The National Archives of Australia has developed a new website – Destination: Australia – sharing our post-war migrant stories – that features over 26,000 photographs taken by the Department of Immigration to promote and encourage post-war migration to Australia. Most of the images have been captioned but for the odd few that remain, the government organisation needs your help telling the rich and diverse migration story of Greeks who came to Australia following World War II.
In 2002, the Department of Immigration gave the national archives the images from the late ’40s to the early ’90s. The aim was to digitise these images for use on the database record search for the public and family historians. But with all the advances in technology and the ability to use social media as well, the National Archives has developed the website Destination: Australia – sharing our post-war migrant stories. The website features all the photographs they have in their database, but will also be used as a portal for members of the community to register and upload their images along with their migration experience. The National Archives are hoping people either identify themselves or family members and, also, tell the story of their migrant experience.
Tracey Clarke, curator, National Archives of Australia told Neos Kosmos this would be a great way to “allow Australian’s to contribute [their] knowledge to this collection.
“More than half of the photographs lack vital information like the names of people in the photographs, so we thought by putting it out there the collective knowledge of the Australians will help improve the information in this collection,” said Ms Clarke.
The website Destination: Australia – sharing our post-war migrant stories contains more than 20,000 photographs of migrants from various countries who arrived at different ports around the country after World War II. They extend up until the 1990s and cover a wide range of activities. The photographs include arrivals, citizenship ceremonies, festivals, migrant centres and new places of worship. There are also thousands of photographs of migrants in the workforce or participating in other aspects of community life. The photographic collection started around 1945 at the end of World War II and it was used specifically to promote Australia as a welcoming and prosperous nation to migrants. But the images were also used in Australia in newspaper and magazine articles and brochures and displays by the Department of Immigration to assure Australians that migrants would easily settle into life in Australia. In some instances, there are ten to fifteens photographs so a story unfolds almost like a case study.
Ms Clarke highlights one such example, the story of Vassiliki Daflou, a young Greek girl.
“Vassiliki was used as part of a campaign to encourage young Greek women to come to Australia in the early ’60s and this was to address the gender imbalance that happened over the previous ten years where mostly young Greek men were coming to Australia to work.
“The photographs are quite interesting where they show her in almost like a before-and-after shot to encourage young Greek women to come to Australia for a better life, and to appeal to migrants that there will be a job here in Australia in a range of occupations.”
Although the website hasn’t officially been launched, she is hoping that more activity and more stories will add to an upcoming exhibition based on the rich stories they uncover. The exhibition will begin in Canberra in early 2014 and will travel around Australian including all states and territories and regional towns that had a high number of migrant communities so all Australian’s can see the migrant stories.
“The exhibition we will be telling the stories of individual migrants, but also examining the role of the Department of Immigration played in managing the post-war migration program,” she says and hopes that the addition of stories by people visiting the website will contribute to this “The photographs [themselves] aren’t representative of the migrant experience as it was so complex and diverse and rich”. Even though there is a huge volume of images, she says over six million people migrated to Australia during this period and we need to try and record this information through images and stories.
Ms Clarke says anyone in the community wishing to be involved can do so. By going to the website www.destinationaustralia.gov.au/site, you can do a basic search to see if you know anyone already photographed. To upload an image or story, you will need to register to the site. You can tag a photo with a caption or location not just of the person in Australia, but also of their country of origin using google maps.
“These photographs were taken by the government for official purposes so we want to be able to build on this collection by allowing people to upload their own personal photos to help tell a representative story of the migrant experience.”
To register visit www.destinationaustralia.gov.au/site and share your story, or that of your families.