Seymour Scholar

Michael Kilmister

"Hughes Must Go": Sir John Latham and the Political Eclipse of Prime Minister Billy Hughes

Sir John Latham played a leading role in the dramatic final act of Billy Hughes' Prime Ministership. Using Latham's papers, and those of friends and associates, Michael is exploring the role of conservative elites and power networks in the erosion of Hughes' political position.

Norman McCann Summer Scholars

Rohan Lloyd

Coral Battleground? Re-examining the "Save the Reef" campaign in 1960s Australia

Rohan is critically scrutinising the prevailing environmental narrative of "Save the Great Barrier Reef" that characterises the issue as a conservationist 'battleground'. By examining the scope and findings of the 1972 Royal Commission on the Great Barrier Reef Petroleum Drilling (66 volumes of transcripts plus exhibits) and oral histories, Rohan is evaluating the role of the Federal Government and public opinion in securing a collective attitude towards preservation of the Reef well before the political turbulence set in.

Bethany Phillips-Peddlesden

Gender and Power in Australian History: Prime Ministers Lyons, Menzies, Holt, Gorton and their wives

Bethany is using Prime Ministerial papers and related manuscript collections, as well as Oral History interviews, to examine the relationship between politics and gender in Prime Ministers' lives. At the Library, she is focused on the different constructs of masculinity and styles of Lyons, Menzies, Holt and Gorton and the impact this had on their political leadership and personal lives.

Henry Reese

Listening to the Other: Phonography and the Sound of Ethnography in Australasia, 1877-1914

Henry is using materials relating to anthropological and ethnographic sound recordings in the early years of cylinder phonography to analyse the acoustic dimensions of ethnographic encounters in Australia. By using both published and unpublished sources, and with access to specialist Library staff in audio archiving, Henry is exploring how these early recordings were understood, how the data and subjects were described, and how the phonograph and recording experience impacted on the encounters.

Emma Shortis

Greenpeace's biggest victory ever: Greenpeace Australia and the Campaign for a World Park Antarctica

Emma is investigating Greenpeace's role in the passing of the 1991 Environmental Protection Protocol to the Antarctic Treaty that protected the Antarctic from mining. Emma is using the Records of the Antarctic Campaign by Greenpeace Australia, and well as Oral history interviews and official reports and proceedings, to consider the role of Australian activists, their trans-national connections and non-government agencies in influencing the outcomes of international environmental negotiations.

Seymour Scholar

Ashley Barnwell

The Culture of Family History Research in Australia

Ashley is researching the culture of family history research in Australia. Unlike most Summer Scholars, who come to immerse themselves in collections, Ash wants to converse with Library staff who work with family historians about the experience and to understand the role archives play as a resource for genealogical research.

Norman McCann Summer Scholars

Edward Cavanagh

Companies and dispossession in colonial Australia: the South Australia Company, the Australian Agricultural Company and the Swan River Colony

Ed is working on a thesis entitled Empire's Companies: Early Corporations and Property Law in the History of Settler Colonialism, a transnational examination of the role played by private companies (such as the South Australian Company, the Swan River Colony, the Australian Agricultural Company and the New Zealand Company). Ed is particularly interested in the extinguishment of indigenous systems of property relations and the installation of European property tenure.

Lucy Davies

A view from the other side of the Torres Strait: Papua New Guinean insight into controls of Indigenous Papua New Guinean mobility

Lucy is researching the movement of Papua New Guineans to Australia 1935-1975, research which builds on her earlier Honours thesis on PNG domestic servants in Australia. To date, she has focused on the government records aspect of movement from PNG so while at the Library she hopes to research the experience and attitudes of Papua New Guineans and Australians in PNG.

Kate Laing

WILPF Australia and the disarmament campaign of the early 1930s

Kate is researching the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom, which will also celebrate its centenary in 2015, but is not getting quite the same public attention as the Gallipoli centenary. Kate's Honours thesis is from Sydney University (on the Juni Morosi affair) and she also has an MA from Sydney in US Studies.

