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Erik Newland Olssen (born 1941) ONZM FRSNZ is a New Zealand historian whose research focuses on the linkages between social structures, politics, and the world of ideas at four spatial domains – the local, provincial, national and global. In the first third of his academic career, most of Olssen’s research examined labour history, especially the working-class mobilisation in New Zealand from 1880 to 1940. He has published several articles and monographs, including a biography of John A. Lee, a social history of New Zealand from 1880-1940, a study of revolutionary industrial unionism and the wave of unrest in the years before World War I and a history of Otago, a province of New Zealand. Olssen's books and articles on the lives of controversial figures in the early history of New Zealand take the approach of identifying their achievements while acknowledging these were set in the historical and cultural contexts of their time. An interest in the industrial and political mobilisations of sections of the working class led Olssen, between 1974 and 1976, to plan a comparative study of occupational and geographical social mobility in his home suburb of Caversham, regarded as one of the most industrialised areas of New Zealand at that time. Olssen holds many positions of distinction, has won literary awards and in 2002 received The Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit (O.N.Z.M.) . Olssen had a range of academic positions in the Department of History at the University of Otago from 1969 until his retirement in 2002, from when he has been Emeritus Professor at the same university.

Education and career

Olssen was educated at Kings High School in Dunedin, New Zealand from 1955 to 1960. In his induction into the school's Hall of Fame in 2021, he is noted as representing the school in several sports, being a prefect and having performed in school productions H.M.S Pinafore and The Pirates of Penzance. In 1964 Olssen graduated from Otago University with a BA and in 1965 with a MA (1st Class Honours), both in History and Political Science. His thesis John Alexander Lee: the stormy petrel: his ideas, their inspiration and influence and his attempts to translate his ideas into legislation, was completed in 1965. After five years at Duke University, he completed a doctorate, a study of Dissent from Normalcy: Congressional Progressivism, 1918-25 and was awarded his PhD in 1970. While at Duke he also took several papers in sociology and spent a period in 1967 at a summer school at Cornell, funded by the American Mathematical Association to study the relevance of mathematics and statistics to various historical issues.

At the University of Otago, Olssen was a Lecturer in History between 1969 and 1978, an Associate-Professor from 1978 to 1983 and Personal Chair, 1984-2002. He was Head of History, 1998-93 and 2000-2002 and as of 2023 Olssen is Emeritus Professor following his retirement in 2002.

Development and impact as a social historian

Olssen was raised in a Labour socialist family. He acknowledged the influence of his father, who as a historian and a socialist, valued scholarship and never allowed personal politics to intrude into his work as a lecturer. Olssen said that this instilled a respect in evidence-based scholarship which valued truth and shaped and moderated how he developed a personal position on the origins of capitalism. Reflecting on his involvement in Labour politics in the 1970s and 1980s, Olssen recalled he had joined the party because he felt socialism offered a way toward justice and equality in New Zealand. At the time he identified that "finding the social roots to Labour's rise was the scholarly wing of [his] political engagement", and becoming involved in the working class Caversham branch of the Labour Party, allowed him to study "class formation and political mobilisation from within a working class community."

Olssen agreed with an interviewer that he chose John A. Lee as the subject of his thesis partly because, he [Lee] was a working-class intellectual, and while it was not initially an exploration of socialism in New Zealand, his work did show that there was no "obvious historiography" of socialism in the country at the time. Working in the USA introduced Olssen to different ways of exploring history. He studied how that country had become less progressively labour-left but still had some strong unions and social classes. Olssen said he found that time both confusing and liberating, noting: "Where my simple-minded Marxist inheritance posed a simple binary - workers versus the bourgeoise - as as the key to modern history, here we had a scholarly tradition that treated this opposition as reductionist or just irrelevant." At Cornell in 1967 Olssen studied the 'new' social history through the lens of "economics, statistics, game theory, [and] sociology", and has credited this time as being influential in his development as a social historian [able to] "write the history of ordinary people rather than political elites, and analyse structure as well as events." Olssen also explained that as a researcher, he felt the most effective way to study the lives of ordinary people within the context of a larger social movement, was to examine the "engagement between ideas and ordinary lives" in local, networked places. On his return to New Zealand much of his research was an exploration of the development of social structures in New Zealand from the early nineteenth century until 1940, specifically examining how "the relationships between politics, society, ideas, culture, and economics affects the lives of individuals and their societies." This focus on social history that explored class and social relationships, was said by historian Jock Phillips to be an area pioneered by Olssen.

Towards a History of the European Family in New Zealand co-authored by Olssen in 1978, was seen by two New Zealand historians Bronwyn Labrum and Bronwyn Dalley as being influential in shifting the historiography of New Zealand toward more of a "social historical approach" effectively "introducing social history" into the country. In acknowledging that comment, Olssen explained that the article had resulted from him coming into contact with feminism because research by his co-author Andree Levesque into women's history had uncovered much that was unrecognised. He said it was timely to draw on work he had done in the U.S. to write about the impact of the family historically in New Zealand. In 1978, when Olssen wrote an essay in The Gendered Kiwi , one writer stated that it indicated a shift in position toward recognising the need for further research into the family as a primary site where gender is constructed. If masculinity and femininity are understood as relational constructs, then this allows for the family to be analysed as a system of gender relations rather than separate experiences of different sexes.

According to Tony Ballantyne and Brian Moloughney from the University of Otago, Olssen's work significantly shaped understandings of "New Zealand's political traditions, intellectual culture and social formations". His identification of class as an important category of analysis initiated the tradition of social history and his "methodological innovation...[impacted]...the historiographical terrain."

Key areas of research

Early provincial history of Otago 1800-1920

In his study of Otago, a New Zealand province, Olssen explored the relationships between Māori and colonists from Britain that, during the early nineteenth century, resulted in a culturally-respectful regional settlement. Within the same region, Olssen's research identified as significant the later organisation of labour in developing workers' agency during a time of change when the society moved away from the pre-industrial structure of England into urban industrialised towns, regions and a wider society. He analysed the years from the 1880s to the 1920s in New Zealand when the country was held up as a social laboratory based on egalitarian ideas and how workers created a distinctive class-based politics to establish and protect their equality. According to Olssen, at the time, Otago had distinctive historical and geographical features that influenced patterns nationally in New Zealand. One writer said that this approach taken by Olssen in the research enabled a "regional gaze" to counter the concept, held by some historians, that the nation state has primacy in consideration of the past, when actually regions have "distinct histories and these need to be grappled with."

Olssen's work on this project traced how, during the early years of the colonisation of New Zealand, interractions between immigrants and the local Māori developed a provincial identity. Sealers from Australia and by 1840, whalers, were established in the area and while there are records of some rough, anti-social behaviour, both groups earned enough respect from local Māori to cooperate and build mutually beneficial relationships. Olssen therefore concluded that the occupation by settlers from Britain was relatively peaceful with intermarriage between whalers and sealers and the local iwi, Ngāi Tahu [resulting in]..."the beginning of Pākehā society."

Ngāi Tahu later engaged with settlers during threats from a northern chief Te Rauparaha and an onset of measles and influenza in 1835. Financiers in Sydney with investments in the area supported providing military aid to Ngāi Tahu, some weapons were purchased, and the whalers provided support to Māori affected by the epidemic. Olssen's interpretation is that key local Māori chiefs had accepted Pākehā as adding protection to the tribe and saw the value of embracing Christianity. One chief, Tūhawaiki, is said to have come to terms with the 'new world', encouraging the development of skills that would be mutually beneficial to both Māori and Pākehā and result in the "peaceful integration of these two worlds on terms acceptable to Māori."

Olssen's research has often pivoted around interpreting the degree to which settlers were attached to the values of pre-industrial Britain and how this shaped expectations for their life in the 'new world' of a recently colonised New Zealand. The role of the New Zealand Company is identified as having a significant effect on this process, with Edward Gibbon Wakefield looking to [transplant] "the social order of pre-industrial England into the wilderness where everybody would live in planned towns, farming the surrounding land". Although the price of land was set too high to support good returns for capitalists, "labourers and tradesmen...would be attracted by the promise of steady employment and the ultimate prospect of a farm of their own." The New Zealand Company gave approval for the plan to bring Scottish Presbyterians into Otago. But this began a series of theological disruptions and disagreements about how to how to "impose godly order" within the new society and the debates indicate the extent that the province was dealing with establishing the "moral and social climate of Otago." This resulted in the formation of the Lay Association which actively recruited immigrants with carpentry, bricklaying and shoemaking and weaving skills and "farmers' sons, small shopkeepers and self-employed tradesmen." William Cargill who played a key role in facilitating this immigration, held a strong belief that the settlement was a 'godly experiment", foreshadowing, according to Olssen, the concept of the colony as a social laboratory. While most immigrants to the province were said to have been impressed by the environment around Dunedin, the reality was that the city did not have the infrastructure to sustain high numbers of working people and there was some protest by workers against these conditions, low wages and the high cost of rentals. A painter recently arrived from England, Samuel Shaw, took up the cause of the workers and after convening a public meeting and a petition to William Fox, eight hours was resolved as an acceptable workday.

Olssen said that artisans and labourers who arrived in Otago as immigrants would have expected to leave class differences in Britain, but by the 1880s industrial disputes across the country were creating a common identity for workers. The unskilled were previously not organised and when they had grievances with employers, these were usually settled informally. Skilled workers however, were seen by Olssen has having had more autonomy and security within the community which meant they dominated the towns in Otago during the 1860s and 1870s. By the 1980s Dunedin was becoming an industrial, urbanised community, and in line with what was happening elsewhere in New Zealand, both skilled and unskilled workers were forming unions and the town had a Trades and Labour Council which was active in advocating for improved working conditions. In 1887 Samuel Lister a settler from Scotland who was a printer and engraver, established the Otago Workman, a weekly newspaper, [which he said] "would fearlessly take up the cause of the industrial classes, and advocate the rights of labour as against the selfish greed, and tyranny of unscrupulous capital", leading Olssen to conclude that the paper "played a major role in shaping a sense of working-class identity...[and Lister]...helped shape the political platform and strategy of the fast-multiplying trade unions." On 28 October 1990, a large group of seaman lead workers from a range of trades across Dunedin in a demonstration of support for unions involved in the Maritime Strike of the same year. Although the strike was not successful, Olssen held that the expression of solidarity demonstrated "the speed with which an industrial working class [had] emerged", creating an event that would been impossible five years previously.

The New Zealand 1890 election was seen by Olssen as important in consolidating the unionised working class as a potential political influence in Dunedin. This interpretation of the development of a working class by Olssen is significant because it built on other research into labour and politics and specifically, as one reviewer said, situated him in later writings as a historian with the position that class has "continuing importance...in New Zealand's political development."

As Dunedin confronted the changes of industrialisation between 1900 and 1910, Olssen's research recorded that, built on profitable periods in the 1880s and 1890s, there was still a privileged business elite controlling the provincial economy of Otago. Unions and business were said to have combined in protesting what was seen as Government neglect of the region and according to Olssen, there was a period in which the citizens rekindled a sense of pride in what they had achieved as Scottish pioneers. Another issue identified by Olssen was the impact of localism on how authorities in Dunedin were able to systematically plan and implement basic infrastructure for the management of drainage, sewerage and drinking water. Once again there was some degree of unity in response to this and significantly the Trades Council and a socialist group, the Fabian Society, were able, with some success, to lobby the council to make changes. The influx of engineers with technological knowledge, people with skill in urban planning and those with medical expertise, was seen by Olssen as a major factor in contributing to the intervention of the national Government in local politics and some changes made at this level brought about improvement in fire-fighting services, public transport and the rationalisation of independent boroughs.

In the discussion of the period in Otago leading up to 1920, Olssen returned to his thesis that the province's culture reflected distinctive characteristics that were significant within the history of the country in general. These were shown to have developed through a period described by Olssen as [one of] "uncertainty and nostalgic introspection", following World War I. The influence of the elite lessened, as did the “Protestant moral code” that was driving local government and the general political and social expectations. Unions were less directly supportive of the churches due to what Olssen suggested were, "certain innate tendencies in the theology and social structure of the 'Free Kirk'…urbanisation…[and the]….erosion of pre-industrial forms." As less of the unskilled working class, and more from the middle classes of the self-employed, skilled and white-collar workers became dominant in the churches, this was said by Olssen to have likely changed the role of the church from being directly about a relationship with God to more of a "shield for their new and creative ideology centred on privacy, family and decency". Olssen held that this crisis of faith was also heightened by the rise of Darwinian biology that challenged the biblical view of creation and developed intellectual credibility at the University of Otago where agnosticism and scientific methodology were valued. This resulted in a concept of a 'scientific morality' as evident in the work of Dr Fredrick Truby King, who amongst other things, promoted the belief that people could shape the environment but also modify and control it to develop highly capable people. King was said by Olssen to have democratised medicine by incorporating medical science into "the Protestant consensus about morality and family", enabling many young women to engage with medicine as a vocation for supporting less fortunate members of the community, especially the poor. The Plunket Society, established in 1907, was seen by Olssen as reflecting past traditions and science coming together, leading the country with the wide range of programmes and training for nurses it offered. After World War I this secure society based on morality, progress, reason and science was challenged with anxieties reawakened by accounts of the horrors of war and the indulgence of some returning soldiers in drinking and womanising. Olssen's position was however, that this helped shape later literature with works such as Children of the Poor by John A. Lee, Robyn Hyde's Passport to Hell and Archibald Baxter's work on his trials as a conscientious objector We Will Not Cease, being held in high regard across New Zealand. Olssen noted that when the 1918 influenza pandemic hit the province, the city leaders in Dunedin were proactive in managing this and with the rise of welfare organisations such as the Red Cross, a community spirit once more emerged in the city with evidence that "old values of heroism, duty, honour and service" were still valued.

