The Dictionary of Sydney was archived in 2021.
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Sydney through a novelist's eyes
Ruth Park, pre 1947, courtesy Mitchell Library, State Library of NSW (P1/Park, Ruth) Melbourne claims to be the City of Literature, but this week Sydney is all things literary as we settle into the Sydney Writer's Festival. Listen to the whole…
Temperance and the ‘evils of tight lacing’: Susan Beckett
Diagram of Susan Beckett's Bust and Shoulder Supporter in her application to the United States Patent Office, April 1896 (Patent No: US557945) With International Women’s Day and the All About Women festival in the past week, there have been some great…
Shirley Beiger: ‘All that glittered was not gold’
Shirley Beiger on the cover of PIX 28 April 1951 The State Library of NSW have made an enormous amount of historical material available online in recent years. One such resource is the tabloid magazine, PIX , which was published between 1938…
‘the flying fairy and empress of the air’
Kate Rickards in costume as Toots c1888 by Kerry & Co Courtesy Tyrrell Collection, Museum of Applied Arts and Sciences (85/1286-498) There are some fascinating women in the Dictionary of Sydney. Among those is one who went by many stage names…
Vanessa Finney, Transformations: Harriet and Helena Scott, colonial Sydney’s finest natural history painters
Vanessa Finney, Transformations: Harriet and Helena Scott, colonial Sydney’s finest natural history painters NewSouth Books, 2018, 204 pp. (plus notes and index), ISBN: 9781742235806, h/bk, AUS$49.99 Harriet Scott (Morgan) (1830–1907) and Helena Scott (Forde) (1832–1910) were, as natural history artists, without peer…
Ruth L Lee, Woman War Doctor: The Life of Mary De Garis
Ruth L Lee, Woman War Doctor: The Life of Mary De Garis Australian Scholarly Publishing, 2014, x + 197pp, ISBN: 9781925003420 (p/b), RRP: AUS$39.95 Pioneering Australian woman doctor Mary de Garis comes to life in this stimulating biography by Australian author and academic Dr Ruth…
The Shaftesbury Reformatory in Vaucluse
Shaftesbury, Vaucluse c1925 by EG Shaw, courtesy Mitchell Library, State Library of New South Wales (a7806 Online, 2) This week on 2SER Breakfast, Nicole Cama talked to Tess Connery about the Shaftesbury Reformatory on New South Head Road in Vaucluse that…
Women commemorated by Sydney's suburbs
Elizabeth Macquarie c1819, courtesy Mitchell Library, State Library of NSW (MIN 237) As an historian, I'm always interested in how we shape our cities and how we get the names we get. Earlier this week I was looking at the city's…
A distinguished lady doctor
Dagmar Berne c1890, State Archives and Records NSW (9873_a025_a025000112) Today on 2SER Breakfast we looked at the inspiring tale of Sydney's first female medical student, Dagmar Berne. It's not really a happy story, but this resilient and generous woman made an…
Barangaroo
NAIDOC Week is in full swing, celebrating the history, culture and achievements of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples so we thought we'd take the opportunity to celebrate someone a very powerful woman in Sydney’s history - Barangaroo. …