Photographic images offer a direct testimony and understanding of the lives of European settlers in Auckland Province. Some show immigrant ships disembarking people on Princes Wharf or cargo ships in the early 20th century from the Auckland Harbour Board files; small settlements along the Kaipara Harbour and the day to day lives of early families. Photos of 19th century steam ships which connected townships on our coasts and rivers. The Bailey and Lowe albums offer an insight into the early boat building industry of Auckland.
With over 400,000 photographs in the Voyager New Zealand Maritime Museum collections we have selected photographs for digitization based on their advanced state of degradation, fragility and worth as a unique documentary record of Auckland’s maritime and social history.
Comments
Retaining these images in this way for posterity would be a great adjunct to the material Voygager New Zealand Maritime Museum already has available and accessible througfh its web site. Photos capture moments in time which collectively define a society and its culture. Keeping this history alive helps us understand the present better and may influence how the future takes shape.
Great history that will possibly be lost with time unless it is digiticised.
The continual efforts to improve the historical content of Voyager’s contribution to New Zealand/Aotearoa cultural understanding can only be enhanced by the attempts to preserve these old photgraphs by digitisation.
by teepee, Saturday 06 February, 2010 @ 1525 hours
There is no greater way to honor our NZ ancestors than to preserve their maritime history. We take great pains to record and save old buildings which represent our past, we should similarily record the maritime heritage of our forefathers here in New Zealaand.
Ray Marino
Auckland maritime history is a really important part of the history of NZ
- and also a bit of my history as well. These photographs should be available for all to see and enjoy and not just hidden away in the Museum.
A secondary argument is that the pictures will not be improving with time and digitzing will take a copy of them in their current condition – which can then be more easily preserved or even enhanced.
A visual record will assist those who are restoring old vessels with important clues about how ships were built and maintained and the role they played in shaping NZ