Author: digitalbarn

The Minister for the Arts, the Hon John Hill, has just announced the successful applicants of History SA’s two annual grant programs for 2011-12.

The $35,000 South Australian History Fund will assist 18 organisations and individuals from across the State. It is an opportunity for the State government to support the growing numbers of enthusiastic South Australian authors, historians, historical groups and museums to research, publish, conserve and display our local history. The projects receiving funding under the grant scheme signify the usual wide variety – from heritage trails and interpretive signage such as those planned by the Wend/Sorb Society of SA, Jamestown Flying Group and the Farina Restoration Group; publications about pioneering Adelaide conductor William Cade, the history of Riverside Rowing Club and Finniss Springs Aboriginal Mission; new research into the social welfare services of women in distress in early 20th century South Australia as well as a number of interesting digitisation, oral history and archiving projects.

The Community Museums Program annual funding of $150,000, which assists our registered and accredited local community museums, has been allocated to 26 individual projects. Minister Hill is pleased that this will provide “invaluable funding to local museums to better tell their own stories”.  The funding has been carefully distributed across the State so that all regions can benefit from having their history maintained, interpreted and displayed.  We look forward to seeing many of the innovative projects coming to fruition in the coming year such as the conservation work on the 1836 Proclamation of South Australia document held by the Holdfast Bay History Centre; a new display about the Domestic Home front during Wartime at Mallala Museum; an assessment of Millicent Museum’s fine collection of horse drawn carriages and some essential work on Penneshaw Museum’s maritime room on Kangaroo Island.

The Media Release from Minister Hill’ s office can be found here while the full list of approved SAHF and CMP grants are available on this website.  We will publish news of these projects as they progress and are launched over the coming year here or via our Flickr page. Both grants are administered by History SA. For further information or assistance with your project contact Community History Officers Amanda James or Pauline Cockrill.

Today was a day to take in some more of the community history around Port Lincoln before heading home this evening.

First up I headed for the local RSL whose salmon pink club rooms have a large and varied collection of war memorabilia on display which include some unique souvenirs such as a small rock from Gallipoli’s Anzac Cove and a piece of a Burma ‘Death’ railway sleeper.

Then it was a dash up the hill to Flinders Park which has a wonderful view of the bay, a prime site for building a home which is just what Captain John Bishop did for his son Joseph in 1866. Built of local limestone, Mill Cottage originally had 2 rooms but was extended as Joseph and his wife’s family grew to 6 children. The cottage is now the home of the Southern Eyre Peninsula Family and Local History Group and proved to be full of interesting treasures: a giant whale bone in the garden, some extraordinary early daguerreotypes of Aboriginal men from the nearby Poonindie Mission dressed as ‘gentlemen’; and ‘Mr Breeze’, a toy monkey dating from 1893 belonging to one of the Bishop children.  It was a delight to be shown round by Rose, Rae and Jackie and witness a group of primary school students trying to fathom out the use of a chamber pot!

Also in this picturesque park is Settlers Cottage although only built in 1987 and housing the Port Lincoln Pioneers and Descendants Club’s collection.  Most intriguing amongst the pioneering memorabilia was a small wooden box with a wind up handle containing the Magneto-Electric Machine for Nervous Diseases. Shocking!

The afternoon was spent at the Port Lincoln Railway Museum, the home of the Eyre Peninsula Railway Preservation Society, where I learnt there is so much more to railway museums than just trains! There were poignant stories of the shunt horses that carted goods to and from the ships, particularly how some sadly drowned when they toppled from the jetty; there were examples of station bikes that were used to take urgent messages to railway workers; the numerous sports clubs arranged by the railway institute; and I loved the controller’s chair on its own set of rails so he could slide up and down the length of his desk whilst working on the railway map.

As always another great day for putting faces to voices and email addresses. It’s been a successful three days of networking and now it’s back to the office to follow up all the questions I’ve been asked and download all my photos!

Day Two on my Eyre Peninsula field trip. This morning I left both Tumby Bay and the bitumen and wound my way gingerly inland on an unsealed road to Koppio.  The landscape was dramatic – the deep blue rain-filled sky contrasted with the biscuit coloured hills and every so often there were flashes of green as Port Lincoln parrots with their distinctive black and yellow ring necks flew across the road.

Today I visited the Koppio Smithy Museum, then cross country to the Tod Reservoir Heritage Display, housed in one of the original 1922 homes built at the reservoir when the renowned water scheme was first established; then back to the highway heading south to Port Lincoln to visit the Axel Stenross Maritime Museum and the Kotz Collection of Stationary Engines.

It was a day of meeting more enthusiastic volunteers and passionate collectors; but was it me or did everything start with B today?  Blacksmiths, boats, Byron’s carriage, a barbed wire collection, bag lifters, Black Tuesday Bushfires, a chair from the Buffalo, Blackstone engines … then at my last port of call, I met Brian and Barry.

Newly-built meeting rooms seemed to be another recurring theme.  The one at Koppio museum, courtesy of an arts grant and a lot of hard work on the part of the committee, is a beauty and will be a great boon to them.   The Boys at Stenross have also nearly completed their new meeting space at the top of the stairs next to their office – in fact the work they have done throughout the museum with little outside funding is incredible and a credit to them.

Today was definitely a day of boys and their sheds.

I’ll be downloading more pictures from this trip on to Flickr very soon.

Earlier in November I attended the Museums Australia National Conference in Perth. I gave a paper about the South Australian Community History Website and caught up with lots of interstate colleagues about community museum matters. The conference was in conjunction with interpretation Australia, so there were lots of interpretation focused sessions to go to and a whole stream of the conference dedicated to education and curriculum topics.

