Early Victorian Retailers

People watching a May Day March outside the Myer Emporium, Melbourne. C.1955
People watching a May Day March outside the Myer Emporium, Melbourne. C.1955, Communist Party of Australia, Victorian State Committee, 1991.0152.00174

By the late nineteenth century Melbourne was a mercantile city with a plethora of the new department stores, many of which survived into the mid twentieth century. UMA holds large collections of archival records from some of the major early Melbourne retailers. These collections contain board minutes, correspondence, financial records, staff records, photographs and sometimes catalogues, providing a unique documentary record of how the increasing material needs of the new colony were met.