Mapping Difference in the “Uniform” Workers’ Cottages of Maria Island, Tasmania

Abstract

In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, company towns often provided housing for workers within a system of benevolent paternalism. This paper examines a set of workers’ cottages known as “the Twelve Apostles” on Maria Island, Tasmania. The archaeology reveals differences between the standardized, company-built houses, providing evidence that the residents’ responses often varied in ways that were not officially expected or sanctioned by the company. People individualized their houses in ways that reflect their everyday routines and rituals, and demonstrate how they made these houses into homes.