Seymour Scholar

Maria John

In pursuit of better healthcare: how Aboriginal Australian Health became a political issue, 1950 - 1980

Maria is examining the health advocacy of indigenous people in the context of a comparative history of indigenous politics in Australia and the United States in the postwar period. Focusing on the establishment of community-based healthcare in the form of free health clinics run by and for native people, as a political ideal that was pursued by urban indigenous communities in these nations, her work seeks to uncover the ways in which this indigenous health agenda was coextensive with broader political matters of the time—global and local challenges to racism, the rise of the women's health movement, the U.S. Civil Rights movement, the decolonization of former European colonies, and the rise of indigenous and human rights movements worldwide following World War II.

Norman McCann Summer Scholars

Steven Anderson

Revaluating the success of the Anti-Capital Punishment Movement in Colonial Australia

Steven is studying the end of public executions, which was seen as a victory for the abolitionists with the demise of capital punishment to follow soon after. However, with Australia's last execution occurring over a century later in 1967, it is time to re-evaluate how helpful the transition actually was to the abolitionist cause. He hopes to investigate whether placing executions inside the prison and away from public view blunted many of the most powerful arguments against the death penalty which hinged on the very publicity of the punishment itself.

Laura Rademaker

Cross cultural contacts beyond the mission - Anindilyakwa and anthropologists

Laura's project is examining negotiations around uses of language (English and Aboriginal languages) on the Church Missionary Society missions on Groote Eylandt under assimilation policy (focusing on 1943-1973). She is interested in the beginnings of bilingual education, translation, naming, English literacy and the role of songs in cross-cultural exchange on the missions. In particular, Laura is interested in anthropological records and manuscripts from non-missionary visitors to the island.

Tillie Stephens

Against a strong tide?: Education and the Aboriginal Mission Station, Ramahyuck, Victoria and thought amongst white colonial society regarding the education of indigienous children by Europeans from 1860-1888

What ideas did Europeans hold about education of indigenous children? What were students educated towards, and how did this play out in reality; how did education articulate with the wider impetuses of settler colonialism to control and use land and resources; how does this history intersect with the continuation of indigenous teaching and learning practices; in what ways was education in these contexts similar or different to ideas and practices of education elsewhere in the British imperial world.

Seymour Scholar

Robert O'Shea

The Australian Governor-Generalship: Sources of Authority and Identity (1936-1986)

Robert is exploring the public status and the profile of the vice-regal office over 50 years, as the transition from British to locally born Governors-General took place. He will particularly use manuscript collections and oral histories of the Governors-General and associates, and also ephemera, speeches and newspaper collections.

Norman McCann Summer Scholars

Michelle De Stefani

Books in hearth and home: Australian women's reading practices as reflected in settler-colonial autobiographical writings

Michelle's project focuses on colonial women's diaries, letters and journals and published autobiography 1788-1850. She aims to identify settler-colonial women's experience of reading within the home, with a particular focus on utilitarian reading, for self-improvement and for motherhood. While family archives and personal accounts will be a main focus for her research, Michelle will be trawling widely through19th century printed sources.

Alexandra Dellios

Bonegilla Migrant Camp: Constructing Public History, Negotiating Collective Memories

Alex is exploring how one migrant reception and training centre, Bonegilla, has been presented in public history and in turn how this has shaped public memory. Alex is especially using Oral History collections which include a wealth of migrant narratives, as well as the manuscript collections of Ministers of Immigration and public servants who were administering migrant policies.

Jon Piccini

"A Whole New World": the importance of global connections to social movement activists during Australia's 'Sixties'

Jon's research is focused on Australian social activists who borrowed from, translated or associated with overseas radical movements and struggles during the 1960s. In addition to the manuscript and oral history collections relevant to his topic, he will explore some rare poster and ephemera materials, as well as student movement printed materials, pamphlets and newspapers.

