Search the collections
Domestic & Community Life Collection
Image: Recipe Book - The New Sunshine Cookery Book
Source: Museum Victoria
The Domestic and Communtiy Life collection takes in a large sweep of the material culture of everyday life. It comprises several thousand objects, several thousand images, hundreds of documents, and a small number of sound recordings and intangible representations related to the lives and identities that Victorians have created for themselves at home and in their wider communities since European settlement.
The collection is underpinned by five interrelated themes: the home, domestic life, domestic ideology, community life and identity, with a focus on significant periods of domestic life dating from European settlement in Victoria to the present.
It is most significant in relation to domestic life in early to mid-20th-century Victoria, in particular regarding the technologies and tools used in food preparation, cooking, storage and preservation, cleaning and laundry.
Significant items
- A cot used by Richmond Henty in 1837.
- A Wolter and Echberg washing machine, designed and manufactured in Melbourne around the 1880s.
- An extensive collection of early to mid 20th century domestic appliances, including vacuum cleaners, refrigerators, washing machines and stoves.
- 32 architectural models of domestic buildings in Melbourne, 1839-1989.
- Images documenting domestic and community life, particularly the Biggest Family Album collections.
- The Graeme Fullarton Collection which records the experience of building a new home in East Keilor in the late 1950s and early 1960s.
- The Aldred Photograph Collection.
- The State Electricity Photograph Collection.
- The Laurie Richards Photograph Collection.
Items per page: 10 50 (showing 21 - 30) 5030 items
-
Matchbox Cover - Five Roads Service Station, circa 1950s
Metal matchbox cover purchased at the Five Roads service station in Carlton, by Mrs Vilma Barcovich, an Italian migrant.
Images: 2 -
Swizzle Sticks - Plastic, Red, Blue, Yellow & White, circa 1950s
Set of eight plastic swizzle sticks in red, blue, yellow and white, which are part of a collection of shipboard memorabilia collected by Margaret Wood an officer in the Department of Im ...
Images: 5 -
Doily - Light Brown Cotton, Crochet, circa 1958-1959
One of three crocheted doilies made by Georgia in Bonegilla between 1958-59. Georgia Dereani, her husband and infant son immigrated to Australia from Trieste, Italy, in 1955. They spent ...
Images: 1 -
Doily - Light Brown Cotton, Crochet, circa 1958-1959
One of three crocheted doilies made by Georgia in Bonegilla between 1958-59. Georgia Dereani, her husband and infant son immigrated to Australia from Trieste, Italy, in 1955. They spent ...
Images: 1 -
Doily - Light Brown Cotton, Crochet, circa 1958-1959
One of three crocheted doilies made by Georgia in Bonegilla between 1958-59. Georgia Dereani, her husband and infant son immigrated to Australia from Trieste, Italy, in 1955. They spent ...
Images: 1 -
Negative - International Harvester, Refrigerator at Electrolux, 1946
Part of a large collection of glass plate and film negatives, transparencies, photo albums, product catalogues, videos, motion picture films, company journals, advertisements and newspa ...
Images: 1 -
Wrapper - Perfect Cheese Co., Ricotta Cheese, circa 1950s
Paper wrapper for Perfect Ricotta Cheese. Used in Fitzroy, Melbourne. Italian immigrant Natale Italiano established the Perfect Cheese company in 1930 in the kitchen of an old pub in No ...
Images: 1 -
Wrapper - Perfect Cheese Co., Ricotta Cheese, circa 1950s
Paper wrapper for Perfect Ricotta Cheese. Used in Fitzroy, Melbourne. Italian immigrant Natale Italiano established the Perfect Cheese company in 1930 in the kitchen of an old pub in No ...
Images: 1 -
Egg Cooker - Sunbeam Corp, Aluminium, Electric, 1955
This is an electric Sunbeam, aluminium egg cooker manufactured by Sunbeam Corporation Pty. Ltd. in Sydney, Australia after 1955. The small, round egg cooker was used to poach or boil e ...
Images: 2 -
Photograph - Backyard of the Toth House, Clayton, Victoria, 1968
Black and white photograph from an album containing a personal story of Julius Toth's immigration experience and a collection of 40 photo reproductions. Julius left Hungary late in 1956 ...
Images: 2