One session I went to was an overview of the new Australian History Curriculum and there’s plenty in it where community museums could be very useful resources for their local schools. For example, year three curriculum looks at who lived in local community, how community has changed, what features have been lost and retained; year four lends well to history of local schools (and what local museum doesn’t have items relating to local schools and schooling!); year 5 deals with life, work, social and economic development in the 1800s – lots more opportunities for museums to find links with their collections.

There was also a fair bit of discussion about the future sustainability of community museums and whether or not (and if so how) they should be fewer or different. An interesting statistic was given for Australian museums per head of population – one museum for every 24,000 people in the USA, every 17,000 in the UK and for every 7,500 in Australia. And in smaller communities that statistic could be much higher.

I also went to an interesting session about ‘Pop-up Museums’, where non-permanent spaces are used for display of usually informal and quickly put together very short-term displays. The idea is that members of the community are invited to bring along objects that relate to a theme or particular topic, write a label, and then the resulting ‘exhibition’ consists of whatever people have brought along. Might be a good way of engaging with schools? Or an outcome that’s a bit different from a community anniversary celebration or even a family reunion? A recent Pop-up Museum talked about at the conference was the North Perth Share House Pop-up Museum– take a look for a bit of an insight into what pop-up museums are about and see some images here.

Today I took the ‘red eye’ from Adelaide to Whyalla and headed south by hire car avoiding both emus and giant grain trucks that indicate it’s harvest time on the Eyre Peninsula.

Over the next three days, I’m visiting as many community museums as I can over here to photograph and help members write up their profiles for our SA Community History site as well as catch up with those who are currently working on History SA-funded projects.

It’s been a marathon run …

I’ve seen a lot of tractors including a fully restored 100 year old Ruston Proctor Traction engine in Cowell while the town also turned up some exquisite embroidered fundraising tea cloths of the same vintage; I’ve discovered cues or bullock ‘shoes’ and giant jam stirrers in Cleve; I’ve learnt about Tumby Bay’s famous Brattenising plough and the town’s connection with the Mortlock family; and I’ve walked in the footsteps (and driven in the tyre tracks) of some great pioneering women – author May Gibbs of Gumnuts fame who spent her early childhood outside Cowell where there is a memorial close to the location of the original homestead; and the amazing Sylvia Birdseye, intrepid female bus driver of the 1920s who is now immortalised in the Birdseye Highway running from Cowell to Elliston.

… but most of all I’ve enjoyed meeting all the passionate people who look after these community museums and diverse collections and hearing their stories …

Jo and Merle at the Franklin Harbour History Museum plus John and John down the road at the Agricultural Museum in Cowell; Else at the Cleve National Trust Museum; Pat and Jean at the Tumby Bay National Trust Museum; as well as Community Development officers Pam and Christine at Cleve and Tumby Bay respectively.

Wonder what treasures I’ll discover tomorrow?

I was looking forward to visiting Swan Reach Museum this week – and not just because you get to take the car across the Murray on the ferry or even because there was the promise of birthday cake to celebrate their 10th anniversary!  This would be my first visit to the museum since joining History SA and I was eager to attend the official launch of their new displays funded by CMP grants over the last couple of years.

I wasn’t disappointed. The ferry ride was fun; the cake delicious and it was terrific to see how a financial boost had taken this organisation to another level as well as how proud the committee and volunteers are of their museum and what they are able to provide for the community.  And a bonus surprise – a 1935 Dodge with original metallic tan paintwork came to the party!

I walked through the new displays with their designer Peter Templeton and Swan Reach museum stalwart Graham Barlow. Both are to be congratulated for the many innovative but simple ideas that have been utilised to counter the constraints of finance and space in the old school building. I was interested to see the use of low-cost digital frames to extend the number of images on exhibition; viewable storage consisting of sliding drawers covered in Perspex containing their collections of eggs and fossils; photos sandwiched between sheets of clear Perspex so that the stone of the original building could be seen behind; even the clever idea of hanging a large museum object (a wheelchair) from the ceiling so that it could still be viewed but not damaged, and did not take up precious floor space.

And it seems that Graham and his team don’t intend to sit back and relax after the official opening of the new displays.  There are more plans afoot to develop the land around the museum and I look forward to seeing the museum go from strength to strength. More photos from the launch are here

Stansbury Museum’s new Weighbridge display was officially opened on Friday 18 November by Steven Griffiths, Local Member for Goyder before a large gathering of locals and others from further afield within the Yorke Peninsula.

Also in attendance were Martin Hamilton-Smith, Member for Waite and his young son Thomas.  Mr Hamilton Smith’s family has had long association with the town; his grandmother had been the local school teacher while his grandfather was involved in the establishment of Stansbury’s pioneering oyster industry.

The Weighbridge was donated to the museum by Yorketown District Council and is actually identical to the one previously used in Stansbury, at the Wheat Stacks on the cliff top where the Motel presently stands. It was used to weigh grain bags before they were shipped but was phased out of operation as more farmers turned to bulk handling.

Dating from about 1940, the Weighbridge was originally manufactured and fitted by Hawke Engineering Co at Kapunda who installed almost every weighbridge across the Yorke Peninsula.  Hawke Engineering was established in 1857 and made the first weighbridge in Australia as well producing the first Australian-designed hydraulic car hoist.  No longer in existence in Kapunda, the company eventually became Ultra Hawke, the largest manufacturers of weighbridges in Australia and operates from Melbourne.

Mr Griffiths has a special connection with the new exhibit at Stansbury – he grew up in Yorketown and after leaving school had actually operated the weighbridge during his early career with the local council.

After his official speech, Mr Griffiths unlocked the door to the new display shed which contains interpretive panels as well as a set of wool bale scales on which visitors can weigh themselves – although this was perhaps not such a good idea after the delicious and substantial morning tea served by the museum volunteers following the launch!

