What I am dong at museum
Sep. 14th, 2013 04:12 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
xenithNext year the QV Museum is having a big World War I exhibit, and I was asked if I wanted to be part of the group involved in setting it up. I agreed, although not with much enthusiasm. I mean, if you made a list of topics that have been overdone, if not done to death, Word War I is definitely on that list. Maybe not at the top but definitely on the list.
The problem though, if you get it in bits and pieces, a book mentions this bit, and a TV show mentions this bit, and a documentary covers this small bit in detail, but it's all patchwork. No big picture. No understanding of context to put the bits into. I hadn't realised the Gallipoli campaign was the first conflict Australian troops had been involved in until my sister asked me during the ANZAC Day ceremony this year.
I'm not sure what triggered the question, as at the time I was busy trying to work out the best way to take photos of the trees along the outlet.
(Not the first conflict that Australia had been involved in. That was the sinking of the German Cruiser Emden by HMAS Sydney, part of the shiny new Australian navy fleet (their centenary is this year) in November 1914.)
My first task was to look through the Weekly Courier photos, for images that would fit the theme of the exhibition (focusing on the home front). The Weekly Courier was published by the Examiner peoples, and each issue has a pictorial insert of a handful of pages. Mostly photos of people and scenery, but also images relating to current events. Also some rather interesting photos that aren't necessarily war related.
Inside an ophthalmic consulting room. If for reason, say writing research, you wanted to know what an opthalmic consulting room form the early 20th century actually looked like, well you could spend ages lookig for it online but there it is. Actually, there's three photos, and they're bigger than that, if anyone every needs to look at them (WC 27 Janaury 1916).
Willows at Willow Court, New Norfolk (WC 9 November 1916)
I started in 1919, intending to work backwards to make I caught everything. You know, you can learn a lot jsut looking through photos week by week. Like the Spanish Flu epidemic of 1919. Australia implemented a quarantine, which meant any incoming passengers on ships had to wait a few weeks before entering the country. This included troops returning from the war. For Tasmania, the quarantine station was on Bruny Island. And the peace celebration. Oh, the peace celebrations. So many children in white dress or trousers doing so many dances and patterns and other celebrations. What was fascinating, photos of the post office and public buildings in Hobart outlined by lights, as we now do with Christmas lights. Surprised that they had the ability to do it, and where did they get so many lights from?
During 1919, the Weekly Courier republished some of their earlier photos from 1915, and a couple of them I wanted to use so I went back to find the originals.
1915 was quite different. At the beginning the year, there are photos of people raising money for the Belgian Relief Fund, troops training at the camps and views of Egypt. Then soldiers start returning (the photo above is 12 August 1915) and people are raising money for invalided and injured soldiers. More recruits are needed. The last page of the photos inserts is lines of photos of those who answered the Empire's call. Other photos inside, of those who wouldn't return or were wounded, family snapshots of those who'd gone to serve, hospitals in Egypt, hospitals in England with cheerful wounded soldiers posed for the camera, people back home raising money for the Red Cross, the 40th regiment (Tasmania's regiment) attending dinners and going to the horse racing, sailors from the Japanese navy going to the horse racing, photos of houses bombed in Belgium, photos of houses bombed in England to help readers relate to people in Belgium. Somewhere in there it clicked over to 1916. I really don't recommend looking at week after week of photos of damage buildings and injured soldiers and happy smiling faces.
What is missing from the photos is the words. The news that came back to those waiting at home that impacted on them so much that just a year later they had to commemorate the event.
(WC 20 April 1916)
I was still working through 1916 when Louise said she wanted me to type up the list of names in the back of the red book: every one who enlisted in Tasmanian. About 14,000 names. For some reason, I wasn't that keen on the idea and went looking for a better way. That was to go the National Archives site and search the Army-World War I series with the keyword "Tas" and this gave me everyone who was born or enlisted in Tasmania, all seventeen thousand nine hundred and thirty of them. The AIF records cover the nurses and the flying corps too.
However, it doesn include anyone born somewhere else who grew up in Tasmania and enlisted interstate, or whose attestations papers were lost (they have N/A for place of birth or enlistment), or who enlisted as an officer (ditto), or enlisted in an overseas army. And it doesn't include the navy. That is where it got fun.
