Bridging the Distance
EXHIBITION GALLERY
6 March – 15 June 2008
From Indigenous people, European explorers and new settlers through to today’s ‘grey nomads’, Australians have learned how to live in a big country. Bridging the Distance reveals how a practical and inventive nation has managed to establish routes across the country, to maintain settlements, support agriculture and industry, and allow people to travel for both work and pleasure.
Discover in this exhibition of more than 150 pictures, photographs, manuscripts, objects and books how a country of large distances, difficult terrain and small population developed the communication systems essential to its prosperity. All drawn from the National Library’s collection, these items highlight the growth of transport by rail, boat and car and the development of the aviation industry, and explore what distance means for us and our lives.
Frank Hurley (1885–1962)
Dirt Road Bordered by Saltbush, Grey Chevrolet in Foreground, Central
Australia [between 1955 and 1962]
digital print from 35 mm colour transparency, printed 2007
nla.pic-an24153287
Download (5.39 Mb zip)
M. Bass
Launceston Town, Tasmania 1878
oil on canvas; 44.4 x 53.8 cm
Rex Nan Kivell Collection, NK6420
nla.pic-an2310343
Download (6.31 Mb zip)
Smart cars in display stack, Capital Star, Fyshwick, ACT, 24 July 2007
colour
digital print
nla.int-nl39765-dmc6
Download (2.95 Mb zip)
Samuel Thomas Gill (1818–1880)
Native village in the northern interior
of S. Australia c.1846
watercolour; 15.1 x 22.0 cm
nla.pic-an2377287
Download (1.15 Mb zip)
Unknown maker
Waterbottle used by Captain Charles Sturt
black glass, fibre cover; height 31.0
cm
nla.pic-an6393462
Download (1.23 Mb zip)
General Motors Holden
End of the main assembly line in Plant 1, General Motors
Holden at Fishermen’s
Bend, Melbourne, Victoria 1951–52
b&w photograph; 38.5 x 48.1 cm
nla.pic-vn3092827
Download (1.02 Mb zip)
Unknown engraver
Overland telegraph party, J. A. G. Little, Robert Pat[t]erson,
Charles Todd, W. W. Mitchell, c.1873
hand-coloured engraving; 19.5 x 27.8
cm
nla.pic-an8988955
Download (1.49 Mb zip)
Orford, June, 1946-
Welding rail joints
colour digital print
Canberra : National Library of Australia, 2003
nla.pic-an24813015
Download (4.72 Mb zip)
Jeff Carter (b.1928)
A “School of the Air’’ classroom in
progress at Broken Hill, presided over by Mrs Phyllis Gibb, a well-known district identity,
c.1958
b&w digital print; 24.0 x 27.8 cm
nla.pic-vn3549015
Download (1.23 Mb zip)
J.L. Turner
Mr W.E. Hart, the first Australian aviator in his biplane, Penrith,
1911
b&w photograph; 9.9 x 15.6 cm
nla.pic-vn3722795
Download (4.12 Mb zip)
John Flynn (1880–1951)
Mr Alf Traeger transmitting by pedal-powered
wireless c.1929
b&w lantern slide; 8.2 x 8.2 cm
nla.pic-an24631139
Download (1.00 Mb zip)
Unknown photographer
On the wallaby track [between 1880 and
1910]
b&w photograph; 19.2 x 24.5 cm
nla.pic-an24284739
Download (1.00 Mb zip)
Unknown lithographer
Washing tailings 1870s
chromolithograph; 11.8 x 17.4 cm
nla.pic-an24794265
Download (7.03 Mb zip)
