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Australian Children's Folklore Collection
Image: String Game
Source: Museum Victoria
The Australian Children's Folklore Collection (ACFC) is one of the largest and most significant archives of its kind in the world, reflecting Australia's cultural and regional diversity. It is the first Museum Victoria collection and one of the first collections in Australia to have been recognized through listing on the UNESCO Australian Memory of the World Register. It documents children's verbal folkloric traditions from the 1870s to the present. It includes more than 10,000 card files and over 1,000 pages of letters recording children's games, rhymes, riddles, jokes, superstitions, taunts and chants; over 300 traditional and homemade play artefacts; photographs and audiovisual material; and field and research studies.
The ACFC germinated with research in the 1970s and 1980s by Dr June Factor (then an academic at the Institute of Early Childhood Development) and Dr Gwenda Davey. Armed with pad and pencil, tape recorder and camera, they conducted field research to document Australian children's play. As their research progressed they gradually acquired other material, both contemporary and historic. The Australian Children's Folklore Collection was formally established in 1979. Dr Factor was invited to join the founding members of the Australian Centre at The University of Melbourne in May 1989 as a Senior Research Fellow. She brought the Australian Children's Folklore Collection with her to the Centre, and agreed to have it housed for a period in the University of Melbourne Archives. In 1999 she donated the Collection to Museum Victoria.
A unique aspect of the ACFC is the Australian archive of pioneering American scholar, educator and ethnographer Dr Dorothy Howard. From 1954 to 1955, Howard travelled across Australia, collecting and documenting children's games and verbal lore in cities, country towns and small rural communities. It was the first large-scale attempt to collect, analyse and discuss our children's lore and language, and it laid the foundations for research into children's folklore in this country.
The Australian Children's Folklore Collection brings to Museum Victoria a direct and personal voice from children at play.
Items per page: 10 50 (showing 121 - 130) 150 items
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Skipping Rope - Leather, 1989
Made: McKinty, Judy, 1989 Used: Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, circa 1989 - 1990 Made by Judy McKinty, for the Children's Museum's 'You're IT!' exhibition, 1989. Leather pull-cord dona ...
From: Melbourne, Australia Images: 0 -
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Doll - National, Netherlands
Alternative Name(s): Doll - Netherlands National Donated to the Australian Children's Folklore Collection by the Royal Netherlands Embassy in 1990. National doll which forms part of the ...
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Toy Pugilists - Wood
Alternative Name(s): Boxing Toy Part of the Dorothy Howard Collection. This object forms part of the Dorothy Howard Collection, contained within the Australian Children's Folklore Colle ...
From: Guadalajara, Mexico Images: 0 -
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Yo-Yo - Wooden
Blue and green wooden yo-yo which forms part of the Australian Children's Folklore Collection (ACFC). The ACFC is unique in Australia, documenting contemporary children's folklore acros ...
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Toy Windmill - Angel Wings
Alternative Name(s): Whirligig Made: Alan Waters, delegate to the World Play Summit, Melbourne, 1993., 1992 Designed and donated by Alan Waters in 1992. Mr. Waters was a delegate to the ...
From: Melbourne, Australia Images: 0 -
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Doll - Samoa
Alternative Name(s): Bark Doll Made: circa 1980 - 1983 This doll was bought in Apia, capital of Western Samoa in the early 1980s. The Australian Children's Folklore Collection is unique ...
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Flag - Mexico, Miniature
Alternative Name(s): Flag - Miniature This small Mexican flag forms part of the Dorothy Howard Collection, contained within the Australian Children's Folklore Collection (ACFC). The A ...
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Toy Windmill - Dolphins
Alternative Name(s): Whirligig Made: Alan Waters, delegate to the World Play Summit, Melbourne, 1993., 1992 Designed and donated by Alan Waters in 1992. Mr. Waters was a delegate to the ...
From: Melbourne, Australia Images: 0 -
Flicker - White Plastic, Aboriginal Children's Play Project, 1997
Alternative Name(s): Flicker Collected for the Australian Children's Folklore Collection by Judy McKinty, Researcher, during the Aboriginal Children's Play Project. The flicker was don ...
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Toy Windmill - Paper
Alternative Name(s): Whirligig Made: Alan Waters, delegate to the World Play Summit, Melbourne, 1993., 1992 Designed and donated by Alan Waters in 1992. Mr. Waters was a delegate to the ...
From: Melbourne, Australia Images: 0
