2025 Hot Histories Conference Program
25 - 26 October 2026
Library and Archives NT, Danala, Charles Darwin University, Education and Community Precinct
COLLOQUIUM
Saturday, 25 October
Session 1: 9:00 AM TO 10:30 AM
Session 2: 10:50 AM TO 12:20 PM
Speakers and Abstracts
Welcome to Country and Introduction
Richie Fejo, Larrakia (Darwin) and Warramungu (Tennant Creek) Elder
Sam Wells, President, PHA (NT)
SESSION 1: 9:00 AM TO 10:30 AM
KEYNOTE PRESENTATION
MATTHEW STEPHEN: History on the Frontier: Opportunities and challenges for historians who seek green fields in the red dirt of the Northern Territory
About Matthew Stephen
Matthew has lived in the Northern Territory since 1987. Until 2001, he worked in Aboriginal tertiary education. Between 2007 and 2019, he managed the Northern Territory Archives Service Oral History Unit. Matthew completed his PhD at Charles Darwin University in 2009. It is entitled Contact Zones: Sport and Race in The Northern Territory, 1869–1953. Matthew now works as a freelance historian with a particular interest in oral history, photography and why some stories are ‘often told’ while others are ‘forgotten’. Current projects include a history of NT football and a history of NT cricket.
JARED ARCHIBALD: The Mystery of the Moruya! Tracking down the history of an almost ghost ship
Museum and Art Gallery of the NT
Large numbers of civilian vessels were pressed into service during World War 2 with many used extensively in the Northern Territory. One of these was HMAS Moruya. But finding out more of its story has become a test of patience and detective work. Try as one might, the story of the Moruya becomes more and more tangled the more one looks. How can one vessel be mistaken as the Macumba, Morwong, Maroubra, or Mourya? How was it used by the Navy in Darwin Harbour, and what happened to it post war? And why were no photos ever taken of it? This presentation will attempt to answer these questions and more.
About Jared Archibald
Jared Archibald spent 16 years as the taxidermist at the Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory (MAGNT) and has now been employed there as the Curator of Territory History for over a decade. He was part of the team that developed the Defence of Darwin Experience at East Point, and was lead curator for the Unruly Days: Life in the Territory 1911-1921 exhibition and the newly refreshed Cyclone Tracy exhibition at MAGNT. Researching and telling the stories of the people, places, events, and objects that have shaped the Northern Territory into what it is today is his passion.
MORNING BREAK 10:30 - 10:50 am
SESSION 2: 10:50 AM TO 12:20 PM
MAISIE AUSTIN: The Sunshine Club at Parap Camp
CDU PhD Candidate
I often heard my mother, aunties and others reminiscing about this place called The Sunshine Club. It was located in an area in Darwin called Parap 118 Camp where we lived and which is now the suburb of Stuart Park. The Camp was an ex-military camp, had rows and rows of corrugated iron huts which housed the military before and during the Second World War and which became the main accommodation for people who returned to Darwin after the War. The Sunshine Club is where residents attended dances, weddings and other events. I learnt more about its history and use during my years of research and talking to people who lived at Parap Camp at that time. Everyone had their own story and memory which they gladly shared. It was obvious that this place held special memories for them and was important to them at a time when social restrictions limited social interaction for part-Aboriginal people in the wider community. More importantly, the Sunshine Club was the meeting place for the Australian Half-Caste Progress Association which successfully lobbied the governments for the rights and citizenship for Half-Caste people. The story of the Sunshine Club will be recorded and documented in an ethical, culturally respectful way.
About Maisie Austin
Maisie Austin is a business and sports woman, author and historian, raised and educated in Darwin as a Half-caste (or Coloured or part-Aboriginal), living amongst other people of mixed descent who shared cultures and traditions whilst being governed by government policies. She is passionate about Darwin’s history and its peoples and want to ensure that our experiences in life are recorded and documented as an important part of Darwin’s history and be accessible to future researchers and the wider community. Maisie is an authorised Civil Celebrant and also enrolled as an HDR student at Charles Darwin University.
MARTIN THOMAS: Clever Men
The American-Australian Scientific Expedition to Arnhem Land set off with fanfare in 1948, backed not only by National Geographic but by the Australian government and the Smithsonian Institution. While the leader Charles Mountford had convinced himself he was leading the ‘biggest scientific expedition in history’, things quickly went wrong. The barge carrying essential equipment became stranded. Fights broke out within the party, one of whom denounced the expedition as ‘one of the greatest fiascos perpetrated in modern times.’
With Mountford exposed as a selfish and incompetent leader, senior Indigenous elders, including the spiritual leaders or shamans known as ‘clever men’, were puzzled and at times disturbed by the intrusion of these scientific ‘experts’ on their sacred land. As relations within the party turned toxic, Mountford, who was preoccupied with collecting bark paintings, neglected other responsibilities. Meanwhile, other members of the party began to steal bones from traditional mortuary sites as part of their scientific collecting.
In this richly illustrated presentation, I will give a behind-the-scenes account of researching this story of colliding worlds where scientific hubris was pitted against the enduring domain of traditional, land-based knowledge. I talk about the consultative methods that led me to the main Arnhem Land communities visited by the expedition and how I found a message of global relevance in the troubles and triumphs of a remarkable and controversial journey.
About Martin Thomas
A professor of History at the Australian National University, Martin is the author/editor of ten books on Australian and cross-cultural history. In addition to his academic work, Martin practises concurrently as an oral historian for the National Library, as a radio documentary maker for ABC, and as a filmmaker. His work is driven by a deep interest in the meaning of landscapes, the legacies of colonisation, and the drama of cross-cultural encounter. His interest in audio archives and the history of field recording led him to the 1948 American-Australian Scientific Expedition Arnhem Land, led by Charles Mountford. Martin directed and co-produced (with Béatrice Bijon) Etched in Bone (2018), a documentary film about the expedition’s bone thefts. Clever Men, his book on the expedition, was published by Allen & Unwin in June.
