An interdisciplinary seminar on items from the Library’s Special Collections, and their use. All welcome. J.C. Beaglehole Room – RB404.
The Sphere – the war issues Speaker: Pamela Gerrish Nunn, Resident Scholar, Stout Research Centre
Periodical: The Sphere (October 1914- September 1918)
Reference: AP4 .S73
When researching people who lived in another time and place, the historian can struggle to understand their way of thinking and thus the individual actions, statements and decisions that are the object of the historical project. I am at present studying various people, living in New Zealand and Britain in the early 20th century, and for me the key to understanding or, at least, imagining well such people is: what was their position on votes for women and what did they do in the ‘Great’ war? I see these as the defining issues of that time. Before television and radio, print media such as daily newspapers and weekly periodicals provide an unparallelled insight into what our subjects were thinking and feeling, what furnished their minds and what stimulated their creativity: The Sphere is an exemplary title in this respect.
The Messiah of Johnsonville: Frank T. Moore and his Armageddon and A Soldier in Khaki (1918)
Speaker: Lyman Tower Sargent, Professor Emeritus of Political Science at the University of Missouri-St. Louis and Resident Scholar, Stout Research Centre
Book: Armageddon and a Soldier in Khaki by Frank Moore. Wellington: New Zealand Times, 1918
Reference: DU401 1910-9 Box3 2
Francis (Frank) Thomas Moore was born in 1867 (no one knows when he died) and, in addition to being a successful entrepreneur and local and regional politician, a self-proclaimed messiah. Also, in 1902 he was found guilty of at least threatening to kill Sir Joseph Ward (1856-1930), when Ward was the acting Prime Minister. At one point Frank Moore was so well-known in Wellington that the New Zealand Free Lance could publish a caricature of him simply labelled “Frank”. Armageddon and A Soldier in Khaki exists in one copy held in the Beaglehole Room and is a good a summary of Moore’s thought with all of its strengths and weaknesses.
We hope you can join us.