Myths and the city : a social and cultural history of Auckland, 1890-1990

Abstract

Auckland is New Zealand’s most diverse and lively centre, yet despite the city’s burgeoning population there is a dearth of analytical, academic accounts of its recent past. Urban history has not been a major focus of New Zealand historians. In the pursuit of issues of national identity, the historiography is dominated by idealised images of a pastoral arcadia and ambivalent descriptions of the growth of towns and cities. Auckland’s twentieth century historiography is particularly undeveloped. Furthermore Auckland is touched on only lightly in general histories of New Zealand. This thesis explores a century of the city’s social and cultural history, contributing to a wider understanding of how Auckland’s development might shape different questions about national identity from those that have conventionally engaged New Zealand’s historical community. Auckland is both a place and a set of ideas about ‘Auckland’. Because ‘Auckland’ is often a contentious subject in the rest of New Zealand, this thesis examines its history through a series of myths about the city. Its eight chapters are each framed by a myth about Auckland’s character, sourced from a variety of New Zealand writings, and each focuses on a key event. This organising device reflects Auckland’s many faceted, constantly fracturing and re-grouping mix of people and priorities. Questions about Auckland’s reputed exceptionalism are addressed and the various expressions of the city’s primacy analysed in chapters about the Auckland Exhibition of l898-1899, the opening of the Auckland Town Hall in 1911, the arrival of Pan-American Airway’s Pacific survey flight in 1937, the unveiling of the obelisk on Maungakiekie in 1948, the opening of the harbour bridge in 1959, the establishment of the Pacific Islanders’ Congregational Church in 1962, the Bastion Point protests ofl977-8, and the hosting of the Commonwealth Games in 1990. As a way of exploring the meaning of Auckland, this dual structure of myth and seminal event affords an alternative to the narrative histories of municipal growth favoured by conventional local histories. By examining these occasions and the ideas that cluster round them this thesis poses important questions about the nature of New Zealand society and culture.