Heritage et AL

To mark Samoan Language week, we are featuring a great Samoan resource in our heritage collections whose existence was alerted to me by a sleuth-like colleague. We have a carbon copy typescript of the Samoa guardian from 26 May 1927 to 6 June 1929. Though this transcript finishes in June it provides a particularly valuable historical record of the two years leading up to the disastrous events of Black Saturday .  Image: Reinforcement for the Administration Police At Samoa ; The Departure From Auckland Last Saturday Morning.  Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections AWNS-19280426-38-03 The Samoa guardian came into Auckland Libraries collection through a donation from the estate of the Rev. Albert Bygrave Chappell on 25 January 1951 along with some of his other papers which are now part of our Manuscripts collection. The mystery in the provenance is how this ended up in the possession of Rev. Chappell in the first place and why did he have a carbon copy ...

Today we have another New Zealand Music Month post featuring the manuscript collection of Benny Levin (1930-1994) an entrepreneur, band manager and concert promoter. This collection includes personal papers, tapes, audio-visual recordings, posters and photographs from the estate of Benny Levin. A complete inventory is available with the record on Manuscripts Online ; it has been sorted and listed thanks to a Lotteries Environment & Heritage Grant. Ref: Business card for Benny Levin/Russell Clark, Sir George Grey Special Collections, Auckland Libraries, Series 3, Box 4, NZMS 990.

By 1915 the Auckland Weekly News Supplement was becoming a sophisticated propaganda organ. Editorial policies determined what readers would see and how they would interpret photographs, in a campaign to make them accept the need to win this ‘Great War for civilisation’ against a barbaric enemy. They were led to believe this was so even if it must be fought at the great human cost shown each week in the Weekly News Roll of Honour. As casualties on the Gallipoli Peninsula began to mount, photo editors inserted reminders in the magazine showing readers just why we were fighting this war. They often did this by repeating photos and drawings about the Horrible Hun’s new and ungentlemanly ‘total war’ against civilians (especially women and children) through the evil menace of submarines lurking underwater to wreak death and destruction on the high seas. In February 1915 the Germans declared the waters around the British Isles a war zone where all Allied and neutral vessels risked being sun...

Auckland Libraries’ photograph collections contain over five hundred thousand images and are continually growing. Today we are spotlighting a 2013 accession of photographs taken by Di Stewart which have recently been digitised and made available online through our Heritage Images database. Ref: Di Stewart, Carnegie Library, Thames, 1990s?, Sir George Grey Special Collections, Auckland Libraries, 1200-37. Ref: Di Stewart, Queen of Beauty Mine pump quadrants, Thames, 1990s?, Sir George Grey Special Collections, Auckland Libraries, 1200-22.

At the beginning of February Auckland Libraries resurrected our Instagram account. It gives us in the Heritage and Research teams a great channel to show off heritage collections and exhibitions that are happening around Auckland Libraries. Some of our contributions  from the heritage collections  have been photographs, illuminated manuscripts, vintage advertising from the ephemera collection , maps and even some images of incunabula and rare books.  The most recent post featuring our heritage collections showed the second to last book to bear the Kelmscott Press imprint: Love is enough: or, The freeing of Pharamond by William Morris. The illustration below was designed by Edward Burne-Jones and engraved on wood by WH Hooper; the borders are by Morris. Ref: William Morris, Love is enough, 1897, Sir George Grey Special Collections, Auckland Libraries, PR:KELM 1897.

Local M ā ori were in charge of fishing in the early days of Auckland, but as more immigrants arrived fishermen from other countries entered the trade. They were unused to the Waitemat ā and Manukau Harbours’ estuaries and tidal flow, and from the 1860s a vessel suitable for these conditions began to evolve - the “mullety”. Ref: Fishing mullet boat off North Head, 1900s, Sir George Grey Special Collections, Auckland Libraries, 37-173.

Today is a special day to recognise and celebrate the women who raised us. Many countries around the world, including New Zealand, have adopted the Mother's Day celebration based on the North American origin of the holiday, with roots in the American civil war. Sir George Grey Special Collections, 31-68043 There are two histories associated with the origin of celebrating mothers, despite occurring several decades apart, both were in response to conditions resulting from war. The origin of Mother's day stemmed as a anti-war movement, and its reason for existence was commemorative rather than celebratory. Social activist Julia Ward Howe arranged special services and rallies for women to unite against war, in 1870 she wrote a proclamation and tried to get formal recognition for a Mother's Day of Peace. At the same time, Ann Reeves Jarvis was also involved in the women's movement attempting to improve sanitation conditions for women and lower infant mortality by f...