Visibly Canadian: Imaging Collective Identities in the Canadas, 1820-1910 9780773596931

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Z  V i s i b ly C a n a d i a n   Y

M c GILL-QUEEN’S/BEAVERBROOK CANADIAN FOUNDATION STUDIES IN ART HISTORY Martha Langford and Sandra Paikowsky, series editors Recognizing the need for a better understanding of Canada’s artistic culture both at home and abroad, the Beaverbrook Canadian Foundation, through its generous support, makes possible the publication of innovative books that advance our understanding of Canadian art and Canada’s visual and material culture. This series supports and stimulates such scholarship through the publication of original and rigorous peer-reviewed books that make significant contributions to the subject. We welcome submissions from Canadian and international scholars for book-length projects on historical and contemporary Canadian art and visual and material culture, including Native and Inuit art, architecture, photography, craft, design, and museum studies. Studies by Canadian scholars on non-Canadian themes will also be considered. The Practice of Her Profession Florence Carlyle, Canadian Painter in the Age of Impressionism Susan Butlin Bringing Art to Life A Biography of Alan Jarvis Andrew Horrall Picturing the Land Narrating Territories in Canadian Landscape Art, 1500 to 1950 Marylin J. McKay The Cultural Work of Photography in Canada Edited by Carol Payne and Andrea Kunard Newfoundland Modern Architecture in the Smallwood Years, 1949–1972 Robert Mellin The Codex Canadensis and the Writings of Louis Nicolas The Natural History of the New World, Histoire Naturelle des Indes Occidentales Edited and with an Introduction by François-Marc Gagnon, Translation by Nancy Senior, Modernization by Réal Ouellet Museum Pieces Toward the Indigenization of Canadian Museums Ruth B. Phillips The Allied Arts Architecture and Craft in Postwar Canada Sandra Alfoldy

Rethinking Professionalism Essays on Women and Art in Canada, 1850–1970 Edited by Kristina Huneault and Janice Anderson The Official Picture The National Film Board of Canada’s Still Photography Division and the Image of Canada, 1941–1971 Carol Payne Paul-Émile Borduas A Critical Biography François-Marc Gagnon Translated by Peter Feldstein On Architecture Melvin Charney: A Critical Anthology Edited by Louis Martin Making Toronto Modern Architecture and Design, 1895–1975 Christopher Armstrong Negotiations in a Vacant Lot Studying the Visual in Canada Edited by Lynda Jessup, Erin Morton, and Kirsty Robertson Visibly Canadian Imaging Collective Identities in the Canadas, 1820–1910 Karen Stanworth

# VISIBLY CANADIAN Imaging Collective Identities in the Canadas, 1820–1910

$ Karen Stanworth

McGill-Queen’s University Press Montreal & Kingston | London | Ithaca

© McGill-Queen’s University Press 2014 isbn 978-0-7735-4458-1 (cloth) isbn 978-0-7735-9693-1 (epdf) Legal deposit fourth quarter 2014 Bibliothèque nationale du Québec Printed in Canada on acid-free paper Publication of this book has been aided by a grant from the Wyeth Foundation for American Art Publication Fund of the College Art Association. McGill-Queen’s University Press acknowledges the support of the Canada Council for the Arts for our publishing program. We also acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund for our publishing activities.

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication Stanworth, Karen, 1955–, author Visibly Canadian : imaging collective identities in the Canadas, 1820–1910 / Karen Stanworth. (McGill-Queen’s/Beaverbrook Canadian Foundation studies in art history ; 15) Includes bibliographical references and index. Issued in print and electronic formats. isbn 978-0-7735-4458-1 (bound). – isbn 978-0-7735-9693-1 (ePDF) 1. Art and society – Québec (Province) – History – 19th century – Case studies. 2. Art and society – Ontario – History – 19th century – Case studies.  3. Popular culture – Québec (Province) – History – 19th century – Case studies.  4. Popular culture – Ontario – History – 19th century – Case studies. 5. Group identity – Québec (Province) – History – 19th century – Case studies.  6. Group identity – Ontario – History – 19th century – Case studies. 7. Québec (Province) – Social life and customs – 19th century – Case studies. 8. Ontario – Social life and customs – 19th century – Case studies.  I. Title. II. Series: McGill-Queen’s/Beaverbrook Canadian Foundation studies in art history ; 15

N72.S6S73 2014  701’.030971309034

C2014-905366-5 C2014-905367-3

Set in 11.5/14 Filosofia with Hypatia Sans Pro and Bergamot Ornaments Book design and typesetting by Garet Markvoort, zijn digital

Z CONTENTS  Y

Acknowledgments ix Colour plates follow page 22 Introduction: Visual Culture: Practices and Methodologies  3

Part one Visibly Ordered: Mid-Nineteenth-Century Museums and the Colonial Order of Things  23

1  A Picture of Quebec: Artifacts of Civilization  31 2  A Laboratory of Learning: The Educational Museum, Visual Culture, and Citizenship in Canada West  65 3  Whose Lessons? Subjects of the Colonial Archive  103

Part Two Visibly Public: Spectacularizing Social Identities in Victorian Canada  139

4  Staging a Siege: Or, the Cultural Politics of Re-Producing Modern History  145 5  Bilingual Memories: A Souvenir of the Diamond Jubilee in Quebec City, 1897  185

6  “The Body Corporate Gets a Wriggle On”: The Civic Parade in Montreal, 1897  221

Part Three Visibly Related: Small Group Portraiture and the Display of the Social Self  259

7  “Born with a Silver Spoon and Fork”: Photographic Testimonies of Acculturation, Montreal, 1873  265 8  The Family Portrait: Portrait of the Artist as a Successful Man  301 9  Visual Rhetoric: Storytelling, History, and Identity in a Portrait of Three Friends 333 Postscript 355 Illustration Credits  359 Notes 363 Bibliography 417 Index 449

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Z ACKNOWLEDGMENTS  Y

This project has covered a lot of time and territory. The first research was done while I was still a p hd student in the early 1990s, with some archival work being done in Canada, England, and the United States. Parts of some chapters have had prior life as conference papers or case studies in graduate seminars. The long gestation of the book means that I owe a debt of gratitude to many people, both professionals and personal friends. I owe a special thank you to Marcia Pointon, who was my p hd supervisor and has become a friend and mentor. She urged me back into the fray after I was forced to take several years off due to illness. Several colleagues have read parts of the writing, either in article form or as the research material was consolidated into chapters. For this service, I thank anonymous reviewers at racar , Symploke, and the University of Toronto Quarterly. I owe a large debt of gratitude to my colleague at York University, Sarah Parsons, who read the entire manuscript and offered insight, corrections, and encouragement. Alain Belleville, Lisa Farley, Virginia McKendry, Marcia Pointon, Jerry Shiner, Sara Stanworth-Cunnane, Richard Schneider, Carol Zemel, and Joyce Zemans have read parts of the book across the years. The work has been strengthened by the close readings and editing offered by Kathryn Simpson. The “beast” was printed, delivered, and named by my research assistant, Jane Griffith. Jane also read and commented on the entire manuscript. I have benefited from the enthusiasm and dedication of research assistants who have assisted me over the years, some of whom are now colleagues. These include: Annie Gerin, Ken Allen, Sarah Bassnett, Maggie Petrou, and Ekatarine Kotikova. I have many archival and historical librarians to thank, including the oise Research Librarian; the Special Collections Librarian at the National Art Library, Victoria and Albert Museum, London; the librarian at a small community library in Anglesey, Wales, who helped me in the last moments of editing, done while visiting very patient relatives. I am also grateful for the assistance

of Lori Browne, who takes care of the archives at the Hands Fireworks Company; Linda Cobon, Administrator, Records and Archives, at Exhibition Place (cne ), Toronto; Gill Arnott, Senior Keeper of Hampshire Topographical and Printed Collections, Hampshire County Museums Service, Chilcomb House, Chilcomb Lane, Winchester, uk . I received funding from a number of sources including the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (small grants for research), along with a succession of grants from the Faculty of Fine Arts and the Faculty of Education at York, and the York University Faculty Association, who gave me a major grant that enabled me to take a break from teaching in order to focus on my research and writing. Numerous copyright holders have enthusiastically supported the research by giving me generous access to archival materials and permission to reproduce images with no charge, such as the University of Toronto Art Collection; Riverbrink Art Gallery; Archives du Séminaire de Québec; the Literary and Historical Society of Quebec; Hands Fireworks. And finally, I want to thank my family, Carole, Clare, and Sara, for the unstinting support over the last few years. We have made our way through challenging times, and they have never failed to encourage me to continue the research and writing.

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Z INTRODUCTION  Y

Visual Culture: Practices and Methodologies

Canada (Iroquoian)1 canadien (17th century)2 We are Canadians. (1896)3 My name is Joe and I am Canadian. (2000)4

Canadian? For at least two hundred years, Canadians have been obsessed with who they are. My use of “obsessed” is meant to draw attention to the extensive examination – particularly by inhabitants of Quebec and Ontario – of Canadian identity since the early nineteenth century.5 Over the last two hundred years, this obsession has been worked out in part in the visual realm, particularly in the arts. Many readers are familiar with the Group of Seven, Northrop Frye, and Margaret Atwood, whose art and literature painted, theorized, and narrated stories of Canadian identity in the twentieth century.6 In Visibly Canadian, I focus principally on the representational practices of the citizenry in the nineteenth century; specifically, how visual culture participates at a fundamental level in the formation and articulation of a complex discourse about citizenry, propriety, and collective identities.7 I argue that visual culture is the primary mode through which social identities are produced and consumed in the nineteenthcentury Canadas.8 Three thematic rubrics provide a way to think about the ways in which visual culture functioned at specific times and in particular locales. Part One: Visibly Ordered looks at three case studies that explore the importance of collecting and ordering practices in two early nineteenth-century Canadian museums; Part Two: Visibly Public examines three instances of civic spectacle as expressions of collective identities; and Part Three: Visibly Related investigates early forms

of group portraiture as public expressions of social belonging. Each section is introduced with a consideration of the critical literature and historical frame that informs these case studies. At the end of each chapter is a short postscript called “Archival Notes”; this provides a discursive account of my encounters with and in some of the archives that shaped each chapter. The notes offer brief glimpses into the research process – sometimes examining physical archives, sometimes metaphorical – and highlight how archival evidence serves to challenge the research subject and provoke new conversations about the significance of that research.

Two Canadas, Nine Case Studies Arising from different moments of research, influenced by teaching, happenstance, and curiosity, the nine case studies I’ve chosen are concerned with particular cultural objects produced in a specific time and place. Tracing a roughly chronological trajectory, they serve to frame the discussion of visual culture in the two Canadas during what might be called the long nineteenth century (1789–1914).9 For Canada, that long century began with the era of British colonization initiated by the Conquest of the French in Quebec (175910) and ended during the post-Confederation years prior to the intensification of debate over imperial relations preceding World War I. During this period of exponential growth in the population and territorial holdings of the Canadas, the rapidly increasing and shifting population participated in multiple visual manifestations of social relations. Ranging from familial, local, and nationalist to racial, gendered, and economic, the visual culture of the nineteenth-century Canadas took on enormous significance for that local population. Museums, parades, exhibitions, grandstand spectacles, and even group portraiture were used to demonstrate and consolidate socio-cultural attachments of local or colonial significance. Arguably, visual practices were employed as a way of confirming those emerging and threatened social relations, as well as replicating relations that were perceived as ensuring some sense of stability. This study looks at numerous attempts to visually express certain relations at the core of dominant identity formations, as well as the sometimes contradictory identities that informed strategies of differentiation. Although the names and boundaries of the geographical area under study have changed from Upper and Lower Canada, to Canada West and Canada East, and then to Quebec and Ontario, the territory that

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concerns me is the geographic region known as “the two Canadas.” Technically the political designation of Upper and Lower Canada from 1791 to 1841, the term “two Canadas” is useful as a lens through which to consider the complex relations between the two colonies (later two provinces). This is not to neglect the fact that the colony of Nova Scotia (and then later New Brunswick) was developing at the same time. However, Britain’s other colonies in what was to become Canada were not tied to each other in the same polity as were the Canadas. Arguably, much of what came to underpin Canadian colonial identities – local, regional, and “national” – was formulated in the two Canadas. Since the two colonies developed politically, economically, and socially in relation to each other, their eventual union foreshadowed the relation of part to whole (province to nation). In a sense, the Canadas can be seen as disciplining each other, often punishing one to the benefit of the other.11 This is not always literal (although it is at times), but is a way of thinking about consequences of identity constructions built on dyads of difference and sameness. On the other hand, the troubles between the various stakeholders in the consolidation of British Canada – whether the French settlers, English colonists, or aboriginals – worked simultaneously to destabilize simple binaries of self/ other. Whether emerging from economic clashes between the professional and working classes, tensions between urban and rural Catholics, or anxieties about patriotism, identity locations are multiple and contradictory, yet to be useful they must also be sustainable – at least temporarily. Thus the case studies here focus on these conjoined and troubled identity boundaries. The historiography of the Canadas and, later, the confederated provinces has been deeply contested at various times in the past thirty years. While I cannot do justice to the extensive study of this historiography here, or to the depth of arguments provided by Canadian historians, I do need to comment briefly on the impact of theories about the perceived role of the Conquest on canadien socio-economic development, the importance of regional studies, and the many studies focused on gender, class, and race. The historiography of nineteenth-century Quebec has seen outright conflict among modern historians, never mind among the various nineteenth-century stakeholders. Much of the debate of the 1980s and 1990s centred on whether the Conquest caused the canadiens to be economically inferior to the English, and in that way different from contemporaneous societies, or whether their way of life was, relative to other nations, similarly modern.12 In a comparable fashion, Introduction  5

the historiography of English Canada reveals debates that shift from seeing the province as the centre of socio-political development in Canada to focusing on particular and intersecting identity positions.13 This burgeoning literature on religious, gendered, racial, and ethnic histories in specific localities and across borders points to the ways in which national histories are dislocated and troubled by new histories. For instance, Elizabeth Jameson and Jeremy Mouat examine how the idea of a common border has shaped U.S. and Canadian histories and identities. They argue that the development of specific understandings of national origins and colonial relationships shape historical narratives of nation. Extrapolating from this work, we have a sense of the significance of history telling. This troubles my narrative stance throughout.14 Ongoing debates in French and English histories of Canada about different ways of encountering the history of the Canadas complicate the kinds of historical narratives that I, in turn, produce in the case studies. So how does this affect how we can conceptualize the socio-cultural history of the Canadas? A central theme of the whole volume is the public exhibition of the self in relation to society. I employ a conceptualization of sociality as a dynamic relational matrix to inform my argument that the performance of a social self in visual terms is crucial to cultural production. Generally understood as the tendency to associate with others and to form social groups, sociality always involves some form of differentiation and affiliation of the individual self with the collective whole.15 Social performance is seen, witnessed, and embodied. Visual culture is the primary mode through which these iterations of self are produced and consumed, and as such, visibility and visuality are central to social articulations of identity and the relations of power associated with those identity positions.16 Admittedly, the selection of the case studies emerged as a combination of chance and intention. I happened to find a reference to an early nineteenth-century museum in Quebec City when I was doing research on literary societies in Canada. Asked to contribute a chapter to Marcia Pointon’s book on art in nineteenth-century museums, Art Apart (1994), I ended up delving deeply into the nature of collecting and ordering the lived environment in the Canadas. Thus, Part I considers the effect of museums on the institutionalization of visual culture in Canada. The three case studies provide examples of the ways in which local knowledges are negotiated within specific communities. Knowledges are plural; they may be multiple, contradictory, and/ or mutually enforcing. Chapters 1 and 3 explore how the museum of

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the Literary and Historical Society of Quebec (LHSQ ) was established and then renegotiated over time. Chapter 2 focuses on the Educational Museum that was established in 1850s Toronto as a means to develop civic propriety. The second part of the book, on spectacle and civic display, examines the role of social spectacle in the definition of civic identities. I investigate the relationship between ephemeral public events and the ongoing articulation of sociality. The emergence of the grandstand spectacle in the 1880s at the Dominion and Industrial Fair (later renamed the Canadian National Exhibition) was an early form of edutainment for the masses. Chapter 4 examines how public spectacle took shape in Toronto in the 1880s and 1890s. Chapters 5 and 6 trace the impact that Queen Victoria’s sixtieth year on the throne had in Montreal and Quebec City, where in 1897 the English- and French-speaking populations came together in a unique performance of civic and colonial pride. The book’s third part focuses on the public display of not-soprivate lives as they are represented in small group portraiture. Chapter 6 explores a Victorian photograph album compiled in the 1870s at Bute House, a private girls’ school in Montreal. Chapters 7 and 8 focus on two painted group portraits: the Larose family and the Simcoe group. Portraits with more than one sitter immediately reveal presumed relations between sitters. Yet group portraits also hold the potential to disrupt the meaningfulness of the moment of representation, as the messiness of private lives, ambivalent desires, and the passage of time may contest the intentions of the sitters or the artist. The Bute House album is unusual in Canadian photographic history because it contains extensive internal evidence describing the sitters and the photographers. As a case study, the album permits a deeper study of the narrative intention of the donor/s and of the lived experiences of individual girls, who often fail to reiterate the sanctioned narrative. The study of the Larose family examines the ways in which notions of a canadien family in 1907 Montreal contain and restrict the possible multiplicity of narratives of sociality. The Simcoe portrait addresses the nature of shifting contemporaneous discourse that insists on specific readings and yet collapses under the narrative impetus of a change in site and time of viewing. As a whole, this book provides case studies in which I attempt to practise what I preach methodologically. Each is a micro-history tenuously constructed through the congruence of research object, subject, and resources. Every study could equally be a book in itself. However,

Introduction  7

I delimit the scope of the work through a focus on why particular instances of visual culture matter specifically to the history of identities in the two Canadas. This has provoked me to develop a framework for interdisciplinary methodology that is driven by questions of practice. How are the objects of study shaped by the research subject and the questions I bring? What resources take me to these archives, to other archives, to other sources that become primary to my investigation? And, subsequently, how does the nature of my sources influence my perspective? How can I keep my preconceptions from overdetermining the choices of subject, theory, or resource? These questions are in perpetual play with one another. They undermine the solidity of the stories I want to tell. I attempt to hold them in paradoxical tension – allowing the slipperiness of other stories to be present – while telling stories that still matter.

Why does visual culture matter? And how is its story told? Although the definition of exactly what constitutes visual culture is contested by various academics, it is generally agreed that visual culture studies, as a field of inquiry, describes a complex set of relations between visual phenomena, meanings, and practices. How do images and artifacts come to have certain meanings at a given time and place? Why do some representations appear clear and others ambiguous? How is it that advertisers seem to know what will make viewers squirm with self-doubt? How do we know when something is Canadian or American? Most importantly, why do visibility and visuality matter? My goal is to raise questions such as these in a clearly argued and theoretically informed fashion. While the issues are complex and often contradictory, I use the case studies as a means of considering current issues in theory and practice, yet also in order to demystify the critical debates that shape my questions. I want to share my excitement about the importance of looking historically with students and scholars, and also to encourage stimulating and provocative debates about visual culture in and between academic disciplines. The field of visual culture provides a rich and indispensable approach to archival research, historical inquiry, and visual interpretation. The interplay of visual phenomena, whether artwork, museum artifacts, popular spectacle, or photography, is increasingly acknowledged as a powerful set of relations revealing the centrality of visual practices to belief systems. I am particularly interested in the ways that visual events such as the

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spectacles, parades, and exhibitions of the nineteenth century served to produce new or revised socio-cultural relations. Conflict about, and negotiation of, new forms of representation reveal the process of identity constructions. As we shall see, evidence suggests that specific groups of people can become bitterly divided over the date and enactment of a civic parade (chapters 5 and 6), feel addressed by specific exhibition practices (chapters 1, 2, and 3), or become united when experiencing grandstand spectacle (chapter 4). Not only are social identities intimately connected to practices of visual culture, they are normalized and institutionalized through the practices of museums, schools, and government offices. Furthermore, group portraiture is yet another form of visual representation intimately tied to sociality. In specific types of group portraits – school, family, and friends (chapters 7, 8, and 9) – these relations are made public through multiple forms of social exchange. Perhaps the most evident consequence of visually mediated social identities is the dependence of racism, sexism, and homophobia on visually coded differences, and the ways in which those differences are embedded in the commonplace. Structures of differentiation are represented and re-presented all the time. Individuals are always scanning others and reading visual difference on and into the faces and bodies that surround them. While the effort to consciously resist moral and other value judgments based on recognition of difference may be attempted, people nonetheless notice and respond to visual signifiers.17 Normative images that dominate everyday culture are not normal: they are normalized by and through visual practices that are the result of uneven relations of power. While the white Eurocentrism of cultural practices has been well documented, it is still important to reiterate the significance of visuality in the construction and reiteration of power relations. For instance, the subjects of western art that were seen as most important in the eighteenth century (e.g., history paintings such as Benjamin West’s The Death of Wolfe [1778]) depict white men in political action – Englishmen vanquish Frenchmen; they all conquer the aboriginal population; women are not a factor.18 Similarly today, the televised political debate or parliamentary session echoes the same visual coding of power in action. Regardless of equity policies or changes in the social contract, the majority of politicians in the western world are white men. Even the exceptions to this practice are often visually coded, and their very visibility is used to sustain uneven relations of difference and, thus, of power (token representatives remain clearly, and visibly, token). We have to pay attention to

Introduction  9

visuality, both now and in historical inquiry. By visuality, I mean the way in which the visual is politicized and the political visualized, that is, laden with often unseen and unacknowledged value judgments that are reiterated in everyday life. If we can see how attitudes and practices are visually embedded and naturalized in the everyday, then we have the possibility of being conscious participants in the reiteration of, or in the refusal to reproduce, those ideas, beliefs, and practices.