Stansbury Museum is a registered museum in History SA’s Community Museums Program and is open on Wednesdays and Sundays from 2 pm to 4pm and every day throughout January. More photos from the launch can be seen here

This week I attended the silver anniversary celebrations for the museum along with a large group of museum volunteers, councillors, friends of the museum and former curators.  After drinks and finger food Unley Mayor Lachlan Clyne, spoke about the commitment of council to maintaining the museum, and Anne Milne, president of the Friends of the Unley Museum, spoke about the importance of a museum to a thriving community.  The museum’s current curator, Elizabeth Hartnell, gave an overview of highlights from the museum over its 25 year history and acknowledged the work and commitment of the strong volunteer group who support it.

It was wonderful to see so many happy volunteers and friends of the museum proud of the museum’s milestone.  As one of very few museums in South Australia to have a paid curator it is a credit to the foresight of Unley Council – and the commitment of the community and council over the years – that a curator has been employed for the whole 25 years (not the same person!).  It’s a very successful model for a community museum that unfortunately is not replicated in many other localities in this state.

Over its 25 year history the museum has acquired around 5,000 objects from the local area, which are used in regular changing displays, and well over 5,000 photographs about a variety of aspects of life in the Unley district.

The museum was registered in 1987 and then accredited in History SA’s standards program in 1994.

It was great to be invited to the anniversary do.  Cheers to the museum’s next 25 years!

I headed north last week through the just-budding vineyards of the Clare Valley and towards the Port Pirie smelters to spend some time at one of the 61 registered museums in our program, the Crystal Brook Heritage Centre.  Located in the centre of this small country town, close to the Big Goanna, this National Trust museum is housed in a former butcher and baker’s shop built in 1875.  It’s not hard to miss, the huge red and yellow Rosella Pickles sign painted on the side of the building stands out in the sunlight.  The shop was the first 2 storeyed business house in town.

With long-time volunteer Ken as my guide, we wandered through the store and the various buildings in the grounds as he uncovered some unique treasures from the barrage of memorabilia that lined every room and shed – a cradle handmade from a packing case with an ‘extension’ for when the baby grew; a 19^th century ‘time capsule’ consisting of a message in a bottle found in one of the fireplaces, left by the original butcher’s daughter; a cash register from the first roadhouse in the area; a wonderful chrome washing machine from the United States, the first of its type to be imported to South Australia in 1914; a small prefabricated iron building that had once been a policeman’s hut and had come all the way from Scotland;  and a forerunner to the Stobie pole lying amongst the numerous agricultural implements in the grounds.

What I love about so many volunteer-run community museums around our state is the wealth of knowledge and fascinating stories as well as passion and pride for their history that pulses within the stone walls and corrugated iron.  So much potential, if only there were more resources for more interpretation perhaps although it is amazing what one can do with just a few funds and some creativity.  We are always here to help with suggestions for displays and other projects and how to access grants to achieve your goals.

More photos of some of Crystal Brook Heritage Centre’s amazing collection are here

At the beginning of October I was invited to a very special picnic. Since 1974 the Polish Hill River Church Museum has been holding an annual picnic but this year it was in honour of the 140th anniversary of their church – and the 175th anniversary of the founding of South Australia.

After a 2 hour drive from the city, I drove down iconic Annie’s Lane, and soon spotted the small stone church on the hill, set amongst old gum trees and surrounded by the rolling vineyards of Clare Valley. With spring now upon us, the gnarled vines were just beginning to sprout leaves. Named after the patron saint of Krakow, the St Stanislaw Kostka Church was built in 1871 by the Polish migrants that had first arrived in the area nearly 20 years previously.

A century later the building was restored by second wave post WWII Polish migrants and a museum was established in the 3 room school attached to the church which was eventually registered in our Community Museums Program.

The changeable sunshine to showers weather did not appear to have deterred the throng judging by the 5 huge coaches and collection of cars parked in the church grounds.  Around 300 participants gathered in the huge corrugated iron meeting hall next to the church, firstly for Mass, then speeches, then a Polish style lunch, served amidst the hum of enthusiastic Polski chatter and recorded music.

Then at last what everyone had been waiting for – the floor was cleared for the colourful folk dancing troupe who performed a medley of high spirited traditional dances with tremendous skill and vitality. The museum committee cleverly made the most of their captive audience and did a roaring trade selling special anniversary wine and calendars as well as second hand goods.  And no community event would be complete without a raffle!

With lunch over there was time to wander.  I loved the magnificent beribboned sunflower and corn sheaf decorated hay cart – is this a distinctive spring tradition? Then on to the museum although with so many visitors it was a bit of a squeeze and it wasn’t long before I could say “Excuse me” in Polish!

What a wonderful community event!  There are more photographs from the day here.  I would love to know more about the Polish traditions and the items in the museum. Please feel free to add to the descriptions or make some comments.

I took my two year old son Cameron to the Aviation Museum which was open for free during the Port Festival 8 to 9 October.  What a great, lively family atmosphere!  Heaps of kids and Mums and Dads milling about, going up the steps into the big plane and the Vietnam helicopter.  Cameron had a go pretending to fly a plane and we spent some time in the paddock adjacent the museum watching Barossa Helicopters taking people for short sight-seeing flights.

Fantastic too that the museum was open both days of the festival from 10am until 6pm.  We didn’t get there until after 4.30 and there were heaps of people walking between the Railway and Aviation Museums and at least 100 people in the hanger at the museum checking out the displays.

Bumped into Nigel and Paul Daw from the museum and they said think got 3,500 people through the door on Saturday and not many less on the Sunday.  A terrific visitor result for the museum.  Congratulations to all involved on the effort that went into making a great weekend!

Last week when I drove to the Magill campus of the University of South Australia to attend part of the Narratives of War (NOW) two-day symposium, I wasn’t expecting music.

This biennial seminar program is a showcase for the NOW Group’s research based at UniSA’s School of Communication, International Studies and Languages. Headed by Professor Claire Woods, the group is concerned with the study of aspects of war, peace and reconciliation and brings together academics and research students from many diverse fields.

