by exploring three events in 1938: the dramatic rescue of 200 beachgoers at Bondi, the celebrations for the sesquicentenary of White Australia, and the first appeal fund run by the Surf Life Saving Association of Australia. By analysing newspaper articles and oral histories about these events, and Australians’ experience of the beach more broadly, this paper contends that the lifesaver succeeded the digger as the ‘new national type’ in the interwar period because ‘he’ subsumed the ideas of masculinity, volunteer service and wholesomeness that had defined previous incarnations. By drawing on the artworks of Max Dupain and Charles Meere, this paper demonstrates how the experience of the beach and characterisation of the lifesaver were interwoven with notions of antiquity that had defined the Anzac myth. The lifesaver’s ascension, however, was contingent upon overcoming Victorian sexual mores and legal restrictions on open sea-bathing. Ultimately, this essay concludes that just as the contours of the shoreline have changed with time, so too has Australian national identity. However, that change has always adhered to a certain pattern.
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