The Caversham project

Jock Phillips noted in Te Ara: The Encyclopedia of New Zealand that during the 1970s, when historians in New Zealand began studying social history in the country by examining class and social relationships, Olssen "pioneered serious labour history...[drawing]...on a large database of information about Caversham in South Dunedin for important books analyzing work and social hierarchy." The streets comprising the Caversham Borough were chosen as the study area, because the adult population could be largely reconstructed from electoral rolls and the Census-reported population totals, and the borough contained "an approximate microcosm of the larger urban occupational and class structure." The project was never adequately funded until 1994. It relied on an occasional visitor, notably Jeremy Brecher (from the United States), some Honours students and research assistants, Olssen (who worked on occupations and occupational mobility) and Tom Brooking (who worked on geographical mobility). From 1975 until 1901, Olssen was Principal Investigator.  

The project "originated from a debate about the role of social class in New Zealand's history...[and]...was designed to analyze the relevance of class by systematically measuring the extent of social and geographical mobility in Caversham borough". Olssen's interest in explaining the industrial and political mobilizations of the urban working class between 1880 and 1922 also shaped this project and gave it a comparative dimension for he had studied similar topics while undertaking his PhD at Duke University. The first stage of the project was to create a statistical database of all adults who lived in the suburb. Because The Caversham Project was forced initially to rely on street directories and electoral rolls, the project, of necessity, had to engage with a local community, rather than a national sample. Focusing on a particular local community – the normal American approach – resulted in several problems. It was difficult to ascertain if the occupational structure in Caversham was typical of New Zealand in general and the extent to which the social–occupational structure in urban New Zealand was comparable to those in other capitalist-industrial societies. This was further complicated because the national occupational structure could only be reconstructed from Census data for the study period (initially 1901-22). Unfortunately all the census returns had been destroyed so it was necessary to rely on data that had been organised to answer different questions without regard to any variations within regions, or how these might be related regional to "national occupational structures and the larger international division of labour." The position was taken therefore, that "local case studies are the only viable way of identifying occupational structure and mobility in New Zealand".Criminologist Greg Newbold noted that this approach [allowed identification of] "work mobility, geographical movement and residential differentiation in South Dunedin, and to find out how typical this area was in comparison with the national structure."

The nine-level occupational classification used was based on several working papers, later summarised in Class and Occupation The New Zealand Reality (2005), written by Olssen and Maureen Hickey Melanie Nolan unpacked the nine identified occupational classes as: large employers, professionals, semi-professionals, small employers and the self-employed, officials and supervisors, white-collar, skilled, semi-skilled and unskilled. Comparing some of the data from Caversham with the national profile was hindered by issues such as ambiguous names for various occupations, however the researchers showed similarities between occupational structures at the national and local levels, evident for each of the nine occupations studied within the Caversham Project.

The focus of the project was an in-depth analysis of the organisation of paid work in the study area, which included many small-scale businesses and several large ones, especially the railway workshops. After analysing the survival of the handicraft trades, where young people served apprenticeship before becoming journeymen/women, Olssen investigated two of the major sources of employment: the building trades, which were dominated by small-scale firms and self-employed tradesmen; and the engineering trades where most men were employed in large workshops such as the Hillside Railway workshops. He showed that in both, the culture of craft was central and fundamental. One significant implication of this, especially in decentralized industries, was that many men, having served an apprenticeship and then worked as a journeyman, set up their own account and often became small-scale employers. Further work that Olssen did with Brecher on the Hillside Railway workshops challenged the idea that large-scale industry inevitably reduced skilled workers' agency, and showed that the skilled workers of Hillside enjoyed and maintained almost complete control over the labour process, [and] "their skill...gave them a sense of identity and pride."

An audit of the database in 1986 showed it to have many errors and in 1988, using the corrected data, Judi Boyd (the auditor) and Olssen wrote the first systematic study of mobility, The Skilled Workers: Journeymen and Masters in Caversham, 1880-1914 in the New Zealand Journal of History. In the article, the "composition and character of the urban skilled workforce" in Caversham informed the investigation of the role played by skilled workers in the process of class formation and how this shaped later political developments in New Zealand. The  point was made that because classification of skilled workers was complex, with some stratification, management of potential conflicts began the movement toward a united union for the sector underpinned by "artisan radicalism".  This was led by Charles Thorn a self-employed, politically active carpenter who, in 1881, worked with Robert Stout to organize the Otago Trades and Labour Council. In 1885, after a congress of unionists from across the colony organized by Thorn had resolved to support working classes to be better organized [to] " advance their interests and secure proper representation...some 600 unionists marched through the city to the Garrison Hall, where Thorn moved a resolution encouraging working men to form trade unions." According to Olssen, through the 1890s, those working in handcraft trades in Caversham brought a union-based radicalism that was influencing political developments around industrial relations, shaping class ideologies and the rise of left-wing parties. Olssen also wrote that as unions developed in the 1880s during industrial unrest in New Zealand, and in particular after the release of the Sweating Commission, [in]..."Dunedin public-spirited citizens organized women employed in the clothing factories where 'sweating' was endemic, into a Tailoresses' Union."

In 1995 the project received considerable funding from the Foundation for Research, Science and Technology, and with the appointment of Hamish James as a full-time Research Assistant, the data was able to be managed electronically. Building the New World: work, politics and society in Caversham, 1880s-1920s (1995) authored by Olssen, assembled further background information about the project and began an interpretation of the data. He explained that a specific aim of the project was to investigate how "work in the skilled trades, politics and society" were related and how the themes of the 'social laboratory'—equality, independence, security and opportunity—were achieved by working men and women in their workplaces." He also defined what "skilled' work was and showed that between 1902 and 1922 "skilled men dominated Caversham".

A reviewer noted that the exclusion of all rural data was a possible flaw of the project because it may have masked that many urban areas during the colonial period "contained primary industries — such as market gardening — within their borders", and some people in towns recorded 'farmer' as their occupation. One reviewer saw Building the New World: work, politics and society in Caversham, 1880s-1920s as representing a change in focus for Olssen from unskilled to skilled workers and "a shift in magnification from nation to suburb." Olssen's position of rejecting the notion that politics only happened in parliament and was not relevant in the lives of working men and women fitted with the research in Caversham which documented examples of how workers "were able to exert considerable influence at the point of production." One example cited is that of the Hillside railway workers who resisted the attempts by management to implement the ideas of Frederick Winslow Taylor which were seen as [limiting] "the power of skilled workers by breaking the labour process into its constituent parts." Olssen documented how the workers showed that by lobbying the national government they were able to maintain their independence [by converting] "into law a job classification system which embodied a shop floor hierarchy largely of their own making...[enabling the negotiation of]... a pension system which embodied the values of security and modest provision which characterized the artisan subculture."

At around the time that the project received sufficient money to complete the analysis of occupational mobility in Caversham Borough 1901-22, the research team, now including Shaun Ryan and Maureen Hickey, realised that both the census and the street directories had stopped recording occupational information for almost all women. From 1902 onwards the Census increasingly used women's marital status rather than their occupation and it was concluded that "because the local labour market was deeply gendered...women in paid work or working for money [constituted] a distinct analytical problem." An effort was made to find archival sources relating to women’s employment, for almost all young women entered the paid workforce between leaving school at around age 12 and marrying in their early twenties. Some of these complex issues had first become apparent to Olssen when writing about skilled women workers in chapter four of Building the New World: work, politics and society in Caversham, 1880s-1920s (1995). In her review of the book Raewyn Dalziel of The University of Auckland acknowledged that Olssen's chapter on skilled working women used reliable sources that showed data for most women were excluded if they did not work for wages. Dalziel challenged Olssen's argument that "nobody who used the phrase 'working class' thought of women as members of this class except through relationship to a father or husband", but agreed with his acknowledgement that the term 'men' needed to be used carefully because of a "gendered ambiguity...[that]...alerts us to the need to re-read the evidence not only for the exclusions but for the way they point to inclusions and alternative meanings." The review concluded: "as an exploration of the linkages between skilled work, politics and society it is a return to old debates and a masterly summation of much of [Olssen's] research and writing in labour and political history." In his review of the book, Len Richardson, a labour and sports historian at the University of Canterbury, also mentioned how Olssen had discussed the role of women in Caversham. Richardson contended that Olssen's study was significant because it traced the process by which the women of Caversham's skilled community were enabled to "acquire a skilled training which they hoped would enable them to attain a level of independence in their lives."

When it became apparent that improvements in electronic scanning made it possible to construct an error-free database for the three southern boroughs for a longer period, Olssen assembled a larger multidisciplinary team in the late 1990 to analyse women’s experience and the role of gender in structuring society. This team met regularly between 1998 and 2002 and produced Sites of Gender: Women, Men & Modernity in Southern Dunedin, 1890-1939 to which Olssen, the team manager, contributed a substantial chapter on the gendering of work and contributed to two others, including The Landscape of Gender Politics: Place, People and Two Mobilisations which put the premise of the book that in the southern suburbs of Dunedin in the 1880 and 1890s, the radicalisation of working men and the mobilisation of women to gain the vote, were both events that showed how embedded gender constitutes, and contributes to, an area's pattern of settlement. The chapter made the point that while this was "typical of New Zealand urban development at the time", the rest of the book would unpack the distinctiveness of southern Dunedin. The authors claimed that while an "older gender order" still existed within the context of the men's mobilisation, there were genuine changes happening in the lives of women. It concluded that the suburb's "distinctive mix of artisan radicalism, evangelicalism, Scottish commitment to education and high levels of work opportunities for young women disposed them to be something of a vanguard." In the chapter Working Gender, Gendering Work: Occupational Change and Continuity in Southern Dunedin, Olssen traced how, within a specific geographically defined space, the three southern boroughs, work, as a set of social practices became gendered between 1890 and 1939. He unpacks how urbanisation, industrialisation and contested beliefs about the roles and capabilities of men and women, shaped social and political contexts within which "the meaning of sexual bodily differences changed, and changed considerably." Greater employment opportunities for women presented as changing realities but this transition was complicated, however, due to apprehension about the ability of women to perform some tasks; the word ‘work’ being used primarily to mean paid employment; and the political moves to normalise the status of the male breadwinner. Olssen’s position in the chapter is that while some men were threatened by the possibility of women taking their jobs, the mobilisation of the workforce in the 1880s had many egalitarian aspects including the formation of some of the first women's unions. Women became increasingly confident and independent and were able to earn and spend more because most, on leaving school, found work in either the city's clothing and bootmaking factories or increasingly in the fast-expanding white-collar occupations in the city’s thirteen department stores and the offices of the forward-looking companies. In this chapter, Olssen showed that these young women ignored nationality, religion and class in selecting a spouse, and were more likely to own their own house on marrying and thus live apart from their parents, [maintaining]..."the 'feisty' traditions of independent womanhood, alive and well in the many provincial and peripheral regions of Britain." He also claimed that the consensus of "the importance of the male-breadwinner wage and full employment for men shaped both the Liberal-Labour legislative programme and the transformation of working-class male behaviour." Unions and politicians urged men to be temperate in their habits and consciously become a "domesticated husband and father." Men were expected to work hard, take pride in their skill and provide well for their families with many also having to show toughness, courage and strength during active service in World War I. Olssen concluded in the chapter that the family had become symbolic and while work may have remaining a "refuge from home...most married men increasingly spent much of their free time with their families doing up their houses or cultivating their vegetable gardens." A reviewer said a key theme of the book was that during this "period of construction of new family forms, declining birth rates and enhanced expectations about the health and education of children, and Southern Dunedin men and women shared in all three", borne out in this chapter by Olssen. Patricia Grimshaw of the University of Melbourne commended the editors of the book in [undertaking]..."the ambitious task of placing gender at the centre of an analysis of work in Caversham, Dunedin, as the impact of modernity became starkly apparent." In the same piece Grimshaw acknowledged that the book's success was the result of excellent collection of wide-ranging data, [and from]..."the writers' grounding in the theoretical framework of gender studies."

