The Great Kantō Earthquake of 1 September 1923 devastated the major cities of Tokyo and Yokohama, as well as five other surrounding prefectures and was one of the world’s worst natural disasters of the early twentieth century. In terms of loss of life and material damage, with an estimated 140,000 deaths and countless homeless, it is still Japan’s worst national disaster. Nearly 90% of the newspaper printers were destroyed in the earthquake. These postcards were not produced for aesthetics but as a major tool for the spread of information. Seeing how newspaper companies were left with their offices in shambles, postcard publishers tried to fill the gap hence some were in three languages. A very small number of publishing companies were fortunate enough to survive, one of them being Mitsumura Printing, which took advantage of its remaining resources to churn out postcards. When the Ōsaka Mainichi Shinbunsha published its bilingual three-volume photographic pictorial of the Great Kantō Earthquake just two weeks after the event, the calamity had already been captured in thousands of images that circulated on a national and international media highway. Commercial photographers and photojournalists produced the most abundant and immediate images of the quake, which were transmitted in newspapers, special-issue newspaper pictorials, commemorative photography collections, illustrated survivors’ accounts, and sets of commemorative postcards. These photographic images functioned as both news and souvenirs, rendering their consumers/viewers, inside and outside the devastated locale, into both witnesses and voyeurs. Images in the news media and those issued by respected publishing houses carried the visual authority of supposed facticity. As such they both produced and became the historical record of the event. Since the vast majority of 1923 disaster postcards that survive have no writing on them, they were likely treated more as collectibles than as a form of postal communication. Many were put into albums, creating new ways to combine images and create visual cultures of disaster for home viewing. Accordion-style albums allowed for personalized, serial organization of images that produced unique, imagistic narratives of the event. The album pages were also two-sided and could be stretched out to view a series of images on recto and verso. References: Imaging Disaster: Tokyo and the Visual Culture of Japan’s Great Earthquake of 1923 震災をイメージ化する　東京と1923年関東大震災のヴィジュアルカルチャー - The Asia. (2024, March 31). Retrieved from https://apjjf.org/2015/13/6/gennifer-weisenfeld/4270 The Great Kanto Earthquake: Postcards of Tragedy. (2024, March 31). Retrieved from https://www.tokyoweekender.com/art_and_culture/japanese-culture/the-great-kanto-earthquake-postcards/ See also: Postcards from Hell – Glimpses of the Great Kantō Earthquake; M. William STEELE (International Christian University, Japan) 14th Conference of the European Association of Japanese Studies: Visual Culture and Postcard Research Papers – East Asia Image Collection Blog. (2024, March 31). Retrieved from https://sites.lafayette.edu/eastasia/2014/09/01/14th-conference-of-the-european-association-of-japanese-studies-visual-culture-and-postcard-research-papers/] And https://icu.repo.nii.ac.jp/record/4503/files/ACS44_01Steele.pdfThis item, a souvenir from Japan from between the wars (circa 1923) was brought home to Research, Victoria by Bill Teagle who was serving in the Royal Australian Navy (1919-1945). Bill Teagle's sister Violet Amelda Teagle had married Theodore (Curly) Feldbauer in 1933. Bill's brother-in-law Curly was taken as a Prisoner of War by the Japanese and died at Sandakan in March 1945. The family did not learn of Curly’s death till months later and Bill's sister, Violet, herself could never forgive the Japanese for what happened to Curly. Curly is remembered on the Eltham Roll of Honour Board and his son, Albert Feldbauer (Bill’s nephew and youngest child of the children of the soldier fathers attending a school in the district), was given the honour of turning the first sod for the Eltham War Memorial Infant Welfare Centre Building. Despite this, the family maintained this cherished souvenir from a time of previous foreign friendship with Japan. The item was possibly given by Bill Teagle to his sister Margaret Rose (formerly Ingram) who later married Richard Edward (Eddie) Fielding in early 1948. (Eddie had been engaged to someone else before he went to war, but his fiancée broke it off before his return to Australia.) It was cared for by the Teagle/Fielding family for approximately one hundred years. It is of particular significance given the family's connection to the Eltham War Memorial and the significance of that memorial to the local community and represents that despite the horrors of war, former friends then foes can become friends again.tom fielding collection, japanese postcard, postcard, 1923, great kanto earthquake, japan, tokyo, yokohama

The Great Kantō Earthquake of 1 September 1923 devastated the major cities of Tokyo and Yokohama, as well as five other surrounding prefectures and was one of the world’s worst natural disasters of the early twentieth century. In terms of loss of life and material damage, with an estimated 140,000 deaths and countless homeless, it is still Japan’s worst national disaster. Nearly 90% of the newspaper printers were destroyed in the earthquake. These postcards were not produced for aesthetics but as a major tool for the spread of information. Seeing how newspaper companies were left with their offices in shambles, postcard publishers tried to fill the gap hence some were in three languages. A very small number of publishing companies were fortunate enough to survive, one of them being Mitsumura Printing, which took advantage of its remaining resources to churn out postcards. When the Ōsaka Mainichi Shinbunsha published its bilingual three-volume photographic pictorial of the Great Kantō Earthquake just two weeks after the event, the calamity had already been captured in thousands of images that circulated on a national and international media highway. Commercial photographers and photojournalists produced the most abundant and immediate images of the quake, which were transmitted in newspapers, special-issue newspaper pictorials, commemorative photography collections, illustrated survivors’ accounts, and sets of commemorative postcards. These photographic images functioned as both news and souvenirs, rendering their consumers/viewers, inside and outside the devastated locale, into both witnesses and voyeurs. Images in the news media and those issued by respected publishing houses carried the visual authority of supposed facticity. As such they both produced and became the historical record of the event. Since the vast majority of 1923 disaster postcards that survive have no writing on them, they were likely treated more as collectibles than as a form of postal communication. Many were put into albums, creating new ways to combine images and create visual cultures of disaster for home viewing. Accordion-style albums allowed for personalized, serial organization of images that produced unique, imagistic narratives of the event. The album pages were also two-sided and could be stretched out to view a series of images on recto and verso. References: Imaging Disaster: Tokyo and the Visual Culture of Japan’s Great Earthquake of 1923 震災をイメージ化する　東京と1923年関東大震災のヴィジュアルカルチャー - The Asia. (2024, March 31). Retrieved from https://apjjf.org/2015/13/6/gennifer-weisenfeld/4270 The Great Kanto Earthquake: Postcards of Tragedy. (2024, March 31). Retrieved from https://www.tokyoweekender.com/art_and_culture/japanese-culture/the-great-kanto-earthquake-postcards/ See also: Postcards from Hell – Glimpses of the Great Kantō Earthquake; M. William STEELE (International Christian University, Japan) 14th Conference of the European Association of Japanese Studies: Visual Culture and Postcard Research Papers – East Asia Image Collection Blog. (2024, March 31). Retrieved from https://sites.lafayette.edu/eastasia/2014/09/01/14th-conference-of-the-european-association-of-japanese-studies-visual-culture-and-postcard-research-papers/] And https://icu.repo.nii.ac.jp/record/4503/files/ACS44_01Steele.pdfThis item, a souvenir from Japan from between the wars (circa 1923) was brought home to Research, Victoria by Bill Teagle who was serving in the Royal Australian Navy (1919-1945). Bill Teagle's sister Violet Amelda Teagle had married Theodore (Curly) Feldbauer in 1933. Bill's brother-in-law Curly was taken as a Prisoner of War by the Japanese and died at Sandakan in March 1945. The family did not learn of Curly’s death till months later and Bill's sister, Violet, herself could never forgive the Japanese for what happened to Curly. Curly is remembered on the Eltham Roll of Honour Board and his son, Albert Feldbauer (Bill’s nephew and youngest child of the children of the soldier fathers attending a school in the district), was given the honour of turning the first sod for the Eltham War Memorial Infant Welfare Centre Building. Despite this, the family maintained this cherished souvenir from a time of previous foreign friendship with Japan. The item was possibly given by Bill Teagle to his sister Margaret Rose (formerly Ingram) who later married Richard Edward (Eddie) Fielding in early 1948. (Eddie had been engaged to someone else before he went to war, but his fiancée broke it off before his return to Australia.) It was cared for by the Teagle/Fielding family for approximately one hundred years. It is of particular significance given the family's connection to the Eltham War Memorial and the significance of that memorial to the local community and represents that despite the horrors of war, former friends then foes can become friends again.tom fielding collection, japanese postcard, postcard, 1923, great kanto earthquake, japan, tokyo, yokohama

The Great Kantō Earthquake of 1 September 1923 devastated the major cities of Tokyo and Yokohama, as well as five other surrounding prefectures and was one of the world’s worst natural disasters of the early twentieth century. In terms of loss of life and material damage, with an estimated 140,000 deaths and countless homeless, it is still Japan’s worst national disaster. Nearly 90% of the newspaper printers were destroyed in the earthquake. These postcards were not produced for aesthetics but as a major tool for the spread of information. Seeing how newspaper companies were left with their offices in shambles, postcard publishers tried to fill the gap hence some were in three languages. A very small number of publishing companies were fortunate enough to survive, one of them being Mitsumura Printing, which took advantage of its remaining resources to churn out postcards. When the Ōsaka Mainichi Shinbunsha published its bilingual three-volume photographic pictorial of the Great Kantō Earthquake just two weeks after the event, the calamity had already been captured in thousands of images that circulated on a national and international media highway. Commercial photographers and photojournalists produced the most abundant and immediate images of the quake, which were transmitted in newspapers, special-issue newspaper pictorials, commemorative photography collections, illustrated survivors’ accounts, and sets of commemorative postcards. These photographic images functioned as both news and souvenirs, rendering their consumers/viewers, inside and outside the devastated locale, into both witnesses and voyeurs. Images in the news media and those issued by respected publishing houses carried the visual authority of supposed facticity. As such they both produced and became the historical record of the event. Since the vast majority of 1923 disaster postcards that survive have no writing on them, they were likely treated more as collectibles than as a form of postal communication. Many were put into albums, creating new ways to combine images and create visual cultures of disaster for home viewing. Accordion-style albums allowed for personalized, serial organization of images that produced unique, imagistic narratives of the event. The album pages were also two-sided and could be stretched out to view a series of images on recto and verso. References: Imaging Disaster: Tokyo and the Visual Culture of Japan’s Great Earthquake of 1923 震災をイメージ化する　東京と1923年関東大震災のヴィジュアルカルチャー - The Asia. (2024, March 31). Retrieved from https://apjjf.org/2015/13/6/gennifer-weisenfeld/4270 The Great Kanto Earthquake: Postcards of Tragedy. (2024, March 31). Retrieved from https://www.tokyoweekender.com/art_and_culture/japanese-culture/the-great-kanto-earthquake-postcards/ See also: Postcards from Hell – Glimpses of the Great Kantō Earthquake; M. William STEELE (International Christian University, Japan) 14th Conference of the European Association of Japanese Studies: Visual Culture and Postcard Research Papers – East Asia Image Collection Blog. (2024, March 31). Retrieved from https://sites.lafayette.edu/eastasia/2014/09/01/14th-conference-of-the-european-association-of-japanese-studies-visual-culture-and-postcard-research-papers/] And https://icu.repo.nii.ac.jp/record/4503/files/ACS44_01Steele.pdfThis item, a souvenir from Japan from between the wars (circa 1923) was brought home to Research, Victoria by Bill Teagle who was serving in the Royal Australian Navy (1919-1945). Bill Teagle's sister Violet Amelda Teagle had married Theodore (Curly) Feldbauer in 1933. Bill's brother-in-law Curly was taken as a Prisoner of War by the Japanese and died at Sandakan in March 1945. The family did not learn of Curly’s death till months later and Bill's sister, Violet, herself could never forgive the Japanese for what happened to Curly. Curly is remembered on the Eltham Roll of Honour Board and his son, Albert Feldbauer (Bill’s nephew and youngest child of the children of the soldier fathers attending a school in the district), was given the honour of turning the first sod for the Eltham War Memorial Infant Welfare Centre Building. Despite this, the family maintained this cherished souvenir from a time of previous foreign friendship with Japan. The item was possibly given by Bill Teagle to his sister Margaret Rose (formerly Ingram) who later married Richard Edward (Eddie) Fielding in early 1948. (Eddie had been engaged to someone else before he went to war, but his fiancée broke it off before his return to Australia.) It was cared for by the Teagle/Fielding family for approximately one hundred years. It is of particular significance given the family's connection to the Eltham War Memorial and the significance of that memorial to the local community and represents that despite the horrors of war, former friends then foes can become friends again.tom fielding collection, japanese postcard, postcard, 1923, great kanto earthquake, japan, tokyo, yokohama

The Great Kantō Earthquake of 1 September 1923 devastated the major cities of Tokyo and Yokohama, as well as five other surrounding prefectures and was one of the world’s worst natural disasters of the early twentieth century. In terms of loss of life and material damage, with an estimated 140,000 deaths and countless homeless, it is still Japan’s worst national disaster. Nearly 90% of the newspaper printers were destroyed in the earthquake. These postcards were not produced for aesthetics but as a major tool for the spread of information. Seeing how newspaper companies were left with their offices in shambles, postcard publishers tried to fill the gap hence some were in three languages. A very small number of publishing companies were fortunate enough to survive, one of them being Mitsumura Printing, which took advantage of its remaining resources to churn out postcards. When the Ōsaka Mainichi Shinbunsha published its bilingual three-volume photographic pictorial of the Great Kantō Earthquake just two weeks after the event, the calamity had already been captured in thousands of images that circulated on a national and international media highway. Commercial photographers and photojournalists produced the most abundant and immediate images of the quake, which were transmitted in newspapers, special-issue newspaper pictorials, commemorative photography collections, illustrated survivors’ accounts, and sets of commemorative postcards. These photographic images functioned as both news and souvenirs, rendering their consumers/viewers, inside and outside the devastated locale, into both witnesses and voyeurs. Images in the news media and those issued by respected publishing houses carried the visual authority of supposed facticity. As such they both produced and became the historical record of the event. Since the vast majority of 1923 disaster postcards that survive have no writing on them, they were likely treated more as collectibles than as a form of postal communication. Many were put into albums, creating new ways to combine images and create visual cultures of disaster for home viewing. Accordion-style albums allowed for personalized, serial organization of images that produced unique, imagistic narratives of the event. The album pages were also two-sided and could be stretched out to view a series of images on recto and verso. References: Imaging Disaster: Tokyo and the Visual Culture of Japan’s Great Earthquake of 1923 震災をイメージ化する　東京と1923年関東大震災のヴィジュアルカルチャー - The Asia. (2024, March 31). Retrieved from https://apjjf.org/2015/13/6/gennifer-weisenfeld/4270 The Great Kanto Earthquake: Postcards of Tragedy. (2024, March 31). Retrieved from https://www.tokyoweekender.com/art_and_culture/japanese-culture/the-great-kanto-earthquake-postcards/ See also: Postcards from Hell – Glimpses of the Great Kantō Earthquake; M. William STEELE (International Christian University, Japan) 14th Conference of the European Association of Japanese Studies: Visual Culture and Postcard Research Papers – East Asia Image Collection Blog. (2024, March 31). Retrieved from https://sites.lafayette.edu/eastasia/2014/09/01/14th-conference-of-the-european-association-of-japanese-studies-visual-culture-and-postcard-research-papers/] And https://icu.repo.nii.ac.jp/record/4503/files/ACS44_01Steele.pdfThis item, a souvenir from Japan from between the wars (circa 1923) was brought home to Research, Victoria by Bill Teagle who was serving in the Royal Australian Navy (1919-1945). Bill Teagle's sister Violet Amelda Teagle had married Theodore (Curly) Feldbauer in 1933. Bill's brother-in-law Curly was taken as a Prisoner of War by the Japanese and died at Sandakan in March 1945. The family did not learn of Curly’s death till months later and Bill's sister, Violet, herself could never forgive the Japanese for what happened to Curly. Curly is remembered on the Eltham Roll of Honour Board and his son, Albert Feldbauer (Bill’s nephew and youngest child of the children of the soldier fathers attending a school in the district), was given the honour of turning the first sod for the Eltham War Memorial Infant Welfare Centre Building. Despite this, the family maintained this cherished souvenir from a time of previous foreign friendship with Japan. The item was possibly given by Bill Teagle to his sister Margaret Rose (formerly Ingram) who later married Richard Edward (Eddie) Fielding in early 1948. (Eddie had been engaged to someone else before he went to war, but his fiancée broke it off before his return to Australia.) It was cared for by the Teagle/Fielding family for approximately one hundred years. It is of particular significance given the family's connection to the Eltham War Memorial and the significance of that memorial to the local community and represents that despite the horrors of war, former friends then foes can become friends again.tom fielding collection, japanese postcard, postcard, 1923, great kanto earthquake, japan, tokyo, yokohama

