History Lab
Impact Studios
History Lab || exploring the gaps between us and the past || This series is made in collaboration by the Australian Centre for Public History and Impact Studios at the University of Technology, Sydney.
On the Edge: a layered history of Sydney's South Head
A special History Lab episode with a soundwork that explores the history of Sydney's South Head, followed by an interview with the maker Sinead Roarty and Director of the Australian Centre for Public History at UTS, Tamson Pietsch. About the soundwork: On the Edge The Gap at South Head in Sydney's eastern suburbs is a place of extreme beauty. It is also famous for being Australia's most well-known suicide destination. On the Edge is a long-form binaural/VR soundwork exploring South Head’s spatia
Introducing... Hey History!
We've got a new history podcast for you and the kids in your life, called Hey History!
With immersive, sound rich storytelling and Australia's top historians and experts, dive into key events in our history.
Find out...
How did First Nations people learn on Country? How does learning happen today?
What really when Captain Cook and First Nations people met at Kamay Botany Bay?
What was life like as a convict kid? How did you remember your loved ones?
How did everyone get along in the Gold
6. Last Drinks
In 1887 there were no less than 22 hotels in Darlinghurst. Over the next century and a half, the character, culture and clientele of Darlinghurst pubs evolved. This story explores the impact on Darlinghurst of two episodes of liquor licensing restrictions in NSW: six o’clock closing and the Sydney lockout laws. Image: Royal Sovereign Hotel, corner Darlinghurst Rd and Liverpool St, 1921 (City of Sydney Archives) Credits This audio story is a production of the Australian Centre for Public
5. Room With A View
Terraces, flats, squats, bedsits, mansions, towers, camps and hostels: in Darlinghurst, housing is a mixed bag. This audio story explores the range of lifestyles afforded by Darlinghurst’s dense diversity of dwellings. Image: Pad with a View, Kings Cross 1970-71 (Photographer: Rennie Ellis © Rennie Ellis Photographic Archive) Credits This audio story is a production of the Australian Centre for Public History in partnership with the Paul Ramsay Foundation. Producer: Catherine Freyne
4. Pandemic Times
At St Vincent's Hospital, the Sisters of Charity have been delivering care to the people of Darlinghurst since 1857. This audio story visits St Vincent’s during three historic public health emergencies: the Spanish Flu, the HIV/AIDS crisis and COVID-19.
Image: Sister and nurse with home visitation car, St Vincent’s Hospital, Sydney (Courtesy of the Congregational Archives of the Sisters of Charity of Australia)
Credits
This audio story is a production of the Australian Centre for Public
3. Red Light Green Light
In the rapidly gentrifying Darlinghurst of the 1980s, a turf war raged over one of its earliest trades. In this story, we visit the street corners and safe houses where sex workers competed for customers, looked out for each other and stood their ground. Along the way, veterans of the street-based trade describe a changing industry, sharing stories from the frontline of the fight for law reform and workers’ rights. If you would like to sign the petition to bring the statue of Joy back to Darl
2. Eccentrics
Darlinghurst has always been a magnet and a haven for exiles and misfits. With writer and Darlo-phile Sunil Badami as guide, this audio story celebrates a handful of local characters and eccentrics, reflecting on the material conditions that enable unconventional people to thrive. Image: Hare Krishna, Kings Cross 1970-71 (Photographer: Rennie Ellis © Rennie Ellis Photographic Archive) Credits This audio story is a production of the Australian Centre for Public History in partnership
1. Lost Waterways
If you listen after rain, you can still hear the rush of water that used to flow from the sandstone ridge at the apex of Darlinghurst down to the harbour. This audio story goes in search of the creeks and cascades that sustained life and industry for Gadigal people, colonists and Chinese market gardeners, before being covered over by the concrete and tarmac of the modern city. Image: Rushcutters Creek, 1870-75 (Mitchell Library, State Library of NSW - ON 4 Box 56 No 253) Credits This au
Introducing: Listen to Darlinghurst
Welcome to a special History Lab series, Listen to Darlinghurst. In this mini episode, History Lab host Anna Clark and Listen to Darlinghurst producer Catherine Freyne introduce the series. Image: Darlinghurst Rd 1954 by Mark Strizic (State Library of Victoria) Credits Producer: Catherine Freyne Sound engineer: Judy Rapley Music: Blue Dot Sessions
What remains of Joe Governor?