Some of the team also developed a collaboration with a group of academics at the University of Canterbury headed by Professor Miles Fairburn which produced Class, Gender and the Vote (2005), to which Olssen contributed the chapter Marriage Patterns in Dunedin's Southern Suburbs, 1881-1938. Olssen said that, while the data [did establish] "the fundamental importance of marriage in shaping the experience, expectations, and the fate of women", there was a need to focus on the "historical sociology of marriage formation and mobility." He noted that the post-1840 family in New Zealand shared many structural features with the Euro-American family, specifically men and women choosing their spouse to establish a new home and family when economically viable and as a result, [constituting the family] "as a significant economic, social and cultural institution." Data was unpacked showing low levels of endogamy and Olssen concluded therefore, that because marriage in New Zealand was becoming less shaped by choices made on the basis of "identities derived from skill or class", this led to a more open society from which "something of a consensus emerged in support for the state welfare interventions between 1840-1940". The chapter continued to explore the decisions young women made around work and marriage and Olssen traced this to greater educational and occupations and an awareness by 1900 of debates and movements in the wider world related to women's rights. The chapter suggested that the data showing an increase in women marrying after their twenties reflected a "dramatic growth and occupational opportunities for young women in Dunedin's southern suburbs."

In An Accidental Utopia? Social Mobility and the Foundations of an Egalitarian Society, 1880-1940 (2010), the fourth book published by the Caversham Project, co-authored by Olssen, it was noted in the Preface that the work marked a return to the project’s key objective: the identification of the extent of both work life and inter-generational occupational mobility; the relationship (if any) between levels of mobility and political behaviour; and mobility’s larger social significance. The authors showed that high mobility did not necessarily mean "weak class boundaries, a reduced possibility for class consciousness...[or]... a lower likelihood of class-based political action". Olssen et al noted that the brief of the book was to determine the nature of a capitalist structure in New Zealand and to compare whether it was "more or less open than urban societies in Britain or the United States...[and]...to test the widespread belief that class-based political systems could emerge only in relatively rigid societies." The authors brought together the data from the Cavendish Project – which now included the three southern boroughs – and showed how social structure and mobility were determined by marital mobility, how men and women chose spouses, occupational pathways followed by men, intergenerational mobility and the expansion of occupational opportunities. The final chapter returned to the question of whether Dunedin was a special place, and if so, what patterns could explain this. The conclusion was that the town had some typical features of industrial capitalism modified by the handicraft sector which had arisen because of a small and scattered population. This was said to have resulted in "narrowing the distance from social floor to the ceiling...[with]...shortages of labour [reducing] pay differentials for skills among manual workers", allowing the authors to justify calling Dunedin an "accidental utopia" because nobody intended for there to be small population with limited resources [or] "recognized the way in which such factors allowed people to create a congenial society."

In his review of the book, Jim McAloon from Victoria University of Wellington agreed that the relationship between social mobility and class is a major sociological debate and acknowledged the authors' view that a case study such as the Caversham Project can show the interrelated nature of class, gender and race in developing a frame of reference which allows valid contributions to the discourse.  McAloon sees the strength of the book as "its rigorous demonstration that...South Dunedin was, therefore, a more open society than Britain, and by extension the same is true of the rest of settler New Zealand; marriage was relatively open, so were occupational choices, and the upper and middle classes constantly refreshed themselves." Sociologist Peter Davis described the book as ambitious in using "detailed historical and quantitative analysis of information" from the Caversham Project [to] "develop an argument about the social structure and urban expression of a new settler society." Davis asserted that it was legitimate for the book to take a structuralist approach that used "conceptual and empirical tools" and suggested that such a model could be applied to larger cities such as Auckland [to build] "our understanding of the modern and post-modern New Zealand in its vibrant, structural and cultural complexity." Writing in the Otago Daily Times Geoffrey Vine, a journalist and Presbyterian minister, said that with Olssen's analysis of worker agency in intentionally creating an egalitarian society, the book shows [his] "beloved radicalism [shining] through...for Erik, ever the Red, the Caversham people's flag is still proudly flown." One reviewer noted [that] "Olssen, Griffen and Jones approach their work like a scientific experiment, complete with graphs and tabulations, knowing full well that in science there are no final answers, only workable hypotheses supported by the best available evidence...[but]... a sort of conclusion does emerge....it is clear that social class was and is important in New Zealand history.

In 2011, Olssen contributed an article to Building Attachment in Families, a funded project managed by the Centre for Research, Evaluation and Social Assessment (CRESA), with the goal of identifying "the mechanisms, processes and relations required to build and sustain community and family wellbeing, optimize attachment in changing communities and address problems arising out of transience and residential mobility". Olseen's contribution focussed on addressing the lack of theorizing for geographical mobility and used data from the Caversham Project.  The Project research was shown as confirming high levels of fluidity of population within the suburb, including movement to neighbouring areas as the "older parts of Caversham and South Dunedin became congested by New Zealand standards...[contributing]...to fluidity of urban society in New Zealand." Olssen noted the importance of children being able to negotiate class differences, said by Pitirim Sorokin as likely to build "intellectual vitality and cultural innovation", underpinning in Dunedin, "the emergence of an egalitarian society characterized by a deepening consensus about the importance of looking after those who, for whatever reason, could not always look after themselves...[contributing]...to a vibrant and dynamic society."

Working Lives c.1900 A Photographic Essay was launched in August 2014 by Dave Cull a former mayor of Dunedin. In the introduction to the book, Olssen described how the Caversham Project had evolved into a study of the agency of working people in the suburb to creatively modify capitalism, and the intention of the work was to illustrate, mostly in a photographic manner, "two processes fundamental to creating a new society: the transformation of a wild landscape into farmland and then industrial heartland; and the transplantation of the knowledge and skills acquired in the Old World essential to building a new world." The Otago Daily Times said Working Lives showed insight into the life of working class people in what has become recognized as the first industrial suburb in New Zealand, and The Otago Settlers News acknowledged that the photographs had been collected from a range of sources including  the Hocken Collections and the Alexander Turnbull Library in Wellington. Another reviewer said that the book [revealed] "a time when direct relationships between workers and employers, skill and what was crafted, were valued and primarily local" but suggests it is also an invitation "to celebrate   community, and then to mourn its loss, because deindustrialization has eradicated such industrial workplace  communities over the  last thirty years." As the last publication arising from the Caversham Project, it has also been suggested "this is both a window into a past world and – often enough – a reminder that the past was as diverse as the present. Not always quaint and pretty, but not a wasteland either."

When interviewed about Working Lives Olssen said that in the 1870s and ‘80s Dunedin was not only of national significance commercially and financially but was also the leading industrial centre in New Zealand and "the values and habits of life that evolved among the working men and women of the industrial areas in Dunedin came to permeate the city and the entire country." In Landfall magazine freelance writer, reviewer, artist, and musician James Dignan agreed with this position when he said that "for all its localized bias...[the book]...aims to illustrate the life of early industry in the colony overall." In Chapter 5 of Working Lives, Olssen explored this further. He reviewed the history of organized labour in Dunedin noting that with the formation of the first women's union, the general acceptance by middle-class people in the town for unions, a series of publications calling for radical reform and support for legislative changes such as the Industrial Conciliation and Arbitration Act of 1894, workers in the town were able to support the development of an independent Labour Party to challenge the Seddon-led Lib-Lab government. Although the union movement enjoyed so much political influence that the Red Feds – revolutionary industrial unionists – won little support locally, when World War One started, Dunedin’s activists and unions supported the establishment of the New Zealand Labour Party with the key issue being to oppose the conscription of men unless wealth was also conscripted. At the same time the pro-labour and socialist leaders laid the foundation for an alliance with the local Roman Catholic community by denouncing the manner in which the British government had suppressed the 1916 Sinn Féin rebellion in Ireland. A group of Irish nationalists in Dunedin and supporters of Sinn Féin began publishing and advocating for their cause, later joined by Father James Kelly, the editor of the Catholic magazine The New Zealand Tablet. Olssen has noted Harry Holland brokered an agreement that aligned Labour behind the cause of the Irish and in the 1922 New Zealand election this resulted in an increase in support for Labour. Olssen contended [that] "the Dunedin accommodation was now national", in a justification of his earlier claim that culture in Otago, and in particular Dunedin, was distinctive and significant for the wider New Zealand community from the 1880s. In Working Lives Olssen challenged the view that the labour movement originated on the West Coast, and contended that the "masters and journeymen" in Dunedin had a key role in forming the Liberal-Labour coalition, and "skilled artisans and mechanics...laid the foundation or the unionization of the unskilled."

Social and political developments in New Zealand 1880-1920

The Introduction to The People and the Land Te Tangata me te Whenua: An Illustrated History of New Zealand, 1820–1920 (1990), co-authored by Olssen, took the position that the book depicted two histories in the country, one for Māori and the other for Pākehā. It stated that each author brought their own perspectives to explore "ordinary lives and activities as well as the major political episodes that touched every one of those lives in some way", and acknowledged that while there were shared activities between Māori and Pākehā, "coloniser and colonised acquired some contradictory perspectives of the past." The conclusion drawn was that historians needed to be aware that the widely held belief of New Zealand as a country of equality could blinker the historical reality of differences not being recognised or allowed for, resulting in European settlers assuming they could make laws for all. Within this historical frame of reference, Olssen's contributions to the book focussed on the social and political interractions from 1890 until 1920, by when, he argued, "material well-being, a high degree of social justice and an open democratic society gave pride to most New Zealanders...[and the country]...had come of age."

Politics and organised labour

In the 1880s New Zealand had a depression resulting in a period of economic downturn that led to widespread unemployment and poverty. Olssen wrote that at this time, there was an increase in union membership in the country led by the Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants (ASRS) which had originated in the United Kingdom, and the Federated Seamen's Union. By 1889 representatives of the maritime unions, as well as coal miners, had joined together to form the Maritime Council, the first national labour organisation in New Zealand. The many victories initially won by the Council in key industries, also encouraged other workers to form and join unions. However, after becoming involved in an Australian dispute, the Maritime Council was "defeated, then smashed."

Olssen noted that the mobilisation of 1889-90, and then the Maritime Strike, meant that organised labour played a major role in the 1890 election, especially in Dunedin where the Workingman’s Political Committee enjoyed great success. With the support of elected union members and sympathetic radical Liberals, John Ballance was able to form a government. Thwarted by a hostile Governor and Legislative Council, the Liberal-Labour coalition coalition organised the country’s first political party. After the death of John Ballance in 1893, a populist politician Richard Seddon emerged as Premier and following his decisive victory, oversaw the enactment of the “Lib-Lab” coalition’s legislative programme in 1894. Seddon was said by Olssen to have consolidated his political profile by managing land issues, introducing key industrial reforms and enfranchising women. New Zealand became known as a "social laboratory" because of its innovative and experimental social and political legislation  which aimed to improve the lot of working men, break up the great estates and settle “small” men and their families on the land, and through Old Age Pensions, provide a system of security for the elderly. With the help of Jimmy Carroll (Ngāti Kahungungu), Seddon also tried to address the grievances of Māori while accelerating the purchase of Māori land. Although Seddon distanced himself from the pro-union radicals and socialists,  the Industrial Conciliation and Arbitration Act 1894 became so popular with working men that their loyalty to Seddon and his party could be taken for granted.  That measure enabled workers to form and register unions with the court, and legally obliged employers to both recognise and negotiate with them. Skilled workers, and Seddon’s old union the ASRS, quickly learnt how to use the Arbitration Act to improve wages and conditions, but only in the early 1900s did the Federated Seamen’s Union, which had been smashed in 1890s show how the so-called unskilled use the Arbitration Act to their advantage. Olssen has written in Te Ara - The Encyclopedia of New Zealand, that this was effectively an "alliance between the unions and the government". In his study of the Red Feds, Olssen traced the rapid growth  in the number of unions for unskilled workers between 1900 and 1905 and their growing size. This gave them more power within the labour movement and in some industries a new generation of activists became increasingly critical of the Liberals.

Olssen noted that at this time, most unionists were Pākehā males and while some women were unionised in the clothing and textile industries, they were mostly not in positions of power unless involved in white-collar organizations such as the New Zealand Educational Institute which lobbied for all teachers.

While most unionised workers still accepted the Arbitration Court, and remained loyal to the liberals, there was a growing awareness of the need for some political organising that would make the government more responsive to workers' needs. In 1905 the Trades and Labour Councils, organised labour’s parliament, established an  Independent Labour Party which  challenged the Liberals. There was also an influx of left-wing socialist unionists from Australia, where militant labour had been thoroughly defeated.  Where “Lib-Lab” unionists talked proudly of ‘the country without strikes’, these men, according to Olssen, "preached class war, direct action [and] industrial unionism...and were scornful of politics". In his comprehensive study of revolutionary industrial unionism between 1908 and 1914, Olssen held that this reflected  the industrial workers  becoming aware of the possibility of  achieving  a "socialist millennium...[through]... "mass action."

