Author Archive for Rebecca Pinchin

The Australian Dress Register launch: collecting Australian costume

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The Museum has been working with regional organsiations and communities to create the Australian Dress Register, a collaborative, online project about dress in New South Wales pre 1945. This includes men’s, women’s and children’s clothing ranging from the special occasion to the everyday. Museums and private collectors are encouraged to research their garments and share the stories and photographs while the information is still available and within living memory.

Dress Register launch at the Museum of the Riverina with from left to right: Rebecca Evans, Rosie Cullen, Sarah Pointon, Lindie Ward, Dawn Casey and Rebecca Pinchin

The Australian Dress Register was officially launched at the Museum of the Riverina in Wagga Wagga on Tuesday 16 August by Daryl Maguire MP, the local Member of Parliament and Government Whip. The Powerhouse Director, Dawn Casey and staff involved in the project gathered with regional curators from Broken Hill, Griffith and, of course, Wagga Wagga, joined by an audience of family members linked to the entries and interested local residents, to celebrate this important occasion. They had plenty to discuss.

A fascinating display of garments from regional galleries, that have already been entered on the register, was put on display and Luke Dearnley showcased the site online for the audience and explained how it functions. This sophisticated website is a leader in its field. There are many diverse entries from public and private collections that capture intriguing stories about community history across NSW.

These entries will increase as more regions contribute their dress stories and the register will go Australia wide in the near future.

Norman Myott, grandson of Hilda Smith whose black dress (1908-1912) is on display behind the boys outfit 'Boys black velveteen dress, Griffith Pioneer Museum

Regional Services: Eden Workshop

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Photography Powerhouse Museum © all rights reserved

Our Regional Services Program recently held a conservation workshop in the small town of Eden, NSW. This intriguing object was brought to the workshop by Joanne Grant of the Mallacoota Bunker Museum who was seeking advice on its conservation.

The wooden box contains the remnants of an apparatus for administering electrical shock treatment. It states on the inside lid that it was used to treat nervous conditions, but at the time these devices were believed to cure a wide range of ailments from hair loss, to cancer.! It is believed to have been used on the Yambulla goldfields and was found discarded in the bush in the 1960s or 1970s.

Image courtesy of Jody White, Eden Killer Whale Museum


Tim Morris, conservator, Powerhouse Museum, and Joanne Grant from Mallacoota Bunker examining the medical equipment thought to have been used to administer shock
Treatment

After inspecting the box conservator Tim Morris suggested using ‘animal glue’ to repair some of the damage, and offered further support and assistance in preserving the device.

Workshops, such as the one held in Eden, are important in providing advice on how to preserve objects of historical importance that are held in small museums across the country.

Joanne states that ‘I am not a professional – just a volunteer at the museum who obviously loves history and does the best that I can enthusiastically, but with limited resources! I was very grateful for the opportunity to attend the workshop with Tim and learn about his work. I wasted no time in checking the Powerhouse website to look at some of the resources that he mentioned and feel sure that this will be accessed frequently in future! Thanks once again for your interest and your valuable assistance.’

Meet a Regional Services Intern- Michelle Maddison

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Photography by Powerhouse Museum © all rights reserved

As pointed out in our earlier post, internships form a significant part of the Museum’s Regional Services program and in this post, we have invited Michelle Maddison, a Curator from the Museum of the Riverina in Wagga Wagga, to talk about her experience.

I was immensely pleased by my stay at the Powerhouse – it met my expectations and I came away with useful knowledge gained both through research and the opportunity to meet face-to-face with specialists.

The Museum of the Riverina has a small but important costume collection. Uncovering the secrets of the collection has been an exciting journey and was the focus of my internship at the Powerhouse in 2009. As part of my internship, I researched a number of garments so they could be entered on the Australian Dress Register.

This research included looking at a tap dancing costume – a tutu-style dress of black tulle decorated with metallic braid and sequins. The dress belonged to Tivoli dancer Pauline Harvey and we thought it had been worn at the Wagga Wagga Eisteddford, in the closing years of World War II. It wasn’t until we put the dress on a mannequin that I realised it was a child’s dress and that Pauline must have worn it just after she began dancing at the age of 5.

At the Museum of the Riverina we have adapted what we have learnt from the Australian Dress Register for practical use. Following an initial workshop with Powerhouse staff, I developed a history of textiles exhibition called Dress for the Occasion. Tips I picked up allowed us to date garments to a more specific time period.

Having had the opportunity to look at the Australian Dress Register and what people are entering onto it, I feel, as someone who works in a regional museum, that it fosters an important sense of community that is especially important in regional museums which can feel isolated from what goes on in the metropolitan areas.

To find out more about the internship program, click here.