eNewsletter
Newsletter 24 October 2023
News
History Council of South Australia AGM 2023
The HCSA's 21st Annual General Meeting was held on Wednesday 4 October 2023, 6:00pm at the Historian Hotel, Coromandel Place, Adelaide.
There was a strong turnout of members, and new executive and general committees were elected.
We would like to acknowledge and thank all of those who were exiting their roles for their hard work over the last few years, including: Gillian Dooley (president), Skye Krichauff (Immediate Past President), Yianni Cartledge (secretary), Brenton Griffin (social media officer), and Rachel Kuchel (general committee).
The night featured a talk by Lainie Anderson on: ‘The Greatest Air Race’.
Abstract:
Sir Ross Smith’s 1919 flight from London to Darwin is one of the pioneering feats of Australian history. It was achieved as part of the 1919 Great Air Race, at a time when open-cockpit planes were made of wood, wire and fabric, and there were basically no airfields after India. Now likened to man landing on the moon, the flight inspired a nation in desperate need of good news after World War One. The ingenuity was awesome: a cracked engine was fixed with chewing gum, and 300 metres of bamboo matting were laid over a muddy makeshift runway. Ross Smith’s crew included his brother and navigator Keith Smith and air mechanics Wally Shiers (SA) and Jim Bennett from Victoria. Their Vickers Vimy aircraft was last year relocated to a new purpose-designed home at Adelaide Airport.
Bio
Lainie Anderson has been a columnist for Adelaide’s Sunday Mail since 2007, with her 35-year journalism and public relations career also including stints at Melbourne’s Herald Sun, London’s The Times and the South Australian Tourism Commission. In 2016 she was awarded a Churchill Fellowship to gauge the international significance of the 1919 Air Race from England to Australia and the historic Vickers Vimy aircraft housed at Adelaide Airport. Her debut novel, Long Flight Home, was published by Wakefield Press in Australia and Ulverscroft in the UK. Lainie also co-produced a one-hour SBS documentary on the air race, presented by astronaut Andy Thomas.
In early 2021 Lainie took on the volunteer role of media advisor for Voluntary Assisted Dying South Australia (VADSA), generating statewide coverage and lobbying politicians to ensure successful passage of the Voluntary Assisted Dying Bill. She is currently studying a PhD with UniSA Creative, exploring the life of South Australia’s Kate Cocks who in 1915 became the first policewoman in the British Empire employed with the same salary and arrest powers as men. Lainie is an ambassador with the Hutt Street Centre and sits on the SA Regional Selection Committee of the Winston Churchill Memorial Trust. Earlier this year she was announced as the 2023 Emerging Historian of the Year by the History Council of South Australia.
Message from Yianni
As of the recent AGM, I have stepped down as secretary, due to the final throws of my PhD, as well as family and work-life commitments going into 2024. I have thoroughly enjoyed my time as secretary, and have been lucky to have been supported by a fantastic team here at the HCSA. I would like to thank everyone for their support over the last 3 years and hope to stay in contact into the future!
I would also like to introduce and congratulate our new secretary, Carmel Pascale, who will be taking over from me and will no doubt be a fantastic (and even more organised) secretary going forward!
With gratitude,
Yianni
Labour History News Spring 2023
The Labour History Society SA have published the Spring edition of their newsletter
Read it here (pdf)
Scott Hicks donates personal collection of film memorabilia
Australian film director Scott Hicks has recently donated his personal archive to the State Library of South Australia. The collection includes not only film prints, but a careful documentation of his filmmaking practice.
Selected items from the Hicks collection will be on display in the State Library until 29 October 2023.
Further information on the library website
The Secret Census of Greeks in Australia, 1916
This blog post authored by Andrekos Varnava and Yianni Cartledge is adapted from their talk given in July.
Read the blog post here
Watch a recording of the talk on Youtube
Australian Catholic University's Proposed Budget Cuts
The Australian Catholic University has announced its plan to cut its staffing and resources across humanities disciplines. We join other History Councils of Australia in condemning this decision.
View the joint statement to ACU here (pdf).