Debating fields: what are visual culture studies? Despite consolidation through academic acceptance – at least at the level of naming departments19 – visual culture studies remains in a somewhat problematic location in the academic world.20 Rather, it is perceived as amorphous – a field of study floating among disciplines, undisciplined, with contested methodologies. Visual culture studies is often also seen as a sub-field of art history. But since visual culture studies is likewise concerned with the primary sources of media studies, history, identity studies, and psychology (namely, intellectual inquiries that look at representations of self and society), visual culture also intrudes upon the academic territories of numerous other disciplines in the humanities and social sciences. Its interdisciplinarity is restless and uncomfortable. Not surprisingly, visual culture has proven difficult to locate in an academy that is relentless in its determination to maintain disciplinary territory.21 Often dismissed as popular culture, ephemeral, or fleeting, nevertheless the practices of visual culture do matter. In the mid-1990s there were a number of publications that debated visual culture as an emerging field of study. While other scholars have summarized this process, a brief overview here is useful.22 In 1986, Rees and Borzello edited A New Art History, a collection of essays primarily by British art historians who brought new questions to the discipline of art history. Following on this critique, Norman Bryson, Michael Ann Holly, and Keith Moxey published Visual Theory: Painting and Interpretation in 1991. They were among the first to position the study of visual culture as an academic practice in their book on Visual Culture: Images and Interpretations (1994).23 They offered a definition of visual culture as the “history of images” in an attempt to break away from the confines of art history, a discipline that has insisted on an aesthetic canon mired in the inheritance of colonial, imperial, and Eurocentric practices. Chris Jenks’ edited collection Visual Culture (1995) is a Routledge Reader and provides a wider range of objects that

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are nonetheless perceived as “tangibly visual cultural forms,” by which he meant that such objects must be products of the fine arts – sculpture, painting, photography, and new media.24 A backlash to even this restricted notion of visual culture is seen in the controversial publication in 1996 of the “Questionnaire on Visual Culture” in October, a widely read journal of contemporary art criticism.25 Certain scholars were invited to respond to questions about visual culture that posited the debate as one of loss, contamination, and disciplinary threat. Those who responded largely saw visual culture studies as threatening disciplinary standards, or as an irrelevant outcome of theory-driven practice that strayed from appropriate methodologies. The issue crystallized what was then an internal debate in art history about theory and practice. In many ways, this resembled the disciplinary debates in many academic fields during the 1980s: developments in feminist, psychoanalytic, and post-structural theories were used to challenge the stability of canonical knowledge. These debates were driven by the perception that modernism had come to function as an invisible theory, or in other words a seemingly theory-less practice that underwrote an essentialist view of history. In art history, for example, modern art had often been regarded as somehow devoid of representation, as though meaning did not also reside in abstraction. A rise of academic interest in representation challenged the invisibility of meaning in modernist art. In response to new theories of representation, cultural studies, and post-colonialism, a “new art history” was emerging.26 The field did expand; its boundaries, pushed and shoved, were opened up to new topics.27 Many authors approach visual culture studies as a specifically modern phenomenon aligned with late-nineteenth- and twentiethcentury advances in visual technology, such as television, film, and virtual spaces, and with research focusing on popular culture, media studies, and contemporary art practices (Mirzoeff, Jenks, Jones, and Carson).28 Research on visual culture of the nineteenth century or earlier periods ranges from readers to studies of war and widowhood (such as the work of Bonehill and Quilley, Levy, Nead, Schwartz and Przyblyski29) and often takes on critical issues, including feminism, race, or gender studies (see Bloom, Cherry, and Smith).30 I return to some of these studies in the introduction to each section. While there has been a near explosion of interest in visual culture studies – contemporary, historical, or genre-based, and in new critical theory and interdisciplinary journals – there is a smaller but lively literature that focuses on Canada (Belton, Cronin and Robert-

Introduction  11

son, Sturken et al.).31 Research on nineteenth-century Canadian visual culture tends to be limited to the analysis of specific media, especially photography (Carter, Close, Langford, Skidmore, and Schwartz, among others).32 Alternatively, other work on nineteenth-century topics may be discipline-specific (as in the study of fairs by geographer Brian Osborne or the close examination of a historical pageant in earlytwentieth-century Quebec City by historian Viv Nelles).33 A number of researchers, such as Patricia Jasen in Wild Things or Gillian Poulter in Becoming Native, have made interdisciplinary and provocative contributions to the understanding of representations of and by aboriginals in nineteenth-century visual culture.34 I argue throughout the book that a close and detailed analysis of pictorial imagery can shed light on a number of issues in Canadian socio-cultural history. Indeed, sometimes the only source of documentation is pictorial. Often, written documentation does not survive or was never present. We seem ready in the twenty-first century to acknowledge the overwhelming impact of the visual component of our daily lives (such as self-fashioning in response to media images), yet somehow we do not see that impact in historical studies. Furthermore, the disciplinary split between art history, social and cultural history, and cultural studies has meant that the historical role of images in the mediation, contestation, and creation of Canadian cultural and personal identity has tended to be overlooked. This book addresses that split through a focused study of one aspect – that is, the desire to represent identity, particularly collective identities.

Interdisciplinary and indisciplined methodology: object, subject, and archive Seemingly in response to the rise of interest in the visual realm in the academy in general and from a disciplinary position that originates outside art history, W.J.T. Mitchell posited the notion of a “pictorial turn.”35 A professor of comparative literature, Mitchell is an astute observer of the tensions in cultural practices such as museology and cultural anthropology. His argument provides a subtle and complex take on visual practices and interpretation. Other scholars have contested, dissected, and chosen aspects of this argument to laud or denounce.36 Of particular interest to me is his concept of indisciplinarity as a way of speaking about the disorder or chaos at the boundaries of disciplines.37 Writing about the study of visual culture, which he tentatively defines as the study of the social construction of visual experience, Mitchell’s

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concept of indiscipline draws attention to the way that visual culture studies misbehaves. Its interdisciplinary aspects put it in a fractious relation to art history. The angry responses of the critics and historians writing to October spoke, often unknowingly, to that indiscipline. It seems to me that the academy acts to enforce and reinforce disciplinary boundaries from an institutionalized desire to maintain stable and, therefore, fixed identities for those who claim a place within it. So, while the rhetoric of interdisciplinarity informs hiring practices, curriculum changes, and public outreach by the academy, the reality of discipline-based peer review for tenure, grants, and promotion continues to reiterate and validate narrower academic territories. One of the ways in which this territoriality is enacted is through a fixed approach to research methodologies both in the classroom and in assessment of scholarship.38 Methodological practices in history, art history, literature, sociology, anthropology, and other fields of the humanities and social sciences are seen as discipline-specific techniques driven by discipline-specific research questions and archives. However, interdisciplinary research approaches (such as those used in visual studies, Canadian studies, and women’s studies) encounter methodological conflicts. The resulting research is often criticized for not addressing particular discipline-specific objects, archives, or questions. How can we ask questions that address issues that exceed one disciplinary boundary? Is excess the primary site of inquiry? How is that excess imagined and engaged? This is the messy terrain of visual culture studies. It bleeds into various disciplines, cuts across debates in the field, asks questions that are frankly unruly and disobedient. In my search for a methodological strategy that addresses this indiscipline of visual culture studies, I propose an approach that negotiates the questions, archives, and objects of research. To develop a set of questions and research that matters, I argue that the subject of research can be articulated as contingent yet situated. Indeed, the proposed methodological strategies function as a call to the indisciplined edge of all disciplines.

Situated research – a methodology “Situated research” is a phrase that acknowledges in part the concept of “situated knowledges” as proposed by Donna Haraway.39 This idea has been taken up by various scholars who have attempted to negotiate the tension between theory and practice, history and fiction, and representation and reality – and to expose the privilege of partial

Introduction  13

perspective. The concept of situated knowledges emerges from the idea that knowledge is not composed of a singular truth but that various ways of knowing can be simultaneously present, yet not equally authoritative. The attempt to situate knowledges serves to limit the horizon of possible interpretations by situating meaning in the local, the discursive, and in subject positions. For instance, while the canadiens40 had a local knowledge of the order of things, the intersection of their knowledge with Anglo interests in June 1896 produced a situated knowledge that was the result of extensive negotiation and socio-political jostling.41 In contemplating modes of research strategies, the academic has to situate her subject within a set of possibilities – while keeping in mind that all those possibilities are not equal in value. Some matter more than others. Relative value may lie in a consideration of the ethical outcomes of certain research, or depend on the perceived need for an understanding of conflict. How do we consciously establish this, rather than assuming that our truth is the only truth? A methodology for understanding situated knowledges needs to exist with and against disciplinary demands. How can this tension be acknowledged, yet productive? How can research outcomes evade charges of empty relativism and alternative research projects avoid being seen as merely supplementary? When do the research questions I ask become more important than the ones you ask? What I am proposing is methodology as a negotiated process, which is always attempting to live with the paradoxical tension that arises from situated knowledges. Post-structuralism opened up the arbitrary nature that held moments of truth in a fixed position; however, by posing questions of agency, subjectivity, and everyday experience, researchers can insist on the need for a sense of place and ethical decision making. Everything is not purely relative, at least, not in the sense of the self-absorption that insists “My opinion is as good as yours.” No. It’s not. There has to be some place for ethics and positionality.42 If the researcher uses a methodological strategy that explicitly incorporates awareness of the ethics of the subject of study and the position she or he takes with respect to the object/s of study, then perhaps the resulting knowledges produced from the research activity can begin to address the blindness of many discipline-based methodologies. An example from my field of training, art history, would be the continued study of masterpieces from the western art canon that does not account for or even gesture towards the histories of oppression that are always already present. How can we not consider class, gender, and race when studying the work of Michelangelo, Jacques Louis David, or Edouard

14  v isi bly c a n a di a n

Manet? The task of a new methodology is to address disciplinary lack while simultaneously avoiding the creation of an alternate canon. Is it possible to acknowledge that authoritative meaning may only be situated temporarily? Can that moment of fixity, as paradoxical, fragile, and multiple as it may prove to be, provide a space from which to move forward – a methodological place in which change is possible? Drawing on Emmanuel Levinas, Sharon Todd has argued that ethics is the practice of doing no harm to the other.43 While this is theoretically and practically impossible, the attempt is necessary. Following on this, I ask, how can we embed an ethical practice in a responsible methodology? My approach emerges from a struggle with the extra-disciplinary aspects of my research interests and from a series of courses on visual culture that I have taught over the last fifteen years. I teach in a large multi-ethnic urban university with over 40,000 students. An interdisciplinary hire, I have taught courses ranging from the social foundations of education to graduate courses on visual culture and gender. In my first year of teaching at York University, I taught fairly traditional art history courses: nineteenth- and twentieth-century art, Canadian art and architecture, contemporary art, and theoretical issues. I introduced new readings, questioned the canon, added theoretical issues, but basically worked within an art historical discourse that remained reasonably secure in its attitudes about the discipline’s purview. Gradually I have moved towards teaching courses that I believe help students to situate their often contradictory knowledges (experiential, academic, religious, sexual, generational, etc.) in the larger arena of visual culture. Art objects are still part of the classroom content but so are newsreels, advertisements, album covers, websites, and video games. However, the larger change is located in the teaching of situated research strategies. In pursing my research on visual culture in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century North America, I have had to ask what investment I have in this process. Why do I care? Why do I think it is important, for example, that George Washington employed specific symbolic, visually enacted practices? The historical record has often presented Washington as relatively unpolished and uneducated in comparison to his university-educated peers such as Jefferson. I argued, on the contrary, that his inaugural procession to New York through a series of triumphal arches was a carefully orchestrated, rhetorically informed visual spectacle that consolidated his presidency in the public imagination.44 In order to achieve this, Washington was obviously well Introduction  15

versed in contemporaneous liberal arts, especially rhetoric. The use of the triumphal arch was a well-understood classical motif that literally marked the triumphal return of the emperor after battle. Often seen as a popular yet reluctant servant of the people, Washington demonstrated an understanding of political rhetoric that had to be learned. Little research has been done on his use of what is known as simple rhetoric (a complex form of rhetoric that valorized simplicity and rejected the decorative baroque rhetoric of British politics).45 Perhaps more significant for us is that his visual rhetoric has continued to inform presidential rituals like family photographs, hand shaking, baby kissing – establishing “family values” that have percolated their way into contemporary presidential values. Similarly, in 1896, the acceptability of imperial rhetoric to the canadiens depended on the physical, visual enactment of complex provisional alliances worked out in a specific moment in time. I care about these moments of rhetorical play because the gestures have become normalized to the point that there is little room politically or socially to contest the idea of family values. This normalization serves to consolidate homophobic, racialized, and gendered violence as acceptable. This book points to the ways in which visual representations can speak to a variety of interests, even those that are polarized or overlapping. A picture can replace a thousand words, but it is never innocent, empty of situated knowledges, or isolated from one thousand other words and pictures. So, how do we deal with visual culture? Mitchell’s notion of indiscipline or misbehaving provides a starting point. Because visual experiences are theoretically open to a wide set of interpretations, and because we also need to deal ethically with the impact of those pluralistic meanings, we need to find a way to pin them down, to understand them in the here-and-now so that change can be imagined. To sort out which knowledges matter the most, I suggest approaching methods as a triadic process. I have tried to map out this impossible set of doubled relations so that each point of the triad is understood as having the potential to reposition any other point. Before looking at how these multiple relations can be seen as workable process in practice, I look at the concepts of research object, subject, and archive, which occupy the points of the triad.

The research triad: object, subject, and archive of study Research is conceived as a process but it does not have to be limitless, exhausting, and impossible. In order to place limits on the archives we

16  v isi bly c a n a di a n

0.1  Mapping the Research Triad, illustration by Jamie Q., pen on paper, 2013, for Karen Stanworth.

choose or the objects we attempt to cover, we need to understand that we work through a complex process of judgment, assessment, and renegotiation that I see as a triadic research practice. I have imagined this research methodology as an inverted triangle, roughly drawn, with an elastic band defining its outside edges (figure 0.1). No position in the triad is fixed or absolute. A pin, nail, and butterfly clip tenuously define the triad and suggest the ability of the researcher to move the points of the triad in response to the assertions of archival material. The triangle rests on one point, which signals an understanding of its potential instability. The angles of the triangle represent the tension and oppositions posited between the research object, research subject, and research archive. What is the difference between the object and the subject? What constitutes an archive? Why only these three terms? Briefly put, the research object is the thing that I study. It is the photograph album or parade, the museum or the spectacle. The research subject is the question or problematic that I pose and the ethical implications of the decisions I make. A variety of resources constitute the research archive. Less simply put, the recognition and questioning of the relationships between the object, subject, and archive constitute the field of the research triad. In what follows, I speak in first person about my experience of working with the research triad as a way to clarify how this complex relation can be imagined, so that research as process can be temporarily, perhaps falsely, separated into the points of the triad.

Introduction  17

The set of research object/s clearly affects archival choices. If I limit the object to the museum created by an historical society, then I need to include the society’s archives in my resources. As I examine those, it becomes clear that I need to include the archives of other contemporaneous societies, and other museums – but how do I know what I need and what I can leave? As the research archive becomes more familiar, the set of research objects may broaden or narrow. The choice of research objects further impacts the scope of the potential research archive. Examining the relationships between each of the triad’s three components – subject, object, archive – prevents a binary or causal relationship that could limit my research subject. I redouble the possible relations, yet also delimit them through their intertextuality. By this I mean to acknowledge that each time I look again at one point of the triad, say, the subject, I cannot help but see it through my experience of another point, say, the archive. This intertextual relationship then complicates any further consideration of my research. I cannot see any position naively, without the influence of the object haunting the archive and the subject. How does the subject of research or the question I ask affect what I place or what I can possibly see in my resource archive? How do disciplinary expectations overdetermine the objects and subjects? How do extra-disciplinary questions unsettle each aspect of the triad? The relation between object and subject obtains volume – it occupies space – as a result of my turn towards the opposite angle to consider the potential research archive. What this means in terms of a case study is that while the object may be a portrait, the more that I learn about its sign value the more I may need to redefine, expand, or narrow my subject as well as my resources. This in turn may modify how I perceive the object and whether I expand the archive or the set of objects. Then my question is modified again. As I take an active position in the articulation of my subject, I negotiate disciplinary expectations with and against situated knowledges that assert an ethics of the everyday, or that which acts to situate or locate the resource archive with respect to me and the objects of my inquiry. For example, if I find evidence in the archive that one of the women who attended Bute House school was a lesbian (or attached through a “sentimental friendship”), should I consider an ethics of “outing” that takes precedence over what I’d like to say? If I find a dodgy accounting practice in the books of one of the societies I examine, is there a potential of causing harm to someone if I reveal it?46 The space occupied by the triangle represents the research process as negotiated space. Examining any research triad results in con-

18  v isi bly c a n a di a n

versations between the points of the triad – the activity that occurs inside the frame but that is also always continuously in negotiation with that frame. The visual mapping of the object-subject-archive as the points of a tenuous triangle provides a simple formulation that helps researchers to see the complexity of the negotiated relations and definitions that situate their knowledges. The outcome is situated knowledge. Research needs to weigh the ethics of the subject position against the perceived significance of the object. Consider how limiting the archive likewise limits the subject. Think about how the object may be more than or less than originally conceived. Allow the edges of the triangle to be flexible, bow out, or pull inwards. Accept situated knowledges.

Archival notes The archival postscript to each chapter functions by extending the conversation about potential knowledges, both for the historical subject and for the contemporary reader. Drawing on the triadic methodology that I propose for visual culture studies, or indeed any interdisciplinary studies, the archival notes may isolate a moment in the research process for closer examination. They provide an entrée to obscure archival sources and otherwise function to illuminate the notion of the research archive as a broader set of possibilities. The archival notes section, found at the end of each chapter, draws attention to the idea of the archive in the research triad I am proposing. Literal and metaphorical, the notion of “research archive” addresses a spectrum of potential research activities and sources, ranging from the examination of institutional documents of record to the consideration of how the act of recording, collecting, or preserving is also an act of forgetting or omitting. For every inclusion, there are innumerable acts of exclusion. This act of excision – of taking or preserving a piece so as to represent the whole – can be thought of as uncanny. The absent presence of the unselected haunts what is selected, yet that very absence simultaneously precludes the possibility of ever “knowing” or making familiar the past. So when we enter an archive, we struggle to define how we can come to know its content. Thus the archive defines what we might find as well as what we might sense is missing.47 I use the term research archive as a way of indicating that the archive aspect of the methodology triad consists not only of the archival locations traditionally relevant to the histories of visual culture and cultural history of nineteenth-century Canada, but also to other forms

Introduction  19

of knowledge production that shape encounters with archival documents. I suggest that broadening an understanding of the research archive to include theory, experiences, and both informal and formal archives allows for a more accurate picture of the research process. If the research archive includes various theoretical possibilities, then the researcher must choose which of these theoretical positions helps to clarify the research subject. In making those choices consciously, the researcher avoids the blind replication and reproduction of discipline-specific assumptions about which theory/theories inform the research question, and which choices shape the research process. While some academics would protest that this is blindingly obvious, I argue that such seemingly ostensible transparency is actually obfuscated by the normalization of disciplinary positions. This is not to say that traditional research questions, archives, and objects must change in interdisciplinary research! What I am arguing is that those choices must be denormalized so that the norm does not overdetermine the research subject. Inter- or extra-disciplinary research by any definition must exceed one disciplinary frame. Just as most P hD comprehensive exams have shifted to reflect changing assumptions about the role of the academic canon or core concepts, so too must methodological practices undergo a process of denaturalization. Theory is not methodology. However, it can be a source of renewed thinking about how to approach, interpret, and apply the results of research. This broad research archive can then be delimited by its relation to the research objects and research subject. The use of archival notes in this book is an attempt to open up the hermetic resolution of the archive as documents and to argue that the research archive can be understood to include a much broader set of documents, theory, and practices. Each case study calls for a different approach to the archive. The archival notes provide an opportunity for me to expose the sometimes circuitous paths that we take to the archive. Sometimes I talk about the oddities of a particular institutional archive; other times, I dwell on how a chance encounter with the archive led to new and revised subjects, or to a search for missing data. I intend with these notes to challenge my readers to think about how revealing the limits and accidents of research actually serves to strengthen the final narrative choices that we make as researchers. In concluding this introduction, I am closing only temporarily the discussion of the archive. In the archival notes for each case study, I address aspects of the complexity of this negotiated process and point out how certain aspects of the research archive could interact with the

20  v isi bly c a n a di a n

subject and object of study. The voice I employ becomes more colloquial than the voice I adopt within each case study, and reveals hesitation, contradiction, and sudden moments of insight. The notes are a way for me to partially deconstruct the narrative I just constructed. As such, the notes indicate potential narratives while arguing for the significance of a particular track I chose. In this manner I intentionally reveal glimpses of the process of negotiation that situates the knowledge I produce. The case studies establish what I am calling visual culture’s extradisciplinary concerns – tensions that arise from the subjective positioning of the researcher, the inescapable politicalities of daily life, the force of personal experiences. Overall, this project addresses the non-linguistic, visual challenges of cultural texts, which are often unarticulated and ephemeral. As well, this book raises questions about the visual aspects of civic and other identities, ethnic and territorial nationalism, and local knowledges. If the formation of specific social identities, which motivate behaviours, expectations, and desires, implicates visual culture, then this book constitutes an argument for paying closer attention to the visual culture that impacts the quality of our lives. And it may point to a means of deconstructing relations of power that underpin social forms of visual coding, thus enabling us to see other formulations and ways of testing prescribed responses to these codes.