The Great Kantō Earthquake of 1 September 1923 devastated the major cities of Tokyo and Yokohama, as well as five other surrounding prefectures and was one of the world’s worst natural disasters of the early twentieth century. In terms of loss of life and material damage, with an estimated 140,000 deaths and countless homeless, it is still Japan’s worst national disaster. Nearly 90% of the newspaper printers were destroyed in the earthquake. These postcards were not produced for aesthetics but as a major tool for the spread of information. Seeing how newspaper companies were left with their offices in shambles, postcard publishers tried to fill the gap hence some were in three languages. A very small number of publishing companies were fortunate enough to survive, one of them being Mitsumura Printing, which took advantage of its remaining resources to churn out postcards. When the Ōsaka Mainichi Shinbunsha published its bilingual three-volume photographic pictorial of the Great Kantō Earthquake just two weeks after the event, the calamity had already been captured in thousands of images that circulated on a national and international media highway. Commercial photographers and photojournalists produced the most abundant and immediate images of the quake, which were transmitted in newspapers, special-issue newspaper pictorials, commemorative photography collections, illustrated survivors’ accounts, and sets of commemorative postcards. These photographic images functioned as both news and souvenirs, rendering their consumers/viewers, inside and outside the devastated locale, into both witnesses and voyeurs. Images in the news media and those issued by respected publishing houses carried the visual authority of supposed facticity. As such they both produced and became the historical record of the event. Since the vast majority of 1923 disaster postcards that survive have no writing on them, they were likely treated more as collectibles than as a form of postal communication. Many were put into albums, creating new ways to combine images and create visual cultures of disaster for home viewing. Accordion-style albums allowed for personalized, serial organization of images that produced unique, imagistic narratives of the event. The album pages were also two-sided and could be stretched out to view a series of images on recto and verso. References: Imaging Disaster: Tokyo and the Visual Culture of Japan’s Great Earthquake of 1923 震災をイメージ化する　東京と1923年関東大震災のヴィジュアルカルチャー - The Asia. (2024, March 31). Retrieved from https://apjjf.org/2015/13/6/gennifer-weisenfeld/4270 The Great Kanto Earthquake: Postcards of Tragedy. (2024, March 31). Retrieved from https://www.tokyoweekender.com/art_and_culture/japanese-culture/the-great-kanto-earthquake-postcards/ See also: Postcards from Hell – Glimpses of the Great Kantō Earthquake; M. William STEELE (International Christian University, Japan) 14th Conference of the European Association of Japanese Studies: Visual Culture and Postcard Research Papers – East Asia Image Collection Blog. (2024, March 31). Retrieved from https://sites.lafayette.edu/eastasia/2014/09/01/14th-conference-of-the-european-association-of-japanese-studies-visual-culture-and-postcard-research-papers/] And https://icu.repo.nii.ac.jp/record/4503/files/ACS44_01Steele.pdfThis item, a souvenir from Japan from between the wars (circa 1923) was brought home to Research, Victoria by Bill Teagle who was serving in the Royal Australian Navy (1919-1945). Bill Teagle's sister Violet Amelda Teagle had married Theodore (Curly) Feldbauer in 1933. Bill's brother-in-law Curly was taken as a Prisoner of War by the Japanese and died at Sandakan in March 1945. The family did not learn of Curly’s death till months later and Bill's sister, Violet, herself could never forgive the Japanese for what happened to Curly. Curly is remembered on the Eltham Roll of Honour Board and his son, Albert Feldbauer (Bill’s nephew and youngest child of the children of the soldier fathers attending a school in the district), was given the honour of turning the first sod for the Eltham War Memorial Infant Welfare Centre Building. Despite this, the family maintained this cherished souvenir from a time of previous foreign friendship with Japan. The item was possibly given by Bill Teagle to his sister Margaret Rose (formerly Ingram) who later married Richard Edward (Eddie) Fielding in early 1948. (Eddie had been engaged to someone else before he went to war, but his fiancée broke it off before his return to Australia.) It was cared for by the Teagle/Fielding family for approximately one hundred years. It is of particular significance given the family's connection to the Eltham War Memorial and the significance of that memorial to the local community and represents that despite the horrors of war, former friends then foes can become friends again.tom fielding collection, japanese postcard, postcard, 1923, great kanto earthquake, japan, tokyo, yokohama

The Great Kantō Earthquake of 1 September 1923 devastated the major cities of Tokyo and Yokohama, as well as five other surrounding prefectures and was one of the world’s worst natural disasters of the early twentieth century. In terms of loss of life and material damage, with an estimated 140,000 deaths and countless homeless, it is still Japan’s worst national disaster. Nearly 90% of the newspaper printers were destroyed in the earthquake. These postcards were not produced for aesthetics but as a major tool for the spread of information. Seeing how newspaper companies were left with their offices in shambles, postcard publishers tried to fill the gap hence some were in three languages. A very small number of publishing companies were fortunate enough to survive, one of them being Mitsumura Printing, which took advantage of its remaining resources to churn out postcards. When the Ōsaka Mainichi Shinbunsha published its bilingual three-volume photographic pictorial of the Great Kantō Earthquake just two weeks after the event, the calamity had already been captured in thousands of images that circulated on a national and international media highway. Commercial photographers and photojournalists produced the most abundant and immediate images of the quake, which were transmitted in newspapers, special-issue newspaper pictorials, commemorative photography collections, illustrated survivors’ accounts, and sets of commemorative postcards. These photographic images functioned as both news and souvenirs, rendering their consumers/viewers, inside and outside the devastated locale, into both witnesses and voyeurs. Images in the news media and those issued by respected publishing houses carried the visual authority of supposed facticity. As such they both produced and became the historical record of the event. Since the vast majority of 1923 disaster postcards that survive have no writing on them, they were likely treated more as collectibles than as a form of postal communication. Many were put into albums, creating new ways to combine images and create visual cultures of disaster for home viewing. Accordion-style albums allowed for personalized, serial organization of images that produced unique, imagistic narratives of the event. The album pages were also two-sided and could be stretched out to view a series of images on recto and verso. References: Imaging Disaster: Tokyo and the Visual Culture of Japan’s Great Earthquake of 1923 震災をイメージ化する　東京と1923年関東大震災のヴィジュアルカルチャー - The Asia. (2024, March 31). Retrieved from https://apjjf.org/2015/13/6/gennifer-weisenfeld/4270 The Great Kanto Earthquake: Postcards of Tragedy. (2024, March 31). Retrieved from https://www.tokyoweekender.com/art_and_culture/japanese-culture/the-great-kanto-earthquake-postcards/ See also: Postcards from Hell – Glimpses of the Great Kantō Earthquake; M. William STEELE (International Christian University, Japan) 14th Conference of the European Association of Japanese Studies: Visual Culture and Postcard Research Papers – East Asia Image Collection Blog. (2024, March 31). Retrieved from https://sites.lafayette.edu/eastasia/2014/09/01/14th-conference-of-the-european-association-of-japanese-studies-visual-culture-and-postcard-research-papers/] And https://icu.repo.nii.ac.jp/record/4503/files/ACS44_01Steele.pdfThis item, a souvenir from Japan from between the wars (circa 1923) was brought home to Research, Victoria by Bill Teagle who was serving in the Royal Australian Navy (1919-1945). Bill Teagle's sister Violet Amelda Teagle had married Theodore (Curly) Feldbauer in 1933. Bill's brother-in-law Curly was taken as a Prisoner of War by the Japanese and died at Sandakan in March 1945. The family did not learn of Curly’s death till months later and Bill's sister, Violet, herself could never forgive the Japanese for what happened to Curly. Curly is remembered on the Eltham Roll of Honour Board and his son, Albert Feldbauer (Bill’s nephew and youngest child of the children of the soldier fathers attending a school in the district), was given the honour of turning the first sod for the Eltham War Memorial Infant Welfare Centre Building. Despite this, the family maintained this cherished souvenir from a time of previous foreign friendship with Japan. The item was possibly given by Bill Teagle to his sister Margaret Rose (formerly Ingram) who later married Richard Edward (Eddie) Fielding in early 1948. (Eddie had been engaged to someone else before he went to war, but his fiancée broke it off before his return to Australia.) It was cared for by the Teagle/Fielding family for approximately one hundred years. It is of particular significance given the family's connection to the Eltham War Memorial and the significance of that memorial to the local community and represents that despite the horrors of war, former friends then foes can become friends again.tom fielding collection, japanese postcard, postcard, 1923, great kanto earthquake, japan, tokyo, yokohama

The Great Kantō Earthquake of 1 September 1923 devastated the major cities of Tokyo and Yokohama, as well as five other surrounding prefectures and was one of the world’s worst natural disasters of the early twentieth century. In terms of loss of life and material damage, with an estimated 140,000 deaths and countless homeless, it is still Japan’s worst national disaster. Nearly 90% of the newspaper printers were destroyed in the earthquake. These postcards were not produced for aesthetics but as a major tool for the spread of information. Seeing how newspaper companies were left with their offices in shambles, postcard publishers tried to fill the gap hence some were in three languages. A very small number of publishing companies were fortunate enough to survive, one of them being Mitsumura Printing, which took advantage of its remaining resources to churn out postcards. When the Ōsaka Mainichi Shinbunsha published its bilingual three-volume photographic pictorial of the Great Kantō Earthquake just two weeks after the event, the calamity had already been captured in thousands of images that circulated on a national and international media highway. Commercial photographers and photojournalists produced the most abundant and immediate images of the quake, which were transmitted in newspapers, special-issue newspaper pictorials, commemorative photography collections, illustrated survivors’ accounts, and sets of commemorative postcards. These photographic images functioned as both news and souvenirs, rendering their consumers/viewers, inside and outside the devastated locale, into both witnesses and voyeurs. Images in the news media and those issued by respected publishing houses carried the visual authority of supposed facticity. As such they both produced and became the historical record of the event. Since the vast majority of 1923 disaster postcards that survive have no writing on them, they were likely treated more as collectibles than as a form of postal communication. Many were put into albums, creating new ways to combine images and create visual cultures of disaster for home viewing. Accordion-style albums allowed for personalized, serial organization of images that produced unique, imagistic narratives of the event. The album pages were also two-sided and could be stretched out to view a series of images on recto and verso. References: Imaging Disaster: Tokyo and the Visual Culture of Japan’s Great Earthquake of 1923 震災をイメージ化する　東京と1923年関東大震災のヴィジュアルカルチャー - The Asia. (2024, March 31). Retrieved from https://apjjf.org/2015/13/6/gennifer-weisenfeld/4270 The Great Kanto Earthquake: Postcards of Tragedy. (2024, March 31). Retrieved from https://www.tokyoweekender.com/art_and_culture/japanese-culture/the-great-kanto-earthquake-postcards/ See also: Postcards from Hell – Glimpses of the Great Kantō Earthquake; M. William STEELE (International Christian University, Japan) 14th Conference of the European Association of Japanese Studies: Visual Culture and Postcard Research Papers – East Asia Image Collection Blog. (2024, March 31). Retrieved from https://sites.lafayette.edu/eastasia/2014/09/01/14th-conference-of-the-european-association-of-japanese-studies-visual-culture-and-postcard-research-papers/] And https://icu.repo.nii.ac.jp/record/4503/files/ACS44_01Steele.pdfThis item, a souvenir from Japan from between the wars (circa 1923) was brought home to Research, Victoria by Bill Teagle who was serving in the Royal Australian Navy (1919-1945). Bill Teagle's sister Violet Amelda Teagle had married Theodore (Curly) Feldbauer in 1933. Bill's brother-in-law Curly was taken as a Prisoner of War by the Japanese and died at Sandakan in March 1945. The family did not learn of Curly’s death till months later and Bill's sister, Violet, herself could never forgive the Japanese for what happened to Curly. Curly is remembered on the Eltham Roll of Honour Board and his son, Albert Feldbauer (Bill’s nephew and youngest child of the children of the soldier fathers attending a school in the district), was given the honour of turning the first sod for the Eltham War Memorial Infant Welfare Centre Building. Despite this, the family maintained this cherished souvenir from a time of previous foreign friendship with Japan. The item was possibly given by Bill Teagle to his sister Margaret Rose (formerly Ingram) who later married Richard Edward (Eddie) Fielding in early 1948. (Eddie had been engaged to someone else before he went to war, but his fiancée broke it off before his return to Australia.) It was cared for by the Teagle/Fielding family for approximately one hundred years. It is of particular significance given the family's connection to the Eltham War Memorial and the significance of that memorial to the local community and represents that despite the horrors of war, former friends then foes can become friends again.tom fielding collection, japanese postcard, postcard, 1923, great kanto earthquake, japan, tokyo, yokohama

The Great Kantō Earthquake of 1 September 1923 devastated the major cities of Tokyo and Yokohama, as well as five other surrounding prefectures and was one of the world’s worst natural disasters of the early twentieth century. In terms of loss of life and material damage, with an estimated 140,000 deaths and countless homeless, it is still Japan’s worst national disaster. Nearly 90% of the newspaper printers were destroyed in the earthquake. These postcards were not produced for aesthetics but as a major tool for the spread of information. Seeing how newspaper companies were left with their offices in shambles, postcard publishers tried to fill the gap hence some were in three languages. A very small number of publishing companies were fortunate enough to survive, one of them being Mitsumura Printing, which took advantage of its remaining resources to churn out postcards. When the Ōsaka Mainichi Shinbunsha published its bilingual three-volume photographic pictorial of the Great Kantō Earthquake just two weeks after the event, the calamity had already been captured in thousands of images that circulated on a national and international media highway. Commercial photographers and photojournalists produced the most abundant and immediate images of the quake, which were transmitted in newspapers, special-issue newspaper pictorials, commemorative photography collections, illustrated survivors’ accounts, and sets of commemorative postcards. These photographic images functioned as both news and souvenirs, rendering their consumers/viewers, inside and outside the devastated locale, into both witnesses and voyeurs. Images in the news media and those issued by respected publishing houses carried the visual authority of supposed facticity. As such they both produced and became the historical record of the event. Since the vast majority of 1923 disaster postcards that survive have no writing on them, they were likely treated more as collectibles than as a form of postal communication. Many were put into albums, creating new ways to combine images and create visual cultures of disaster for home viewing. Accordion-style albums allowed for personalized, serial organization of images that produced unique, imagistic narratives of the event. The album pages were also two-sided and could be stretched out to view a series of images on recto and verso. References: Imaging Disaster: Tokyo and the Visual Culture of Japan’s Great Earthquake of 1923 震災をイメージ化する　東京と1923年関東大震災のヴィジュアルカルチャー - The Asia. (2024, March 31). Retrieved from https://apjjf.org/2015/13/6/gennifer-weisenfeld/4270 The Great Kanto Earthquake: Postcards of Tragedy. (2024, March 31). Retrieved from https://www.tokyoweekender.com/art_and_culture/japanese-culture/the-great-kanto-earthquake-postcards/ See also: Postcards from Hell – Glimpses of the Great Kantō Earthquake; M. William STEELE (International Christian University, Japan) 14th Conference of the European Association of Japanese Studies: Visual Culture and Postcard Research Papers – East Asia Image Collection Blog. (2024, March 31). Retrieved from https://sites.lafayette.edu/eastasia/2014/09/01/14th-conference-of-the-european-association-of-japanese-studies-visual-culture-and-postcard-research-papers/] And https://icu.repo.nii.ac.jp/record/4503/files/ACS44_01Steele.pdfThis item, a souvenir from Japan from between the wars (circa 1923) was brought home to Research, Victoria by Bill Teagle who was serving in the Royal Australian Navy (1919-1945). Bill Teagle's sister Violet Amelda Teagle had married Theodore (Curly) Feldbauer in 1933. Bill's brother-in-law Curly was taken as a Prisoner of War by the Japanese and died at Sandakan in March 1945. The family did not learn of Curly’s death till months later and Bill's sister, Violet, herself could never forgive the Japanese for what happened to Curly. Curly is remembered on the Eltham Roll of Honour Board and his son, Albert Feldbauer (Bill’s nephew and youngest child of the children of the soldier fathers attending a school in the district), was given the honour of turning the first sod for the Eltham War Memorial Infant Welfare Centre Building. Despite this, the family maintained this cherished souvenir from a time of previous foreign friendship with Japan. The item was possibly given by Bill Teagle to his sister Margaret Rose (formerly Ingram) who later married Richard Edward (Eddie) Fielding in early 1948. (Eddie had been engaged to someone else before he went to war, but his fiancée broke it off before his return to Australia.) It was cared for by the Teagle/Fielding family for approximately one hundred years. It is of particular significance given the family's connection to the Eltham War Memorial and the significance of that memorial to the local community and represents that despite the horrors of war, former friends then foes can become friends again.tom fielding collection, japanese postcard, postcard, 1923, great kanto earthquake, japan, tokyo, yokohama