Olssen identified the 1908 Blackball miners' strike as the key, for the industrial unionists proved that the strike could achieve more in a few weeks than  the Court had delivered in years. The  strike’s success also made its leaders, notably Patrick Hickey and [[Paddy Webb]] national figures whose "vision of class solidarity and industrial unionism.....appealed to miners not for intellectual reasons, but because it gave a coherent expression to the logic of their every-day working experience." Olssen's view was that this reflected a new mood among miners shaped by an aggressive form of socialism, seen by another revolutionary socialist , H.M. Fitzgerald as being necessary to develop solidarity in one union that would be prepared to strike.

Early in 1908 the New Zealand Federation of Miners was established, with Hickey as secretary and Semple as president. The new Federation [affirmed] support for class struggle and challenged the existing industrial arbitration legislation." The Federation had some success in opposing the response of employers to the Workers' Compensation Act which could have resulted in miners being dismissed for having a condition brought on by the work environment, but in 1909 its name was changed to the New Zealand Federation of Labour, said by Olssen to reflect the miners’ desire to obtain leadership roles within the New Zealand labour movement.

Between 1908 and 1912 the Federation of Labour's success in gaining wage increases for some workers saw it rapidly grow in size and influence. So too did an even more militant organisation, the Industrial Workers of the World (known widely as the IWW or ‘the Wobblies’). At Waihi in 1912 the Wobblies convinced the miners to strike, but following weeks of confrontation involving the police and strike-breakers hostile to the Red Feds and after one miner was killed, the strike ended. Across the country, most unions denounced the role of the government in allowing this to happen and with Olssen suggesting that the leaders of the Red Federation realised the fundamental importance of political action. There was some consolidation of organised labour in 1913 when a conference established the United Federation of Labour (UFL). This was essentially a coalition between moderate and militant unions, but Olssen noted in Te Ara that some of the activists, with an agenda of creating a socialist republic, believed this new federation should call a general strike. A series of strikes broke out across the country late in 1913 involving watersiders, miners, seamen, drivers and builders’ labourers. The government intervened by recruiting special constables , mostly Territorials from Wellington’s rural districts and dairy farmers from the Waikato,  and they forced open the wharves in Auckland and Wellington. Because of this action by the new conservative Reform  government, led by W.F. Massey and a lack of nationwide support, the strike was lost and many militants left the country. In 1919 the UFL was replaced by the Zealand Alliance of Labour which continued to advocate the overthrow of capitalism in New Zealand through direct industrial action.

It has been said the demonstration by the State of its power to crush industrial action convinced some unionists to become involved politically and use the electoral system to bring about change. Several of the strike leaders, including Semple, Peter Fraser and Michael Joseph Savage were later to be ministers in the first Labour Government of New Zealand in 1935. Olssen's position was that the Red Feds had been instrumental in strengthening organised labour as a political force "by shifting the terms of the debate within the unions to the left and playing a decisive role in organising the unskilled...[moving]...working-class politics and organization on to a new axis." In his review of The Red Feds: Revolutionary Industrial Unionism and the New Zealand Federation of Labour 1908-14, authored by Olssen, Miles Fairburn agreed with the thesis that the period between 1908 and 1913 was when many unskilled workers took on the doctrine of anarcho-syndicalism, joined the Red Feds and moved away from conventional politics, and concluded that Olssen had assembled impressive research, some of which had not previously been seen, that traced the "organisational development of the Red Feds." Another reviewer situated the book within a wider trend in the English-speaking world of the emergence of socialism, and in the development of an independent Labour party in New Zealand. The reviewer said the strength of the book was the way Olssen located the narrative "in the local subcultures of work and class and assumes familiarity with the main outlines of New Zealand history and historiography."

In July 2016 representatives of political organisations and unions met in Wellington and established the New Zealand Labour Party. Workers were said at the time to have been divided, with significant ideological differences between moderates and militants hindering attempts to "create an independent labour alternative to the Liberal party." Olssen challenged this belief that the origins of the Labour Party were largely determined by reconciliation of factions, and contended that it was more about unskilled workers becoming realistic and aware of the need to to take political action. In a journal article, he concluded that "the ideological debates of the period were more symptoms, than causes, of the rise of organized labour." He further contested the view that the formation of the Labour Party was largely ideological and political, and made the point it was more about social changes - one of which was unionisation - without which the Party would never have been formed. He conceded that unionisation may have led some workers, particularly in the north of New Zealand, to overestimate their power or become involved in factional fighting, but maintained that in the southern towns, where more unskilled workers were members of unions, there was considerable support for the creation of the Party. He suggested this may have been because the radical ideas of the Red Feds had less impact on workers in these areas who maintained a dominance in their local labour movements and where organised labour had enjoyed considerable political influence since the 1890s.

The Labour Party won three by-elections in 1918, and in the 1919 general election, gained eight seats and were the top party in the four main cities in New Zealand. Olssen concluded: "The significance of the war years lay not in factional reconciliation so much as in the decision of the fast-growing legions of unskilled in Auckland and (to a lesser extent) Wellington to support a socialist Labour Party."

A social laboratory 1890-1906

Olssen's work on this period in New Zealand's history explored how the country recovered from an economic depression and political instability and moved toward becoming a society that was later to be seen as a 'social laboratory' with relative freedom, equality, security, and industrial peace. Olssen wrote of the complex social and political interractions as demands from trade unions for industrial legislation to protect the rights of the workers and concerns from runholders about the security of their land, required the government to take measures to "allay conservative fears" and "appease the urban radicals." John Ballance struggled to hold the government together and manage this crisis, but Olssen maintained that there had been [a desire by the Liberals] "to protect the weak and the vulnerable, even as they struggled to reduce the mighty". Ballance died in 1893 and his successor, Richard Seddon moved quickly to legislate on issues related to land, industrial disputes, and working conditions in factories, and established relationships with Māori around how they managed their land. The Advances to Settlers Act (1894), while controversial according to Olssen, did allow the government to borrow off shore and make cheap credit available to settlers, resulting in an increase in farming, and the breaking up of several large sheep stations. Seddon's government also moved quickly to avert further economic issues, resolved a miners' strike, and when the depression ended due to rising export prices, was well situated for the a convincing re-election. Seddon's popularity and credibility as a social reformer was enhanced in 1898 when he ensured the passing of the Pensions Bill, said by Olssen to symbolise the "humanitarianism of Seddon's Liberals." Seddon did use the tariff to protect jobs, but his protectionism also reflected his racism and beliefs that some cultures were "genetic threats to the purity of New Zealand's British stock" and attempted o bring in legislation to exclude inferior races. At the same time, he promoted the idea that New Zealand was "the guardian of the [British] empire's interest in the South Pacific" and Olssen claimed that in the 1890s, "white New Zealanders saw themselves as the Britons of the south seas...[and]...looked back on sixty years of progress with pride and believed themselves superior to all other peoples."

Olssen contended that this was the time when women were employed in an increasingly wide range of sectors, some churches promoted the equality of the sexes, girls were required to attend schools and women began to graduate as doctors and lawyers. The establishment in 1885 of a branch of the Women's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) in Dunedin to deal with problems including those resulting from the abuse of alcohol, was seen by Olssen as significant because it reflected that the group was in good faith and held a "positive image of marriage as an equal relationship, of parenthood as moral trust...[rejecting]...the sexual double standard, which enjoined women to be chaste and faithful but allowed men to be promiscuous and unfaithful." The WCTU, with the support of Kate Sheppard, began the campaign which eventually saw women to get right to vote. Olssen listed other key reforms at this time, including raising the age of consent for sexual intercourse for girls and a law giving women the right to sue for divorce on the grounds of adultery. It was also noted that women were involved in sports and "experimented with freer forms of dress." Urban middle-class women also articulated a new concept that marriage should be a partnership and Olssen suggested that many women in this group had a more autonomy as a result of working before marrying. The point is made that this new sense of family, along with relative prosperity, resulted in higher expectations for basics such as coal ranges for cooking, "hot and cold water and inside flush toilets". Along with new forms of entertainment such as films, there continued to be public scrutiny on the problems of excess alcohol and gambling, which to Olssen, embodied [a] "vision of a re-ordered family as the basis for a decent society." Some boroughs condemned substandard housing and well-planned and serviced suburbs developed creating local communities. The family farm also became a reality and Olssen concluded: "The Liberals, in pioneering a revolution in the role of government so that ordinary colonists could achieve their dreams, had confirmed the widespread view that New Zealand was the best place on earth."

By 1900, according to Olssen, New Zealand was "again prosperous and content." As world economies recovered, transport systems and infrastructure developed to service a booming farming sector, coal mining and the flax industry, and Olssen noted that with the growth of industries and an increased number of immigrants, cities exercised "considerable economic and social power" and the country became more centralised and bureaucratic. New social patterns developed with the emergence of a middle class that was educated and employed, and aspired for a society that was culturally civilised. Olssen suggested this class was not an élite because of the way the Liberal government had opened and supported the suburbs, including making a previously privileged secondary education, free, allowing working people to accelerate the shift from an "artisan culture based on work to a suburban culture based on home." The new middle class also created expectations that the family would reflect companionship and fidelity with a focus on leisure activities within the home. The sense of responsibility taken toward parenthood was seen by Olssen as significant. Children were "the central emotional return on the investment of marriage", and ensuring their health and education a priority, with increased availability of doctors and dentists and sporting programmes that would develop "discipline and character." Now enfranchised, this group of women held politicians accountable for maintaining high standards of care of children, challenging a system of "baby farming" and ensuring orphanages were run as humane and ethical institutions. Olssen noted the position of some feminists at the time that "marriage and motherhood" were professional roles for which all girls should be professionally trained and this was reflected in the work of The Plunket Society in offering advice on the care of babies. Otago University established a Department of Home Science in 1909 and began awarding degrees in the subject from 1912.

Life for farming families in New Zealand was painted in a different light by Olssen. He noted there was a perception that they represented the "ideal citizen", with many themselves believing they were morally superior, their life was more natural, and they produced most of the country's wealth. But, particularly as they cleared land and established their farms, physical and social living conditions were tough. Accommodation was often primitive and lonely for women and children who worked long hours with few social contacts outside of occasional church meetings, although men did have some contact with others at the local dairy factory. Compared to families in the cities, Olssen contended it was difficult for these early farmers to "maintain civilised standards: everything was utilitarian and rough." Things improved as sharemilking offered more opportunities for workers to gain their own dairy farms which they managed effectively by using new methods of milking cows and application of fertilizers to improve pasture quality. Innovative and collaborative, dairy farmers created and turned their own cooperatives into increased numbers of cheese and butter factories, and were situated by Olssen as "the new men of the frontier."

Olssen explored the development of a national New Zealand identity as the country gained an international profile and recognition for its successful social and political systems. William Pember Reeves had published The Long White Cloud Aotearoa in 1898 which portrayed the "legislative experiment" of New Zealand as romantic and adventurous, highlighting Māori as poetic and ferocious but integrated in a democracy built by the colony's founders and those who followed them. Olssen noted Pember Reeves' later book, State Experiments in Australia and New Zealand (1902) "detailed the versatility and ingenuity of the British colonies in the Pacific." Notable visitors who came to view New Zealand's 'social laboratory' included Sydney and Beatrice Webb, Henry Demarest Lloyd and Albert Métin. Olssen acknowledged the role of an English socialist, William Ranstead in promoting New Zealand as a utopian society with no signs of poverty, the availability of well-paid work, and a culture of taking good care of its children. Olssen concluded, that immigrants were attracted to New Zealand with an expectation of "full employment, high wages, a healthy diet, and the chance of owning one's own house and some land."

Seddon had also travelled abroad and promoted New Zealand as a loyal outpost of the British Empire, willing to take a role in preserving the power of the empire in the Pacific. New Zealand troops took part in the Boer War, with the colony now, according to Olssen, united by "jingoism...[and]...in "paroxysms of imperial patriotism." In 1900, the country was given permission by the imperial government to annex the Cook Islands. When the Duke and Duchess of York visited New Zealand in 1901, Seddon shrouded the country's imperial ambitions as a "special destiny" and evidenced this by stressing the qualities of its soldiers, the resilience of its citizens and what he saw as a "successful biracial society", presenting the country as one of "harmony, progress and achievement."

There was debate about the possibility of New Zealand becoming part of an Australasian commonwealth. Olssen wrote that this played out with New Zealanders, seeing themselves as part of the "Britain of the south seas", maintaining they were distinctive from and superior to Australians. The middle classes disliked the influences of Australians, culminating in a debate about language and accent, which according to Olssen was "farcical...[and]...gained in intensity because it reflected on the New Zealand experiment." Seddon was popular with Australians and did attempt to negotiate a trade deal, but on his return from a trip to Australia, he died on 19 May 1906.

Olssen's position on the legacy of Seddon was that his work located New Zealand internationally as a country of democratised opportunity. Citizens willingly engaged with colonial political issues in the process of developing a sense of nationhood but retained a strong loyalty and commitment to their local communities. While not everybody agreed with his Seddon's style, Olssen held that his domination of politics created a sense of identity and destiny for New Zealand.