The problem though, if you get it in bits and pieces, a book mentions this bit, and a TV show mentions this bit, and a documentary covers this small bit in detail, but it's all patchwork. No big picture. No understanding of context to put the bits into. I hadn't realised the Gallipoli campaign was the first conflict Australian troops had been involved in until my sister asked me during the ANZAC Day ceremony this year.
I'm not sure what triggered the question, as at the time I was busy trying to work out the best way to take photos of the trees along the outlet.
(Not the first conflict that Australia had been involved in. That was the sinking of the German Cruiser Emden by HMAS Sydney, part of the shiny new Australian navy fleet (their centenary is this year) in November 1914.)
My first task was to look through the Weekly Courier photos, for images that would fit the theme of the exhibition (focusing on the home front). The Weekly Courier was published by the Examiner peoples, and each issue has a pictorial insert of a handful of pages. Mostly photos of people and scenery, but also images relating to current events. Also some rather interesting photos that aren't necessarily war related.
Inside an ophthalmic consulting room. If for reason, say writing research, you wanted to know what an opthalmic consulting room form the early 20th century actually looked like, well you could spend ages lookig for it online but there it is. Actually, there's three photos, and they're bigger than that, if anyone every needs to look at them (WC 27 Janaury 1916).
Willows at Willow Court, New Norfolk (WC 9 November 1916)
I started in 1919, intending to work backwards to make I caught everything. You know, you can learn a lot jsut looking through photos week by week. Like the Spanish Flu epidemic of 1919. Australia implemented a quarantine, which meant any incoming passengers on ships had to wait a few weeks before entering the country. This included troops returning from the war. For Tasmania, the quarantine station was on Bruny Island. And the peace celebration. Oh, the peace celebrations. So many children in white dress or trousers doing so many dances and patterns and other celebrations. What was fascinating, photos of the post office and public buildings in Hobart outlined by lights, as we now do with Christmas lights. Surprised that they had the ability to do it, and where did they get so many lights from?
During 1919, the Weekly Courier republished some of their earlier photos from 1915, and a couple of them I wanted to use so I went back to find the originals.
1915 was quite different. At the beginning the year, there are photos of people raising money for the Belgian Relief Fund, troops training at the camps and views of Egypt. Then soldiers start returning (the photo above is 12 August 1915) and people are raising money for invalided and injured soldiers. More recruits are needed. The last page of the photos inserts is lines of photos of those who answered the Empire's call. Other photos inside, of those who wouldn't return or were wounded, family snapshots of those who'd gone to serve, hospitals in Egypt, hospitals in England with cheerful wounded soldiers posed for the camera, people back home raising money for the Red Cross, the 40th regiment (Tasmania's regiment) attending dinners and going to the horse racing, sailors from the Japanese navy going to the horse racing, photos of houses bombed in Belgium, photos of houses bombed in England to help readers relate to people in Belgium. Somewhere in there it clicked over to 1916. I really don't recommend looking at week after week of photos of damage buildings and injured soldiers and happy smiling faces.
What is missing from the photos is the words. The news that came back to those waiting at home that impacted on them so much that just a year later they had to commemorate the event.
(WC 20 April 1916)
I was still working through 1916 when Louise said she wanted me to type up the list of names in the back of the red book: every one who enlisted in Tasmanian. About 14,000 names. For some reason, I wasn't that keen on the idea and went looking for a better way. That was to go the National Archives site and search the Army-World War I series with the keyword "Tas" and this gave me everyone who was born or enlisted in Tasmania, all seventeen thousand nine hundred and thirty of them. The AIF records cover the nurses and the flying corps too.
However, it doesn include anyone born somewhere else who grew up in Tasmania and enlisted interstate, or whose attestations papers were lost (they have N/A for place of birth or enlistment), or who enlisted as an officer (ditto), or enlisted in an overseas army. And it doesn't include the navy. That is where it got fun.
no subject
Date: 2013-09-14 10:28 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-09-14 10:52 am (UTC)+World War I in there
I could write a post on the differences in public perceptions of the two wars, and the nature of troops that went if you want. :)
Interesting link too. Going to finish reading it now.
no subject
Date: 2013-09-15 10:34 am (UTC)