What the Society Does
For my major project, I will be collaborating with the Marrickville Heritage Society. The Marrickville Heritage Society is a community historical society which is dedicated to documenting the history, heritage and environment of Marrickville and its surrounding areas. The society was founded in 1963 and has a large archive of historical sources, stories and research. Since 1983 they have posted yearly newsletters, as well as 15 heritage journals which cover a wide range of stories and interesting issues from the Marrickville area, as well as surrounding suburbs such as Newtown, Camperdown, Dulwich Hill, Enmore, Petersham, Lewisham and Tempe, among others. The articles in these journals range from personal histories and childhood stories to methodical studies of local government policy and planning. The society also monitors development applications in the area and makes recommendations in line with their aims of preserving Marrickville’s heritage. In this endeavour, they have been successful in saving the old Marrickville Town Hall, Stanmore House in Enmore, St Clement’s Steeple, and the Marrickville Hospital/Library, among others.
They have an online presence in the form of a website (https://marrickvilleheritage.org.au/), where one can access historical articles and the archive of their newsletters. They also have a facebook, where members can post information or inquiries about Marrickville’s history. On the fourth Saturday of each month the society hosts a meeting or excursion to a historical site: Most recently, they hosted a visit to Nutcote, the home of children’ s author and illustrator May Gibbs.
Gilbert Doble’s Winged Victory, created for the Marrickville War Memorial
My Project
For my project, I have been asked to assist in creating an instagram account for the society where its articles, sources and stories can reach a wider audience. Drawing on the society’s archives, we aim to create and draft instagram posts, and establish an ongoing system where society resources can be translated into social media posts. Since the society has no headquarters, I plan to conduct this project mainly in my own time. So far, my work on the project has mainly consisted of creating ideas for instagram posts from the society’s archive, aiming to curate stories which are likely to be of interest to a broader local demographic.
There are some challenges with this project, primarily that many of the original sources and images are not in a shared society archive but in the personal collections of members, which can make them difficult to obtain. I feel well-equipped for this project as I am relatively proficient with digital and social media. Also, my generational knowledge of young people’s interests and social media habits may help in getting the project to appeal more to younger generations. In this, the goal of myself and the Marrickville Heritage Society is to spread awareness and spark interest in the local history of the area by branching out into social media.