Historical information
This photograph features three display board sections showing information and photographs from 'The Harvest' exhibition inside the Burke Museum at Beechworth in 1999. The boards are titled 'To the Market' and 'Orchards'; the accompanying text cannot be read. The two accompanying photographs depict a man and woman picking fruit.
Significance
This photograph is of social significance to Burke Museum and the Beechworth community, documenting an exhibition, The Harvest, held in 1999 to communicate the importance of agricultural development, specifically of orchards, in the area. The expansion of vineyards and horticulture in the Beechworth district followed gold rush prosperity in the mid-1850s, with nearly ninety acres of gardens and small farms under vineyards by 1865. There were 400 Chinese market gardeners and hawkers in the area in 1868.
The growth of agriculture in the Ovens district in the mid -1860s led to advocacy by local farmers for the extension of railway infrastructure from Melbourne to improve access to distant markets.
Physical description
Colour rectangular photograph printed on matte AGFA photographic paper.
Inscriptions & markings
Obverse:
TO THE MARKET / ORCHARDS/
Reverse:
2856
Subjects
- beechworth,
- burke museum,
- promoting settlement,
- living in country towns,
- making regional centres,
- preserving traditions and commemorating,
- farming and agriculture,
- orchards,
- exhibitions,
- burke museum exhibitions,
- fruitpicking,
- building local economies,
- transforming land,
- victorian agricultural history,
- marketing and promoting agricultural products,
- growing fruit and vegetables,
- the harvest exhibition,
- harvests,
- vineyards,
- victorian gold rush towns
References
- Carole Woods, Beechworth: A Titan's Field, Hargreen Publishing Company, Melbourne , 1985, pp.114-16. A local history of Beechworth from the 1840s, focusing mainly on the 19th century.
