Concrete Playground

David Scott Mitchell’s bequest of his books, papers and pictures to the State Library in 1907 came with the condition that it be housed and displayed in its own wing. When it opened in 1910, it provided the first public collection of Australian and Oceanic history through original, primary sources, alongside an extraordinary selection of general maps, manuscripts and records. Its holdings have been continually expanded to encompass more local and historical treasures, and, as a venue, it’s become a part of the social history it houses.

To celebrate its centenary, the Mitchell Library’s ONE hundred exhibition has 100 of its treasures on display for 100 days, almost jumbling together objects that are significant in their specificity to time and place and revealing in their vernacular documentation of technologies, geographies and attitudes. In one room, there’s a 14th-century prayer book, an ultra-candid portrait of an upper working–class settler matriarch, a photo of a filthy Sydney butcher’s shop in 1903, car ads and a proclamation on marriage and morals from Governor Lachlan Macquarie. The collection is held together by the way its various exhibits all represent and document life and the world, with an emphasis on individual views and moments in time.