Editing History of Australia (section)

===Growth of nationalism===
{{Main|Federation of Australia}}

[[File:Tom Roberts - Shearing the rams - Google Art Project.jpg|thumb|upright=1.4|left|The origins of a distinctly Australian style of painting are often associated with the [[Heidelberg School]] movement, [[Tom Roberts]]' ''[[Shearing the Rams]]'' (1890) being an iconic example.]]

By the late 1880s, a majority of people living in the Australian colonies were native born, although more than 90 per cent were of British and Irish heritage.<ref>D.M. Gibb (1982) ''National Identity and Consciousness''. p. 33. Thomas Nelson, Melbourne. {{ISBN|0-17-006053-5}}</ref> The [[Australian Natives' Association|Australian Natives Association]], campaigned for an Australian federation within the British Empire, promoted Australian literature and history, and successfully lobbied for the 26 January to be Australia's national day.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Hirst|first=John|title=The Sentimental Nation, the making of the Australian Commonwealth|publisher=Oxford University Press|year=2000|isbn=0195506200|location=South Melbourne|pages=38–39}}</ref>

[[File:Banjo Patterson.jpg|thumb|The [[bush ballad]]eer [[Banjo Paterson]] penned a number of classic works including "[[Waltzing Matilda]]" (1895), regarded as Australia's unofficial national anthem.]]

Many nationalists spoke of Australians sharing common blood as members of the British "race".<ref>Hirst, John (2000). p. 16</ref> [[Henry Parkes]] stated in 1890, "The crimson thread of kinship runs through us all...we must unite as one great Australian people."<ref>{{Cite book|last=Parkes|first=Henry|url=https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=hvd.hl4i60&view=1up&seq=96|title=The federal government of Australasia : speeches delivered on various occasions (November, 1889 – May, 1890)|publisher=Turner and Henderson|year=1890|location=Sydney|pages=71–76}}</ref>

A minority of nationalists saw a distinctive Australian identity rather than shared "Britishness" as the basis for a unified Australia. Some, such as the radical magazine ''[[The Bulletin (Australian periodical)|The Bulletin]]'' and the Tasmanian Attorney-General [[Andrew Inglis Clark]], were republicans, while others were prepared to accept a fully independent country of Australia with only a ceremonial role for the British monarch.<ref>Hirst, John (2000). pp. 11–13, 69–71, 76</ref>

A unified Australia was usually associated with a white Australia. In 1887, ''The Bulletin'' declared that all white men who left the religious and class divisions of the old world behind were Australians.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Russell|first=Penny|title=The Cambridge History of Australia, Volume I|year=2013|pages=479–80|chapter=Gender and colonial society}}</ref> A white Australia also meant the exclusion of cheap Asian labour, an idea strongly promoted by the labour movement.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Irving|first=Helen|title=The Cambridge History of Australia, Volume I|year=2013|pages=248|chapter=Making the federal Commonwealth}}</ref>

The growing nationalist sentiment in the 1880s and 1890s was associated with the development of a distinctively Australian art and literature. Artists of the [[Heidelberg School]] such as [[Arthur Streeton]], [[Frederick McCubbin]] and [[Tom Roberts]] followed the example of the European Impressionists by painting in the open air. They applied themselves to capturing the light and colour of the Australian landscape and exploring the distinctive and the universal in the "mixed life of the city and the characteristic life of the station and the bush".<ref>{{Cite book|last1=Dixon|first1=Robert|title=The Cambridge History of Australia, Volume I|last2=Hoorn|publisher=Jeanette|year=2013|pages=500, 508|chapter=Art and literature}}</ref>

In the 1890s Henry Lawson, [[Banjo Paterson]] and other writers associated with ''The Bulletin'' produced poetry and prose exploring the nature of bush life and themes of independence, stoicism, masculine labour, egalitarianism, anti-authoritarianism and mateship. Protagonists were often shearers, boundary riders and itinerant bush workers. In the following decade Lawson, Paterson and other writers such as [[Steele Rudd]], Miles Franklin, and Joseph Furphy helped forge a distinctive national literature. Paterson's ballad "[[The Man from Snowy River (poem)|The Man from Snowy River"]] (1890) achieved popularity, and his lyrics to the song "[[Waltzing Matilda]]" (c. 1895) helped make it the unofficial national anthem for many Australians.<ref>Macintyre, Stuart (2020), p. 140-41</ref>