The Great Kantō Earthquake of 1 September 1923 devastated the major cities of Tokyo and Yokohama, as well as five other surrounding prefectures and was one of the world’s worst natural disasters of the early twentieth century. In terms of loss of life and material damage, with an estimated 140,000 deaths and countless homeless, it is still Japan’s worst national disaster. Nearly 90% of the newspaper printers were destroyed in the earthquake. These postcards were not produced for aesthetics but as a major tool for the spread of information. Seeing how newspaper companies were left with their offices in shambles, postcard publishers tried to fill the gap hence some were in three languages. A very small number of publishing companies were fortunate enough to survive, one of them being Mitsumura Printing, which took advantage of its remaining resources to churn out postcards. When the Ōsaka Mainichi Shinbunsha published its bilingual three-volume photographic pictorial of the Great Kantō Earthquake just two weeks after the event, the calamity had already been captured in thousands of images that circulated on a national and international media highway. Commercial photographers and photojournalists produced the most abundant and immediate images of the quake, which were transmitted in newspapers, special-issue newspaper pictorials, commemorative photography collections, illustrated survivors’ accounts, and sets of commemorative postcards. These photographic images functioned as both news and souvenirs, rendering their consumers/viewers, inside and outside the devastated locale, into both witnesses and voyeurs. Images in the news media and those issued by respected publishing houses carried the visual authority of supposed facticity. As such they both produced and became the historical record of the event. Since the vast majority of 1923 disaster postcards that survive have no writing on them, they were likely treated more as collectibles than as a form of postal communication. Many were put into albums, creating new ways to combine images and create visual cultures of disaster for home viewing. Accordion-style albums allowed for personalized, serial organization of images that produced unique, imagistic narratives of the event. The album pages were also two-sided and could be stretched out to view a series of images on recto and verso. References: Imaging Disaster: Tokyo and the Visual Culture of Japan’s Great Earthquake of 1923 震災をイメージ化する　東京と1923年関東大震災のヴィジュアルカルチャー - The Asia. (2024, March 31). Retrieved from https://apjjf.org/2015/13/6/gennifer-weisenfeld/4270 The Great Kanto Earthquake: Postcards of Tragedy. (2024, March 31). Retrieved from https://www.tokyoweekender.com/art_and_culture/japanese-culture/the-great-kanto-earthquake-postcards/ See also: Postcards from Hell – Glimpses of the Great Kantō Earthquake; M. William STEELE (International Christian University, Japan) 14th Conference of the European Association of Japanese Studies: Visual Culture and Postcard Research Papers – East Asia Image Collection Blog. (2024, March 31). Retrieved from https://sites.lafayette.edu/eastasia/2014/09/01/14th-conference-of-the-european-association-of-japanese-studies-visual-culture-and-postcard-research-papers/] And https://icu.repo.nii.ac.jp/record/4503/files/ACS44_01Steele.pdfThis item, a souvenir from Japan from between the wars (circa 1923) was brought home to Research, Victoria by Bill Teagle who was serving in the Royal Australian Navy (1919-1945). Bill Teagle's sister Violet Amelda Teagle had married Theodore (Curly) Feldbauer in 1933. Bill's brother-in-law Curly was taken as a Prisoner of War by the Japanese and died at Sandakan in March 1945. The family did not learn of Curly’s death till months later and Bill's sister, Violet, herself could never forgive the Japanese for what happened to Curly. Curly is remembered on the Eltham Roll of Honour Board and his son, Albert Feldbauer (Bill’s nephew and youngest child of the children of the soldier fathers attending a school in the district), was given the honour of turning the first sod for the Eltham War Memorial Infant Welfare Centre Building. Despite this, the family maintained this cherished souvenir from a time of previous foreign friendship with Japan. The item was possibly given by Bill Teagle to his sister Margaret Rose (formerly Ingram) who later married Richard Edward (Eddie) Fielding in early 1948. (Eddie had been engaged to someone else before he went to war, but his fiancée broke it off before his return to Australia.) It was cared for by the Teagle/Fielding family for approximately one hundred years. It is of particular significance given the family's connection to the Eltham War Memorial and the significance of that memorial to the local community and represents that despite the horrors of war, former friends then foes can become friends again.tom fielding collection, japanese postcard, postcard, 1923, great kanto earthquake, japan, tokyo, yokohama

The Great Kantō Earthquake of 1 September 1923 devastated the major cities of Tokyo and Yokohama, as well as five other surrounding prefectures and was one of the world’s worst natural disasters of the early twentieth century. In terms of loss of life and material damage, with an estimated 140,000 deaths and countless homeless, it is still Japan’s worst national disaster. Nearly 90% of the newspaper printers were destroyed in the earthquake. These postcards were not produced for aesthetics but as a major tool for the spread of information. Seeing how newspaper companies were left with their offices in shambles, postcard publishers tried to fill the gap hence some were in three languages. A very small number of publishing companies were fortunate enough to survive, one of them being Mitsumura Printing, which took advantage of its remaining resources to churn out postcards. When the Ōsaka Mainichi Shinbunsha published its bilingual three-volume photographic pictorial of the Great Kantō Earthquake just two weeks after the event, the calamity had already been captured in thousands of images that circulated on a national and international media highway. Commercial photographers and photojournalists produced the most abundant and immediate images of the quake, which were transmitted in newspapers, special-issue newspaper pictorials, commemorative photography collections, illustrated survivors’ accounts, and sets of commemorative postcards. These photographic images functioned as both news and souvenirs, rendering their consumers/viewers, inside and outside the devastated locale, into both witnesses and voyeurs. Images in the news media and those issued by respected publishing houses carried the visual authority of supposed facticity. As such they both produced and became the historical record of the event. Since the vast majority of 1923 disaster postcards that survive have no writing on them, they were likely treated more as collectibles than as a form of postal communication. Many were put into albums, creating new ways to combine images and create visual cultures of disaster for home viewing. Accordion-style albums allowed for personalized, serial organization of images that produced unique, imagistic narratives of the event. The album pages were also two-sided and could be stretched out to view a series of images on recto and verso. References: Imaging Disaster: Tokyo and the Visual Culture of Japan’s Great Earthquake of 1923 震災をイメージ化する　東京と1923年関東大震災のヴィジュアルカルチャー - The Asia. (2024, March 31). Retrieved from https://apjjf.org/2015/13/6/gennifer-weisenfeld/4270 The Great Kanto Earthquake: Postcards of Tragedy. (2024, March 31). Retrieved from https://www.tokyoweekender.com/art_and_culture/japanese-culture/the-great-kanto-earthquake-postcards/ See also: Postcards from Hell – Glimpses of the Great Kantō Earthquake; M. William STEELE (International Christian University, Japan) 14th Conference of the European Association of Japanese Studies: Visual Culture and Postcard Research Papers – East Asia Image Collection Blog. (2024, March 31). Retrieved from https://sites.lafayette.edu/eastasia/2014/09/01/14th-conference-of-the-european-association-of-japanese-studies-visual-culture-and-postcard-research-papers/] And https://icu.repo.nii.ac.jp/record/4503/files/ACS44_01Steele.pdfThis item, a souvenir from Japan from between the wars (circa 1923) was brought home to Research, Victoria by Bill Teagle who was serving in the Royal Australian Navy (1919-1945). Bill Teagle's sister Violet Amelda Teagle had married Theodore (Curly) Feldbauer in 1933. Bill's brother-in-law Curly was taken as a Prisoner of War by the Japanese and died at Sandakan in March 1945. The family did not learn of Curly’s death till months later and Bill's sister, Violet, herself could never forgive the Japanese for what happened to Curly. Curly is remembered on the Eltham Roll of Honour Board and his son, Albert Feldbauer (Bill’s nephew and youngest child of the children of the soldier fathers attending a school in the district), was given the honour of turning the first sod for the Eltham War Memorial Infant Welfare Centre Building. Despite this, the family maintained this cherished souvenir from a time of previous foreign friendship with Japan. The item was possibly given by Bill Teagle to his sister Margaret Rose (formerly Ingram) who later married Richard Edward (Eddie) Fielding in early 1948. (Eddie had been engaged to someone else before he went to war, but his fiancée broke it off before his return to Australia.) It was cared for by the Teagle/Fielding family for approximately one hundred years. It is of particular significance given the family's connection to the Eltham War Memorial and the significance of that memorial to the local community and represents that despite the horrors of war, former friends then foes can become friends again.tom fielding collection, japanese postcard, postcard, 1923, great kanto earthquake, japan, tokyo, yokohama

The Great Kantō Earthquake of 1 September 1923 devastated the major cities of Tokyo and Yokohama, as well as five other surrounding prefectures and was one of the world’s worst natural disasters of the early twentieth century. In terms of loss of life and material damage, with an estimated 140,000 deaths and countless homeless, it is still Japan’s worst national disaster. Nearly 90% of the newspaper printers were destroyed in the earthquake. These postcards were not produced for aesthetics but as a major tool for the spread of information. Seeing how newspaper companies were left with their offices in shambles, postcard publishers tried to fill the gap hence some were in three languages. A very small number of publishing companies were fortunate enough to survive, one of them being Mitsumura Printing, which took advantage of its remaining resources to churn out postcards. When the Ōsaka Mainichi Shinbunsha published its bilingual three-volume photographic pictorial of the Great Kantō Earthquake just two weeks after the event, the calamity had already been captured in thousands of images that circulated on a national and international media highway. Commercial photographers and photojournalists produced the most abundant and immediate images of the quake, which were transmitted in newspapers, special-issue newspaper pictorials, commemorative photography collections, illustrated survivors’ accounts, and sets of commemorative postcards. These photographic images functioned as both news and souvenirs, rendering their consumers/viewers, inside and outside the devastated locale, into both witnesses and voyeurs. Images in the news media and those issued by respected publishing houses carried the visual authority of supposed facticity. As such they both produced and became the historical record of the event. Since the vast majority of 1923 disaster postcards that survive have no writing on them, they were likely treated more as collectibles than as a form of postal communication. Many were put into albums, creating new ways to combine images and create visual cultures of disaster for home viewing. Accordion-style albums allowed for personalized, serial organization of images that produced unique, imagistic narratives of the event. The album pages were also two-sided and could be stretched out to view a series of images on recto and verso. References: Imaging Disaster: Tokyo and the Visual Culture of Japan’s Great Earthquake of 1923 震災をイメージ化する　東京と1923年関東大震災のヴィジュアルカルチャー - The Asia. (2024, March 31). Retrieved from https://apjjf.org/2015/13/6/gennifer-weisenfeld/4270 The Great Kanto Earthquake: Postcards of Tragedy. (2024, March 31). Retrieved from https://www.tokyoweekender.com/art_and_culture/japanese-culture/the-great-kanto-earthquake-postcards/ See also: Postcards from Hell – Glimpses of the Great Kantō Earthquake; M. William STEELE (International Christian University, Japan) 14th Conference of the European Association of Japanese Studies: Visual Culture and Postcard Research Papers – East Asia Image Collection Blog. (2024, March 31). Retrieved from https://sites.lafayette.edu/eastasia/2014/09/01/14th-conference-of-the-european-association-of-japanese-studies-visual-culture-and-postcard-research-papers/] And https://icu.repo.nii.ac.jp/record/4503/files/ACS44_01Steele.pdfThis item, a souvenir from Japan from between the wars (circa 1923) was brought home to Research, Victoria by Bill Teagle who was serving in the Royal Australian Navy (1919-1945). Bill Teagle's sister Violet Amelda Teagle had married Theodore (Curly) Feldbauer in 1933. Bill's brother-in-law Curly was taken as a Prisoner of War by the Japanese and died at Sandakan in March 1945. The family did not learn of Curly’s death till months later and Bill's sister, Violet, herself could never forgive the Japanese for what happened to Curly. Curly is remembered on the Eltham Roll of Honour Board and his son, Albert Feldbauer (Bill’s nephew and youngest child of the children of the soldier fathers attending a school in the district), was given the honour of turning the first sod for the Eltham War Memorial Infant Welfare Centre Building. Despite this, the family maintained this cherished souvenir from a time of previous foreign friendship with Japan. The item was possibly given by Bill Teagle to his sister Margaret Rose (formerly Ingram) who later married Richard Edward (Eddie) Fielding in early 1948. (Eddie had been engaged to someone else before he went to war, but his fiancée broke it off before his return to Australia.) It was cared for by the Teagle/Fielding family for approximately one hundred years. It is of particular significance given the family's connection to the Eltham War Memorial and the significance of that memorial to the local community and represents that despite the horrors of war, former friends then foes can become friends again.tom fielding collection, japanese postcard, postcard, 1923, great kanto earthquake, japan, tokyo, yokohama

The Great Kantō Earthquake of 1 September 1923 devastated the major cities of Tokyo and Yokohama, as well as five other surrounding prefectures and was one of the world’s worst natural disasters of the early twentieth century. In terms of loss of life and material damage, with an estimated 140,000 deaths and countless homeless, it is still Japan’s worst national disaster. Nearly 90% of the newspaper printers were destroyed in the earthquake. These postcards were not produced for aesthetics but as a major tool for the spread of information. Seeing how newspaper companies were left with their offices in shambles, postcard publishers tried to fill the gap hence some were in three languages. A very small number of publishing companies were fortunate enough to survive, one of them being Mitsumura Printing, which took advantage of its remaining resources to churn out postcards. When the Ōsaka Mainichi Shinbunsha published its bilingual three-volume photographic pictorial of the Great Kantō Earthquake just two weeks after the event, the calamity had already been captured in thousands of images that circulated on a national and international media highway. Commercial photographers and photojournalists produced the most abundant and immediate images of the quake, which were transmitted in newspapers, special-issue newspaper pictorials, commemorative photography collections, illustrated survivors’ accounts, and sets of commemorative postcards. These photographic images functioned as both news and souvenirs, rendering their consumers/viewers, inside and outside the devastated locale, into both witnesses and voyeurs. Images in the news media and those issued by respected publishing houses carried the visual authority of supposed facticity. As such they both produced and became the historical record of the event. Since the vast majority of 1923 disaster postcards that survive have no writing on them, they were likely treated more as collectibles than as a form of postal communication. Many were put into albums, creating new ways to combine images and create visual cultures of disaster for home viewing. Accordion-style albums allowed for personalized, serial organization of images that produced unique, imagistic narratives of the event. The album pages were also two-sided and could be stretched out to view a series of images on recto and verso. References: Imaging Disaster: Tokyo and the Visual Culture of Japan’s Great Earthquake of 1923 震災をイメージ化する　東京と1923年関東大震災のヴィジュアルカルチャー - The Asia. (2024, March 31). Retrieved from https://apjjf.org/2015/13/6/gennifer-weisenfeld/4270 The Great Kanto Earthquake: Postcards of Tragedy. (2024, March 31). Retrieved from https://www.tokyoweekender.com/art_and_culture/japanese-culture/the-great-kanto-earthquake-postcards/ See also: Postcards from Hell – Glimpses of the Great Kantō Earthquake; M. William STEELE (International Christian University, Japan) 14th Conference of the European Association of Japanese Studies: Visual Culture and Postcard Research Papers – East Asia Image Collection Blog. (2024, March 31). Retrieved from https://sites.lafayette.edu/eastasia/2014/09/01/14th-conference-of-the-european-association-of-japanese-studies-visual-culture-and-postcard-research-papers/] And https://icu.repo.nii.ac.jp/record/4503/files/ACS44_01Steele.pdfThis item, a souvenir from Japan from between the wars (circa 1923) was brought home to Research, Victoria by Bill Teagle who was serving in the Royal Australian Navy (1919-1945). Bill Teagle's sister Violet Amelda Teagle had married Theodore (Curly) Feldbauer in 1933. Bill's brother-in-law Curly was taken as a Prisoner of War by the Japanese and died at Sandakan in March 1945. The family did not learn of Curly’s death till months later and Bill's sister, Violet, herself could never forgive the Japanese for what happened to Curly. Curly is remembered on the Eltham Roll of Honour Board and his son, Albert Feldbauer (Bill’s nephew and youngest child of the children of the soldier fathers attending a school in the district), was given the honour of turning the first sod for the Eltham War Memorial Infant Welfare Centre Building. Despite this, the family maintained this cherished souvenir from a time of previous foreign friendship with Japan. The item was possibly given by Bill Teagle to his sister Margaret Rose (formerly Ingram) who later married Richard Edward (Eddie) Fielding in early 1948. (Eddie had been engaged to someone else before he went to war, but his fiancée broke it off before his return to Australia.) It was cared for by the Teagle/Fielding family for approximately one hundred years. It is of particular significance given the family's connection to the Eltham War Memorial and the significance of that memorial to the local community and represents that despite the horrors of war, former friends then foes can become friends again.tom fielding collection, japanese postcard, postcard, 1923, great kanto earthquake, japan, tokyo, yokohama

