Introducing Hansen PhD Scholar Patrick Gigacz

The Hansen Trust, established to advance the study of History at University of Melbourne, includes an annual PhD scholarship for the doctoral program in History in SHAPS. In 2024 the scholarship was awarded to Patrick Gigacz, who is researching the cultural history of electricity in Melbourne. Fellow PhD candidate Jesse Seeberg-Gordon sat down with Patrick for a conversation about his work.

Tell us about your PhD research. I’d be especially interested in hearing about your source base and your findings so far.

I’m doing what I broadly describe as a cultural history of electricity in Melbourne from 1918 to 1950. I’m looking for ways in which the construction of our electricity infrastructure became visible to ordinary Melburnians over that time period.

I deliberately use the phrase ‘ordinary Melburnians’ quite broadly. What we often hear in histories of infrastructure and infrastructure construction are the stories of engineers and politicians; and economic, engineering, and practical arguments about how things should be built. But we very rarely hear about how ordinary people experience that, how consumers of electricity experienced it – for example, how people experienced having electricity poles put down in the street for the first time. I’m focused on traces of engagement between people living in the city and those big, abstract structures of government, politics, and engineering.

One of the main source bases I’m using is letters and correspondence files of electrical authorities. In Melbourne, we had the State Electricity Commission, but we also had 12 inner city councils who supplied electricity throughout the twentieth century. These two source bases provide really different perspectives to each other – on the one hand a huge organisation building an engineering state, and on the other very closely-knit local politics. They give an insightful perspective into how people thought about and corresponded with the electrifying authorities.

That’s supplemented by some really classic cultural history, sources like newspapers and local histories. These are needed to read how the engagement with electricity and the engagement with the construction of these networks fitted into bigger social, political, and cultural movements that were impacting the city at that time; and how the growth of what we’d now call energy networks and access to consumer goods reflected back on those movements as well.

I understand that your present research grew out of your honours thesis, which you also completed at the University of Melbourne. Why don’t you tell us about your honours thesis and how this led to your interest in your current topic?

My honours thesis looked at the construction of the City Loop between 1970 and 1983. The purpose of that piece was to use that particular infrastructure project as a window into the Melbourne of that time period – to see what kind of insights such a big project could give us into the history of the city. One of the interesting things to come out of that research was the really different competing, contrasting, and interlinked visions of the city. There were visions of the city that were being promoted and idealised by the Melbourne Underground Rail Loop Authority, who were building the Loop. And then there were all these other visions of the city that different publics and different groups of people within the city had.

A lot of these ordinary people’s visions of the city involved certain fears and anxieties about modernisation and internationalisation that had deep historical roots.

To pick one example: in the very early days of the Loop there was a lot of concern in letters to the newspapers about how the Loop might flood, and that was driven by practical considerations. There had been a fairly significant flood in Melbourne in 1972, with water pouring down Elizabeth Street.

But that discourse also reaches right back into some of the earliest kind of writing that we have about underground construction, from ancient underworlds right through to 18^th century mining and 19^th century excavations under cities. The Underground Rail Loop Authority had to work hard to construct an alternative vision of the city and then to sell that vision to people, as a way of legitimising the project. This gives you an idea of the kinds of cultural undercurrents that were working through the city at that time.

Once I finished that project, I was really interested in looking at something that took place over a longer time span and something that was more ubiquitous. Something that really impacted everyone, or at least claimed to.

Electricity, I think, is an interesting subject for that because there’s a lot of writing about the really early days of electricity, dealing with topics like who was the first to set up an electric lighting scheme and how early electric lighting schemes developed. And then there’s a lot of writing about the second half of the 20th century, addressing privatisation and what came before privatisation, massive coal mining projects, and so on.

But there’s not so much writing about what happens in between: the gradual process of electricity becoming embedded into people’s lives, and what that actually looks like in practice. I wanted to take some of those ideas about competing visions of city construction, looking at different publics and how they interacted with the infrastructure, and then apply that to a new topic.

Why do you think your research matters?

When we talk about cities now, there’s lots of debate about how our cities should look. There are debates around the housing crisis, new infrastructure, or even around how many people should live in our cities and where in our cities we might want more people to live.

A lot of these arguments come down to change – the idea that we should radically change how our cities look – against concerns around continuity, where we’ve got something worth preserving. We see that, for example, where heritage movements are sometimes accused of being ‘nimbys’. And I don’t think anyone is more qualified to talk about continuity and change than historians.

One of the things that historians can offer is a view on how those debates have played out in the past. They can tell us how these disagreements concerning different possible futures for the city have been negotiated and how they’ve resulted in the cities we have today. They can also illuminate visions for the city that didn’t eventuate, and why they didn’t eventuate. All of this offers us insight into what our future cities will look like.