LUNCH: 12:20 TO 1:10 PM
SESSION 3: 1:10 PM TO 2:40 PM
PAIGE TAYLOR: Evlampia and Ludmilla Holtze: The Women Behind the Botanists
MAGNT
Stories of conspiracy, political intrigue and mystery lurk within the Territory History Collection at the Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory (MAGNT). Once such epic is the trials of a Russian mother, Evlampia, and her daughter Ludmilla. Fleeing Russia from an enemy lost to history, the young Holtze family crossed land and sea in search of a better life, arriving at Port Darwin on Larrakia Country in 1873. This paper delves into the lives of the women behind the famous botanists Maurice and Nicholas Holtze of the George Brown Darwin Botanic Gardens, and the materials they left behind, now in MAGNT’s care.
About Paige Taylor
Paige relocated to Darwin from Western Australia in 2022 to work as the Assistant Curator of Territory History at the Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory (MAGNT). Since then, she has presented at multiple history conferences, focusing on the narratives surrounding the objects in the museum’s Territory History Collection. She co-curated the exhibition commemorating the 50th anniversary of Cyclone Tracy and co-wrote the book Cyclone Tracy: A Cyclone for Christmas. Paige has also published in Australian Archaeology on the preservation of fragile material in specific archaeological environments.
Before joining MAGNT, Paige worked for the Museum of Perth, a not-for-profit online museum and community research organisation, on the Streets of Bunbury project, and for Terra Rosa Consulting as an archaeologist. Paige graduated from the University of Notre Dame in 2019 with a Bachelor of Science in archaeology and a Bachelor of Arts in modern language. She then completed her honours degree in archaeology in 2021 by writing a thesis exploring what the archaeological record reveals about the lives of Fremantle Prison inmates behind cell doors.
STEVEN FARRAM: Pioneer overland cyclists in the Northern Territory
CDU & PHA (NT)
Jerome J. Murif rode a bicycle from Adelaide to Darwin in 1897. The trip took him 74 days. Murif was the first to complete the transcontinental bicycle journey, although his record did not stand for long. But not all the Northern Territory overland cyclists were necessarily interested in making or breaking records. In this paper I look at the rides of several of the early overlanders, their motivations and any special features of their journeys, all undertaken in the days before there were any formed roads and when much of the Territory was still a genuine frontier.
About Steven Farram
I am Associate Professor of North Australian and Regional Studies (History) at Charles Darwin University. My main research interests are the history of the Northern Territory and Southeast Asia, especially Indonesia and Timor-Leste. I have had several books and articles published in these areas. My most recent book (written with Paolo Fabris), Wild Dogs of Song: Palmerston (Darwin) Dingo Glee Club, 1895-1905, was a finalist for the Chief Minister’s Northern Territory History Book Award.
WEIDA CHEN: The Northern Territory Greeks and Their Experience of the Second World War
PhD candidate CDU
My discussion focuses on the impact of World War II on the Greeks living in the Northern Territory from social, political, and economic perspectives. The paper begins by briefly examining the lives of NT Greeks in the pre-war period, then discusses the difficulties they faced during the evacuation and the Japanese bombing periods, before exploring the war efforts of the Greeks. The Greek experience during the war is an important part of my thesis discussion, as my research compares the Chinese with the Greek community. Both groups faced discrimination before the war and had social connections, which allowed for a meaningful comparison. This analysis highlights the similarities and differences in how the war affected these significant Northern Territory ethnic groups.
About Weida Chen
Weida completed a Bachelor of Arts degree, majoring in History, Geography, and Environmental Studies, from Central Queensland University in 2013. Later, he pursued a Bachelor of Arts (Honours) degree, majoring in History, at the University of Queensland in 2014. Currently, he is undertaking a Doctor of Philosophy in History at Charles Darwin University, after transferring from Central Queensland University. Weida has a particular interest in Chinese Australian history and his thesis focuses on the effects of the Second World War on the Chinese in the Northern Territory (NT).
AFTERNOON TEA: 2:40 PM to 3 PM
SESSION 4: 3:00 PM TO 5:00 PM
ELEANOR HOGAN: Writing slant stories - Ernestine Hill’s heteroglossic travel writing
Libraries & Archives NT
During the 1930s and ‘40s, journalist and travel writer Ernestine Hill developed a reputation for telling hyperbolic, unreliable stories based on her roaming reporting throughout remote Australia, including the Territory. Characterised by her curiosity about the vivid and diverse dramatis personae and geography she encountered, Hill’s journalism came to crystallise notions of outback life and personalities for southern, urban readers who had never travelled north. From a contemporary perspective, much of her writing now seems twee and Orientalising, underpinned by outmoded and at times troubling notions of race and nationhood. This paper will suggest that Hill’s work has value not for its historical accuracy, but for its portrayal of the sweaty, visceral, pulsating vision of the complexities of mid-20th-century northern Australia. Tracing the transition between her two best-known travel books, The Great Australian Loneliness (1938) and The Territory (1951), this paper will argue that Hill’s writing displays an evolving consciousness about intercultural relations and national identity. This is particularly the case when these published works are re-read in relation to unpublished inter-texts, such as the ‘quick slant’ of Aboriginal and settler frontier histories that Hill was attempting to document in later life. This paper will explore the potential value of Hill’s slant history and poetic licence in story-telling as a way of giving voice to the culturally and historically paradoxical elements of her milieu.