After Jimmy’s trial, what happened to his brother Joe?Joe has mostly been forgotten by history, and his presence in the archives is little more than a whisper.From coronial records, family tales and a visit to a country pub, it becomes clear that Joe fell foul of the frontier, in life and death.And yet, more questions remain: Was Joe Governor, an outlaw, killed lawfully?How do his ancestral remains become another transactional asset in the murky world of race science? And why is western knowledg
Death Row Diary
How does the law deal with an outlaw?Jimmy Governor is captured and his legal case becomes a lightning rod for justice in the new federation. But how did Australia’s most-wanted murderer get one of the best lawyers in the colony?A prison experiment begins with a diary and we find out how the present mimics the past.
The Last Outlaws
This is the tale of a prison colony trying to become a country and the murder case that stood in its way, but this is not a true crime podcast.Jimmy and Joe Governor, two brothers from Wiradjuri and Wonnarua country, were the last proclaimed outlaws in Australia - wanted dead or alive.120 years later we examine what has survived and what we can still learn from the Governor brothers' story.To find out more visit: https://thelastoutlaws.com.au
Introducing History Lab Season Four - The Last Outlaws
The Last Outlaws is the latest audio series to be released by Impact Studios, an audio production house embedded in the University of Technology Sydney.The trilogy podcast is based on UTS Law Professor Katherine Biber’s tenacious and careful research of Jimmy and Joe Governor, Australia’s last proclaimed outlaws.The Governor brothers' story has been told in books and film before, but never like this.For the Governor family descendants this is a difficult story to tell, but one that demands to be
Introducing 'The New Social Contract' - a new podcast by the makers of History Lab
How will Australian universities fare in a post-pandemic world? It depends on an influential but rarely talked about relationship between the state, its institutions, and the public. Discover more in the first podcast episode of The New Social Contract.Brought to you by the makers of History Lab.
A close match
Three days before Spain’s general elections in 2004 a series of bombs exploded on crowded Madrid commuter trains, killing almost 200 people.The Spanish authorities found a plastic bag a few blocks away from one of the bomb sites with a single, incomplete fingerprint.This was the trace linked to a man living 9000 kms away, a US Attorney in Oregon by the name of Brandon Mayfield.We’ve been told that every fingerprint is unique to every finger, but what if this is the wrong question to ask?Forensic
Reading the signs
When was the last time you were asked to sign something and did you stop to think how the strange squiggly mark you make on a page could be used?The signature is a performative act, crucial to the law’s way of knowing, but it’s also been used as an instrument of power and control.In this episode of History Lab we hear from a boy who was stolen, the man who took him away and the Judge who was asked to decide if a mother's thumbprint was a sign of consent.The presence or absence of a signature on
Making a fortune
'Making a Fortune' looks at the popularity and persecution of two of the most formidable fortune tellers of Federation Australia.In the first decade of the 20th century, Australians were focused on the future. It was the dawn of a new century, and a newly-formed nation. But during this time, police were cracking down on a booming industry dominated by women—it was a service that society deemed superstitious, archaic and fraudulent and one that is unlawful to this day in some parts of Australia.
Bonus Cast - The Law's Way of Knowing?
History Lab host Dr Tamson Pietsch hands over the mic to Dr Alecia Simmonds, an interdisciplinary scholar of law and history at the University of Technology Sydney. In this bonus episode they dissect how it is the law ‘knows’ and discuss how both history and the law rely on traces from the past to draw conclusions in the present. If truth is uncertain in historical archives - is it even harder to find in the courtroom?Season 3 of History Lab will be taking a short break returning February 4 2020
In case I die in this mess
Death, money and family are the key ingredients in any last will and testament. They also make a killer cocktail that unleashes a special force not present in any other part of the law.In this episode of History Lab, we’re looking at how the law determines your last wishes through some truly unusual cases. Whether it's for reasons of urgency, eccentricity or expediency, courts around the world regularly have to make calls on the wishes of the dead. But how does the law know it’s getting it right
Introducing Season Three of History Lab - The Law's Way of Knowing
History Lab is back for a third season, fresh from wins at the New York Radio Festival Awards and the Community Broadcasting Association of Australia.In this special four-part series we’ll be exploring the ‘law’s way of knowing’, looking at histories that intersect with the law.From fortune telling to fingerprints, unusual wills and the forensic theory that something is always left behind, join us as we delve into the traces left by the law.Episode One drops December 12.
