Various media from 1942 – posters, newsreels and promotional films – show the recruiting campaign for the Women’s Land Army. In interview, Tige Hunter explains why she joined up.

Scenes of wheat harvesting are accompanied by commentary full of metaphors of nation-building based on ‘harvesting the benefits of a great past’.

A close-up of a ‘modern stud’ sheep is shown to be the product of a ‘century’s breeding’.

A beautifully photographed montage of Sydney’s architecture, streets, people and modes of transport that is rapidly edited to orchestrated music. Summary by Poppy de Souza.

In this dramatised sequence, a mining family hears on the wireless that Singapore has fallen to the Japanese.

A man is ready to leave for his night shift at the munitions factory when his young daughter, Topsy, runs up to him.

A family sits around the breakfast table after son Ted has finished his night shift at the munitions factory.

After complaining to her mother (Bobbie Hunt) about not being able to borrow money to go out for a night with the girls, Grace (Dorothy Dickson) sulks in her room.

Grace (Dorothy Dickson) has received a letter from her soldier boyfriend Jim, who has been blinded while fighting overseas.

Shipbuilders work at the Whyalla shipyards for Australia’s war effort. A woman shakes out a broom over a veranda with the ship visible to the left. Men walk through the streets to or from work.