About Eleanor Hogan
Dr Eleanor Hogan is Collection Development Coordinator for Library & Archives NT. She is also an independent researcher and a literary non-fiction author whose writing focuses on revisiting history and place in Central Australia. Her most recent book, Into the Loneliness: the unholy alliance of Ernestine Hill and Daisy Bates (NewSouth, 2021) was listed for the University of Queensland Non-Fiction Book Award 2021, the Chief Minister’s NT Book Awards 2022, the Magarey Medal for Biography 2022 and the National Biography Award.
KAREN GEORGE: Unfinished business – righting wrongs in records access
PHA (SA)
Twenty-eight years ago (1997) the Bringing Them Home Report made recommendations emphasising the importance of instigating fair and consistent access to records held by government, church and non-government record agencies for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. This year the Healing Foundation highlighted the ‘unfinished business of Bringing Them Home’, highlighting ongoing barriers and lack of prioritisation in records access for the Stolen Generations. This paper will share aspects of my work over two decades, seeking to improve records access for Survivors and for Forgotten Australians. As a professional historian I have worked in this field, both as a consultant and in non-ongoing salaried roles. In this presentation I will explore the highs and the lows of my work, outline some research and writing processes and talk about my passion for using history to bring about social justice outcomes. The paper will include records access case studies revealing the ingrained problem of risk-averse record gatekeepers, the tragic cost of loss and destruction of records, and its impact on survivors. I will share how, as historians and advocates, I believe we can all help to finish this unfinished business.
About Karen George
Karen George runs her own business, Historically Speaking, with a strong focus on research and records access for Stolen Generations and Forgotten Australians. She wrote the ‘Finding your own way: a guide to records of children’s homes in South Australia’, was State-based Historian for SA and NT for the Find & Connect web resource and Historian Researcher at Link-Up SA. Karen recently completed a 3-year contract with the Territories Stolen Generations Redress Scheme. She is now consultant researcher with the Post Adoption Support Service and AIATSIS, and oral historian with the State Library of SA and the National Library.
SUE SILBERBERG: Jewish Traders and the Tropics: Politics and the Shaping of Imperial Networks
In the nineteenth century, a small group of Jewish merchants leveraged their skills and networks to develop trading connections that extended across the tropics and broader Pacific region. Developing these new connections, they opened new markets in Fiji and Japan, leading to political involvement at home and in the Pacific. Existing scholarship on empire and settler cities broadly considers those Britons engaged in processes of colonisation as a culturally homogenous group. This view negates the cultural complexity of the British themselves. As a religious minority, Jews were both part of British society yet a culturally distinct cohort. As neither soldiers, missionaries, civil servants and rarely squatters, Jews are not apparent at the forefront of the colonial experience and are invisible within this discourse. Yet, as merchants, Jews utilised their existing networks and established strong networks beyond the British Empire's borders. This paper explores Jewish families shipwrecked across the Pacific, examining how their time in the Pacific transformed their engagement with imperial trade and politics and how they transformed the societies they found themselves in, both in the Pacific and on their return to Melbourne.
About Sue Silberberg
Dr Sue Silberberg is a historian and heritage consultant. She holds a doctorate from the University of Melbourne and studied at Monash University, Deakin University, and the International Centre for the Conservation of Cultural Material (ICCROM). Sue is the author of A Networked Community and several other scholarly publications. Her diverse career includes the University of Melbourne's eScholarship Research Centre, General Manager at Arts Victoria, and the Director of the Cultural Festival for the 2006 Melbourne Commonwealth Games. Previously, she worked as a curator and museum director in London and Victoria, specialising in historic buildings. In addition, Sue has contributed to the cultural sector as a board member of several organisations, including the Jewish Museum of Australia, Chair of the Arts Management Advisory Group, and a Trustee of the Industrial Buildings Preservation Trust (London). Her work continues to shape the intersection of history, heritage, and community.
SKYE KRICHAUFF: The power of oral histories and ‘The South Australian Frontier and its Legacies’ project
From 2020-2023, Skye Krichauff was employed as Project Manager, oral historian and archival researcher on a truth telling project investigating violence between colonists and Aboriginal people in colonial South Australia. The project was funded by the Australian Research Council and the project’s website and interactive story map were launched in Adelaide during Reconciliation Week in May 2024. In this presentation, Skye will use the website to demonstrate some of the website’s features. In particular, she will demonstrate how the oral histories enrich research findings and provide current audiences with a powerful reminder of the proximity of the colonial past.
About Skye Krichauff
Dr Skye Krichauff is an ethno-historian who combines the methodologies of history, anthropology and oral history. She is interested in colonial cross-cultural relations, the relationship between history and memory, and how societies live with historical injustices (in particular how Australians live with the enduring legacies of colonialism). She is a senior lecturer at the University of Adelaide.
MALCOLM TRAILL: Albany 2026: Celebration or pause for reflection?
Albany is the first Western Australian settlement to mark 200 years of European settlement. Many years of planning have gone into ways to mark this anniversary, but the overall theme has been "Menang First", to acknowledge the culture and society of the local First Nations people. As a marked contrast to previous Australian milestones, a concentrated effort has been made to incorporate Menang/Noongar stories into the events and commemorations that will occur throughout the year. The end result will no doubt inform and affect the 2029 projects that will occur throughout Western Australia, and which will mark 200 years since the foundation of Perth. This paper will examine the validity of Australian milestone commemorations in light of revisionist histories of aboriginal peoples throughout Australia. It will reflect on the plans proposed by the community of Albany to link Menang / Noongar history with more recent arrivals and will pose questions about the policies, plans and ethos of this approach, whose success has yet to be tested.
About Malcolm Traill
Malcolm Traill is a self-employed history and heritage professional, and is also an Adjunct Lecturer in History at the Albany campus of the University of WA. He is a Research Associate with the Western Australian Museum. He won a Western Australian Heritage Award for Individual Contribution (Professional) in 2020. He is also a Councillor with the City of Albany.
