Eric W. Dunlop (1910-1974) and the Teaching of Traditional Culture in New England

Abstract

"A folk museum is concerned with the daily life and work of people in past ages. For instance, Experiment Farm Cottage at Parramatta, NSW, is intended to catch the atmosphere of a well-to-do gentleman's home in colonial days, and the Museum of Education at Armidale, NSW, recreates a classroom of the last century to show the conditions in which children were then taught." These words come from the authoritative article on Folk Museums in Australia, published posthumously as a perspective on a remarkable and by then national movement for which the writer, Eric Dunlop, could have claimed considerable personal credit. Styling such displays, usually in historic and appropriate buildings, as 'more-specialised' than usual museums, Dunlop then argued that 'more comprehensive folk museums aim at a wider overall view of lifestyle, work, hobbies and pastimes, continuing: "The display must attempt seriously to answer such questions, either by realistic recreation of period rooms and buildings or by orderly arrangement of material in sections displaying various aspects of the past."