Christine Yeats represented the PHA NSW&ACT at an Australian Society of Archivists seminar, Forging Links, on 18 October 2016. This post is based on her presentation at the seminar… Today, people from across the globe can get online access to an ever-increasing number of records. Does this render obsolete the expert advice and assistance … Read more
Pauline Curby, author of Independent Minds: a history of St George Girls High School (UNSW Press, Sydney, 2016) talks about the importance of writing the history of public schools… St George Girls High School opened at a critical juncture in the history of Australia. The year 1916 was a troubled time, with political unrest, and war … Read more
by Yvonne Perkins Thousands of people have voiced their outrage at the latest illegal demolition of an historic building in Australia. The Corkman Irish Hotel, which had been part of inner-suburban Melbourne since the 1850s, is now a pile of rubble. Damaged a week earlier by a fire the police are investigating, the hotel … Read more
Anisa Puri has worked mainly in oral history, heritage interpretation and project management. She is President of Oral History NSW, and managed the Australian Generations Oral History Project from 2012-2015. She is currently working as a historian at a heritage consulting firm and is also involved in the HIV/AIDS Volunteers History Project at Macquarie … Read more
Ian Willis reports The Australian Red Cross Society is part of one of the world’s most important humanitarian organisations. It has provided relief in times of crisis for 100 years. The International Red Cross and Red Crescent movement has seven guiding principles: humanity, impartiality, neutrality, independence, voluntary service, unity and universality. The origins of … Read more
by Laila Ellmoos … A few weeks ago, I reflected on the 2016 AHA conference. This week my focus is on the Working History conference (#WHpha2016) organised by PHA (Vic) with support from Professional Historians Australia. The conference was held over two full days (19-20 August 2016) at the Graduate School within the Melbourne … Read more
What made you decide to pursue a career in history? I have always had a love of history, for as long as I can remember. When I was a child I was so enraptured by stories of early explorers that I used to walk around the farm pretending I was Ludwig Leichhardt or Burke … Read more
by Francesca Beddie, blog editor… In his discussion of historians and their craft, Tom Griffiths (The Art of Time Travel, 2016) describes Geoffrey Blainey* as magpie. It is a metaphor Blainey has also used for his research. Griffiths explains: Blainey prods the earth inquisitively, feeds quirkily…he scavenges bright details and oddments that catch his … Read more
In the next two blog posts, Laila Ellmoos reflects on two conferences held in Victoria in 2016: the Australian Historical Association (AHA) conference in Ballarat and the Working History conference in Melbourne, organised by the Professional Historians Association (Victoria) (PHA Vic). This year the annual conference of the AHA was held in the Victorian … Read more
… While doing research on occupied Germany after the Second World War, Christine de Matos came across material that should be considered as we confront today’s refugee flows. In November 1948, a British woman named Mary Sutherland made an official tour of the British zone of occupation in post-war Germany. Sutherland’s area of expertise was … Read more