History Week Speaker Series: Emily Gallagher in conversation with Vanessa Berry

The history of childhood in Australia is discussed by Historian Emily Gallagher and author Vanessa Berry.

Historian Emily Gallagher meets with Vanessa Berry to discuss Gallagher’s work Playtime, a historical look at Australia between 1890 and the Second World War and how children interpreted and reflected the world around them.

This book has been shortlisted in the ACT Literary Awards and received a Canberra Critics’ Circle Award for Non-Fiction and received the highly commended award for the 2026 Australian History Prize.

From amateur journalism to dolls, monsters and fairies, this history examines Australia through the eyes of children. Items by both authors and other titles related to this subject can be found here.

ABOUT THE SPEAKERS:

DR EMILY GALLAGHER is a historian at the Australian National University. She began her career as a teacher in Sydney before deciding to pursue her passion for history and writing in Canberra. Her first book Playtime: A History of Australian Childhood (La Trobe, 2025) was shortlisted in the ACT Literary Awards and received a Canberra Critics’ Circle Award for Non-Fiction. Emily is also a research editor for the Australian Dictionary of Biography and a research fellow on an ARC-funded project writing the first history of grandparenting in Australia.

VANESSA BERRY is an award-winning writer and artist who works with autobiography, history, memory and archives. Her work centres around autobiography and its formal and experimental possibilities, arising from her background in zine making and DIY literary practices. She is the author of Calendar, Gentle and Fierce, and authors the blog Mirror Sydney.