Disruption and nation-building 1907-1920

Olssen held that Seddon's successor, Joseph Ward, was competent and optimistic, but his government was confronted with issues and discontent that had been embryonic during the previous era. The farmers were noted as suspecting the Liberal Party of being too influenced by unions, and in 1901 formed their own union to challenge land laws and demand that all Crown land be freehold. There was also disquiet amongst some employers, who under the Conciliation and Arbitration Act of 1894, had strict requirements to recognise any union of at least seven employed workers, but took strong exception to being cited and legally bound as a party to a dispute. In response, they formed the Employers' Federation in 1902. Olssen acknowledged that in many cases, the Arbitration Court had ruled in favour of improved conditions for low-paid workers, but noted there was rising discontent amongst the increasing number of unionists. Concerns were expressed about the Court not managing its workload, and that wages should be assessed against the cost of living and take into account the profits of the employing firms or industries. By 1907, the Trades and Labour Council had stated that the Arbitration Act had never been established in the interests of workers, while employers claimed enterprise was being stifled due to the "rigid wage structure." Olssen saw this as both parties [fighting] "to escape the precedents established in the 1890s.

Ward did move decisively with a series of appointments and legislation related to tenure, regulation of the dairy industry and a new Land Bill. Olssen claimed Ward was trying to reassure farmers, but he only provoked unionists who, along with employers, were also managing ongoing issues with the Arbitration Act that had been amended to make strikes illegal during arbitration. Olssen further noted that the middle classes were concerned with "corruption, waste, and the inefficiency of the civil service"; the prohibitionists were active; and evangelical Protestants were lobbying in support of the Bible in Schools movement.

By 2007, with the possibility of war in Europe that could damage trade, there were demands for compulsory military training. Olssen, however, contended that the biggest fear held by New Zealanders was the French and German influence in the Pacific and the '[[yellow peril]]', fed by racism in the community which saw Asians as "pollutants, a subversive (and infinitely cunning) menace to the colony's future." Olssen linked these anxieties to an ideology based on social darwinism underpinning a belief held by New Zealanders that they were of "the finest British stock" and needed to gain national and fitness of the 'white race' if the country was to protect the empire from an enemy. The colonists saw themselves as superior, and according to text books at the time, "the Māori were superior to all other native peoples." In 1885, Edward Tregear published The Aryan Maori, which claimed controversially that Māori language, mythology and custom were connected to an ancient Aryan heritage shared with Britain.

Olssen noted that the people and government of New Zealand took credit for what was effectively assimilation of Māori, claiming it as the result of an enlightened policy that had "reversed [the] decline" of the Māori population. Key research by Olssen explored how the myth of "old time Māori", created by Pākehā romanticised, yet did acknowledge, their skill as navigators and explorers, and later became a rationale for continued validation of the policy of assimilation and how "the New Zealand of the future...[as]...a blend of British and assimilated Māori, would be a great imperial power in the Pacific." Olssen noted some movement to study, and appreciate aspects of Māori art and language, with one writer portraying them as "a brave and worthy foe" during the wars of the 1860s and shearers debating whether a Māori was a 'good bloke'...a sort of honorary white." The conclusion by Olssen was that Pākehā remained condescending and racist and supported the belief that Māori needed to be fully assimilated as 'brown Britons' and "give up all their customs and values...[because]...these meant living communally, in poverty and filth."

In 1908, a more radicalised and confident union organised the The Blackball miners strike which resulted in most of the demands of the workers being met, raising the ire of the Farmers' Union and the Employers' Federation who challenged the government to enforce the Arbitration Act or abolish it. The Liberals won another election victory in 1908, but Olssen noted that Ward did not have control of a new group of independents in the party and struggled to put together a team that could manage an increasing sense of unease in most sectors of society. The radical approach by the Federation of Labour in advocating class war, resulted in a "defensive alliance" between farmers and employers; merchants and manufacturers resented what Olssen called [the government's] "feeble response to union militancy"; and attempts to legislate a form of compulsory military did not assuage fears of the rising threat of war.

Olssen identified that there were high expectations within a booming economy. Working people were said to have a "new sense of worth and dignity", seeing organised unionism as the way to meet their demands for enough pay to support their families in "decency and comfort." Workers in white-collar and semi-professional occupations had smaller families and along with women in general, made reasonable gains in pay. Inequalities did increase, however, as the wealthy enjoyed more privileges and large numbers of migrants arrived in the country and were often living in primitive conditions. The country was ready for a change and according to Olssen, the 1911 election, which needed a second ballot due to a tie in the first vote, was pivotal. He explained how it highlighted the political uncertainty and after unsuccessful attempts by Liberals to create coalitions leading to a vote of no confidence, resulted in a Reform government in 1912 led by William Massey. Olssen said Massey committed to retaining the achievements of the previous government, proclaiming himself as a true liberal having campaigned in support of freehold land, dealing with corruption in the bureaucracy, promising meritocracy and criticizing the Liberal party's soft position on militant labour.

Massey's government was immediately confronted with industrial unrest. They were accused of mismanaging the Waihi miners' strike of 2013, allowing violence between police and workers to happen. While the miners were defeated, Olssen held that workers had a "new sense of their power and importance...[unified in their belief that]...Reform was now the enemy." Massey responded with legislation that aimed at limiting the power of unions and when further strikes broke out on the Wellington wharf, called in volunteers to help keep law and order. The resultant violent riots involved weapons on all sides, with the Sydney Morning Herald noted by Olssen as reporting it to be "a sort of modified civil war between town and country." Massey eventually got control of the situation, demonstrating the power of the special forces to maintain order. Employers and farmers attempted to blacklist radical unions associated with the Red Feds that had left the arbitration system, however this was largely unsuccessful. Olssen suggested that the failed strikes had not weakened the numerical strength of the unions, and while arbitration was still successful in retaining wages and improved working conditions, the industrial unrest had "sharpened class tensions in the cities and tensions between urban and rural New Zealand."

Olssen's research on New Zealand's response to World War I highlighted the challenges the country faced in meeting its obligation to Britain while retaining political stability, economic security and ongoing development of a progressive social system. Britain declared war on Germany and the Austro-Hungarian empire on August 1914, shortly before a general election was scheduled to be held in New Zealand. Massey agreed to send an expeditionary force and responded to a request to seize German Samoa. Olssen said there was a general belief New Zealand's security depended on Britain winning the war but that it would not last long and other issues were more important with the looming election. The Reform party was less assured going into the election and after emerging with a majority of only two, Massey decided not to convene parliament, choosing instead to deal with issues related to the war that were affecting New Zealanders' standard of living. Government-supported requisitioning of meat and cheese for the war effort resulted in high levels of productivity and increased prosperity for some of the rural sector which caused resentment from the urban dwellers. There was a growing awareness that the war could not continue to be funded mainly by voluntary contributions and and increased value of land did provide extra tax revenue for the government. Olssen noted that discontent with the rising cost of living continued, despite the government's response of fixing prices and the creation of a Board of Trade to "inquire into the cost of living, investigate complaints about profiteering, and advise on how to best promote developments." Unions became active again, condemning the rising cost of living and profiteering from the war. Some radical unionists, according to Olssen, claimed that the outcome of the war was of no significance to workers, instead being, "the inevitable consequence of capitalism."

Many New Zealanders set up patriotic committees and voluntary organisations to support the dependents of soldiers. Widespread coverage of the war in the newspapers, reflected concerns about the high casualty rate and Olssen documented examples of vigilante groups harrassing German people and businesses in the country. Within this environment, marking what Olssen called "the high point of jingoism and xenophobia...[and]...this climate of intense patriotism and political uncertainty", there was a call to put political differences aside and form a national government. The merge of the Liberals and Reform was confirmed in August 2015.

As the war progressed and received more publicity in New Zealand, Olssen wrote it was a difficult time that nevertheless presented opportunities for the country. The national government dealt with continuing discontent about the rising cost of living by attempting to monitor and control food prices. This was largely unsuccessful. Workers remained unhappy because, in spite of full employment, inflexible awards made it problematic to get pay rises in keeping with the cost of living. Olssen noted that Massey intervened at times to get employers to make concessions, but there was a growing belief "that selfish and greedy profiteers were benefitting from the war. 'Mr Fat' became the new symbol of capitalist injustice." Union membership grew as workers felt able to fight for more rights and better conditions and by 1917, Olssen claimed New Zealand was one of the "most unionised societies in the world...[and]...the strength of the unions in these years owed much to full employment and the government's fear of widespread discontent."

Gains made by women from increased opportunities during the war were identified by Olssen as being in occupations such as clerking, teaching, medical profession and the public services. Women were not recruited or conscripted for active service but many nurses staffed overseas hospitals for wounded New Zealand solders and others volunteered organisations such as the YMCA and the Red Cross working on the front lines. Significantly, as also noted by Olssen, many women ran family businesses and farms while their men were overseas. Women became more visible in universities and politics with some being elected to local bodies and hospital boards. Many held the view that "the specialised moral sensibilities of women made them uniquely responsible for promoting international understanding and peace." Olssen's position was that while war may have reinforced traditional gender roles with marriage still being seen as likely for women, there was an increased awareness amongst some young women doctors of problems such as illegal abortions and venereal diseases about which men needed to be educated. The government did make it a legal obligation for any person with a venereal disease to get treatment and by 1917, soldiers were regularly checked and supplied with condoms before going on leave. Olssen saw this as an example of New Zealand realising the importance of the nation being morally and physically healthy, with Truby King writing a pamphlet showing how the health of the nation and the empire, depended on sound teeth. When it was shown that 58% of soldiers had to be rejected from conscription due to bad teeth, King had credibility in linking Plunket to "the future of New Zealand and the empire." Olssen claimed that this led key medical people toward considering a national health service run by the state, with a widening acceptance of the importance of children's health, and more awareness by dentists of their responsibilities in this area.

A rising new white-collar middle class in New Zealand during this period, was described by Olssen as salaried, owning their own homes, with strong moral values and the wish to bring up their children within the principles of a model family. They had considerable social impact with their abhorrence of strikes and fear of social decline, and, as noted by Olssen, "closer investigation might well reveal that the new middle class was highly mobile, less a class than a stage of life." Across the country the war years still offered good opportunities to own a farm or be self-employed. There were issues around high land taxes but credit was available for farmers and the smaller towns such as Napier, Palmerston North and New Plymouth offered opportunities. While immigration had ceased during the war, considerable numbers of South Islanders came north to set up businesses and medical and legal practices, and Olssen contended that this "existence of opportunities undoubtedly strengthened egalitarian attitudes, blurred class boundaries and created a belief that society was relatively open."

Ollsen's work on how New Zealand managed the issue of conscription crystalized key aspects of the country's culture. Initially recruitment for the war was left to local communities responding to provincial quotas suggested by the army. This was received enthusiastically with large crowds farewelling soldiers - many of whom had lied about their ages to support the war. Olssen held that voluntarism had become an integral part of how local groups and organisations supported the war effort, with it often being competitive between different provinces as "newspapers boasted of their local success." But voluntary enlistment was not an efficient system for the army to maintain in terms of training and moving trips and equipment, and within communities, some were seeing it as unfair. The government introduced the National Registration Act in September 1915 and this recorded the numbers of potential soldiers but also allowed men to register their preference to enlist or not. A high percentage said they would not offer any support to the war effort, reflecting resistance already in the community from the Passive Resisters' Union, churches such as the Quakers and Jehovah Witnesses. The political left was divided but unions held anti-conscription conferences and the Labour party expressed some opposition. Olssen recorded that the government had tried to make voluntary recruitment work with a national debate focused on equity arriving at a consensus that all eligible single men should go to war, with some reasonable exceptions. The first ballot was held in November 2016, but by 2017 was said by Olssen to have run into problems with the exemption criteria, with particular confusion about what constituted 'essential work' that could entitle men to appeal being conscripted. Within this uncertainty, there was a rising unease that the government was running the risk of enabling subversion from dissent conscientious objectors, who, unless they were Quakers, were now often seen as treacherous. The anomaly of not initially conscripting Māori, was seen by Olssen as being problematic. Some of the Māori members of parliament, including Māui Pōmare supported conscription because it would demonstrate full citizenship of Māori, while it was opposed by some tribes who remained resentful of land confiscations by the government after the New Zealand Wars and others who did not wish for any further wars. The government's later response to include Māori but not to enforce it legally, caused confusion and resentment. Rua Kenana who opposed conscription, was arrested and found 'morally guilty' by the jury on one charge but the judge imposed a severe penalty, claiming that Rua had a long history of defying the law and that "he belonged to a race 'still in tutelage'". Kenana served nine months in prison and the cost of the case had taken its toll economically on his community at Maungapohatu. Olssen wrote that Pākehā were divided, but the backlash said to have "inflamed Pākehā prejudice in the country districts" resulted in many supporting the government and the police who later enforced conscription of members of the Waikato tribe that had also protested.

