When a new year dawns, most outdated calendars are destined for the recycling bin but not at Hocken Collections. Dating from 1894 to the current year, the ephemera collection holds more than 1800 calendars once fit for the wall, pocket, desk, or fridge but now serving as an important source of historic cultural information.
A large portion of the collection is made up of New Zealand tourism calendars. An eternally popular gift for overseas family and friends, they showcase idealistic images of holiday destinations and are a rich resource for researchers interested in landscape changes or the enduring popularity of specific locations, such as Queenstown, Milford Sound and Rotorua.
There are calendars produced by a wide range of businesses including supermarkets, printers, banks, transport companies, hotels, service stations, cigarette companies, radio stations and many more. A valuable source of information for those studying marketing techniques, calendars can be used to track changes in names, logos, advertising and staff.
For many organisations, calendars are successful fundraisers as well as a means of highlighting their causes and activities. The collection includes examples for schools, playcentres, churches, sporting clubs and charities.
Representation from the Salvation Army is particularly strong, representing an almost complete run of calendars from 1975-2024. Some protest movement examples include opposition to the building of the Clutha Dam, the Aramoana smelter project and the 1981 Springbok Tour, when sales from calendars produced by the Hart (Halt All Racist Tours) Legal Fund and M.O.S.T. (Mobilisation to Stop the Tour) were intended to pay for protesters’ court costs.
Calendars can be helpful when researching publishing or printing companies, artists, photographers and designers. Significant artists represented in the collection include Colin McCahon, Peter McIntyre, Frances Hodgkins and Shona McFarlane.
The distinctive work of engraver Ernest Mervyn Taylor features in calendars pertaining to Māori life and mythology from the 1950s to the 1970s.
Although the standard layout of calendars generally varies from the display of a whole year down to one month to a page, they vary widely in size.
Pocket calendars have been an enduring format, being easy to slip into the purse or wallet, but have been replaced by digital versions on cellphones; supported by the fact our most recent pocket calendar is dated 2012.
Given that many calendars are displayed on kitchen walls, it should not be surprising that recipe calendars feature highly in the collection, either issued by the food industry or produced as part of fundraising projects. The 1969 Lions Recipe Calendar helpfully provides tasty recipes for every day of the year including cheese bananas, anchovy dip, Brussels sprouts cream soup and pineapple salmon loaf.
Hobby and enthusiast groups also produce calendars for the enjoyment of their members and any description of the collection cannot end without mentioning the numerous examples depicting all forms of rail transport produced by the Railway Enthusiasts’ Society, the New Zealand Railway & Locomotive Society and Glenbrook Vintage Railway.
Sarah Hibbs is collections assistant at Hocken Collections.
The calendars
The calendar collection is listed on the Hocken Collections catalogue Hākena https://hakena.otago.ac.nz/ (reference code Eph-Gp-0139) and material can be viewed in the reading room Tuesdays to Saturdays, 10am-5pm.
