On 12 September 1947, the Government of New South Wales proclaimed the establishment of the City of Greater Wollongong. The new city was an amalgamation of four local government areas, each one of which had a history of occupation by Aborigines dating back 30,000 years, and a history of white settlement for well over a century. White settlers overwhelmed Aboriginal society, and began to make a living by exploiting the land and what was below it. They sowed crops and pasture where rainforest had been, and dug into the escarpment for coal. Large scale manufacturing began about the beginning of the twentieth century, and from 1928 the steelworks dominated Wollongong's economic life. Combined with the rapid influx of immigrants after the Second World War, this had made Wollongong a distinctive city, while at the same time connecting it further with the world outside Australia. This book tells the story of how it happened.