Sunday, 26 OCTOBER
Speakers and Abstracts
SESSION 1: 9:00 AM TO 10:45 AM
MORNING BREAK
SESSION 2: 11:00 AM TO 12:45 PM
LUNCH
AFTERNOON BREAK
CONCLUSION
SESSION 1: 9:00 AM TO 10:45 AM
STEPHEN GAPPS: A topic too hot for the Australian War Memorial: The Australian Wars
PHA (NSW & ACT)
Later this year, a major publication based on the award-winning documentary series directed by Rachel Perkins The Australian Wars will hit bookstores. It will be an incoming missile squarely aimed at the Australian War Memorial, our national icon desperately trying to avoid acknowledging the Australian Frontier Wars as part of Australian military history.
But along with the publication of The Australian Wars, things might start to get even hotter for the Memorial. This paper will outline initial research into how Australia’s post-1901 military history has connections with the Australian Frontier Wars of the 19th and early 20th centuries.
Beyond several emblematic elements such as emu plumes and the ‘Coo-ee’ call, there are other less symbolic threads. Numbers of men who enlisted from the bush, particularly in Queensland, had first-hand experience of frontier warfare. Many others had fathers and relatives who were involved in frontier conflict. This paper suggests there is fertile ground for researching the relationship between the Australian Wars and the First AIF. It will reflect on why the Australian Wars are still too hot to handle for the national place of the commemoration of Australians at war.
About Stephen Gapps
Stephen Gapps is an historian working to bring the Australian Frontier Wars into broader public recognition. He is currently employed as an Historian at Artefact Heritage & Environment, works as a consultant historian and is an Adjunct Lecturer at Charles Sturt University. In 2011 Stephen won a NSW Premier’s History Award for his book Cabrogal to Fairfield. Stephen has since published three Australian Frontier Wars histories, The Sydney Wars, Gudyarra and most recently, Uprising: War in the Colony of NSW 1838-44. He is currently co-editor and contributor to the forthcoming (2025) book of the documentary series The Australian Wars.
FRANCESCA BEDDIE: After the war: what the Cowra Japanese garden can tell us about peacebuilding
PHA (NSW & ACT)
Eighty years ago, on 24 October 1945, the Charter of the United Nations came into force ‘to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war’. While the casualties from contemporary warfare are nowhere near the scale of the two world wars, armed conflict and its consequences are again a dominant element in international relations. The rhetoric of peace has faded. Was the hope of an international order based on peaceful cooperation utopian? Can nations and humans reconcile after having been bitter enemies? A garden in the small country town of Cowra in New South Wales provides some answers.
This paper analyses the oral history record created under the Australian War Memorial’s Australia–Japan Research Project in 2003/2004. It traces how Cowra became the ‘spiritual home of Australia–Japan relations’ and overcame the bitterness and humiliation caused by war. The centrepiece of that effort is Cowra’s Japanese Garden. One foundation for reconciliation was the interaction between individuals in Australia and Japan, who worked together to realise the garden.
Speaking about Australian─Japanese relations in 1957, Prime Minister Menzies said it was ‘better to hope than always to remember’. Many decades later though, retelling Cowra’s story may offer some signposts towards peace.
About Francesca Beddie
Francesca Beddie is a former diplomat and now editor of Australian Garden History as well as co-editor of Circa. She studied history at the ANU and has written on the Russian fin-de-siècle and on history and policy, with a focus on international affairs, health and tertiary education. She has undertaken a community-led oral history on the 2020 bushfires and is working on collating oral histories from the Australian Garden History Society’s collection into podcasts.
JEFF HOPKINS-WEISE: Northern Australia’s last imperial outpost: Somerset, Cape York, 1864-67
PHA (NSW & ACT)
British expansionism across the vast Australian continent saw a small number of very isolated military outposts established in distant northern and western locales far removed from the core areas of European settlement and domination, including Fort Dundas on Melville Island (1824–29), Fort Wellington in Raffles Bay (1827–29) and then Port Essington (1838-49) on the Coburg Peninsula. A far-flung outpost was established in King George Sound in 1826, in what is today Albany, Western Australia, and another short-lived military garrison was the abortive North Australia Colony (later the site of Gladstone) in 1847. This paper seeks to provide an outline of the final imperial outpost at Somerset, Cape York during 1864-67 – the last imperial military outpost in northern Australia.
This paper forms part of an ongoing passion project to better document the often-forgotten imperial Army and Royal Navy detachments which served in the Colony of Queensland during the 19th century, for which the Royal Marine detachment at Somerset, Cape York, to date has eluded my attention, despite having carried out a large body of research decades back. The passing of a good friend and historian colleague in 2023 who similarly shared this same historical passion, has re-ignited my purpose.
About Jeff Hopkins-Weise
Jeff Hopkins-Weise M.Phil, BA(Hons) is senior heritage advisor/historian for Navin Officer Heritage Consultants in Canberra ACT and is a long-term member of the Professional Historians Australia, the current Vice President of this national body, as well as Deputy Chair of PHA NSW & ACT. He has many years of history and heritage experience including heritage assessment and management, museums curatorial and collection management, with local councils, state, and Commonwealth government departments. Jeff also has an especial interest in the British Army and Royal Navy in Australia and New Zealand, memorials and memorialisation, and the colonial trans-Tasman world.
HANNAH VINEY: Historian or nosy creep? The ethics of digging into ASIO files and divorce papers
PHA (Vic & Tas)
One of the greatest archival finds of my career was a literal ‘Dear John’ letter hidden in divorce case proceedings from 1940. In this letter, Louise laid into her soon-to-be-ex-husband John about his failed business dealings and debt, scathingly remarking “you can keep the wedding ring to remind you of how much you have let me down.” As a historian, this letter is gold. It gives a clear voice to Louise and demonstrates perfectly her own agency. Yet this was a letter that was never intended to be read by someone other than John. The inclusion of this letter in the divorce proceedings was, in itself, likely exposing enough. In 1940, no one involved could have predicted this letter would be freely available online to anyone in the world in 80 years. The same can be said of the phone conversations and other personal details included in ASIO files. An individual may choose to donate their diary to an archive later in life, but the diary that ASIO agent secretly photographed and is now available online may be a different story This paper asks: how do we, as historians, navigate these ethical dilemmas in a respectful way while still telling the histories we want to tell?
