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Listed under:  History  >  World history  >  Australian history
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Pacific Islander labourers outside slab-hut dwellings, late 1800s

This is a black-and-white photograph showing indentured Pacific Islanders and their families posing by their slab-hut homes, probably on a coastal Queensland sugar plantation. They are wearing Western-style clothes, with the women in long skirts and the men wearing jackets and trousers. The huts appear to have been constructed ...

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Pacific Islander labourers clearing land, c1895

This is a black-and-white photograph showing nine Pacific Islander men using picks and axes to clear undergrowth and small trees from a clearing in a thickly vegetated area at Farnborough in central Queensland. The men are bare-chested, hatless and barefoot, with some wearing sarong-like garments. A white man stands in ...

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'Gold digging in Australia 1852: bad results'

This is the first of a pair of oval watercolours, measuring 20.2 cm x 26.4 cm, painted by Samuel Thomas Gill (1818-80), a famous colonial artist. It shows two gold miners sitting dejectedly beside their mine, probably on the Victorian gold fields. Behind the men is a windlass, as well as their wheelbarrow, pick and spade. ...

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First pole on the Overland Telegraph, c1870

This is a black-and-white wood engraving of a drawing dating from about 1870 by Samuel Calvert (1828-1913). Probably set near Adelaide, South Australia, it depicts a group of men and women in mid-Victorian dress, circled around a rough-hewn telegraph pole, in a bush setting. The pole is being levered, using ropes, into ...

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Pacific Island labourer recruiting ship 'Para', c1880

This is a drawing of the two-masted brigantine 'Para', probably completed by Master Mariner William Wawn during a successful five months voyage to the Solomon Islands in 1894. One of a series of sketches of his impressions of the islands in pencil, ink and watercolour, it shows the recruiting ship offshore at anchor, as ...

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Pacific Islanders harvesting cane on Bingera Plantation, 1884

This sepia photograph shows around ten Pacific Islander labourers in a sugar-cane field at Bingera Plantation near Bundaberg in Queensland as the cane is being harvested. A well-dressed European man and two young children pose in the cleared foreground, while in the mid-ground stands a fully laden horsedrawn wagon with ...

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Cartoon of an Australian wife kissing a US soldier, 1943

This cartoon shows a US soldier romancing the wife of an Australian soldier. A shocked Australian Army private in uniform is depicted peering from behind a curtain at his attractive wife in the arms of a suave-looking US staff sergeant, who is also in uniform. The private holds a photograph album and the uniform hats of ...

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Biography: Federation people: Mary Lee

Investigate the suffragist Mary Lee's role in the move towards Federation. Examine two different types of biographies of Lee: one short and the other more detailed. Inspect examples of how she was visually depicted in her time. This learning object is one in a series of objects in the 'Biography: Federation people' series.

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'Chinese carpenters at work, Emerald Hill', c1867

This is a black-and-white print that shows a group of Chinese carpenters in a workshop at Emerald Hill (South Melbourne) around 1867. A European man, who may be an artist, observes two of the carpenters at work. The carpenters appear to be making celestial carvings, which were spiritual objects for the Chinese, but which ...

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Biography: Federation people: James Munro

Investigate James Munro's role in the move towards Federation. Examine two different types of biographies of Munro: one short and the other more detailed. Inspect examples of how he was visually depicted in his time. This learning object is one in a series of objects in the 'Biography: Federation people' series.

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Biography: Federation people: Thomas Playford

Investigate Thomas Playford's role in the move towards Federation. Examine two different types of biographies of Playford: one short and the other more detailed. Inspect examples of how he was visually depicted in his time. This learning object is one in a series of objects in the 'Biography: Federation people' series.

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Biography: Federation people: Livingston Hopkins

Investigate cartoonist Livingston Hopkins's role in Australia's Federation movement. Examine two different types of biographies of Hopkins: one short and the other more detailed. Inspect examples of how he was visually depicted in his time. This learning object is one in a series of objects in the 'Biography: Federation ...

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Biography: Federation people: James Service

Investigate Victorian premier James Service's role in Federation. Examine two different types of biographies of Service: one short and the other more detailed. Inspect examples of how he was visually depicted in his time. This learning object is one in a series of objects in the 'Biography: Federation people' series.

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Biography: Federation people: James Steere

Investigate Western Australian politician James Steere's role in Federation. Examine two different types of biographies of Steere: one short and the other more detailed. Inspect examples of how he was visually depicted in his time. This learning object is one in a series of objects in the 'Biography: Federation people' series.

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Morning at Passchendaele, 1917

This is a black-and-white composite photograph, taken by Frank Hurley on the morning after the first battle of Passchendaele during the First World War, showing Australian infantry survivors laying out and placing blankets over dead soldiers around a blockhouse near the site of Zonnebeke Railway Station in Belgium on 12 ...

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Biography: Federation people: Josiah Symon

Investigate prominent lawyer Josiah Symon's role in Federation. Examine two different types of biographies of Symon: one short and the other more detailed. Inspect examples of how he was visually depicted in his time. This learning object is one in a series of objects in the 'Biography: Federation people' series.

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Biography: Federation people: William Trenwith

Investigate trade-union leader William Trenwith's role in Federation. Examine two different types of biographies of Trenwith: one short and the other more detailed. Inspect examples of how he was visually depicted in his time. This learning object is one in a series of objects in the 'Biography: Federation people' series.

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Biography: Federation people: George Turner

Investigate the Victorian premier and Commonwealth treasurer George Turner's role in Federation. Examine two different types of biographies of Turner: one short and the other more detailed. Inspect examples of how he was visually depicted in his time. This learning object is one in a series of objects in the 'Biography: ...

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Women stapling ration books, 1943

This is a sepia-toned photograph, taken in April 1943, of young women at the South Australian Government Printing Office using large machines to staple ration books.

Interactive

Biography: Federation people: John Kirwan

Find out more about John Kirwan, newspaper editor and a founder of Federation. Examine two different types of biographies of Kirwan: one short and the other more detailed. Inspect examples of how he was visually depicted in his time. This learning object is one in a series of objects in the 'Biography: Federation people' series.