Introduction  21

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Z  c o l o u r p l at e s   Y

1.5  View of the Place D’Armes, Quebec, 1832. Robert Sproule, watercolour, 105/16” × 1413/16”.

2.8  “Cotton,” Oliver & Boyd’s Object Lesson Cards. – Vegetable Kingdom, No. 13, 1880.

4.2  Advertisement for “Pain’s Fireworks” from the late nineteeth century, including a colourized version of the display in Hyde Park, London, in 1814, an early poster for Guy Fawkes Night fireworks, and examples of fireworks in original wrappings.

4.5  “The Last Days of Pompeii,” back cover of the Toronto Industrial Fair Program, 1886.

4.6  A “Grand Firework Display and the Brilliant Spectacle, The Siege of Sebastopol every evening,” illustrated on the back cover of the Dominion and Industrial Fair program in 1888.

4.7  “Not a World’s Fair but Nearly So,” program cover for Toronto’s Industrial Fair in 1893.

4.9  Bedouin Exposition Company, Chicago World Fair, 1893, a colourized photograph of the men on horseback who were part of the Bedouin Exposition Company. The company also sent men, horses, and camels to the Toronto Industrial Exhibition.

4.10  “Grand Military Tournament & Fireworks Spectacle ‘Battle of Tel-el-Kebir,’” back cover of the Industrial Fair Program, 1893.

5.1  “Quebec Jubilee … Souvenir Number,” cover, 1897.

7.2  Front Cover, Victorian tooled leather photograph album, inscribed “I.G.M.” (Isabella Glass McIntosh), 1873.

8.1  A family portrait, or Scène Familiale (now known as Jeanne at the Piano) by Ludger Larose, 1908.

9.1  William Pars’ Portrait of Three Friends, oil on canvas, c. 1773.

9.2  Sir William Hamilton and the Society of the Dilettanti, Joshua Reynolds. Society of the Dilettanti, London.

9.3  Portrait of John Graves Simcoe as a Young Man, Weir Collection, RiverBrink Art Gallery, Queenston, Ontario.

# PART ONE

`

Visibly Ordered: Mid-Nineteenth-Century Museums and the Colonial Order of Things

$ The three chapters in this section look at the ways in which the visual representation of collective identities in the colonial Canadas is manifested through museum and archiving practices. I argue that these activities served as controlling mechanisms for the recently displaced British and other European arrivals. New immigrants to the Canadas in the early nineteenth century found an unfamiliar environment that they immediately sought to “know.” This knowledge was rapidly processed in a variety of ways, often through some form of visual catalogue, topographical drawings, mapping, collections, or guides. These modes of visual culture were used to index the details of the geography, climate, history, geology, and morphology of the land. Data was quickly organized into taxonomies, or registrars of relatedness, and was processed by enthusiastic amateurs, newly formed literary and scientific societies, and the occasional government surveyor. Classified into groups based on similarities, everything was put under the

microscope, sometimes literally, sometimes figuratively. Using the examples of the Literary and Historical Society of Quebec (LHSQ) and the Educational Museum of the Toronto Normal School, the three chapters of this section look at how early museum formation in the two Canadas served the immediate function of visually delineating place and identity, and then contributed to the ongoing organization, representation, and pedagogy of knowing about collective identities, especially national identities.

Social identity and museum pedagogy The act of collection and display of objects for public or private consumption inevitably participates culturally in a complex, discursive knot, which binds the artifacts and objects to the subject positions of the collector and viewer. While collections, such as those in natural history museums, may claim to define and delimit the natural world, they participate within a larger set of discursive possibilities about the relation between the natural and social world, and the collectors’ drive to know, to possess, and to control. As a consequence, object collections – whether in contemporary ethnographic museums or nineteenth-century museums – reveal as much about the collector as they do about the objects themselves. The texts dealing with the collection of the LHSQ are treated as two separate chapters (1 and 3) because they present two distinctly different discursive moments. Lower Canada in the 1820s and 1830s was driven by a different set of possibilities than the post-Confederation province of Quebec. Related to LHSQ in terms of collecting activities, the Educational Museum of the Toronto Normal School, examined in chapter 2, opens up the way in which the museum function is understood as one of instruction and moral leadership. In chapter 3, I focus primarily on the LHSQ and the relation between collecting and national archives after the Confederation of Canada in 1867. However, I also pick up the historical thread of what happened to the Educational Museum after 1870. Both collections were reorganized around this date. I argue that this was in part a consequence of shifting notions of national identity, and in part due to the reinterpretation of object collections through the lens of late-nineteenth-century Victorian science. Both collections demonstrate the impact of the move within Victorian academic and scientific spheres to organize knowledge according to separate domains, whether aesthetic, anthropological, biological, or archaeological. This section builds on and responds to the extensive research on museums and gallery histories of the last two decades. Numerous articles

24  v isi bly o rdered

and edited texts have brought together work on critical approaches to museum formations and developments in collecting and display practices.1 As Ludmilla Jordanova argues, “museums are the organisational embodiment of the drive to disseminate specific forms of scientific/medical realism ... they present in visual form, the authority of natural knowledge and the order that it has been possible to impose on the natural world.”2 She suggests that the authentication of objects through museum practices works to convey a certain kind of reality. In other words, museums – such as the museum of the Literary and Historical Society – are places where meanings are created and stabilized. While this work has gone a long way towards exposing the presumed naturalness of the museum experience, it has largely focused on contemporary museums or on particular histories of collecting, collectors, and institutions (as in the excellent work by Elsner and Cardinal). In Wonders and the Order of Nature (1998), Lorraine Daston and Katherine Park examine the object collections of the wunderkammern, or cabinets of curiosities, of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Europe. Daston and Park argue that by the eighteenth century, the collection of particulars (i.e., the curiosities that drew the interest of early collectors) gave way to generalities and universals. The significance of this shift is that the gulf between “the enlightened and the vulgar”3 widened; that is, the inclusion of particular curiosities gave way to the scientific classification of objects by genus, class, and genre.4 The scientific societies, which sought to catalogue nature, also sought to bring authority to the collection of objects. Drawing on the work of Barbara Marie Stafford and Paula Findlen, Tony Bennett draws out the way in which the use of these kinds of classification schemes caused a shift in the experience of the museum object from “civic conversations” to “directed vision.”5 He argues that in departing from an earlier, Renaissance practice of vision, which relied on a dialogic social practice – conversations with “side-ward glances” at the objects provoking the engagement – seventeenth- and eighteenth-century enlightenment museums in the English-speaking world rested on an authoritative knowledge that was “invisible to the untrained beholder.”6 This shift relied on the introduction of such directed vision tactics as labelling and the act of cataloguing, which defined each object as unique and in relationship to the other objects in the collection.7 Bennett argues that this “taxonomic” approach more or less dominated museum practice until the “evolutionary” ordering of things in the late nineteenth century led to the separation of the broadly inclusive didactic museum into separate domains centring on ethnography, anthropology, and natural history.

The Colonial Order of Things  25

I argue, however, that the LHSQ was not merely taxonomic in intention. A complex interplay between political and social identities specific to time and place affected what and how things were described. The role of the enlightened collector and/or curator was to demonstrate the correct and proper order of things – whether evolutionary or taxonomic. In each chapter of this section, I look closely at how this order came to have meaning at a particular moment in time, and how beliefs about propriety, moral citizenry, and pedagogies of virtue are deeply embedded in the notion of scientific objectivism espoused by the LHSQ and the Toronto Normal School.

Museums and social identity formation Museums have received extensive scrutiny as public spaces that shape civic identity. Such social identity formation requires learning about what it means to belong to a particular place and time. In Civilizing Rituals, Carol Duncan suggests that the modern museum is one of the cultural sites in which political and social power is constituted so as to appear “beautiful, natural, and legitimate.”8 Her work in the 1990s focused on the function of art museums and drew on critical discourse in anthropology, cultural studies, and sociology. In Civilizing Rituals, she argues that museums can be understood as ritual structures in that the creation of a liminal zone – otherworldly and intermediary – inside the walls of the museum permits the museum audience to perform the enlightenment or revelatory experiences that are part of what she calls a “civilizing ritual.” In other words, she describes the way in which people subconsciously learn how to behave in relation to their peers while in cultural spaces. Although concerned primarily with art museums, Duncan’s analysis of museums as spaces that participate in social identity formation continues to inform more recent re-evaluations of the art museum and other object collections. Despite the divergent ways in which museum function is investigated, there is an emerging consensus about the sociality of the museum, that is, its active role in teaching and learning practices of citizenship. Pierre Bourdieu and Alain Darbel argue that art museums function to place and displace class identity.9 Similarly, in Museum Culture, a collection of essays edited by Daniel Sherman and Irit Rogoff, the authors examine the centrality of the museum in the western world, and its power to configure contemporary culture.10 As Brian Wallis, one of the contributors, so succinctly comments, “national culture does not exist apart from its social construction.”11 The study of the cultures of collecting, exhibiting cultures, and exhib-

26  v isi bly o rdered

ition strategies has resulted in an increased awareness that the museum is not a mere reflection of a particular society’s cultural values, but that it functions in specific ways to mediate, corroborate, and construct the very culture that produces and consumes it.12 The invention of nationhood – through and with culture – is of ongoing historiographical interest. In the 1980s and ’90s, many academics, such as Eric Hobsbawm, suggested that the modern state “was defined as a (preferably continuous and unbroken) territory over all of whose inhabitants it ruled, and separated by clearly distinct frontiers or borders from other such territories.”13 The shift from various forms of autocratic rule to democratic institutions of government raised questions related to administration and to citizen loyalty. Uniting people in opposition to others could effectively shape such loyalty. On a federal level, this was being played out in Canadian colonies through the identification of the “Americans” as disloyal (the loyalists having fled to Canada or back to Britain), in the figuring of aboriginals as a pre-colonial “other,” and in the efforts to directly and indirectly anglicize the canadiens.14 Thus, ideas about belonging and difference, and attempts to codify these ideas, are embedded in socio-cultural practices that support the development of nation-states. Linda Colley discusses Britain as an “invented nation that was not founded on the suppression of older loyalties so much as superimposed upon them.”15 Her work draws attention to how Britain refashioned alliances and the culture of the four nations of England, Scotland, Wales, and Ireland in order to create the idea of a common Britishness united against others. More recently, in Art and the British Empire (2009) Timothy Barringer, Geoff Quilley, and Douglas Fordham edited a series of articles exploring the idea of empire as a complex and contested process, mediated materially and imaginatively by diverse and contradictory forms of culture.16  This approach to material culture as mediating and “fashioning” civic and other socio-political identities is useful for thinking about the multiplicities of Canadian identities. The Constitutional Act of 1791 safeguarded canadien rights to French laws and customs. It also granted to canadiens the political rights of British subjects – a move that resulted in little cultural disruption yet led to a willingness to abandon loyalties to the French crown. As an invented nation, the Canadas needed a unified history against which contemporary representations of identity could be conceived. Texts of the 1990s that proposed new ways to rethink the role of museums – such as The New Museology, edited by Peter Vergo – were followed by publications focusing on issues related to the power of museums

The Colonial Order of Things  27

to shape collective values. For instance, in Museum Politics (2003), Timothy Luke astutely examines the ways in which museums can challenge but more often affirm social and cultural values.17 Ironically, these arguments for a new museology often overlook the history of the educational mandates underpinning museum foundation. I argue that any consideration of nineteenth-century collections in the Canadas must address the pedagogical intentions of the collectors. The specifics of collection, preservation, and display practices reveal what was considered important and meaningful in the colonial environment. Annie Coombes’ work on the Pitt Rivers Museum in Oxford University makes clear the way in which civic pedagogy explicitly informed Pitt Rivers’ conception of the museum. A contemporary of Egerton Ryerson, Pitt Rivers observed that he expected that his museum would “conform to a ‘scientific’ classification, but that it was designed to educate ‘the masses’ to accept the existing social order … The masses are ignorant … the knowledge they lack is the knowledge of history. This lays them open to the designs of demagogues and agitators, who strive to make them break with the past … in drastic changes that have not the sanction of experience.”18 In addition to recognizing the pedagogical motivations of museum founders, I argue that research on early museums in Canada must also attend to the sometimes ambiguous status of artifacts versus art, and the role of museums as public institutions established during the nascent nationalism of the nineteenth century. Much of the writing on early Canadian museums has focused on the task of recovering archival evidence about the institutions, or the biographies of key players.19 The educational mandates that underpinned the formation of many of Canada’s early museums (and the provincial or national institutions they seeded) have not been well documented. Likewise, research in the history of education in Canada has rarely examined the pedagogical thrust of museum formation.20 However, Lynne Teather’s insightful study into the origins of the Royal Ontario Museum provides an overview of the nineteenth-century collections, including a chapter on “Museums for the Diffusion of Knowledge.” While she draws attention to the pedagogical intention of the educational museum itself, the emphasis remains on these activities as a prelude to the development of the Royal Ontario Museum. The study of the pedagogical intentions in museological practice is further developed in Lianne McTavish’s thought-provoking case study about the role of the Natural History Society of New Brunswick in the development of travelling displays across the province in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.21

28  v isi bly o rdered

In the three chapters that follow, I examine how an explicit educational intention shaped the museum collections by affecting: the types of purchases made; their preservation and display strategies; audience access; and the significance of the museums within the larger socio-cultural sphere. In my consideration of these two early Canadian museums, I take up this notion of sociality in order to demonstrate the ways in which the target population acts out the original educational mandates underpinning museum foundation. Thus, a museum that was explicitly articulated as educational, such as the Toronto Normal School’s Educational Museum, provides a case study that exemplifies how social practice, education, and visual culture intersect in mid-nineteenth-century Ontario.

The Colonial Order of Things  29

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Z  Chapter one  Y

A Picture of Quebec: Artifacts of Civilization The very circumstance of civilization transplanted from the old world … seems to present a strange and remarkable contrast, capable of exciting the utmost curiosity and interest. – Governor-in-Chief Lord Dalhousie, 1824

Imagine a time and place so stimulating, so unlike anything you know, that you would need a guide not only to physically direct you but also to keep you emotionally on track. “The strange and remarkable contrast” presented by Quebec City was perceived as capable of exciting “curiosity and interest” by colonial administrators such as Governor-in-Chief of British North America Lord Dalhousie and visitors alike.1 The attempts to document, map, and collect the artifacts of the British colony are the focus of this chapter. The case study investigates early attempts to describe and contain the French colonial residents and to establish a record of British civil authority. Tracing the views – literal and institutional – of Quebec, the chapter considers how collective identities are formulated and shaped through and with visual culture. According to George Bourne, a travel writer, visiting minister, and temporary resident of Quebec City, the visual and physical stimulation that emanated from the urban and urbane chaos in the 1820s and ’30s was ideally experienced with a resident citizen as a companion.2 Bourne offered his guidebook, The Picture of Quebec, as the means by which strangers could approach the “far-famed Canadian Fortress.”3 Bourne cautioned his readers to follow his itinerary through the British colonial city so that they would not be overwhelmed by the overabundance of visual stimuli. He claimed that his circuit would calm the “temporary mental excitement” evoked by the novelty of the city – the glittering spires, the dogcarts, the military apparatus, and the features and foreign language of the “Habitans” – which continually passed

before the visitor.4 In examining his itinerary, I am taking seriously the gesture towards the confusion, excitement, and the exotic that the city presented to Bourne and Lord Dalhousie alike. In this chapter I consider the ways in which the colonizing British in 1820s Quebec attempted to address these visual stimuli. To this end, I start with a brief examination of Bourne’s The Picture of Quebec and follow with a detailed analysis of the formation of one of the cultural institutions that he profiles, the Literary and Historical Society of Quebec (LHSQ ) – an institution, founded by Dalhousie, that still exists today. This chapter takes a look at this particular moment in the visual culture of Quebec City, and asks how perception, expectation, and assumption worked in the formation of an increasingly British civic identity.

Bourne and the itinerary Arguably, the 1820s and ’30s were a period of transition for the colony, one in which British colonial order was introduced, resisted, co-opted, and reproduced. Famed American anti-slavery writer George Bourne was the first pastor of the Congregational Church in Quebec City from about 1824 to October 1828. Born and raised in England, Bourne emigrated to the United States in 1804, “making this the field for his ministerial labours.”5 In a biographical article about George Bourne, his grandson, Theodore Bourne, describes him as an anti-slavery pioneer and a rabid anti-Papist (anti-Catholic).6 Theodore recounts a story about his grandfather’s willingness to act upon his beliefs. “Mr. Bourne would loan copies of the Scriptures to any Roman Catholic who could be induced to read them.” Bourne had obviously lent a copy of his bible to a Roman Catholic resident of Quebec City. One day, a priest saw his parishioner reading “a heretic’s bible” and confiscated it. “The Romanist soon informed Mr. Bourne what had occurred; Bourne at once put on his hat, and, taking his walking stick in hand, he proceeded to the priest’s house, asked for him, and demanded the book.”7 After threatening to charge the priest with theft, Bourne got the book back. This vignette of Bourne’s stubborn and righteous public character gives us a sense of how we might approach Bourne’s guide to the city, and the questions we might ask. Is this sense of righteousness and entitlement significant? Did his sense of flawed Catholicism affect Bourne’s view of the city and its institutions? In early nineteenth-century Lower Canada, the population of Quebec City consisted largely of the canadiens (habitants and the former ruling

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class) who were subject to the rule of a few British soldiers and administrators, with the occasional visitor (aboriginal, American, or temporary resident).8 In its social practice, the immediate post-Conquest period in Quebec (from 1763 to 1840) was reportedly not much different than the pre-Conquest period. British soldiers, colonists, and governing officials were slow to settle the colony. While the Quebec Act of 1774 responded to various complaints from the colony (from canadiens and English alike), Britain did not codify British rule until the Constitutional Act of 1791. Among other changes, this act established the separate colonies of Lower Canada and Upper Canada, instituted representative government, and designated Quebec City as the capital of Lower Canada.9 However, well into the 1820s the official presence of the British Colonial Office was limited and restrained. As Theodore Bourne later reported, “at that time, whenever the processions of the ‘Fête Dieu,’ ‘Corpus Christi,’ or other festivals of the Papacy, passed by, every one was compelled to kneel, or take his hat off, before the ‘Host’ and the hierarchs accompanying.” The few Protestants who then resided at Quebec apparently chafed under the yoke, but George Bourne set them an example, which “animated their courage to resist compliance with the custom of ‘bowing down to idols.’ He passed, whenever necessary, with no recognition, made no obeisance, and yielded no homage to Rome’s mandates.”10 In other words, as a British expatriate, Bourne had expectations about how the city should function under British rule and was surprised at the extent of compliance to Catholic practice that was exhibited by “the few Protestants” living in Quebec (before the waves of British immigration in the 1830s). The city that Bourne encountered included a merchant class comprised of mainly French- and a few English-speaking businessmen, while the elite, predominantly French, retained elements of the seigneurial system; professionals included men born in the Canadas, the United States, and England, though women sometimes took over the reins of business. The working class and farm hands, largely canadiens, were not as ignorant as history sometimes paints them, and government was not as tyrannical.11 In many histories of colonization, the local inhabitants are forcibly colonized, treated as uncivilized peasants, and the strategies of oppression are justified by a colonial rhetoric calling for the need to bring the “light of civilization” to the territory under colonial rule. Even within discussion of “invadersettler” nations such as Canada, New Zealand, and Australia, there

