For the moving visual addition to the Duck Trousers, Straw Bonnets, and Bluey exhibition now showing in the State Library Reading Room, we were able to find a few gems from the late Tasmanian Film Corporation. The Tasmanian Film Corporation was the last incarnation of the Tasmanian Government film unit, which was established in 1946 by the Lands and Surveys Department. It would evolve into the Department of Film Production in 1960 to oversee the full range of film production in the state before being transformed into the government owned commercial business model in the guise of The Tasmanian Film Corporation in 1977. If it moves, we’ll shoot it was a witty commercial made in 1968 by the Department of Film Production about their services.
Continue reading “Tasmanian Textiles and Clothing in Film”Tag: women
Manufacturing Reform: Female Convicts and Straw Bonnets
This blog is one of a series that explores in greater depth some of the fascinating stories that we uncovered while researching Duck Trousers, Straw Bonnets, and Bluey: Stories of fabrics and clothing in Tasmania, an exhibition currently on display in the State Library of Tasmania and Tasmanian Archives Reading Room in Hobart. These blogs are designed to complement the exhibition, expanding some elements of the exhibition story walls to provide more context and different perspectives.
Continue reading “Manufacturing Reform: Female Convicts and Straw Bonnets”Tasmania Reads: Reading an Account of the Voyage of a Convict Transport (Part Two: The Answer and Historical Background)
The State Library and Archive Service is issuing a challenge to Tasmanians to read five different examples of nineteenth-century handwriting from our Heritage Collections, each featuring a different set of records held in the State Archives.
Continue reading “Tasmania Reads: Reading an Account of the Voyage of a Convict Transport (Part Two: The Answer and Historical Background)”Tasmania Reads: Reading an Account of the Voyage of a Convict Transport (Part One: The Challenge)
The State Library and Archive Service is issuing a challenge to Tasmanians to read five different examples of nineteenth-century handwriting from our Heritage Collections, each featuring a different set of records held in the State Archives.
The scripts are selected to give you insights into some of the key strengths of our collection and we hope they will pique your interest to explore further.
As the week progresses, the challenge will get a bit more difficult, as you become more familiar with reading script.
Each challenge will consist of two blogs. The morning blog will contain your transcription challenge, while the afternoon blog will provide the answer, as well as historical background to the events discussed in the challenge task. There will also be recommendations of other resources held in the Libraries Tasmania collections on the topic for you to explore.
Your Transcription Challenge
Your first challenge is to transcribe a passage from the account of the voyage of the Female Transport, Garland Grove (2) in 1842/1843:

The Answer …
will be published in our blog this afternoon. Stay tuned!
A Peek Inside the Cascades Female Factory, 1833-1834, and a New Digital Volunteer Expedition
At the foot of Mount Wellington stands the remains of a forbidding institution. Nearly two centuries ago, the walls of the Cascades Female Factory housed hundreds of women, children and babies. Some of these convict women were waiting to go to new masters, others were being punished. Now you can help to tell their stories through our newest digital volunteering project, transcribing the Register of Female Convicts at the Cascades Female Factory, 1833-1834.
Jewelled Nights: The Surprising Story of Two Tasmanian Women and their Lost Silent Film
Almost a century ago, two Tasmanian women wrote and produced a lost classic of Australian cinema. Set in the osmiridium mining fields of Tasmania’s Western Wilderness, Jewelled Nights was one of the first productions of its kind, created by the novelist Marie Bjelke Petersen and the silent film actress Louise Lovely in 1924.
Begging for bigamy
In November of 1878, two women from Waratah in the North West of Tasmania began a quest to marry one man. They were happy to share him between them, as long as they could do it with the blessing of a church. Continue reading “Begging for bigamy”
Daisy Picken in the weeds: Prisoner records in the Tasmanian Names Index
‘Daisy Picken’. It sounded to me like a circus stage name, and conjured up images of an energetic teenage girl with pigtails, like a long-lost cousin of Pippi Longstocking.
We have recently added volumes of prisoner files to the Tasmanian Names Index, and many of them have photographs. Some of them are quite comical – old lags suppressing smirks, stern mouths covered by generous moustaches, looks of surprise…or malice. So, when I looked up Daisy Picken, I was almost surprised to see despair and desperation, and the glistening of tears. Continue reading “Daisy Picken in the weeds: Prisoner records in the Tasmanian Names Index”