New Zealand History in Photographs - Speech to the Launch of Living in the Twentieth Century

Hon Judith Tizard MP
Associate Minister for Arts, Culture and Heritage
MP Auckland Central

Thursday
16th November 2000

Launch of "Living in the Twentieth Century: New Zealand History in Photographs,
1900-1980"

Archives House,
Wellington

Co-hosts Lyn Provost of Archives New Zealand and Martin Matthews, Ministry for Culture and Heritage, Ladies and Gentlemen.

It is a pleasure to be here this evening as Associate Minister for Arts, Culture and Heritage to launch the book Living in the Twentieth Century: New Zealand History in Photographs, 1900 - 1980, and to open the exhibition of the same name based on the book. My colleague, the Hon. Marian Hobbs, Minister Responsible for Archives New Zealand is unable to be here tonight and sends her apologies.

This Government wants to foster a greater awareness among New Zealanders of the history and heritage of our nation. Agencies such as the Ministry for Culture and Heritage, and Archives New Zealand play a key role in enhancing people's understanding of our past. The books produced by the History Group of the Ministry of Culture and Heritage help to make this country's history accessible. For material they draw considerably upon the holdings of Archives New Zealand. All the photographs for this exhibition, for instance, have been drawn from the Archives New Zealand holdings.

I am very aware of the productivity of the History Group since it joined the Ministry for Culture and Heritage in July this year. Three other books have already been published, including the Oxford Companion to New Zealand Military History, and only last week, the English and Maori versions of the 5th volume of The Dictionary of New Zealand Biography. I understand that there is still another book to come this year.

2000 is a year of achievement for the History Group, and I acknowledge the hard work and skill of Jock Phillips and Martin Matthews in producing high quality history.

Archives New Zealand, now a department in its own right, faces important challenges in not only of preserving the records of yesterday but also of tomorrow. Above all, this means ensuring that the words and images of today - which are increasingly being digitised - survive. The Minister, I know, is anxious to have new archives legislation passed, and just a short while ago I was here on her behalf to launch a prototype of the ELMS system for providing electronic finding aids throughout the Archives, currently undergoing acceptance testing.

Living in the Twentieth Century has combined the talents and resources of the Ministry for Culture and Heritage and Archives New Zealand.

New Zealanders will find Living in the Twentieth Century, the book and this exhibition compelling, I am sure. So many of the photographs are being published for the first time and offer new and insightful views of our past. Many of the photos offer cause for reflection, for instance, by depicting the pioneering role of the state in New Zealand life.

Living in the Twentieth Century gives a photographic history of everyday life. The chapters in the book explore some of the fundamental, and taken-for-granted, things in our lives. We see the different types of work New Zealanders have performed over the century, and their recreational and leisure pursuits. We can look at the different ways they have got from one place to another, the types of houses they have lived in, the clothes they wore, and the food they ate. We see New Zealanders coming together in public celebration and public mourning, fighting in the trenches on the other side of the world in the First World War, and fighting each other during protests over the 1981 Springbok rugby tour. Town and country, women and men, Maori and Pakeha, young and old are all to be found in the photographs in this book.

This is a history of the everyday things we remember, and much that we have forgotten. There is a delightful sequence of photographs on changing styles of hair and whiskers, which is also reproduced in the exhibition. Here are some long forgotten hair treatments and styles: women in the 1910s crimping their long hair with hot tongs or wrapping it tightly in rags to make it frizzy; or the elaborate beehive style of the 1960s, which took a great deal of back-combing and hairspray to obtain. The photographs show the evolution of the smooth-faced look for men: bushy beards were falling out of favour by the beginning of the twentieth century, and did not come back into fashion for another 60 years. But short hair seems to have been a favourite style for men, with the exception of those notable fashions of the 1970s: the Afro, and the long-haired hippie, unisex look.

For some memories come flooding back, for others, curiosity abounds.

Other things have changed little over the century. Some of my other ministerial responsibilities are for matters to do with transport and Auckland, so I was interested to see that Auckland's traffic problems have been with us for a long time. Parking was a problem in Auckland as early as the 1920s, and an absence of road rules didn't help; one photograph shows empty cars parked on the road outside the Shortland St post office while drivers nipped into the building. Perhaps not surprisingly, the country's first multi-storey parking building opened in Auckland in 1955, accommodating 500 cars on six levels.

There is much, much more to keep us occupied and absorbed. This book, and its exhibition, is an exciting and interesting view of our past. My congratulations to all involved in its production: the author Bronwyn Dalley, the History Group of the Ministry for Culture and Heritage, Archives New Zealand, and the book's publishers Bridget Williams Books and Craig Potton Publishing. It is my pleasure to officially launch Living in the Twentieth Century, and to declare the exhibition open.