The preservation and sharing of Victoria’s past is being celebrated with the Victorian Community History Awards shortlist showcasing everything from new history books to community walking tours.
Some 21 publications and eight projects have been shortlisted for 10 prizes ranging from $500 to $2,000. All are also in thes running for the $5,000 Victorian Premier’s History Award to be announced at the Melbourne Arts Centre on 21 October.
The shortlist includes online and physical exhibitions, podcasts, websites, walks and tours, books and articles.
Queer-ways: Retracing Melbourne’s Queer Footprint is a walking tour profiling important historical sites and stories linked to Melbourne’s queer community in the City of Yarra.
The tour starts at a landmark mural in Little Smith Street, Fitzroy, detailing some of Melbourne’s queer history, including a depiction of the marrriage of Edward de Lacy Evans – one of Australia’s first documented transgender people – to Mary Delahunty in 1856 at St Francis’ Church in the CBD.
Tour creators LUCIANO and Georgia Keats and many other voices take listeners on journeys across sites such as the rainbow footpath on the corner of Smith and Gertrude streets, the Courage statue in Napier Street and the Royal Exhibition Building, where the Aids Quilt was unfolded in 1999.
In the virtual realm, the innovative Prima Donna podcast profiles Australian artists in both words and sounds. The series combines oral history with sonic artworks, through interviews with Australian artists collaged with original compositions by composer Nat Grant.
More traditionally, Bain Attwood’s book William Cooper: An Aboriginal Life Story documents the life of the prominent Aboriginal activist who petitioned the British King in 1933 for Aboriginal representation in the Australian Parliament, and led the walk-off of the Yorta Yorta people from Cumeroogunga reserve in 1939.
Dr David Rowe’s About Corayo: A Thematic History of Greater Geelong, provides an innovative history of Victoria’s second largest city, focusing on the often overlooked contributions of women, non-British emigrants and other marginalised groups.
The Victorian Community History Awards are presented by Public Record Office Victoria in partnership with the Royal Historical Society of Victoria and are funded by the Andrews Labor Government.
For more information visit prov.vic.gov.au and see the shortlist at bottom.
As stated by Minister for Government Services Danny Pearson
“Without knowing our past we can’t know where we are going, so it’s fantastic we can recognise these projects and publications that bring Victoria’s colourful history to life.“
“The projects have something for everyone, from exciting new books to walking tours uncovering the stories hidden on our city streets.“
Victorian Community History Awards shortlist
History publications
A History of Trans Health Care in Australia
AusPATH and Noah Riseman
A Sort of History of Me, My Family and a Cow Named Gina
Sebastian J. ‘Sam’ Gatto
Aboriginal Fire-management Practices in Colonial Victoria
in Aboriginal History
Fred Cahir, Ian D. Clark, Dan Tout, Benjamin Wilkie and Jidah Clark
About Corayo: A Thematic History of Greater Geelong
David Rowe
Across Bass Strait: Inter-colonial Trade in Meat and Livestock
Jane L. Lennon
Charles Strong’s Australian Church: Christian Social Activism 1885-1917
Marion Maddox
Early Days: Greensborough and St Helena, Volume 1, Greensborough 1837‒1860 and St Helena 1840‒1900
Greensborough Historical Society
Extinct: Artistic Impressions of our Lost Wildlife
Benjamin Gray
Heritage Making and Migrant Subjects in the Deindustrialising Region of the Latrobe Valley
Alexandra Dellios
His Walking Feet in Meanjin
Jill Giese
‘Loyally Made for Loyal Australians’: Industrial Heritage, Modernity and ³Ô¹ÏÍøÕ¾ism at Australian Knitting Mills, Richmond, 1910-55 in Victorian Historical Journal
Chris McConville
Policing Gender Nonconformity in Victoria, 1900‒1940 in Provenance
Adrien McCrory
Red Cliffs Recollections: A Century of Soldier Settlement 1921‒2021
Red Cliffs Historical Society (Helen Petschel, Christine Cook and Matthew Cook)
Report on the Place Name: Moreland
Dr James Lesh
Revealing Stories: The Hidden History of the Performing Arts Scene in Brunswick and Coburg
Janine Barrand and Dianna Wells
Still on Track: 100 Years of the Melbourne Women’s Walking Club
Melbourne Women’s Walking Club
The Architecture of Devotion: James Goold and His Legacies in Colonial Melbourne
Jaynie Anderson, Max Vodola and Shane Carmody
The Women of Little Lon
Barbara Minchinton
Vandemonians: The Repressed History of Colonial Victoria
Janet McCalman
Wangaratta Festival of Jazz and Blues: 30 Years
Adrian Jackson
William Cooper: An Aboriginal Life Story
Bain Attwood
History projects
City of Melton 150th Anniversary Online Exhibition
City of Melton and Way Back When
Flemington Kensington (Flem-Ken) Community Legal Centre Storytelling Project
History at Work and Malcolm McKinnon
Prima Donna Podcast
Nat Grant
Queer-ways
LUCIANO and Georgia Keats (supported by the Australian Queer Archives)
The Benalla Experiment
Lyn Gallacher and Richard Girvan
The Miles Lewis Heritage Building Materials Collection
Architecture, Building and Planning Library, University of Melbourne and Restore Conservation Services, with 3D scanning by SI Projects
The Toolangi and Castella History Project
The Toolangi‒Castella Local History Group
Truth, Beauty and Utility: The Arts and Crafts Movement in Heidelberg
Heidelberg Historical Society