The Great Kantō Earthquake of 1 September 1923 devastated the major cities of Tokyo and Yokohama, as well as five other surrounding prefectures and was one of the world’s worst natural disasters of the early twentieth century. In terms of loss of life and material damage, with an estimated 140,000 deaths and countless homeless, it is still Japan’s worst national disaster. Nearly 90% of the newspaper printers were destroyed in the earthquake. These postcards were not produced for aesthetics but as a major tool for the spread of information. Seeing how newspaper companies were left with their offices in shambles, postcard publishers tried to fill the gap hence some were in three languages. A very small number of publishing companies were fortunate enough to survive, one of them being Mitsumura Printing, which took advantage of its remaining resources to churn out postcards. When the Ōsaka Mainichi Shinbunsha published its bilingual three-volume photographic pictorial of the Great Kantō Earthquake just two weeks after the event, the calamity had already been captured in thousands of images that circulated on a national and international media highway. Commercial photographers and photojournalists produced the most abundant and immediate images of the quake, which were transmitted in newspapers, special-issue newspaper pictorials, commemorative photography collections, illustrated survivors’ accounts, and sets of commemorative postcards. These photographic images functioned as both news and souvenirs, rendering their consumers/viewers, inside and outside the devastated locale, into both witnesses and voyeurs. Images in the news media and those issued by respected publishing houses carried the visual authority of supposed facticity. As such they both produced and became the historical record of the event. Since the vast majority of 1923 disaster postcards that survive have no writing on them, they were likely treated more as collectibles than as a form of postal communication. Many were put into albums, creating new ways to combine images and create visual cultures of disaster for home viewing. Accordion-style albums allowed for personalized, serial organization of images that produced unique, imagistic narratives of the event. The album pages were also two-sided and could be stretched out to view a series of images on recto and verso. References: Imaging Disaster: Tokyo and the Visual Culture of Japan’s Great Earthquake of 1923 震災をイメージ化する　東京と1923年関東大震災のヴィジュアルカルチャー - The Asia. (2024, March 31). Retrieved from https://apjjf.org/2015/13/6/gennifer-weisenfeld/4270 The Great Kanto Earthquake: Postcards of Tragedy. (2024, March 31). Retrieved from https://www.tokyoweekender.com/art_and_culture/japanese-culture/the-great-kanto-earthquake-postcards/ See also: Postcards from Hell – Glimpses of the Great Kantō Earthquake; M. William STEELE (International Christian University, Japan) 14th Conference of the European Association of Japanese Studies: Visual Culture and Postcard Research Papers – East Asia Image Collection Blog. (2024, March 31). Retrieved from https://sites.lafayette.edu/eastasia/2014/09/01/14th-conference-of-the-european-association-of-japanese-studies-visual-culture-and-postcard-research-papers/] And https://icu.repo.nii.ac.jp/record/4503/files/ACS44_01Steele.pdfThis item, a souvenir from Japan from between the wars (circa 1923) was brought home to Research, Victoria by Bill Teagle who was serving in the Royal Australian Navy (1919-1945). Bill Teagle's sister Violet Amelda Teagle had married Theodore (Curly) Feldbauer in 1933. Bill's brother-in-law Curly was taken as a Prisoner of War by the Japanese and died at Sandakan in March 1945. The family did not learn of Curly’s death till months later and Bill's sister, Violet, herself could never forgive the Japanese for what happened to Curly. Curly is remembered on the Eltham Roll of Honour Board and his son, Albert Feldbauer (Bill’s nephew and youngest child of the children of the soldier fathers attending a school in the district), was given the honour of turning the first sod for the Eltham War Memorial Infant Welfare Centre Building. Despite this, the family maintained this cherished souvenir from a time of previous foreign friendship with Japan. The item was possibly given by Bill Teagle to his sister Margaret Rose (formerly Ingram) who later married Richard Edward (Eddie) Fielding in early 1948. (Eddie had been engaged to someone else before he went to war, but his fiancée broke it off before his return to Australia.) It was cared for by the Teagle/Fielding family for approximately one hundred years. It is of particular significance given the family's connection to the Eltham War Memorial and the significance of that memorial to the local community and represents that despite the horrors of war, former friends then foes can become friends again.tom fielding collection, japanese postcard, postcard, 1923, great kanto earthquake, japan, tokyo, yokohama

The Great Kantō Earthquake of 1 September 1923 devastated the major cities of Tokyo and Yokohama, as well as five other surrounding prefectures and was one of the world’s worst natural disasters of the early twentieth century. In terms of loss of life and material damage, with an estimated 140,000 deaths and countless homeless, it is still Japan’s worst national disaster. Nearly 90% of the newspaper printers were destroyed in the earthquake. These postcards were not produced for aesthetics but as a major tool for the spread of information. Seeing how newspaper companies were left with their offices in shambles, postcard publishers tried to fill the gap hence some were in three languages. A very small number of publishing companies were fortunate enough to survive, one of them being Mitsumura Printing, which took advantage of its remaining resources to churn out postcards. When the Ōsaka Mainichi Shinbunsha published its bilingual three-volume photographic pictorial of the Great Kantō Earthquake just two weeks after the event, the calamity had already been captured in thousands of images that circulated on a national and international media highway. Commercial photographers and photojournalists produced the most abundant and immediate images of the quake, which were transmitted in newspapers, special-issue newspaper pictorials, commemorative photography collections, illustrated survivors’ accounts, and sets of commemorative postcards. These photographic images functioned as both news and souvenirs, rendering their consumers/viewers, inside and outside the devastated locale, into both witnesses and voyeurs. Images in the news media and those issued by respected publishing houses carried the visual authority of supposed facticity. As such they both produced and became the historical record of the event. Since the vast majority of 1923 disaster postcards that survive have no writing on them, they were likely treated more as collectibles than as a form of postal communication. Many were put into albums, creating new ways to combine images and create visual cultures of disaster for home viewing. Accordion-style albums allowed for personalized, serial organization of images that produced unique, imagistic narratives of the event. The album pages were also two-sided and could be stretched out to view a series of images on recto and verso. References: Imaging Disaster: Tokyo and the Visual Culture of Japan’s Great Earthquake of 1923 震災をイメージ化する　東京と1923年関東大震災のヴィジュアルカルチャー - The Asia. (2024, March 31). Retrieved from https://apjjf.org/2015/13/6/gennifer-weisenfeld/4270 The Great Kanto Earthquake: Postcards of Tragedy. (2024, March 31). Retrieved from https://www.tokyoweekender.com/art_and_culture/japanese-culture/the-great-kanto-earthquake-postcards/ See also: Postcards from Hell – Glimpses of the Great Kantō Earthquake; M. William STEELE (International Christian University, Japan) 14th Conference of the European Association of Japanese Studies: Visual Culture and Postcard Research Papers – East Asia Image Collection Blog. (2024, March 31). Retrieved from https://sites.lafayette.edu/eastasia/2014/09/01/14th-conference-of-the-european-association-of-japanese-studies-visual-culture-and-postcard-research-papers/] And https://icu.repo.nii.ac.jp/record/4503/files/ACS44_01Steele.pdfThis item, a souvenir from Japan from between the wars (circa 1923) was brought home to Research, Victoria by Bill Teagle who was serving in the Royal Australian Navy (1919-1945). Bill Teagle's sister Violet Amelda Teagle had married Theodore (Curly) Feldbauer in 1933. Bill's brother-in-law Curly was taken as a Prisoner of War by the Japanese and died at Sandakan in March 1945. The family did not learn of Curly’s death till months later and Bill's sister, Violet, herself could never forgive the Japanese for what happened to Curly. Curly is remembered on the Eltham Roll of Honour Board and his son, Albert Feldbauer (Bill’s nephew and youngest child of the children of the soldier fathers attending a school in the district), was given the honour of turning the first sod for the Eltham War Memorial Infant Welfare Centre Building. Despite this, the family maintained this cherished souvenir from a time of previous foreign friendship with Japan. The item was possibly given by Bill Teagle to his sister Margaret Rose (formerly Ingram) who later married Richard Edward (Eddie) Fielding in early 1948. (Eddie had been engaged to someone else before he went to war, but his fiancée broke it off before his return to Australia.) It was cared for by the Teagle/Fielding family for approximately one hundred years. It is of particular significance given the family's connection to the Eltham War Memorial and the significance of that memorial to the local community and represents that despite the horrors of war, former friends then foes can become friends again.tom fielding collection, japanese postcard, postcard, 1923, great kanto earthquake, japan, tokyo, yokohama

The Great Kantō Earthquake of 1 September 1923 devastated the major cities of Tokyo and Yokohama, as well as five other surrounding prefectures and was one of the world’s worst natural disasters of the early twentieth century. In terms of loss of life and material damage, with an estimated 140,000 deaths and countless homeless, it is still Japan’s worst national disaster. Nearly 90% of the newspaper printers were destroyed in the earthquake. These postcards were not produced for aesthetics but as a major tool for the spread of information. Seeing how newspaper companies were left with their offices in shambles, postcard publishers tried to fill the gap hence some were in three languages. A very small number of publishing companies were fortunate enough to survive, one of them being Mitsumura Printing, which took advantage of its remaining resources to churn out postcards. When the Ōsaka Mainichi Shinbunsha published its bilingual three-volume photographic pictorial of the Great Kantō Earthquake just two weeks after the event, the calamity had already been captured in thousands of images that circulated on a national and international media highway. Commercial photographers and photojournalists produced the most abundant and immediate images of the quake, which were transmitted in newspapers, special-issue newspaper pictorials, commemorative photography collections, illustrated survivors’ accounts, and sets of commemorative postcards. These photographic images functioned as both news and souvenirs, rendering their consumers/viewers, inside and outside the devastated locale, into both witnesses and voyeurs. Images in the news media and those issued by respected publishing houses carried the visual authority of supposed facticity. As such they both produced and became the historical record of the event. Since the vast majority of 1923 disaster postcards that survive have no writing on them, they were likely treated more as collectibles than as a form of postal communication. Many were put into albums, creating new ways to combine images and create visual cultures of disaster for home viewing. Accordion-style albums allowed for personalized, serial organization of images that produced unique, imagistic narratives of the event. The album pages were also two-sided and could be stretched out to view a series of images on recto and verso. References: Imaging Disaster: Tokyo and the Visual Culture of Japan’s Great Earthquake of 1923 震災をイメージ化する　東京と1923年関東大震災のヴィジュアルカルチャー - The Asia. (2024, March 31). Retrieved from https://apjjf.org/2015/13/6/gennifer-weisenfeld/4270 The Great Kanto Earthquake: Postcards of Tragedy. (2024, March 31). Retrieved from https://www.tokyoweekender.com/art_and_culture/japanese-culture/the-great-kanto-earthquake-postcards/ See also: Postcards from Hell – Glimpses of the Great Kantō Earthquake; M. William STEELE (International Christian University, Japan) 14th Conference of the European Association of Japanese Studies: Visual Culture and Postcard Research Papers – East Asia Image Collection Blog. (2024, March 31). Retrieved from https://sites.lafayette.edu/eastasia/2014/09/01/14th-conference-of-the-european-association-of-japanese-studies-visual-culture-and-postcard-research-papers/] And https://icu.repo.nii.ac.jp/record/4503/files/ACS44_01Steele.pdfThis item, a souvenir from Japan from between the wars (circa 1923) was brought home to Research, Victoria by Bill Teagle who was serving in the Royal Australian Navy (1919-1945). Bill Teagle's sister Violet Amelda Teagle had married Theodore (Curly) Feldbauer in 1933. Bill's brother-in-law Curly was taken as a Prisoner of War by the Japanese and died at Sandakan in March 1945. The family did not learn of Curly’s death till months later and Bill's sister, Violet, herself could never forgive the Japanese for what happened to Curly. Curly is remembered on the Eltham Roll of Honour Board and his son, Albert Feldbauer (Bill’s nephew and youngest child of the children of the soldier fathers attending a school in the district), was given the honour of turning the first sod for the Eltham War Memorial Infant Welfare Centre Building. Despite this, the family maintained this cherished souvenir from a time of previous foreign friendship with Japan. The item was possibly given by Bill Teagle to his sister Margaret Rose (formerly Ingram) who later married Richard Edward (Eddie) Fielding in early 1948. (Eddie had been engaged to someone else before he went to war, but his fiancée broke it off before his return to Australia.) It was cared for by the Teagle/Fielding family for approximately one hundred years. It is of particular significance given the family's connection to the Eltham War Memorial and the significance of that memorial to the local community and represents that despite the horrors of war, former friends then foes can become friends again.tom fielding collection, japanese postcard, postcard, 1923, great kanto earthquake, japan, tokyo, yokohama

The Great Kantō Earthquake of 1 September 1923 devastated the major cities of Tokyo and Yokohama, as well as five other surrounding prefectures and was one of the world’s worst natural disasters of the early twentieth century. In terms of loss of life and material damage, with an estimated 140,000 deaths and countless homeless, it is still Japan’s worst national disaster. Nearly 90% of the newspaper printers were destroyed in the earthquake. These postcards were not produced for aesthetics but as a major tool for the spread of information. Seeing how newspaper companies were left with their offices in shambles, postcard publishers tried to fill the gap hence some were in three languages. A very small number of publishing companies were fortunate enough to survive, one of them being Mitsumura Printing, which took advantage of its remaining resources to churn out postcards. When the Ōsaka Mainichi Shinbunsha published its bilingual three-volume photographic pictorial of the Great Kantō Earthquake just two weeks after the event, the calamity had already been captured in thousands of images that circulated on a national and international media highway. Commercial photographers and photojournalists produced the most abundant and immediate images of the quake, which were transmitted in newspapers, special-issue newspaper pictorials, commemorative photography collections, illustrated survivors’ accounts, and sets of commemorative postcards. These photographic images functioned as both news and souvenirs, rendering their consumers/viewers, inside and outside the devastated locale, into both witnesses and voyeurs. Images in the news media and those issued by respected publishing houses carried the visual authority of supposed facticity. As such they both produced and became the historical record of the event. Since the vast majority of 1923 disaster postcards that survive have no writing on them, they were likely treated more as collectibles than as a form of postal communication. Many were put into albums, creating new ways to combine images and create visual cultures of disaster for home viewing. Accordion-style albums allowed for personalized, serial organization of images that produced unique, imagistic narratives of the event. The album pages were also two-sided and could be stretched out to view a series of images on recto and verso. References: Imaging Disaster: Tokyo and the Visual Culture of Japan’s Great Earthquake of 1923 震災をイメージ化する　東京と1923年関東大震災のヴィジュアルカルチャー - The Asia. (2024, March 31). Retrieved from https://apjjf.org/2015/13/6/gennifer-weisenfeld/4270 The Great Kanto Earthquake: Postcards of Tragedy. (2024, March 31). Retrieved from https://www.tokyoweekender.com/art_and_culture/japanese-culture/the-great-kanto-earthquake-postcards/ See also: Postcards from Hell – Glimpses of the Great Kantō Earthquake; M. William STEELE (International Christian University, Japan) 14th Conference of the European Association of Japanese Studies: Visual Culture and Postcard Research Papers – East Asia Image Collection Blog. (2024, March 31). Retrieved from https://sites.lafayette.edu/eastasia/2014/09/01/14th-conference-of-the-european-association-of-japanese-studies-visual-culture-and-postcard-research-papers/] And https://icu.repo.nii.ac.jp/record/4503/files/ACS44_01Steele.pdfThis item, a souvenir from Japan from between the wars (circa 1923) was brought home to Research, Victoria by Bill Teagle who was serving in the Royal Australian Navy (1919-1945). Bill Teagle's sister Violet Amelda Teagle had married Theodore (Curly) Feldbauer in 1933. Bill's brother-in-law Curly was taken as a Prisoner of War by the Japanese and died at Sandakan in March 1945. The family did not learn of Curly’s death till months later and Bill's sister, Violet, herself could never forgive the Japanese for what happened to Curly. Curly is remembered on the Eltham Roll of Honour Board and his son, Albert Feldbauer (Bill’s nephew and youngest child of the children of the soldier fathers attending a school in the district), was given the honour of turning the first sod for the Eltham War Memorial Infant Welfare Centre Building. Despite this, the family maintained this cherished souvenir from a time of previous foreign friendship with Japan. The item was possibly given by Bill Teagle to his sister Margaret Rose (formerly Ingram) who later married Richard Edward (Eddie) Fielding in early 1948. (Eddie had been engaged to someone else before he went to war, but his fiancée broke it off before his return to Australia.) It was cared for by the Teagle/Fielding family for approximately one hundred years. It is of particular significance given the family's connection to the Eltham War Memorial and the significance of that memorial to the local community and represents that despite the horrors of war, former friends then foes can become friends again.tom fielding collection, japanese postcard, postcard, 1923, great kanto earthquake, japan, tokyo, yokohama

The Great Kantō Earthquake of 1 September 1923 devastated the major cities of Tokyo and Yokohama, as well as five other surrounding prefectures and was one of the world’s worst natural disasters of the early twentieth century. In terms of loss of life and material damage, with an estimated 140,000 deaths and countless homeless, it is still Japan’s worst national disaster. Nearly 90% of the newspaper printers were destroyed in the earthquake. These postcards were not produced for aesthetics but as a major tool for the spread of information. Seeing how newspaper companies were left with their offices in shambles, postcard publishers tried to fill the gap hence some were in three languages. A very small number of publishing companies were fortunate enough to survive, one of them being Mitsumura Printing, which took advantage of its remaining resources to churn out postcards. When the Ōsaka Mainichi Shinbunsha published its bilingual three-volume photographic pictorial of the Great Kantō Earthquake just two weeks after the event, the calamity had already been captured in thousands of images that circulated on a national and international media highway. Commercial photographers and photojournalists produced the most abundant and immediate images of the quake, which were transmitted in newspapers, special-issue newspaper pictorials, commemorative photography collections, illustrated survivors’ accounts, and sets of commemorative postcards. These photographic images functioned as both news and souvenirs, rendering their consumers/viewers, inside and outside the devastated locale, into both witnesses and voyeurs. Images in the news media and those issued by respected publishing houses carried the visual authority of supposed facticity. As such they both produced and became the historical record of the event. Since the vast majority of 1923 disaster postcards that survive have no writing on them, they were likely treated more as collectibles than as a form of postal communication. Many were put into albums, creating new ways to combine images and create visual cultures of disaster for home viewing. Accordion-style albums allowed for personalized, serial organization of images that produced unique, imagistic narratives of the event. The album pages were also two-sided and could be stretched out to view a series of images on recto and verso. References: Imaging Disaster: Tokyo and the Visual Culture of Japan’s Great Earthquake of 1923 震災をイメージ化する　東京と1923年関東大震災のヴィジュアルカルチャー - The Asia. (2024, March 31). Retrieved from https://apjjf.org/2015/13/6/gennifer-weisenfeld/4270 The Great Kanto Earthquake: Postcards of Tragedy. (2024, March 31). Retrieved from https://www.tokyoweekender.com/art_and_culture/japanese-culture/the-great-kanto-earthquake-postcards/ See also: Postcards from Hell – Glimpses of the Great Kantō Earthquake; M. William STEELE (International Christian University, Japan) 14th Conference of the European Association of Japanese Studies: Visual Culture and Postcard Research Papers – East Asia Image Collection Blog. (2024, March 31). Retrieved from https://sites.lafayette.edu/eastasia/2014/09/01/14th-conference-of-the-european-association-of-japanese-studies-visual-culture-and-postcard-research-papers/] And https://icu.repo.nii.ac.jp/record/4503/files/ACS44_01Steele.pdfThis item, a souvenir from Japan from between the wars (circa 1923) was brought home to Research, Victoria by Bill Teagle who was serving in the Royal Australian Navy (1919-1945). Bill Teagle's sister Violet Amelda Teagle had married Theodore (Curly) Feldbauer in 1933. Bill's brother-in-law Curly was taken as a Prisoner of War by the Japanese and died at Sandakan in March 1945. The family did not learn of Curly’s death till months later and Bill's sister, Violet, herself could never forgive the Japanese for what happened to Curly. Curly is remembered on the Eltham Roll of Honour Board and his son, Albert Feldbauer (Bill’s nephew and youngest child of the children of the soldier fathers attending a school in the district), was given the honour of turning the first sod for the Eltham War Memorial Infant Welfare Centre Building. Despite this, the family maintained this cherished souvenir from a time of previous foreign friendship with Japan. The item was possibly given by Bill Teagle to his sister Margaret Rose (formerly Ingram) who later married Richard Edward (Eddie) Fielding in early 1948. (Eddie had been engaged to someone else before he went to war, but his fiancée broke it off before his return to Australia.) It was cared for by the Teagle/Fielding family for approximately one hundred years. It is of particular significance given the family's connection to the Eltham War Memorial and the significance of that memorial to the local community and represents that despite the horrors of war, former friends then foes can become friends again.tom fielding collection, japanese postcard, postcard, 1923, great kanto earthquake, japan, tokyo, yokohama

