'Fittingly displayed': the acquisition and the exhibition of photographs of New Zealand's Great War medal recipients at the Dominion Museum

Abstract

In 1917, the director of the Dominion Museum in Wellington, New Zealand sent his first form letter to the next-of-kin of New Zealanders awarded medals during the Great War. The director wrote to families, asking them for photographs of their decorated kin, and any other artefacts, ‘in readiness for the time when they can be fittingly displayed’. The outcome of this effort was 71 photographic display boards, now held at Archives New Zealand along with the correspondence associated with the acquisition, reproduction, and display of the photographs.