Summary

This album is a personal memento of the May 1901 festivities connected with the opening of the first Commonwealth Parliament. The Album was made by Kodak circa 1901. It is a blue-green hardcover, cloth bound photograph album, with heavy card pages, each with a single black and white photograph set within a narrow window mount. The first photographs in the album show the Federation celebrations in Melbourne in May 1901. There are photos of the Federation arches erected in central Melbourne for the occasion, with streetscapes showing trams and identifiable buildings such as St. Paul's Cathedral. Other shots show street parades, and the HMS Ophir on which the Duke and Duchess of Cornwall and York sailed to Australia to officiate. The remaining photographs are of rural landscapes, Ballarat streetscapes and portraits of groups and individuals, all circa 1901. These photographs capture elements of the Melbourne and Ballarat decorations and events which an individual thought worthy of documentation. They offer an insight into a spectator's experience of the events in contrast to the official and published record and document the decorations, symbols and events used to celebrate Australia's new nationhood.

Physical Description

Blue-green hardcover, cloth bound photograph album. Heavy card pages, each with a single black and white photograph set within a narrow window mount. The first photographs in the album show the Federation celebrations in Melbourne in May 1901. There are photos of the Federation arches erected in central Melbourne for the occasion, with streetscapes showing trams and identifiable buildings such as St. Paul's Cathedral. Other shots show street parades, and the HMS Ophir on which the Duke and Duchess of York sailed to Australia to officiate. The remaining photographs are of rural landscapes, Ballarat streetscapes and portraits of groups and individuals, all circa 1901. There are 12 double-sided page mounts containing photographs. It includes ten snapshots of the Federation decorations and events in Melbourne in May 1901; 14 snapshots, c.1901, of scenes probably of Victoria, and Ballarat Botanic Gardens; and 7 loose snapshots, five of which are Federation-related, and two of Ballarat.

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