A Picture of Quebec  33

is much debate about the practices and legacies of British colonization. Thus Bourne’s experience of the city echoes the way in which the British positioned themselves as a civilizing force in the occupation of Quebec City. They saw themselves as enlightening the French descendants and the indigenous populations; as we shall see, this attitude underwrote the formation of social and cultural institutions such as the LHSQ . Canadian literary historian Pam Perkins notes that the literature about Canada by British authors suggests “Quebec occupied an anomalous and unstable position in the eighteenth-century British imagination.”12 Seemingly in response to this instability, Bourne’s picture of Quebec literally maps a way to comprehend the colonial city and deal with its potentially disruptive mental stimulation. Bourne offered his readers a controlled but stimulating path through the chaos of modern life. He seems to attribute much of the chaotic potential of the city to visual as opposed to auditory sources. The sight of dog carts (sic), toboggans, carioles, habitants, and other local features are introduced to the reader through a dozen images of the city, including picturesque views and illustrations of significant buildings, a map and a key to read it, and a table charting the distance from Montreal, listing important sites of interest.13 The bulk of the text provides a view of Quebec City and its immediate vicinity. In addition to an itinerary for exploring the city, Bourne describes religious, civil, and military edifices. Description of the churches includes details of the paintings and sculptures on display. In a section entitled “literature,” Bourne itemizes the holdings of the Literary and Historical Museum by location and position in the rooms of the society. Illustrated with seventeen engravings and 139 pages of text, the guidebook provided a means through which the armchair traveller or the new immigrant could explore unknown Quebec. Bourne advised his readers that his guide was “intended to supply a blank in the Northern Tourists’ Library. It has been a just complaint, that strangers meet unexpected difficulties in exploring the curiosities of the far-famed Canadian Fortress, and the adjacent country.”14 He mentions several times in the text that he is writing to satisfy the “pursuits and tastes of Travellers.” Certainly people did travel for pleasure, as well as for immigration purposes, and Bourne’s guide was similar in a number of ways to other travel literature.15 In this choice of descriptors, Bourne follows the genre of contemporary travel literature.16 He portrays the French-speaking local populace of habitants – colonized and no longer posing a threat – as both novel and exotic for the North American visitor. His itinerary reveals a perceived need to provide an ordering

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mechanism as well as an underlying anxiety about the order of things.17 Using the picturesque as a mode of representation, The Picture of Quebec presented the potentially awful (of the sublime) as awe full.18 Bourne’s rhetoric reveals the specific quality of daily life in Quebec City and the surrounding villages and towns. Here, in the oldest European-built city on the continent, the contrasts of French and English architecture and diversity of inhabitants and daily lives were unique and unfamiliar to the “stranger.” As the primary port of entry for all new arrivals, 1820s and ’30s Quebec City must have been teeming with life, at least when the immigrants poured off the ships, even if they were only there for mere hours. The port in Lower Town saw thousands of immigrants re-immigrate to the United States, or travel farther west in Canada. As of 1830, up to 30,000 immigrants a year passed through the bustling city.19 The capital of the province, Quebec City was home to the largest concentration of English-speaking people in the province, whether governing officers, entrepreneurs, or British and American settlers. Although they comprised a much smaller proportion of the population, the English occupied most of the official and institutional positions in the British colony. Nevertheless, the city retained the physical, and much of the cultural, remnants of French rule.20 The city’s strategic location on a promontory overlooking the mouth of the St Lawrence River exploited a natural defensive position that resulted in unique architectural responses to the challenge of a town occupying a cliff and a shoreline below. French, English, and aboriginal people mixed in a complex set of social relations that defied simple dichotomies. While contemporary usage of the words “Indian,” “savage,” or “native” served to homogenize the diversity of aboriginals present in the province, the ongoing references to that presence also underline the failure of that tactic. Quebec City presented a truly unfamiliar visual experience to the British and American visitor or immigrant. Bourne’s comment about a temporary mental excitement makes clear that the effort to tame a perceived hyper-stimulation of visual culture is not exclusively a late-twentieth-century phenomenon (as much of the literature on visual culture seems to suggest).21 Although the electronic age has ushered in an obvious and exponential growth in visual media and their delivery systems, there is no reason to assume that the nineteenth century was visually simplistic or easily understood. Certainly, Bourne draws attention to the threat of sensory overload, and the role of the itinerary in protecting the stranger from the potentially overwhelming impact of such an experience.

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1.1  Vignette of Wolfe Montcalm Monument, Quebec City on the title page of George Bourne’s Picture of Quebec, 1831 ed.

In the first few pages of The Picture of Quebec, Bourne includes three engravings along with a lengthy description of the images. The images visually introduce the reader to Bourne’s perspective or picture of the colony. The vignette on the title page “contains an accurate delineation of a Picturesque Scene” (figure 1.1). The tiny depiction of the Wolfe-Montcalm monument, an obelisk erected in 1828 to commemorate the defeat of the French commander Louis-Joseph de Montcalm by the British Major General James Wolfe. The image of the obelisk

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1.2  The View of Quebec, “drawn as engraved by James Smillie,” in George Bourne, Picture of Quebec, 1831 ed.

near the residence of the Protestant bishop quickly places the reader at the scene of British Conquest and Protestant dominance. In using the popular visual language of the picturesque, Bourne capitalizes on his readers’ knowledge of the aesthetic style, which William Gilpin attempted to define in his essays on picturesque travel and landscape painting (1790s). Bourne’s subsequent references to contrast, texture, and pleasing prospects demonstrate his familiarity with Gilpin’s suggestion that roughness was the most desirable characteristic of the picturesque.22 In his reference to The View of Quebec engraved by James Smillie, Bourne describes the distant view of the city’s fortress, which sits atop a steep promontory. The city was built on both the high ground, providing a defensive position and a view of incoming ships on the St Lawrence River, and on the lower ground at water level, where goods and immigrants were offloaded at the docks. Bourne draws the reader’s attention to the contrast between the “verdure on top” and the “wild, rugged and barren exterior of the precipitous descent”(6). He notes that “the dreariness of the rugged portion of the landscape is instantly relieved, as the eye glances along the river”(7). Bourne treats his reader as an observer whose eye needs to be directed to the significance of the view. He advises the traveller to resist haste and make

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1.3  Quebec Driving Club, “a view taken by Mr. Wallace of the 71st Regiment,” probably engraved by James Smillie, in Bourne, Picture of Quebec, 1831 ed.

time to “enjoy the scene, of which it has been remarked, this continent scarcely affords a parallel”(8). Significantly, the third engraving illustrates the Quebec Driving Club. Bourne describes the image as “a view taken by Mr. Wallace of the 71st Regiment.” Again emphasizing the picturesque qualities of the scene, Bourne also reveals much about the physical and political organization of the city. The members of the club are depicted driving around the Place d’Armes in their carioles (horse and sleigh). This image allows him to describe the difficulties of winter, a season the traveller rarely saw, and the inclusion of a “genuine Canadian curiosity – a boy on a low sled drawn with great vivacity and moderate speed by a dog trained to the harness.”23 The boy is being pulled on a toboggan. Opposite the boy, in the lower left corner, a habitant couple is depicted, dressed in their distinctive woollen clothing. Interestingly, the couple is not portrayed in Wallace’s original drawing, which depicts another cariole in that corner. Rather, Bourne appears to have asked Smillie to add the couple, perhaps to illustrate his point about the physical features of the habitants’ garb. Bourne also identifies the key institutions visible in the engraving, including the Episcopal Church, the Court House, and the Ursuline convent. I believe that Bourne used the image as a way to make visual the diversity of the inhabitants and institutions that he would introduce on the following pages. Bourne – a staunch 38  v isi bly ord ered

Protestant – depicted Quebec through a lens tightly focused on religious and other social practices. He lauded the benefits of civilizing influences and placed particular attention on contrasts between the city and its suburbs, on the city’s different inhabitants, and on its institutions of government. He drew relationships between institutions and locales, illustrating them with these engravings, written descriptions, and a keyed map of the city. A large fold-out map was attached to the inside back cover so that the explorer might “with the greatest facility view the most important objects.” Accompanied by an extensive key that identifies “the most interesting materials of survey,”24 the map includes specific locations in the Upper Town, Lower Town, and suburb of St Roch. Employing capital letters, lower-case letters, and numbers, the key reveals Bourne’s taxonomy of the city. Bourne gives a capital letter to institutions in the contemporary social and political life of the city. For example, all the buildings he describes in the engraving depicting Place d’Armes are high-profile British institutions, indicated with an upper-case letter: the Castle of St Lewis/Chateau de St Louis (A), which was the governor’s residence; the Episcopal (Anglican) Church (P), which was the official seat of the Lord Bishop of Quebec; the Court House (C), which administered colonial justice; and the Union Hotel (H), which housed the public offices (municipal government services). Many of the names of the original institutions of French rule, such as the Chateau de St Louis, became anglicized as the new rulers took occupation of the premises and the governing seat. Bourne confers lower-case letters – “a” through “d” – upon buildings that are also noteworthy but seem nonetheless to be of a second order of significance. These buildings were primary institutions of power during the period of French rule, such as (a) the seminary and (b) the Ursuline convent. Both (c) the Hotel Dieu Nunnery and (d) the General Hospital were the medical facilities of the ancien régime.25 Along with these upper- and lower-case letters, Bourne also uses numbers to identify the series of thirty-three wharfs and four shipyards of Lower Town. This taxonomy of the city quantifies the magnitude and importance of the city’s port26 and articulates the names of the city’s key businessmen. For example, George Taylor founded Taylor’s shipyard (#31) in 1811. His daughter Elizabeth married Allison Davie on the condition that he change his name to Taylor and work in the shipyard. When he died, Elizabeth became the first woman to run a shipbuilding firm in Canada.27 These quays were in the Lower Town, a slim ribbon of land at the base of cliffs, which was the site of commercial enterprise and working-class domiciles. A Picture of Quebec  39

1.4  Map of Quebec City, fold-out insertion in back of Bourne’s Picture of Quebec, 1829 ed.

After a brief outline of the distances and topography of the 300 miles (480 kilometres) between Montreal and Quebec City, Bourne takes his reader on a walking tour of the city. In order to “prescribe the explorer’s walk, in the most convenient order,” he offers “an Itinerary, by which they might, with the greatest facility view the most important objects – and also from not having previously obtained a letter of introduction. A resident citizen as a companion, would designate and also describe the most interesting materials of survey – and thus remove the feel-

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1.5  View of the Place D’Armes, Quebec, 1832. Robert Sproule, watercolour, 105/16" × 1413/16".

ings of strangeness, and expedite the acquisition of knowledge.”28 The “Itinerary” commenced at the Upper Town, enclosed by the walls of the old fortress, which had five gates through which residents and visitors entered. Bourne draws attention “to the west, the ancient Monastery of the Jesuits, now used as a Barracks for the Troops of the Garrison, and on the east, the Roman Church.”29 From the church, the traveller arrives quickly at Place d’Armes, at the social and political centre of Upper Town. When Bourne published the first edition of his guide in 1829, Place d’Armes was drawn on the map as an irregular, seven-sided public square that had a single path leading directly from the church to the governor’s residence. The path forms a literal tie between state and church. In his explanation of the engraving of the winter scene Quebec Driving Club, Bourne describes a chain fence that was used to safely mark the level ground around the square.30 By 1831, the square had been redesigned. A new circular lawn, divided by a crossroad and surrounded by a fence with a double row of chain, is illustrated in a chromolithograph depicting Place d’Armes by Robert Sproule. The alteration of the square is an intriguing aspect of visual culture that appears to respond to the seeming anxiety about the chaotic aspect of the city. Not only is the asymmetrical square regularized, the points of entry and exit are controlled through the use of fencing. Now, the intersecting paths take

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the visitor from church to court house and from governor’s residence to government offices. The Sproule version of the square is rendered in watercolour, clearly detailing the red coats of the English soldiers and the fine white finish of the English stone used for the Anglican Church and the Union Hotel. The beige walls of stone on the fortress and the canadiens’ houses surrounding the seminary seem drab and old-fashioned in comparison. The green parkland that replaced the evergreen saplings used to mark the paths of the former square points to the significance of modern English ideas about recreation, walking, and urban life.31 In the same paragraph that details the official residences and government buildings on Place d’Armes, Bourne draws special attention to the Union Hotel, the home of the “Public” or municipal offices. In the 1829 edition he notes, “strangers ought especially to recollect that the front room on the first story contains the Museum of the ‘Society for promoting Literature, Science, Arts, and Historical Research in Canada.’”32 In his 3rd edition, of 1831, he refers just to the municipal building in the initial paragraph of the Itinerary. The extended description of the museum and its holdings remains in the section on “Literature,” which I discuss below in reference to the LHSQ . While the first part of the itinerary is devoted to the walk in Quebec City, parts 2 to 20 describe nearby scenic destinations such as “the prospect from Cape Diamond,” “the exceedingly grand and delightful” Montmorency Falls, La Chaudière, Lorette, and Lake St Charles. Particularly compelling is his description of Lorette, which houses the ruins of a building known as the Hermitage and the “Indian village.” He recounts two gossipy stories about the Hermitage supposedly belonging to an intendant of the French colony who, according to tradition, was either hiding his wife or his mistress in the village. Bourne makes a brief and abrupt remark about “the Indian inhabitants” who “retain many of the prominent characteristics of the aboriginal roamers of the forest, combined with vicious habits” derived from their proximity to the seaport.33 Blaming the drinking and smoking of the Huron-Wendat in Lorette on the migratory population found in a seaport, Bourne neatly sidesteps any reference to the effects of colonization on the tribal groups that occupied the area prior to contact. In the rest of the guidebook, Bourne outlines the ecclesiastical, civic, military, literary, philanthropic, and commercial buildings. Many of the buildings are illustrated, some in isolation from their surroundings, while others, such as the Roman Catholic Church and Parliament House, are portrayed in relation to other buildings, people,

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and carriages.34 When he later describes the Roman Catholic Church, he makes reference to the illustration, explaining the perspective from which the drawing was made.35 Clearly he expects his reader to return to the illustration to note the market scene in the foreground, “with a cow drawing a sled, laden with wood, by the horns, a dog harnessed to its diminutive cariole.”36 In numerous instances, he provides details of the paintings and their locations – when he deems them worthy of study. Fifteen “specimens of the French school” can be seen in the Seminary. He lists original pieces in the Hotel Dieu, such as St. Bruneau Wrapt in meditation by the well-known seventeenth-century French painter Eustache Le Sueur; minor pieces are dismissed.37 He comments on the ornamentation, or lack thereof, in every building, making passing observations on ornate altars, architectural details, armaments, and even the iron machinery that “decorated” the front of the jail, which was used to hang the occasional “malefactor.” An appendix offers an eclectic selection of writing, ranging from an extract in French on the origin of the word Canada to an eyewitness account of the death, burial, and disinterment of the American General Montgomery (who was killed in Quebec in 1775). This is followed by “References to the Map”: a list of thirty key buildings, thirty-three wharfs, and four shipyards that can be located on the fold-out map attached to the back cover. The volume ends with a lengthy index, which further enhances the traveller’s ability to discover Bourne’s intentions. As we have seen, Bourne uses his guidebook to navigate the stranger around the key institutions of Quebec and its suburbs; his itinerary reinforces the prominence of the governor and the socio-political relations between government, commerce, and social life. He constantly draws attention to the contrasts between the English and the French, the Protestants and the “Papists,” and the Upper and Lower Towns. The three editions of the guidebook suggest that there was demand for this kind of cultural commentary, along with the itinerary and topographical descriptions. Significant attention to the physical description of buildings, monuments, and pleasing views constantly reinforces the importance of the visual culture of the colony – the British colony can be “seen” to be an improvement on the pre-Conquest French settlement.

Of public benefit Bourne mentions the museum on three separate occasions in his guide. Another contemporaneous publication, Hawkins’s Picture of Quebec (1834), also makes the point that the discriminating and disinterested

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male should visit the museum rooms of the Literary and Historical Society of Quebec.38 While Hawkins’ much longer text aims “to embrace the most important historical facts” about Quebec City, he too describes the significant institutions of the day. If the publication of two guides to Quebec City within a couple years is any indication,39 there appears to have been a marketable demand for a “picture” of the city. The demand was seemingly echoed by the exhibition of an enormous panorama entitled A View of the City of Quebec “painted by the proprietor Robert Burford,” which was displayed at the Leicester Square Panorama in London, England, in 1830.40 It was accompanied by a printed description, which included a key to thirty-six sights (including temporary barracks, a steeple, and defensive Martello towers). These instances of visual and textual representation raise the question of how we can understand what was meant by “a picture” of Quebec. While the guidebooks included images, and the panorama provided another immersive type of visual, the term “picture” in this context also means to describe vividly or graphically.41 Bourne, Hawkins, and Burford bring a picture of Quebec to their audiences; they picture-forth the life of the city. Similarly, the LHSQ museum functions to catalogue and display evidence of those colonial institutions’ efficacy. Bourne draws particular attention to the museum, saying, “Strangers who visit Quebec either for recreation or an increase of knowledge will be amply repaid for the time devoted to an exploration of the various subjects collected together in the Museum of the Literary and Historical Society.”42 Over 1,800 artifacts and 54 paintings, carefully classed, named, and ordered, recounted a “literary and historical” account of British Canada; the new colony was now being made conspicuously visible for its new public. As a site of meaning production and codification, the colonial museum participates in the ongoing reiteration of a seemingly stabilized past.43 The artifacts present a narrative meant to demonstrate the superiority and normativity of the present regime. Understood as a neutral series of events and objects accurately preserved for later generations to appreciate, “Natural History” is actually a narrative of selected events, ideas, and participants. History, as a construct, is shaped by those who tell the story of the past.44 A close examination of what constitutes the “admirably arranged” collection and display of the Literary and Historical Society reveals what was at stake for its membership as it attempted to construct a narrative of British colonialism in Canada.

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Marketing a national history – suppressing another The few years that Bourne lived in Quebec (1824–28) were marked by increasing tensions in the socio-political environment of the capital of British North America. The canadiens, who were largely responsible for forming the briefly successful Canadian Party, dominated the elected House of Assembly. They were constantly in conflict with the appointed, usually English, members of the Legislative and Executive Councils (the majority were members of what was known as the English Party).45 Lord Dalhousie (governor-in-chief 1820–28) frequently expressed outrage at the Assembly’s attempts to fully control the civil list and public financing.46 Dalhousie argued that, in keeping with most colonial circumstances, he, “the King’s Representative in these Provinces must be the guide and helmsman in all public measures that affect the public interests generally.”47 While professing to maintain a disinterested separation from local politics, Dalhousie was known to have manipulated official privileges in order to shape events according to his preferred course, despite his acknowledgment that as governor, he should “avoid … appearing to interfere in the conduct of the periodical press in any way whatever.”48 Thus his involvement in the foundation of a learned society deserves close scrutiny. Formally known as the Literary and Historical Society of Quebec, the society was formed in 1824 by the governor and his political and social allies (often members of the Executive branch of the 11th Parliament of Lower Canada [1820–24]). Likewise, the action of his successor, Sir James Kempt, to obtain a Royal Charter for the LHSQ suggests that the supreme political authority in the colony held a surprisingly vested interest in the activities and profile of the local learned society. In the year before the formal establishment of the LHSQ , Dalhousie’s correspondence reveals his desire to establish a learned society in the colony. Dalhousie proposed “the formation of a Society, not entirely ‘Antiquarian’ but Historical rather and Canadian.”49 In January 1824, the society met for the first time, convening in the governor’s palace. Dalhousie was assuredly aware that the establishment of a learned society in a colony provided a means of perpetuating the cultural norms of the colonizer. As a collective enterprise seeking to promote learning, this kind of society produces knowledge that confirms the dominant ideology. Although Dalhousie was in Britain between June 1824 and September 1825, he evidently remained closely invested in the

A Picture of Quebec  45

new society. Even though his temporary replacement, Francis Nathaniel Burton, was a signatory to the announcement of the Literary and Historical Society of Quebec’s foundation, Dalhousie also managed to sign it. Burton was the first president of the LHSQ , until Dalhousie returned to the helm late in 1825. Chief Justice Jonathan Sewell and Speaker of the House Joseph-Rémi Vallières de St-Réal were the vicepresidents.50 Working from an apartment in the governor’s residence, the society published its first Address to the Public in 1824. Signed by Dalhousie, Burton, Vallières de St-Réal, and Sewell, the address outlined its intention to “give to Literature in this Province a corporate character and representation by the formation of a Literary and Historical Society at the seat of Government.”51 Including each signatory’s respective title in the address reaffirms the society’s corporate nature. Clearly identified with a corporate hierarchy, the job titles of president, vice-president, treasurer lend the appearance of objectivity and distance from the signatories’ political and judicial roles, although the publication of their personal names simultaneously confirms the political affiliation of the society’s executive. The address stated that the society owed its origin “to the patriotic feeling and anxiety for the honor [sic], welfare and interest of the Province, which characterise the present Governor in Chief.” Citing “patriotic feeling,” the society announced its intention to eventually “embrace every object of Literary interest and inquiry”; for the present, it would focus the “researches to the investigation of points of History, immediately connected with the Canadas.”52 Mythologizing this history before research even began, the committee wrote, “It is conceived that the early History of Canada abounds in materials, full of striking descriptions and romantic situations. The very circumstance of civilisation transplanted from the old world, superseding the indigenous barbarism of the natives, and yet remaining long enough in contact with it to acquire even some degree of respect for the rude Tribes it subdued or converted, seems to present a strange and remarkable contrast, capable of exciting the utmost curiosity and interest.” The stated primary objective was the preservation of documents, in particular those respecting “the decaying Indian Tribes.” Additionally, information regarding the “early Natural, Civil and Literary History of the British Provinces in North America” would be procured from various sources, private and public.53 The unstated intentions are clearly visible in the references to “civilisation,” “indigenous barbarism,” and “rude Tribes.” This language provokes me to recall Walter Benjamin’s famous observation, “There is no document of civilization which is not

