Ms Winkworth said objects were an important window into historical women because they haven't left the kind of monuments that notable men of history left.

"We need to find other ways of recovering their stories," she said.  

Ms Winkworth used a sample created by 11-year-old Elizabeth Dick as an example of the types of objects which are shedding new insights into the the lives of historical women from the region. 

A sampler is an embroidered piece of linen with letters and numbers on it that was the key way they taught young girls how to manager domestic linen.

"There was this whole arcane story about managing linen in the home," Ms Winkworth said.

"Women were trained for these roles in the home and the family  and these objects help us to recover these stories." 

Ms Winkworth said the big story of Port Macquarie in terms of women's history is the journals and paintings of  Annabella Boswell dated from 1826 to 1901.

Annabella Boswell’s diaries this month were formally recognised, added to the UNESCO Australian Memory of the World Register. 

"They are the most wonderful portrait about life in Port Macquarie - encounters with Aboriginal people, discovering the environment, going swimming at Lake Cathie, domestic work."

"I think they are the most important diaries of the 19^th century because they give such an intimate portrait of everyday life.

"These journals are a national treasure because they go to the heart of life in this country and how we built settlements, towns and communities."

During her talk Ms Winkworth paid tribute to the work of the Port Macquarie Historical Museum.

"They went to Scotland to buy the Annabella Boswell diaries...the museum is just so entrepreneurial."