There were certainly a varied number of participants on the day I attended; from academics of wide-ranging disciplines, journalists and writers, members of local history groups and community museums, amateur family historians,  ex-military, and students.  And also a fascinating range of topics presented relating to the legacies of war such as the concept of shell-shock, the history of medals, art motivated by Hiroshima, the discovery of civilian air raid shelters around Adelaide and war planes at the Australian War Memorial.

However the highlight for me was Dr Russell Fewster’s presentation on his proposed Japanese folk story-inspired film in response to the Australian involvement in WWI in France.  As a former museum curator I am passionate about the use of historic objects to tell emotive stories. Dr Fewster brought along an unusual homemade stringed instrument that had been purchased in Marion but was said to have been ‘made in the trenches’.  It was to be the central focus of his film and for his session he drew upon the musical expertise of local cellist Kim Worley and tenor Robbie Macfarlane to perform two WWI pieces.  With only a few days practice, Kim ably played the strange violin – fashioned out of what appeared to be a table leg but with a crudely-made brass horn to aid amplification.  The slightly scratchy resonance was complemented by Robbie’s smooth rendition as they performed ‘Dinki Di’ followed by the very emotive parlour song of the times “End of a Perfect Day” to a rapt audience.

Like others there, I was fascinated by the violin cum trumpet. I came away thinking I had seen something like it before and I am now following up with a local museum where I think there may be a similar one in their collection.  Further research has led me to believe that it might be a homespun version of a Stroh violin, sometimes known as a violinophone, horn-violin or phonofiddle, patented by its German inventor Johannes Matthias Augustus Stroh in 1899 and popular from around 1900 to 1920, particularly in connection with early phonographic recording.

It would be fascinating to know the origins of Russell’s violin and if there are similar amateur-made examples out there. Has anyone seen anything like this before?

More photos from Russell Fewster’s presentation here

On the last Sunday in September the Barossa Goldfields Historical Society holds their annual open day. Encouraged by their flyer which promised endless Billy tea and damper I set the GPS for Goldfields Road, Cockatoo Valley and hit the road. An hour or so later, a hand written sandwich board on the side of the dirt road along with several parked cars told me I’d come to the right place.

The event was in full swing inside and around Bowden’s cottage, a tiny 1930s two-roomed stone cottage which had been fully restored by Bob Swarbrick and his team from the historical society over a two year period in the early nineties. They also established a small museum in what had originally been an extension to the cottage, with displays relating to the area’s goldmining history including a family bible belonging to Job Harris, the first person to find gold back in 1868.

Welcomed by a mop-capped volunteer beside an equally welcoming log fire, I was happily ushered towards the Billy tea and freshly-made warm damper with homemade jam being served outside on the veranda.

Meanwhile in the orchard, stationary engines were chugging and puffing steam or gushing water into drums, lovinglytended by members of the Gawler Machinery Restorers Club.

On the other side of the gardens, one could try one’s hand at gold panning, watch blacksmith demonstrations or cross sawing. Children were also having fun with a metal detector with help from local ‘Constable’ Frank.

However it’s important to note that fossicking in national parks is not permitted.

It was difficult to believe that this peaceful spot amongst the gum trees was once a burgeoning township witha hotel, school and institute attracting over 4,000 people in the latter part of the 19th century.

Another little known piece of history is that the area was also the site of a WWII US army camp.  Only the foundations of some of the buildings remain but the society has put together an interesting display about it inside the cottage.

It was great to see what the enthusiasm of a small group can do in preserving our heritage.

Next time I’ll have to explore the area further and do one of the Barossa Goldfields heritage walks in the nearby Para Wirra National Park – the signs leading the way are not far from the cottage. More pictures of the day can be seen here.

The Penneshaw Maritime and Folk Museum have undertaken a complete overhaul of the displays in the museum’s main exhibition space.  Completed in the last couple of months, the new displays were professionally designed and have been put together largely by volunteer members of the museum.  Apart from writing the stories for the display, choosing objects and images and undertaking all other curatorial aspects of the display, museum volunteers also virtually gutted and rebuilt the interior of the display room.

The museum is housed in the former Penneshaw School and considerable work was done cleaning, sanding and painting to make the room ready for installation of the new displays.  Much of the cost of the display was funded through two History SA Community Museums Program grants.

The new displays follow a number of historical themes important to the history of the Penneshaw region, including maritime history, geology and land settlement.  Display panels with images and text are used to tell relevant historical stories while the display cases highlight artefacts that further enhance the stories.  The museum intends to regularly change artefacts on display to maintain public interest and to allow for a larger number of items from the museum’s collection to be shown over time.

A major new display at Beachport Old Wool and Grain Store Museum fills a gap in the telling of the history of Beachport and the surrounding district.

The display ‘One Land, Two Cultures’ is the culmination of intensive research and consultation conducted over five years by Beachport Museum volunteer Marcia Lorenz. The museum aims to tell the history of the Beachport district but until now the history of the Buandik people has not been told.

The display tells the story of the invasion and settlement of the lower South East in the early 1800s from a European viewpoint and the effects it had on the local Buandik people. Made of canvas panels, ‘One Land, Two Cultures’ includes text,  photographs and artefacts. Many of the images included in the display are from the Les Hill Collection in the Mount Gambier Library. Two grants from History SA’s Community Museums program allowed the display to be professionally designed and produced.

‘One Land, Two Cultures’ was officially opened on 6 August 2011 and attended by around 100 people. At the opening Aboriginal elder Dulcie Wilson spoke about the importance of the display, Major Sumner conducted a smoking ceremony in the museum and display room. The display was officially opened by Mayor Gandolfi and Marcia Lorenz.

‘One Land, Two Cultures’ is to be a permanent display at Beachport Museum.