The Great Kantō Earthquake of 1 September 1923 devastated the major cities of Tokyo and Yokohama, as well as five other surrounding prefectures and was one of the world’s worst natural disasters of the early twentieth century. In terms of loss of life and material damage, with an estimated 140,000 deaths and countless homeless, it is still Japan’s worst national disaster. Nearly 90% of the newspaper printers were destroyed in the earthquake. These postcards were not produced for aesthetics but as a major tool for the spread of information. Seeing how newspaper companies were left with their offices in shambles, postcard publishers tried to fill the gap hence some were in three languages. A very small number of publishing companies were fortunate enough to survive, one of them being Mitsumura Printing, which took advantage of its remaining resources to churn out postcards. When the Ōsaka Mainichi Shinbunsha published its bilingual three-volume photographic pictorial of the Great Kantō Earthquake just two weeks after the event, the calamity had already been captured in thousands of images that circulated on a national and international media highway. Commercial photographers and photojournalists produced the most abundant and immediate images of the quake, which were transmitted in newspapers, special-issue newspaper pictorials, commemorative photography collections, illustrated survivors’ accounts, and sets of commemorative postcards. These photographic images functioned as both news and souvenirs, rendering their consumers/viewers, inside and outside the devastated locale, into both witnesses and voyeurs. Images in the news media and those issued by respected publishing houses carried the visual authority of supposed facticity. As such they both produced and became the historical record of the event. Since the vast majority of 1923 disaster postcards that survive have no writing on them, they were likely treated more as collectibles than as a form of postal communication. Many were put into albums, creating new ways to combine images and create visual cultures of disaster for home viewing. Accordion-style albums allowed for personalized, serial organization of images that produced unique, imagistic narratives of the event. The album pages were also two-sided and could be stretched out to view a series of images on recto and verso. References: Imaging Disaster: Tokyo and the Visual Culture of Japan’s Great Earthquake of 1923 震災をイメージ化する　東京と1923年関東大震災のヴィジュアルカルチャー - The Asia. (2024, March 31). Retrieved from https://apjjf.org/2015/13/6/gennifer-weisenfeld/4270 The Great Kanto Earthquake: Postcards of Tragedy. (2024, March 31). Retrieved from https://www.tokyoweekender.com/art_and_culture/japanese-culture/the-great-kanto-earthquake-postcards/ See also: Postcards from Hell – Glimpses of the Great Kantō Earthquake; M. William STEELE (International Christian University, Japan) 14th Conference of the European Association of Japanese Studies: Visual Culture and Postcard Research Papers – East Asia Image Collection Blog. (2024, March 31). Retrieved from https://sites.lafayette.edu/eastasia/2014/09/01/14th-conference-of-the-european-association-of-japanese-studies-visual-culture-and-postcard-research-papers/] And https://icu.repo.nii.ac.jp/record/4503/files/ACS44_01Steele.pdfThis item, a souvenir from Japan from between the wars (circa 1923) was brought home to Research, Victoria by Bill Teagle who was serving in the Royal Australian Navy (1919-1945). Bill Teagle's sister Violet Amelda Teagle had married Theodore (Curly) Feldbauer in 1933. Bill's brother-in-law Curly was taken as a Prisoner of War by the Japanese and died at Sandakan in March 1945. The family did not learn of Curly’s death till months later and Bill's sister, Violet, herself could never forgive the Japanese for what happened to Curly. Curly is remembered on the Eltham Roll of Honour Board and his son, Albert Feldbauer (Bill’s nephew and youngest child of the children of the soldier fathers attending a school in the district), was given the honour of turning the first sod for the Eltham War Memorial Infant Welfare Centre Building. Despite this, the family maintained this cherished souvenir from a time of previous foreign friendship with Japan. The item was possibly given by Bill Teagle to his sister Margaret Rose (formerly Ingram) who later married Richard Edward (Eddie) Fielding in early 1948. (Eddie had been engaged to someone else before he went to war, but his fiancée broke it off before his return to Australia.) It was cared for by the Teagle/Fielding family for approximately one hundred years. It is of particular significance given the family's connection to the Eltham War Memorial and the significance of that memorial to the local community and represents that despite the horrors of war, former friends then foes can become friends again.tom fielding collection, japanese postcard, postcard, 1923, great kanto earthquake, japan, tokyo, yokohama

The Great Kantō Earthquake of 1 September 1923 devastated the major cities of Tokyo and Yokohama, as well as five other surrounding prefectures and was one of the world’s worst natural disasters of the early twentieth century. In terms of loss of life and material damage, with an estimated 140,000 deaths and countless homeless, it is still Japan’s worst national disaster. Nearly 90% of the newspaper printers were destroyed in the earthquake. These postcards were not produced for aesthetics but as a major tool for the spread of information. Seeing how newspaper companies were left with their offices in shambles, postcard publishers tried to fill the gap hence some were in three languages. A very small number of publishing companies were fortunate enough to survive, one of them being Mitsumura Printing, which took advantage of its remaining resources to churn out postcards. When the Ōsaka Mainichi Shinbunsha published its bilingual three-volume photographic pictorial of the Great Kantō Earthquake just two weeks after the event, the calamity had already been captured in thousands of images that circulated on a national and international media highway. Commercial photographers and photojournalists produced the most abundant and immediate images of the quake, which were transmitted in newspapers, special-issue newspaper pictorials, commemorative photography collections, illustrated survivors’ accounts, and sets of commemorative postcards. These photographic images functioned as both news and souvenirs, rendering their consumers/viewers, inside and outside the devastated locale, into both witnesses and voyeurs. Images in the news media and those issued by respected publishing houses carried the visual authority of supposed facticity. As such they both produced and became the historical record of the event. Since the vast majority of 1923 disaster postcards that survive have no writing on them, they were likely treated more as collectibles than as a form of postal communication. Many were put into albums, creating new ways to combine images and create visual cultures of disaster for home viewing. Accordion-style albums allowed for personalized, serial organization of images that produced unique, imagistic narratives of the event. The album pages were also two-sided and could be stretched out to view a series of images on recto and verso. References: Imaging Disaster: Tokyo and the Visual Culture of Japan’s Great Earthquake of 1923 震災をイメージ化する　東京と1923年関東大震災のヴィジュアルカルチャー - The Asia. (2024, March 31). Retrieved from https://apjjf.org/2015/13/6/gennifer-weisenfeld/4270 The Great Kanto Earthquake: Postcards of Tragedy. (2024, March 31). Retrieved from https://www.tokyoweekender.com/art_and_culture/japanese-culture/the-great-kanto-earthquake-postcards/ See also: Postcards from Hell – Glimpses of the Great Kantō Earthquake; M. William STEELE (International Christian University, Japan) 14th Conference of the European Association of Japanese Studies: Visual Culture and Postcard Research Papers – East Asia Image Collection Blog. (2024, March 31). Retrieved from https://sites.lafayette.edu/eastasia/2014/09/01/14th-conference-of-the-european-association-of-japanese-studies-visual-culture-and-postcard-research-papers/] And https://icu.repo.nii.ac.jp/record/4503/files/ACS44_01Steele.pdfThis item, a souvenir from Japan from between the wars (circa 1923) was brought home to Research, Victoria by Bill Teagle who was serving in the Royal Australian Navy (1919-1945). Bill Teagle's sister Violet Amelda Teagle had married Theodore (Curly) Feldbauer in 1933. Bill's brother-in-law Curly was taken as a Prisoner of War by the Japanese and died at Sandakan in March 1945. The family did not learn of Curly’s death till months later and Bill's sister, Violet, herself could never forgive the Japanese for what happened to Curly. Curly is remembered on the Eltham Roll of Honour Board and his son, Albert Feldbauer (Bill’s nephew and youngest child of the children of the soldier fathers attending a school in the district), was given the honour of turning the first sod for the Eltham War Memorial Infant Welfare Centre Building. Despite this, the family maintained this cherished souvenir from a time of previous foreign friendship with Japan. The item was possibly given by Bill Teagle to his sister Margaret Rose (formerly Ingram) who later married Richard Edward (Eddie) Fielding in early 1948. (Eddie had been engaged to someone else before he went to war, but his fiancée broke it off before his return to Australia.) It was cared for by the Teagle/Fielding family for approximately one hundred years. It is of particular significance given the family's connection to the Eltham War Memorial and the significance of that memorial to the local community and represents that despite the horrors of war, former friends then foes can become friends again.tom fielding collection, japanese postcard, postcard, 1923, great kanto earthquake, japan, tokyo, yokohama

The Great Kantō Earthquake of 1 September 1923 devastated the major cities of Tokyo and Yokohama, as well as five other surrounding prefectures and was one of the world’s worst natural disasters of the early twentieth century. In terms of loss of life and material damage, with an estimated 140,000 deaths and countless homeless, it is still Japan’s worst national disaster. Nearly 90% of the newspaper printers were destroyed in the earthquake. These postcards were not produced for aesthetics but as a major tool for the spread of information. Seeing how newspaper companies were left with their offices in shambles, postcard publishers tried to fill the gap hence some were in three languages. A very small number of publishing companies were fortunate enough to survive, one of them being Mitsumura Printing, which took advantage of its remaining resources to churn out postcards. When the Ōsaka Mainichi Shinbunsha published its bilingual three-volume photographic pictorial of the Great Kantō Earthquake just two weeks after the event, the calamity had already been captured in thousands of images that circulated on a national and international media highway. Commercial photographers and photojournalists produced the most abundant and immediate images of the quake, which were transmitted in newspapers, special-issue newspaper pictorials, commemorative photography collections, illustrated survivors’ accounts, and sets of commemorative postcards. These photographic images functioned as both news and souvenirs, rendering their consumers/viewers, inside and outside the devastated locale, into both witnesses and voyeurs. Images in the news media and those issued by respected publishing houses carried the visual authority of supposed facticity. As such they both produced and became the historical record of the event. Since the vast majority of 1923 disaster postcards that survive have no writing on them, they were likely treated more as collectibles than as a form of postal communication. Many were put into albums, creating new ways to combine images and create visual cultures of disaster for home viewing. Accordion-style albums allowed for personalized, serial organization of images that produced unique, imagistic narratives of the event. The album pages were also two-sided and could be stretched out to view a series of images on recto and verso. References: Imaging Disaster: Tokyo and the Visual Culture of Japan’s Great Earthquake of 1923 震災をイメージ化する　東京と1923年関東大震災のヴィジュアルカルチャー - The Asia. (2024, March 31). Retrieved from https://apjjf.org/2015/13/6/gennifer-weisenfeld/4270 The Great Kanto Earthquake: Postcards of Tragedy. (2024, March 31). Retrieved from https://www.tokyoweekender.com/art_and_culture/japanese-culture/the-great-kanto-earthquake-postcards/ See also: Postcards from Hell – Glimpses of the Great Kantō Earthquake; M. William STEELE (International Christian University, Japan) 14th Conference of the European Association of Japanese Studies: Visual Culture and Postcard Research Papers – East Asia Image Collection Blog. (2024, March 31). Retrieved from https://sites.lafayette.edu/eastasia/2014/09/01/14th-conference-of-the-european-association-of-japanese-studies-visual-culture-and-postcard-research-papers/] And https://icu.repo.nii.ac.jp/record/4503/files/ACS44_01Steele.pdfThis item, a souvenir from Japan from between the wars (circa 1923) was brought home to Research, Victoria by Bill Teagle who was serving in the Royal Australian Navy (1919-1945). Bill Teagle's sister Violet Amelda Teagle had married Theodore (Curly) Feldbauer in 1933. Bill's brother-in-law Curly was taken as a Prisoner of War by the Japanese and died at Sandakan in March 1945. The family did not learn of Curly’s death till months later and Bill's sister, Violet, herself could never forgive the Japanese for what happened to Curly. Curly is remembered on the Eltham Roll of Honour Board and his son, Albert Feldbauer (Bill’s nephew and youngest child of the children of the soldier fathers attending a school in the district), was given the honour of turning the first sod for the Eltham War Memorial Infant Welfare Centre Building. Despite this, the family maintained this cherished souvenir from a time of previous foreign friendship with Japan. The item was possibly given by Bill Teagle to his sister Margaret Rose (formerly Ingram) who later married Richard Edward (Eddie) Fielding in early 1948. (Eddie had been engaged to someone else before he went to war, but his fiancée broke it off before his return to Australia.) It was cared for by the Teagle/Fielding family for approximately one hundred years. It is of particular significance given the family's connection to the Eltham War Memorial and the significance of that memorial to the local community and represents that despite the horrors of war, former friends then foes can become friends again.tom fielding collection, japanese postcard, postcard, 1923, great kanto earthquake, japan, tokyo, yokohama

The Great Kantō Earthquake of 1 September 1923 devastated the major cities of Tokyo and Yokohama, as well as five other surrounding prefectures and was one of the world’s worst natural disasters of the early twentieth century. In terms of loss of life and material damage, with an estimated 140,000 deaths and countless homeless, it is still Japan’s worst national disaster. Nearly 90% of the newspaper printers were destroyed in the earthquake. These postcards were not produced for aesthetics but as a major tool for the spread of information. Seeing how newspaper companies were left with their offices in shambles, postcard publishers tried to fill the gap hence some were in three languages. A very small number of publishing companies were fortunate enough to survive, one of them being Mitsumura Printing, which took advantage of its remaining resources to churn out postcards. When the Ōsaka Mainichi Shinbunsha published its bilingual three-volume photographic pictorial of the Great Kantō Earthquake just two weeks after the event, the calamity had already been captured in thousands of images that circulated on a national and international media highway. Commercial photographers and photojournalists produced the most abundant and immediate images of the quake, which were transmitted in newspapers, special-issue newspaper pictorials, commemorative photography collections, illustrated survivors’ accounts, and sets of commemorative postcards. These photographic images functioned as both news and souvenirs, rendering their consumers/viewers, inside and outside the devastated locale, into both witnesses and voyeurs. Images in the news media and those issued by respected publishing houses carried the visual authority of supposed facticity. As such they both produced and became the historical record of the event. Since the vast majority of 1923 disaster postcards that survive have no writing on them, they were likely treated more as collectibles than as a form of postal communication. Many were put into albums, creating new ways to combine images and create visual cultures of disaster for home viewing. Accordion-style albums allowed for personalized, serial organization of images that produced unique, imagistic narratives of the event. The album pages were also two-sided and could be stretched out to view a series of images on recto and verso. References: Imaging Disaster: Tokyo and the Visual Culture of Japan’s Great Earthquake of 1923 震災をイメージ化する　東京と1923年関東大震災のヴィジュアルカルチャー - The Asia. (2024, March 31). Retrieved from https://apjjf.org/2015/13/6/gennifer-weisenfeld/4270 The Great Kanto Earthquake: Postcards of Tragedy. (2024, March 31). Retrieved from https://www.tokyoweekender.com/art_and_culture/japanese-culture/the-great-kanto-earthquake-postcards/ See also: Postcards from Hell – Glimpses of the Great Kantō Earthquake; M. William STEELE (International Christian University, Japan) 14th Conference of the European Association of Japanese Studies: Visual Culture and Postcard Research Papers – East Asia Image Collection Blog. (2024, March 31). Retrieved from https://sites.lafayette.edu/eastasia/2014/09/01/14th-conference-of-the-european-association-of-japanese-studies-visual-culture-and-postcard-research-papers/] And https://icu.repo.nii.ac.jp/record/4503/files/ACS44_01Steele.pdfThis item, a souvenir from Japan from between the wars (circa 1923) was brought home to Research, Victoria by Bill Teagle who was serving in the Royal Australian Navy (1919-1945). Bill Teagle's sister Violet Amelda Teagle had married Theodore (Curly) Feldbauer in 1933. Bill's brother-in-law Curly was taken as a Prisoner of War by the Japanese and died at Sandakan in March 1945. The family did not learn of Curly’s death till months later and Bill's sister, Violet, herself could never forgive the Japanese for what happened to Curly. Curly is remembered on the Eltham Roll of Honour Board and his son, Albert Feldbauer (Bill’s nephew and youngest child of the children of the soldier fathers attending a school in the district), was given the honour of turning the first sod for the Eltham War Memorial Infant Welfare Centre Building. Despite this, the family maintained this cherished souvenir from a time of previous foreign friendship with Japan. The item was possibly given by Bill Teagle to his sister Margaret Rose (formerly Ingram) who later married Richard Edward (Eddie) Fielding in early 1948. (Eddie had been engaged to someone else before he went to war, but his fiancée broke it off before his return to Australia.) It was cared for by the Teagle/Fielding family for approximately one hundred years. It is of particular significance given the family's connection to the Eltham War Memorial and the significance of that memorial to the local community and represents that despite the horrors of war, former friends then foes can become friends again.tom fielding collection, japanese postcard, postcard, 1923, great kanto earthquake, japan, tokyo, yokohama