National Library of Australia Summer Scholar

Fiona Scotney

Australian Poets of the "Generation of 68"

Fiona's research focuses on the networks and connections that existed in Australia between the poets that have been branded as the "generation of 68', including John Tranter, Kris Hemensley, Robert Adamson, Alan Wearne, John A Scott, Michael Dransfield and others. She will mainly use various poets' personal papers and oral history interviews but also rare literary journals and poetry magazines in the printed collections.

Seymour Summer Scholar

Andrew Junor

Before baklava? Remembering the food of inter-war Australia

Andrew examines changes in Australian food culture between 1930s and 1970s. He will explore the 'Australia 1938' social history project and the NSW Bicentennial History interviews. These interviews are with ordinary people who speak of their families, life, occupations and memories, including recollections of food. He has made considerable progress already in identifying particular interviews of relevance to his study of Australian food culture and its symbolic role in individual and popular memory.

Norman McCann Summer Scholars

Claire Fenby

Cross-regional study of Climate and Weather, 1835-1845

Claire's project will focus on the period 1835-45 to identify the effects of a widespread, severe and decade long drought on the colonies across south-eastern Australia. She will examine newspapers, shipping records, reports of inquiries and many rare colonial publications, as well as use personal diaries, journals and correspondence. She is undertaking this under the auspices of an Australian Research Council linkage project on Climate History, in which the National Library is a partner.

Louise Mayhew

Female art collectives and collaborations in Australia, focusing on the 1970s and 80s

Louise's project focuses on the intersection between feminism and the notion of collaboration in artistic practice in the 1970s-80s. The Library has a strong range of collections to support her project, in newsletters from female art collectives, pictures, photographs and posters, exhibition catalogues, and other kinds of ephemera, as well as a wide range of relevant feminist writing.

Sarah John

Political Parties and Electoral System, 1874-1985

Sarah will examine the relationship between political parties and electoral laws that has affected the way candidates are elected in Australia, Canada and the USA (1874 -1985). She has already researched records and correspondence in the USA and Canada.

Seymour Scholar

Petra Mahy

Interpretations of the legacy of Kartini in post-Suharto Indonesia

Kartini (1879-1904) was a Javanese princess and is acclaimed as Indonesia's first feminist and a national heroine. Petra investigated how Kartini's writings and personal history are being reinterpreted in Indonesia since the fall of President Suharto in 1998. She drew on the Library's extensive collection of Indonesian national and regional newspapers and published works.

Norman McCann Summer Scholars

Elizabeth Todd

"Pain, Anaesthesia and the Clinical Encounter in the second half of the nineteenth century in Australia and Great Britain"

Elizabeth was studying the individual experience of anaesthesia in the clinical encounter – the experiences of the patient, the doctor and those witnessing the procedure, such as family, medical students or newspaper journalists. She used medical casebooks and journals, hospital reports, personal papers, manuscripts and medical periodicals. Her aim was to understand the relationship between doctors and patients, and the ways in which anaesthesia mediated these relationships after its introduction in the mid-1840s.

Ruth Morgan

"Westralia felix? An environmental history of perceptions and understandings of rainfall decline in south-west Western Australia, 1945-2007"

Ruth's thesis involved examining how stakeholder conceptions of the regional climate have changed since European settlement in response to cultural and material changes. Ruth investigated relationships between government and science, climate and culture, and international environmental discourse and Australian policymaking, and explored personal experiences of drought, weather and climate in the twentieth century in the collections.

Kate Robertson

"Australian Artists 1890-1914: travel and identity"

Kate was exploring how through travel, artists considered, manipulated and invented their 'Australian-ness". Some of the key artists she sought to research included Charles Conder, Rupert Bunny, Hugh Ramsay and George Lambert, and those somewhat neglected in recent scholarship, such as John Longstaff, James Quinn, Tudor St George Tucker, Ambrose Patterson, George Coates and the critic J.S. McDonald, through biographical cuttings, periodicals and personal papers.

