Performers in Aboriginal Moomba: Out of the Dark, in 1951. Produced by Bill Onus and Doug Nicholls of the Australian Aborigines’ League.
State Library of Victoria
The Victorian Supreme Court has determined the descendants of Ned Kelly’s family are not a distinctive cultural group with the right to protections of their ‘intangible cultural heritage’.
A couple outside a police station on the river flats at Morgan, South Australia, c 1890.
State Library of South Australia
Police matrons in the 1800s opened the door for women to join the police force, yet most of us have never heard of them.
Aboriginal man playing violin to a group outside a tin shack, Moore River Native Settlement, Western Australia, ca. 1920.
State Library of Western Australia
Western music was often taught to Aboriginal people as preparation for assimilation into white Australian society – but Aboriginal people continued to play the violin even when not prescribed.
Charles-Alexandre Lesueur, Leschenault aboard the Géographe. Pencil on paper. Muséum d'histoire naturelle, Le Havre, inv. 13033.
Two previously unknown chapters of a 19th century French botanist’s journal offer insights into his fears and ambitions, scientific observations, and discussions of the effects of colonisation.
The history of the goldfields too often focuses on men – but, as new Aussie TV series Gold Diggers gets right, the settlements were filled with women.
Professor Eleanor Bourke (left), chair of Yoo Rrook Justice Commission, the first formal truth-telling process into injustices experienced by First Peoples in Victoria, at the smoking ceremony at its launch.
Diego Fedele/AAP
Stan Grant’s new book, The Queen is Dead, is revealing in terms of his decision to step down from public life. ‘I have been reminded what it is to come from the other side of history,’ he writes.
Botanic Gardens in Hobart, 1859.
Libraries Tasmania
Influential jurist Barron Field introduced the concept of terra nullius into the law of colonial Australia. His poetry provides crucial insights into his thinking.
Elizabeth Campbell operating the Floyd Telescope, 1922 total solar eclipse.
State Library Western Australia 4131B/3/8, enhanced detail
History might give you the impression astronomical discoveries were only done by men. But women were participating in scientific expeditions of eclipses too, even though it wasn’t easy.
Drone photograph of ‘fairy circles’ in spinifex on Nyiyaparli people’s country, east Pilbara, Western Australia.
Photo by Dave Wells
Strange barren patches in the Australian outback have been long-studied by scientists – but until recently, nobody had consulted the Aboriginal people who live among them.
Until recently, little was known of the history of the children convicts brought with them to Australia, or gave birth to while under sentence. Their stories are moving.
Portrait of De Lacy Evans and his wife (1870)
State Library Victoria
In the 19th century there was no formal or medical process for gender transition. When people crossed gender categories, they did so socially, sometimes for their entire lifetimes.
Privately commissioned histories are a strange literary beast. In MUP: A Centenary History, Stuart Kells does a fine job, but doesn’t quite resolve the matter of maintaining authorial independence.
Teenage chef Debbie commenced her decade-long tenure at the Australian Women’s Weekly in July 1954 – and her recipes could help with your ‘matrimony prospects’.