Barcaldine, Queensland

“Residence with goat in Yew Street, Barcaldine, Queensland,” ca. 1910, photographer unknown, via State Library of Queensland Commons on flickr.

The man and boy are showing off the goat and cart. A woman on the porch is holding up a painting.

In 1891, the Great Shearers Strike was held in Barcaldine under the boughs of The Tree Of Knowledge. The event led to the formation of the Australian Labor Party. The streets in the town are all named after species of trees.

Nambour, Queensland

The Tambo family posing among the plants in front of their homestead of Malayta Hill near Nambour, Queensland, 1906, by A. W. Newbery, via State Library of Queensland Commons on flickr.

The Tambos were among the tens of thousands of South Sea Islanders who were either kidnapped or recruited to be labourers in the sugarcane fields of Queensland during the mid to late 19th century — or they were their descendants.

At the time of this photo, most Islanders who were still in Australia faced repatriation or deportation by the government under legislation related to the White Australia policy.

The image above was used in an 1906 photo-essay in The Queenslander entitled “The Undesirables – Kanaka* Settlers on the Blackall Range.” “Kanaka” was once a term for the Islanders, now considered offensive. There is little other text that I can find, but the title seems to refer to the process of forced repatriation.

Descendants of those who escaped or were exempted from removal now form the largest Melano-Polynesian ethnic group in Australia.


*It means “man” in the Hawaiian language, according to Wikipedia.

Black River Falls, Wisconsin

“Individual beds at nursery. Black River Falls project, Wisconsin,” June 1937, by Russell Lee, via Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.

In the early summer of 1937, Lee took a number of photos around the community of Black River Falls. Most were related to a land use project of the U.S. Resettlement Administration, for which he was a photographer.

The principal employment in Black River Falls, since its founding in 1839, was logging and sawmills. However, many of the people Lee photographed there were farming cut-over areas.

Today, the town is probably best known as the subject of the 1973 book (and 1999 filmWisconsin Death Trip. 

Alvin, Wisconsin

“Gate made from the end of an old bed. Alvin, Wisconsin,” May 1937, by Russell Lee, via Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.

Alvin was named for one of its founders, Alvin Spencer, who had moved his family to the area in 1907.

In order to submit a request for its own Post Office, the little Forrest County community where the Spencers had settled had to have a name. Alvin submitted the name of another community leader, Curtis Powell, for consideration. Curtis submitted his friend Alvin’s name. Since there was already a town named Curtis in the state, the new community was dubbed Alvin, Wisconsin.

Spencer family history

I love that they submitted each other’s first names.