Social History

The Powerhouse Museum is located in the Darling Harbour precinct which attracts over eight million visitors a year and was of primary focus in both the 2000 millennium celebrations and the Sydney 2000 Olympic games. The Powerhouse museum opened in 1988 and is positioned as a dynamic, innovative and enjoyable museum which promotes awareness and understanding of the past, present and future of Australian society.

The Powerhouse achieves this through research, scholarship and the acquisition, conservation and presentation of material in the fields of science, technology, industry, decorative...
Bishop's Lodge was built in 1889 for the Anglican Bishop of Riverina. It is an iron house, built with great technical innovation for the climate and soils of the Western Riverina. It is set in a late nineteenth century garden and reflects the social, cultural and religious history of its inhabitants over the past century.
The Conservation Resource Centre records the history of houses, furnishings and gardens in New South Wales. It provides information, original source material and specialist services relating to domestic design history and building conservation. The research library contains and important collection of architectural and furnishing pattern books, department store and trade catalogues, journals, pamphlets, charts and archival material, as well as reference books and current periodicals. The reference collection contains artefacts from New South Wales houses, including wallpapers, soft...
This restored Court House built in 1877 houses a collection of historic photos of Stroud and district. It also displays information on the formation of the Australian Agricultural Company in London in 1824, the farm grant of 500,000 acres on the Port Stephen estate and local and family history.
The Hamilton Hume museum illustrates the development of Yass since the 1820's and includes the life and work of the explorer, Hamilton Hume. The current exhibition "The Parallels" is developed around models of Yass main street 1895, compares that time with 1995 and is illustrated with advertisements, tools and wares. Displays pay tribute to Yass soldiers and nurses 20th Century wars and illustrate a 19th Century shop, parlour and kitchen, rural life and work in a woolshed.Animal husbandry - sheep and wool. Model - Yass main street 1895. Advertising - Yass 1895. Model - rural life and...
Local museum with over 4,000 photographs and several books on the Hills District for purchase. The museum conducts local area tours for adults and children. Guest speakers are available. Research facilities for local and family history are also available.2,000 items, 4,000 photographs. Tool collection very good - complete set of wood working tools.
A small social history museum designed to show primary school students what life was like in Hornsby Shire when their grandparents were children. Set in the late 1930s, there is a pre-electric kitchen, corner stove, electrified laundry/bathroom with chip heater and a schoolroom, as well as a pictorial history of the development of the Shire and small changing displays. As part of the educational program, school groups can wash socks and play old fashioned school yard games in the park surrounding the museum. The museum also works well with nursing home and Alzheimers day care groups. Its...
The museum inhabits two colonial courthouses and a Police Station built between 1856-1886. It contains the historic NSW Police Museum collection which was established in 1910.Many of the artefacts concern crime, social history, Police, law and popular culture from bongs to batons to Judges wigs and bushrangers' firearms. It also showcases weird and wonderful relics from notorious crimes such as the Shark Arm Murder, the Pyjama Girl Case and the Thorne Kidnapping, as well as many original objects associated with such legendary bushrangers as Frank Gardiner, Ben Hall, Captain Moonlite and...
Built in 1885-6, Meroogal is a 5 bedroom timber house with "Gothic" trimmings. Four generations of women from the Thorburn family have occupied the house. Their daily routines, domestic chores and the pursuit of genteel interests have left indelible marks on the house. Meroogal, with its intact collection of furniture and furnishings allows visitors a personal insight into the private world of a single family.The collection includes furniture, household objects, diaries, letters, scrapbooks, photographs and clothes, allowing a very personal insight into the private world.
The Colonial Inn Museum is located in the old West End Hotel built in 1856, and licensed as a hotel until 1923. It is a two storey building featuring wrought iron lace and pillars manufactured in a Mudgee iron foundry. Some displays have been developed around the building's early usage (eg the bar, parlour, kitchen and a bedroom). There is also an extensive display of farm machinery and horsedrawn vehicles, and general displays of items from Mudgee's past. Family history research is also available.8,000 items
John Verge designed the country homestead Bedervale set in a pleasant eight acre garden on a working rural property. The homestead adjoins an earlier enclosed courtyard and farmyard. It contains a unique collection of the original families furniture and personal effects from the 1840's and is still lived in as a home.Family collection from pre 1840 to 1900 in situ plus recent family additions. Australian and English furniture, china, paintings, household effects and kitchen utensils. Horse drawn vehicles and machinery.
This two storey Georgian style school house (ca1840) displays furniture, clothing, personal and household items, photographs and other objects from the late 1800s to the mid 1900s. The restored, convict built building also houses a collection of historic books from the Australian Agricultural Company (AAC), dating from the late 1700s to the 1800s.
The museum is housed in the upper level of Lismore Municipal Building, a heritage building. Its collection consists of artefacts, maps, photographs and archival material relating to the Richmond River District, and includes Aboriginal artefacts, coastal and river shipping material, local industries, and a unique display of local timber. The museum's meeting room is lined with local red cedar from former Kyogle station.
Susannah Place is a small terrace row of four dwellings, built in 1843 and occupied until 1990. As a house museum, Susannah Place conserves, interprets and presents its historical interiors, collection and structural fabric in a way which acknowledges and illuminates changes in occupants and the broader transformation of the surrounding Rocks neighbourhood. The collection includes a rich archive of oral history records and personal effects contributed by the former occupants.
The Building housing museum is over 140 years old, previously RC Church Rawdon Island. Family tree research. Community based historical society. Story of Jimmy Governor, last outlaw of New South Wales walks. Timber and dairying and sugar industries.Local Community Archival Records, Photographs
Rouse Hill estate is one of Australia's most culturally important historic properties, not only for its artefacts, furnishings, buildings
and gardens, but also because it is the most complete document of continuous family occupancy of a country house in New South Wales. Rouse Hill House is set on a 16 hectare rural property with stables, barn, piggery, slaughterhouse, woolshed and other farm buildings. The main house was constructed from 1813-18 and contents from the original family's occupancy to the present day remain intact.Estimated 250,000 objects of domestic and rural life from 1825 to...
The Museum features a broad cross-section of photographs, text and memorabilia related to the cultural and natural history of Lord Howe Island from it's discovery in 1788 onwards.
The historical building (1862) which houses the folk museum was used as a gaol until the last few years of the last century. One of the cells has been left in its original state, and another room is furnished as a colonial kitchen. There are nine rooms of well displayed relics and other items of early Australia, including historically interesting documents and artefacts. Special displays cover photography, lamps and lighting, bottles and Aboriginal artefacts. Adjoining the building is a display of early farm machinery and vehicles.Local History, Historical items from local families,...
The Museum is housed in former Silverton Gaol (1889) and warden's residence and hospital room. Police Station and Gaol closed in 1943. The Broken Hill Historical Society opened a museum on the premises in 1968. There are now over 14 rooms of exhibits plus an outside area.Large photographic collection - local, community & mining archival records. Sporting photographic collection - old mining machinery, old household objects; early clothing, band memorabilia; lodges' regalia.
Don Bank is an early 19th century cottage and a surviving example of a timber slab house construction. The house was one of the first built on the Wollstonecraft land grant and has connections to the Berry and Wollstonecraft families. Don Bank's static displays feature the house itself, its changing styles and fabrics as well as the social history of the area. A highlight of Don Bank's collection is its kitchen objects and extensive costume and textile collection.500 clothing and textiles items; 300 household items

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