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| Newly arrived Dutch immigrants disembarking in Sydney |
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| Dutch immigrants arriving into Darwin |
Commonwealth Government of Australia. (1964). Making Australia Home, 2011, from http://vrroom.naa.gov.au/records/?ID=19152
Commonwealth Government of Australia. (1921). Young Immigrants Arriving in Australia, 2011, from http://vrroom.naa.gov.au/records/?ID=19447
History is represented through these photographs as they are two of several images that were seen during advertising campaigns throughout Australia and Britain. Many ‘white’ immigrants can be seen smiling, happy, well dressed and obvious healthy human ‘stock’ to add to Australia’s prosperity.
These photographs continue with the cultural industry that has so far been embedded in the Immigration Restriction Act through the continued vision of a ‘white’ Australia. Those British citizens already in Australia as well as those still in Britain would see these photographs as evidence of a country that is just how they imagined it would be: Bright and sunny days welcoming new European arrivals into a land of opportunity. Not an Asian or ‘coloured’ person in sight.
Photographs such as these tell a story to students through recreating the past that words alone are unable to construct. Artefacts like photographs can develop a students’ empathy by allowing personal connections to people alive over a century before their birth (Marcus, 2006).
