'Dust Bowls', TVAs and Snowy River Waters: John Heyer, "The Valley is Ours" and an Early Post-War 'Image of Australia' (2016)
This paper introduces the story of the 1940s debate between the Australian state of Victoria and the north-bordering state of New South Wales, over Australia's Snowy Mountains Hydro Electric Scheme. It describes the campaign imagery generated by the state of Victoria and the Murray Valley Development League (MVDL) to promote their vision for a Murray Valley TVA. The focus is on Australian documentary film-maker John Heyer and The Valley is Ours (1948). The Valley was created to support the MVDL's claims that a scheme to benefit their valley would be the best post-war scheme for both New South Wales and Victoria, and for the nation. This paper takes a transnational and cultural approach to investigating this story. This is because Heyer used nationalist US concepts to strengthen Australian national myths – the film's transnational content was set to a nationalist purpose. This paper describes the environmental imagery – not just images, but sound and text, used by Heyer and the MVDL campaign, to convey a transnational set of ideas. It retrieves a material record from the archives, of what these transnational environmental ideas actually looked and sounded like. And it sheds light on the cultural influences and political forces behind the Murray TVA campaign and the film's creation.
...MoreSimilar Citations
Book
Joseph W. Ho;
(2022)
Developing Mission: Photography, Filmmaking, and American Missionaries in Modern China
Article
Dunaway, Finis;
(January 2019)
Gallery Editor's Note
Article
Jacobson, Brian R.;
(Jabnuary 2019)
The Shadow of Progress and the Cultural Markers of the Anthropocene
Article
Tracy Schultz;
Kelly Fielding;
Fiona Newton;
(April 2018)
Images That Engage People With Sustainable Urban Water Management
Article
Allison Lazard;
Lucy Atkinson;
(February 2015)
Putting Environmental Infographics Center Stage: The Role of Visuals at the Elaboration Likelihood Model’s Critical Point of Persuasion
Article
Marc andre Matten;
(September 2018)
Coping with Invisible Threats: Nuclear Radiation and Science Dissemination in Maoist China
Article
Gay Hawkins;
Ben Dibley;
(July 2021)
Provoking Animal Realities on TV: Exploring the Affinities between STS and Screen Studies
Article
Jarita C. Holbrook;
(2018)
Astronomy Development and Filmmaking in the Karoo
Article
Margaret Cook;
(2022)
Australia's Entanglement in Global Cotton
Book
Janette-Susan Bailey;
(2016)
Dust Bowl: Depression America to World War Two Australia
Book
Iina Kohonen;
(2017)
Picturing the Cosmos: A Visual History of Early Soviet Space Endeavor
Article
Katherine Jellison;
(2018)
Get Your Farm in the Fight: Farm Masculinity in World War II
Book
Short, John Phillip;
(2012)
Magic Lantern Empire: Colonialism and Society in Germany
Article
James Owen Weatherall;
Cailin O’Connor;
Justin P. Bruner;
(2020)
How to Beat Science and Influence People: Policymakers and Propaganda in Epistemic Networks
Article
Ulrich Päßler;
(2022)
A Prusso-French Connection: The Scientific Friendship between Alexander von Humboldt and François Arago
Chapter
Meg Parsons;
(2014)
Destabilizing Narrative of the "Triumph of the White Man over the Tropics": Scientific Knowledge and the Management of Race in Queensland, 1900-1940
Chapter
Stephen Legg;
(2014)
Debating the Climatological Role of Forests in Australia, 1827-1949: A Survey of the Popular Press
Chapter
Kirsty Douglas;
(2014)
"For the Sake of a Little Grass": A Comparative History of Settler Science and Environmental Limits in South Australia and the Great Plains
Article
Bruce Tranter;
Libby Lester;
(2015)
Climate Patriots? Concern Over Climate Change and Other Environmental Issues in Australia
Chapter
Peter Holland;
Jim Williams;
(2014)
Pioneer Settlers Recognizing and Responding to the Climatic Challenges of Southern New Zealand
Be the first to comment!