This carbon copy of a letter from Arthur Calwell is undated, but the Perth address of the Department of Immigration must have been typed over on the original, so possibly it was given to each new arrival during their Fremantle and Perth stopover.
Photocopiers were not available yet, so each individual letter probably was produced by mimeography, involving a waxed stencil on a drum rotated by hand or an electric motor. You probably called it a duplicator or a Roneo, maybe even a Gestetner, rather than a mimeograph -- I certainly never heard that world while they were still in use.
So here is Arthur Calwell's letter of welcome to the "New Australians" arriving on the USAT General Stuart Heintzelman (which did not think of herself as a "SS"). It's been mentioned in at least one of our recent posts.
 |
| (Double-click on the image to open a larger version) |
SOURCE:
National Archives of Australia: Department of Immigration, Western Australian Branch; PP482/1, Correspondence files [nominal rolls], single number series, 1926-52; 82, GENERAL HEINTZELMAN - arrived Fremantle 28 November 1947 - nominal rolls [sic] of passengers, 1947-52 https://recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=439196 accessed 12 February 2025.
