Support your national library

  by Francesca Beddie On 22 February the Sydney Morning Herald ran a story saying ‘the National Library of Australia has launched a major review of services, with key programs to be curtailed or cancelled amid staff cuts, as management struggles to deal with the Turnbull government’s efficiency dividend’. It reported that the library expects to … Read more

Illuminating local history

  … by Ian Willis ‘Get to know your neighbourhood – you could be in for some surprises!’ says PHA member Katherine Knight, after picking up one of the volumes in the Kingsclear Books Pictorial History Series. A number of PHA members, including myself, have written for Kingsclear about particular localities, regions or local government … Read more

The Yellow Flag – writing about the plague

  by Christa Ludlow… Bubonic plague in Sydney in January 1900 infected 303 people and by August had killed 103. The outbreak coincided neatly with the beginning of the Edwardian era and the rise of the “expert” in public life. I became interested in this part of Sydney’s history while I was researching for my … Read more

Dust, rust and shadows

  by Carol Roberts … A few years ago I began interviewing the earth-pastel artist Greg Hansell. My research led to me running several historical tours based on Hansell’s artistic representation of heritage sites in the Hawkesbury and close environs. Hansell says his attraction to painting farm implements, tools and industrial technology  is ‘hard-wired’ from … Read more

The Chinese in NSW

  Over the summer, Kate Bagnall  created an online exhibition about the Chinese in NSW. Here’s how she did it: I used  Trove lists and a nifty online exhibition framework built by Tim Sherratt. The list feature in [the National Library of Australia’s] Trove allows registered users to create their own collections of items. They’re a handy thing … Read more

Political Amnesia

  … Francesca Beddie reviews Laura Tingle’s Quarterly Essay. In Political Amnesia How we forgot to govern Tingle uses the words ‘memory’ and ‘history’ interchangeably. This is a pity for the two are not the same. She herself acknowledges that ‘as time goes by, the memories tend to over-glorify the past, and under-comprehend how it came about.’ … Read more

Japan as the Occupier and the Occupied

  … Christine de Matos discusses the work involved in editing a volume of essays. The year 2015 marked the centenary of Gallipoli, seen as the most important for Australia in a range of Great War centenaries that fall between 2014 and 2018. Less noticeably, 2015 also marked 70 years since the end of that … Read more

We are the Ghosts of the Future

  … Penny  Edwell reviews a play in The Rocks. Set in an 1858 sandstone warehouse in The Rocks, this interactive theatrical experience focuses on the inhabitants of a boarding house on the day in 1935 when beloved aviator Charles Kingsford-Smith was pronounced missing. The breaking news of Smithy’s disappearance is woven through the performance … Read more

Tracing Australian POWs in Italy

  … introducing PHA NSW & ACT member, Katrina Kittel, whose interest in history was re-ignited when she started investigating her father’s wartime experiences.  What made me pursue history? Three decades ago I completed my first tertiary qualification, a degree in history. I changed direction with studies in other disciplines and entered a career within … Read more

Juggling business and family: female entrepreneurs then and now

  … by Catherine Bishop In late September 2015 Kelly O’Dwyer was appointed Minister for Small Business as part of new Liberal leader Malcolm Turnbull’s Cabinet reshuffle. The appointment of a woman in this position is both significant and appropriate. Recent statistics show that one third of new small businesses are started by women, while … Read more