Glass slide: Alice in Blunderland

One of the most unusual political glass cinema slides in the collection is this vibrant work used by the Labor Party for the 1940 federal election. Alice in Blunderland was a 1907 novel by John Kendrick Bangs, which parodied Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass. Alice in Blunderland was critical of taxation, corruption and corporate greed, key ideas portrayed in this slide by the Labor Party. In this wartime advertisement, then Prime Minister Robert Menzies is depicted as the Mad Hatter wearing a hat with UAP (United Australia Party), Country Party leader Archie Cameron as the Dormouse and Billy Hughes peeping from behind the table, all looking over manufacturing plans for Bren guns and Beaufort bombers