social identity 101

'The Currency' was the name the first generation of Australians born to settlers and convicts gave themselves. They were also referred to as 'natives'; indigenous Australians in those days were simply known as 'blacks'. 'The currency' came about because the young workers demanded wages for their labour. As their parents were mostly ex-convicts the establishment hadn't thought it necessary to pay them for their work.

The first mob of white Australians developed a distinct and strong identity, identifying with the Irish underclass and the itinerant working class, in opposition to the ruling elite (the English) who they referred to as nobs. The currency prided themselves on being hard workers, independent, honest, sporty (they took particular pride in beating the English at games), physically active, and liberated from the social niceties governing polite society. The 'larrikinism', the mateship, the physicality and the cheekiness of the the anti-establishment 'Aussie battler' stereotype is easily traced from this early sense of selfhood.

Clearly it was a masculine sense of identity but there were currency lasses as well since it was usually necessary for women of this class to earn their own living or support the family while their men worked away from home.