Saturday 11 February 2006

Some Non-Danish Cartoon News

There's really no point making further well-meaning resolutions about not bringing home more of the crap everyday folk leave behind.

This afternoon we found a couple of hundred Educational posters, from the 1950s-1970s, abandoned outside the local state primary school. Lots of maps, shitloads of Qantas and TAA ("The Friendly Way") propaganda, Science, Industry, Nations, History, Culture, Geography, Peoples, Animals, Meat, Not Getting Run Over, and more. And more. And more!





What kind of person chucks this out??? (An elephant-hater with no teeth, presumably.)

Under the fold is a small taste of the papery charms and glories that somebody thought belonged at the recycling depot.





Factory owners used to flog children and depressed old ladies in the days of WorkChoices the Industrial Revolution.



Inculcating sound Rodent-destroying principles into our young has always been one of the most joyous prerogatives of primary school teachers. (Next to teaching about Ceylon Tea, In Pictures.)




Many facets of Australian life are represented in the syllabus of yesteryear. Here is a scene representing Dr Flynn's flying Doctors, 1952.




And here is a scene depicting some meat. There are many posters about meat in this selection. I chose this one because it is a) cooked meat and b) relieved slightly with vegetables, unlike all the others.











Now you know all there is to know about eyeball science!



"The Ambulance Drivers", from a nightmarish sequence about The People Who Help Us, featuring also the men in white coats and the TB ward nursing sisters.



Or perhaps that ought to be the hydatids ward sisters. I hope you dog owners will remember not to feed your dogs raw lungs, ugh ugh ugh.

Child pedagogy of yore apparently included a strong focus on Not Getting Run Over.














Of course it was always guys driving British-Designed sports cars that you really needed to look out for. Other Brit design classics in the series included a P & O cruise ship and the seriously funky interior of a train carriage circa 1965. I can just imagine a room full of seven year olds in suburban Melbourne in the 1970s having to learn about Britain's superior industrial capabilities.




Australia's New People, 1954.


I really don't know what I'm going to do with them all. I just didn't want them to be thrown out.


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20 comments:

Lucy said...

They are awesome. There must be some kind of archive for such things.

Anonymous said...

These are stunning, they're slices of history and some are probably quite rare. If you don't want to keep them, there are collectors who will pay decent money for these. My aunt owns a retro housewares shop and you wouldn't believe how specific some collectors' tastes are.

lucy tartan said...

Very few are in good enough condition to be archive- or connoisseur-worthy. The brownish stains are from some kind of glue that was used to mount them onto firm card, plus the really big ones have one or more fold creases and most have little holes punched in the top edges.

Think I'll keep some, give away as many as possible, throw out a few really boring ones, and perhaps ebay the rest.

I'm more than happy to mail a couple out to anybody who wants them - you'll have to give me a few bucks for postage and tell me what subjects you're interested in etc. I'll update the post later when I've thought about how to do it.

Anonymous said...

Those are fantastic!

Fluffy said...

Oh god if you're giving any of these away I'll happily take (in preference order and I will keep it in an archivally sound pH neutral environment)

DESTROY RATS
HYDATIDS
AN ELEPHANT NEVER FORGETS
INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION
EYE SCIENCE

jac said...

I was thinking eBay myself ... perhaps the rats for Valentine's Day? Or maybe the hydatids would be more appropriate.
(Fun Fact: I remember creating a hydatids poster myself at school. I wish I still had it. The word "offal" was involved. (And what sort of 8 year old would feed its dog offal anyway? Or even be able to procure offal in the first place?))

Ampersand Duck said...

Me! Me! I'll buy some! I am soooo jealous of your find! If you've got multiples of the rats, I want one! Maybe I should just send you a lump sum and you make a selection for me. Add some of the boring ones that I could cut up and play with! Oh me! Me! Pick me, Miss!

Kerryn Goldsworthy said...

I was walking across the campus of Macquarie University yesterday, wondering how many students and staff per day were killed by cars and buses as there are almost no footpaths, and said cars and buses drag-race up and down the winding campus roads ... and realised that I still chant to myself "The right side is the right side" when I'm forced to walk on a road.

Those posters WORK.

Anonymous said...

OOHHH, jealous! what a great find! I'd love to take some off your hands.... particularly the factory flogging and Hurry, scurry, silly Billy's horrible demise... or any of the cartoon ones really. They're just too cool to possibly throw out.

R.H. said...

Lucky you. And you think you're so smart.
But was this stuff really thrown out, or just unattended? I'd know. Because I've been 'finding' stuff for years, and I'm usually pretty quick.

lucy tartan said...

It was mixed in with rubbish and lined up on the kerb waiting for the rubbish truck, RH.

I don't know where you get this "you think you're so smart" guff from, but I wish you'd keep it to yourself. It makes me miserable, frankly.

R.H. said...

Hey now, I'm joking. That's all.

Don't be so baby. You can make yourself whatever you please.

Look along Brunswick Street.
For a few ideas.

R.H. said...

W.C. Fields said, You can't cheat an honest man.

R.H. says, You can't amuse an honest woman.


Damn pity. I'd like to do both.

R.H.
(xoxoxoxoxo)

Anonymous said...

If you think some of these should be saved for posterity, you might want to contact the State Library of Victoria. They have a picture collection, and I imagine they might be interested if they don't already have copies - particularly if any are printed in Victoria.

din

Anonymous said...

I thought of libraries, too. After all, the National Library happily took all my 'Go-Set' magazines and Flinders University 'Empire Times' student magazines from the 60's and 70's!

I don't remember these exact posters, but the style is very familiar. I have a distinct memory of learning about how rats and flies spread disease, especailly the pictures, in a Grade 3 text book. It was some kind of 'your place and responsibilities as a good citizen' type text. Same era as the free milk in little bottles for kids at recess time.

The rats and hydatids are certainly the coolest! You could reproduce them and flog them off if the bottom falls out of academia ;)

lucy tartan said...

Heh. I think the bottom fell out of academia quite some time back. Still, as Milton puts it:

"...in the lowest deep a lower deep,
Still threat’ning to devour me, opens wide..."

R.H. said...

...on the dimmest footpath poor and even poorer,
the funny Miss Laura,
we shall laugh...


R.H.
(Gotta beat those council trucks)

Blue said...

I grew up in the country & the hyatids thing was a big deal - so was the right is right.

I love the efalent tho' :-)

Clem said...

Oh wow, I love them ALL!! I'll pay you postage and my first-born! (Well, maybe just the postage and a pic of the first-born...)

Fluffy said...

I still love these. They're framed in Isaac's room (an elephant never forgets), the lounge room (rats destroy) and the toilet (hydatids). They're still wonderful, colours vibrant, no worse for the wrinkly pasting job some equally wrinkly headmistress of the sixties performed on them. Thank you for giving me pick of the bunch Xx Fluffy