2009 Norman McCann & Seymour Summer Scholars
Each year the National Library offers Summer Scholarships to young Australian postgraduate students to enable them to undertake research based on the National Library’s collections. Three annual Norman McCann Summer Scholarships are generously funded by Mrs Pat McCann in memory of her late husband, a former member of the National Library Council. A fourth scholarship is funded by Dr John and Dr Heather Seymour supporting research, preferably in biography. This year three Summer Scholarships have been awarded and the recipients are; Nicole Berry, Dave Earl, and Kate Robertson.
L to R – Nicole Berry, Dave Earl, Kate Robertson
Photo: Greg Power, National Library
Kate Robertson has just completed the first year of her PhD in Art History and Theory at the University of Sydney. She received her BA (Hons) in Art History & Theory from the University of Sydney in 2007. Kate’s research topic is ‘Australian Artists 1890–1914: Travel and Identity’. She is particularly interested in the interactions between Australian and European artists, the communities they joined and formed, and the extent to which artists both assimilated into and distanced themselves from the European and Australian environments. She seeks to explore how through travel, artists considered, manipulated and invented their ‘Australian-ness’. Some of the key artists she will be researching include those who have been explored, such as Charles Conder, Rupert Bunny, Hugh Ramsay and George Lambert, and those somewhat neglected in recent scholarship, such as John Longstaff, James Quinn, Tudor St George Tucker, Ambrose Patterson, George Coates and the critic J.S. McDonald. She will be using biographical cuttings, periodicals and personal papers.
Nicole Berry has just completed the first year of her PhD in History at Adelaide University, where she previously completed a Bachelor of International Studies with History and Politics Honours in 2007. Nicole’s topic is ‘White Australia, Dead or Alive? The Immigration Legacies of Malcolm Fraser and John Howard’. Her thesis is a history of immigration and Liberal Party policy, comparing how far and how successfully the recent Liberal Governments of Malcolm Fraser and John Howard moved away from the underlying tenets and principles of the old White Australia Policy in light of the reforms of the 1950s and 1960s, and eventual abolition of the policy in the early 1970s. Nicole expects her research project to be an addition to the Fraser and Howard legacies, possibly reframing some elements of them. She also hopes to make a significant contribution to the literature on the decline and aftermath of the White Australia Policy, and provide a new source for the development of future immigration policy. Nicole will be using the Library’s collection of Prime Ministerial and Ministerial papers, oral history recordings with key political figures, records of Coalition and ALP caucus/committee meetings and debates, and archived newspapers and election material.
Dave Earl has recently finished the first year of his PhD in History at the University of Sydney, where he completed a BA (Hons) in 2007. Dave’s research topic is ‘Youths and Young Girls: Problem teenagers and the adolescence problem in early twentieth century Australia’. At the Library, Dave plans to focus on several interrelated public issues which arose concerning teenagers during his study period. These include fears about, and solutions to, a perceived ‘venereal epidemic’; growing concerns about ‘juvenile delinquency’; and what many saw as an alarming rise in ‘feeblemindedness’ and ‘mental deficiency’. Dave’s research will engage with the growing body of international histories of youth and welfare, and draw conceptual insights from gender, cultural and disability histories. He will be using monographs, periodicals and manuscripts primarily relating to three areas of his thesis: mental deficiency, child and youth health initiatives, and venereal disease.
Gianoula Burns
Manager Divisional Support Unit
Collections Management and Australian Collections & Reader Services Divisions