I think it’s important to bring some of that historical discourse into the present debates that we have about our cities. History answers fundamental questions when you’re looking at those different visions of the city. ‘Who is included in this vision of the future city and who is being left behind?’ is perhaps the most fundamental of these questions. If we look at historical debates about the shape and nature of cities, there are often implicit understandings of who is being included and who is not. Historians can illuminate these historical debates as a means of better understanding the debates around cities today, especially the question of who we are building our cities for.  

Where would you say your passion for history stems from? I’m thinking especially in terms of former teachers, favourite historians of yours, and other such influences.

It’s a tricky question to answer. I didn’t really pursue history earlier on in my life or even earlier in my studies. I ‘fell into it’ a bit later on. I’ve always had an interest in popular histories, particularly on technical subjects. Simon Winchester is one author that comes to mind. He’s a popular writer on the history of technology and I really love his books.

But, in terms of being passionate about doing my own historical research, it wasn’t until I started studying at university and began to see what doing historical research looks like that I started to become interested in doing it myself. This was when I started to follow my nose on things that I was curious and passionate about.

I soon realised that history is a fantastic way to integrate my very disparate interests in different aspects of society, technology, and culture into the magic of telling historical narratives and working on historical projects. The late Greg Dening is a particular favourite of mine for the ability that he had to capture this magic in writing. The idea of approaching the past as a ‘performance’ has been enormously influential for me, and when I research the history of the city now, I often think of it as a stage first and foremost, where the dramas of history are carried out.

What advice would you give to a prospective student of history?

This was advice that was given to me fairly early on in my history journey and I think it still holds true: The most important thing you can do to be a better historian is to read. A lot of people think history is about writing. History is about reading. Reading histories of all kinds, of all subjects, of all types, styles, and backgrounds. But reading other writing is important as well. Reading and looking for what you like and don’t like about other people’s writing.

Of course, the reading of history is also about reading archives and reading sources. It’s important that a historian stays interested enough to keep reading things with a curious and critical eye, and is prepared for things to jump out at them from the most unexpected places. The only way you can achieve this state is by reading. The more you read, the more fun you’ll have, and the better historian you’ll be.  

Aside from being a voracious reader, what are the other qualities of a ‘good’ historian in your mind?

I think curiosity is absolutely critical. Some of my favourite historians to read are the ones who are really curious about how things came to be the way they are. One of the reasons I’m really interested in material history as a movement is this curiosity about the objects that we encounter, a curiosity about why the physical world that we see around us exists the way it does. I think that’s a really useful way of demonstrating what ‘good’ history looks like.

There’s a lot of debate in the historiography about whether, for example, doing narratives in history is the most important thing, or whether storytelling needs to come second to historical analysis. But I think that what connects the two sides of that spectrum is curiosity. In my mind, it’s the only way you can really get to the root of what interests you and carry your ideas to their logical conclusions.

What does receiving the Hansen scholarship mean to you as a historian?

I’m immensely grateful to have the Hansen scholarship. It’s given me the support I need to dedicate my time to research and the freedom to develop my ideas and see them through. It’s also given me the freedom to develop other ways of engaging with history, engaging with the public, and engaging with the city. I’m working on a few projects at the moment, and I’m hopeful we’ll be able to bring my research and the research of others into the public eye. Watch this space on that one!

I’m humbled to have the support of the Hansen Trust in doing that because it’s a really important recognition of the role that public humanities and humanities more broadly play in public life. It is a commitment to the future of humanities in Australia.

Patrick Gigacz is a PhD candidate in History in the School of Historical and Philosophical Studies, supported by a Hansen Scholarship in History. His thesis investigates how the electrification of Melbourne during the early twentieth century wove political, social and cultural histories into the material fabric of the city. Previously, his Honours thesis used the construction of Melbourne’s City Loop railway to consider how narratives of city infrastructure are created and contested, and was awarded the Margaret Kiddle Prize for the best History thesis in 2022. As well as urban history, he has a particular interest in how the digital humanities can work alongside traditional historical research to improve public understanding of history and heritage.

Jesse Seeberg-Gordon is a PhD candidate in the School of Historical and Philosophical Studies. His PhD project, which is linked to the Faculty of Arts Research Initiative on Post-Soviet Space, examines the history of Australian-Soviet relations during the Cold War. Previously based at the Estonian Institute of Historical Memory in Tallinn, Jesse has a special interest in Cold War diplomacy and the history of the Baltic region. 

Applications for the next round of the Hansen PhD Scholarship in History close on 2 December 2024.

To read more about previous Hansen PhD scholars and their work: 

• Seth McKellar (2023)
• Ines Jahudka (2022)
• Georgia Comte (2021)
• Cat Gay (2020)
• Bronwyn Beech Jones (2019)
• Max Denton (2018)
• Nathan Gardner (2017)