After the war racist xenophobia manifested as attacks on Asian immigrants, and in 1920, the government passed the Immigration Restriction Amendment Act. People who were not of British or Irish birth and parentage had to apply in writing for a permit to enter and acceptance of their suitability was at the discretion of the minister of customs, giving government power to waive the permit requirement for particular nationalities. While the 1920 act was passed primarily to restrict Asian immigration, Chinese applicants were no longer required to "leave a thumbprint on their certificates of registration to secure re-entry... but the poll tax remained in place." Exemptions were made for wives and children of Indians who were permanent New Zealand residents but the number of permits issued to Chinese applications was by 1926, limited to the wives or fiancées of New Zealand-born Chinese men. One researcher, cited by Olssen, concluded: "It does not in fact seem possible to avoid the conclusion that by 1920, and at the will of both government and people, there had been established what was, if not literally a 'white New Zealand' policy, at least one which was carefully designed effectively to prevent the settlement of Asians...[who]...were very widely regarded as inferior beings, and the prospect of miscegenation viewed with irrational horror. The Immigration Restriction Amendment Act ...brought to a successful end the long search for an instrument of policy which would both keep New Zealand white and be acceptable to the imperial government."

The implications of how New Zealanders perceived themselves and their country as part of the British empire was a key focus of Olssen's research into the legacy of the war for the country. Earlier politicians such as Seddon had promoted New Zealand as an important outpost of the British empire in the Pacific region and this approach was continued by Massey who worked closely with the Imperial War Cabinet and served on a key committee of the Imperial Conference. Olssen noted that Massey understood New Zealand's interests as "strategic, economic, social, and political - in imperial terms", and in this forum vigorously pursued them. In 1917, the Imperial Conference acknowledged that the dominions had equal status to Great Britain [and were] "entitled to be consulted about imperial foreign policy." Massey wanted Britain and the empire to retain control of Germany's Pacific colonies, and in particular for New Zealand to have Samoa. This was granted at the peace talks. On his return to New Zealand Massey was said to downplay the significance of New Zealand's role in these talks and Olssen's position was that this reflected a wariness on Massey's part that he would be seen as promoting independence which might weaken the imperial bonds. Massey reassured parliament that he had spoken as "the representative of a self-governing nation within the empire." Olssen maintained that the empire was seen as central to the survival of New Zealand and there was a feeling by the end of the war that the soldiers had demonstrated to the world "that the country had produced a strong and vigorous race", confirming the belief in the success of the country as a 'social laboratory'.

As a frame of reference for the emergence of New Zealand's nationhood following the war, Olssen drew on the work of William Morrell who, while a school student had been passionately interested in the battles and exploits of the soldiers, and in 1935 wrote the first history of the country as a nation. Olssen noted Morrell had acknowledged a range of personalities and achievements that had shaped the belief New Zealand was 'God's Own Country', but it was war, and particularly the exploits at Gallipoli, which confirmed the country's nationality and self-belief that "migration had been vindicated", they were still of worthy British stock and had not disgraced the empire. According to Olssen, "as the troops grew in confidence their little army became a mirror of the society at home."

Massey was returned to government in 1919, reflecting what Olssen saw as a perception held that he had managed industrial and economic issues well, retained strong links with the empire, gained influence and resources in the Pacific and was seen by most as "the embodiment of order at a time when revolution and anarchy threated in foreign parts." The country was prosperous and Olssen concluded that "material wellbeing, a high degree of social justice, and an open democratic society" was a source of pride to New Zealanders in how they saw themselves and their country. Some issues of identity remained unresolved and "the myth of a harmonious bi-racial society" was said by Olssen to have mostly reflected a widely held belief that Māori had been successfully assimilated. Olssen concluded that, while by 1920 New Zealand may have become an internationally recognised nation, questions remained about the justification for its existence. Pākehā saw themselves as the race best able to use the land and develop communities, but their total belief they had "rescued the Māori from savagery and extinction and conferred on them the blessings of law, christianity and British citizenship" led Olssen to question [whether] "Māori acquiescence in a Pākehā dominion [was] essential for Pākehā self-esteem."

Political career of John A. Lee

Much of the story about the development of the policies of the New Zealand Labour Party as it became a significant political force between 1920-1940, is captured by Olssen's research into the lived experiences of John A. Lee. In his 1977 biography of Lee, Olssen recorded that, born in 1801 into a poor family, he had problems at school, was involved in petty crime and spent time in an industrial school, a prison for juvenile criminals. He escaped twice, the second time successfully. By his late teenage years, Lee was living in the world of the swagger which, while being a rough masculine sub-culture, had a sense of acceptance and equality that Olssen saw as developing [in Lee] a sense of "dignity and respect...[and]...the inner strength and confidence to break free from a world in which he had been trapped." He came into contact with literature that developed his awareness of theories to explain the relationship between social class and politics. Around the age of seventeen, Lee is said to have read Upton Sinclair's expose of the sufferings of working class in the United States in his controversial book The Jungle. Olssen suggested that while Lee did not immediately associate it with socialism, the book was significant in developing his understanding of alienation and how this related to his troubled life. The socialism that Lee adopted at this time encapsulated a vision of a world where people were fed and housed, offering a promise that "society would be as the world of the swaggers, a world of camaraderie and equality." The biography made the strong point, that at this time, Lee "began to find pleasure in his tenacity, quick-wittedness, and his own fluency."

Lee's troubles with the law continued however and in 1912 he was sentenced to Mount Eden Prison for twelve months. After his release early in 2013, Lee was said by Olssen to have been determined to retain his freedom. Between 1913 and 1916 Lee worked in a variety of jobs and began listening to speakers, such as Harry Holland, Mickey Savage, Bob Semple and Pat Hickey preaching revolutionary socialism on the streets of Auckland. He subscribed to the Maoriland Worker, read a wide range of literature and developed debating skills. His politics at this time were initially focussed on supporting prohibition, his mother's sole political cause due to both of her parents being violent alcoholics. According to Olssen, Lee became committed to "evolutionary as distinct from revolutionary socialism" but with some emotional awareness of many radical ideas such as anarchism, Fabianism and 'left' socialism.

Lee enlisted in the New Zealand Expeditionary Force NZEF in March 1916 and served overseas during World War I. He met others interested in socialism and began writing columns from the front for Chronicles of the NZEF, a magazine published twice a month in London providing reports from the NZEF and edited by Clutha Mackenzie. He was injured, however, and after having his arm amputated, in 1918-1919 spent time convalescing in England where he continued to read literature about socialism, including works by J.A. Hobson. Lee returned to New Zealand in July 1919 and became involved in the New Zealand Returned Solders' Association (RSA). Lee strongly supported the organisation in lobbying the local city council in Auckland to employ and support veterans and the disabled, and Olssen noted that [Lee's work with the RSA]..."especially his intimacy with the disabled, brought him into close touch with some of most acute problems in New Zealand society such as poverty, unemployment, the housing shortage, inadequate medical attention and the feelings of frustration, bitterness and anger that such conditions bred." Lee joined the Labour Party and by 1920 was president of the Auckland Labour Representative Committee and a member of the party's national executive. He stood for Labour in a by-election in 1921, losing narrowly to Clutha MacKenzie. Olssen claimed that Lee "emerged with enhanced mana" from the campaign after strong speeches on key aspects of Labour's policies in the areas of education, the establishment of a state shipping service, management of speculation around land purchases and the establishment of public works. He was said to have focused on reaching both skilled and unskilled workers and their wives, campaigning for a nationalised medical service offering free attention, stronger national systems to support unemployed and provide sickness insurance, extension of entitlement to pensions and endorsement of "equality between the sexes." Lee's arguments were all seen by Olssen as supporting the main position of the Labour Party: "that the cake should be divided more equitably and democracy perfected." In the 1922 general election, Lee won a seat in parliament and continued to speak on equity issues in education, once again in support of Labour's policy that equality of opportunity was key for the health and education of the young to build economic growth. It has been said that in his speeches on defence, Lee went beyond the party's pacifist position, but Olssen maintained that he did gain some influence by being elected to a sub-committee to establish a defence policy.

Elected for three more terms in the Labour opposition government between 1922 and 1930, Lee was noted by Olssen as having a high profile in debates about developing economic policies to deal with the worsening depression. While Lee has been described as having played an important role in defining a Labour policy for the implementation of internationalism socialism into New Zealand, his initial contribution focused mainly on land policy. He took the position that nationalization of land would only be effective when production was socialised by cooperation, in line with other theorists such as Ernest John Bartlett Allen who saw how this approach was likely to get more support for the Labour Party from farmers. From 1926 Lee began developing the position that to deal with the depression and unemployment, it would be necessary to redistribute wealth from the rich to the poor. The issues were insufficient resources amongst the middle classes and the developing awareness that the main cause of the depression in New Zealand was not local productivity, but low returns for exports. Olssen noted the "paradox of a nation producing sufficient to feed, clothe and house its people but being unable to do so because the British housewife could not afford to buy [the] products. It was also becoming obvious to Lee and others involved in developing policies to deal with this, that the traditional approach to implementing socialism was not totally relevant to New Zealand because the country did not fit with the model of a fully industrialised capitalist society in which monopolies profited economically from the export of manufactured goods. According to Olssen, the country was "less a mass-production industrial society than an economic colony...[that]... depended heavily on importing capital and manufacturing goods and exporting primary produce." Theorists at the time believed that socialism could only be implemented after the inevitable downfall of a fully-realised capitalist system. Olssen showed how Lee challenged this and began developing a more "realistic set of socialist objectives and a strategy for realizing them within a democratic community", based on the premise that the collapse of capitalism was not inevitable and needed to be "engineered", and the implementation of socialism, "planned." By 1930 Lee was strongly propounding the theory of economic insulation "through control of finance and credit...[to protect]... New Zealand from international capitalism, and ensuring that gains in welfare could not be destroyed by falling export prices." One critic at the time accused Lee of "replacing nationalization with insulation, industrialization, and credit expansion." Olssen held it was likely Lee understood that his position moved the focus of socialism away from the alienation of the working class, maintaining his view that insulation and self-sufficiency were important factors if socialism was to be implemented into New Zealand.

Between 1931 and 1935, while not in parliament, Lee still retained some influence in the Labour Party, clarifying the stance that, while capitalism had created more productivity, the distribution to increase the purchasing power of working people remained a key issue. Olssen noted that Lee had identified a rising opposition to the Coalition government's policy that pursued a balanced budget without considering the need for a higher standard of living. He began organising public meetings, proclaiming that this was a time to oppose the policies of the current government, suggesting violence might happen if constitutional changes did not bring about justice for working people. When there was a violent uprising in Auckland, Lee became actively involved in an incident that involved police intervention. In a later analysis Lee was said to have "urged restraint...[visiting]...a local camp of unemployed to urge they destroy their weapons". According to Olssen, Lee did use language that was inflammatory at this time, but did not condone the threats of violence, and as things settled, emerged from the crisis with his "mana enhanced."

During this period, Lee promoted his view that having a strong national identity was necessary for insulation to be economically effective. He challenged the support shown by some Labour members, including [Walter Nash], the party's spokesperson on finance, of the belief that there was a special relationship with Britain as 'home'. He said this was an "insult to New Zealand" and did not reflect the fact that workers were making good progress in spite of some being driven out of Britain and "had escaped the slums to build better conditions...[such as]...the eight-hour day." Lee also disagreed with Nash about his proposal to use internal loans to address economic issues and his views on insulation and external credit did become Party policy, a situation, suggested by Olssen as the cause of later dissension. When Sid Holland, the leader of the Labour Party died in 1933, Lee did not support Savage for the position. Olssen maintained that this, on top of disagreements the two had about other issues, was something Savage never forgave Lee for.

In his work, Olssen recorded that by 1933, as the effects of the Great Depression upon working people became a reality, Lee wrote two books that promoted "social realism [as a] catalyst for change...to shock people into a recognition that [the economic system] had failed to deliver human decency and welfare." In Children of the Poor (1934), Olssen wrote that Lee "savagely depicted the consequences of poverty for a young child", with this analysis continued in The Hunted (1936). The books received mixed public reception. Negative responses were said by Joan Stevens to reflect a fear of radicalism because of their "frankness and exposure of social need", while Olssen noted that although Children of the Poor was initially published anonymously, following "excellent reviews and widespread interest...reprints bore the author's name. Olssen's concluded that Lee's intention in writing the book was to show that the environment could be altered to improve social structures based on his belief in the "power of ideas" to create a more "compassionate and open society...[where]...old traditions had to be destroyed and new faiths fostered."