Training workshops for users of Collection MOSAiC Plus, the collections management software for small museums, were held over 5 days at the end of July in the RSL Memorial Hall, Torrens Parade Ground, Adelaide.

The sessions were run by MOSAiC’s Perth-based supplier, Rew and Sally-Anne Whittington from ISTechnology and over 15 participants attended each day from all over the State.   These included many representatives from the National Trust of South Australia who have recently adopted this database for use in all their SA branches.   Some members of our CMP museums – from the National Railway Museum, Friedensberg Historic German School Museum, Old Highercombe Hotel Museum, Ayers House Museum, the Tramway Museum, Norwood History & Archive Centre, as well as Gawler and Goolwa Museums – also took advantage of refreshing their skills or learning from scratch this popular user-friendly cataloguing system.

Over half our CMP museums now use MOSAiC for cataloguing their collection.  The sessions cost $132 a day and History SA were able to offer a ‘buy one day, get one free’ to our CMP members.

With titles such as Data Entry & Querying or Data Retrieval, Reporting and Exporting or Administration & Configuration, the daily courses could have been mind-numbing.  However Rew’s sense of humour and years of teaching experience combined with Sally-Anne’s one-on-one help meant even the most dyed-in- the-wool Luddite both enjoyed and benefited from the training.

Collections MOSAiC Plus is currently installed at 530 sites throughout Australia & New Zealand and beyond, in museums, historical societies, galleries, libraries and private collections.  You can now use MOSAiC to put your collections online.

You can find out more about the software and the costs involved at their website or contact Sally-Anne for assistance or ask about their free demonstration packs of the software.

Some members have expressed interest in forming a SA MOSAiC users group to share and discuss issues relating to the system.  If you would like to be part of this, please contact us

Today I visited the Findon Community Centre to see the exhibition From the Veneto to Frogmore and Findon Roads: stories of Italian market gardeners 1920s -1970s which was launched last weekend.

It’s a great example of a community coming together to create, display and share their history – simply but professionally done.

Consisting of an introductory panel and then a series of 6 storyboards set on 2 simple hinged wooden frames, this small exhibition tells the story of a group of Italian men who migrated from the Veneto region and arrived in Adelaide in 1927.  Within a few years they established market gardens with their wives on Frogmore and Findon Roads and formed a close community of families.

The exhibition was developed by local oral historian Madeleine Regan and the Veneto Community Research Group formed a few years ago.  Since 2007 Madeleine has been gathering oral history interviews with the sons and daughters of the pioneer market gardeners.  Over 25 hours of interviews have been collected and are now held in the State Library of South Australia’s oral history collection.

The exhibition describes life as an Italian migrant in Australia during the 1920s and 30s as well as giving us a picture of ‘Little Italy’ – the market gardens and the glass houses in the Frogmore and Findon Road areas.  Along with text and quotes from oral histories, there are also several images from many of the families’ photo albums.  I particularly like the one of the children riding the Marchiori family’s horse on Frogmore Road in 1946. Difficult to imagine that happening now!

The exhibition will be at the Findon Community Centre at 222 Findon Road, Findon until next Friday 19 August and then at the Findon Library from Friday 19 August to Friday 16 September, and at the Hindmarsh Library from 16 September to Friday 30 September.

This special State History Conference to mark 175 years since the official foundation of the Province of South Australia was held over three days, from 5 to 7 August, at the National Wine Centre, Adelaide, in conjunction with the inaugural national Australian Council of Professional Historians Association conference.

A total of 224 delegates attended, and heard papers on a range of topics across the two conference streams. Many of the State History Conference papers took the opportunity offered by the conference theme (‘rethinking South Australia’s history’) to present new perspectives or research as thought-provoking papers on topics including identity, migration history, planning and architecture, and Aboriginal rights. Delegates followed with engaged questions, and lively discussion continued into breaks.

This year we extended an invitation to join us to the many historians in other parts of Australia who have lived or worked in South Australia, or worked on South Australian sources. As a result, we welcomed many interstate presenters and delegates, including eminent historians who contributed to the wide-ranging discussion. Conference presenters enjoyed the generous hospitality of Governor and Mrs Scarce at a vice-regal reception on the Friday evening, and many conference delegates enjoyed the conference dinner at the Wine Centre on Saturday evening.

History SA is grateful for the support of our conference sponsors: the Department of Environment and Natural Resources, the History Council of South Australia, the Historical Society of South Australia, State Records of South Australia, Museums Australia (South Australian branch) and Wakefield Press.

At the OHAA SA/NT Branch AGM two years ago it was agreed to put recorded interviews on the branch’s website to celebrate the SA175^th anniversary. Coincidentally this year is the 100^th anniversary of the NT so the project helps to celebrate both occasions.

As oral history is about ‘the voice’ the SA/NT branch felt it was important to have audio recordings on their website so people could understand the power of the recorded word.

The aims of the project were to:

• Give an introduction to the vibrancy and centrality of OH in the broader historical context;
• Provide a primary research resource for historians interested in SA and NT
• Provide a snapshot of oral history interviews which highlight the versatility and usefulness of this significant research resource;
• Provide an historical resource that complements archives held in Sa and NT;
• Provide a unique social history resource for schools;
• Link to other professional resources and websites.

Twenty one-hour interviews – either a complete interview or an hour of a longer interview – were included on the site.

History SA  gave the Branch a grant through the SA 175^th Anniversary grant scheme. The State Library provided in kind support to digitise cassettes and to transfer the digital recordings  into MP3 copies that were loaded onto the site.

DaveSmids from Wildfire Design did a wonderful job developing the site.

Allison Murchie, a Branch member,  kindly worked away to type up missing transcripts and timed logs which meant listening to the recordings. Interviewees provided some terrific images to complement the recordings.

