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Colleen McCullough discusses the importance of research, 2008

This is an edited sound recording of the best-selling Australian author Colleen McCullough discussing the importance of research for a writer. McCullough explains that research for her own 'Masters of Rome' series of novels involved reading 'literally hundreds' of books by both modern and ancient writers. She stresses that ...

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Burning of the Garden Palace, Sydney, 1882

This is a colour chromolithograph print measuring 36 cm x 51 cm, showing the huge blaze that destroyed Sydney's Garden Palace (previously used for the International Exhibition) on 22 September 1882.

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Indigenous Australian family sheltering in a cave, c1817

This is a watercolour, measuring 17.7 cm x 27.7 cm, created by Joseph Lycett in about 1817. It depicts an Indigenous Australian family sheltering from a storm in the entrance of a cave in New South Wales. A man holds a fish and a firebrand and a woman sits on a rock nursing a baby. A third adult squats before a fire, apparently ...

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A proclamation to Indigenous Australians, 1829

This is a hand-coloured lithograph made in 1886, measuring 42.3 cm x 25 cm, based on an original timber panel made at the request of Governor George Arthur (1784-1854) in 1829. It depicts a comic-style narrative in four strips of drawings. Intended to be read from bottom to top, the drawings show: a British man shooting ...

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'Where the Treaty of Waitangi was signed', 1882

This is a watercolour by Alfred Sharpe that shows the house where the Treaty of Waitangi was signed in 1840, as seen from Motumaire Island in the Bay of Islands (far north of the North Island of New Zealand) in 1882. Steep exposed rocks, with a number of trees growing on them, dominate the foreground. The Treaty House is ...

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Dress with accessories, c1820s-40s

This is a dove-coloured 'going away' dress with shoes and bonnet. The dress was made in the 1820s, then remodelled in about 1840. It is made of silk taffeta and is 132 cm long and 47 cm across at the shoulders. The 'poke' bonnet was made by James Robson Millinery and Lace Depot, England, around 1840, from buckram, a silk ...

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Dry weather in Melbourne, 1882

This is a black-and-white drawing in pen and ink depicting a street scene in Melbourne in 1882. It is captioned 'Dry weather in Melbourne suburbs, no water in the houses'. Measuring 10.0 cm x 15.5 cm, the drawing shows a range of activities involving men, women and children. One man appears to be struggling under the weight ...

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Thor 'Automagic' washing machine, 1940s-50s

This is an automatic electric washing machine produced in the 1940s or 1950s by US manufacturer Thor, called the 'Automagic'. The machine has a rectangular, box-like shape with rounded edges, a white enamel coating and a green lid. It measures 95 cm x 62 cm x 62 cm.

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‘Wool tables, Horsley Downs - J D Lang’, 1880s

This is a black-and-white photograph taken in the 1880s showing wool tables in the interior of a woolshed at Horsley Downs, a sheep station in Waipara County, North Canterbury (central east coast, South Island of New Zealand). The photograph shows seven men in the foreground sorting and grading sheep’s wool on slatted sorting ...

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Neck ornament, c1890s

This is an Aboriginal neck ornament from central Australia, believed to have been made in the late 1800s. It comprises two pairs of eaglehawk claws, connected with resin to a string made of human hair. The ornament is 43 cm long and 4 cm wide.

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'The dawn of art', 1880s

This is a set of six drawings by the Aboriginal artists Ilontereba, Mindilpilpil and Billiamook. The set is prominently titled 'THE DAWN OF ART' with smaller text stating that it shows 'Original Sketches and Drawings by Aboriginal Natives of the Northern Territory of South Australia executed without the aid of a master. ...

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Southern gastric brooding frog

This is a colour photograph of a preserved southern gastric brooding frog ('Rheobatrachus silus'). It is a museum specimen viewed from the front.

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Amphipod

This is a colour photograph of a marine amphipod ('Birubius wirakus'), showing its characteristic curved body shape and tail limbs.

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Feather fossil

This is a colour photograph of a feather fossilised in mudstone. This specimen is from the Koonwarra fossil bed in the South Gippsland region of Victoria. This fossil shows detail of the feather structure, including the central shaft and attached barbs.

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Troopers protecting non-union labour during the Shearers' Strike, 1891

This is a black-and-white photograph of 121 armed officers and men of the Townsville Mounted Infantry escorting about 60 non-unionist shearers, known as 'blacklegs' or 'scabs', to Hughenden Station on 22 April 1891 during the central Queensland Shearers' Strike. Several crowded 'German' wagons follow, some containing more ...

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Trilobite fossil

This is a colour photograph of a fossil trilobite of the genus 'Kolihapeltis'.

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Chinese workers on banana punts near Innisfail, early 1900s

This black-and-white photograph shows three Chinese workers transporting bananas on a punt near Innisfail in northern Queensland. The Chinese workers are wearing traditional dress and conical hats and the punt is laden with boxes and stalks of bananas. At the bow of the small flat-bottomed punt two of the men push long ...

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Suffragist publication cover, 1900

This black-and-white cartoon cover of the second issue of The Australian Woman’s Sphere, published in October 1900, was part of the campaign for the right of women to vote. It portrays a young woman as scholarly and attractive but without the right to vote, contrasted with eight men presented as unworthy of the vote they ...

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Anti-Chinese cover on Queensland Figaro and Punch, 1888

This cartoon appeared on the cover of the weekly Queensland Figaro and Punch on 14 July 1888 and depicts a stereotypical image of a grotesque Chinese man with gaping mouth, protruding teeth and a pug nose, about to be kicked by a tall strapping Australian bushman. The cartoon is titled 'THAT PEKIN EDICT' and has two captions. ...

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Students digging trenches at Ascot State School, Brisbane, 1942

This black-and-white photograph shows schoolchildren digging air-raid trenches in the grounds of Ascot State School in Brisbane, Queensland, on 24 January 1942. Working in the slit trenches, knee deep or deeper, the male students use picks and shovels to dig and remove the earth. A man digging with them on the right is ...