Summary

Cream-coloured canvas shoes lined with blue-striped cream canvas with thick leather soles and low leather heels. Made by staff or residents at Mayday Hills, Beechworth, Victoria. Canvas shoes were often made within the institution and issued to patients who might damage themselves or others if they wore heavy leather shoes.

Much of the Museum's Psychiatric Services Collection was assembled during the 1950s by Dr Charles Brothers while he was working within the Victorian system to bring about reforms. Dr Brothers' investigations uncovered the institutionalised poverty and lack of hope resulting from decades of government and community neglect. The texture of daily life in an impoverished and overcrowded institution is evoked by well-worn domestic objects, battered metal chamber pots and standardised clothing.

Physical Description

Cream-coloured canvas shoes lined with blue-striped cream canvas with thick leather soles and low leather heels. Shoes are high-cut to ankle with white eyelets to accommodate shoelaces.

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