Zdenka Babic, recently crowned 'Miss New Australia', 1956

P1/2236

item

1956

Graphic Materials, Photographs

1009588

1 photographic print - gelatin silver - 23.2 x 17.85 cm

Zdenka (Johnny) I. Babicz (b. c.1945) arrived in Australia from Yugoslavia in 1949 with her family. She was naturalized in mid-1956. Each entrant to Miss New Australia was required to raise £50 for the United Nations Appeal for children, and the first prize was a world tour.
In the immediate aftermath of World War II, Ben Chifley, Prime Minister of Australia (1945-1949), established the federal Department of Immigration to administer a large-scale immigration program recommending a 1% annual increase in population. The first Minister for Immigration, Arthur Calwell promoted mass immigration and coined the term "New Australians". Some 4.2 million immigrants arrived in Australia between 1945 and 1985.

Reference: Library correspondence file

Press photograph (wire photograph) sent from San Francisco, 1956. Wet stamp to verso, ‘Reference July 9 – ’56 N.E.A.’

Out of copyright: Created before 1955
Please acknowledge:: Mitchell Library, State Library of New South Wales