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Newsflash:

The Mitchell Library Reading Room will be closed to the public on Monday 29 April. To access collections and services on this day, please visit the Governor Marie Bashir Reading Room.

Stories

Showcasing people, places and ideas inspired by the collection and the library community.

Stories

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UNESCO 6 Exhibition Stories about our UNESCO World Heritage collections, displayed together for the very first time.

Armistice and Peace: 'now that the war is over we realise what we’ve been through'.

by Elise Edmonds

The Armistice – agreeing to cease hostilities, was signed between Germany, France and Britain at 5 a.m. on the morning of 11 November. 

Souvenir programme : victory celebrations (signing of peace), Sydney, New South Wales, July 19th, 1919.

Memories on glass: extraordinary images of late 19th and early 20th century Sydney

by Margot Riley

In the days before digital and film photography, images were often taken on glass. But from the 1880s, development of ready-to-use 'dry plate' negatives and simpler cameras saw the rise of amateur photography.

Box 04: Glass negatives of Sydney and Manly areas, ca 1890-1910

The Holtermann Collection: photographic documentation of goldfields life in Australia

In 1951, a hoard of 3,500 glass plate negatives from the nineteenth century was discovered in a garden shed in Chatswood.

Horse and cart struggling through muddy street as men watch

Internee collections: diaries of ‘enemy aliens’

by Anna Corkhill

During the First World War nearly 7000 ‘enemy aliens’, mainly of German and Austro-Hungarian origin, were interned in camps in Australia. The Library’s collection of papers of ‘enemy aliens’ interned in Australia during WW1 contains around 40 handwritten diaries written by internees.

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Reconstructing the Holtermann: the world's largest collodion glass-plate negatives

What do you do when one of the world’s largest wet-plate glass negatives, weighing over 30 kilos, smashes into hundreds of pieces?

The thickness of the trays allowed the weight of the glass to be supported without bowing, which in previous tests, had resulted in distortion patterns.

Paintings from the Collection Exhibition More than 300 original artworks of landscape and portrait paintings on permanent public display.

An unknown warrior: mysterious portrait of an unknown, handsome young Aboriginal man

by Ronald Briggs

This mysterious portrait of an unknown, handsome young Aboriginal man is believed to have belonged to Governor Lachlan Macquarie, described as ‘One of the NSW Aborigines befriended by Governor Macquarie’. Part of the 10 Works in Focus series.

A hint of eccentricity: a beautifully rendered, somewhat playful portrait

by Louise Anemaat

One of Australia’s most influential artists, George Washington Lambert (1873–1930), as part of the 10 Works in Focus series.

Man with rabbit, ca. 1910 / by George Washington Lambert

After life: Maurice Felton’s portrait of 21-year-old Sophia

by Margot Riley

Looking at the portrait of this young woman, so full of life, you would never think it was painted after her death. But we know the sitter, posed so serenely in this picture, had died six months before it was exhibited at the artist’s Sydney studio. Part of the 10 Works in Focus series.

Sophia O'Brien, 1841 / Maurice Felton

Americans on campus: part of the 10 Works in Focus series

by Elise Edmonds

Sydney Teacher’s College was co-located on the grounds of Sydney University where American Military Police units were billeted, describing the impact of the Americans on campus. Part of the 10 Works in Focus series.

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‘A degree of neatness & regularity’: part of the 10 Works in Focus series

by Richard Neville

Sydney — Capital New South Wales was painted around 1800 — its solid buildings and carefully laid out gardens refute the idea that it was a cesspit of depravity at a time when the city was associated with 'the awful depravity of human nature'.

Sydney - Capital New South Wales, ca.1800

Latest stories

The Tichborne case: a Victorian melodrama

The Tichborne Case has everything; a shipwreck, a massive reward, an English inheritance, a grieving mother and an outlandish butcher from Wagga Wagga.

Papua New Guinea (PNG): Forty years of independence

Although European navigators visited and explored the Papua New Guinea islands for 170 years, little was known of the Papua New Guinea inhabitants until the late 19th century.
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Contact Prints

by Nicola Teffer

Portrait of Gumbaynggirr and Bundjalung people from the 1870s show how photography shaped race relationships in the nineteenth century. 

Members of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities are advised that this story contains names and images of deceased people.

Crossing the Blue Mountains, Sydney

Read about the original documents and journals created by the European  pioneers who first crossed Sydney's Blue Mountains.

The Blue Mountain pioneers, lithograph by M. Emile Ulm, Sydney Mail, 1880, SLNSW SPF/1396

Featured

The Bridge: the arch that cut the sky

The journey to build the Sydney Harbour Bridge would take almost 100 years. In this 5-part series, travel through history to experience the story of realising a city’s dream. 

The Bridge website

A Map of Africa, Asia and the East Indies, 1599, by Evert Gijsbertsz

by Maggie Patton

Throughout the late sixteenth and seventeenth centuries decorated wall charts documented recent discoveries and expeditions, served as planning tools for future trading ventures, and attested to the wealth and power of their owners. But few wall charts are as beautifully illustrated as this example from 1599.

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The Magic Pudding

by Sarah Morley

In October 1918 Angus & Robertson published what would become one of Australia’s best known children’s stories: The Magic Pudding.