Working Lives Book Launch
Dave Cull, the Mayor of Dunedin, launched Erik Olssen’s new book, Working Lives c1900.
A good crowd came to the Hocken Library for the launch of Erik Olssen’s new book, Working Lives c.1900: A Photographic Essay. Erik, an Emeritus Professor of the Department of History and Art History, is a particularly engaged member of the Centre. This book came out of his research for An Accidental Utopia?: Social Mobility & the Foundations of an Egalitarian Society, 1880–1940, a book he published with Clyde Griffen and Frank Jones in 2009, also with Otago University Press.
Rachel Scott, the Otago University Press Publisher addressed the crowd to begin the formal part of the evening
Erik gave an entertaining speech to those who came to the Hocken Library to help him launch his new book.
Erik encountered a lot of photographs that he was unable to include in An Accidental Utopia, and it was on the advice of the previous Otago University Press publisher, Wendy Harrex, that he went on to produce this wonderful volume.
Erik Olssen’s Working Lives, National Radio review
Gyles Beckford reviewed Erik Olssen’s Working Lives c. 1900 a photographic essay today on National Radio’s Nine to Noon programme with Kathryn Ryan. They described this as “a great book”. Emeritus Professor Erik Olssen is a treasured member of CROCC. Click here to listen to the review. (Length 4′ 44″.)
Born of Conflict video now available on Youtube
The video documentary, Born of Conflict: Children of the Pacific War is a major outcome of a Marsden-funded project, the Mothers’ Darlings Project, led by Judy Bennett and Angela Wanhalla (History) that investigates the lives of children born of US servicemen and indigenous women of New Zealand and the Pacific during World War Two. The documentary, a shorter version of which played on Maori TV this year as part of their ANZAC Day programming, looks at three case studies from the research. It also features Judy and Angela, both members of the Centre for Research on Colonial Culture, along with Louise Mataia (graduate of Otago and researcher on the Mothers’ Darlings Project).
US servicemen and locals, Aitutaki, Cook Islands.
The video was produced by Steven Talley, Peggy Holter and Judy Bennett, with funding support from University of Otago. Click here for free viewing.
Click here for more information on the work of the Mothers’ Darlings Project.
