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Weekend Magazine: The modern office workplace, 1960s style

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Old photo of man taking papers from office desk, woman sits beside
Weekend Magazine: The modern office workplace, 1960s style

SUBJECTS:  History

YEARS:  9–10


How different was the Australia workplace over half a century ago?

This Weekend Magazine program from the mid-1960s looks at work in what was then the new Commonwealth Centre in Sydney, where 2,000 Commonwealth public servants were employed. It provides a glimpse of a world that has changed beyond recognition.

As you watch the program, discover what it reveals about Australia in the sixties.


Things to think about

  1. 1.How have office workplaces changed in the last five decades? Can you think of ways in which technology has changed the operation and even the viability of some office jobs? What might you have expected to see in an office building in the 1960s that you won't see today? And vice versa?
  2. 2.List all of the jobs depicted in the clip. What currency is shown in the canteen price list and what does this tell us about when the video was made? Where are Dr Gordon Vaughan and his family bound? Why is he visiting the Commonwealth Centre? With what airline do you think the Vaughans would have flown from England?
  3. 3.Of the jobs that you observed in the clip, which might no longer exist? Suggest why this is the case and the role that technology might have played in their demise. Which jobs might still exist but be performed by people not employed by the Commonwealth? Find out about the Assisted Migration Scheme. Why was the Australian Government keen to welcome citizens from other Commonwealth countries in the 1960s?
  4. 4.Conduct research using the internet and other resources to find out how technological change has affected office workplaces since the mid-1960s. In your report, explain the types of machines that have contributed to change. Also note any milestones in these developments.



Date of broadcast: 8 Dec 1963


Copyright

Metadata © Australian Broadcasting Corporation and Education Services Australia Ltd 2012 (except where otherwise indicated). Digital content © Australian Broadcasting Corporation (except where otherwise indicated). Video © Australian Broadcasting Corporation (except where otherwise indicated). All images copyright their respective owners. Text © Australian Broadcasting Corporation and Education Services Australia is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License (CC BY-SA 4.0).

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