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at the same time a document of barbarism. And just as such a document is not free of barbarism, barbarism taints also the manner in which it was transmitted from one owner to another.”54 Benjamin refers in particular to the practice of conquering nations, such as Rome or Greece, to parade the spoils of war in public. In seeking to create documents of civilization, the LHSQ aimed paradoxically to collate evidence of the barbarous tribes’ past. The “strange and remarkable contrast” between civilization and barbarism that the LHSQ sought to document is arguably not a contrast but flip sides of the same coin. Any document of civilization in the colonial Canadas required the barbarism of subjectification, displacement, and suppression. The civilizing influences of the “old world” are seen in the histories of the French and the British encounters with the original aboriginal inhabitants, and subsequently, in the battles between the French and the British. Thus Governor Dalhousie’s address to the public on the formation of the LHSQ signals recognition that the learned society would seek to document a history in which its members were deeply embedded stakeholders.55 Reiterating the significance of the address, the pro-government Canadian Magazine reported that “the importance of a society within a country affords a very sure criterion, whereby we may judge of the progress it is making in civilization, and of its remoteness from barbarism.”56 In this way, the anonymous author asserts the dialectical dependence on the other that the society requires for its own definition. Furthermore, the author argues that in addition to being “a proof of the civilised state of the country,” such institutions also provided “a means of judging of the stability of its political condition.”57 This alignment of a society’s cultural progress with its political stability took on added resonance in the aftermath of the bitter political confrontation in 1822 over the unsuccessful Union Bill. The bill proposed a parliamentary union of the two Canadas, which was intended to diminish canadien representation in the Assembly and to foster the Anglicization of the French-speaking community (a move not unlike Lord Durham’s Report of 1839, which resulted in the Act of Union in 1840). The civilizing effect was in full gear, attempting to control not only the aboriginal population but also the canadiens. In response to the announcement of the LHSQ ’s intentions, the local opposition newspaper, Le Canadien, published a lengthy editorial demonstrating suspicion of the society’s underlying mandate. With evident sarcasm, Etienne Parent asks, “what author would dare to raise his views in opposition to such an authority?”58 Warning that nothing could be “true and good” that was voiced by this society, Parent

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emphasizes that this history “would be the history of the Governors, published by authority, at the seat of Government and by the beneficiaries of the Government, presided over by the Leaders of Government” (italics in original).59 Parent goes on to deplore the current history being written by the present administration, presumably attempting to subvert the LHSQ’s address, which was published on the same page. Nevertheless, Parent holds no doubt that a Canadian history would be shaped through colonial authority. So what would this historical narrative look like? Like many learned societies in Europe and America, the LHSQ supported literary, scientific, and historical pursuits.60 The LHSQ would use these disciplinary concerns to investigate – and invent – the history of themselves. An imagined community, the Canadas would be defined through the production of its own history.61 The LHSQ would appropriate histories of aboriginals and French colonialism in order to establish a progressive narrative in which British colonial rule was naturalized as the obvious outcome of its civilizing presence. This historicizing project continued when William Smith finally published his two-volume History of Canada (1826), which included the period of British rule after 1760 – a history that, unsurprisingly, aligned tidily with the LHSQ ’s perception of the need to preserve “disappearing” historical documents. Strongly pro-British, a son of an American Loyalist, and the brother-in-law of Jonathan Sewell, Smith asserted that the canadiens’ dismal history under French absolutist rule proved that their future progress lay in swift assimilation. Clearly an historical narrative of Canada as British was being proposed by the LHSQ , and several new authors were brought into play. The first address laid out the strategies for creating and marketing a Canadian history. The society would collect, publish, and lecture through the museum and other cultural practices. In this respect, the new corporation used methods similar to those used by the European learned societies, such as the British Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures, and Commerce (1760), which gave prizes, published learned articles, and maintained a library, a collection of models, and machines. The new society seems to have intended to exclude all but the wealthy and well-placed elite of the province: the proprietary fee paid upon admission to the society was a hefty £5 (equivalent to $20 at the time).62 In addition, members paid £3 annual fees. There appears to be no reason to doubt William Sheppard’s later account that while the “formation (of the LHSQ ) was brought about indirectly by a political movement … The Society was in the first instance composed

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of high officials and courtiers,” namely, those who could easily afford membership.63

The Society for the Encouragement of Sciences and the Arts Less than three years after the foundation of the LHSQ , another learned society emerged in Quebec City. The Society for the Encouragement of Sciences and the Arts (SESA ) was a thinly disguised alternative to the LHSQ. The particulars of the society reveal rising tensions between the ruling elite and the professional class. SESA published its rules and orders in pamphlet form in March 1827, simultaneously in both English and French.64 In marked contrast to the LHSQ , professionals dominated SESA ’s membership. The directors for 1827 were the president, Joseph Bouchette (the surveyor general), and four vice-presidents: Andrew Stuart (lawyer and MP in the Assembly for the Parti canadien);65 William Sheppard (wealthy merchant, married to Harriet, the daughter of Archibald Campbell, the King’s notary); Louis Plamondon (lawyer); and Joseph-Rémi Vallières de St-Réal (also a lawyer).66 Dr Xavier Tessier, renowned for having started the Quebec Medical Association a year earlier, was the general secretary. Michel Clouet, lawyer and MP, became the treasurer. Also a member of SESA , the Reverend George Bourne characterized the difference between the learned societies as one of class; he noted that LHSQ members were “chiefly gentlemen of high official rank in the province,” while SESA members were “persons professionally qualified.”67 The SESA membership appears to have paralleled the demographics of other learned societies in America.68 However, in clear opposition to the LHSQ , SESA publicly disavowed all discussion of politics and religion (article VI ), and restricted the annual membership fee to one guinea (a third of the LHSQ annual fees).69 Contrary to the male-only policy of the LHSQ , women were welcomed and specifically included in the regulations. Women, along with the clergy, were admitted to SESA without the potential humiliation of the public ballot. Women were automatically accepted when supported by three members (whereas potential male members only required two members’ support) and were allowed to vote, but only by proxy.70 These constitutional differences in the official documents of the societies echo the escalation of political conflict between Governor-in-Chief Dalhousie and the House of Assembly.

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Briefly stated, Dalhousie had prorogued the Parliament on 7 March 1827, in response to the refusal of the Assembly to pass the governmental supply bill. In his journal, Dalhousie referred to the conflict between the Upper and Lower Houses of Parliament as “the troubles in the two Canadas” and noted that they were being heatedly debated in the local press, in Nova Scotia, and in the United States.71 Not coincidentally, SESA held its first meeting later that month. The formation of the association was a significant cultural response to the escalation of political debates. At about this same time, Andrew Stuart and Joseph-Rémi Vallières de St-Réal left the Parti canadien (renamed the Parti patriote in 1826) to establish more moderate political positions as “bureaucrats.”72 The formation of SESA at this particular moment suggests that the group, while publicly disavowing discussion of politics and religion, was seeking to establish a learned society that was philosophically located between the governor’s cohort and the radicals (namely, supporters of Louis-Joseph Papineau, who were located primarily in Montreal). The very insistence on not talking about politics was itself a political gesture. Their full title, the Society for the Encouragement of the Sciences and the Arts, pointedly encouraged a gathering of like-minded citizens. Interestingly, the differences between the LHSQ and SESA were not racial or nationalist, at least not at the moment of the formation of SESA .73 On the contrary, a third or intermediary position between the canadien radicals and the British colonial elite was conceived by SESA , which was class based. With the formation of SESA , a form of moderate cultural activism manifested political opposition. Soliciting others to engage in the cultural activism, in autumn 1827 SESA published a list of competition essay questions directed at the public.74 Submissions “of merit” would receive a medal from SESA . Of the five medals subsequently awarded in March 1828, three were for “literary” works and two for essays on agriculture. By literary, the society meant work that fell under the larger rubric of arts and literature. The three literary prize winners were listed as Joseph Smillie, J. Fr. Bouchette, and Joseph Légaré. Smillie received first prize for an engraving of a map drawn by William Henderson (a vice-president of SESA ). Smillie is the same person who engraved The View of Quebec in Bourne’s guidebook (figure 1.2). Joseph Bouchette, son of SESA ’s president, received an honorary medal for engraved lettering. Légaré, also a SESA member, was a local artist and municipal councillor who received an honorary medal for his oil painting Indian Warfare, now known as The Massacre of the Hurons by the Iroquois.75 So SESA ’s awards

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went to SESA members, friends, or family, and all winning entries responded in some fashion to the society’s interest in the two Canadas. Smillie’s map literally describes the colony, and the essays on agriculture addressed the shaping of the land. Légaré’s painting isolates a key moment in the Indian tribal conflicts between the Hurons and Iroquois in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. When the French arrived in Quebec they developed fur-trading relations with the remaining Hurons; the English in America worked with the Iroquois. Arguably, the defeat of the French by the English in 1760 is symbolically reiterated in Légaré’s depiction of the massacre of the Hurons. The awards consolidate the idea that barbarism succumbs to colonialism – in this case, of aboriginal submission and colonial mapping.76 The announcement of this prize competition also included the society’s intention to create a museum for the display of “articles of natural history from Canada and other objects, useful and agreeable, pertaining to the fine arts and the sciences.”77 Both the 1829 and 1831 editions of The Picture of Quebec describe the holdings of “the museum of the Society for Promoting Literature, Science, Arts, and Historical Research.” This title seems to involve a combination of both the SESA and LHSQ wording. Since the history of SESA is not documented other than through letters from the LHSQ to SESA , it is not clear whether SESA set up their museum, or the members took the idea with them when they entered into planning to amalgamate with the LHSQ . Seemingly a small detail, this title change would have signalled the success of SESA’s cultural activism.

Amalgamation The amalgamation of the two societies is a significant factor in the battle for unionism, which had previously played out on the political stage. Although SESA was now dealing with Sir James Kempt, rather than Dalhousie, the drive to amalgamate the two learned societies enacts culturally many of the goals of the failed Union Act of 1822. Kempt, the former lieutenant governor of Nova Scotia, arrived in fall 1828 to replace Dalhousie. Mandated by William Huskisson, the colonial secretary, to repair the political frictions of the Dalhousie years, Kempt attempted to govern with “studied neutrality.”78 This stance seems to underlie Kempt’s support of a proposal to unite the city’s two learned societies. While Chief Justice Sewell, vice-president of the LHSQ , chaired the LHSQ committee and oversaw the two societies’ union, Kempt is credited with having initiated the amalgamation. A

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merger of the largely professional membership of SESA with the LHSQ would confirm at least an appearance of a new co-operative spirit.79 SESA members Vallières de St-Réal and Stuart of the Parti patriote posed a significant threat to the English Party elite, who were in disarray after the 1824 election; both men were elected to the Assembly in 1827 and divided the two Quebec City seats between them. The division within the English-speaking population and the professional classes in Quebec City at this time has been underrated in historical analyses, which focus on the division between the English- and French-speaking populace. Given the ongoing pressure from various political factions to introduce a union of the two Canadas, which had been fought vigorously by the Parti patriote, and Stuart in particular,80 arguably the achievement of a union between the two learned societies took on an elevated significance. A union of the divided English population would provide a first step towards the consolidation of English colonial rule, a necessary precursor for any union of the two Canadas. Just as Bourne reported, the members of SESA negotiated for a union under the impression that the name of the amalgamated society would be the Society for Promoting History, Literature, Arts and Sciences in Canada – thus truly amalgamating the titles of the LHSQ and SESA . However, archival papers reveal that the LHSQ never had any intention of changing its name, and any suggestion of a name change was purely a temporary, conciliatory gesture for the benefit of Governor Kempt. In a private report to the LHSQ , Sewell emphasized that the committee for the union would work out a proposal for amalgamation that would be “mutually advantageous and beneficial to both (societies) and to the public, provided it can be effected without abandoning the name and objects of this Society.” Sewell actually underlined these words to emphasize his point that there would be no change.81 Lost in this act of naming (or, actually, not renaming) were the differences in the makeup, procedures, and structure of SESA , particularly its distinctive membership (predominantly professionals), its recognition of women members (the LHSQ did not admit women until 1923), and its disavowal of politics and religion. In many ways, the union of the two societies exemplified outright assimilation – clearly echoing the ongoing attempts by the colonial government to assimilate the aboriginals and the canadiens. Although the pre-amalgamation rhetoric expressed in the communications between the societies implied an equal relationship, the eventual outcome makes it clear that the English elite of the LHSQ annexed SESA through a fairly blatant takeover.

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By the time the Royal Charter for the society was received in 1831, the combined name had disappeared. When Sewell wrote the request for incorporation two years earlier, he simply ignored the discussions and submitted the name of the LHSQ . Clearly something was being sorted out here. The previously ineligible or uninvited – the professionals, both English and canadiens – were now being brought into the LHSQ . The union of the two societies can be understood as a successful manoeuvre by the LHSQ to prevent the SESA membership from realizing itself as a corporate body capable of using culture to challenge the LHSQ ’s history of the colony. Curtailing in its infancy the SESA program of prize giving and museological interpretation, the formation of an expanded LHSQ ensured the homogeneity of the “historical” profile of the country. The original objectives would be retained. Of course, signs of ongoing resistance to this codification are evident in, for example, Michel Bibaud’s “Histoire du Canada,” which was published in weekly instalments in his journal La Bibliothèque Canadienne. Initially a mere thorn in the LHSQ ’s side, Bibaud was to have ongoing significance when the temporary stability negotiated by Kempt began to break down. The Royal Charter granted approval for “the prosecution of researches into the early history of Canada, for the recovering, procuring, and publishing of interesting documents and useful information, as to the Natural, Civil and Literary History of British North America and for the advancement of the Arts and Sciences in the said Province of Lower Canada, from which public benefit may be expected” (emphasis added).82 Although exactly what constituted “public benefit” was not outlined in the charter document, such benefit was clearly a requirement of incorporation. Technically, the new society could not exclude any member of the public from using its facilities. However, inclusion did not have to be expansive. Presumably, the condition of public benefit was to be met at least in part by the planning committee’s decision that the “Society’s Room should be open to the public on Thursday in each week from the hour of Twelve at noon until four in the afternoon.” “Strangers and others” could be admitted during regular hours if accompanied by a member, “and the name of every person who shall be admitted not being a member shall be inscribed in a Book to be kept for that purpose.”83 Bourne’s traveller would have had to find a member and be in town on a Thursday afternoon if a visit to the museum was planned. By the time the bylaws were formalized in 1832, the hours of public opening were

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reduced to 1:00 to 3:30 p.m.84 Carefully monitored, the rooms provided “public benefit” to very few and access was controlled through stringent admittance procedures. The society generally confined its attentions to the informed, resident population concentrated in the city of Quebec. However, knowledge of its activities filtered outwards to various learned societies in the United States and Europe.85 Strangers did visit the library and museum, and some associate members are recorded as living across a regional geography that encompassed the Canadas and the eastern United States.86 Public lectures were popular and well attended by the “better” classes. The archival records do not reveal whether other classes, such as labourers, might be welcome.87 Honorary memberships were extended to visitors to Quebec of high profile, such as Commander H.W. Bayfield, Royal Navy, and member of the Astronomical Society of London, who gave a paper on the “Geology of Lake Superior.”88 The categories of “associate” and “corresponding member” were introduced in 1829 (the year of amalgamation), which enabled active participation by those unable to afford the proprietary fees and encouraged visits from corresponding members living up to several hundred kilometres away. Presumably, these new membership levels were a compromise that would allow members of SESA , who had paid significantly less for their memberships, to continue as members in the newly united society. However, over the next few years many of the canadien members of SESA would drop their memberships in the LHSQ – lower fees alone would not keep them in the government-backed LHSQ . Significantly, women members of SESA , such as Harriet Sheppard, were not welcomed as voting members; indeed, women would not become members of the LHSQ until 1923. The importance of the high-profile members of SESA to the LHSQ is signalled in the published list of directors of 1830, the first year after their union, when several former SESA members became directors of the LHSQ . SESA member William Sheppard was nominated as a vice-president, and Jonathan Wurtele, former secretary of SESA , became the new corresponding secretary. Once these men were firmly ensconced in the LHSQ , the list of officers reverted almost entirely to the original LHSQ members. Joseph Légaré remained in the LHSQ until at least 1837, when he was the curator of the museum. Significantly, Andrew Stuart, a former vice-president of SESA and prominent politician, was the president of the LHSQ in 1837 at the time of the Lower Canada rebellion. It would be hard to overstate the importance of Stu-

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art’s integration into LHSQ . High-profile professionals were readily absorbed within the newly chartered LHSQ during the 1830s, exactly during the period of rising tensions that led to the struggles commonly known as the Lower Canada rebellion or revolts in English, or la guerre des patriotes (the patriots’ war) by the canadiens.89

Early 1830s: the museum narrative During the 1830s, the LHSQ was located in the same building as the civic offices, on the north side of the Place d’Armes.90 The building was constructed in 1803 and designed for the reception of “strangers” visiting Quebec, with the ironically appropriate name of the Union Hotel. As the hotel proved to be a financial disaster, one of the hotel’s major stockholders, Chief Justice Sewell, purchased it in 1815 and added a third storey, raising the hotel’s facade to a height on par with the Anglican cathedral, the governor’s residence, and the court house. The building was then rented from Sewell by the province, “it having been found most convenient to concentrate the offices of Government as much as possible under one roof.”91 Placed as it was on the north side of Place d’Armes, the hotel was part of the visible nexus of power in the city (building “H” on the map illustrated in figure 1.4). The offices of the civil secretary and his assistant, the Executive Council, the Commissioner of Crown Lands, the Inspector General of Public Accounts, the Surveyor General, the Royal Institution, the Adjutant General of Militia, and the Hydrographical Office were all in this building (all offices belonging to the civil list). Virtually every director of these offices was a member of the LHSQ . In the front of the principal storey were the rooms occupied by the LHSQ , rent free, “with permission of the government.”92 The visual, historical, and literary past presented in the building’s museum, library, and gallery shaped this primary cultural site; the rooms aligned physically and conceptually with the colony’s institutional authority and were undergirded by its civic offices. The smoothing over of ongoing political and social tensions achieved the appearance of an ordered and unified approach to the LHSQ ’s original goal to “rescue from oblivion and to collect into one focus all that relates to the early history and natural productions of the Canadas.”93 Donation records for the joint society’s library and museum from 4 June 1829 (immediately after union), to 26 December 1830 (before the Charter was received), included ninety-two separate contributions;

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these were outlined in the local newspaper accounts of the society’s meetings and in their published Transactions.94 Such records pay careful attention to matching the donor’s name and the donated object. George Bourne, for instance, donated a German atlas by Homana (1789). Sir John Caldwell gave “a basket of Insects.” Dr Lyons deposited “Twenty-five Engravings of newly discovered Plants.”95 In the same period, ninety-three additions to the library included multi-volume sets of transactions from other societies such as the Society of Arts, Manufactures, and Commerce in London, England. In addition to donations and loans, the society solicited funds for the purchase of specific objects. Although governors patronized the society privately,96 funding from the public purse began when the societies amalgamated in 1829. At that time, the recently merged society petitioned the new governor, James Kempt, for a grant towards the purchase of a “philosophical and chemical apparatus.” The society received a legislative grant of $1,000 (£250) in 1830 and applied the money towards the purchase of scientific instruments. Most years, the LHSQ received an annual grant of £50 from the government, although it received no funding in 1835 and 1836.97 Requests for funding emphasized that the society rooms were maintained for “the Benefit of all, who in the execution of any literary work or in the course of their studies may wish to avail themselves of either (the library or museum).”98 With this funding, the museum-library came as close to being a publicly funded cultural institution as Lower Canada would achieve before the official incorporation of the National Gallery of Canada in 1880.99 The society designated the three managers of the collection as curators of the museum, the library, and the apparatus. They were expected to “class and arrange them in scientific or methodical order”; the museum curator had additional leeway to organize the objects “in the best manner possible according to his judgement.”100 The curators were also responsible for arranging the recently donated articles in the society’s room before the next monthly general meeting, and for submitting in writing at the annual general meeting a report of all transactions in their respective departments occurring between meetings, thus ensuring prompt recognition of the act of donation. The pertinence of these curatorial actions for my purposes is that these men were in control of the visual artifacts of the city. They solicited donations, bought what they saw as relevant to the “public,” and established the visual narrative offered by the society’s rooms. Thus, they were in charge of forming the historical memory of the colony. While this rendering visible of colonial identity may have been informed by a desire

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to enact European standards, it also performs a collective identity that underwrote the British-ness of Canadian identity well into the twentieth century. A close look at the division of the objects into classes or categories further reveals the pedagogical intentions of the collectors. The artifacts were divided into four “Classes”:

I . The Class of Literature and History – to comprehend Moral Philosophy, Philology, Polite and Fine Arts, Literature generally, Civil History, Antiquities, Geography, Statistics, Political Economy II . The Class of Natural History – Zoology, Geology, Mineralogy, Meteorology, Botany, Dendrology III. The Class of Science – Astronomy, Mathematics, Chemistry, Natural and Experimental Philosophy IV. The Class of Arts – Agriculture, Commerce, Trade, Manufactures, Mechanics, Domestic and Useful Arts101 According to Bourne’s 1829 description, the collection was composed of “about fifteen hundred mineralogical and geological specimens from foreign countries – about two hundred of the same genera from Lakes Huron and Superior – with a diversity of native samples … subjects of Natural History in ornithology and zoology … a select scientific library … a number of conchological specimens, both provincial and exotic. The room is adorned with paintings.”102 Bourne’s “catalogue” describes the location and display of the pictures. The fifty-three paintings were primarily copies of well-known European paintings, probably on loan from Joseph Légaré.103 In the edition of Picture of Quebec published in 1830 in New York, Bourne stated that the paintings were “loaned to the society by Mr. Légaré, a native artist of taste and genius.”104 According to the minutes of the LHSQ , in March 1829 the society had accepted the proposal of a “Mr De Garris [sic]” to lodge his pictures in the rooms of the society in exchange for their promise to insure them.105 I believe this is a misreporting of Légaré’s name. Although a member by the name of Garris was recorded in later years, he had no connection to the donation or loan of artwork. Presumably Légaré’s position as LHSQ curator during the mid-1830s was linked to this loan of over fifty paintings, copies, and originals of mainly Baroque religious images.106 Likely not coincidental, Légaré’s name disappears from the membership roles after the 1837 rebellion.

