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Local history

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Collection guide
Scott Collection

Recordings of folk music, dance music, folklore and oral history from New South Wales and Queensland recorded during the period 1955 to 1990.

Collection guide
Collection guide
Rummery Collection

40 recordings of folk music, folklore and reminiscences from people in rural New South Wales recorded from 1983 to 1988.

Collection guide
Collection guide
Sang Ye Collection

Around 186 Chinese newspapers and serials, mostly published from 1949 to 1984, plus a small number of government documents of the period 1969 to 1977, monographs, pamphlets, mimeographed works, and some works published during the Japanese occupation of China.

Collection guide
Collection guide
Malcolm Ellis Collection

About 500 books, pamphlets, reports, leaflets, circulars, reprints and transcripts, mostly published 1920–1950, relating to communism, the labour movement and international politics. About half are Australian.

Collection guide
Collection guide
Manning and Dymphna Clark Collection

Papers and photographs related to Clark's life and work as an Australian historian of renown.

Collection guide
Collection guide
Mauritius Collection

About 2,100 books, pamphlets, government publications, tourist booklets, magazines and other works about Mauritius and the Indian Ocean. Mostly in French or English, but also a few items in Mauritian Creole.

Collection guide
Collection guide
McDonald Collection

Folklore performances and oral history interviews recorded between 1981 and 1989, containing music, recitations and recollections of performances and local history.

Collection guide
1904 camera

Harold Cazneaux's first camera, 1904, nla.gov.au/nla.obj-141166704

Harold Cazneaux (1878–1953) was perhaps Australia's best-known photographer of the early twentieth century. He purchased this camera in 1904, shortly after moving from Adelaide to Sydney, and made photographs of Sydney's streets and waterways.

In 1909 he became the first Australian photographer to exhibit his works in a solo show.

Cazneaux was a master of the pictorialist style of photography, using soft focus to capture scenes that were - and remain - familiar to many Australians in a new light. He was able to find a timeless, extraordinary beauty in the everyday.

Cazneaux collection

A large collection of glass negatives, papers and photographs dating mostly from 1904 to 1940 depicting many aspects of Australian life and architecture.

Collection guide
Collection guide
Bowden Collection

Oral history recordings by Ros Bowden for the Women of the land and Comic artists and illustrators projects.

Collection guide
Collection guide
Yetts Collection

715 Chinese and Japanese books. Most date from the period 1911–1940, but there are some much earlier works. The main subject areas are Chinese art, epigraphy, archaeology and early history of the Chinese script. Other subjects include classical writings, Buddhism and Taoism, myths and legends.

Collection guide
Black and white local history pamphlets and flyers, and a sketch of a large house

Selection of material from the Ferguson and McLaren local history collections

"Treasures of the past": The McLaren and Ferguson local history pamphlet collections

Learn about two significant local history pamphlet collections that are now available to explore on Trove thanks to the generous support of donors to the 2023 Tax Time appeal.

Blog
A streetscape of Bourke street, Melbourne.

Tom Roberts, Bourke Street, Melbourne, 1885, nla.gov.au/nla.obj-134285521

Time and place

Module

Explore how communities evolve over time, how different cultures influence and contribute to communities, and how symbols convey meaning.

Digital Classroom

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