Episodes
Wednesday Jun 02, 2021
Inside the Bubble
Wednesday Jun 02, 2021
Wednesday Jun 02, 2021
Inside the Bubble : Kei Roto i te Miru is a collection of human stories recorded during Covid-19 lockdown in Aotearoa New Zealand. Oral historians worked in partnership with Ngā Pātaka Kōrero Auckland Libraries and Manatu Taonga to collect, create and conserve viewpoints from around the country.
Oral historian Will Hansen interviewed his flatmate Jack Hitchcox on ‘Queerintine’; living in an all queer flat during lockdown, being a frontline health worker, making art, watching films, reading books, transitioning, coming out to family and friends and future plans.
For further information or support check out InsideOut or Rainbow Youth
Transcript of this talk:
https://nzhistory.govt.nz/files/documents/jacks-story-transcript.pdf
Wednesday Sep 11, 2019
Pūkana: moments in Māori performance
Wednesday Sep 11, 2019
Wednesday Sep 11, 2019
From Porgy and Bess to haka, to Elsdon Best and Tuini Ngāwai, Pūkana will range far and wide to give a sense of the ihi, wehi and wana, inherent to Maori performance.
Paul Diamond is lead curator for the Pūkana exhibition, and talks about the background to the exhibition which celebrates Māori performance across time. Paul (Ngāti Hauā, Te Rarawa and Ngāpuhi) was appointed as Curator, Māori at the Alexander Turnbull Library in 2011. He is an author and has also worked as an oral historian and broadcaster.
Pūkana opens on 14 September, 2019 and runs until 23 May 2020 at the National Library of New Zealand, in Wellington New Zealand.
These monthly Public History Talks are a collaboration between the National Library of New Zealand https://natlib.govt.nz/ and the Ministry for Culture and Heritage https://mch.govt.nz/.
Recorded live at the National Library of New Zealand, 4 September 2019.
Please note, due to copyright restrictions, some of the audio and video excerpts played during the presentation are not able to be republished and the presentation has been edited to reflect this.
Wednesday Apr 03, 2019
My Body, My Business
Wednesday Apr 03, 2019
Wednesday Apr 03, 2019
In this presentation, oral historian, writer and editor Caren Wilton talks about using oral history – ‘history from below’ – to document what can seem to be a secret or hidden world, and telling stories that are both extraordinary and ordinary.
Her book 'My Body, My Business: New Zealand sex workers in an era of change’ is a collection of intimate portraits of New Zealand sex workers, based on her series of oral-history interviews carried out over a nine-year period.
These monthly Public History Talks are a collaboration between the National Library of New Zealand https://natlib.govt.nz/ and the Ministry for Culture and Heritage https://mch.govt.nz/.
Recorded live at the National Library of New Zealand, 3 April 2019.
Wednesday Jun 06, 2018
‘The Dictionary of New Zealand Biography, redux’
Wednesday Jun 06, 2018
Wednesday Jun 06, 2018
The Dictionary of New Zealand Biography was originally published in five print volumes between 1990 and 2000. It comprised 3000 biographical essays about a wide range of deceased New Zealanders who had come to prominence by 1960. The Dictionary went online in 2001. In 2010 it was merged with Te Ara: the Encyclopedia of New Zealand to form the single largest reference work on New Zealand's history and society https://teara.govt.nz/en/biographies
The combined Dictionary and Te Ara website is one of the largest works of scholarship ever undertaken in this country, and is unique in the world.
Since 2000 The Dictionary has been in hiatus, with the exception of a batch of 15 biographies that were published online in 2010-11. In 2017 the Ministry for Culture and Heritage decided to resume work on the Dictionary, and to publish a new batch of biographies online every year. The new programme commences with 20 new biographies of women which will be published in September this year to celebrate the 125th anniversary of women’s suffrage.
In this presentation, senior historian Tim Shoebridge - the Dictionary’s programme manager, will speak about the challenges posed and opportunities offered by this new chapter in the Dictionary’s life.
These monthly Public History Talks are a collaboration between the National Library of New Zealand https://natlib.govt.nz/ and the Ministry for Culture and Heritage https://mch.govt.nz/
Recorded live at the National Library of New Zealand, 6 June 2018.
Wednesday May 02, 2018
Jazzy Nerves, Aching Feet, and Foxtrots: New Zealand’s Jazz Age
Wednesday May 02, 2018
Wednesday May 02, 2018
Douglas Lilburn Research Fellow, Dr Aleisha Ward explores some of the many facets of ‘jazz’ in New Zealand’s Jazz Age. The image of 1920s New Zealand is frequently one of a quiet, staid society that ‘closed at 5’. Contrary to belief however, New Zealand had a flourishing, vibrant, urban landscape and a burgeoning jazz scene.