When Labour was elected as the New Zealand government in 1935, Lee gained a position of responsibility for housing and was widely considered to have been the driving force in establishing a programme of state-house construction. At the same time, became impatient with the government's tardiness in implementing the party's economic policies and led a left-wing faction that challenged ministers over several issues. As the 1938 election loomed, Olssen noted that Lee had a high profile in promoting more direct government control of the financial system and putting socialism as the only answer to the economic issues. While the leadership of the party was said to have been "discomforted" by Lee's actions, "Labour increased its majority and Lee won the largest majority in New Zealand's history." In March 1940, after several confrontations between Lee and the senior members of the government, he was expelled from the Party. Olssen suggested that Lee's dynamic high public profile and skill in promoting his ideas, ensured the expulsion attracted a lot of attention and did have an effect on the membership of the Party, although not necessarily as Lee might have expected, with some divided loyalties amongst those who had previously supported him. Many of the Party branches and unions, while expressing some disagreement with the expulsion, decided to remain with the status quo. Even in Auckland, where Lee had considerable support, there appeared to be a wish not cause friction within the party. In particular, Olssen claimed, that by being expelled, Lee was less useful to militant members of the Party, such as those in the Otago Trades and Labour Council, who did not want to risk having a divided Party and losing the election. He established the Democratic Labour Party (DLP), and is said to have attracted considerable support with his public meetings and amongst Party branch members, but unions were "brought into line behind Labour." He retained his seat until the 1943 election, but by 1942 the DLP had effectively disbanded and was renamed by Lee as the Democratic Solider Labour Party (DSLP) which did provide the opportunity for him to promote a range of policies from proposing the nationalisation of the Bank of New Zealand, and, with workers having some input, cheap credit for "farmers, local bodies, home builders, manufacturers and co-operative groups.". The DSLP ran unsuccessfully in the 1943 election which saw Lee lose his seat. Olssen contended that the expulsion "marked a key battle in the triumph of authority over democracy, the central executive over the branches and of an alliance of Cabinet and certain union leaders over the Labour movement...[and arguably]...the expulsion, taken in itself and as a symbol was the central event in the Labour Party's first major crisis of identity."

Demographics

Olssen was on the Steering Panel for Our Futures Te Pae Tāwhiti The 2013 census and New Zealand's changing population (2014) a paper published by the Council of the Royal Society of New Zealand to reflect on "the future implications of certain trends...[shown in the data]...to facilitate informed discussion of the state and prospects of New Zealand society...[to]... promote public understanding by providing a basis for a more informed approach to both policy debate and political discussion. Following the release of the paper, Olssen said in the Otago Daily Times that the data from the 2013 Census showed an imbalance in the country with Auckland growing at a much faster rate than some other regions, particularly those in rural areas. He concluded that not only was this contributing toward feelings of resentment, but also meant that ratepayers in areas with less growth could struggle to financially maintain infrastructure, including that required to ensure satisfactory levels of service "for an ageing and possibly dwindling population". In a follow-up document, the Health sub report (2015), Olssen discussed demographic trends relating to mortality, morbidity, and fertility in New Zealand, evaluated health services and explored the determinants of health.

Further journal articles

Mr Wakefield and New Zealand as an Experiment in Post-Enlightenment Experimental Practice (1997) Early in this piece, Olssen acknowledged that key New Zealand historians such as Keith Sinclair had some justification in putting the activities of the New Zealand Company under scrutiny, but questioned the validity of the revisionists in the 1940s and 1950s in taking an overly-detailed analytical and judgmental approach to the Wakefield settlements that may have overlooked a larger vision held by Wakefield that "systemic colonization, was designed to establish a new civilization and was predicated on a novel belief that this was practical." For the rest of the article, Olssen explored what he saw as an "assumption...[by Wakefield]...that social and political experiments could be conducted successfully."

Olssen explored the critical ideas of the post-Enlightenment society and how these influenced Wakefield in his plan for the systematic colonization of New Zealand. As a new society, the colony fitted with a narrative based of one the idea that by using reason, humans could understand the laws of natural and social history and thus reduce pain and suffering through planned social action. The article suggested that Wakefield's work in New Zealand, was an attempt to create a society based on the best of British civilization, in effect "to create a civilized society in a new land, a civilized society predicated upon the capacity of Britons to cooperate and to govern themselves."

Wakefield's theory of systematic colonization was based on the legacy of the Enlightenment and the ideas of Adam Smith and David Ricardo. It was noted that by 1835, Wakefield had concluded that new ways of organising labour in response to "superabundance" of capital, allowed for the civilizing elements of leisure and knowledge, while not losing sight of the importance of virgin land in creating wealth. Olssen explored the development of Wakefield's views of civilization being shaped by his understanding of a political economy, but with almost a "[[post-modern]]" approach, that held "all knowledge about the economy is tentative and provisional." Olssen suggested that this demonstrated originality of thought which was later evident in his analysis of poverty in England and a strong wish for this not to be reproduced in the colonies. His scheme to enable Britain's surplus population to leave for countries in which land was more abundant, was seen by Olssen as correct because it could create a society where working people obtained land and gained agency in the creation of a civilised society.

Olssen suggested in the article that an important legacy of what he termed the "Wakefieldian Enlightenment", was the vibrant civic culture centred on voluntary societies that the colonists established, including "horticultural societies, libraries and mechanics institutes, orchestras, schools, and churches." Wakefield's grandmother was said to have been a strong proponent of charities, and the "New Zealand Society itself...[was]...an example of such a voluntaristic institution." Olssen contended that if "voluntarism institutionalized co-operation...[and]...best expressed the aspirations of the colonists...Wakefield and those he inspired had a deeper and more enduring influence than previously suspected.

The paper further traced Wakefield's attitudes and actions regardingthe recognition and treatment of Māori as tangata whenua of New Zealand. Olssen noted that a key idea of post-Enlightenment, the "conception of a universal human nature", was problematic because it was not equipped to understand or accept cultural differences. Olssen held that, initially, Wakefield, with an "innocent optimism worthy of the Enlightenment", believed Māori could be full members of a "small, cohesive, and conservative society on liberal-democratic principles, a society where wealth would not be adored, the poor not oppressed." While Wakefield did become more cynical about the realities of this, Olssen maintained that, in a letter to Gladstone in 1951, his analysis of what the settlers and the British needed to do to bring about peace and racial integration, showed a rationality and belief in the possibility of building a just society that reflected his vision and willingness to take an experimental approach.

Olssen suggested that some of Wakefield's critics overlooked the big picture of what he achieved and his impact on New Zealand's history. Elements of this big picture included the appeal of his vision that New Zealand would be a successful civilized colony, distinctive from Australia or the United States; incorporating the values of the Enlightenment into institutions as part of a democratic society; and that a model colony was possible because humans could systematically apply theories based on sociology and history. The article concluded: "[Wakefield's] experimental turn of mind, in short, helped to construct post-1840 New Zealand as an on-going experiment. Is it entirely coincidental that [New Zealanders] feel most happy when engaged on experiments which enhance [their] claim to be a model for humanity?"

Where to From Here? Reflections on the Twentieth-Century Historiography of Nineteenth-Century New Zealand (1992) Olssen began this study with an exploration of two paradigms that he contended underpinned assumptions held by professionally trained New Zealand historians in the early 1920s. The first held that the country was a successful civilization, based on the special relationship with England that created the "more English than the English" myth. Olssen noted the debates about how Māori history was approached at this time and suggested that this Eurocentric approach was likely to have been based on the same belief held by the colonists, [that] "the arrival of organised settlement confronted the Māori with a choice between savagery and civilisation." The second paradigm, a recognition of the ideas of William Pember Reeves, challenged historians to a greater focus on the importance of Māori, the wars of the 1860s and the gold rushes in shaping an identity for New Zealand. According to Olssen, this could be seen as emancipation from the Old World of England, while still retaining a belief that by being a "democratic and adventurous...harmonious bi-racial country", the colony reflected a perfection of the traditions of Britain. Olssen suggested some historians managed to align the two paradigms by conceptualzing the emergence of New Zealand's nationality as a successful evolutionary process, with some [stressing] "the importance of British heritage, sometimes invoked by metaphors of racial character, others [placing] more emphasis on the environment and the process of natural selection."

In the 1950s, historians such as Keith Sinclair challenged the importance of being so closely tied to Britain and critically assessed the role of settler greed as a cause of the New Zealand wars, questioned the true value of the work done by Wakefield and the New Zealand Company and moved to a view that the country's nationhood should be considered within a Pacific context and more aware of problems, particularly in the area of race relations. Olssen concluded that the belief, "a nation could be understood in terms of its own development" became the "new orthodoxy" of historical research, with the problem that there was no recognition of cities and provinces offering distinctly different histories. With historians believing research should now focus of specific developments in New Zealand, there was exploration of the role of the Liberals during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. This was seen by Olssen as an attempt to validate the influence of the Liberals on New Zealand becoming legislatively innovative in establishing a strong democracy, and he noted that in late 1950s commentators were endorsing that New Zealand's "history and identity was to be found in [its] democratic ways and legislative pioneering", confirmed by the rise of a Labour Party in the 1930s that developed the welfare state and moved on equality for Māori. By the 1970s there had been a shift from the notion the Liberals were true upholders of humanity and enlightenment and historians began considering the role of social classes in enabling occupational and employment mobility and to what extent they were an indicator of a healthy relationship between social and political history. Olssen's position was that this did indicate an important discussion about society and politics, there was still no recognition of regional and local histories. At this point, Olssen was able to locate his own techniques and theoretical approaches during his work as a historian during the Caversham project. Historian Giselle Byrnes, noted in the New Oxford Dictionary (2009) that in the paper Olssen made "a strong case for more local studies to show variance within generalised histories...[pointing to]...various gaps and omissions in New Zealand's history, especially the topics of sport migration and health history, which generally fall under the rubric of 'social history'."

Olssen concluded there was now a need for a new intellectual history that explained the origins and successes of New Zealand as a colony and the social realities of how "Māori and Pākehā, men, women and children could illuminate the way in which both Māori and settlers constructed societies."

Truby King and the Plunket Society: An Analysis of a Prescriptive Ideology (1981) The shift in research techniques to a focus on ordinary people's lives and values provided Olssen with the opportunity to reassess the contribution of Truby King to New Zealand history and explore his work and beliefs within the context of the time. In this article, the point was made that by 1900 New Zealand had been transformed by urbanization and industrialism, resulting in smaller communities becoming part of one social system. Olssen positioned King as offering a "diagnosis and prescription" to mitigate the threat this transformation posed to the social order.

King was seen as being an active agent in the modernization of the country, with values acquired from an upbringing in a supportive middle-class family and his experience at the Edinburgh Medical School, where he was influenced by the evolutionary theories of Herbert Spencer to develop the concept of a home with a strong mother capable of applying scientific principles to the raising of children. Olssen identified this as part of a bigger belief held by King, that people could control and modify their environment by raising standards of health. For this to succeed children needed to be "well nourished, vigorous and healthy...[by exercising]...control and discipline." This control of the brain was key to developing character and depended on sound health. King's controversial advocation of specific education for girls to be domesticated mothers, and boys for "mental and marital pursuits", was said by Olssen to have "made sense in terms of the conventional wisdom of mid-nineteenth century medical science." Olssen contended that King's views gained credibility and influence because they appealed to wealthier members of society who were uneasy about the changing role of women in the workplace moving them away from motherhood. This upper-middle class was also loyal to the British monarchy and concerned about the capacity of boys to undertake military service if necessary to defend the colony as part of the Empire. Olssen's suggested, therefore, that King's success was due to [his presentation of] "the imperial claims of medical science as a defence of traditional upper-middle class values."

The Plunket Society, established by King and his wife in 1907 initially concentrated on child health and because it achieved notable success in the reduction of infant mortality, and as a result of what Olssen noted to be "superb propaganda and organisation", there was considerable support for their work. King was encouraged by the Government to spread his ideology, being later appointed as the first Director of Child Welfare. By 1920 the Plunket Society began to widen its approach to health by applying King's theory that character is developed as a result of "routine, regular, all-round treatment" of infants and Olssen proposed that this concept and practice had not been analysed, because at the time, "it was seen as natural, part of a divinely ordained, an archetype of human nature." These routines were a prescription that children should be trained and not spoilt or indulged, and the responsibility for this still rested with the mother. King's goal was to develop a character free of "vice" so young people would not become adolescents and adults "devoid of moral self-control...[and fill]...the slums, prisons and charitable organisations".

King demanded censorship of movies in response to what he perceived as a threat to his theory that young people needed to control their sexuality, and Olssen put forward that this assumed almost as much importance as concerns about infant mortality. As with other theories and practices of King and the Society, Olssen maintained this was plausible at the time because any lack of control could have "disturbed the tidiness of a maturing social order and widespread faith in science, reason and order". Biological differences were used to justify gender roles, with boys being trained for employment and girls for motherhood, and the claim by the Society that this would create "stability and order", was widely accepted by the urban middle-classes. Olssen's position was that King and the Society were respected because they were applying "authoritative advice on child rearing...[and playing]...a valuable educational role in de-mystifying medicine." After it is further noted in the paper that the work of the Society was designed to produce citizens with the character to advance in their employment, and home maintenance was becoming regarded as a profession "of vital social importance", Olssen put the case that "King's ideology, adopted by the Plunket Society, was a flexible response to the tensions and problems confronting colonial society". Olssen qualified this, however and concluded that while the tasks of motherhood may have achieved some "social order and progress", for many women these roles "constituted a form of imprisonment" and despite "King's brilliant synthesis of the old and new", the Society was still hegemonic.

