Heritage et AL

For the past few months, the heritage floor, on the second floor of the Central City Library, has hosted a display titled Our Girls -- a tribute to the role of women in the First World War. The content covers the following topics: prohibition and making-do, cartoon depictions of women, the anti-militarists, the fundraising effort, working girls, nurses abroad, and the absence of men. It has been an interesting exercise to find images to cover such a variety of topics. Women were not always portrayed favourably, especially in the political cartoons of the day. Publications like Freelance and Truth condemned the ‘wowser’ prohibitionists as out to spoil a boy’s fun (men did not escape the condemnation, either) or they depicted women as vain and ignorant.  Ref: Cartoon from the New Zealand Freelance , 6 March 1915, p.11.  The caption for the cartoon above reads:  Shopman: “Yes, Miss, all face powders have gone up in price on account of the war.” Y...

It was an appropriately dark and stormy night in Auckland for the opening of ' It’ll be over by Christmas ' - an exhibition about the First World War (1914-1918) at the Central City Library (9th July-12 October 2014). The guests crowded in to the exhibition ahead of the formalities and made their way back there afterwards. Ref: Paul Nash, ‘The field of Passchendaele’, from the British artist at the Front, ‘Country Life’, 1918 Bobby Newson from Te Waka Angamua (the Māori Strategy and Relations Department within council) opened the evening with a karakia/prayer and set the scene back 100 years ago. Allison Dobbie, Libraries Manager welcomed the guests and introduced the mayor. Mayor Len Brown discussed the many and varied commemorative activities Auckland Council is delivering. This includes the new Heritage Trail for Auckland sites of First World War significance, which opens in August this year.

As part of the build up to the First World War centenary commemorations within NZ and around the world, Auckland Libraries, Auckland Council Heritage Unit and Auckland Council Archives have developed an A5 research guide. 'Our boys, our families' outlines the First World War resources available at Auckland Libraries and Auckland Council Archives . This includes: Rolls of Honour, cemetery records, memorials, books and photographs from the Schmidt Collection and supplement to the Auckland Weekly News. Ref: 7-A14534, a family receiving the result of the ballot for Class B reservists under the NZ Military Service Act, 1918, Sir George Grey Special Collections The research guide is intended to assist you with your own research into family members or people who took part in the war. This could be a soldier on the front line, a nurse on a hospital ship or a person on the home front including conscientious objectors. There are a selection of handy research prompts tucked into t...