Heritage Register Nomination: Highgate Park
Recently Peter Harvord submitted a SA Heritage Register Nomination Application for Highgate Park. Previously known as the 'Julia Farr Centre' and the 'Home for Incurables', the site has a history of caring for the disabled community of South Australia.
Peter has given permission for us to link the application, which contains lots of information and history on the site.
View the application here (pdf).
United Aborigines Mission Archival Records
Are you a former resident of Tanderra Hostel, Colebrook, or Oodnadatta Children's home? If so, you or a representative of former residents are invited to a community consultation meeting to discuss how best to manage United Aborigines Mission archival records which the State Library of South Australia has recently received.
Further information and EOIs through The library website
Expressions of Interest: Of Auburn student viewing
An iteration of the award-winning history drama Of Auburn for students of Humanities will be performed during History Month in May 2024. The play combines theatre, poetry, personal testimony, music, and immersive audio-visual technology to tell the stories of volunteer nurses in World War I through the real-life character of Madge Yeatman.
Further information here (pdf flyer)
Around the Country
Wansolmoana: The Australian Museum's new Pasifika collection
Meaning One Salt Ocean, this new permanent exhibition features the stories and objects that explore the rich histories, practices, and distinct customs of Pasifika peoples. Objects from the Pacific cultural collections of the Australian Museum will be accompanied by contemporary artworks and newly acquired pieces, curated by the museum's Pasifika staff and cultural knowledge holders in Australia and from around the Pacific.
Further information through the museum website
Rameses and the Gold of the Pharaohs
This exhibition, exclusive to the Australian Museum in Sydney, features 181 priceless artefacts and relics, many of which have never left Egypt before. This wonderfully preserved collection includes sarcophagi, animal mummies, jewellery, royal masks, and ornate tomb treasures which showcase the workmanship of Egyptian artisans. Open in Sydney November 18 2023 - May 19 2024.
Further information and ticket purchase through the museum website
Lectures, exhibitions, and events
Dame Roma Mitchell Oration 2023: Climate change and human rights: Australia's next big challenge
Join the History Trust of South Australia for the 2023 Dame Roma Mitchell Oration, to be delivered by Hon Dr. Susan Close MP, Dep Premier, Minister for Industry, Innovation and Science, Minister for Defence and Space Industries, Minister for Climate, Environment and Water.
Thursday 2 November 2023, 6-7pm. Elder Hall, University of Adelaide.
Further information and registration through Eventbrite
Lecture: From Georgio Vasari to M+: a global tour of architectural collections and their missions to “purify taste, ignite imagination… and awake genius”
This public lecture will take you through the history, evolution, and impact of architectural museums and archives.
16 November, 5.30 - 7pm, Level 2, Pridham Hall, Hindley Street, Adelaide.
Further information and registration through Humanitix
State Library Exhibition: Cornucopia: Gardens and Gardening in South Australia
This exhibition explores South Australia's rich gardening heritage, from First Nations peoples' caretaking of the land through to gardens of the mid-20th century. The exhibition draws from the State Library's collections, including books, oral histories, photographs, maps, and a 1947 silent film by Hubert Wicks. On now until 30 June 2024 at the State Library.
Further information on the SLSA website
8th Ghan International Film Festival Australia
Our story is more diverse than we may think. The history of vast South Australia would have been very different but for the presence of the hardy Afghan cameleers. So let’s fast forward to…
Watandar, My Countryman
When former Afghan Refugee and photographer, Muzafar Ali, discovers that Afghans have been an integral part of Australia for over 160 years, he begins to photograph their descendants in a search to define his own new Afghan-Australian identity. Then the Taliban take over Afghanistan and his old country comes calling…. His photography project becomes another journey as he recognises his own search for a new identity in a new land.
This is what the (self -exiled) distinguished Afghanistan Australian Ambassador said of this film : “A new view of Australia’s multicultural society, its rich history and a genuine perspective on the situation in Afghanistan and its humanitarian catastrophe.”
Show your support for one of our newest migrant communities who are making great contributions to our working and cultural life.
