Book Review: Jones, Rebecca (2010) Green Harvest: A History of Organic Farming and Gardening in Australia. CSIRO Publishing, Melbourne.

Green Harvest is an introduction to four Australian organic farmers and gardeners. Each example is framed within the context of an historical account which is itself subsumed within Jones’ own “four key principles” of organics. At the outset, the author alerts us to her view that “History is both fact and fiction” (p.ix). It is a novel approach which will not appeal to all, and will be unsettling for some. The author states that: “Environmental history is the lens through which I have examined organic growers’ changing ideas about health and environment” (p.ix). The author claims that: “I have identified four key principles, each founded on organic farmers’ and gardeners’ belief in the dependence of health on the biophysical environment. These four principles are: soil, chemical-free growing, ecological wellbeing and back to the land” (p.xiv). In this five chapter book, these four “principles” provide the headings for the first four chapters, and each of these chapters carries a “case study”, each of which is based on one or several interview

Australian Newspaper History Group Newsletter

Current findings related to the history of Australian newspapers

The Royal Philharmonic Society of Sydney: the rise and fall of a musical organisation

The Royal Philharmonic Society of Sydney, formed as the Sydney Philharmonic Society in 1885, represented the rich tradition of amateur choral organisations present in Sydney in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Under the strong leadership of two of their conductors, Roberto Hazon and Joseph Bradley, the Philharmonic Society presented the Sydney and Australian premieres of many choral works, engaged the services of many international vocal soloists, performed for full houses, and was invited to perform at many important civic and state events. Yet this organisation has been forgotten by history and the Sydney music community. Although many issues contributed to the decline of this amateur organisation, the strongest factors included the Philharmonic’s inability to maintain consistency in their leadership in later years, a change in general musical trends from amateur vocal performances to professional orchestral concerts, an increase in competition from other entertainments, the establishment of the ABC, and an ongoing lack of support from the city and state governments. These were further exacerbated by the lack of support from members of the Sydney press, particularly the Sydney Morning Herald. Therefore, an in-depth study into the story of the Royal Philharmonic Society of Sydney not only uncovers the history of a forgotten music organisation, it also contributes to a deeper understanding of the musical performance culture of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries in Sydney

'An editor regrets': R. G. Campbell's Australian Journal, 1926–1955

[Extract]: Despite having been published continuously from 1865–1961, the Australian Journal is mainly regarded by literary historians as a nineteenth-century periodical. By concentrating on nineteenth-century authors such as Marcus Clarke, Charles Harpur, Ada Cambridge and “Rolf ” Boldrewood, the brief entry in the Oxford Companion to Australian Literature mentions nothing beyond 1875. Vane Lindesay’s The Way We Were: Australian Popular Magazines 1856 to 1967 gives the magazine a few short pages, as do Frank Greenop’s passing references in his History of Magazine Publishing in Australia, pushing further into the twentieth century, but with little detail. R. G. Campbell’s The First Ninety Years: The Printing House of Massina Melbourne 1859 to 1949 provides the fullest account to date with an accomplished history of the printer and publisher of the Australian Journal, and more than passing references to the magazine that ran off its presses. But Campbell’s story ends before the final decade of the magazine’s production. To date, a comprehensive account of the twentieth-century Australian Journal has not been assembled

Behind the book: Vance Palmer, short fiction and Australian magazine culture in the 1920s

Behind the books that serve most critics and biographers as signposts to the development of Vance Palmer’s short fiction, another sequence of events is found in the newspapers and magazines to which he contributed. In addition to the stories for which he is best-known, he published hundreds more in Australian periodicals. This article considers Palmer’s career through his contributions to the Bulletin, the Triad and the Australian Journal. Palmer might be best-known as a representative figure in Australia’s literary culture, but he is also one of the most representative figures of the magazine culture of his time

The Royal Philharmonic Society of Sydney: the rise and fall of a musical organisation

The Royal Philharmonic Society of Sydney, formed as the Sydney Philharmonic Society in 1885, represented the rich tradition of amateur choral organisations present in Sydney in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Under the strong leadership of two of their conductors, Roberto Hazon and Joseph Bradley, the Philharmonic Society presented the Sydney and Australian premieres of many choral works, engaged the services of many international vocal soloists, performed for full houses, and was invited to perform at many important civic and state events. Yet this organisation has been forgotten by history and the Sydney music community. Although many issues contributed to the decline of this amateur organisation, the strongest factors included the Philharmonic’s inability to maintain consistency in their leadership in later years, a change in general musical trends from amateur vocal performances to professional orchestral concerts, an increase in competition from other entertainments, the establishment of the ABC, and an ongoing lack of support from the city and state governments. These were further exacerbated by the lack of support from members of the Sydney press, particularly the Sydney Morning Herald. Therefore, an in-depth study into the story of the Royal Philharmonic Society of Sydney not only uncovers the history of a forgotten music organisation, it also contributes to a deeper understanding of the musical performance culture of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries in Sydney