Nicole Berry

"White Australia, Dead or Alive? The Immigration Legacies of Malcolm Fraser and John Howard"

Nicole's thesis looked at the history of immigration and Liberal Party policy, comparing how far and how successfully the Liberal Governments of Malcolm Fraser and John Howard moved away from the underlying tenets and principles of the old White Australia Policy in light of the reforms of the 1950s and 60s, and eventual abolition of the policy in the early 1970s.

Dave Earl

"Youths and Young Girls: Problem teenagers and the adolescence problem in early twentieth century Australia"

Dave focused on several interrelated public issues which arose concerning teenagers during his study period. These included fears about, and solutions to, a perceived 'venereal epidemic'; growing concerns about 'juvenile delinquency'; and what many saw as an alarming rise in 'feeblemindedness' and 'mental deficiency'. Dave's research engaged with the growing body of international histories of youth and welfare, and drew conceptual insights from gender, cultural and disability histories. Dave drew on monographs, periodicals and manuscripts relating to three areas of his thesis: 'mental deficiency', child and youth health initiatives, and venereal disease.

Inaugural Seymour Scholar

Alexander Cameron-Smith

A biographical study of the tropical health pioneer Sir Raphael Cilento

Alexander considered broader historical trends in public health and colonial administration. As well as Cilento's medical reforms in Australia, Alexander explored his work in Malaya and New Guinea, with the League of Nations in the interwar period and thereafter, the United Nations. The Library's collections include not only Cilento's personal papers and oral history interviews with him and his medico wife, Lady Phyllis, but also the papers of his colleagues J.H.L. Cumpston, E.W.P. Chinnery, and several other key colonial administrators in the period.

• Raphael Cilento: a life in context, NLA News July 2008 Volume XVIII Number 10

Norman McCann Summer Scholars

Sophie Loy-Wilson

Sydney and Shanghai as 'cosmopolitan capitals' from 1900 to 1940

Using personal papers, oral history interviews, advertising ephemera, manuscripts and business periodicals, Sophie sought to understand Australian national identity and the relationships between Australia and Asia. Sophie reads Mandarin and took advantage of the Library's collection of Chinese language sources to enrich the history of Australia's engagement with Asia.

• From man of the British Empire to proud Australian, NLA News July 2008 Volume XVIII Number 10

Andrew Thackrah

The history of neo-liberal thought in Australia

The key question of Andrew's research was whether there is a distinct Australian neo-liberalism, or whether neo-liberalism is better characterised as a transnational philosophy. Andrew used a range of published and unpublished resources focusing, in particular, on the substantial archival records of the Institute for Public Affairs.

• The ascendancy of neo-liberal think tanks in Australia, NLA News July 2008 Volume XVIII Number 10

Rebecca Sanders

The history of Churchill Island, in Western Port Bay, Victoria

Rebecca studied the way the landscape of Churchill Island has been used and understood by owners and visitors for pleasure, for economic activities, as a home and as a tourist attraction. Rebecca examined early European activities in Western Port Bay and Churchill Island from 1798 to 1850, based on sailors' and settlers' logbooks and diaries, as well as the Library's rich cartographic and pictorial collections.

• Rediscovering the location of Victoria's first colonial garden, NLA News July 2008 Volume XVIII Number 10

Sarah De Santis

"Locating US immigration restrictions in its world context"

Her aim while at the Library was to investigate the connections between Australian Prime Minister William Morris Hughes and several key US policymakers in the months preceding the passing of the Johnson-Reed Act of 1924.

• Trans-national links to our national story, NLA News July 2007 Volume XVII Number 10

Caitlin Murray

"Interpreting madness in the primitive mind: medical understandings of Aboriginal insanity in the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries"

Aboriginal people began to be integrated into the asylum system from the mid-nineteenth century. Clinical case records provided a wealth of material for doctors interested in 'Aboriginal insanity' and a number of articles on the subject appeared in medical journals and conference proceedings from the late 1880s through to the 1920s. Caitlin investigated anthropological, scientific and popular influences of the period in order to understand how and why doctors reached conclusions about 'Aboriginal insanity'.