The Great Kantō Earthquake of 1 September 1923 devastated the major cities of Tokyo and Yokohama, as well as five other surrounding prefectures and was one of the world’s worst natural disasters of the early twentieth century. In terms of loss of life and material damage, with an estimated 140,000 deaths and countless homeless, it is still Japan’s worst national disaster. Nearly 90% of the newspaper printers were destroyed in the earthquake. These postcards were not produced for aesthetics but as a major tool for the spread of information. Seeing how newspaper companies were left with their offices in shambles, postcard publishers tried to fill the gap hence some were in three languages. A very small number of publishing companies were fortunate enough to survive, one of them being Mitsumura Printing, which took advantage of its remaining resources to churn out postcards. When the Ōsaka Mainichi Shinbunsha published its bilingual three-volume photographic pictorial of the Great Kantō Earthquake just two weeks after the event, the calamity had already been captured in thousands of images that circulated on a national and international media highway. Commercial photographers and photojournalists produced the most abundant and immediate images of the quake, which were transmitted in newspapers, special-issue newspaper pictorials, commemorative photography collections, illustrated survivors’ accounts, and sets of commemorative postcards. These photographic images functioned as both news and souvenirs, rendering their consumers/viewers, inside and outside the devastated locale, into both witnesses and voyeurs. Images in the news media and those issued by respected publishing houses carried the visual authority of supposed facticity. As such they both produced and became the historical record of the event. Since the vast majority of 1923 disaster postcards that survive have no writing on them, they were likely treated more as collectibles than as a form of postal communication. Many were put into albums, creating new ways to combine images and create visual cultures of disaster for home viewing. Accordion-style albums allowed for personalized, serial organization of images that produced unique, imagistic narratives of the event. The album pages were also two-sided and could be stretched out to view a series of images on recto and verso. References: Imaging Disaster: Tokyo and the Visual Culture of Japan’s Great Earthquake of 1923 震災をイメージ化する　東京と1923年関東大震災のヴィジュアルカルチャー - The Asia. (2024, March 31). Retrieved from https://apjjf.org/2015/13/6/gennifer-weisenfeld/4270 The Great Kanto Earthquake: Postcards of Tragedy. (2024, March 31). Retrieved from https://www.tokyoweekender.com/art_and_culture/japanese-culture/the-great-kanto-earthquake-postcards/ See also: Postcards from Hell – Glimpses of the Great Kantō Earthquake; M. William STEELE (International Christian University, Japan) 14th Conference of the European Association of Japanese Studies: Visual Culture and Postcard Research Papers – East Asia Image Collection Blog. (2024, March 31). Retrieved from https://sites.lafayette.edu/eastasia/2014/09/01/14th-conference-of-the-european-association-of-japanese-studies-visual-culture-and-postcard-research-papers/] And https://icu.repo.nii.ac.jp/record/4503/files/ACS44_01Steele.pdfThis item, a souvenir from Japan from between the wars (circa 1923) was brought home to Research, Victoria by Bill Teagle who was serving in the Royal Australian Navy (1919-1945). Bill Teagle's sister Violet Amelda Teagle had married Theodore (Curly) Feldbauer in 1933. Bill's brother-in-law Curly was taken as a Prisoner of War by the Japanese and died at Sandakan in March 1945. The family did not learn of Curly’s death till months later and Bill's sister, Violet, herself could never forgive the Japanese for what happened to Curly. Curly is remembered on the Eltham Roll of Honour Board and his son, Albert Feldbauer (Bill’s nephew and youngest child of the children of the soldier fathers attending a school in the district), was given the honour of turning the first sod for the Eltham War Memorial Infant Welfare Centre Building. Despite this, the family maintained this cherished souvenir from a time of previous foreign friendship with Japan. The item was possibly given by Bill Teagle to his sister Margaret Rose (formerly Ingram) who later married Richard Edward (Eddie) Fielding in early 1948. (Eddie had been engaged to someone else before he went to war, but his fiancée broke it off before his return to Australia.) It was cared for by the Teagle/Fielding family for approximately one hundred years. It is of particular significance given the family's connection to the Eltham War Memorial and the significance of that memorial to the local community and represents that despite the horrors of war, former friends then foes can become friends again.tom fielding collection, japanese postcard, postcard, 1923, great kanto earthquake, japan, tokyo, yokohama

The Great Kantō Earthquake of 1 September 1923 devastated the major cities of Tokyo and Yokohama, as well as five other surrounding prefectures and was one of the world’s worst natural disasters of the early twentieth century. In terms of loss of life and material damage, with an estimated 140,000 deaths and countless homeless, it is still Japan’s worst national disaster. Nearly 90% of the newspaper printers were destroyed in the earthquake. These postcards were not produced for aesthetics but as a major tool for the spread of information. Seeing how newspaper companies were left with their offices in shambles, postcard publishers tried to fill the gap hence some were in three languages. A very small number of publishing companies were fortunate enough to survive, one of them being Mitsumura Printing, which took advantage of its remaining resources to churn out postcards. When the Ōsaka Mainichi Shinbunsha published its bilingual three-volume photographic pictorial of the Great Kantō Earthquake just two weeks after the event, the calamity had already been captured in thousands of images that circulated on a national and international media highway. Commercial photographers and photojournalists produced the most abundant and immediate images of the quake, which were transmitted in newspapers, special-issue newspaper pictorials, commemorative photography collections, illustrated survivors’ accounts, and sets of commemorative postcards. These photographic images functioned as both news and souvenirs, rendering their consumers/viewers, inside and outside the devastated locale, into both witnesses and voyeurs. Images in the news media and those issued by respected publishing houses carried the visual authority of supposed facticity. As such they both produced and became the historical record of the event. Since the vast majority of 1923 disaster postcards that survive have no writing on them, they were likely treated more as collectibles than as a form of postal communication. Many were put into albums, creating new ways to combine images and create visual cultures of disaster for home viewing. Accordion-style albums allowed for personalized, serial organization of images that produced unique, imagistic narratives of the event. The album pages were also two-sided and could be stretched out to view a series of images on recto and verso. References: Imaging Disaster: Tokyo and the Visual Culture of Japan’s Great Earthquake of 1923 震災をイメージ化する　東京と1923年関東大震災のヴィジュアルカルチャー - The Asia. (2024, March 31). Retrieved from https://apjjf.org/2015/13/6/gennifer-weisenfeld/4270 The Great Kanto Earthquake: Postcards of Tragedy. (2024, March 31). Retrieved from https://www.tokyoweekender.com/art_and_culture/japanese-culture/the-great-kanto-earthquake-postcards/ See also: Postcards from Hell – Glimpses of the Great Kantō Earthquake; M. William STEELE (International Christian University, Japan) 14th Conference of the European Association of Japanese Studies: Visual Culture and Postcard Research Papers – East Asia Image Collection Blog. (2024, March 31). Retrieved from https://sites.lafayette.edu/eastasia/2014/09/01/14th-conference-of-the-european-association-of-japanese-studies-visual-culture-and-postcard-research-papers/] And https://icu.repo.nii.ac.jp/record/4503/files/ACS44_01Steele.pdfThis item, a souvenir from Japan from between the wars (circa 1923) was brought home to Research, Victoria by Bill Teagle who was serving in the Royal Australian Navy (1919-1945). Bill Teagle's sister Violet Amelda Teagle had married Theodore (Curly) Feldbauer in 1933. Bill's brother-in-law Curly was taken as a Prisoner of War by the Japanese and died at Sandakan in March 1945. The family did not learn of Curly’s death till months later and Bill's sister, Violet, herself could never forgive the Japanese for what happened to Curly. Curly is remembered on the Eltham Roll of Honour Board and his son, Albert Feldbauer (Bill’s nephew and youngest child of the children of the soldier fathers attending a school in the district), was given the honour of turning the first sod for the Eltham War Memorial Infant Welfare Centre Building. Despite this, the family maintained this cherished souvenir from a time of previous foreign friendship with Japan. The item was possibly given by Bill Teagle to his sister Margaret Rose (formerly Ingram) who later married Richard Edward (Eddie) Fielding in early 1948. (Eddie had been engaged to someone else before he went to war, but his fiancée broke it off before his return to Australia.) It was cared for by the Teagle/Fielding family for approximately one hundred years. It is of particular significance given the family's connection to the Eltham War Memorial and the significance of that memorial to the local community and represents that despite the horrors of war, former friends then foes can become friends again.tom fielding collection, japanese postcard, postcard, 1923, great kanto earthquake, japan, tokyo, yokohama

The Great Kantō Earthquake of 1 September 1923 devastated the major cities of Tokyo and Yokohama, as well as five other surrounding prefectures and was one of the world’s worst natural disasters of the early twentieth century. In terms of loss of life and material damage, with an estimated 140,000 deaths and countless homeless, it is still Japan’s worst national disaster. Nearly 90% of the newspaper printers were destroyed in the earthquake. These postcards were not produced for aesthetics but as a major tool for the spread of information. Seeing how newspaper companies were left with their offices in shambles, postcard publishers tried to fill the gap hence some were in three languages. A very small number of publishing companies were fortunate enough to survive, one of them being Mitsumura Printing, which took advantage of its remaining resources to churn out postcards. When the Ōsaka Mainichi Shinbunsha published its bilingual three-volume photographic pictorial of the Great Kantō Earthquake just two weeks after the event, the calamity had already been captured in thousands of images that circulated on a national and international media highway. Commercial photographers and photojournalists produced the most abundant and immediate images of the quake, which were transmitted in newspapers, special-issue newspaper pictorials, commemorative photography collections, illustrated survivors’ accounts, and sets of commemorative postcards. These photographic images functioned as both news and souvenirs, rendering their consumers/viewers, inside and outside the devastated locale, into both witnesses and voyeurs. Images in the news media and those issued by respected publishing houses carried the visual authority of supposed facticity. As such they both produced and became the historical record of the event. Since the vast majority of 1923 disaster postcards that survive have no writing on them, they were likely treated more as collectibles than as a form of postal communication. Many were put into albums, creating new ways to combine images and create visual cultures of disaster for home viewing. Accordion-style albums allowed for personalized, serial organization of images that produced unique, imagistic narratives of the event. The album pages were also two-sided and could be stretched out to view a series of images on recto and verso. References: Imaging Disaster: Tokyo and the Visual Culture of Japan’s Great Earthquake of 1923 震災をイメージ化する　東京と1923年関東大震災のヴィジュアルカルチャー - The Asia. (2024, March 31). Retrieved from https://apjjf.org/2015/13/6/gennifer-weisenfeld/4270 The Great Kanto Earthquake: Postcards of Tragedy. (2024, March 31). Retrieved from https://www.tokyoweekender.com/art_and_culture/japanese-culture/the-great-kanto-earthquake-postcards/ See also: Postcards from Hell – Glimpses of the Great Kantō Earthquake; M. William STEELE (International Christian University, Japan) 14th Conference of the European Association of Japanese Studies: Visual Culture and Postcard Research Papers – East Asia Image Collection Blog. (2024, March 31). Retrieved from https://sites.lafayette.edu/eastasia/2014/09/01/14th-conference-of-the-european-association-of-japanese-studies-visual-culture-and-postcard-research-papers/] And https://icu.repo.nii.ac.jp/record/4503/files/ACS44_01Steele.pdfThis item, a souvenir from Japan from between the wars (circa 1923) was brought home to Research, Victoria by Bill Teagle who was serving in the Royal Australian Navy (1919-1945). Bill Teagle's sister Violet Amelda Teagle had married Theodore (Curly) Feldbauer in 1933. Bill's brother-in-law Curly was taken as a Prisoner of War by the Japanese and died at Sandakan in March 1945. The family did not learn of Curly’s death till months later and Bill's sister, Violet, herself could never forgive the Japanese for what happened to Curly. Curly is remembered on the Eltham Roll of Honour Board and his son, Albert Feldbauer (Bill’s nephew and youngest child of the children of the soldier fathers attending a school in the district), was given the honour of turning the first sod for the Eltham War Memorial Infant Welfare Centre Building. Despite this, the family maintained this cherished souvenir from a time of previous foreign friendship with Japan. The item was possibly given by Bill Teagle to his sister Margaret Rose (formerly Ingram) who later married Richard Edward (Eddie) Fielding in early 1948. (Eddie had been engaged to someone else before he went to war, but his fiancée broke it off before his return to Australia.) It was cared for by the Teagle/Fielding family for approximately one hundred years. It is of particular significance given the family's connection to the Eltham War Memorial and the significance of that memorial to the local community and represents that despite the horrors of war, former friends then foes can become friends again.tom fielding collection, japanese postcard, postcard, 1923, great kanto earthquake, japan, tokyo, yokohama

The Great Kantō Earthquake of 1 September 1923 devastated the major cities of Tokyo and Yokohama, as well as five other surrounding prefectures and was one of the world’s worst natural disasters of the early twentieth century. In terms of loss of life and material damage, with an estimated 140,000 deaths and countless homeless, it is still Japan’s worst national disaster. Nearly 90% of the newspaper printers were destroyed in the earthquake. These postcards were not produced for aesthetics but as a major tool for the spread of information. Seeing how newspaper companies were left with their offices in shambles, postcard publishers tried to fill the gap hence some were in three languages. A very small number of publishing companies were fortunate enough to survive, one of them being Mitsumura Printing, which took advantage of its remaining resources to churn out postcards. When the Ōsaka Mainichi Shinbunsha published its bilingual three-volume photographic pictorial of the Great Kantō Earthquake just two weeks after the event, the calamity had already been captured in thousands of images that circulated on a national and international media highway. Commercial photographers and photojournalists produced the most abundant and immediate images of the quake, which were transmitted in newspapers, special-issue newspaper pictorials, commemorative photography collections, illustrated survivors’ accounts, and sets of commemorative postcards. These photographic images functioned as both news and souvenirs, rendering their consumers/viewers, inside and outside the devastated locale, into both witnesses and voyeurs. Images in the news media and those issued by respected publishing houses carried the visual authority of supposed facticity. As such they both produced and became the historical record of the event. Since the vast majority of 1923 disaster postcards that survive have no writing on them, they were likely treated more as collectibles than as a form of postal communication. Many were put into albums, creating new ways to combine images and create visual cultures of disaster for home viewing. Accordion-style albums allowed for personalized, serial organization of images that produced unique, imagistic narratives of the event. The album pages were also two-sided and could be stretched out to view a series of images on recto and verso. References: Imaging Disaster: Tokyo and the Visual Culture of Japan’s Great Earthquake of 1923 震災をイメージ化する　東京と1923年関東大震災のヴィジュアルカルチャー - The Asia. (2024, March 31). Retrieved from https://apjjf.org/2015/13/6/gennifer-weisenfeld/4270 The Great Kanto Earthquake: Postcards of Tragedy. (2024, March 31). Retrieved from https://www.tokyoweekender.com/art_and_culture/japanese-culture/the-great-kanto-earthquake-postcards/ See also: Postcards from Hell – Glimpses of the Great Kantō Earthquake; M. William STEELE (International Christian University, Japan) 14th Conference of the European Association of Japanese Studies: Visual Culture and Postcard Research Papers – East Asia Image Collection Blog. (2024, March 31). Retrieved from https://sites.lafayette.edu/eastasia/2014/09/01/14th-conference-of-the-european-association-of-japanese-studies-visual-culture-and-postcard-research-papers/] And https://icu.repo.nii.ac.jp/record/4503/files/ACS44_01Steele.pdfThis item, a souvenir from Japan from between the wars (circa 1923) was brought home to Research, Victoria by Bill Teagle who was serving in the Royal Australian Navy (1919-1945). Bill Teagle's sister Violet Amelda Teagle had married Theodore (Curly) Feldbauer in 1933. Bill's brother-in-law Curly was taken as a Prisoner of War by the Japanese and died at Sandakan in March 1945. The family did not learn of Curly’s death till months later and Bill's sister, Violet, herself could never forgive the Japanese for what happened to Curly. Curly is remembered on the Eltham Roll of Honour Board and his son, Albert Feldbauer (Bill’s nephew and youngest child of the children of the soldier fathers attending a school in the district), was given the honour of turning the first sod for the Eltham War Memorial Infant Welfare Centre Building. Despite this, the family maintained this cherished souvenir from a time of previous foreign friendship with Japan. The item was possibly given by Bill Teagle to his sister Margaret Rose (formerly Ingram) who later married Richard Edward (Eddie) Fielding in early 1948. (Eddie had been engaged to someone else before he went to war, but his fiancée broke it off before his return to Australia.) It was cared for by the Teagle/Fielding family for approximately one hundred years. It is of particular significance given the family's connection to the Eltham War Memorial and the significance of that memorial to the local community and represents that despite the horrors of war, former friends then foes can become friends again.tom fielding collection, japanese postcard, postcard, 1923, great kanto earthquake, japan, tokyo, yokohama