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In addition to the description of the buildings and their functions, Bourne itemized the pictures on display in the society’s rooms. Displayed on all four walls of the large, former ballroom were the images of saints Bartholomew, Catherine, and Anthony; views of classic and modern Italy; replicas of Raphael’s The School of Athens and Rubens’ Visitation; and moral commentaries on drunkenness, despair, and idleness.107 Bourne also noted a folio of engravings, a massive volume of plates, and other printed images.108 Although there is no contemporaneous image of what the museum rooms looked like, much can be gleaned from Bourne’s account of the main room. Described as a single “spacious and lofty” room in the Union Hotel, it was fairly significant in size (approximately 20 feet by 42 feet; 6 metres by 1.8 metres).109 Bourne describes how the paintings “adorn” the room as he textually walks the visitor around it. The entrances are on the west and north sides. An arrangement of eight paintings faces the visitor, including the copy of Raphael’s School of Athens, which he describes in detail. The tour then encompasses the ten paintings on the front or south side of the room, including five paintings of vices (idleness, drunkenness, avarice). The west end wall displays eleven paintings, primarily Christian images of Jesus, Saint Cecilia, and Moses. On the north side are the rest of the paintings, which depict religious scenes and two views of Venice. These painting-laden walls enclose the society’s artifacts on exhibit. “Books, Manuscripts, Maps, Charts, Plans, Diagrams, Prints, Engravings, paintings, and other objects, deposited in the Library” presents a wide range of visual objects for the contemplation of the discriminating observer.110 Suitable cases and cabinets preserve the room’s artifacts under lock and key. In the five-year period of 1833–37, the society spent £80 on specimens in natural history and £65 for “Book Case, Glass Case & other Carpentry” (£80 was worth approximately $240 at the time).111 These cases were most likely similar to the wooden cases that could be seen in many nineteenth-century collections, such as Peale’s Philadelphia Museum. “Admirably arranged and scientifically classed,”112 the scientific and natural history specimens were organized by the society according to systems proposed by experts of the day and often referenced in the LHSQ’s Transactions.113 These articles published in these volumes describe and sometimes illustrate the ways in which maps, plans, and diagrams of riverbeds, lakeshores, and terrain function to textually order the colony. At lectures, members and invited guests read aloud papers and short announcements, such as “topographical notices” about different regions,

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along with notes and catalogues of various plants, shells, and insects. The evidence of the scientific, sometimes amateur, research discussed in their lectures was supported by reference to European authorities. Visiting lecturer Commander Bayfield referred his audience to the authority of a Professor Jameson when outlining his geological survey of Lake Superior.114 Member, William Sheppard, followed Frederick Pursh’s Flora Americae (1814) in his references to the plants described in Charlevoix’s Histoire du la Nouvelle France.115 The anonymous author of the mineralogical catalogue used Professor Frederick Mohs’ Treatise on Mineralogy for distinguishing minerals.116 Only Harriet Sheppard questioned the accepted authority of contemporary scientists, as when she complained about the inadequacy of the available classification systems that she employed to order her collection of shells.117 In her paper, she remarks that when using Lamarck’s Animaux sans Vertèbres (1801), she was “frequently at a loss respecting the species” because Lamarck “gives only a part of each genus.”118 Nevertheless, she studiously sought to match genus to species to her findings, and due to her extensive notes, all the species names were later identified.119 This frustration reveals the measures she took to ensure “complete” classification of the objects. While Lamarck’s book was in the library of the LHSQ , its authority or at least its comprehensiveness was clearly tested by Harriet Sheppard’s questioning. In a short paper on songbirds that she read at an LHSQ meeting in 1835, Harriet Sheppard again challenged contemporaneous authorities in her insistence that indeed Canadian songbirds demonstrate “melody” in their songs.120 When Harriet Sheppard drew attention to Lamarck’s deficiencies, she was giving voice to the limitations of taxonomies or qualities of surface versus character that Foucault examined in The Order of Things (1966). Foucault has argued that in moving from describing the surface of natural objects to classifying the character of things in the late eighteenth century, the natural historian began to relate the visible to the invisible, looking beyond surface distinctions to identify shared characteristics.121 In a similar fashion, the LHSQ ’s concern for natural history relates the visible to the invisible. Members gathered artifacts of the visible world; objects from aboriginal sites were displayed alongside drawings and accounts about the colony’s geology, geography, and biology. While this gathering and display activity demonstrated how the members were on par with their cultured peers in Europe, as well as the participation of women in this movement of documentation, it also served to establish the physical history and character of the Canadas. When examined in light of the representational strategies of the

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museum, this impetus towards revealing the invisible “organic structure” of the Canadas begins to define the history of the colonists, which functions to place the present in relation to a visible past. In other words, delineating a natural history serves to naturalize the colonial presence through a progressive ordering of the things that are designated as having literary or historical value. This is a perfect teleological resolution to the political tensions – those in power find evidence to prove their natural ability to be in power. In addition to the natural world, artifacts and lectures also represented the “civilized world.” Andrew Stuart gave a curiously titled talk, “Detached thoughts on the history of civilization,” on 15 April 1837.122 He saw the European nations as exhibiting “a vital principle, which for ages has been, and still is expanding, into new and enlarged forms, continually changing and improving their social condition.” The civilizations of “the East,” he argued, are “fixed forms.” The donations to the museum of numerous artifacts from Italy, both ancient and modern, mirrored Stuart’s admiration of “the useful arts and those principles of order and government” of the “Roman people.” These objects included, for example, a Roman vase from Herculaneum, antique Roman coins, a box of “Italian Marbles,” etc.123 Donations, papers, and history paintings also document Stuart’s conception of aboriginal peoples – whom Stuart describes as “nations, which we denominate savage.” Local farmers also donated artifacts such as arrowheads, battle-axes, and a hatchet to the museum collection. The society identified aboriginal artifacts generically as “Indian,” with no tribal affiliation noted. Instead, the records include the name of the colonist who “discovered” the object while ploughing his fields. The ploughed field – literal evidence of territorial control – provided the ultimate sign in the colony of “civilization” and conquest of the unknown, of those perceived as wild and savage. Of course, the very real presence of Huron-Wendat people in nearby Lorette refutes the control the society tells in its narratives.124 Papers read to the public and then published in the LHSQ Transactions ranged from an early paper by Stuart purporting to be the report of a “Journey across the Continent of North America by an Indian Chief” to observations on contemporary Huron (Wendat) practices.125 Forcibly Christianized by the French and decimated by disease as well as wars with the Iroquois (the allies of the British during the Seven Years War), the few surviving members of the Huron-Wendat of Wendake (formerly known as the Hurons of Lorette) were living at Lorette,

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a reserve about thirty kilometres outside Quebec City. This distance is critical as it was close enough for the Huron to be treated as “living specimens” by the society, yet far enough away that they were occluded from any kind of ongoing presence.126 Stuart’s language of exclusion and differentiation extended indiscriminately across race, ethnicity, and gender. Indeed, Stuart seems to have been the first politician to challenge propertied women’s right to vote in 1832 – interestingly, the same year he became the president of the LHSQ . Another form of historical representation of aboriginal presence is achieved through history painting and portraiture. While these paintings were not part of Bourne’s list of LHSQ museum holdings, they may have been shown at various times. In 1828, SESA had given Légaré a silver medal for his depiction of Indian Warfare. Ten years later, the LHSQ awarded a medal to local artist and member Antoine Plamondon for his image of Zacharie Vincent, entitled The Last Huron (1838).127 The Earl of Durham, the British governor sent to resolve the conflicts arising from the rebellions of 1837–38, purchased this painting. Durham’s infamous assimilationist views are seemingly echoed in this painting of the “last Huron,” a representation of Zacharie Vincent. Wearing the ceinture fléchée (striped sash) and wool coat of the voyageur, Vincent is aligned with the canadien whom Durham fervently wants to anglicize.128 Durham took the painting with him when he returned to England to submit the infamous Durham Report recommending the union of the two Canadas. Although these images were not a known part of the museum collection, they were well known in the community and were associated with the LHSQ through the awarding of medals and the announcement of the medals in the local press. Scientific “observation” codified, neutralized, and amended the boundaries between European civilization and the “uncivilized.” Although natural history tended to dominate quantitatively both the collection and the lecture schedule, the documentation of an aboriginal past remained an ongoing concern.129 Both these histories, the “natural” and the “Indian,” were essential components of the desire to come to terms with “barbarism.” The all-inclusive formulation of the term barbarism was essentially a metaphor to describe all cultural practices that did not match contemporary British norms. Given that Britain had not yet fully banned the slave trade in British colonies (Slavery Abolition Act, 1833), the designation of others as “barbaric” must be understood as a contemporaneous way of seeing.130 For many of the members of the LHSQ , “barbarism” translated easily into the character of the aboriginal, and

A Picture of Quebec  61

less facilely into descriptions of the noisy, demonstrative canadiens. Both the extensive, unmapped land and its equally unknown native inhabitants had to be charted – and rendered unthreatening and controlled – in order to demonstrate the progress of civilization in the young country. This overriding concern for documenting and scientifically classifying specimens of natural and native history also dominated the other collecting activities of the LHSQ . The collected artifacts, displayed in glass cases in the society’s room, were juxtaposed with the European images on the walls and the odd assortment of objects representing what the society saw as the civilized and uncivilized worlds. Located at the focal point of government activity, the museum visually represented a unified, and increasingly anglicized, notion of what constituted Canada’s past. The terror of the unnamed was refuted through museological practices, which “scientifically” placed the past at a distance. Paradoxically, the museum also claimed a false intimacy with this past through its hubristic representational strategies. The names of the donors jostle up and against the rationalizing discourse of the learned society. The visual confirmation of the physical fabric of a nation and its constituent elements (human, animal, mineral, and vegetable) in the museum was as essential to the process of national realization – proof of the civilized state of the Canadas – as were the lectures and publications. Surely it is not a matter of chance that this museum took form during two decades of intensive negotiation around the idea of the political union of Canada East and Canada West, that its rooms were located in the government-occupied Union Hotel, or that its foundation was secured through the union of two competing learned societies. Although not formally a public institution in its own right, the museum was conceived of by a public society, run by people very much in the public domain, and funded on an annual basis from the public purse. The museum made a particular, colonial history visible through the rationalization of disparate elements of the colony into a narrative of English Canada. At a time when canadiens outnumbered the British by as much as 120 to 1, Governor Dalhousie had pressing reasons behind his assimilationist policies. With the founding of the LHSQ , British and canadien members of the society alike found, labelled, and placed the “barbarous” past of aboriginal peoples alongside the flora and fauna and copies of great European master paintings. The presence of the conquering British becomes visibly inevitable and successfully overwrites the clear presence of the “last Huron.” Visual culture becomes

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the means through which the problematic history of the conqueror is narrated and consolidated. The concern of Le Canadien’s editor about a “history of the governors” was indeed not misplaced.

Archival notes In this first “Archival note,” I explore the ways in which the research archive tends to explode into a multi-legged, octopus-like creature that seems impossible to deal with. The research triad methodology is an attempt to get this beast back into some kind of box – not unlike like the containment strategies the LHSQ employed to limit the excess of discourse aligned with its collection. However, here I am concerned to allow the contradictions and invisible to have presence, while I also want to narrate a story that has significance. The reality of interdisciplinary research is that you can succeed only partially in this effort. I am too wrapped up in detail to simply stop researching. In other “Notes” in the book, I consider how the research subject and object provide a way to tentatively and temporarily set the limits of an appropriate research archive. Here, I gesture towards a few of the idiosyncrasies of the research archive for this project. This chapter relies to a great extent on the archives of the Literary and Historical Society of Quebec. The irony of using an archive that is English to describe the tensions of language and culture in Quebec City does not escape me. That the society archives survive at all is due to a twist of fate. When I first visited the library in 1996, there were no organised archives per se. The librarian would bring me what I asked for, but as there was no index, it was hit and miss. It’s also hard to ask for what you don’t know exists. Fortunately for me, a few years earlier, Sylviane Dubois was hired as archivist, and she later sent me some items that appeared as she was sorting the files. In this way, I received a working copy of the image of Place d’Armes in 1832, and a few other bits and pieces of information now gracing the bibliography. Unfortunately, I was unable to find any extant archival material remains from SESA with the exception of some of their correspondence with the LHSQ , which remains in the LHSQ archives in Quebec. This correspondence was in English only. While the canadiens were present, their language was not. At the time of my visit to the LHSQ , I did not think much about the significance of the library in relation to the museum. It was only much later that I realized the library was not as separate as one might think.

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Often it shared or overlapped spaces with artifacts and specimens. Because I have a habit of looking up keywords for other research projects when doing research in seemingly unrelated archives, I found that there was a copy of the Catalogue of Books in the Quebec Library in the British Library (BL 821.h.47) in London. Published in April 1835, the book forced me to see the library, which was literally under my nose when I was at the LHSQ in Quebec City. The catalogue had a complete list of proprietors of the library and various titles, including Jamison’s Arts and Sciences of 1821, which indicated that the LHSQ researchers (particularly Harriet Sheppard) were keeping up to date with the latest taxonomic systems. I mention the history of the library briefly in chapter 3. My initial research took me into the Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library at the University of Toronto, as they hold the only copy I could find of George Bourne’s The Picture of Quebec (B- 10 5377) as well as Alfred Hawkins’ Hawkins’s Picture of Quebec (B -10 631), and F.M. Bibaud’s Dictionnaire historique des hommes illustres du Canada et de L’Amérique. Today, many of these texts can be found online at http://archive.org. I was delighted to find there the three versions of Bourne’s Picture of Quebec (1829 and 1831, published in Quebec; 1830, published in New York). Yet I was also overwhelmed by the extent of the virtual archive and its exponential possibilities. Even if we can Google every scrap of information, we need to decide what is worth searching. This archival note draws the readers’ attention to the potential of the archive, and gestures to the ongoing difficulty of deciding what is next. Research is a bit like doing a home renovation: it costs twice as much as expected, takes three times as long to finish, and always throws up surprises.

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Z  Chapter t wo  Y

A Laboratory of Learning: The Educational Museum, Visual Culture, and Citizenship in Canada West … the agreeable and substantial improvement of all classes of Students and Pupils, and … the useful entertainment of numerous Visitors … are the objects of the Educational Museum. – Egerton Ryerson, 1856

Egerton Ryerson set out with no small task in mind when he and his peers conceptualized a broad-based educational system in Canada West during the 1840s and ’50s. Oft-quoted passages from his letters to the various stakeholders in the politics of education and culture in the Canadas reveal Ryerson’s goal to have every child exposed to a practical education that would produce “good” members of a universal society. You could say that Ryerson had been on a similar crusade most of his life. After he was kicked out of the family home for joining the Methodist Episcopal Church at the age of eighteen, Ryerson became an itinerant minister. As a circuit rider or “saddleback preacher,” Ryerson rode from church to church on his circuit. Not unlike the Reverend George Bourne, Ryerson acted on his beliefs, and challenged authority when religion was at stake. Two decades after preaching from horseback, Ryerson was to expound upon the moral and ethical value of schooling for all the citizens of Upper Canada. As superintendent of education, Ryerson would advocate “the agreeable and substantial improvement of all classes of Students and Pupils.”1 By the 1850s, Ryerson supported this goal of social improvement through the establishment of a teachers’ college known as the Toronto Normal School (figure 2.1). The school provided an explicit and focused form of education for teachers and the model students they taught.2 A key mechanism for the “improvement” of all was the Educational Museum, which occupied the upper floor of the

2.1  “Front Perspective of the Educational Building, Erected 1854,” Journal of Education for Upper Canada, 1855.

school. The museum was open to students and visitors alike. As we shall see, Ryerson wanted the evidence of civilizing discourse made visible. In this chapter, I investigate the intimate link between pedagogy, objects, and public display in mid- to late-nineteenth-century Ontario that shapes the early history of public collections in Ontario. Continuing to open up the relatively narrow trajectory of historical museum studies in Canada, I argue that the pedagogical role of visual culture in the nineteenth century must be clearly nuanced. This is not just a history of what happened, but why it happened and why it matters. The visual construction of narratives of citizenship continues to underline contemporary notions of social belonging and difference on many levels. The desire to see, to believe the evidence of one’s own eyes, the apparent truth value of what is seen – all continuously reproduce a narrative of citizenship that refuses the paradoxes of everyday life. Ryerson’s students may well have wondered how one could reconcile “being good,” which is driven by religious strictures, with “being a good citizen,” which is rooted in a relationship with the state, not with a supreme being. In looking at this paradox, I focus on the objects of the Educational Museum, both its goals and its contents – objects ranging from spindles to thermometers, original paintings to copies; objectives of citizen training and cultivation of “usefulness.” I consider what prompted the collection and display of these particular objects, and how the visual culture of a social politics that emerged from social discontent in the 1830s peaked by 1867 in the realization of an educational museum unrivalled anywhere in North America.

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In looking at the “objects of intention” in and of the museum, I foreground how visual culture educates and produces the good citizen. Objects of intention are those that are specifically collected to teach, illustrate, and provide material experience. These particular objects have been the object of scrutiny themselves. Fern Bayer’s major reconstructive research on the Ontario provincial art collection established the parameters of Ryerson’s collecting and the early artworks that formed the nucleus of what was to become the provincial art gallery.3 While this research has established the extent of the art objects purchased, the role of the Educational Museum and the explicit pedagogical function of the displayed objects have often been elided into the history of art, art education, or museology in the province. In this chapter, I consider the museum within the school, the community, and the larger network of municipal institutions that explicitly address the pedagogy of citizenship.4 For Ryerson, the museum was as important in “training the minds and characters of the people” as direct schooling.5 A museum is not a simple mirror of cultural values; rather, it has the capacity to participate in the production and affirmation of the society that attends to it.6 Thus, a museum that was explicitly articulated as educational, such as the Educational Museum in the Toronto Normal School, provides a particularly valuable nexus or grid of power for examining the relations between socio-cultural practices, education, politics, and visual culture in mid-nineteenth-century Canada.7 I begin by considering how the union of the two Canadas affected not only the centralization of politics and economics but also the institutionalization of civic services, including education in Upper Canada. I then consider the planning and evolution of the Educational Museum. In particular I analyze what this planning and evolution tells us about the relationship of object purchases to educational theories about object lessons; the role of observation and manipulation in the production of knowledge; and the ways in which visual culture functioned as a political and social project that participated in the ordering of the two Canadas.

