Great White Fleet Arrives At Melbourne Museum
Great White Fleet – US sea power on parade 1908, an exhibit celebrating the centenary of America’s Great White Fleet visit to Australia, will be on display at Melbourne Museum from 20 August to 29 October 2008.
The exhibit features a series of early 3D images showing the excitement surrounding the American Great White Fleet visit to Australia in 1908. The 3D images, taken with an early stereoscopic camera, show the American battleships proceeding in formation, US sailors parading down Australian streets and general celebrations.
US President Teddy Roosevelt sent the Great White Fleet – 16 battleships and their escort vessels, all in their peacetime white livery – on a 15-month tour around the world to demonstrate American naval capability. To celebrate this, public holidays were declared and enthusiastic crowds flocked to see the ships and the Americans on parade.
In Australia, more than a million people – a quarter of the nation’s population – turned out the see the fleet in the ports of Melbourne, Sydney and Albany.
“The visit had a significant impact on Australian society, politics and defence. The Australian public’s enthusiastic response to the Great White Fleet was a popular surge for an independent Australian navy, and this eventuated with King George V granting it the title Royal Australian Navy in 1911,” explained exhibition curator Paul Hundley from the Australian National Maritime Museum.
Stereoscope photos, with their slightly different side-by-side images, were originally viewed through binoculars that brought the images together, giving an impression of 3D depth. In the Great White Fleet exhibit, the images will be shown together on a screen and viewed through polarising lens to get the full 3D effect.
In addition to the 3D images, the travelling exhibit includes filmed interviews on the fleet’s Australian visit as well as a comprehensive collection of postcards and illustrations of all 16 battleships and various souvenirs.
An Australian National Maritime Museum Travelling Exhibition
Great White Fleet – US sea power on parade 1908
Melbourne Museum
20 August – 29 October 2008
Included in general museum entry. Adults $6, children and concession card holders free of charge
For further information visit www.museumvictoria.com.au
