Why? …and because explores how Whitcombe & Tombs shaped the ways Australian children encountered, understood and imagined the country through educational publishing between 1902 and 1971. The exhibition title is taken from a 1959 nature study textbook written by Aurella A. Windross for Whitcombe & Tombs. Its simple question-and-answer structure provides a starting point for thinking about the relationship between children, education and the books through which they came to understand the world around them.

Children make sense of the world by asking “why?”, while educational books offer their own “because”, introducing ideas about nature, history, society and nation. Yet these answers were never neutral or automatic. Before a publication reached the classroom, it passed through a complex process involving publishers, education departments, authors, editors, illustrators, printers and booksellers. Decisions were made about what information to include, how subjects should be explained, what images should accompany the text, and how books could be adapted for different schools and curricula. Together, these choices shaped not only what children learned, but also how Australia’s environment, people, culture and everyday life were represented to them.

Through historical publications, manuscripts, illustrations, proofs and other archival material, the exhibition brings these processes into view. Rather than presenting textbooks only as finished objects, it looks more closely at how they were developed, changed, produced and circulated, while also introducing audiences to the many people involved in creating the books that eventually reached Australian classrooms.

Four connected questions guide the exhibition: Who decided what children should see? How was Australia represented to young readers? Who created the images and content? How were books produced and distributed before reaching the classroom? Together, these questions invite audiences to reconsider the familiar schoolbook as something shaped by many choices, collaborations and changing ideas about education.