Ask a librarian, Our stories, Victorian history:
Today’s blog marks International Day of People With Disability. In recognition, we have chosen some images from our Pictures collection that represent disability from the 19th century to today.
Ask a librarian, Our stories, Victorian history:
After uncovering a local connection to World War 1 nurse, Kathleen Gawler, Librarian Daniel Giddens discovered the intriguing story of her husband, Reverend Herbert Edward Elton Hayes, a complex man, who was much more than his conviction for heresy, a period that has come to define him.
Ask a librarian, Our stories, Victorian history:
For a few short years in the 1840s a woman named Sarah Smith made a little extra money offering accommodation and hospitality to travellers between Sydney and the yet-to-be declared Colony of Victoria. With a roof, a meal and perhaps a strong drink or two, Sarah’s House or Pretty Sally’s, as it came to be known, left a lasting mark on the Australian landscape.
Ask a librarian, People & professions, Such was life, Victorian history:
The early 1900s was an exciting time to be a detective. Innovations in science and technology, combined with the popularity of detective stories shifted crime fighting away from the seedy world of informers, which had influenced the early years of policing, towards the detection of crime using scientific methods and forensic evidence. Find out about how one Victorian detective contributed to the development of police forensics.
Ask a librarian, Our stories, Victorian history:
From 1864 to 1925, two life size lion sculptures stood at the entrance to our Library. From Melbourne to London, Belgium, San Francisco, France and back again, we try trace the origin of these majestic felines.
Ask a librarian, Victorian history:
Joyce McGrath — who died on 13 September, one month short of her 100th birthday — was a determined, visionary figure who developed the State Library’s Art, Music and Performing Arts Library (AMPA) into ‘a circle of sunlight’, as her biographer, Jan Harper, wrote.
Ask a librarian, Buildings & streets, Cities & towns, Our stories, Such was life, Victorian history:
In September 1932, hundreds of people congregated in and around a new building on the corner of Collins and Swanston Streets in central Melbourne. These crowds hoped to experience a new phenomenon: the escalator. As the twentieth century progressed, each decade saw more cities in Australia embrace the continuous movement that was possible with the introduction of the moving staircase.
Ask a librarian, Our stories, Victorian history:
Dudley Flats was a slum that emerged on the West Melbourne swamp during the early years of the Great Depression. Residents of the Flats were known for their resourcefulness, fashioning makeshift houses – known colloquially as ‘Dudley mansions’ – out of refuse scavenged from the nearby tip.
Ask a librarian, Victorian history:
Charles Cousens and Iva Toguri endured an unusual fate during World War II: they were forced to broadcast propaganda for the Japanese from Radio Tokyo. With amazing energy and creativity, they produced their own program, ‘Zero Hour’, which aimed to undermine the propaganda messages and even entertain the allied troops. After the war, they were both accused of treason.
Ask a librarian, Family matters, Our stories, Victorian history:
When librarian Sarah Matthews stumbled across a female publican in her family tree, she couldn’t resist investigating. In this blog, Sarah explains how the library’s collection supported her research, and shares some fascinating findings from her own family’s archive.