This film is screening in the Ghan International Film Festival 29 October 7pm at the Mercury Cinema .
Read more about Muzafar Ali and the film on ABC
Visit the Ghan International Film Festival website here
Tickets and further information on the movies through Eventbrite
Oral History SA/NT workshop: How to do an oral history interview
An introductory workshop on the practice and methods of doing an oral history interview.
10am - 3.30pm, 27 October 2023. Jervois Room, State Library of South Australia.
Further information and tickets through Eventbrite
Talk: In plain sight: Twentieth century LGBTQIA+ writers in our collection
Learn what a recent discovery by a long-time volunteer tells us about twentieth century LGBTQIA+ writers in our collections.
11am - 12pm, 21 November 2023, Hetzel Lecture Theatre, State Library SA.
Further information and booking through the library website
Flinders History Seminars Semester 2
The next seminar will be on 27 October, featuring Dr. Romain Fathi on ‘Assembling experts and resources. The League of Red Cross Societies and the global fight against venereal diseases in the interwar period’. Seminars are held Fridays, 11.15am - 12.30pm at Social Sciences South 149 (Bedford Park, SA) and through Microsoft Teams.
Schedule and further information here.
2023 Musicological Society of Australia Conference: Open Borders: The Future of Music Research
Being held 29 November to 2 December 2023, Adelaide.
Further information available here.
The Pioneer's Association of South Australia
The association has released their calendar of events for 2023.
Book an event by emailing your details to [email protected]. Please include the event code i.e. (E23-02)
For further information, including payment details, view the events page on their website here.
Book releases
The Liberal Story : A history of the Liberal Party in South Australia 1910-2022 by Baden Teague
A significant study of the Liberal Party authored by Dr. Baden Teague, a Liberal Senator for South Australia from 1977-1996 and member of the State Council of the Liberal Party 1973-1996.
Further information and purchase through Wakefield Press
Wild Love by Dr. Kiera Lindsey
This biography uncovers the life of Australian painter Adelaide Ironside, the first locally-born professional painter in colonial Australia. At an in-person event, the author will be talking with Professor Penny Edmonds from Flinders University about this fascinating woman.
14 November 2023, 6.30 - 8pm, Dymocks Adelaide, Rundle Mall.
Further information and registration through Trybooking
Calls for papers
Symposium, Sparking Joy? Reckoning with Queer, Trans, and Gender Diverse Histories in Australia'
4 December 2023, University of Melbourne. Call for papers closes 4 November 2023.
Further information here (pdf).
Symposium, Making, Spending and Saving: Women and Money in Australasia
18 - 19 July 2024, Macquarie University and online. Call for papers closes 30 November 2023
Further information here (pdf).
Journal Special Issue: Culturally Specific Museums: Between Diasporic Culture and Australian Heritage
Call for papers closes 20 December 2023.
Further information here (pdf)
Symposium: Political Lives: Political Biography, Memoir, and Australian Democracy
Symposium being held 4-5 December 2023, at the University of Adelaide. Abstracts due 29 September 2023.
Further information here (pdf)
Studies In Oral History: Oral histories of working lives and workplace culture
Submissions due 1 December 2023.
Further information here (pdf).
2023 Australasian Drama Studies Conference: Archives, Artists, and Absences
Being held 27 November to 1 December 2023, Adelaide.
Further information here.
Opportunities
War Studies Workshop, UNSW Canberra
A one-day workshop in Canberra for outstanding Honours students interested in pursuing PhD study in the history of war.
Further information and application form (pdf)
HCSA Fellowship
Dear HCSA members and friends,
Our annual HCSA Fellowship will be open for applications in the coming days on 1 October 2023, and closing 30 November 2023.
The History Council of South Australia (HCSA) Fellowship provides support for all Australians researching and writing in an area of South Australian history up to $2,000. The HCSA Fellowship was launched on 21 August 2020 in association with the State Library of South Australia and through the generous support of donors, including the Marsden Szwarcbord Foundation.
Applications may be made by email to: [email protected]
See details and the application form on our website here
