Students majoring in History at the University of Melbourne complete a capstone subject, Making History, in their final year of study. In 2015, students completed both an archival research essay and a collaborative digital project using Omeka.net to showcase their archival research findings. This site has been developed from one of these projects, and contains student essays and previously undigitised material from archival sources.

Welcome to the Interwar Internationalism exhibition. As a group we were given the brief:

In her study of the League of Nations Union in Britain, Helen McCarthy argues that ‘the League of Nations inspired a rich and participatory culture of political protest, popular education and civic ritual.’[1] Was the same true in Australia?

As a research project, this set of instructions is fairly broad and sparked a number of further questions, themes and ideas that we felt could and should be further explored.  Therefore, this exhibition offers an array of archival documents surrounding the interwar period and the League of Nations in Australia, with special reference to Britain. This digital history offers an exploration of the era from the International Peace Campaign and the League of Nations Union to the Feminist movement in Australia and the Anti-Conscription movement.

The ‘Introduction’ page, and subsequent pages in the drop down menu, offer an overview of the interwar period and the League of Nations in both Australia and Britain in order to help contextualize the subject. Comparatively, the ‘Exhibits’ are organized thematically in order to further an understanding of the archival resources that are available. In addition, there is the option to read through brief biographies of key figures throughout the period. There is also the option to browse all archives individually, have a look at a timeline and read through the covenants referred to. Finally, a number of archival essays students produced using this material are available to read. Please feel free to explore, share and comment.