Canada West and the expansion of the public sphere The two Canadas – Canada West and Canada East – were formed after the uprisings in the British colonies (Lower Canada, 1837; Upper Canada, 1838). The union of these two colonies into the single Province of Canada was a means of bringing those rebellious colonies into a larger union, one that would be administered directly by the Queen’s

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representative, the governor general. Much has been written about Lord Durham’s infamous report of 1839 in which he suggested that the resolution to the troubles in the colonies should, among other measures, ensure the Anglicization of the canadiens. His insistence on a single legislature that would effectively drown out the canadiens has been well documented.8 As a consequence of the many administrative and legal changes initiated by the Colonial Office in the years immediately following the Act of Union, the period between 1840 and 1867 provides a unique opportunity to examine shifting civic and sociocultural relations. Often seen as a transition period between colonization and Confederation, these years were not lived in anticipation of Confederation. The united province of the two Canadas was rather a pivotal forum in which shifting relations among citizens, government, and home country were manifested in the political drive to centralization and consolidation. While this chapter deals primarily with Canada West, the debates about centralization existed in and against similar moves in Canada East. In Upper Canada, conflicts lay primarily in the rule of law as interpreted by a virtual oligarchy and English constitutionalists, in other words, between the British conservative elite – often referred to as the Family Compact – and the rural settlers of Anglo descent (British and American loyalists) who expected a voice in their government. These conflicts, political and social, centred on the interpretation of colonial directives such as the management of crown reserves and church lands,9 the control of the executive branches of government,10 and the awarding of high-paying, titled jobs from the civil list such as chief justice, inspector general, or attorney general.11 The elected members of the Legislative Council had little effective power, as the appointed Legislative and Executive councils were composed largely of a select few who held the power of veto. The Act of Union (1840) reinforced representational government, solidified British control through the person of the governor general, and functioned to suppress the Family Compact as well as the radicals.12 Carol Wilton has argued that the social unrest of the early 1830s resulted in “petitioning movements” in Upper Canada through which everyday people supported the development of an expanded public sphere.13 In addition to political meetings, parades, and demonstrations of public opinion, the Act of Union itself ironically served to facilitate the growth of civic expression. Among his criticisms of the pre-rebellion colonies, Durham had drawn attention to an important

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lack: “The utter want of municipal institutions giving the people any control over their local affairs ... may indeed be considered as one of the main causes of the failure of representative government, and of the bad administration of the country.”14 This emphasis on the establishment of British-style municipal institutions has been described as a form of liberal colonialism, distinct from many other forms of colonialism as it allowed local decision-making yet retained British control, order, and discipline.15 The passing of the Municipal Corporations Act in 1848 saw more municipalities established and numerous civic institutions such as jails, post offices, asylums, and schools built between 1848 and 1860. One less obvious but nevertheless significant political outcome of the institutionalization of the colony was the establishment of the office of superintendent of schools – a job that was earmarked at least initially for Ryerson. A voice of opposition to Anglican dominance, the choice of Ryerson, a Methodist preacher, reflected compromise while continuing to ensure that Christian values would prevail in the proposed school system. Seemingly, the government anticipated the potential of a centralized school system that would mitigate the effects of differential colonization and settlement.16

A laboratory of culture: Ryerson and the municipal institution of education Egerton Ryerson was appointed chief superintendent of schools in 1844.17 His appointment represented a workable compromise between the radical groups who had driven the uprising of 1838 and the Anglican elite who dominated provincial politics before the rebellion. As early as 1826, Ryerson had tangled with the Reverend John Strachan, the Anglican bishop, over schooling issues. More specifically, Strachan had argued that schools should be run by the Church of England (i.e., the Anglican Church), and he added insult to injury by saying that Methodists were ignorant and American in origin.18 Ryerson’s scholarly response defended Methodist preacher training and challenged Strachan’s interpretation of the clergy reserves – funds that were meant to assist Protestants in the province, which, Strachan argued, gave the Church of England (Anglicanism) a mandate to run the schools. Ryerson retorted that schooling should be universal, available to all, and provided instead by the state. These battles would re-emerge over the succeeding decades, especially in the 1850s. While Ryerson was viewed

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as a moderate, he and his cohort would eventually make a number of strategic interventions into the informal and voluntary schooling typical of early nineteenth-century Canada.19 During the first ten years of his tenure as chief superintendent of schools, Ryerson was one of the primary forces behind the development of a provincial school system with a wide public mandate. The School Acts of 1846 and 1850 supported the idea of cost-free and mandatory schools, but it was not until 1871 that children aged seven to twelve were required to spend at least four months a year in school.20 During the same period, the United States was sporadically moving towards state-supported, secular schools. Some historians of education argue that the appointment of Horace Mann (1837–48) as the secretary to the Massachusetts state board of education in 1837 was the earlier and more important shift in public education in North America.21 Like Ryerson, Mann argued for universal education for all. They both saw the need to educate the people, rich or poor. Democrats saw the Republican sentiment towards the “common school” as diminishing individual and family rights to educate their children.22 Ryerson agreed with Mann that “rote learning of names and rules was neither effective nor desirable, but that children had to be led to discover principles and relationships.”23 This attitude was similarly expressed in Canada. However, Ryerson did not turn to an American example. In part, this may be because by the 1840s and ’50s local administrators in the United States often interpreted state directives on education to suit local politics.24 Ryerson insisted on standardized education, which the American form of mixed private and public schooling tended to undermine. Ryerson’s Methodist belief in the right of all people to have access to education was not unique; it echoed what Alison Prentice describes as a general shift in attitude towards children in the nineteenth century (from seeing children as little adults to seeing them as innocent – the blank slates upon which formal education could write notions of propriety and citizenship).25 Naturally there was no lack of attempts to inscribe those tabulae rasae. Certainly Ryerson’s position as superintendent enabled him to act on his beliefs, attend to changing attitudes towards children, and consolidate schooling under a provincial rubric. Bruce Curtis argues that the educational reforms Ryerson initiated were linked to a bourgeois economy of the self, so that education was about self-regulation and moral regulation of the public.26 Certainly the emergence of the self-regulating individual is

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seen in the popularization and spread of teaching through experience as opposed to recitation and repetition. While there was heated debate and resistance to the imposition of state schooling in numerous areas of the province, Ryerson and his coterie of “choice men”27 eventually did succeed in introducing a near-universal elementary and secondary school system.28 However, the years between the Act of Union (1840) and the 1871 passing of the school law (which mandated a minimum number of years in school) were turbulent years for the public school system. As Michael Murphy establishes in his detailed study of the London, Ontario, school system during the period between 1852 and 1860, the debates about the benefits of common schools versus those of various interest groups (Catholic, racial, elite) demonstrate how the public engaged in complex ways with the new state educational apparatus.29 Similarly, my close study of Ryerson’s particular strategies, especially the evolution of the Educational Museum in the Toronto Normal School, deepens the understanding of the early development of public schooling. By paying attention to the role of objects in instruction, as well as the object of education, I argue we can better understand the sites and sights of education, and the specific role of visual culture in this account. According to Ryerson’s Annual Report for 1854, the innovations to education during his tenure to that date as superintendent included public funding for a teachers’ college, a new periodical for teachers called The Journal of Education, district schoolhouses, standardized teachers’ salaries, an “Educational Depository” for the sale of school supplies (including provincially authorized primers, lessons, etc.), and the Educational Museum.30 Ryerson would probably have found it redundant to mention that the actual erection of a purpose-built normal school was itself a significant achievement. The construction of the Toronto Normal School in 1851–52, by the architectural firm of Cumberland and Ridout, provided the fulcrum for Ryerson’s expansive vision. Ryerson’s friend Fred Cumberland was the secretary for the official delegation to London’s Great Exhibition in 1851 and a member of the Toronto Board of Education.31 Within ten years of his arrival in Toronto in 1847, Cumberland had designed the county courthouse, the Anglican cathedral and a separate cemetery chapel, the Normal School, the post office, the registry office, the Mechanics’ Institute, law courts, various private houses, and University College. The cluster of educational buildings built for Ryerson were located on what became known as St

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James’ Square, which was to function as one of Toronto’s first public squares. Furthermore, Cumberland’s integrated design fostered a broad cultural education by bringing together classrooms, a theatre, art gallery and museum, educational depository, and grounds. The eightacre site was designed as a living classroom for botany and agriculture lessons. In figure 2.1, we can see that the grounds were planned with a circular path (for horse-drawn carriages) and other access routes across the lawn. These latter were meant to provide access for children and teachers to view the intended plantings. The building to the rear on the right was the Model School (training school) for the teachers. A leading landscape architect, William Mundie, was hired to level and drain the grounds, set aside a plot for a botanical garden, develop a small arboretum for foreign and domestic shrubs (illustrated on left of figure 2.1), and prepare two acres for agricultural experiments; the educational complex was, as Geoffrey Simmins has argued, “a laboratory for learning.”32 Published in Ryerson’s Annual Report for 1855, the engraving of the architect’s drawing is described as “Erected in 1854.”33 While the original image was a competition drawing for the Normal School, the school was built as planned. Predictive, rather than descriptive, competition drawings often reveal as much about the projected, and not always achieved, desires of the commissioner and the architect. In this case, later views of the school do show that circular paths and vegetation were planted and developed more or less in line with the plans. In the Annual Report for 1856, Ryerson mentions the grounds were “designed not for ornament merely, but as a botanical garden, the flowers, plants and shrubs being labeled and accessible to students and others, to illustrate the lectures in vegetable physiology, and the lessons in botany, and from which specimens are selected and used in the schools for analysis and illustration.”34 The grounds were to be as much a part of the educational plan as the objects in the museum. The significance of labelling, accessibility, and specimens becomes clearer below with respect to “object lessons,” which are here embedded in the very structure of the school and its grounds. In his speech for the launch of the Normal School in November 1852, Chief Justice John Beverley Robinson described the new institution as “a striking ornament of the city”; the Normal School opened with great fanfare and attracted numerous visitors to its grounds, library, and museum.35 The building, with fulllength pilasters, pedimented roof, and tower, was complimented for its relatively simple lines, which presented a well-proportioned building without the elaborate carving and massive columns that often char-

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acterized significant European buildings of the period. Robinson also noted that this style of architecture suited the colony, as it avoided the excessive decoration of other buildings seeking to impose “a grandeur of effect.” In his Annual Report for 1856, Ryerson made a longer-winded yet similar claim that the object of the construction and arrangements of the buildings and premises is to combine taste with necessity and convenience, to spend not a penny on mere ornament, but to render ornament subservient to utility, to impress upon all classes that an establishment symbolical of what the system of elementary and grammar schools of the country ought to be, and the primary agent in promoting what concerns the great mass of the people, and lies at the basis of our national civilization and advancement, should be second to no other institution in the country, in the comprehensiveness of its arrangements, the simplicity and perfection of its details and the chaste elegance of its appearance – such as the eye can look upon with pleasure, and the mind contemplate with satisfaction [emphasis added].36 As “an establishment symbolical of what schools of the country ought to be,” the buildings at St James’ Square were clearly intended as the primary means of promoting universal education for “the great mass of people.” This “great mass” were deserving of “national civilization and advancement.” The educational buildings combined taste with necessity, and echoed the architecture of other major institutions rather than school design of the period.37 However, the architecture of the Normal School also echoed aspects of the symmetrical, wide, horizontal structure, with central and end bays, intended for the South Kensington Museum in London, England, albeit on a different scale. Given that both museums were being planned around the same time, they were probably echoing contemporaneous ideas about significant public buildings. Nevertheless, there are ties to the South Kensington, particularly the relation between art and education that I discuss further below. The visual politics of style, size, and location establish the Normal School as one of the key municipal institutions in Toronto, and by default in the Canadas. The building was slightly raised, “considerably elevated above the business parts of the city, and commanding a fine view of the bay.”38 Depicted on an 1857 map of Toronto, the school complex occupied the easterly corner of an imaginary inverted cultural triangle

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2.2  City of Toronto, detail from Plan of Canada West, 1857.

(figure 2.2). The accompanying legend provides details of significant buildings in the city; the Toronto Normal School is clearly one of these key civic institutions, judging by the amount of land and size of buildings depicted. To the west, barely a mile away, was a building known as The Grange, the home of W.H. Boulton, member of the Family Compact and a mayor of Toronto (in 1846–47, and again in 1858). The southerly area included Osgoode Hall (home of the Law Society), Upper Canada College, Government House, and the Parliament Buildings. The plot of land occupied by the Normal School and Model School buildings can be seen to be comparable in size to those of the major social and cultural buildings in the city.39 As seen with the museum rooms of the Literary and Historical Society of Quebec, the Toronto Normal School was a critical participant in the circulation of cultural politics: legal, educational, and political. The capital of the united province in 1849–51 and 1855–59, Toronto functioned as the political centre of the two Canadas,

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2.3  Competition drawing by Cumberland and Ridout Architects illustrating the rear elevation and upper-floor plan for the Toronto Normal School, 1850–52.

and the extensive building during this decade – spearheaded in large part by Fred Cumberland – served to literally construct the economic, cultural, and political hub of the two sections of the province.40 While the primary purpose of the Normal School was the education or “formation” of teachers, it was understood and used as a cultural focal point for not only students and teachers, but also a much wider public. In a letter to Ryerson in 1852, influential British representative Colonel John Lefroy noted that facilities for culture were “at a low ebb” in Canada. Superintendent of the Toronto Magnetic and Meteorological Observatory and a founder of the Royal Canadian Society, Lefroy had significant social and cultural status in the city. He advised Ryerson, “the Provincial Normal School occupies a position which can hardly be paralleled in advantages for initiating a better order of things. Not only does a very numerous class of the community pass under its influence and receive its moral and mental stamp, but that class (teachers) is of all others the one which has probably the greatest influence in forming

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the minds of others.” He also added, “from its metropolitan position, its attraction to visitors and the liberality with which it is thrown open, objects of art collected there would, in a material degree, stand in the position of a public collection and thus without interfering with their special purpose they would indirectly instruct classes with which the Normal School has nothing to do.”41 Thus the collection would be used by and for teachers, and reach “classes” of people not addressed by the school alone; the museum would “instruct” a wide spectrum of classes. Free entrance ensured that even the poor could benefit from the “moral and mental stamp” of art. As early as 1852, Ryerson was being encouraged to envision how an educational museum could become a public museum, and the school could hardly be better positioned to initiate “a better order of things.” Part of this ordering included the use of the building for other activities, such as the hosting of public lectures.42 The architect reported that the main lecture hall held 470 people, and with the galleries the number rose to 620 (visible in the centre of figure 2.3). In The City of Toronto (1860), J. George Hodgins reports that the hall could hold nearly 700 people whereas the number of pupils was limited to 100.43 The competition drawing detailing the layout of rooms illustrates the significant size and drama of the large two-storey, circular lecture hall. Evidently, a substantial number of visitors could occupy the public rooms of the building and participate in the “laboratory of culture,” even during school session.

Establishing an Educational Museum A key mechanism for the “improvement” of all was the Educational Museum, which occupied the upper floor of the Normal School. As Ryerson argued, “Nothing is more important than that an establishment designed especially to be the Institution of the People at large, to provide for them Teachers, Apparatus, Libraries, and every other possible agency of instruction, should … be such as the people can contemplate with respect and satisfaction, and visit with pleasure and profit.”44 As we shall see, Ryerson wanted to make visible the evidence of civilized discourse. In his 1857 publication The School House, Hodgins provides a detailed description of the building and includes several illustrations. On the upper level is the central hall, with its gallery “B” connecting the east and west corridors (figure 2.4). Hodgins proudly observes that the “Educational Museum is now in process of arrangement, and will shortly be open to the public. It will contain copies of paintings

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2.4  “Plan of the Educational Museum Upper Floor Normal School Buildings,” in J. George Hodgins, The School House.

by the old masters; and casts of statues, groups, busts and statuettes, ancient and modern; specimens of Canadian natural history; and school apparatus, maps, charts, globes, &c.”45 The rooms are quite large, with the classrooms (no. 1 and no. 2) measuring 56 by 36 feet (17 by 11 metres). The six galleries of the Educational Museum range from approximately 39 by 22 feet (11.8 by 6.7 metres) (no. 2) to 45 by 28 feet (13.7 by 8.5 metres) (no. 4).46 This gives us a good sense of the scale of the museum rooms relative to other rooms in the educational building. The entire front of the second floor was dedicated to the museum. In addition, an extensive collection of busts was exhibited on the passageway walls and in the lecture hall. So what was in this museum, and how did the artifacts related to teaching and learning? Part of the answer to this lies in Ryerson’s private passions and part in the modern forms of pedagogical practices that he experienced in Europe. Once the institutional structures were in place, Ryerson became consumed by the Educational Museum project. He undertook three educational tours to Europe, with some degree of support from the government for each visit. On his second tour, in 1850–51, he spent

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several months in Europe and England. The tour focused on the study of educational systems, which ensured his exposure not only to the latest school theory and practices but also to the accompanying technical innovations. The Great Exhibition of 1851 in London provided an opportunity to hobnob with royalty and a chance to see and experience new pedagogies in action. This first international exhibition was sponsored by Prince Albert, Queen Victoria’s consort. The fair organizers took the unusual step of having half the exhibits feature foreign arts and inventions, while the other half were from Britain and her colonies. Significantly, the fair was seen as an educational forum for “the works of industry of all nations.” In a letter to his secretary, Ryerson noted, “I was at the great Exhibition yesterday. It was the grandest of all grand affairs I ever witnessed.”47 He adds that he was seated in the middle near the “Iron Duke” (Duke of Wellington). The fair had extensive exhibits of new technology, as well as objects of art, design, and industry. This exhibition may well have influenced Ryerson’s attempts to acquire similar objects when he returned to Europe in 1855–56. In order to make his museum a reality, Ryerson persuaded the provincial legislature to underwrite a third tour of Europe so that he could purchase the appropriate objects. In a letter to the provincial secretary written in Paris in 1855, Ryerson carefully reviewed the goals of his nine-month sojourn in Europe. In addition to gaining information on the “character and working of Systems of Public Instruction,” Ryerson felt that his primary task was to procure “Objects of Art and Practical Science, Books, etcetera, for the Educational museum and Library, in accordance with the liberal intentions of the Legislature.”48 He reiterates that he was following the directives of the legislature and that he was looking to the example of the South Kensington Museum (now the Victoria and Albert Museum). The South Kensington Museum in London, England, was established to house the objects collected by Prince Albert for the Great Exhibition of 1851.49 Mandated by British Parliament to provide modern objects for study by English trades and craftsmen, the South Kensington was cited by Ryerson as a precedent of the highest calibre.50 With a broad teaching mandate, the South Kensington aimed to meet the needs of a range of youth and mature visitors during the day, and those of learned societies through evening classes.51 Certainly the objects in the South Kensington represented a wider variety of contemporary craft, skilled artisanship, and international products than those collected by Ryerson. Even though the South

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Kensington opened only a few months before Ryerson’s Educational Museum in 1857, the authority of the British Privy Council on Education provided Ryerson with an impeccable and timely precedent. Ryerson’s tendency to see imperial standards as suitable for Canada West was embedded in the way transplanted British colonists viewed their relationship to Britain. As Buckner points out, the British and their descendants in English Canada saw themselves as provincial Britons; they felt entitled to British institutions, whether political, social, or cultural.52 As we shall see with Ryerson’s approach to textbooks or teaching methods, school supplies or facilities, the starting point was typically British, sometimes European, and rarely American. In his seventy-two-page booklet The Educational Museum and School of Art and Design for Upper Canada, published in 1858, Ryerson outlined the nature of the provincial support, educational innovations, and imperial connections that had made the Educational Museum a reality.53 The pamphlet included an extract from his Annual Report for 1856 that outlined the relevant sections of the Canada West School Act, which authorized spending on “plans and publications for the improvement of school architecture and practical science” and on “a School of Art and Design.” The booklet also included a list of the principal aspects of the collection at the Toronto Normal School, the 1856 report for the Privy Council on Education on the functions of the Department of Science and Art in England, and an extract from Ryerson’s published report of 1846 on linear drawing as a school subject.54 The reprinting of the report of 1856 by the Department of Science and Art in England was arguably a strategic move by which Ryerson hoped to impress the authoritative vision of British models upon his local readers. Ryerson’s public accounts detailing how he responded to the lead of the South Kensington allowed him to evade criticism of his expenses. The fact that the South Kensington was barely established before he went on his continental buying trip suggests that Ryerson astutely capitalized on very current debates about the pedagogical role of museums in Britain. In addition to providing precedent for acquiring objects for the museum, the report provided a way of organizing the objects according to imperial guidelines. Henry Cole, joint secretary to the Department of Science and Art, subdivided this department into twelve sections, which included tangible tools, such as buildings, desks, and models; several different categories of general education, such as reading, mathematics, history, and science; a variety of fine arts; and also gymnastics and other forms of physical education. Ryerson’s categories for his Educational Museum,

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and indeed the language he uses to report his purchases in his semiofficial correspondence, echo those of Cole. Ryerson refers to the same “subdivisions” in his argument about the compelling need for “a new Model Grammar School building, when we shall have room for the School of Art and Design, with the appropriate and methodically arranged Educational Museum.”55 Obviously, the context for Toronto’s Educational Museum was different from the nexus of museums in which the South Kensington participated. After all, the Educational Museum was located within a normal school (for teacher education) and Ryerson explicitly sought to create a national museum. However, both museums shared the intention to provide a practical education in modern manufactures and the arts to the general populace, especially the working class. Although Ryerson did not refer explicitly to Cole in his reports or letters from England, he did have discussions with Cole about his educational goals. In two diary entries for September and October of 1857, Cole briefly noted that he was planning to meet Ryerson to discuss a “Master for Canada.”56 As Cole was the minister for education, and superintendent of the South Kensington, he would have been the logical person for Ryerson to consult about a teaching master for Canada and about educational policy in general.57 So how did this practical education get imagined and manifested in Upper Canada?

The objects of the museum In order to go to Europe to purchase objects for the Educational Museum, Ryerson took another leave from his position and obtained the title of Canadian commissioner to the Exposition universelle in Paris in 1855. This title gave him access to representatives from other countries and numerous opportunities to mingle with “men of taste”; official letters of introduction to ministers of state, consuls, etc., facilitated Ryerson’s access to these men. Ryerson seems to have relied heavily on the opinions of such influential men as Colonel John Lefroy, Chief Justice John Beverley Robinson, and the Honourable Mr Francis Hincks, who were all in London when he arrived.58 Lefroy, for example, influenced Ryerson in the collection of objects for the Fine Arts Division, a task that would soon preoccupy Ryerson. The purchasing of objects for the other divisions continued, but the intensive and coordinated purchase of paintings, engravings, and busts eventually constituted a greater portion of his acquisitions than anticipated.