• Seeing Civilisation and Savagery: Mapping our History, NLA News July 2007 Volume XVII Number 10

Nicole Starbuck

The Baudin Expedition's sojourn in colonial Port Jackson and the influence of that experience on the remaining voyage

The Frenchmen sought respite from their scientific voyage of discovery in the English colony of New South Wales and stayed for five months. During the sojourn they developed a fascination with the colony itself and a heightened awareness of England's jealousy regarding Australian territory and commerce. Nicole investigated how the explorers' English colonial experiences influenced their objectives and attitudes in the context of exploration and French nationalism.

• The Baudin Exhibition in Australia, 1800-1803, NLA News July 2007 Volume XVII Number 10

Georgia Shiells

"Testing the borders of whiteness? 'White aliens' in white Australia, 1901-1945"

Georgia Shiells described the Library's collection as critical for her research on the various dimensions of 'whiteness' that were grounded in class, religion and culture as well as 'race' in the White Australia policy during the interwar years. She explored published newspapers and journals, as well as autobiographies, oral histories, songs and poetry, gathering evidence of 'white labour' and 'white work' amid non-British European migrant workers, in particular from Italian and Jewish migrant communities.

• A Different Shade of White, NLA News August 2006 Volume XVI Number 11

Agnieszka Sobocinska

"History of Australian travel to Asia, 1939-2005".

Agnieszka Sobocinska was particularly interested in how people internalised ideas about Asia and Asians before they left Australia and the effect of these discourses on their travel experiences. Her research took her to all the Library's special collections but she found the Oral History collection especially rewarding.

• The Ultimate Trip, NLA News August 2006 Volume XVI Number 11

Dunya Lindsey

"Narratives of young Ireland convictism"

Dunya Lindsey examined the letters, diaries and novels of those members of the 'Young Ireland' movement, transported to Australia, to consider how these testimonies depict the relationship between Ireland and Australia and what constitutes their "Irishness". She found a wealth of information in the manuscripts collections and early publications including newspapers.

• A Fanatic Heart, NLA News August 2006 Volume XVI Number 11

Avan Stallard

"Charting the evolution of cartographic depictions of the Great Southern Land and Australia from around 1500 to 1800".

Avan's research charted the evolution of cartographic depictions of the Great South Land and Australia from around 1500 to 1800. His research examined how maps were reflective representations of contemporary cosmographic and geographic thinking, heuristic devices which stimulated geographic scholarship and exploration and examples of, independent cartographic scholarship interpreting the results of recent exploration.

• The Mis-Craft of Map Makers, NLA News August 2006 Volume XVI Number 11

Snjezana Cosic

Snjezana investigated representations of Australia in immigration publicity distributed to potential British migrants between 1945 and 1960. She examined a range of material in the Library's collections, including posters, pamphlets and newspaper articles from the Pictures, Ephemera and Newspaper Collections respectively.

• Before You Head Off for That Friendly World..., NLA News July 2005 Volume XV Number 10

Alex Taylor

Alex Taylor looked at both artists' studios and the great outdoors as competing venues in the creative process, listening to interviews with Australian artists such as Ernest Philpot, Stephen Earle and Ernest Buckmaster. His research as a Norman McCann Summer Scholar will become part of a forthcoming book.

• The Perils of the Interior – Inside the Australian Artist's Studio, NLA News July 2005 Volume XV Number 10

Meredith Lake

Meredith explored the dynamics of Christian participation in Australia's 'first Aboriginal race riot', staged in Brisbane, 1971. Upon delving into the manuscript records of the Australian Council of Churches, and the personal papers of its then president and general secretary, she found that the Christian people involved in the demonstration were substantially influenced by overseas events and organisations. Meredith is currently researching the history of Protestant ideas about land in Australia and subsequently published a paper based on her research.