Dr Aleisha Ward is the 2017 Douglas Lilburn Research Fellow and a recipient of a 2018 Ministry for Culture and Heritage New Zealand History Research Trust Fund award investigating the Jazz Age in New Zealand.
Aleisha is an award-winning writer, freelance editor, and lecturer in music history. She writes about jazz in New Zealand for a number of publications including audioculture.co.nz and New Zealand Musician and on her own blog NZ Jazz https://nzjazz.wordpress.com/shameless-self-promotion/
These monthly Public History Talks are a collaboration between the National Library of New Zealand and the Ministry for Culture and Heritage.
Recorded at the National Library of New Zealand, 2 May 2018.
Wednesday Apr 11, 2018
How does a city make a writer?
Wednesday Apr 11, 2018
Wednesday Apr 11, 2018
Redmer Yska is a Wellington based writer and historian, and is author to many New Zealand history works.
Redmer presents his latest work 'A Strange Beautiful Excitement, Katherine Mansfield’s Wellington, 1888-1903’, and discusses a new connection between Mansfield's family and Women's Suffrage. He tried, as he put it, to ‘catch a glimpse of her in the open air: striding through the gale, long hair flying’.
His research into Thorndon’s festering, deadly surroundings also led him to propose a new theory for the family’s 1893 move to Karori.
Public History Talks are a collaboration between the National Library of New Zealand and the Ministry for Culture and Heritage.
Recorded at the National Library of New Zealand, 7 March 2018.
Wednesday Apr 04, 2018
Māori Women, Politics and Petitions in the 19th Century
Wednesday Apr 04, 2018
Wednesday Apr 04, 2018
Dr Angela Wanhalla teaches in the Department of History and Art History at the University of Otago, Dunedin. This presentation draws upon her most recent book, He Reo Wāhine: Māori Women’s Voices from the Nineteenth Century, co-authored with Māori-language scholar and historian, Lachy Paterson.
Collective petitions have helped force significant political and social reform in New Zealand. This talk introduces women petitioners and their concerns and argues that petitions are an important body of Māori writing that can offer insight into Māori women’s experiences of the colonial era.
These monthly Public History Talks are a collaboration between the National Library of New Zealand and the Ministry for Culture and Heritage.
Recorded at the National Library of New Zealand, 4 April 2018.
Wednesday Sep 06, 2017
The Broken Decade: 1928 - 39 by Malcom McKinnon
Wednesday Sep 06, 2017
Wednesday Sep 06, 2017
In this presentation, Malcolm McKinnon considers the significance of the year 1932 in New Zealand’s history. Keith Sinclair famously described the disturbances of that year and the government’s harsh response as marking New Zealand’s nadir. But the disturbances also prompted the government to abandon its austerity policy, although this was hard to pick at the time, and a political impasse about the way forward stymied recovery
Malcolm is a Wellington historian. His study The Broken Decade: Prosperity, depression and recovery in New Zealand, 1928-39, was published by Otago University Press in 2016.
These public history talks are a collaboration between the National Library of New Zealand and the Ministry for Culture and Heritage and are recorded monthly, live at the National Library of New Zealand.
Thursday Mar 26, 2015
Thursday Mar 26, 2015
Historian Margaret Pointer discusses why 150 Niueans were accepted for service in the Māori Contingent, their experiences in Auckland, Egypt France and England and what life was lie for the men returning home.
Recorded at the Ministry for Culture and Heritage, 6 August 2014.
Monday Nov 10, 2014
Coal- the Rise and Fall of King Coal in New Zealand
Monday Nov 10, 2014
Monday Nov 10, 2014
Recorded on 5 November 2014. Historian Matthew Wright discusses his recent publication on the chequered history of coal.
Monday Nov 10, 2014
Kate Hunter and Kirstie Ross: Holding On To Home
Monday Nov 10, 2014
Monday Nov 10, 2014
Kate Hunter and Kirstie Ross discuss their recent publication Holding On To Home: New Zealand Stories and Objects of the First World War.
Recorded at the Ministry for Culture and Heritage, 1 October 2014.
Monday Nov 10, 2014
Judgments of all Kinds: Economic Policymaking in New Zealand 1945-84
Monday Nov 10, 2014
Monday Nov 10, 2014
In this recording from 2 July 2014 Jim McAloon, Associate Professor of History, Victoria University, sheds light on the perceptions, ideas, and competing interests which shaped the views and actions of ministers and officials in managing a small externally dependent economy in the decades following the Second World War.