About Hannah Viney
I am a history consultant and museum professional with over ten years’ experience bringing history to life. I specialise in Australian social and cultural history, with a particular interest in the intersections between twentieth century politics and gender history. I am passionate about ensuring history is accessible to everyone. I believe it is important that people from different backgrounds and life experiences can find themselves in history. My recent work has been used by the National Trust of Australia, the Old Melbourne Gaol, the Australian War Memorial and the Old Treasury Building Museum.
JANE MILLS HARDING: Love triangle: romance and passion are alive in the archives
PHA (Qld)
Historians love, and rely on, archives for much of their work and archival collections pulse with the echoes of human connection. Love stories are readily revealed in carefully preserved diaries and bundles of old letters. But there are also love stories to be found in less conspicuous collections. Historic collections can also facilitate the rekindling of lost connections in unanticipated ways.
Through brief, practise-based case studies, this presentation will demonstrate the surprising ways love can manifest in the archives. From 100 year old romance revealed in unlikely bureaucratic files to the reuniting of adolescent sweethearts, the many ways love is alive and thriving in the archives will be demonstrated. It will reiterate the importance of exploring every source and shine a spotlight on the vital role of archivists and librarians in this process.
The uncovering of these hidden narratives of affection is dependent upon a three-way relationship between the collection materials (and their original creators), the historians who seek them out, and, crucially, the stewards of the archival collections whose love and passion ensures they are preserved and accessible – an ideal love triangle.
About Jane Mills Harding
Jane Mills Harding is a professional historian focusing on local, community and public history. She has over 20 years’ experience in local government providing local history and heritage services. She has coordinated a wide range of historical interpretive projects including short films, books, heritage walks, and exhibitions. She has qualifications in history, information science and communications.
Jane has been recognised professionally as a GAMAA Finalist for Individual Achievement and a joint winner of a National Trust of Australia (Queensland) Silver Award and is a member of PHA (Qld). She currently works as a freelance historian and heritage consultant.
SESSION 2: 11:00 AM TO 12:45 AM
PAULINE HASTINGS: The Barbie Doll’s Australian Legacy: Cultivating youth fashion consumption through children’s play and marketing in 1960s Australia
PHA (Vic & Tas)
Mattel’s Barbie doll entered the Australian children’s toy market in 1964, a time when the teenage fashion market was on the brink of unprecedented expansion. The disposable incomes of Australia’s large cohort of employed youth ensured a burgeoning economy in fashion, as well as fun and leisure. Dubbed “The Teenage Fashion Model Doll,” young children embraced Barbie, her clothes and accessories and their play mirrored youth’s lived experience through consumption. This paper links the Australian cultural and economic history of the Barbie doll and argues that the doll’s image departed from traditional ideas of motherhood and postwar femininity, instead symbolising consumption culture. Barbie’s marketing exposed the very young to new ideas on individual style, fun and career aspirations through dress. Through play, Barbie dolls primed their pre-teen owners in fashion consciousness, the embrace of obsolescence and the desire to consume.
About Pauline Hastings
Pauline Hastings is an independent scholar and Professional Historian with research interests in manufacturing, marketing and consuming goods and services in Australia’s postwar period. Her work utilises a multidimensional approach that connects social, cultural and economic histories and endows stories of business with a human vibrancy. Her recent PhD thesis (Monash University, 2024) explored the golden age of Australian mass market clothing manufacturing and its subsequent decline in the final decades of the twentieth century through the lived experiences of the industry’s workers, business owners and others connected through cloth and clothing.
SINEAD BURT: Is it Fashion? Collecting Clothing in Australian Institutions
PHA (Qld)
Does the categorisation of the clothing that we collect matter. What if we call it “costume” or “clothing” or “fashion” or “dress”? And what about gender - why is it one of the only departments in the museum or gallery in which women are more highly represented than men?
Through my own museum practice, I observed that clothing can be interpreted differently, depending on the collecting institution. Art Galleries interpret clothing through an art historical focus, while social history institutions view garments as historical sources. This observation led me to question the influence of the academic discipline of the institution on the categorisation and interpretation of dress.
As part of my PhD, I have recently conducted a study of clothing collections held in Australian collecting institutions to find out about the influence of categorisation on collecting practices, and how this influences the ways in which knowledge is produced. I am especially interested in the ways in which concepts of gender are constructed and represented.
My research is hot of the press! I have investigated art galleries, museums, historical societies and National Trusts, incorporating surveys, interviews and object biographies to obtain new data. Through examining the interplay between disciplines and gender, my aim is to broaden the way that we interpret clothing within museum practice, through a reassessment of existing collections.
About Sinead Burt
Sinead Burt holds her BA (Hons) from The University of Western Australia, and an MA at The University of Queensland. She is a doctoral student, supported by the Deakin University Research Training Program Scholarship. As an historian who specialises in clothing, Sinead Burt is interested in the intersections between the acquisition and interpretation of clothing in collecting institutions.
DEB LEE-TALBOT, ROLAND LEIKAUF & SARAH CRAZE: Hot Histories: Curiosity, Controversy, and the Role of AI in Historical Practice
Dr Deborah Lee-Talbot (PHA Vic & Tas) suggests historians are ideally placed to engage with the AI as their expertise in source criticism, contextual analysis, and understanding of historical bias is essential for developing AI systems that can accurately interpret and digitise historical documents without perpetuating or amplifying existing archival inequities. The potential for AI to dramatically improve OCR output on historical texts—from sketch maps to faded newspapers—could revolutionise historical research by making previously inaccessible or poorly digitised sources searchable at unprecedented scales.
