Discussions on the history and historiography of Australia's New England

Monday, October 29, 2018

The story of the Armidale Museum


Armidale Folk Museum today
In 2016 I wrote a short series of posts telling the story of the Armidale Museum established in 1933 as the first municipally operated museum in NSW and then the Armidale Folk Museum in 1958, one of the early Australian folk museums. The posts are:
The story of the Armidale museum sits at the intersection, the overlap, of a number of different threads in Australian and New England history.

One is the museum movement, a global movement where museums were seen as as fulfilling scientific as well as historical and educational purposes. The later rise in interest in folk museums was a particular manifestation of this movement, one that focused on the life of ordinary people.

The movement had particular Australian manifestations where it over-lapped, interconnected with rise of interest in Australian history in the decades leading up to Federation. Within those Australian manifestations, New England has its own place and traditions.

Looking back over my posts in this area, I find that they are more fragmentary than I had realised, requiring consolidation and amplification. However, pending that, the following posts may give you you a feel for some of the history:

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