Since early 2020, Queensland Museum’s social history team has been collecting objects and stories from the SARS-Cov2 pandemic. As we enter the fourth year since the outbreak, it’s timely to look back on some of the items we’ve collected so far as we continue our mission to document this important time in our world’s history. Continue reading Collecting the pandemic: Connecting past and present
In 1905 Queensland Railways were publicly criticised for the poor appearance of their stations. the railways acted by planting more trees. They even hired a gardener to maintain gardens at stations across Brisbane. Continue reading Competitive Hedge – How a competition helped Queensland’s railway stations transform from barren to beautiful
Needed to cross the river. Designed to survive the river. Built using the river. The rail bridge over the Fitzroy River reveals how the forces of nature were used to overcome the challenges of the environment itself.
The Alexandra Bridge was part of the Rockhampton Junction Railway. George Willcocks was the contractor for its construction. Continue reading Battling and building with nature: Alexandra Bridge, Rockhampton
Our Anzac Legacy Gallery tells the fascinating story of the First World War in Queensland; the people and the things they held close – objects of war and warfare, and personal items belonging to those on the front line. Here’s five objects you can see on display at the Anzac Legacy Gallery: Mephisto Mephisto is the sole surviving German A7V Sturmpanzerwagen tank in the world, and one of the rarest items in our collection. Named by its crew, … Continue reading 5 things to see at the Anzac Legacy Gallery at Queensland Museum
By Jeff Powell, Curator Cobb+Co Museum. Transport museums are not usually associated with presenting medical advances, but few objects in any museum had a bigger impact on public health than our dunny cart. It is difficult for us in the twenty-first century to imagine a time when people were left to their own devices regarding human waste or ‘night soil’, as it was genteelly called … Continue reading What has four legs, two wheels and flies?
Many of us think nothing of picking up a few things for dinner on the way home, or purchasing a trolley load of groceries at the supermarket on the weekend. Shopping in supermarkets is a part of everyday life in Australia, but it is a fairly recent phenomenon. Large suburban shopping centres only sprang up in the years since car ownership became commonplace in the 1950s. Continue reading In every suburban street
by Imelda Miller, Curator, Torres Strait Island and Pacific Indigenous Studies, Queensland Museum 2021 will mark the 150th anniversary of the Coming of the Light and the arrival of Christianity into the Torres Strait Islands. Coming of the Light is a holiday celebrated by Torres Strait islanders on July 1 every year. It recognises the adoption of Christianity through the Torres Strait Islands in the … Continue reading 150th Anniversary of the Coming of the Light
Queensland Museum Network’s Museum Development Officers provide vital support for regional community collections across Queensland. The Museum Development Officer program is an important partnership between the Queensland Museum and Arts Queensland. The program employs five professionally qualified Museum Development Officers, known as MDOs, who are based in Cairns, Townsville, Mackay, Ipswich and Toowoomba. For the last 12 months, Cairns MDO Dr Jo Wills has been working … Continue reading More than just tea towels: the migrants, makers and merchandise of Reef Productions
By Rochelle Lawrence, Senior Research Assistant, and Scott Hocknull, Senior Curator, Geosciences, Queensland Museum It is time to meet Australotitan cooperensis, a new species of giant sauropod from Eromanga in southwest Queensland. Australotitan, the ‘Southern Titan of the Cooper’, named from where it was found, has been scientifically described by palaeontologists and staff at Queensland Museum and the Eromanga Natural History Museum. The fossilised skeleton … Continue reading Meet Australotitan, Australia’s largest dinosaur!
By Jeff Powell, Curator Cobb+Co Museum. A caravan in Queensland Museum’s collection (H46579) was made by Duncan (Len) Macpherson around 1945. Although simple in appearance, the caravan is evidence that Len was a bit of a trendsetter. His wooden caravan is a tangible example of social changes that were about to sweep the nation. Caravans were not completely unknown in the late 1930s, but were … Continue reading Caravanning in Queensland
By Carmen Burton, Assistant Curator, Queensland Stories, Queensland Museum Women’s experiences of war are an important part of the ANZAC Day commemorations and traditions. Their stories reshape how we might understand the experience of living through conflict. This year for ANZAC Day, we are honouring and acknowledging the contribution of the young women who were married during these periods of history by sharing a 1940s … Continue reading War Brides
Across the world on 17 March, Irish expatriates and those who share Irish ancestry celebrate St Patrick’s Day. But what is the story of the Irish in Queensland? Queensland has been holding celebrations in honour of St Patrick annually since the 1880s. It seems a non-sequitur to see residents of contemporary Queensland rejoicing a 4th century Romano-British missionary credited with bringing Christianity to Ireland. However, … Continue reading It’s a great day for the Irish
This blog post is part of an ongoing series titled Connecting with Collections. There are so many ways to celebrate and honour incredible women around the world. In the museum, we’re always looking for opportunities to bring out objects and tell their stories – and this month, it’s time to feature some of the iconic items held at Museum of Tropical Queensland, that were made, … Continue reading Women’s History Month
By Jeff Powell, Curator, Cobb+Co Museum Cobb & Co delivered mail and passengers to some of the most remote and dusty corners of Queensland such as Boulia, Croydon, and Thargomindah, but Cobb & Co was just as important to settlements around Brisbane and southeast Queensland. The opening of the railway between Brisbane and Ipswich in 1875 spelled the end of Cobb & Co’s original route … Continue reading To the beach, by Cobb & Co
One of the stories featured in the ‘I Do: Wedding Stories from Queensland’ exhibition is from Torres Strait Islander man, Walter Waia who was married in the Blue Mountains in Bilpin, New South Wales in 1986. Walter met his first wife, an Australian Caucasian woman while he was working for the Department of Aboriginal Affairs in Canberra. They developed a relationship and decided to get … Continue reading ‘I Do’, More Than a Dress
Few things change our life more than getting married. It binds us legally or emotionally to a person, a family, a community and a shared future. Currently on display at Queensland Museum are more than 40 ensembles from the museum’s collection together with loans and commissioned artwork that explore the significant rolefashion plays in revealing the diverse, rich, heartbreaking and hopeful stories behind wedding garments. … Continue reading Seven Fascinating Stories to Discover at I Do! Wedding Stories from Queensland
2020 has been a year when many accepted practices have come under review; commuting to work, socialising with friends and family, how and where we take holidays to name a few. Covid-19 has also focused scrutiny on the origins and reliability of commodities we have come to expect as necessary for life. There was concern about the supply of toilet paper, antiseptic hand wash and … Continue reading Once Made in Queensland (including the kitchen sink!)
How many couples do you know celebrate their wedding anniversary on Christmas Eve? One married couple whose wedding story features in the museum’s exhibition I Do! Wedding Stories from Queensland did so throughout their married life. Mary Ann and John Dunlop were married 157 years ago today in 1863. What a big day it must have been for the couple to travel from Oxley down … Continue reading A Wedding Anniversary on Christmas Eve!
Cobb+Co Museum has always wanted a Queensland buckboard, and we think we have one… By Jeff Powell, Curator, Cobb+Co Museum The American buckboard was about as simple a four wheeled vehicle as it was possible to build. They looked like someone had taken a section of picket fence, attached a wheel in each corner and placed a seat on top and halfway back. Comfort was … Continue reading Is it a buckboard?
This year Qantas marks its centenary in a struggle to survive a global pandemic, with massive staff cuts in response to border closures, international lockdowns and economic adversities. Continue reading Beyond Queensland and the Northern Territory
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