The Great Kantō Earthquake of 1 September 1923 devastated the major cities of Tokyo and Yokohama, as well as five other surrounding prefectures and was one of the world’s worst natural disasters of the early twentieth century. In terms of loss of life and material damage, with an estimated 140,000 deaths and countless homeless, it is still Japan’s worst national disaster. Nearly 90% of the newspaper printers were destroyed in the earthquake. These postcards were not produced for aesthetics but as a major tool for the spread of information. Seeing how newspaper companies were left with their offices in shambles, postcard publishers tried to fill the gap hence some were in three languages. A very small number of publishing companies were fortunate enough to survive, one of them being Mitsumura Printing, which took advantage of its remaining resources to churn out postcards. When the Ōsaka Mainichi Shinbunsha published its bilingual three-volume photographic pictorial of the Great Kantō Earthquake just two weeks after the event, the calamity had already been captured in thousands of images that circulated on a national and international media highway. Commercial photographers and photojournalists produced the most abundant and immediate images of the quake, which were transmitted in newspapers, special-issue newspaper pictorials, commemorative photography collections, illustrated survivors’ accounts, and sets of commemorative postcards. These photographic images functioned as both news and souvenirs, rendering their consumers/viewers, inside and outside the devastated locale, into both witnesses and voyeurs. Images in the news media and those issued by respected publishing houses carried the visual authority of supposed facticity. As such they both produced and became the historical record of the event. Since the vast majority of 1923 disaster postcards that survive have no writing on them, they were likely treated more as collectibles than as a form of postal communication. Many were put into albums, creating new ways to combine images and create visual cultures of disaster for home viewing. Accordion-style albums allowed for personalized, serial organization of images that produced unique, imagistic narratives of the event. The album pages were also two-sided and could be stretched out to view a series of images on recto and verso. References: Imaging Disaster: Tokyo and the Visual Culture of Japan’s Great Earthquake of 1923 震災をイメージ化する　東京と1923年関東大震災のヴィジュアルカルチャー - The Asia. (2024, March 31). Retrieved from https://apjjf.org/2015/13/6/gennifer-weisenfeld/4270 The Great Kanto Earthquake: Postcards of Tragedy. (2024, March 31). Retrieved from https://www.tokyoweekender.com/art_and_culture/japanese-culture/the-great-kanto-earthquake-postcards/ See also: Postcards from Hell – Glimpses of the Great Kantō Earthquake; M. William STEELE (International Christian University, Japan) 14th Conference of the European Association of Japanese Studies: Visual Culture and Postcard Research Papers – East Asia Image Collection Blog. (2024, March 31). Retrieved from https://sites.lafayette.edu/eastasia/2014/09/01/14th-conference-of-the-european-association-of-japanese-studies-visual-culture-and-postcard-research-papers/] And https://icu.repo.nii.ac.jp/record/4503/files/ACS44_01Steele.pdfThis item, a souvenir from Japan from between the wars (circa 1923) was brought home to Research, Victoria by Bill Teagle who was serving in the Royal Australian Navy (1919-1945). Bill Teagle's sister Violet Amelda Teagle had married Theodore (Curly) Feldbauer in 1933. Bill's brother-in-law Curly was taken as a Prisoner of War by the Japanese and died at Sandakan in March 1945. The family did not learn of Curly’s death till months later and Bill's sister, Violet, herself could never forgive the Japanese for what happened to Curly. Curly is remembered on the Eltham Roll of Honour Board and his son, Albert Feldbauer (Bill’s nephew and youngest child of the children of the soldier fathers attending a school in the district), was given the honour of turning the first sod for the Eltham War Memorial Infant Welfare Centre Building. Despite this, the family maintained this cherished souvenir from a time of previous foreign friendship with Japan. The item was possibly given by Bill Teagle to his sister Margaret Rose (formerly Ingram) who later married Richard Edward (Eddie) Fielding in early 1948. (Eddie had been engaged to someone else before he went to war, but his fiancée broke it off before his return to Australia.) It was cared for by the Teagle/Fielding family for approximately one hundred years. It is of particular significance given the family's connection to the Eltham War Memorial and the significance of that memorial to the local community and represents that despite the horrors of war, former friends then foes can become friends again.tom fielding collection, japanese postcard, postcard, 1923, great kanto earthquake, japan, tokyo, yokohama

The Great Kantō Earthquake of 1 September 1923 devastated the major cities of Tokyo and Yokohama, as well as five other surrounding prefectures and was one of the world’s worst natural disasters of the early twentieth century. In terms of loss of life and material damage, with an estimated 140,000 deaths and countless homeless, it is still Japan’s worst national disaster. Nearly 90% of the newspaper printers were destroyed in the earthquake. These postcards were not produced for aesthetics but as a major tool for the spread of information. Seeing how newspaper companies were left with their offices in shambles, postcard publishers tried to fill the gap hence some were in three languages. A very small number of publishing companies were fortunate enough to survive, one of them being Mitsumura Printing, which took advantage of its remaining resources to churn out postcards. When the Ōsaka Mainichi Shinbunsha published its bilingual three-volume photographic pictorial of the Great Kantō Earthquake just two weeks after the event, the calamity had already been captured in thousands of images that circulated on a national and international media highway. Commercial photographers and photojournalists produced the most abundant and immediate images of the quake, which were transmitted in newspapers, special-issue newspaper pictorials, commemorative photography collections, illustrated survivors’ accounts, and sets of commemorative postcards. These photographic images functioned as both news and souvenirs, rendering their consumers/viewers, inside and outside the devastated locale, into both witnesses and voyeurs. Images in the news media and those issued by respected publishing houses carried the visual authority of supposed facticity. As such they both produced and became the historical record of the event. Since the vast majority of 1923 disaster postcards that survive have no writing on them, they were likely treated more as collectibles than as a form of postal communication. Many were put into albums, creating new ways to combine images and create visual cultures of disaster for home viewing. Accordion-style albums allowed for personalized, serial organization of images that produced unique, imagistic narratives of the event. The album pages were also two-sided and could be stretched out to view a series of images on recto and verso. References: Imaging Disaster: Tokyo and the Visual Culture of Japan’s Great Earthquake of 1923 震災をイメージ化する　東京と1923年関東大震災のヴィジュアルカルチャー - The Asia. (2024, March 31). Retrieved from https://apjjf.org/2015/13/6/gennifer-weisenfeld/4270 The Great Kanto Earthquake: Postcards of Tragedy. (2024, March 31). Retrieved from https://www.tokyoweekender.com/art_and_culture/japanese-culture/the-great-kanto-earthquake-postcards/ See also: Postcards from Hell – Glimpses of the Great Kantō Earthquake; M. William STEELE (International Christian University, Japan) 14th Conference of the European Association of Japanese Studies: Visual Culture and Postcard Research Papers – East Asia Image Collection Blog. (2024, March 31). Retrieved from https://sites.lafayette.edu/eastasia/2014/09/01/14th-conference-of-the-european-association-of-japanese-studies-visual-culture-and-postcard-research-papers/] And https://icu.repo.nii.ac.jp/record/4503/files/ACS44_01Steele.pdfThis item, a souvenir from Japan from between the wars (circa 1923) was brought home to Research, Victoria by Bill Teagle who was serving in the Royal Australian Navy (1919-1945). Bill Teagle's sister Violet Amelda Teagle had married Theodore (Curly) Feldbauer in 1933. Bill's brother-in-law Curly was taken as a Prisoner of War by the Japanese and died at Sandakan in March 1945. The family did not learn of Curly’s death till months later and Bill's sister, Violet, herself could never forgive the Japanese for what happened to Curly. Curly is remembered on the Eltham Roll of Honour Board and his son, Albert Feldbauer (Bill’s nephew and youngest child of the children of the soldier fathers attending a school in the district), was given the honour of turning the first sod for the Eltham War Memorial Infant Welfare Centre Building. Despite this, the family maintained this cherished souvenir from a time of previous foreign friendship with Japan. The item was possibly given by Bill Teagle to his sister Margaret Rose (formerly Ingram) who later married Richard Edward (Eddie) Fielding in early 1948. (Eddie had been engaged to someone else before he went to war, but his fiancée broke it off before his return to Australia.) It was cared for by the Teagle/Fielding family for approximately one hundred years. It is of particular significance given the family's connection to the Eltham War Memorial and the significance of that memorial to the local community and represents that despite the horrors of war, former friends then foes can become friends again.tom fielding collection, japanese postcard, postcard, 1923, great kanto earthquake, japan, tokyo, yokohama

1. Rock-art of the Western Desert and Pilbara: Pigment dates provide new perspectives on the role of art in the Australian arid zone Jo McDonald (Australian National University) and Peter Veth (Australian National University) Systematic analysis of engraved and painted art from the Western Desert and Pilbara has allowed us to develop a spatial model for discernable style provinces. Clear chains of stylistic connection can be demonstrated from the Pilbara coast to the desert interior with distinct and stylistically unique rock-art bodies. Graphic systems appear to link people over short, as well as vast, distances, and some of these style networks appear to have operated for very long periods of time. What are the social dynamics that could produce unique style provinces, as well as shared graphic vocabularies, over 1000 kilometres? Here we consider language boundaries within and between style provinces, and report on the first dates for pigment rock-art from the Australian arid zone and reflect on how these dates from the recent past help address questions of stylistic variability through space and time. 2. Painting and repainting in the west Kimberley Sue O?Connor, Anthony Barham (Australian National University) and Donny Woolagoodja (Mowanjum Community, Derby) We take a fresh look at the practice of repainting, or retouching, rockart, with particular reference to the Kimberley region of Western Australia. We discuss the practice of repainting in the context of the debate arising from the 1987 Ngarinyin Cultural Continuity Project, which involved the repainting of rock-shelters in the Gibb River region of the western Kimberley. The ?repainting debate? is reviewed here in the context of contemporary art production in west Kimberley Indigenous communities, such as Mowanjum. At Mowanjum the past two decades have witnessed an artistic explosion in the form of paintings on canvas and board that incorporate Wandjina and other images inspired by those traditionally depicted on panels in rock-shelters. Wandjina also represents the key motif around which community desires to return to Country are articulated, around which Country is curated and maintained, and through which the younger generations now engage with their traditional lands and reach out to wider international communities. We suggest that painting in the new media represents a continuation or transference of traditional practice. Stories about the travels, battles and engagements of Wandjina and other Dreaming events are now retold and experienced in the communities with reference to the paintings, an activity that is central to maintaining and reinvigorating connection between identity and place. The transposition of painting activity from sites within Country to the new ?out-of-Country? settlements represents a social counterbalance to the social dislocation that arose from separation from traditional places and forced geographic moves out-of-Country to government and mission settlements in the twentieth century. 3. Port Keats painting: Revolution and continuity Graeme K Ward (AIATSIS) and Mark Crocombe (Thamarrurr Regional Council) The role of the poet and collector of ?mythologies?, Roland Robinson, in prompting the production of commercial bark-painting at Port Keats (Wadeye), appears to have been accepted uncritically - though not usually acknowledged - by collectors and curators. Here we attempt to trace the history of painting in the Daly?Fitzmaurice region to contextualise Robinson?s contribution, and to evaluate it from both the perspective of available literature and of accounts of contemporary painters and Traditional Owners in the Port Keats area. It is possible that the intervention that Robinson might have considered revolutionary was more likely a continuation of previously well established cultural practice, the commercial development of which was both an Indigenous ?adjustment? to changing socio-cultural circumstances, and a quiet statement of maintenance of identity by strong individuals adapting and attempting to continue their cultural traditions. 4. Negotiating form in Kuninjku bark-paintings Luke Taylor (AIATSIS) Here I examine social processes involved in the manipulation of painted forms of bark-paintings among Kuninjku artists living near Maningrida in Arnhem Land. Young artists are taught to paint through apprenticeships that involve exchange of skills in producing form within extended family groups. Through apprenticeship processes we can also see how personal innovations are shared among family and become more regionally located. Lately there have been moves by senior artists to establish separate out-stations and to train their wives and daughters to paint. At a stylistic level the art now creates a greater sense of family autonomy and yet the subjects link the artists back in to much broader social networks. 5. Making art and making culture in far western New South Wales Lorraine Gibson This contribution is based on my ethnographic fieldwork. It concerns the intertwining aspects of the two concepts of art and culture and shows how Aboriginal people in Wilcannia in far western New South Wales draw on these concepts to assert and create a distinctive cultural identity for themselves. Focusing largely on the work of one particular artist, I demonstrate the ways in which culture (as this is considered) is affectively experienced and articulated as something that one ?comes into contact with? through the practice of art-making. I discuss the social and cultural role that art-making, and art talk play in considering, mediating and resolving issues to do with cultural subjectivity, authority and identity. I propose that in thinking about the content of the art and in making the art, past and present matters of interest, of difficulty and of pleasure are remembered, considered, resolved and mediated. Culture (as this is considered by Wilcannia Aboriginal people) is also made anew; it comes about through the practice of artmaking and in displaying and talking about the art work. Culture as an objectified, tangible entity is moreover writ large and made visible through art in ways that are valued by artists and other community members. The intersections between Aboriginal peoples, anthropologists, museum collections and published literature, and the network of relations between, are also shown to have interesting synergies that play themselves out in the production of art and culture. 6. Black on White: Or varying shades of grey? Indigenous Australian photo-media artists and the ?making of? Aboriginality Marianne Riphagen (Radboud University, The Netherlands) In 2005 the Centre for Contemporary Photography in Melbourne presented the Indigenous photo-media exhibition Black on White. Promising to explore Indigenous perspectives on non-Aboriginality, its catalogue set forth two questions: how do Aboriginal artists see the people and culture that surrounds them? Do they see non-Aboriginal Australians as other? However, art works produced for this exhibition rejected curatorial constructions of Black and White, instead presenting viewers with more complex and ambivalent notions of Aboriginality and non-Aboriginality. This paper revisits the Black on White exhibition as an intercultural event and argues that Indigenous art practitioners, because of their participation in a process to signify what it means to be Aboriginal, have developed new forms of Aboriginality. 7. Culture production Rembarrnga way: Innovation and tradition in Lena Yarinkura?s and Bob Burruwal?s metal sculptures Christiane Keller (University of Westerna Australia) Contemporary Indigenous artists are challenged to produce art for sale and at the same time to protect their cultural heritage. Here I investigate how Rembarrnga sculptors extend already established sculptural practices and the role innovation plays within these developments, and I analyse how Rembarrnga artists imprint their cultural and social values on sculptures made in an essentially Western medium, that of metal-casting. The metal sculptures made by Lena Yarinkura and her husband Bob Burruwal, two prolific Rembarrnga artists from north-central Arnhem Land, can be seen as an extension of their earlier sculptural work. In the development of metal sculptures, the artists shifted their artistic practice in two ways: they transformed sculptural forms from an earlier ceremonial context and from earlier functional fibre objects. Using Fred Myers?s concept of culture production, I investigate Rembarrnga ways of culture-making. 8. 'How did we do anything without it?': Indigenous art and craft micro-enterprise use and perception of new media technology.maps, colour photographs, b&w photographswest kimberley, rock art, kuninjku, photo media, lena yarinkura, bob burruwal, new media technology