In twenty hours of recordings we have interviewees talking about:

• Market gardening on Frogmore Rd, Kidman Park
• Life as an Adelaide photographer and being in an orphanage as a child
• Living in Tennant Creek in the 1930s
• Life in Darwin in the early part of the 20^th Century
• Training and working as a nurse
• Life during the depression and WWII
• Professional fishing in Cowell and the size of the sharks
• Living in Meadows during the 1930s depression
• Piano playing on the Ghan train
• Life as a Ngarrindjeri woman
• Being a friend of the Botanic Gardens
• Being in Adelaide gaol as a conscientious non-complier during the Vietnam war
• Being a child of the stolen generation
• Life as a children’s author
• Men, motor bikes, marriage and lesbianism
• Life in the Swedish merchant navy and migration to SA
• Being a Sudanese child soldier and life after migrating to SA
• Being one of the first female veterinarians
• Joys of working with animals and people at the Adelaide zoo as a volunteer
• Being a Vietnamese-Australian and a Port Adelaide councillor

The interviewees’ stories have shown how wonderful and diverse life can be in SA & NT and has made the website the wonder that it is.

Madeleine Regan who was the project manager did a superb job to bring all aspects of the website together.

At the launch, Silver Moon, audio engineer at the State Library, gave a thoughtful and entertaining talk about being on the other side of the microphone. Ian Henschke from ABC891 morning radio launched the website and was enormously enthusiastic and supportive of the project.

The Moonta Medical display features countless implements used by Moonta doctors at various times in the district’s history as well as an extensive collection of medicine bottles and containers with labels attesting to a range of weird and wonderful remedies for a host of ailments.  The display was partly funded through the SA175 grant fund, administered by History SA.

Specific display sections focus on the Moonta Jubilee Hospital, chemists who worked in the town, and there is a re-created chemist cabinet that has been custom-built to house a pharmacy collection that was purchased by the Centre for inclusion in the display.  There is a section on home remedies, the work of local dentists and a storyboard about common epidemics and accidents that affected the population of Moonta at various times.

Liz Coole, National Trust Moonta branch vice-chairperson, says that ‘most of the equipment belonged to Doctor Clayton and Doctor Harbison, and the Harbison family donated it’.

A must see for anyone interested in medical history.

Amanda and Pauline have recently returned from a fieldtrip to Whyalla and Melrose, visiting the Mount Laura Homestead Museum at Whyalla, the Whyalla Maritime Museum and the Melrose Courthouse Heritage Centre.

On the way into town we stopped past the Whyalla Maritime Museum to catch-up with Paul the manager/curator and see the art exhibition he has installed featuring industrial comic-style drawings depicting ship-building at Whyalla during WWII. Paul undertook substantial research to find out more about Bernard ‘Stalky’ Redding, a shipwright by trade who was heavily involved in the Boy Scout movement in South Australia. An unusual and interesting collection, the drawings make a new point of interest at the museum.

At the Mount Laura Homestead Museum we met with Andy and John to talk about plans the museum has for development in the next few years. The museum operates a fairly extensive site, the centrepiece of which is the homestead built in 1922 for a sheep station that was several miles from the township of Hummock Hill (now Whyalla), but also includes extensive agricultural and engine collections, a BHP cottage and telecommunications equipment. One very exciting development for the museum is the soon to be opened new Whyalla City Library, which is being built beside the museum. This co-location is anticipated to bring more visitors to the museum site and also means that museum volunteers will no longer need to do ‘desk duty’ at the museum but will be able to put all their efforts into museum projects.  The museum will also be able to concentrate on moving existing displays from the homestead to other parts of the museum, allowing the homestead to be better represented as the hub of a significant pastoral property in the region.

We also visited Melrose Courthouse Heritage Centre to conduct the site assessment for the museum’sre-accreditation in the Community Museums Program (CMP). First accredited in 1998 the museum has changed significantly since then with a host of interpretive displays and the establishment of an archives, which does a lively trade in family history research. Read more about Melrose Museum in a future news item!

 

Swan Reach Museum has just completed the second stage of major display redevelopments. Focused around local community themes, the displays have completely revitalised the display spaces.  The district’s history is now more easily accessible, both in terms of getting around the displays and in their content.

The new displays are allowing the museum to clearly and attractively tell some key stories, including the particular contributions to the town and district of individuals and businesses and the effects on Swan Reach of the 1956 floods.  The project has taken 3-4 years to complete and has required significant grant funding as well as a lot of financial input from the museum itself and an enormous number of hours spent by museum volunteers in planning, writing and developing the displays. Graham Barlow from Swan Reach Museum says about the project:

‘To begin Stage 2 we had to do take on a few other projects to make room for the display cabinets, These included partially insulating one of our storage sheds, which is another ongoing project, and shifting a compactus, some stationary engines and other machinery to this shed.  A new storage cabinet for our photographic collection was also constructed so they could be shifted out of the new display area.

As we are a reasonably new museum, 10yrs old in October and as our town is not all that old, 110 years old this year, our collection relates to these more modern years and we tended to cram as much as we could into a small area.

With the assistance from History SA and their Community Museums Program Grants, grants from the Dept. Veteran Affairs, National Maritime Museum and Mid Murray Council we have now managed to co-ordinate our collection into various themes, build new display cabinets and with the help from exhibition designer Peter Templeton install new text panels throughout the museum.

With the completion of Stage 1 & 2 it has brought our museum from a very basic one to a high standard tourist attraction, with the praises and compliments we receive each week from the museum’s visitors, it makes all our efforts worthwhile.’

The South Australian History Fund (SAHF) and Community Museums Program (CMP) grant funds are now open! These funds provide a rare source of financial support for history and museum projects. A diverse range of organisations and individuals have received grants from these funds over many years. For the first time this year you can apply online or you can request a copy of the grant form from us or download the pdf from this site.

