AGHS National Conference 2021 Presentation

Voices of the AGHS National Oral History Collection

Presenter: Roslyn Burge

Running time: 46 mins
File download format: M4V (MPEG-4)

Voices of the National Oral History Collection
The Australian Garden History Society formally commissioned its first oral history interviews in 2002, just before its jubilee, to record the recollections of people associated with the genesis and development of the Society. Now there are more than 60 interviews in the National Oral History Collection representing each state and the ACT. The changing focus of the interviews reflects the mission and scholarship of the Society, individuals’ engagement with domestic, public and historic gardens, and some of the challenges the Society has faced. Through the voices of the interviewees this paper explores their associations with the Society and garden history and how their voices reflect four decades of the Society’s history.

Roslyn Burge
Roslyn Burge is a Sydney-based public historian; her work includes commissioned histories, exhibitions and oral history projects. As a significant aspect of her practice, oral history projects include those commissioned by individuals, libraries, corporate and community entities, as well as projects she has initiated in her community (Goat Island communities during the 1940s, Mondo & More: the 20thC Greening of Leichhardt and the Rozelle Hospital Oral History Project). Roslyn also recorded some of the Society’s oral history interviews and whilst a member of the National Management Committee from 2013-2019 she was Convenor of the Oral History Committee. She is a member of National Trust (NSW) Landscape Conservation Committee and her publications include No Peacetime Cinderellas: 60 years of the women of the War Widows’ Guild of Australia in NSW, Callan Park: Compassion and Conflict in the Asylum and Broughton Hall: Brought to Life.

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