Dr Roland Leikauf (PHA NSW & ACT) postulates that in an age of expanding AI offerings, GLAM is caught between two extremes. Institutions that are underfunded and understaffed welcome tools that help them to streamline and automate processes, even though the price for this help is often cutting the human touch out of many different areas.
What historians and cultural workers really want from AI is strong support for their creative endeavours: opportunities to interact with their responsibilities in new ways, better approaches for dealing with data, information and sources. But once creativity is actually funded, projects are often outsourced to external companies and experts that lack the direct relationship to the processes of professional history.
Will the qualities of the histories we write suffer while we are caught between these extremes? Who is in control of this rapid process of adaption, and why is change management often so seriously lacking?
Dr Sarah Craze (PHA Vic & Tas) suggests that what we publish online and produce on social media is an opportunity for us to feed these developing AI systems with accurate historical information. AI and social media are now heavily entwined; but they change almost constantly. Established platforms like Facebook and Instagram are in decline while TikTok is on the ascension. TikTok is no longer the domain of weird dance videos and strange food trends, nor is it just for teenagers. Instead it is increasingly a source of information for all demographics as it positions itself to replace Google as a search engine. If we are not engaging in these new spaces to give context and accuracy to history, then AI will be fed with dubious and inaccurate historical sources.
About the speakers
Deborah Lee-Talbot is an Australian historian and consultant based in Melbourne, specialising in Pacific histories, gender studies, and archival research. In 2023, Dr. Lee-Talbot served as the CH Currey Fellow at the State Library of New South Wales, where she researched Phyllis Mander-Jones' role in preserving Australian-Pacific records. In 2025, she is collaborating on a project titled "History, Archives, and Ethics (HAE)," which explores the ethical challenges of using historical data in AI models.
Roland Leikauf is a historian and curator specialising in migration and post-war immigration. Since 2021, he has served as the Curator of Post-war Immigration at the Australian National Maritime Museum in Sydney. In this role, he oversees the museum's migration-related collections and exhibitions. In 2024, Dr. Leikauf's essay "The impact of AI tools on the historical profession" won the Best Essay award in Circa: The Journal of Professional Historians. The judges praised his accessible and meaningful discussion on the challenges and potential of AI in historical research and writing.
Dr Sarah Craze completed her PhD in 2019 and is the author of Atlantic Piracy in the early 19th Century: the shocking story of the pirates and survivors of the Morning Star. During the Covid era she turned her attention to local history and in 2024 self-published Ashburton Stories: A History of the Melbourne Suburb. She runs Life Stories writing workshops, continues to undertake local history research projects, and is the projects officer at PHA (Vic & Tas).
RICHARD GILLESPIE: Photogrammetry and Rock Art
PHA (Vic & Tas)
In the 1970s and 1980s surveyors in the Department of Surveying at the University of Melbourne commenced a project to apply photogrammetric techniques to the recording of rock art sites around Australia. A highly technical and mathematical discipline, the surveyors used specially designed and calibrated cameras holding large-format glass plates or film. Stereopairs could then be analysed to enable stereo viewing and plotting in the 3D model. The university was awarded a grant by the Australian Heritage Commission to undertake trial projects in Cape York, while the National Parks and Wildlife Service funded the recording of rock art sites in Kakadu.
Hundreds of glass plates and large format film have survived and are now part of the university’s cultural collections. These images are an important archive. Rock art is subject to constant deterioration – and sometimes major destruction.
In 2023 the Indigenous Knowledges Institute and the Faculty of Engineering and Information Technology funded a project to initiate discussions with Traditional Owners around Australia and to digitise more than 700 photographs of rock art sites. Spatial information researchers can create 3D images and video of the surfaces from the stereopair images, revealing in detail the condition of the artwork forty years ago. We are now exploring with Traditional Owners and rock art researchers the ways to use these images to assist in cultural maintenance, conservation, research and education.
About Richard Gillespie
Richard Gillespie is senior curator of the Engineering and Information Technology Collection at the University of Melbourne. He was previously head of the Humanities Department at Museums Victoria. He has led the development of over thirty exhibitions and associated public programs. He has published widely on the history of science and technology and the history of museum collections.
KIMBERLEY MEAGHER: In the pursuit of connection: finding outback jackaroos by rail
PHA (Vic & Tas)
In 2017, Cloncurry celebrated its 150th anniversary and the 110th anniversary of the railway line opening, with a historic steam train journeying from Townsville to Cloncurry over four days. This lightning paper charts the journey in search of a former pastoral station along the historic railway line where only a Google pin marks the remnant railway siding. Using the commemorative steam train into the QLD outback to delve into a personal family archive reveals not only the life on an outback pastoral station in 1929, but unexpected and simultaneous connections to this place across Australia, both in the past and the present.
About Kimberley Meagher
Kimberley Meagher is a professional historian and senior project officer at Creative Victoria. She has spent the past sixteen years in the public service working in archives, heritage and creative sectors, with five years working for heritage consultancies and freelancing in history. A member of PHA (Vic & Tas) since 2009, Kimberley has contributed six years in Committee of Management positions of President, Vice President and Events Coordinator. Kimberley blends professional interests in creative and digital infrastructure with personal interests in people, places, and travel. She writes and publishes her research at www.whatwillbe.blog
MIRANDA FRANCIS: Claiming the Flames: a community running hot on owning ‘their’ fire
PHA (Vic & Tas)
Living Histories partners Sonia Jennings, Jill Barnard, and Miranda Francis are writing a history of Truganina, a small rural community on the outskirts of Melbourne. The period covered spans from the 1930s to 2015 and is defined by a major fire in 1969. Although other areas in Victoria also suffered, participants recounting their memories of Truganina have shown a fierce determination to 'own' their fire, resisting association with neighbouring areas. Comments to date on our work have included:
Too much emphasis on Lara Fire including the inquest
Too much on the Lara fires, which got extensive newspaper coverage because of the dreadful fatalities
Truganina fire was totally separate to the Lara one
Despite the tragic fatalities of the Lara fires, Truganina's community was determined to tell the unique story of their fire. More than half a century later, these recollections and emotions show how such events shape memory and continue to influence how the past is remembered and retold. This presentation will explore how this sense of ownership has shaped the structure and tone of the commissioned history, highlighting its relevance to broader narratives about the impact of fire on small communities.