Olssen suggested that King's ideology, experience working for a large bureaucratic organization, and training in new scientific procedures during his involvement in medicine, may have helped modernize the approach to developing disciplined and organized social structures in New Zealand society. King was also influential in promoting the medical profession as having social authority, and elaborated what Olssen called, 'a new religion of health' based on "an ideology of medical theory" to deal not only with disease, but also superstitious beliefs, what was seen at the time as 'backwardness', and "popular immorality." He situated his ideal family as one in which the wife/mother was trained by scientific experts modelled, according to Olssen, on how hospitals and asylums controlled and rehabilitated "deviants." Olssen concluded: "It was probably no coincidence that King had spent almost twenty years as the Medical Superintendent of Seacliff Hospital before turning his considerable energies to invading and subjecting the family to the control of the medical priesthood."

The Working Class in New Zealand (1974) In this journal article Olssen critiqued a hypothesis put by another historian William Oliver, that social class had little effect on historical social change in New Zealand. Oliver contended that because working people were more concerned with identifying obstructions to social mobility than obvious grievances with capitalism, class consciousness was of little historical significance in the country. Olssen claimed Oliver's hypothesis, that high levels of social mobility in the country reflected workers being empowered to act outside of a class consciousness because of legislation to support arbitration, educational opportunities and the availability of land, could not be validated by research. To support his argument, Olssen defined class in terms of a range of variables including levels of income, the type of occupation, education and where people lived, and suggested that "class is a useful concept if it can be shown that people of approximately similar incomes, derived in a similar manner, working in occupations of equal status act together in pursuit of common goals." He continued his critique with the observation that within New Zealand from the 1880s, working men and women saw the social system as one of class and acted accordingly. This was said to have been evident in the way class consciousness was reflected in the political sphere. Olssen's research indicated that urban working men "voted overwhelmingly for Labour candidates" in the 1890 election, a trend that continued when Labour won a majority of the working class vote in 1919, and with the same support, were elected to government in 1935. Olssen made the point that Labour was not only ideologically class-focussed, but depended for over eighty years on the support of working men and women, calling into question Oliver's assertation that class had no "relevance to New Zealand's past." As further evidence of the significance of class within the urban political structure of the country, Olssen also suggested that "fear of the working class has played a not inconsiderate part in holding conservative coalitions together."

When he wrote this paper, Olssen was embarking on a localised study of how social relationships created occupational structures that had political implications for workers within a suburb of Dunedin. His research showed an increasing class consciousness within the Amalgamated Society of Carpenters and Joiners (ASC&J), a previously conservative union. By 1885, the union had moved closer to working with groups such as the Trades and Labour Council and the Workers' Political Committee and evidence from the union's minutes showed financial support for local strikes and boycotts and the passing of remits "congratulating workers in Germany and the United States for their efforts to achieve an eight hour day." The use of the term 'working class' was used in the union's literature but there was little evidence of a concern with upward mobility, instead, recognising "goals and problems in common with wharf lumpers, shearers, sailors, labourers, tailoresses and boot makers." He also documented how, by 1887, widely-read local publications such as the Otago Workman had moved their support for the rights of working class communities in Dunedin toward articulating a coherent rationale for "a class view of society and politics in New Zealand...caused not by individual inadequacy but by capitalist society...[with]...problems that could not be solved by individual action...but only by solidarity in work and politics." In his conclusion, Olssen acknowledged that while class as a concept or element to explain some political events needed to be kept in perspective, it seemed unlikely that "upward mobility and high floor-low ceiling [had] exorcised class consciousness" from New Zealand.

Book reviews and media contributions

• The New Zealand Family from 1840: A Demographic History (2008). In his review of this book, Olssen welcomed that demography had become widely accepted in social history and acknowledged the work of the authors in identifying the key trends in the New Zealand family from 1840 onwards and analyzing the implications of their conclusions by comparing these with what is happening in other parts of the English-speaking world. He concluded that the book is "impressive and ambitious...a definitive study of most topics covered and the best study of New Zealand’s various families that we are likely to have for a very long time."

• Public postures, private lives (1999). Olssen's review of books about two significant members of the New Zealand labour movement, James Edwards and Jock Barnes, provided an historical backdrop to the political struggles that drove their activism. Olssen acknowledged that, such biographies provide insight into "periods of unusual significance in [New Zealand's] history...and tell us something of the strengths and weaknesses of the labour movement."

• Self-reliant in Victorian New Zealand (1995). This is a review of Nearly Out of Hope and Heart: The puzzle of a colonial labourers Diary. After describing it as [having a] "lively argument, polished prose and methodical sophistication", Olssen contended that the book was about solving a puzzle, and "Fairburn takes the reader on a journey into another world, armed with all the gadgetry of a late‑twentieth century explorer, and brilliantly illuminates many aspects of colonial society." He noted that the book explores the diaries of an ordinary labourer in New Zealand between 1888 and 1925 and when seen as a "counterpoint" to Frances Porter's Born to New Zealand, demonstrates Fairburn's "formidable grasp of the relevant historiographical and sociological literatures, which unobtrusively shapes his telling of [Cox's] story." According to Olssen, the book "prompts debate and reflection...also offers a unique lens for investigating colonial life", and justifies the ethno-history of one man, without answering all the questions about his typicality.

• A peculiarly contemporary figure (1991). Olssen reviewed two books written by K.R. Howe about Edward Tregear, a significant contributor to New Zealand's social and political history during the 1880s. He suggested that Treager's verse may not have widespread appeal to any but "avid enthusiasts of 19th-century colonial writing...[but]...if the verse has lost interest, the life has not." The biography was said by Olssen to nicely explore Treager's attitude toward a growing "enthusiasm for Maori and Polynesian studies...his intellectual leanings...and shows him appropriating the Māori past in order to make himself more at home." Olssen, however, questioned Howe's mastery of the "historiography on labour history" and is not persuaded "that Tregear still spoke to the conditions of our time...[being more]... a claim born of nostalgia for an older and simpler era; there is little evidence to sustain it."

• History in the making: the battle over the new school curriculum (2021). After the release of the draft history curriculum for New Zealand schools in 2021, Olssen was one of many historians who commented on the document. He wrote that the draft does not "acknowledge...[or]... study such important developments as the creation of one of the world’s oldest democratic political systems and societies; an economy that has sustained a high standard of living, a healthy population with long life expectancy, and a global innovator in producing food for a global market."

• Simplicity compounds ignorance (2019). When 2017 New Zealand Rhodes Scholar, Jean Balchin attempted to correct a children's book, This is Captain Cook in the interests of "overcoming ignorance of one's own culture", Olssen took issue with three of her points. He suggests the use of the term 'murder' in the context of the first interactions between Cook and local Māori is not used by scholars such as Anne Salmond'; cites Belich that high levels of sexual abuse committed by Cook's crew was unlikely; and while conceding [that] "in some colonial contexts Europeans deliberately spread such diseases as smallpox in order to kill an indigenous people, nobody has ever reported any evidence that this happened in New Zealand [and] is certainly untrue of Cook or any of his counterparts." To the contrary, Olssen recounts the efforts taken by Cook to prevent his crew from engaging with Tahitians when there was some contraction of venereal infections, concluding that "throughout his three voyages he constantly tried to prevent the spread of these diseases." Rather than what Olssen describes as "sweeping generalisations [which] are also a-historical... much more careful and fine-grained analysis is necessary."

• What we need is a melting pot (2015). In an opinion piece in the Otago Daily Times, Olssen reflects on a previous article in the paper examining data from the United States that had shown an increasingly diverse range of cultures in the country, and considers the implications for New Zealand. He cites data from the 2013 census that he had helped to collate, and notes increased diversification of the population in the country with evidence of considerable regional differences. In the article, Olssen suggests that "youth and cultural diversity make for demographic and social dynamism...[and]..today's diversity is a boon and a godsend, occurring just in time to save us from our ageing white selves." He claims that with diversity there is a "demographic dividend...[and New Zealand]...needs to make sure it reaps the advantage....[as]... economic growth [and] greater cultural diversity... both contribute to a dynamic and lively society."

• Hillary stands atop summit of NZ fame (2013). In 2013, sixty years after Edmund Hillary had conquered Mount Everest, Olssen contributed to the discussion about how the mountaineer ranked among New Zealand's heroes. He suggests Hillary would top most New Zealanders' lists, noting that Kiwis [not only] "love his famous remark on descending from Mt Everest that 'we knocked the bastard off, [but that] he said it as if he was just coming down for a cup of tea." He also suggests that while sports people are often held in high regard, Hillary demonstrated individual "skill, courage and self-effacement" that reflected his life and achievements.

• Graduates facing 'greater challenges' (2012). On 27 August 2012, in his presentation to graduates from the University of Otago, Olssen highlights the differences in the world at the time from when he was a student fifty years previously. The key point made was that the challenge for students in 2012 [was] "navigating the tidal wave of expanding knowledge" and compared to his graduation, it was necessary to see the journey to gain knowledge as an "adventure" that was just beginning.

• Recalling Dunedin's dark days (2008). In an interview to reconsider the effect of the Great Depression on New Zealand, Olssen claims it was mainly caused by the central Government retrenching to cut spending and borrowing resulting in high levels of unemployment, for which little responsibility was taken leaving it to "local communities...to provide soup kitchens and depots for food, clothing and coal". Olssen notes that even after the passing of the Unemployment Act (1930), the Dunedin City Council and the Otago Hospital Board took most of the responsibility for supporting the unemployed. In the article, Olssen tells of relief schemes that provided insufficient money to live on and often forced workers on these schemes to take unpaid leave ('holidays'), sometimes resulting in them being out of work for "one week in every four". This caused industrial unrest in Dunedin with several riots beginning on 9 January 1932, suggested by Olseen as reflecting that "many on the Left felt that the only way to stop governments from retrenching still further and further with all the human cost was to get their people out on to the streets and make it clear that it was going to be a pretty high cost in terms of civil disorder." The Depression lessened from 1933 but Olssen concludes it had become an "indictment of human stupidity" and young people are smart and wise enough to understand that it should never have happened.

• God's own land...maybe even more than we thought (2008). In 2008 there was a debate in the New Zealand media about the claim by an associate professor at the University of Otago that the country's history was being distorted by "secular and left-liberal" historians, such as Olssen and Keith Sinclair to push their own agendas. Olssen calls the claim "either unfair or disingenuous or both" but does note that he had often discussed whether New Zealand was a Christian country with the associate professor and there was some agreement that Christianity had influenced in shaping the values of New Zealand. Sharing that he did not believe in the Christian "creed", Olssen also questions how many of the mainstream population actually believed.

• Tribute to Michael King (2004). Olssen was one of many historians who expressed sadness at the death of New Zealand historian Michael King in March 2004. In his tribute, Olssen says that King had "recognised the role of Māori history in New Zealand long before other historians....[and]...his first book, Te Puea, was enormously significant, I suspect amongst Māori... but certainly enormously important for Pākehā, in bringing to attention the richness and wealth of 20th century Maori history." According to Olssen, King had "outstanding" writing skills, and was disappointed he never got to discuss his latest book The Penguin History of New Zealand with him.

Distinctions

• Trustee of the Turnbull Endowment Trust (as of 2023) since 1986 and a member of the Special Committee Alexander Turnbull until it closed in 2003

• Fellow of the New Zealand Academy of the Humanities (2008)

• Fellow of the Hoken Library (2007)

• Member of Cultural Heritage Advisory Group (2006)

• Distinguished Fulbright Fellow (2004)

• Chair of the Humanities and Peer Review Law Panel for the first-round of the Performance Based Research Fund 2003.

• James Cook Fellow (2001)

• Fellow of the Royal Society of New Zealand (1998)

• Advisory Committee for the Dictionary of New Zealand Biography (1983-1996)

• Dunedin City Council Sesquicentennial Publications Committee (1995-1998)

• Member Social Science Advisory Committee of Foundation for Research, Science & Technology (1997-2000)

• Member Otago Goldfields Park Advisory Committee (1977-1984)

• History Curriculum Committee (1983-1988)

Honours and awards

In the 2002 Queen's Birthday and Golden Jubilee Honours List, Olssen was awarded The Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit (O.N.Z.M.) for services to historical research.

Olssen received the Te Rangi Hiroa Medal in 2001.

Olssen's publication Building the New World: work, politics and society in Caversham, 1880s-1920s, won the J.E. Sherrard Prize, 1996.

In 1978 Olssen's book John A. Lee was placed 2nd in the Goodman Fielder Wattie Book Awards.

The Erik Olssen Prize named in recognition of Olssen's work as a historian, is awarded biennially by The New Zealand Historical Association for the best first book by an author on any aspect of New Zealand History.

See also

• Military history of New Zealand during World War I