Archives of the disability rights movement

On 28 March, the University of Melbourne Archives with the Arts Faculty and Scope co-hosted the launch of the Geoffrey Bell Archive, with support from the State Trustees Australia Foundation.

The Geoffrey Bell Archive is a useful resource for researchers interested in the history of the disability rights movement in Australia and may prove a useful aid for future debates and discussions on disability rights issues. It is the first collection held at UMA that documents the disability rights movement and the lived experience of Australian’s with a disability.

At the launch, Geoff’s friend and fellow disability rights advocate, Maree Ireland gave a beautifully moving account of the contribution made by Geoff and the importance of his archive. We are delighted to be able to publish it. 

Maree Ireland speaks at the launch of the Geoffrey Bell Archive
Maree Ireland speaks at the launch of the Geoffrey Bell Archive, 28 March 2019

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The Great mirror of folly now digitised

Het Groote tafereel der dwaasheid or the ‘Great mirror of folly’ as it is known in English, is a unique Amsterdam publication complied around the year 1720, by an unnamed publisher, as a record of the aftermath of the West’s first stock market crash. No two volumes of this book are the same because different ephemeral items such as the prints, songs, poetry and broadsides which proliferated that year, were gathered up into bindings of varied arrangements and contents. The resulting book is something akin to a kaleidoscopic view of the financial misadventures of Europe in the 18th century.

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International Women’s Day 2019

First group of female science students; Ada Lambert, Georgina Sweet and Leonora Little. Photograph of science students and staff, 1894. University of Melbourne Photograph Collection, University of Melbourne Archives, 2017.0071.00668

In December 1883 Bella Guerin became the first female student to graduate the University of Melbourne. Women had been granted the same right to tertiary education as their male counterparts in 1880, however it would not be until 1913 that women were afforded the right to participate in University government as their fellow graduates. Despite the steady increase of women’s participation in all areas of university life, representation in academia and governance had to wait until 1936 for Dr Georgina Sweet, the University’s first female associate-professor, to be the first women elected to the University Council.

Professor Priscilla Kincaid Smith, undated, University of Melbourne Media and Publications Services Collection, 2003.0003, University of Melbourne Archives BWP/17,784

It was not until 1975, that Priscilla Kincaid-Smith was appointed to a Personal chair; the first female professor at the University. Kincaid-Smith was a Professor of Medicine until 1991, during which time two more women were appointed Chairs, Margaret Manion (Fine Arts, 1979-1995) and Nancy Millis (Microbiology, 1982-1987). Manion was also the first woman to chair the University’s Academic Board in 1987.

1980 saw Margaret Blackwood becoming the first Deputy Chancellor (see her entry in the Australian Dictionary of Biography http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/blackwood-dame-margaret-12218)  and in 2001 Fay Marles was installed as Chancellor. Further information on Marles’ life of milestones (including first female pilot for Ansett) can be found in her biography “Aiming for the Skies”.

Fay Marles with her graduating daughter, undated, University of Melbourne Media and Publications Services Collection, University of Melbourne Archives, BWP/16,170

 

Much can be found about women’s early student life, with a fantastic overview in our Keys to the Past resource https://archives.unimelb.edu.au/resources/keys-to-the-past/keys/key-18, as well as the 1985 publication ‘Degrees of liberation : a short history of women in the University of Melbourne’ by Farley Kelley and Juliet Flesch’s ’40 years/40 women: biographies of University of Melbourne women’ (2015). Further reading about women at the University of Melbourne can be found on UMA’s subject guide Women in the Archives https://archives.unimelb.edu.au/resources/subject_guides/women-in-the-archives

 

Professor Nancy Millis with students, undated, University of Melbourne Media and Publications Services Collection, 2003.0003, University of Melbourne Archives, BWP/16,209

 

Dame Margaret Blackwood, 17 July 1981. University of Melbourne Media and Publications Services Collection, 2003.0003, University of Melbourne Archives, BWP/21,215

 

Professor Margaret Manion, undated, University of Melbourne Media and Publications Services Collection, University of Melbourne Archives, 2003.0003.00140

Our future was ours: Darren Sylvester loan to the National Gallery of Victoria

Our future was ours, a lightjet print made in 2005 by Melbourne artist Darren Sylvester was condition reported this week in preparation for its loan to the National Gallery of Victoria. The work of art will be featured in the artist’s first large-scale solo exhibition titled Darren Sylvester: Carve a Future, Devour Everything, Become Something shown at Federation Square from the 1st of March until 30th June 2019.

Conservator from the National Gallery of Victoria condition reporting Darren Sylvester's "Our future was ours"
Conservator from the National Gallery of Victoria condition reporting Darren Sylvester’s “Our future was ours”

The scene depicted in the print was staged and photographed inside the Baillieu Library. Our future was ours was purchased for the building in 2009 by the then University Librarian, Philip Kent, to mark the 50th anniversary of the Baillieu. It’s exhibition now in 2019 coincides perfectly with the Baillieu Library’s 60th anniversary.

News of the Popish plot

Dr McIlvenna performing an execution ballad from the Popish plot pamphlets.
Dr McIlvenna performing an execution ballad from the Popish plot pamphlets.

The 2019 object-based learning program created a headline through the Popish plot pamphlets which amazed students in the summer intensive course: The History of News from Street Ballads to Social Media. The Popish plot pamphlets are a compilation of bound printed items such as speeches, broadsides, poems, plays and ballads which are titled after the first publication in the volume: A true narrative of the late design of the papists to charge their horrid plot upon the Protestants (1679). Many brutal wars and plots took place across Europe between the Catholics and the Protestants after the Protestant Reformation was set in motion in 1517. It is a powerful and sobering experience to behold these pamphlets which are a physical record of religiopolitical terrorism. Plots such as those in 17th century England including this scheme to assassinate the Protestant King Charles II, had in other instances such as in France, resulted in the St Bartholomew’s Day massacre in which thousands of Protestants were savagely slain. The Popish plot, however, was later revealed to be a fictitious conspiracy invented by the priest Titus Oates, but not before alleged ‘papist plotters’ had been grimly executed.

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