About Miranda Francis
Dr Miranda Francis is a professional historian and partner of Living Histories. She specialises in the history of motherhood and family, with an emphasis on oral history. She is a member of the National Library of Australia’s COVID-19 oral history interviewing team, serves as the Digital Curator/Historian for RMIT University Archives and is an Adjunct Research Fellow at La Trobe University. Her current work focuses on the history of post-secondary education in Victoria and the social history of Melbourne's western suburbs.
CLAIRE SANDELL: Working with passionate supporters in politically hot conditions: A Lightening Talk about a Public Historian’s positive experiences with community collections
PHA (Vic & Tas)
Working with passionate supporters in politically hot conditions: A Lightening Talk about a Public Historian’s positive experiences with community collections.
My lightning talk will be about my experiences as a public historian advocating for the protection and communication of community collections, particularly in the context of politically ‘hot’ contemporary environments. These include local government and the private sector.
Working with an archive collection solo can be a little isolating and it is easy for your organisation to forget about you. I have found the support of the volunteers who passionately defend these collections, to be an invaluable factor in navigating this challenge. I learnt early to never underestimate the value of these often-unassuming collections, and their custodians.
I want to talk about how struggles have been overcome and share the positive outcomes. I will provide a quick tour of a platform that has been developed through support from both my current school and the alumni, to provide public access to key areas of the collection. There will be discussion about the impact of this tool on the ordinary business of the archives. Also, an overview of new projects designed to protect and communicate the rich history of this 150-year-old collection.
About Claire Sandell
I am a public historian, currently working in the field of school archives at a Melbourne Girls’ School. My work has brought me into contact with many varied community collections, local government collections, libraries and more recently school archives. I always find that the detective work is the best bit, finding clues to help understand the connections that ultimately make it possible to tell interesting stories. Finding the women’s voices is a key motivator for me, and most importantly, not to be put off by being asked to sort out a mess!
ALLISON SULLIVAN: Rabbit Holes
PHA (NSW & ACT)
I think all historians have moments when we wish we could be two people!
Professionalism stops you jumping down every rabbit hole and experience teaches you that most are dead ends, but what happens when you take the leap?
As a historian it's so easy to get side-tracked: we pursue information for a specific purpose, and are frequently forced to cast aside items that threaten to pull us away from the job at hand. The realities of time constraints, budgets and life naturally get in the way of pursuing everything we find interesting.
Sometimes, though, these tidbits niggle away at me, and I find it hard to leave them untested. I started my blog as a way of exorcising these stories, and my business identity grew from this obsession with rabbit holes. This paper is a light-hearted exploration of some of the obscure, weird and wonderful stories I’ve delved into over the years, such as: the Victorian gentleman of note who somehow ‘married’ two sisters; the adulterous woman who eloped to a cave with a confidence trickster; the mummy’s boy and his long-suffering spouse; and an extraordinary gift to a King from a Sydney craftswoman.
About Allison Sullivan
Allison O’Sullivan is a historian and GLAM sector professional. She holds a PhD (UNSW) and has worked as a university tutor and lecturer; museum guide; museum and heritage sector public engagement programmer; and social history curator and researcher since the early 2000s. In 2022 she was awarded an honorary fellowship with the State Library of Queensland on diaries of colonial women migrants. Allison has created exhibitions and published on the history of women, convicts, veterans, and the working poor. She most enjoys writing in public history for a general readership. Allison is currently a freelance researcher, transcriber, writer, and consultant.
LIBBY BLAMEY: The larrikin pushes (or gangs) of the late nineteenth century
PHA (Vic & Tas)
Drawing on two recent thematic histories produced for City of Melbourne heritage reviews of Carlton and North Melbourne, this paper will explore the larrikin pushes (or gangs) of the late nineteenth century. After the 1880sbuilding boom, the economic crash of the 1890s had a significant impact on the working-class inner north suburbs of Melbourne, with many of the population employed in building trades. Through this period, groups of disenfranchised and unemployed men formed 'pushes', and reports of petty crime and violent assaults in the inner suburbs shocked and fascinated middle-class Melbourne for decades. What was it about the pushes that left so many readers hot under the collar? How does the history of these gangs, and reports thereof, inform a sense of place and identity? And how can this be applied to a modern understanding of a place in a heritage context?
About Libby Blamey
Libby Blamey, senior historian at Melbourne-based heritage consultancy, Lovell Chen, brings a background in social history to her work. She has considerable experience in relation to the built heritage of Victoria, in particular the inner suburbs of Melbourne. Libby’s interests include the study of places connected with popular culture and social change, and in twentieth century history and politics.
CHRISTEEN SCHOEPF: Defiant of tempest, fire, or wreck: the biographies of two ships and their incarnations as significant chairs. The notion of Object Biography as a tool for broader historical enquiry
PHA (SA)
On a hot January evening in 1888, the Prussian barque Saturn was set alight while anchored near Port Pirie South Australia, by a kerosene lantern that had fallen in the galley. The fire raged for days until all that remained were some oak timbers of the ship’s carcass. As this phase of Saturn’s life course came to an end, a new life and entity emerged as the timbers were bought at auction by Prussian immigrant and local merchant, Theodor Kneese, who later created the Mayoral Chair for the infant Port Pirie Corporation.