Monday Nov 10, 2014
'Captain Kindheart’s Crusade'
Monday Nov 10, 2014
Monday Nov 10, 2014
In this talk recorded on 4 June 2014 Nancy Swarbrick discusses pet culture in New Zealand in the context of the international movement that began in the nineteenth century and still resonates today .
Wednesday Apr 09, 2014
A Tasman tale?: New Zealand's Depression and Australia, 1930-39
Wednesday Apr 09, 2014
Wednesday Apr 09, 2014
Seminar presented by Malcolm McKinnon at the Ministry for Culture and Heritage on 2 April 2014.
In this talk Malcolm McKinnon discusses ways in which a trans-Tasman frame of reference expands our understanding of the economic depression in 1930s New Zealand. Investors moved their money, workers their labour, politicians their laws and economists their advice back and forth across the Tasman.
Malcolm McKinnon is a Wellington historian who is working on a study of the 1930s depression in New Zealand. He is a former writer and theme editor for Te Ara, was the editor of the New Zealand historical atlas (1997) and has published books on New Zealand foreign relations, immigration history and economic history.
Friday Mar 07, 2014
The History of Gangs in New Zealand
Friday Mar 07, 2014
Friday Mar 07, 2014
Seminar presented by Dr Jarrod Gilbert at the Ministry for Culture and Heritage on 5 March 2014.
Rape, murder, violence and drugs: gangs are synonymous with them all. Despite having a significant presence in New Zealand since the 1950s, though, our gangs have been under-researched and remain poorly understood. One reason for this is the difficulty of doing fieldwork.
This seminar looks at the problems of researching gangs, but also the problems encountered when research findings clash with popular and official understandings.
Between 2002 and 2010 Jarrod Gilbert undertook the most comprehensive study ever done on gangs in New Zealand, and in 2013 he published Patched: The History of Gangs in New Zealand. Patched won the Peoples Choice category at the 2013 New Zealand Post Book Awards and was a finalist for best non-fiction book.
Jarrod lectures at the University of Canterbury and is the lead researcher at Independent Research Solutions. He is currently working on a book titled Murder: A New Zealand History.
Monday Nov 18, 2013
The White Ships: New Zealand's First World War Hospital Ships
Monday Nov 18, 2013
Monday Nov 18, 2013
Seminar presented by historian Gavin McLean at the Ministry for Culture and Heritage on 6 November 2013.
In 1915 the New Zealand government converted the liners Maheno and Marama into state-of-the art floating hospitals. Fitted out partly with funds raised by high profile public appeals, the ships had a busy war, eventually carrying 47,000 people. Painted distinctively in accordance with international requirements, they were the public face of our merchant marine's war, with the Maheno's crew making a direct civilian contribution to the Gallipoli campaign. Not everything went according to plan. There were tensions between the governor and ministers and shipboard disputes between army officers and mariners and between doctors and nurses. The political left also muttered about profiteering by the Union Steam Ship Company. Come along and hear the story of New Zealand's white ships.
Gavin McLean is a senior historian in the History Group of the Ministry for Culture and Heritage. He is about to start on writing a book on New Zealand's First World War at sea.
Wednesday Oct 02, 2013
The Great Strike of 1913: ‘Industrial War’ in ‘the Workers’ Paradise’
Wednesday Oct 02, 2013
Wednesday Oct 02, 2013
Seminar presented by historian Peter Clayworth at the
Ministry for Culture and Heritage on 2 October 2013.
The Great Strike of 1913 was one of the largest and most disruptive in New Zealand’s history. From October 1913 to January 1914 a strike wave swept across the country, involving about 14,000 workers, hundreds of police and thousands of special constables.
In this talk Peter Clayworth gives an overview of the strike, with a closer look at events in Wellington. He examines some of the questions the events of 1913 raise concerning the nature of New Zealand society on the eve of the Great War. Peter also briefly discusses events being organised to commemorate the strike centennial.
Peter works as a writer for Te Ara the encyclopedia of New Zealand. He has a PhD in history from the University of Otago. He is a committee member of the Labour History Project and is currently involved in organising a series of commemorative events for the centennial of the 1913 strike. He is also working on a biography of Red Fed leader Pat Hickey. Peter hails from a family of mechanics in Stoke, Nelson, and is descended from a long line of West Coasters.