South Australian History Fund (SAHF)

The SAHF provides funding for small history projects, publications and research projects. Grants up to $2,000 for projects, $3,000 for publications and $5,000 for research are available. Applications for all categories are invited from incorporated South Australian historical societies, National Trust branches, community history museums, local councils and voluntary organisations. Individual historians may also apply for publication grants and research grants. Applications for research grants are also invited from professional historians, tertiary institutions or other organisations.

Community Museums Program (CMP)

The CMP grant fund is specifically for museums that are registered or accredited in History SA’s Community Museums Program. It provides funding for displays, collection management and conservation projects. Grants awarded can range from a few hundred dollars for simple collection management activities to $20,000 for large exhibition or other interpretive projects.

Check the guidelines for each fund to find out the application details and closing dates for applications.  Applicants are very welcome to contact history SA’s Community History Officers, Amanda James and Pauline Cockrill, to discuss potential projects and get advice and assistance with putting in an application.

For more information about the South Australian History Fund or the Community Museums Program grant fund or to apply online, visit the Grants section on this site.

A new display about Florence Casson, a nurse in WWII who perished with the sinking of the vessel Vyner Brooke in 1942, is a great addition to the Mallee Women displays at the museum. Florence spent some of her nursing career in Pinnaroo and her story effectively links local with international history. The museum commissioned a museum designer to produce the display panels and had a reproduction WWII nurses uniform made so that it can stay on display indefinitely.

The museum has also been hard at work in the last few years working with an historian and designer to produce a touch-screen interactive through which visitors can access information about printing processes and printing equipment housed at the museum. Much of the content is audio snippets from oral history interviews done with museum icon Rob Wilson, a printer by trade who continues to operate some of the equipment at the museum (the museum prints some of its own promotional materials). Through the interactive visitors can hear the recollections of Rob and others about their experiences of the printing trade and also the sound of operational printing machinery – recorded from equipment at the museum.

A second interactive has been installed with the Wurfel Grain Collection display. This uses images and voice over to provide historical context for the collection, which is widely recognised as an extraordinary collection of grain samples and data about grain production in South Australia.

As well as the Mallee Women display, the Wurfel grain Collection and the Printing Museum collection, the MTHC includes an interpretive exhibition about Pinnaroo’s history as a dryland farming area and a sizeable collection of agricultural equipment and stationary engines.  There’s something for everyone!

To be held from 5-7 August 2011 at the National Wine Centre, Adelaide, In perspective: rethinking South Australia’s history will be a special State History conference to mark 175 years since the official foundation of the Province of South Australia. Join us for a rich conference program with speakers from a broad range of disciplines. We hope the conference will prompt delegates to reflect on enduring themes in South Australian and Australian history, to address their continuing relevance into the future, and to explore the place of historical understanding and popular mythmaking in South Australian identity.

The 2011 State History Conference will be run in conjunction with the inaugural conference of the Australian Council of Professional Historians Associations.

To find out more about the conference or to request a brochure and registration form please phone History SA on (08) 8203 9888 or email statehistoryconference@history.sa.gov.au

 

To celebrate the 175th anniversary of the foundation of the Province of South Australia the Adelaide Colonial Dancers and the Adelaide Traditional and Bush Dance Society have organised a Grand Colonial Ball at the Adelaide Town Hall on 25th June. It has been made possible through a History SA SA175 grant as well as generous sponsorship by Adelaide Town Council, Patritti Wines and the Flower Room.

It promises to be a colourful grand spectacle with many in colonial costume while there will be music from the 30 piece Gawler Town Band and the family folk group Tamarisque. Lord Mayor Stephen Yarwood will welcome guests with assistance from a Town Crier and a Fort Glanville heritage guard of honour.

The ball will start at 8 pm with the assembled guests joining the Grand March to enter the hall – this was the traditional way for balls to begin in colonial times. There will then be a program of dances including ballroom favorites like Military Two Step and Kings Waltz, and a range of older ‘colonial’ dances many of which can be learned on the spot.

There will also be a display of the famous ‘Alberts Quadrille’ by the Adelaide Colonial Dancers. ‘The Alberts’ was featured in ballrooms for over 100 years. Even if you won’t be dancing, you can watch from the balcony, enjoy the music and join in the ceremonies and supper – it will be a night to remember!

Pre-ball drinks will be served from 7 pm and supper will be provided. Tickets are $50, from all BASS outlets, phone 131 246 or book online. The council has $3 evening parking available at their UPark in the Central Market which stays open until 1am.

It is 25 years since a similar ball was held in classical grandeur of Adelaide Town Hall designed by Edmund Wright and hailed as “the largest municipal building south of the Equator” when it was officially opened on 20 June 1866. On this occasion, there was a grand ball for 800 guests which reportedly went on until 5 am but this one finishes at midnight!

Ticket holders are encouraged to come to the four practice evenings available from 31 May to try out the dances prior to the ball. For more information see our events calendar, contact Pam on 8277 0738 or visit the Adelaide Colonial Dancers’ website.

 

A host of community organisations are holding events over the next few months to acknowledge the 175^th anniversary of the foundation of the Province of South Australia. SA 175 events are listed on the calendar of events on this site. Events listed so far include a performance about writer CJ Dennis, lectures on South Australian history topics, displays and exhibition openings and multi-media events. Industrial history depicted in art, historic fire engines and modern sound and light shows are all on offer for SA175.

The calendar of Events will soon be expanded and community organisations are invited to list any events that connect with South Australian history. Contact community@history.sa.gov.au to have an event added to the Calendar.

 

I have always been fascinated by traditional festivals from around the world so it was a great pleasure to visit the Ukrainian Museum’s Easter Bazaar a few weekends ago in the backstreets of Hindmarsh. The museum was a hive of activity when I arrived at what appeared to be Kiev Central that Sunday morning. Amidst Ukrainian chatter, women in traditionally embroidered cross stitch blouses distributed plates of open sandwiches of herring and salad or ladled bowls of bright purple borsch (beetroot soup).

