… by Anne Claoue-Long Historians like time. It is central to our business. Heritage landscapes, be they natural or created by humans, are forged by the passage of time. Historians can read that effect in the physical landscape just as they can read a book. Canberra is a famous example of a designed heritage … Read more
by Laila Ellmoos… The Great Strike of 1917 began on the NSW railways and tramways on 2 August 1917 in the midst of World War 1. The strike started when employees from Eveleigh Railway Workshops and Randwick Tramsheds walked off the job to protest against the introduction of a new way of monitoring worker … Read more
… by Stephen Gapps Just when you thought it was safe to go back into the waters of considered debate about the commemoration of Australia’s colonial origins, along comes Captain Cook. Again. The famous navigator, once considered to embody the correct set of qualities inherited in modern Australia instead of Governor Phillip and those … Read more
by Peter Hobbins… In recent years I have come to favour the term ‘community historians’, in part because it encompasses local, family and special-interest historians, alongside what we in medical history refer to as ‘practitioner’ historians. Indeed, I’ve begun experimenting with the phrase ‘partner practitioners’ as an inclusive term for the variety of folks … Read more
by Francesca Beddie… As we approach the finale of the centenary of WWI, an organisation set up in 2013 to promote a balanced consideration of Australian history celebrated its fifth anniversary. The Honest History symposium attracted some big names: Paul Daley, journalist and writer; Clare Wright, historian Michael Cooney CEO of the Australia Republic … Read more
…by Birgit Heilmann I had a busy ‘I am away from my desk’ week in mid-October, installing my new exhibition Keep in touch. After more than one year in the making, I can now sit back and observe how visitors to Hurstville Museum & Gallery engage with this latest exhibition. Keep in touch takes … Read more
…Alinde Bierhuizen is the newest member of the PHA NSW & ACT committee and its new Secretary. She moved from her home country, the Netherlands, to Sydney last year and currently works as a freelance historian. What made you decide to pursue a career in history? I have always been interested in people: their … Read more
…by Minna Muhlen-Schulte, who chaired a panel on Indigenous history making at the recent PHA national conference, Marking Time. PHANSW was proud to present a panel by some of Sydney’s leading Aboriginal curators and cultural strategists – Ronald Briggs (Curator of Research and Discovery at State Library of NSW), Melissa Jackson (Indigenous Services Unit, … Read more
by Francesca Beddie… Presenters at the 2018 PHA conference, Marking Time, (Sydney, 30-31 August 2018) embraced its many-faceted topic with insight and sensitivity. They provided us all with much to ponder about the role of public historians in recording the history of people, places and organisations. One theme to emerge was the delicate task … Read more
Emma Dortins reviews Stephen Gapps, The Sydney Wars: conflict in the early colony 1788-1817, Sydney, NSW, NewSouth Publishing 2018. The Sydney Wars, as its title suggests, brings under a single conceptual umbrella the conflicts between Aboriginal peoples of the Cumberland Plain and the British colonists. It spans thirty years from the arrival of the … Read more