• Western heritage, Asian destiny: the Australian Council of Churches' activity in Asia, 1950 – 1965, Eras Journal, 7, Nov 2005.
• Contextualising Church Involvement In 'The First Aboriginal Race Riot', NLA News July 2004 Volume XIV Number 10

Sarah Olive

Sarah considered the function of the menu in Australia, from the literal to the emotional. Using menus from the Manuscript, Pictures and Ephemera Collections, she explored how menus reflect and record elements of the life of the individual diner, as well as Australia's growth as a nation.

• Eating Your Heart Out: The Emotive Aspects of Menus, NLA News July 2004 Volume XIV Number 10

Rachel Sanderson

Rachel focused on the controversy that erupted in 1983 over the construction of a road through the Daintree rainforest at the Cape Tribulation National Park, North Queensland revealing both the political and practical tensions involved in the passage of a conservation issue from the local to the national and international sphere. Rachel is a PhD candidate at James Cook University, Townsville, and her thesis focuses on the history of scientific visions of the North Queensland rainforest and the connections between science and environmentalism.

• The Battle for the Daintree, NLA News July 2004 Volume XIV Number 10

Joanne Archer

Joanne studied the immigrant experience in South Australia under the Wakefield Immigration Scheme, between 1830 and 1850. She used a variety of sources including emigrant tracts and pamphlets, diaries and letters, parliamentary papers, and shipping lists and records. Joanne is currently pursuing dual masters degrees in History and Library Science at the University of Maryland in the United States of America, and hopes to pursue a career within a library or archives.

• Wakefield 's Theory of 'Systematic Colonisation', NLA News June 2003 Volume XIII Number 9

Sarah Irving

Sarah explored the lost tradition of Australian republicanism in the 1890s. Her research argues that, in contrast to the way in which we understand republicanism today, in the 1890s republicanism was a rich tradition of political life, an ideal of active citizenship and a public sphere of critical debate. She used the Library's collection of radical newspapers, political pamphlets, poetry, literature and cartoons. Sarah completed her honours degree in History at the University of Sydney, and has accepted a Commonwealth Scholarship to undertake a PhD in History at Cambridge University.

• The Unacknowledged Republic: Civic Humanism in the 1890s, NLA News June 2003 Volume XIII Number 9

Ruth Nicholls

Ruth researched an oral history collection titled 'Seven Years On: Interviews with Emerging and Emerged Aboriginal Leaders'. She was interested in the connection between leadership and effective community development.

• The Potentialities of Oral History: The 'Seven Years On Project', NLA News June 2003 Volume XIII Number 9
• Summer Scholar, Ruth Nicholls, Discovers the Value of Oral History, National Library of Australia Gateways Number 62 April 2003

Andrew Greenwood

Andrew's research focused on the Australian Musical Albums and their importance for musical and social history. These beautifully illustrated compilations of sheet music were published between 1854 and 1863. Andrew used the Library's sheet music collections, pictures, maps and newspapers and found the Kenneth Snell manuscript collection on the history of nineteenth-century music publishing especially valuable.

• Australian Albums: 'All New - All Colonial', NLA News June 2002 Volume XII Number 9

Joanna Richardson

Joanna described herself as having an interest in addressing the silences in history; looking for voices waiting to be found in private diaries and letters. While at the Library she worked on a little known character, Mrs Deane, who has left a small amount of material in the large manuscript collection of the Faithfull family of pastoral pioneers.

• Keeping House in the 1840s, NLA News June 2002 Volume XII Number 9

Sally Young

Sally studied federal electoral campaigns from the first to the present to understand how politicians and parties promote themselves, how they try to persuade and win voters, and how political communication has changed over time. Sally used newspapers, the vast collections of political ephemera, pictures and the records of political parties held in the Manuscript Collection.

• Political Ephemera and the Hip Pocket, NLA News June 2002 Volume XII Number 9