Museums and Memories: Remembering the Past in Local and Community Museums

This article explores the memories created and promoted through museums. It pays attention to the roles of curators, communities and critics as they argue about who controls the memories put on display. It investigates the ways in which the memories and memorialising of founding collectors and collections influence the form and messages of museums. Finally, it ponders the nature and impact of the memorable museum moments which visitors take with them

The Making of a Multicultural Palate: The Diffusion of Italian Food in Australia, 1945-1975

In the post-war era, the country's food habits began to change quite dramatically as Australians started to incorporate more and more ethnic foods into their cooking repertoires. Food proved to be an enjoyable bridge between cultures, a safe vehicle by which mainstream Australians gained knowledge about other peoples in their midst. Because food is also a significant component of identity, the adoption of new foods that diverge from past experience leads to a change in identities. When this occurs on an individual level, it is interesting. When it happens regionally, it is telling. But when it occurs on a national level, it is truly noteworthy. The adoption of any innovation – and a new food is an innovation – entails social and cultural change, so the diffusion of a specific ethnic cuisine throughout Australia in the post-war years is emblematic of something far more profound than new taste sensations. This thesis analyses the process by using the diffusion of innovations approach to help fill in some of the gaps left by food historians and other scholars of Australia's social and cultural history. It acknowledges all aspects of the migrant contribution without neglecting the role of the capital. It makes clear that many other factors - such as travel, women's magazines and even dinner-party hostesses - were also essential in encouraging the diffusion of Italian food throughout Australia after World War Two. By examining the characteristics of an innovation that make it likely to be adopted, this thesis also concludes that only one particular ethnic cuisine was in a position to be adopted in post-war Australia: Italian food. Though they may not have realised it, when Australians began eating Italian food they also started eating their way into new cultural and social realities that would ultimately allow spaghetti bolognaise to become the nation's favourite dish, and they have not looked back since

Permanent reflections? Public memorialisation in Queensland's Sunshine Coast Region

The Sunshine Coast Region of South East Queensland formally came into being in March 2008, when three local government areas - Maroochy Shire, Noosa Shire and Caloundra City - were amalgamated into one unit. This thesis examines twenty memorials which existed within the boundaries of the Sunshine Coast region before the amalgamation. It investigates how the history of the region to that time has been documented and evidenced by these memorials, and how these memorials have reflected that history. Memorials are canvases on which stories are written and rewritten, not frozen in time by the materials of which they are constructed or societal conventions and ideologies at the time of their construction. An individual memorial can relate not only the story of the subject of its commemoration but also the story of those who chose to commemorate it. Responses to a memorial may change over time, and the reflections of those changes may portray more about society than about the memorial subject. Many different aspects of the history of the Sunshine Coast region have been revealed through the twenty memorials used as case studies. These memorials not only exemplify the history of the region, they are an expression of that history. Through them the history of the Sunshine Coast is expressed by those who erected the memorials and those who have viewed them. Some memorials have lost their ability to tell their intended story through physical or social changes that have occurred over time. Some draw us in to become part of their story despite age or physical condition. They are part of a living regional history which is not bound by facts and figures but which encompasses the lives of those who made the Sunshine Coast region what it is today, and they provide an alternative 'text' for those who wish to investigate that regional history

Review of 'The Oral History Reader', Rob Perks and Alistair Thomson (eds) 2nd edition, Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge, 2006, 578pp, £20.99 paperback

I reviewed the first edition of 'The Oral History Reader' and set it as a text for undergraduate and postgraduate students enrolled in my distance education oral history unit. Students received reading guides and review activities for selected contributions, were directed to read specific chapters for specific topics, and were advised to become familiar with the broad narrative of the evolution of oral history offered by the book, as well to immerse themselves in contributions that were of particular interest to them. For some students the first edition was a little too costly and not always easy to obtain, but it certainly provided a terrific introduction to oral history scholarship and practice, and its impact could be measured in the depth and thinking of the work submitted. But, 'The Reader' did get outdated. Oral history has moved with the times. So it was with anticipation that I approached the second edition. My key questions were: How does the second edition differ? What has gone? What has been added? How well does it serve oral history in the early twenty-first century? And, more subjectively, how well will it serve my students as well as other audiences? (I have consistently recommended 'The Reader', twinned with the latest edition of Beth Robertson's 'Oral History Handbook', as key starting points for students and, indeed, for any oral history project.

Telling Objects: Material Culture and Memory in Oral History Interviews

The value of material objects in stimulating memory is profound. Yet, as this article argues, where the role of objects is recognised at all, their use can be too readily confined to discussion of photographs or memorabilia, or can focus myopically on those objects most readily available. In an insightful revisiting of some of her own interviewing practices and situations, the author of this piece shows how objects can sometimes serve to drive interviews in the wrong direction, but can also be used more productively as a tool for exposing deeper layers of memory and meaning. Through a series of interviews with her mother, the author explores the possibilities of acknowledging the role of objects in memory while recognising the significance of context, and avoiding the pitfalls inherent in making the objects themselves, as material traces and remains, too central a focus of the interview process

Maitland Showground Interpretation Plan

Current heritage practice includes developing interpretation plans that provide substantive material and guidelines for informed, creative and innovative means to deliver messages about the history and significance of specific sites and to engage varied audiences with those sites. The danger is that interpretation plans become formula driven, and risk providing template solutions that do not always engage in depth with the unique features and histories of a site.'Maitland Showground Interpretation Plan' engages in depth with the history of the site, and with the features and significance of specific structures, spaces and activities (extant and past). It provides new insights into the history and changing roles and uses of the Showground, and locates these within their local and national contexts. It also offers site specific suggestions for interpretation media that importantly take into consideration the community and volunteer based and non-profit nature of the HRA&HA, and aims to do so in a community and user friendly form

Twentieth-century Immigrants

During the twentieth century, New England, like other parts of Australia, was the destination of an increasingly diverse body of overseas immigrants. This chapter looks at a few telling aspects of the settlement process. It asks why - given the near stagnation of population growth in the region - new residents have continued to arrive, and what has enticed them to stay. It seeks the views of some of these immigrants about the region's attractions and appeal. The focus is particularly on the Tableland - that part of New England which stretches from Walcha to Tenterfield and across to Inverell - and on the remembered experiences of a small number of immigrants from non-English-speaking backgrounds

Aunty Olive's photographs

My parents, Edna and Maurice Wilton, appear in five of Olive Odewahn's photographs. Two of the images show gatherings of family members at leisure. Significantly, for me, my parents are together. In one, taken in the late 1930s, they are sitting on rocks against a backdrop of valley and hills. In another, taken in the late 1940s, they are with extended family members at Bethanga Bridge. My dad is holding on to mum's arm, both are smiling and there is a closeness, or at least a wished-for closeness, in the way their bodies rest on each other. Certainly, the smiles are smiles for the camera but they are smiles

Museums and Memories: Remembering the Past in Local and Community Museums

This article explores the memories created and promoted through museums. It pays attention to the roles of curators, communities and critics as they argue about who controls the memories put on display. It investigates the ways in which the memories and memorialising of founding collectors and collections influence the form and messages of museums. Finally, it ponders the nature and impact of the memorable museum moments which visitors take with them