Friday Sep 06, 2013
Tramping in New Zealand, a History
Friday Sep 06, 2013
Friday Sep 06, 2013
Seminar presented by historians Chris Maclean and Shaun Barnett at the Ministry for Culture and Heritage on 4 September 2013. Introduced by Jock Phillips
New Zealand offers some of finest tramping anywhere with some of the most striking scenery on the planet, arguably the best hut and track network in the world, a small population, no dangerous wild animals, poisonous snakes or toxic spiders, good access, 14 national parks, 19 forest parks, 10 conservation parks, and no entry fees. Around these attributes a uniquely New Zealand culture of tramping has developed, reflecting broader national characteristics. In this presentation we will talk about the history of tramping in New Zealand, and also about the process of researching and writing a book on the subject.
Shaun Barnett began tramping as a teenager in Hawke's Bay during the 1980s and has since tramped extensively around New Zealand and also overseas. In 1996, he became a full-time outdoors writer and photographer. He edited Wilderness magazine for three years, has authored several tramping guidebooks, and served on the Federated Mountain Clubs executive for nearly 10 years. Shaun's most recent book, Shelter from the Storm, The Story of New Zealand's Backcountry Huts, co-authored with Rob Brown and Geoff Spearpoint, is a finalist at this year's NZ Post Book Awards.
Chris Maclean graduated from Victoria University with a B.A. in History, and has since made a career out of writing historical books. His book Tararua, highlighted the history of a previously underrated mountain range, while his subsequent book Kapiti won a Montana Book Award in 2000. A keen tramper and sea kayaker, Chris has wide experience of the New Zealand outdoors, and his most recent book Stag Spooner, Wild Man from the Bush, is also a finalist at this year's NZ Post Book Awards.
Friday Aug 23, 2013
The Red Cross Lens on New Zealand Social History
Friday Aug 23, 2013
Friday Aug 23, 2013
Seminar presented by historian Margaret Tennant at the Ministry for Culture and Heritage on 3 July 2013.
While writing an institutional history requires attention to the framework of the organisation itself, its membership, leadership and changes over time, it invariably provides a lens into broader historical themes and how they are played out within particular local and national frameworks. In the case of the New Zealand Red Cross, we have the example of a transnational organisation which, in New Zealand, emerged within an imperial framework, but operated in minutely local contexts - it links with the history of high diplomacy and nation states, but equally embraces the iconographic wartime sock knitter, the home nursing class, neighbourly social caring and school-room pen pals.
The wide range of activities undertaken by the Red Cross during its history sheds light on such areas as disaster relief, children's voluntarism, the militarisation of charity, the business of fundraising, the policing of professional boundaries and the relationship between government and non-profit formations. Margaret's presentation will explore some of these themes while commenting on the tension between the requirements of a conventional, largely chronological institutional history and the desire to 'dig deeper' in pursuit of wider historical questions.
Margaret Tennant was formerly Professor of History at Massey University, and is currently working as a contract historian. Margaret is the author of The Fabric of Welfare. Voluntary Organisations, Government and Welfare in New Zealand 1840-2005, Children's Health, the Nation's Wealth, and numerous articles on women's history and the history of health and welfare in New Zealand, the most recent being 'Fun and Fundraising: the Selling of Charity in New Zealand's Past' (Social History, 2013).
Wednesday Jul 10, 2013
Writing fiction as a non-fiction writer
Wednesday Jul 10, 2013
Wednesday Jul 10, 2013
Seminar presented at the Ministry for Culture and Heritage on 3 July 2013
Coast is a novel from David Young after some decades as a writer of non-fiction, particularly in the field of history and environment.
Exploring the effects of two world wars on three generations of men from the same family, Coast is also a meditation on the power of landscape. The east coast of Kincardineshire, Scotland and the North Island’s Rangitikei coastline where a Scots community endures even today, anchor this story in psychological, as well as physical, reality. Told from the standpoints of the three related key characters, the narrative unfolds a male social history spanning much of the twentieth century. It embraces issues of identity, belonging and connection to place. Kin and romantic love, matters of class, the Depression, active service abroad – first on the Western Front, then through the air war in the Pacific – and of family life, reach out beyond Pakeha concerns to the circularity of history and the tangata whenua.
The question of how much the writer brings to his fiction from his previous historical endeavours and from his own life is explored in this talk. The author’s history of conservation in New Zealand, Our Islands Our Selves, his Whanganui River book, Woven by Water, and even his first book, Faces of the River, played a part in the genesis of this work. So too did oral and documentary historical research.