On the cover this month
Jeff Carter (b.1928)
Nippers Running into the Surf, Mollymook Beach, New South Wales, 1990
coloured photograph; 43.5 x 28.0 cm
Pictures Collection
nla.pic-vn3970582
Beach attire for men is dramatically more revealing these days than at the beginning of the twentieth century when bathing costumes were today’s equivalent of shorts and singlets. Yet, in 1907, in the name of modesty, the mayors of Waverley, Randwick and Manly threatened to enforce the wearing of an additional layer in the form of an over-skirt. Men, dressed in women’s clothes, gathered on the beaches to protest and, guaranteed a spectacle, local newspaper reporters covered the demonstrations with great gusto. Read more...
November 2007 Volume XVIII Number 2
Miss Williams’ Albums
Ann Nugent dips into two autograph albums that masseuse Miss B.M. Williams took to the Beaufort War Hospital during World War I
Pro Patria: The Conscription Debates on the Great War
Jennifer Horsfield examines the effect on some of the women who lived in the Canberra region of the bitter conscription debates of 1916 and 1917
Men in Skirts: A Decidedly Grotesque Pageant
Ian Warden tells the story of a protest held by the beach-going men of Manly, Bondi and Coogee 100 years ago
The Company of Poets: Melbourne’s Eight by Eight Group
Lisa Gorton explores the meeting of minds of some of Melbourne’s poets of the 1960s. Read Transcript
The State Library of Victoria: Custodian of Victoria’s Cultural Life
Christopher Bantick interviews Jock Murphy about how the State Library of Victoria’s collections have changed over the years
Friends
A regular news page about the activities of the Friends of the National Library of Australia
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