Irena Boujenko, the President of the Ukrainian Women’s Association enthusiastically gave me a tour of their displays which particularly focus on Ukrainian art and crafts. Many of the handcrafted items – wood carving, ceramics, embroidery and costume (some over 100 years old) – were brought to Adelaide during the two main waves of migration in 1949 and 1992 from this second largest country in Europe.

I was curious to learn what everyone was carrying in plastic bags in baskets or under their arms. The table in the meeting room at the back of the museum was soon laden with these unusually shaped offerings and I discovered that they were the traditional paska, rich sweet Easter bread, decorated with Christian symbols or a rising sun harking back to its pagan origins. More traditional Ukrainian Easter crafts were on display, the results of a recent workshop – embroidered ritual cloths or rushnyky and the world famous decorated Easter eggs or pysanky. Certificates were handed out to all the participants and it is heartening to see how Adelaide’s Ukrainian community are keeping their traditions alive and preserving their history through the museum. I’m certainly looking forward to their About Time History Festival event, a fashion show of traditional costumes and embroidery workshop on Sunday 22 May.

You can see more photos from the Easter Bazaar on here

In 2011 SA History Week has become About Time: South Australia’s History Festival.

Over 500 events will be presented across the state from 1 to 31 May, organised by over 300 community museums, history groups, cultural groups, local councils, collecting institutions, businesses, churches and individuals. The move to a month-long festival format reflects the ongoing growth of the program since it began as SA History Week in 2004. 2011 also marks 175 years since the foundation of the Province of South Australia, and History SA has received a special government grant to run the festival in this anniversary year.

The events offered as part of the program reflect the diversity of South Australia’s history and those who have made it. You can enjoy a dinner at the SA Maritime Museum showcasing ship-board foods from different eras, learn about explorer Sir Hubert Wilkins at an open day at his cottage in Mount Bryan East, take a tour exposing Adelaide’s gritty underbelly at West Terrace Cemetery, participate in an all-day symposium on the archaeology of Aboriginal South Australia, do some hands-on history helping volunteers restore the outback town of Farina, visit an exhibition about the contribution of Hungarians to South Australia’s primary industries, or take the opportunity to share and hear stories of working at GM’s Holden factory at Elizabeth. And that’s only a small sample of what’s on offer!

Visit the About Time website for full details of events and features to help you get the most out of the festival format. You can also follow us on twitter and facebook or upload your photos to Flickr.

The printed program is also available from your local council, library, visitor centre, community museum or history group.

About Time: South Australia’s History Festival is presented by History SA. Contact us on (08) 8203 9888 or abouttime@history.sa.gov.au.

 

I recently visited the South Australian Police Historical Society Museum (SAPOL Museum), which has premises within the police barracks complex at Thebarton. Tram tracks built since I last visited the museum two or three years ago stopped me turning right into Gaol Road, so I took a bit of a detour around some parklands on my way to the museum. 

The SAPOL museum is a registered museum in the CMP and is wanting to work towards accreditation, so we met to have a look at what the museum has been doing in the last couple of years and to give some thought to what areas the museum needs to focus on to move towards accreditation. Thanks Tony and Geoff for having this conversation with me – we identified some areas that need focus and also some other areas of museum management/practice that the museum has made great progress with and that are real positives in thinking about accreditation. 

An incredible amount of work has been done on the extensive archives the group holds. The museum has a number of licences for the MOSAIC database program and a significant group of volunteers who are learning to use the program. Another group of volunteers is sorting through the archives and arranging disposal of irrelevant and duplicate items – what’s left will be a much ‘tighter’ archive – and it will fit easily into the museums new, grant funded compactus. 

Another big project that has been taken on is rationalising the collection of hundreds and hundreds of police uniform items, down to about one third the original number and moving them from racks to archival boxes. Both these projects have cleared up a lot of space and improved collection management. SAPOL Museum is certainly the place to go for South Australian police history and records.

I spent some time with members of the Dublin History group and the Mallala Museum today. Dublin History Group is about to get the lease on the local Institute building and we met to have a chat about using the building as a combined research/collection storage/small display space.

Great to see a small group taking on such a project and getting excited about such things as writing a collection policy! The group will need one, as having dedicated premises tends to prompt people to want to donate items to community collections. Some hard decisions will be coming up for the group about what they want to collect and have the capacity to collect and care for.

Thanks Mallala Museum for coming along to the meeting too to share some thoughts on collection policy, as the two districts have some crossover.

I recently visited the South Australian Police Historical Society Museum (SAPOL Museum), which has premises within the police barracks complex at Thebarton. Tram tracks built since I last visited the museum two or three years ago stopped me turning right into Gaol Road, so I took a bit of a detour around some parklands on my way to the museum. 

The SAPOL museum is a registered museum in the CMP and is wanting to work towards accreditation, so we met to have a look at what the museum has been doing in the last couple of years and to give some thought to what areas the museum needs to focus on to move towards accreditation. Thanks Tony and Geoff for having this conversation with me – we identified some areas that need focus and also some other areas of museum management/practice that the museum has made great progress with and that are real positives in thinking about accreditation. 

An incredible amount of work has been done on the extensive archives the group holds. The museum has a number of licences for the MOSAIC database program and a significant group of volunteers who are learning to use the program. Another group of volunteers is sorting through the archives and arranging disposal of irrelevant and duplicate items – what’s left will be a much ‘tighter’ archive – and it will fit easily into the museums new, grant funded compactus. 

Another big project that has been taken on is rationalising the collection of hundreds and hundreds of police uniform items, down to about one third the original number and moving them from racks to archival boxes. Both these projects have cleared up a lot of space and improved collection management. SAPOL Museum is certainly the place to go for South Australian police history and records.