Full page newspaper clipping featuring the March 1965 Victorian bushfires. Items include: Photograph - TWO-WOMAN BUCKET BRIGADE, Mrs Henry Marsden (left) and Mrs Moureen Ellis, whose fire-fighting efforts yesterday were highly praised today by their Eltham neighbours, carry out mopping-up operations Photograph - DOGS MADE HOMELESS by the fire in North Eltham yesterday are being cared for at First-Constable Doug. Mummery's kennels at Eltham and here is kennel maid Helen Oliver, 17, with some of them today. The two basset hounds are owned by Mr Bill Guy who lost about 100 daschund and basset hound puppies and dogs in the fire. Photograph - He died at Eltham [Picture of John Lawrence Coleman] Builder Mr John Lawrence Coleman, 31, of Main Rd., Eltham, one of three men burnt to death yesterday in the fire at North Eltham. The other two were XXXXX, 33 who lives opposite the Colemans and Mr William Elwers, 64 of Batman Rd., Eltham. John Lawrence Coleman (1934-1965) born January 10, was the son of Raymond John Coleman and Hanna May (Gillet) Coleman. He married Margaret Frances Dare in 1955 and was the father of two children. He died whilst attempting to rescue an older man trapped in the bushfire at North Eltham on March 3, 1965 Other news stories of the day:  Bushfires rage in Victoria, Snowy: Three dead (1965, March 4). The Canberra Times (ACT : 1926 - 1995), p. 1. Retrieved May 19, 2022, from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article131758981 Includes two photos of the fire in North Eltham “Firemen make for safety as fire rages in Upper Glen Park Road, North Eltham, Victoria. The smoke hides a house.” and “A house explodes into flames at North Eltham, Victoria. Firemen said bottled gas went up.” Canberra Times (ACT : 1926 - 1995), Thursday 4 March 1965, page 1 ________________________________________ Firemen make for safety as fire rages in Upper Glen Park Road. North Eltham. Victoria. The smoke hides a house. A house explodes into flames at North Eltham. Victoria. Firemen said bottled gas went up. Bushfires rage in Victoria, Snowy: Three dead MELBOURNE, Wednesday.—Three people died today in a bush» fire which raged through North Eltham, about 15 miles from Melbourne. The victims were three men. A fourth man is feared to be dead. Another bushfire. sparked off by the heatwave sizzling over south-eastern Australia, is burning out of control in the Kosciusko State Park, in the Snowy Mountains. Firefighters fear that if it reaches pine forests up the Yarrangobilly River, they will be powerless to stop it. The three victims of the North Eltbam fire were trapped by flames in a valley. Their bodies were found only a few yards apart. They were named by police tonight as Mr. George Crowe, 78, of North Eltham, William John Ewers, 64, and John Laurence Coleman, 31, both of Eltham. The other two have not been identified. They are believed to be a man aged about 40 and an 18-year-old youth. At least 12 homes were destroyed by the fire, the worst in Victoria since 1962, when eight lives were lost and hundreds of homes burnt down at Warrandyte. At one time the township of Eltham was threatened, but a cool change swept in from the south and held back the wall of flames. More than 100 dogs, worth about £4,000, died when the fire raced through two kennels in Short Street, Eltham. and Upper Glen Park Road, North Eltham. A trickle of water Residents ran into the streets as the blaze raced towards their houses. Others frantically dug firebreaks around their homes. Mrs. Sue Recourt wept when firemen arrived while she was vainly trying to stop the flames with a trickle of water from the garden hose. A stack of firewood was blazing, but the firemen managed to save the house and rescue four goats. Many homes in Eltham were saved after flames had crept to within feet of their fences. Students at North Eltham State School had to be evacuated when the blaze threatened the building. Fire fighters were severely hampered by lack of water and narrow roads. The blaze, which began in above century heat, turned toward Wattle Glen, where two houses were gutted. Then the flames raced towards Hurstbridge to the north. Firemen battling desperately, controlled the fire late this afternoon. Five forest fires were still burning in Victoria tonight.   IN VICTORIA THIS WEEK Tragic lack of central fire authority (1965, March 9). The Canberra Times (ACT : 1926 - 1995), p. 2. Retrieved May 19, 2022, from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article131759928 Canberra Times (ACT : 1926 - 1995), Tuesday 9 March 1965, page 2 ________________________________________ IN VICTORIA THIS WEEK Tragic lack of central fire authority From Rohan Rivett It was the worst week for Victorian fire fighters since Black Friday 27 years ago. On that day one pilot up in a spotter plane said afterwards: "It seemed at times that half the State was on fire." This time, for three days on end, Gippsland men, women and children had moments of conviction that their towns would have blackened into anonymity before the weekend was out. The week began with horror at Eltham on the North-eastern edge of Melbourne. Eltham today is something of an artists' colony. Oil painters, water colourists, potters and sculptors proliferate. A number of University folk have emulated the example of Professor MacMahon Ball who pioneered the way by moving to Eltham and carving a home out of the bush in the thirties. Innermost Eltham is barely 14 miles from the G.P.O. Farthest Eltham stretches miles beyond. It served to illustrate the tragi-ludicrous truncation of Victoria's fire control. Part of Eltham is under the protection of the Melbourne Fire Brigade. But this responsibility ceases at some invisible and incomprehensible line — apparently determined by the meanderings of the water mains. At this point everybody's property throughout the rest of Eltham is dependent on the Country Fire Authority. Half an hour before midday on Wednesday, a fire suddenly started on the West side of Upper Glen road on the edge of Eltham. Before the fire brigade could arrive, it was burning on a widening front through timber and high grass north of Eltham. Two wind changes in rapid succession saw the fire leaping Diamond Creek. With a freshening wind it struck home after home in three streets. More than one of them exploded suddenly as if hit by an incendiary bomb. There is no piped gas in the Eltham area, hence many housewives use bottle gas. The flames outside caused the bottles to explode. Altogether twelve homes were completely incinerated and four more were badly damaged. Thirty prize dogs perished. About three hours after the fire started it raced suddenly down a gully hillside trapping an elderly man. Two other men apparently raced to the rescue. Flames caught the three men within yards of each other, not 200 yards off the Upper Glen Park Road where safety lay. They were burned to death. Next evening an angry and convincing secretary of the Fire Brigade Union, Mr. W. M. Webber, came on television and appealed to the people of Victoria to end the ridiculous and dangerous dualism in fire-fighting control. The Eltham fire, he said, had precisely illustrated the situation. The Metropolitan Fire Brigade area touched Eltham, but where the fire had gutted and killed, was just outside its area. Mr. Webber said his union had constantly urged one authority for the State with a complete reorganisation of fire protection. On Wednesday the union had repeated its call for an inquiry into fire protection in Victoria to the Chief Secretary, Mr Rylah. "No matter how close the liaison between the two organisations, there are always divided sections of thinking," Mr. Webber told viewers. "I don't know how much tragedy the com-munity can take before it demands that it is properly protected." Rumours that differences in gauge between taps and hose nozzles (as between the two authorities) accentuated the damage were denied by fire chiefs who said that all appliances were now carrying adaptors so that hoses could be linked to mains everywhere. But there is grave concern in the Metropolitan Fire Brigade's higher councils at the action of several Federal authorities with projects in and around Melbourne. They are installing non-standard equipment without reference to the State authorities or any dovetailing of appliances and equipment. Public alarm was not diminished by the publication on Friday and Saturday of a heart tearing letter from the young widow of John Lawrence Coleman, 31 year old father of two, who had died in the flames apparently trying to rescue the old man trapped in the gully. By that time, a Vast area of Gippsland was in flames and the troops had been sent in to back up the overworked and often helpless fire-fighters. By Saturday, the Leader of the Opposition, Mr. Stoneham, who has previously demanded a Royal Commission into fire-fighting arrangements, repeated his demand. To add to the Chief Secretary's worries he was publicly rebuked for allegedly implying on television that lives had been lost at Eltham because people went to the wrong place at the wrong time. In a letter to the Press, Professor MacMahon Ball pointed out that two of the men involved were experienced bushmen who had gone "to help an old man in great danger fully aware of the danger to themselves". As Victoria faced its sixth day of total State-wide fire ban, it looked likely that even official resistance was not going to silence the demand for one central authority to control the fire fiend. At the moment, the 400 square miles where two million Victorians live in Greater Melbourne are divorced from the rest of the State in planning, communications, equipment and control of personnel. No one doubts the whole-hearted co-operation and willingness to back each other up of the M.F.B. and the C.F.A., both at top-level and among the firemen themselves. However, when a city straggles so deeply into the country side, the absence of a single authority, to oversee and analyse the fire threat as a whole, suggests suicidal policy of divide and fuel. Emphasis of the tragic loss of a member of a pioneering family who died whilst helping others in his communitybushfire, cfa, country fire authority, fire brigrade, glen park road, heroes, john lawrence coleman, north eltham, victorian bushfires - 1965, volunteers, william john elwers, fire fighter, frank martin, george john crowe, ken gaston, orchard avenue, doug mummery, helen oliver, mrs henry marsden, mrs moureen ellis

John Lawrence Coleman (1934-1965) born January 10, was the son of Raymond John Coleman and Hanna May (Gillet) Coleman. He married Margaret Frances Dare in 1955 and was the father of two children. He died whilst attempting to rescue an older man trapped in the bushfire at North Eltham on March 3, 1965 He died at Eltham (Herald, 4 March 1965, p3) [Picture of John Lawrence Coleman] Builder Mr John Lawrence Coleman, 31, of Main Rd., Eltham, one of three men burnt to death yesterday in the fire at North Eltham. The other two were XXXXX, 33 who lives opposite the Colemans and Mr William Elwers, 64 of Batman Rd., Eltham. * * * Frank Martin was a volunteer with the Eltham rural fire brigade at the time of the 1965 bushfires which burnt Eltham North and Research. Frank was asked to assist with the removal of three bodies from the back gully (now Orchard Avenue). They were badly burnt and one was found stuck under a fence as though trying to escape. Volunteers John Coleman Jnr, William Elwers and George Crowe were killed trying to protect Eltham from bushfire – they were local heroes. At the time, John Coleman Jnr was survived by his wife Margaret and two young children – John 11 and Vicky 2. Margaret Coleman lived in the family home until 1992 when she sold it and moved to Tasmania to be close to her son. She died in 1997 aged 65 years. 75 yr old Ken Gaston grew up on Edendale farm, which was originally a poultry farm but is now owned and run by the Shire of Nillumbik as an educational farm for schools and visitors. He was Captain of the Eltham rural fire brigade in 1965 when John Coleman Jnr was burnt to death in the Eltham North bushfires serving as an unofficial volunteer. He was able to draw where the original Wattletree Road was and at the time was verified with the location of some remaining bitumen and a post from the original bridge over the Diamond Creek located near the junction of the Diamond Creek and another small creek which is further down from Research or Christmas Creek as locals refer to it. The original Main Road ran behind Colemans before the railway line was built beyond Eltham in 1912. (Information recorded by Harry Gilham, President EDHS c.2011) * * * Bushfires rage in Victoria, Snowy: Three dead (1965, March 4). The Canberra Times (ACT : 1926 - 1995), p. 1. Retrieved May 19, 2022, from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article131758981 Includes two photos of the fire in North Eltham “Firemen make for safety as fire rages in Upper Glen Park Road, North Eltham, Victoria. The smoke hides a house.” and “A house explodes into flames at North Eltham, Victoria. Firemen said bottled gas went up.” Canberra Times (ACT : 1926 - 1995), Thursday 4 March 1965, page 1 ________________________________________ Firemen make for safety as fire rages in Upper Glen Park Road. North Eltham. Victoria. The smoke hides a house. A house explodes into flames at North Eltham. Victoria. Firemen said bottled gas went up. Bushfires rage in Victoria, Snowy: Three dead MELBOURNE, Wednesday.—Three people died today in a bush» fire which raged through North Eltham, about 15 miles from Melbourne. The victims were three men. A fourth man is feared to be dead. Another bushfire. sparked off by the heatwave sizzling over south-eastern Australia, is burning out of control in the Kosciusko State Park, in the Snowy Mountains. Firefighters fear that if it reaches pine forests up the Yarrangobilly River, they will be powerless to stop it. The three victims of the North Eltbam fire were trapped by flames in a valley. Their bodies were found only a few yards apart. They were named by police tonight as Mr. George Crowe, 78, of North Eltham, William John Ewers, 64, and John Laurence Coleman, 31, both of Eltham. The other two have not been identified. They are believed to be a man aged about 40 and an 18-year-old youth. At least 12 homes were destroyed by the fire, the worst in Victoria since 1962, when eight lives were lost and hundreds of homes burnt down at Warrandyte. At one time the township of Eltham was threatened, but a cool change swept in from the south and held back the wall of flames. More than 100 dogs, worth about £4,000, died when the fire raced through two kennels in Short Street, Eltham. and Upper Glen Park Road, North Eltham. A trickle of water Residents ran into the streets as the blaze raced towards their houses. Others frantically dug firebreaks around their homes. Mrs. Sue Recourt wept when firemen arrived while she was vainly trying to stop the flames with a trickle of water from the garden hose. A stack of firewood was blazing, but the firemen managed to save the house and rescue four goats. Many homes in Eltham were saved after flames had crept to within feet of their fences. Students at North Eltham State School had to be evacuated when the blaze threatened the building. Fire fighters were severely hampered by lack of water and narrow roads. The blaze, which began in above century heat, turned toward Wattle Glen, where two houses were gutted. Then the flames raced towards Hurstbridge to the north. Firemen battling desperately, controlled the fire late this afternoon. Five forest fires were still burning in Victoria tonight.   IN VICTORIA THIS WEEK Tragic lack of central fire authority (1965, March 9). The Canberra Times (ACT : 1926 - 1995), p. 2. Retrieved May 19, 2022, from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article131759928 Canberra Times (ACT : 1926 - 1995), Tuesday 9 March 1965, page 2 ________________________________________ IN VICTORIA THIS WEEK Tragic lack of central fire authority From Rohan Rivett It was the worst week for Victorian fire fighters since Black Friday 27 years ago. On that day one pilot up in a spotter plane said afterwards: "It seemed at times that half the State was on fire." This time, for three days on end, Gippsland men, women and children had moments of conviction that their towns would have blackened into anonymity before the weekend was out. The week began with horror at Eltham on the North-eastern edge of Melbourne. Eltham today is something of an artists' colony. Oil painters, water colourists, potters and sculptors proliferate. A number of University folk have emulated the example of Professor MacMahon Ball who pioneered the way by moving to Eltham and carving a home out of the bush in the thirties. Innermost Eltham is barely 14 miles from the G.P.O. Farthest Eltham stretches miles beyond. It served to illustrate the tragi-ludicrous truncation of Victoria's fire control. Part of Eltham is under the protection of the Melbourne Fire Brigade. But this responsibility ceases at some invisible and incomprehensible line — apparently determined by the meanderings of the water mains. At this point everybody's property throughout the rest of Eltham is dependent on the Country Fire Authority. Half an hour before midday on Wednesday, a fire suddenly started on the West side of Upper Glen road on the edge of Eltham. Before the fire brigade could arrive, it was burning on a widening front through timber and high grass north of Eltham. Two wind changes in rapid succession saw the fire leaping Diamond Creek. With a freshening wind it struck home after home in three streets. More than one of them exploded suddenly as if hit by an incendiary bomb. There is no piped gas in the Eltham area, hence many housewives use bottle gas. The flames outside caused the bottles to explode. Altogether twelve homes were completely incinerated and four more were badly damaged. Thirty prize dogs perished. About three hours after the fire started it raced suddenly down a gully hillside trapping an elderly man. Two other men apparently raced to the rescue. Flames caught the three men within yards of each other, not 200 yards off the Upper Glen Park Road where safety lay. They were burned to death. Next evening an angry and convincing secretary of the Fire Brigade Union, Mr. W. M. Webber, came on television and appealed to the people of Victoria to end the ridiculous and dangerous dualism in fire-fighting control. The Eltham fire, he said, had precisely illustrated the situation. The Metropolitan Fire Brigade area touched Eltham, but where the fire had gutted and killed, was just outside its area. Mr. Webber said his union had constantly urged one authority for the State with a complete reorganisation of fire protection. On Wednesday the union had repeated its call for an inquiry into fire protection in Victoria to the Chief Secretary, Mr Rylah. "No matter how close the liaison between the two organisations, there are always divided sections of thinking," Mr. Webber told viewers. "I don't know how much tragedy the com-munity can take before it demands that it is properly protected." Rumours that differences in gauge between taps and hose nozzles (as between the two authorities) accentuated the damage were denied by fire chiefs who said that all appliances were now carrying adaptors so that hoses could be linked to mains everywhere. But there is grave concern in the Metropolitan Fire Brigade's higher councils at the action of several Federal authorities with projects in and around Melbourne. They are installing non-standard equipment without reference to the State authorities or any dovetailing of appliances and equipment. Public alarm was not diminished by the publication on Friday and Saturday of a heart tearing letter from the young widow of John Lawrence Coleman, 31 year old father of two, who had died in the flames apparently trying to rescue the old man trapped in the gully. By that time, a Vast area of Gippsland was in flames and the troops had been sent in to back up the overworked and often helpless fire-fighters. By Saturday, the Leader of the Opposition, Mr. Stoneham, who has previously demanded a Royal Commission into fire-fighting arrangements, repeated his demand. To add to the Chief Secretary's worries he was publicly rebuked for allegedly implying on television that lives had been lost at Eltham because people went to the wrong place at the wrong time. In a letter to the Press, Professor MacMahon Ball pointed out that two of the men involved were experienced bushmen who had gone "to help an old man in great danger fully aware of the danger to themselves". As Victoria faced its sixth day of total State-wide fire ban, it looked likely that even official resistance was not going to silence the demand for one central authority to control the fire fiend. At the moment, the 400 square miles where two million Victorians live in Greater Melbourne are divorced from the rest of the State in planning, communications, equipment and control of personnel. No one doubts the whole-hearted co-operation and willingness to back each other up of the M.F.B. and the C.F.A., both at top-level and among the firemen themselves. However, when a city straggles so deeply into the country side, the absence of a single authority, to oversee and analyse the fire threat as a whole, suggests suicidal policy of divide and fuel. Emphasis of the tragic loss of a member of a pioneering family who died whilst helping others in his communitybushfire, cfa, country fire authority, fire brigrade, glen park road, heroes, john lawrence coleman, north eltham, victorian bushfires - 1965, volunteers, william john elwers, fire fighter, frank martin, george john crowe, ken gaston, orchard avenue