Digitised@SLQ "Queensland Do Without Week and Second Grand Patriotic Carnival"

The John Oxley Library has recently digitised an interesting World War I publication entitled "Queensland's Do Without Week and Second Grand Patriotic Carnival, August 26, 1916, Brisbane Celebration". This small booklet was published by the Queensland Patriotic Fund, the event being organized to raise money for returned wounded soldiers and the dependents of men at the front.

The concept of the scheme was explained in the Queensland Figaro, 8 July 1916:

"The 'do-without' week scheme has already caught on with the public, who see in it a novel means of augmenting the patriotic fund.  Briefly, this will take the form of introducing into each home a collecting box or card as soon as possible, to be collected again at the end of the 'do-without' week.  The scheme lends itself to many other means of self-denial in the shape of members of families foregoing some little luxury and putting the sum represented into a box...Dances, concerts, race meetings, matinees, sports, etc. will be held and the proceeds given to the week, the whole to finish with a great carnival."

The booklet is a fascinating combination of wartime advertising, programs for the various events held during the week, and general wartime information such as rates of war pensions and pay rates for soldiers.

The advertisements in the booklet reflect the patriotism of the day.

A photograph of the Do Without Week procession, which was held in Brisbane on the 26th August 1916, is also held in the John Oxley Library collection.

To see more the digitised version of the booklet may be viewed through our catalogue at: http://hdl.handle.net/10462/pdf/1020 or in hard copy in the John Oxley Library reading room, call no: RBJ 791 QUE.

See also this previous blog post about the first Grand Patriotic Carnival by my colleague Simon Miller.

Lynn Meyers
Original Materials Librarian