October 2010 updates
A few new entries have been added to Pathways this month. We came across the Excelsior Boys’ Home for the first time, in an article published in the Methodist Spectator newspaper in 1899. There’s also a new glossary term this month: mothercraft nurse. This entry has links to the Victorian babies’ homes which were also providers of mothercraft training.
Much of the work we’ve done in October was updating existing entries in Pathways. One significant task this month has been entering submissions made to the Forgotten Australians inquiry into the Pathways database, each as a separate ‘published resource’. This makes it possible for us to make links between a submission, and the Victorian home/s mentioned by the person who told their story to the Senate inquiry. This means that the entry on each institution in Pathways now contains links to the stories and voices of past residents.
The submissions made to the Inquiry into Institutional Care are published on the Senate’s website. This webpage is a hugely significant collection of stories, memories and testimony by people who have been affected by the history of ‘care’ in Australia. It can be difficult for historians and researchers to get access to the voices of Forgotten Australians, and it can be too easy to just rely on the sources that are more readily available – in institutional histories, annual reports and ‘official’ accounts. One of our aims for the Pathways website is to present the history of ‘care’ in Victoria in a way that draws on a wide variety of sources, and presents a history that comprises many perspectives and voices. Have a look at our entry on the submissions made to the Inquiry into Institutional Care – in the ‘Published Resources’ section of the page, you will find links to all of the submissions we have inputted thus far.
This month, we’ve added a number of new items to the Pathways Gallery. Many of these are from illustrated newspaper articles, found on the National Library of Australia’s wonderful Australian Newspapers website.