Forty-eight years earlier, HMS Buffalo, the ‘Mayflower’ of South Australia, went aground in Mercury Bay New Zealand after a violent storm. Efforts to break her up were unsuccessful and she was set fire to but would not succumb. Five decades later, pieces of the ship were crafted into the Mayoral Chair of Glenelg as locals sought material connections to their history.
This paper will explore how the notion of object biography can add new dimensions, meanings and connections to the changing layers of the stories of both ships as each moved through the phases of their life course -from creation, use, discard, death and reincarnation.
About Christeen Schoepf
Christeen Schoepf is a SA regionally based independent Historical Archaeologist experienced in a multitude of cross disciplinary methodologies. Her expertise is in the field of Object Biography where history, genealogy, biography, and oral history are used to reveal the contexts and stories of objects, buildings, and other heritage items. She also facilitates best practice oral history, storytelling and community history, and genealogy workshops and consults on local history projects. She is President of Oral History Australia SA/NT and in 2024, was awarded the History Council of SA ‘Excellence in Oral History” award for her contribution to oral history in SA.
SHAUNA HICKS: No home and starving: the plight of homeless women in colonial Queensland 1850-1900
PHA (Qld)
Women who were widowed or deserted by their husbands were particularly at risk of becoming homeless. If they could not find employment and there were no other family members, they often found themselves living on the streets. Police arrested them under the Vagrancy Act, and they were sent to gaol, often with hard labour. If the women had young children, they were sent to reformatories or orphanages. Punishment of the poor and homeless seems harsh but many of colonial Queensland’s vagrant women preferred to be in gaol with meals and a roof over their heads. Even with hard labour. It was much safer than sleeping in the bush or roughing it on the streets.
Male attitudes to elderly women at that time reveal that physical appearance was important. Vagrant women were often described in a derogatory way and as if it was their own fault that they had nowhere to go. Younger women were also arrested as vagrants on the grounds that they had no gainful employment and no fixed abode. This was often a clue to prostitution which was the only way these young women could earn money to survive.
No home and starving – sadly a common theme in colonial Queensland.
About Shauna Hicks
Shauna Hicks OAM worked for over 35 years in Australian archives in Brisbane, Canberra, and Melbourne.
Shauna holds a Master of Arts in Australian Studies, and she is a Doctor of Philosophy candidate at Griffith University exploring The Incarceration of Women in Colonial Queensland, 1850-1900.
Shauna is a Fellow of the Queensland Family History Society; Patron of History Queensland, and a recipient of the Australian Society of Archivists Distinguished Achievement Award and the Australasian Federation of Family History Organisations’ Services to Family History Award. In June 2024 Shauna was awarded the Order of Australia Medal for services to community history.
MARGARET COOK: Bringing History into Policy: Working with the Murray-Darling Basin Authority
PHA (Qld)
For two years I have been part of an oral history project with La Trobe University for the Murray-Darling Basin Authority. We have interviewed over 70 people around the Basin to record life histories with the intent of informing an update to the Murray-Darling Basin Plan. The project has thrown up challenges for historians working with a large bureaucracy more used to dealing with scientists, fish numbers, and volumetric water flow measurements than historical narratives of lived experiences. The project has highlighted the potential for historians and a government agency to work collaboratively to bring history into policy making. It has also demonstrated different ways that historians can use our training and expertise in varied formats to create public facing histories.
About Margaret Cook
Dr Margaret Cook is a public and academic historian and long-term member of PHA (Qld). She currently specialises in histories of water, place and climate with a recent focus on the Murray-Darling Basin. She is the author of the book “A River with a City Problem: A History of Brisbane Floods”. Her paper will look at the hot topic of Murray-Darling Basin water reforms.
ALICIA CERRETO, MARY SHEEHAN & DOT WICKHAM: In the heat of the moment: Navigating client dilemmas in the practice of professional history
PHA (Vic & Tas)
What are the pressures, pitfalls, and challenges when working as a professional historian? Join three experienced colleagues in a candid conversation as they reflect on their careers, sharing stories of difficult decisions, creative problem-solving, and the art of managing client expectations.
From handling sensitive situations to balancing our professional obligations with our clients' needs, this session will explore practical strategies for navigating these complex moments.
We also will invite the audience to share their own problems and solutions, fostering a collaborative discussion on how to approach and resolve the dilemmas we all face in this unique field.
About the speakers
Alicia Cerreto is a professional historian who is passionate about supporting communities to explore and share stories of their past. A graduate of the Master of Public History at Monash University, Alicia has experience curating exhibitions, conducting oral histories and researching and writing commemorative publications, both digital and in print. Alicia regularly works with people of all ages through talks and workshops where she shares her love of history and demonstrates her commitment to education.
Mary Sheehan is a graduate of the Monash MA in Public History and member of the Living Histories team. She has worked in the government sector and as a heritage consultant, undertaken oral history projects, and commissioned histories on subjects including local history, nursing and an industrial union (with Sonia Jennings), business education and the legal profession. Her current research focus is the public health provision during the 1919 Spanish flu pandemic in Melbourne, at the University of Melbourne.
Dorothy Wickham is a director and co-founder of Ballarat Heritage Services. She has been closely connected with archives, genealogy, and historical interpretation for over 30 years. She is passionate about innovation, digitisation, exploring new approaches, and making history widely available to a broader audience. Dorothy has overseen many diverse projects and collaborative efforts, including consultancies with local councils, historical groups, and educational research projects. Her current research is in two different areas: prostitution on the Victorian goldfields; and the voyage and passengers of the Artemisia the first government assisted free immigrants direct from London arriving in Brisbane in mid-December 1848.