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Public Life & Institutions Collection

Image: Model - Captain Cook's Cottage, Cyril Noisette, Icing, 1934

Source: Museum Victoria

The lives of all Victorians are shaped by organisational and institutional structures in the public sphere. Such structures are dynamic, always in the process of creation, redefinition, maintenance, and change.

While some individuals may have the opportunity to participate in the creation of some of these structures, and to influence their direction, others suffer under, negotiate with or react to them. Groups of people may then combine to bring about changes to the ways the structures operate and develop.

This collecting field is concerned with communal and institutional activities in the public sphere in Victoria since 1835. Material evidence generated as a result of particular forms of public, cultural, political and institutional activity in Victoria is collected to document distinctive forms of urban and regional life.

The collection focuses on the operation of particular structures at particular times, and also on the processes of change, continuity, reaction and adaptation. Sub-themes include celebrations and festivals; political history; charity and welfare; ritual and belief; and images and icons of Melbourne.

It also illustrates the events and patterns that help us define and understand Australian identity in all its complexity and diversity. A wide range of material has been gathered from many organisations and institutions, both active and inactive.

Significant collecting areas:

Collections relating to the history of Melbourne and Victoria, especially focusing on imagery of Melbourne; 1934 Centenary of Victoria; 1956 Olympics; 1988 Bicentenary.

Royal Exhibition Building collection: material from the Melbourne International exhibitions of 1880-81 and 1888-89, plus objects and documents relating to more recent events in the building.

Federation: material from the opening of the first Federal Parliament in 1901 and centenary of Federation celebrations in 2001.

Museum History collection: material chronicling Museum Victoria's history since 1854.

Political collections, including the anti-Vietnam War movement.

Posters from the 1970s to the 1990s representing various social movements, including the feminist movement.

Phar Lap and associated material.

Psychiatric Services collection of objects from Victoria's psychiatric hospitals: the collection provides substantial evidence of the conditions within psychiatric hospitals and the treatments given to patients before 1950.

Friendly and temperance societies and religious collections.

Collections from charitable institutions such as the Royal Victorian Institute for the Blind.

Objects from the 'Whelan the Wrecker' collection relating to Melbourne institutions and prominent public buildings.

Pentridge Prison collection.

Melbourne Water collection, objects and oral histories relating to the institutional history of the Melbourne & Metropolitan Board of Works.

Items per page: 10 50 (showing 11 - 20) 4504 items

Photograph - Crashed Allied Plane Viewed by German Soldiers, 1914-1918

Photograph depicting German soldiers viewing a crashed aeroplane. A roundel is faintly visible on the wing at the front of the image - it appears to be British, as it has a dark ring wi ...

Images: 1
Photograph - German Soldiers in Front of Archway to Sports Arena, World War I, 1916-1917

Black and white photograph depicting a group of German soldiers in front of the gates to a sports arena. The gate is labelled 'Sportplatz der A.A. Scheffer'. Armee-Abteilung Scheffer wa ...

Images: 1
Photograph - German Soldiers in Front of Communications Building, World War I, 1914-1918

Black and white photograph featuring German soldiers in front of a communications building ('Fernsprecher' means telephone'). The glass window at the front of the building suggests that ...

Images: 1
Photograph - German Soldiers in Ruined Buildings, 1914-1918

Photograph depicting 29 German soldiers standing in front of the remnants of two damaged brick buildings. They may be in a farmyard. They look relaxed; one is smoking. The provenance ...

Images: 1
Postcard - German Soldiers at Table, World War I, 1914-1918

Postcard depicting four German soldiers seated at a table in front of a hut. They appear to be reading and eating, and washing hangs on a line behind them. The image was taken slightly ...

Images: 1
Postcard - German Soldiers Digging in Forest, World War I, 1914-1918

Black and white postcard depicting a group of German soldiers digging in a forest with others watching. The scene is very relaxed, and does not suggest active battle. The postcard dat ...

Images: 1
Photograph - German Soldiers Playing Cards, World War I, 1914-1918

Black and white photograph featuring German soldiers playing cards - probably soldiers from the 3rd Infantry Regiment. The photograph dates to World War I. Its provenance is unknown.

Images: 2
Postcard - Damaged Cathedral, World War I, 3 Jul 1918

Postcard depicting a heavily damaged cathedral, probably in France or Belgium. A hand-written inscription on the front has been scratched out - probably was name of cathedral. It is lik ...

Images: 2
Postcard - German Soldier at Entrance to Dugout, Jul 1916

Postcard depicting a German soldier at the entrance to a dugout (or similar). He wears a standard German field uniform with a covered Pickelhaube and a M/98 Mauser rifle (with bayonet). ...

Images: 2
Postcard - German Soldiers Relaxing Near Dugout, 7 Aug 1917

Postcard depicting a group of eight German soldiers relaxing at the entrance of a dugout, on the edge of what appears to be a battlefield. The postcard is inscribed with the date 7 Au ...

Images: 2