History in the making across Victoria

Some 49 Victorian community and history groups will share in $350,000 funding as part of 2019’s Local History Grants Program.

The Local History Grants Program provides small grants to community organisations to support projects that preserve, record or publish Victorian local history.

2019’s recipients include:

  • Ballarat and District Aboriginal Co-operative to collate an online history marking the group’s 40 years of work, including the story of their founding elders and the next wave of Aboriginal activists
  • Carlton Community History Group for electronic preservation of oral histories that tell the story of the suburb’s diverse past
  • Melbourne Legacy to digitise films dating to the 1930s documenting their work in caring for the widows and children of deceased servicemen
  • Alexandra Timber Tramway and Museum for interpretive panels for its large collection of historically-significant machinery
  • Horsham Historical Society for computers to allow community access to the group’s digitised collection of photos and records, and to digitise cassette tapes of interviews
  • Wandong History Group for equipment to help mount exhibitions, including a Black Saturday memorial and a World War I display that will be shown at local libraries

Other successful projects range from innovative walking tour apps, newspaper digitisation projects and interactive history installations to practical storage solutions and other initiatives to allow museums and history groups to keep the invaluable historical artefacts of Victoria in top condition. The full list of grant recipients is available at the Public Record Office Victoria website.

Source: Vic Government