1938 was the sesquicentenary — one hundred and fifty years since the First Fleet — and Sydney put on another official birthday: pageants, souvenirs, a city rehearsing its foundation story between the Depression and the next war. This gallery is that anniversary’s paper trail.
1938 also carried a counter-memory. While the official celebrations ran, Aboriginal activists declared a Day of Mourning on 26 January 1938 — a protest meeting and manifesto against 150 years of dispossession.
The images show 1930s commemorative design and civic theatre.