Introducing Uniform- A new season of All Things Equal
Missing your History Lab fix? We’ve got something else for you in the meantime. Introducing a new season of All Things Equal. This series will take you into the school yard and beyond, where kids learn that things aren't always fair. Through the stories of real students and staff, Uniform will change the way you think about education; because when it comes to learning, one size does not fit all.Subscribe to All Things Equal in your favourite podcast app, or listen to the show here:https://www.wh
Making history in audio
History Lab audio makers explore how we've tried to understand the past through sound in season two
Skeletons of Empire
In the aftermath of World War One, nations came together in an attempt to ensure war on the same devastating scale could never occur again. The result? The League of Nations: a revolutionary idea to form the world’s first international organisation. But clearly it did not stop the world from going to war.A century later we are still questioning our ability to come together. In this episode, Glenda Sluga and Ninah Kopel search for the ephemeral traces of a unified past. They find stories of hope,
Invisible hands
Where do jelly babies come from?Mass-produced things are all around us. But they all start with a single object. In this episode, Olivia goes looking for the patternmakers, whose invisible hands are the original creators of much of the stuff we use every day. They see a world no-one else can see. So why are they disappearing? And what will we lose when they are gone?Producer: Olivia RosenmanCollaborating historian: Jesse Adams SteinHost: Tamson PietschExecutive Producer: Tom Allinson
The Bank, the Sergeant and his bonus
In 1817, the Bank of New South Wales opened as the first financial institution in the Australian colonies. But when the first customers arrived for the grand opening, they found someone had already made a deposit. Where did the money come from? Our producers, Jason and Nicole, follow the record trail and discover the uncertain foundations of Australia’s first bank.
Fishing for answers
Sydney's iconic Opera House plays host to musicians and dancers, actors and singers. But beneath the notes of their voices, another song echoes across the city’s waters.Indigenous Eora fisherwomen passed down their knowledge through their songs while paddling their canoes, a cooking fire at one end and their kids on their shoulders.Anna Clark and Tamson go looking for the fisherwomen’s world, and discover that, if you listen closely, the past of Sydney Harbour still sings.
Bonus episode | The making of History Lab |
What does it take to make History Lab?This bonus interlude episode lifts the curtain on all that goes into making history for your ears!Executive Producer Emma Lancaster steps out from behind the headphones and asks you to listen hard as she and host Tamson Pietsch discover that in the gap between historians and journalists, great things can happen.The History Lab final episode for Season One 'Fishing for Answers' will be available 25 July 2018.To find out more about the History Lab pitching pro
When the Titanic sank in the desert
In the middle of a mining town in outback Australia, over 400 kilometres from the closest ocean, stands a monument dedicated to the memory of the Titanic.On the surface the story of Broken Hill’s Titanic Memorial can be seen as a simple tale of memory and humanity, one community expressing their sympathy for another.But on closer inspection, the politics of memory starts to unravel and raises questions about the power of remembering and why we do it in the first place.
Damages for a broken heart
Quietly buried away in Western Sydney’s state archives is a secret history of love.Lists of lingerie, love letters and lockets of hair, are stapled to writs from over 200 years ago.In the 19th century a broken engagement could damn a woman for life. But scorned women had an unexpected way to get square. A now somewhat forgotten law known as ‘breach of promise to marry’ saw women awarded massive damages after being left jilted at the altar.But why would the courts be interested in the failed lov
Lindy Chamberlain and the afterlife of evidence
What happens to evidence after a criminal trial?Tamson goes looking for answers and finds them in the shadow of one of the worst miscarriages of justice in Australian history - the Chamberlain trialsProducer: Olivia RosenmanCollaborating historian: Katherine BiberHost: Tamson PietschExecutive Producer: Emma Lancaster
Episode Zero - Where the past isn't past
This season on History Lab we are exploring the gaps between us and the past Join us.