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Ryerson bought over two thousand objects in the course of nine months, many obtained from the Exposition universelle. Fifty-seven cases were shipped from Paris alone. As an example: case No. 9 contained a spinning wheel, an embroidery loom, a mending basket, a new folding-chair, a terrestrial globe, and five calligraphic goose-quills, all of which cost 311 francs, including commission. Scientific instruments such as thermometers using both Centigrade and Fahrenheit scales were especially commissioned to suit the more severe Canadian weather. Of the 236 paintings purchased, many were copies of highly regarded works, which were often painted at 50 or 66 per cent of the size of the original.59 The reduction of scale and the desire for copies of “highly regarded” paintings not only suggests the limits imposed by a small exhibition space and budget, but also reflects the contemporaneous notion that recognizable images by well-known artists were more conducive to teachable content, even if reduced in scale, than originals by lesser-known artists.60 Ryerson also purchased hundreds of plaster casts of well-known sculptures, along with a variety of originals, for a total of nearly 1,000 art objects.61 He made the argument that “all the beauty of form of the original is rendered with such perfect fidelity, that they may be termed in every respect, except material, duplicates of the original Works.”62 Both beauty of form and ethical value of the subject were understood to be available for use in the arsenal of betterment. On the question of aesthetic value, a copy rarely conveys the materiality or subtleties of the original; for example, plaster, no matter how it is finished, cannot feel or look like marble. On the other hand, a copy can reproduce the original visual narrative. So in the context of the Educational Museum, copies suited the pedagogical intention. However, by the 1880s this attitude had begun to change both in North America and in Europe. In Toronto: Past and Present (1884), C.P. Mulvany lauded the Normal School, particularly “the Museum with an excellent collection of specimens of Assyrian and Egyptian art,” but he lamented the “copies (of Italian and other masters) which so imperfectly represent the grace and richness of colour of great paintings should be constantly before the eyes of our art students.”63 Entrenched in a way of seeing in which copies were not inferior but expedient, Ryerson was particularly anxious to have the “specimens of the Schools of Paintings” that he had purchased in Antwerp reach Toronto by the opening of Parliament that year (1855).64 His letters make evident his belief that seeing the pictures would pre-empt criticism

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of his spending. As Parliament would have the final approval on his expenses, Ryerson was apparently wooing the favour of the members well in advance of his return. In his semi-official correspondence with Hodgins, he wrote that the Antwerp paintings “will make a strong and favourable impression.”65 He added later that he thought the Antwerp copies were a better quality than those he saw in Paris and Frankfurt.66 Ryerson also noted to Hodgins, “Although I, therefore, am expending a larger sum than I had intended, (purchasing to the amount of about Three thousand pounds, in this City alone,) [I] have no apprehension of embarrassment, but feel confident that great public good will result from it, both directly and indirectly.”67 Apparently, despite his confidence, Ryerson was quite concerned to make the right impression on Parliament. He sought to validate the modern mode of categorization according to “National Schools,” as well as to promote the value of good illustrations of religious subjects, which constituted the bulk of his purchases. Below, I examine the significance of teaching from these objects and argue that Ryerson likely pinned his lack of “embarrassment” on the contemporaneous belief in the efficacy of Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi’s “object lesson.”

The genesis of the object lesson Although Pestalozzi’s pedagogical innovations have been examined as contributing to nineteenth-century educational practice in Canada, I draw attention here to what seems to be a very early application of object lessons in the Canadas – one that informs and shapes how and why Ryerson was so insistent on the need to make his acquisitions in Europe. I am particularly interested in the impact of Pestalozzi’s theories because he is often discussed in tandem with Friedrich Froebel, as precursors to what has been called the “new education,” which emerged in late-nineteenth-century Canada.69 In separating the contributions of these two early pedagogues, I am highlighting the specific impact of Pestalozzi, and how the early form of object lesson evolves under Ryerson’s particular combination of ideas about citizenship, civic engagement, and education. Pestalozzi developed the object lesson as a formal teaching tool in his schools for young children in Switzerland and Germany in the early nineteenth century. Pestalozzi’s emphasis on what he termed the self-evident truth of Anschauung underlies the form, strategies, and sequencing of what was to become known as the “object lesson.”70 Anschauung can be translated as sense impression/sense perception,

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which emphasizes the interaction of the child with the object. Pestalozzi sought to apply the educational ideas of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, who had developed eighteenth-century notions about the benefits of direct experience and observation for learning. In following Rousseau, Pestalozzi drew on the idea that there are “three masters” of education: the masters of the education of nature, of men, and of things.71 A tutor would reveal the value of these educators to a young scholar, arranging these “stages” successfully72 and presenting actual objects that the child knew, as a “real way” of training the child’s early memory.73 Pestalozzi’s popular text How Gertrude Teaches Her Children: An Attempt to Help Mothers to Teach Their Own Children (1801) was an obvious application of Rousseau’s “visions of a dreamer with regard to education” as expressed in his book Emile (1762).74 While Rousseau focused on the individual, Pestalozzi aimed to apply these notions to the education of groups of children, especially those of the working class. Pestalozzi’s school was the institutional outcome of the application of these beliefs: education should be natural, should progress from the concrete to the more abstract, should be practical, and should employ observation and manipulation as means to acquire knowledge. Reflecting seventeenth- and eighteenth-century thought about observation and experience-based educational philosophy (Locke, Comenius, Saint Pierre),75 educational innovation in the nineteenth century owed a great deal to the impetus provided by Pestalozzi. His ideas and some aspects of his methods were widely adapted and adopted by Pestalozzians in Europe, Britain, and America. The questionand-answer format, which positioned the object as the source of data for the child, was particularly important. This pedagogical use of objects was to motivate and shape many nineteenth-century object collections and museums. As such, we need to be attentive to the relationship between contemporaneous pedagogical intentions and museum collections – a relationship that hinges on visual literacies. The ability to “read” the object was a carefully developed skill that could be developed in the properly taught pupil. A prolific writer, Pestalozzi published numerous articles and books on the method, which attracted many educators to his schools. His publication of Gertrude Teaches Her Children offered a set of practical lessons with which a mother could teach her children basic literacy and knowledge about their immediate environment.76 Pestalozzi argued that children should be exposed to these principles from the time they could manipulate objects. Of particular interest to educators was Pestalozzi’s method of teaching, which focused on teacher-directed

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observation, asking questions, and encouraging manipulation. While applications of these ideas varied, this method became well known in the nineteenth century as “the object lesson.” Object-based teaching was further institutionalized in Europe, England, and America. Charles and Elizabeth Mayo developed the method in one of its most popular forms in London, at the Home and Colonial Training College (HCTC ). At this time, the HCTC represented one of three major trends in schooling in England (the others being the Homerton College and the National Society). The HCTC modified and applied Pestalozzi’s reforms, while the other teacher training societies continued to use a traditional approach dependent on recitation and repetition of lessons. In the 1820s, Charles Mayo had visited Pestalozzi’s institute in Yverdon, Switzerland, where the use of actual objects had given way to the use of illustrations. He brought back a story of the significance of using real objects in the classroom, which he shared with his sister, Elizabeth, who would go on to write one of the most popular teaching manuals of the nineteenth century: Lessons on Objects; as Given To Children Between the Ages of Six and Eight in a Pestalozzian School at Cheam, Surrey. In his preface to her book, Charles emphasizes the need to use actual objects, not engravings.77 First published in 1830, the book was in its sixth printing by 1837. The applied, progressive system was considered particularly useful in teaching younger children of lower-class or working families. The five stages or series of lessons started with simple lists of qualities and ended with complex narratives that modelled what a child could eventually write on the subject. For example, the first lesson on “whalebone” states that the idea to be developed by this object lesson is the concept of something being “fibrous.” Mayo lists the qualities that the children should be able to say: “It is elastic. durable. hard. fibrous. [sic].”78 The children should identify its uses; the teacher is advised to compare the object to Indian Rubber in order to compare the idea of elasticity. By the time the children are ready for the advanced lesson on “whalebone” in the fifth series on whalebone, they are expected to write a narrative essay reviewing all they have learned about the object and related lessons. The lesson provided by Mayo is a model essay on the whalebone that narrates an understanding of the animal, its features, and how it relates to the child’s world.79 In the introduction to Lessons on Objects, Elizabeth Mayo draws particular attention to the use of a piece of whalebone as indicative of the value of using actual objects. She emphasizes, “It is very important that in any course of instruction, some definite object should be

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proposed.”80 Teachers are advised that if children can see and experience whalebone being bent and see it returning to its original shape, then they can be taught the concept of elasticity. She adds, “The writer desires particularly to enforce this remark … [in ineffective object lessons using images] qualities were told and explanations given, instead of the object being presented to the children, that they might make their own observations upon it, and require from the teacher terms for qualities clearly discerned, though unknown by name.”81 Thus, at least initially, the object lesson was conceived as entirely object based. Manipulation was meant to trump vision. In her work on latenineteenth-century colonial applications of the object lesson, Parna Sengupta has pointed out how the British adaptation of the object lesson evolved into a reliance on visual images of the object. This facilitated the teaching of students as a group, who would rely on the sense of sight as opposed to touch, smell, and sound. Thus, she argues, the teacher’s use of lessons outlining the “foreignness of spices” or the “exotic” quality of certain products embedded “powerful cultural and epistemological assumptions that were fundamentally informed by Britain’s imperial identity.”82 Ironically, early adaptations of Mayo’s object lesson in America moved towards a reliance on vision, as is suggested by illustrations of the objects seen in the 1831 edition of Lessons on Objects, edited by John Frost.83 The volume is virtually identical to Mayo’s original text, except “foreign” elements are illustrated. For example, an image of an Asian elephant illustrates the first lesson on ivory, and is annotated with a short text about the quantity of ivory consumed annually (in the west).84 Along with the inclusion of engraved images, Frost revised Mayo’s graduated introduction of qualities, and elided the first lesson with a fifth series narrative-style lesson. Figure 2.5 reproduces Frost’s engraved image of an Indian elephant, which is used to represent the object “ivory.” Thus, in providing a narrative about the elephant Frost undoes the progressive learning that underpinned the graduated introduction of ideas to the student. Instead, the illustrated lesson becomes a story about foreign ivory as opposed to a lesson on the qualities of ivory: “hard. white. smooth. bright. [sic].” While Frost introduced Mayo’s books to North America in the 1830s, the use of object lessons seems to have been relatively limited before the 1850s. Nevertheless, the idea of teaching progressively according to theories of child development was being discussed among educators dissatisfied with the recitation and repetition that typified teaching in the early nineteenth century. As early as the 1830s, Horace Mann

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2.5  The first lesson, “On Ivory,” in John Frost’s plagiarized copy of Elizabeth Mayo’s Lessons on Objects, which he titled “Lessons on Common Things,” 1831 ed.

rejected rote learning and encouraged the idea that children should discover the relationship between things by themselves (albeit in a directed fashion).85 With object lessons, children “had to be led” to discover the relationships between things and ideas. The targeted learning, while child-centred, was closed, contained, and particularly directed at the general populace. Ryerson, like Mann, argued for universal education for all. They both saw the need to educate the people, rich and poor (especially the poor). The timing of Ryerson’s educational tours seems particularly prescient and provided him with the tools that, he argued, would achieve the objects of universal education.

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The object lesson in Toronto Despite Mayo’s concern that teachers might begin to rely on images and the American turn towards illustration (as seen in the Frost editions), the Pestalozzian emphasis on both observation and manipulation of objects became well entrenched in the Toronto Normal School. The School Depository, the Educational Museum, teaching practices, and descriptions by educators of their encounters with the Normal School provide evidence of the ways in which the object lesson infiltrated teaching in the 1850s and ’60s.86 In this section, I look at how the objects used in object lessons entered teaching practice, including the role of art and artifacts in the currency of the object lesson. While Ryerson certainly didn’t invent the object lesson, he may well have been among the first to actualize the practice in a North American educational framework. So how did objects come to be incorporated into the Normal School? One avenue was through the purchase and resale of school apparatus through the Normal School’s “Book Depository.” The depository appears to have been a critical part of Ryerson’s policy to disseminate the new approach to teaching. Planned as part of Cumberland’s design for the Normal School, the depository was a source of materials, textbooks, illustrated object lessons, globes, and other school apparatus that were made available to school boards, individual schools, and teachers – often at heavily discounted rates. Between 1856 and 1857, the depository sales of object lessons for natural history and phenomena increased by approximately 40 per cent, from 5,000 to 6,989, while sales of other object lessons increased from 316 to 2,002 – an increase of 700 per cent.87 By the 1870s, the Book Depository had been renamed the People’s Depository, seemingly to attract parents to buy materials to support learning in the home. School Apparatus were advertised in educational journals, at fairs (such as the Pennsylvania Exhibition in 1871), and must have been mailed to those making inquiries and provided to schools and teachers. Figure 2.6 illustrates the kinds of objects that Ryerson bought on his European tour in 1855. Within a year or two, some of the objects began to be replicated by Canadian manufacturers, especially maps, books, and science instruments. By the 1870s, the depository was offering “Objects Lessons on Sheets and Mounted” on cardboard, as well as “Cabinets for Object Teaching and School Museums.”88 In The School House (1876), Hodgins provides elaborate descriptions of the school apparatus required for the ideal school, and details the kinds of object lessons available in the depository. He notes, “Object Lessons may be

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2.6  “School Apparatus in The People’s Depository,” advertisement for the Book Depository at Toronto Normal School that was included in J. George Hodgins 1857 edition of The School House. Fig. XXV in his book combined two images that were in Ide & Dutton’s 1855 catalogue of school supplies.

taught in two ways, viz. by pictures of animals, scenes and phenomena, and by cabinet objects” (italics in original).89 Teachers and parents are advised that “there should be provided a strong box to contain a cabinet, or Omnium gatherum, selected from everywhere – picked up from every place. Common things should there have a place.”90 The objects were everyday objects from which lessons on physical properties could lead to an understanding of the relationships between the local and the global. The Object Lesson Cabinet “should contain silk, muslin, flannel, linen, oil-cloth … bean, pea, clove, … sponge, shells, etc. Such a box would contain a mine of truth to be had for the taking. Cabinets of this kind, at a cheap rate can be obtained at the People’s De-

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2.7  “Cabinets for Object Teaching and School Museums,” in J. George Hodgins, The School House, 1876 ed.

2.8  “Cotton,” Oliver & Boyd’s Object Lesson Cards. – Vegetable Kingdom, No. 13, 1880.

pository, Toronto.”91 Additionally, pre-packaged object lessons could be purchased, such as Oliver & Boyd’s Object-Lesson Card – Vegetable Kingdom, No. 13, which illustrated qualities of Cotton. Samples of cotton-producing plants and their products are described with a text quite similar to the advanced lessons in Elizabeth Mayo’s Lessons on Objects. Additionally, advertisements from the depository include references to the different formats in which object lessons were made available. For example, a teacher could obtain a set of eighteen object lessons on natural history: in large print, coloured, in sheets, for

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$1.00; mounted on cardboard, for $4.50; or on stretchers, for $6.00. The Normal School also sold object lessons of scripture, botanical diagrams, and geological maps. A school commission could buy a “Case showing Bees with section of Honey Comb” for $1.00; a “Typical case of Canadian Birds, for teaching ornithology” was available for between $12.00 and $30.00; a “Collection of 20 shells illustrating Conchology” for 80 cents.92 The Oliver & Boyd set of twenty object lessons with twenty natural specimens, mounted on cards, was $5.00. The chief superintendent would, it was advised in a prefatory note, “add one hundred per cent to any sum transmitted to the Educational Department by Municipal and School corporations, on behalf of Grammar and Common Schools”93 (i.e., he would provide a 50 per cent subsidy to schools). Curiously, further insight on how objects and lesson cards were used at the Toronto Normal School is provided through the writing of American educator Edward Austin Sheldon, who is famed for his foundation of the Oswego Training School in Oswego, New York (1861). Appointed secretary of the first board of education in Oswego (1853), Sheldon had done much to encourage progressive education for all. His position as secretary, similar to a superintendent, gave him the opportunity to introduce progressive measures, such as establishing the junior and senior divisions, age-related schooling, and exams for teachers. However, he soon found that the school system lacked “vitality … I realized that our work was too formal, too much of a memorizing process. We wanted something that would wake up the pupils, set them to thinking, observing, reasoning.” In September 1859, he decided to tour “towns having a reputation for good schools.”94 His first visit was to Toronto where he “found to his great surprise … collections of objects, pictures, charts of colors, form, reading charts, books for teachers, giving full directions as to the use of this material.” He adds that these were mostly the products of the Home and Colonial Training College (HCTC ), i.e., Mayo’s book. Sheldon invested “three hundred dollars in these pictures, objects and books” for the Oswego school.95 By 1861, Norman Calkins of New York had published Primary Object Lessons, a manual for teaching that closely followed the style and format of Elizabeth Mayo’s book.96 He does not illustrate unfamiliar animals, such as the elephant, but does provide drawings of forms, shapes, and lines. He also retains the Mayos’ emphasis on the manipulation of objects: “Present to children things before words, ideas before names. Train them to observe, to do, and to tell.” Indeed, the list of lessons includes many of those in Mayo’s book, such as the lesson on whalebone.

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If we return to my earlier discussion about the museum as productive of knowledge about objects and relations to them, we can see how Ryerson’s adoption of the British-style educational museum harmonized both the goals of commerce and those of pedagogy. Along with many objects bought from Paris’s Exposition universelle and the imperial example of the South Kensington Museum collection, the Educational Museum in Toronto brought the latest innovations in design and science together with the modern educational theory. Ryerson had proudly declared that the museum was to be a place for “training the minds and characters of the people.”97 All the people – the entire citizenry – were to be trained in the proper way of observing, handling, and knowing the purpose of things. For example, the categorization of art works according to national schools signalled the importance of belonging to civilized nations (specifically European) and served to naturalize the relations of power rooted in the privileging of Eurocentric practices (colonization, territorialization, ethnic/racial distinctions). The paintings drawn from the European school were often copies of Renaissance paintings. Plaster casts of Roman statuary were sought as examples of classical beauty. Modern manufacturing samples taught design and production values. Atlases, globes, and maps reproduced the Anglo-centric vision of the world that placed the British Isles at its centre. Globes even turned on an axis that echoed the Mercator map projection (which centres on the prime meridian passing through Greenwich, England),98 an Anglo-centric perspective that serves to distort the size and significance of Britain, while emphasizing its colonial grip on the globe. Its most glaring effect is to reduce the relative size of the African continent in relationship to Europe. Children of colonization were trained to see the world from a viewpoint that reinforced their relationship to the mother country. Training with tangible objects aimed to teach the eye what and how to see, and to see a truth as self-evident, correct, and complete. Visible knowledge – Anschauung as a “way of seeing” – was internalized as normal and natural. Observation and manipulation in learning was understood as a way of normalizing the base knowledge of an ideal citizen. This conceptualization of the object’s pedagogical value transferred readily to the artifacts of the museum. C.H. Wilson, a British lecturer cited in Ryerson’s 1858 pamphlet on the Educational Museum, maintained that the value of seeing plaster busts, copies, etc., was that “nearly everything which it is thought so important to read about in our seminaries of learning, might be rendered as familiar to the eyes of the students as the description of them is

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to their thoughts, and this without difficulty and at a cost that is absolutely trifling, when the benefits to be conferred are estimated” (italics in original).99 In citing Wilson, Ryerson again reinforces the idea that the viewing of European art works has a long-term educational benefit, and at “a cost absolutely trifling.” The benefit of this visual teaching was that farm children, children of urban middling and lower classes, and immigrant children (mainly recent British and American arrivals) could be trained into seeing the world through British eyes.100 While there was resistance to universal schooling – especially touchy was the issue of the government acting as parent – many school promoters agreed that the uncivilized classes could be “improved” through education. Visible signs of civility included refined manners and taste, respectable religious practices, proper speech, and the ability to read and write.101 In his role as chief superintendent, Ryerson was able to realize several of his goals, including the promotion of taste through the establishment of the Education Museum. Ryerson and his peers imagined an education that would homogenize the heterogeneous Englishspeaking population into a respectful citizenry that would never again entertain the notion of rebellion, and would work with industry and perseverance towards the creation of a British Canada demonstrating the value of progress, liberal institutions, and British government. If the children could be taught how to see, through the use of object lessons, then they would mature with those ways of seeing manifesting through embodied knowledge. The study of everyday colonial life could be achieved through “the sciences of observation, such as zoology, botany and physiology.”102 Again and again, observation is singled out as central to the training process.103 The object is activated as a site of knowledge acquisition, not merely as a self-evident testament to categorization schema or previously existing knowledge. And whether students observed the object from afar or through a tangible interaction, object lessons trained the eye to look for answers to the teacher’s questions. Yet Pestalozzian observation requires participation, not passivity. This distinction – purposefully calling for learners to interrogate the objects of knowledge – is significant. Seemingly encouraging freedom of thought, the object lesson did not encourage random thought. The teacher was charged with the task of responding to the child’s comments in such a way that particular qualities and ideas would be “discovered” by the child. The irony in this seeming liberation is that this ostensibly child-centred education reproduces dominant values

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through the controlled format of interrogation. By the end of the century, John Dewey would take this notion of object manipulation and develop it into a pragmatic approach to education that emphasized interaction, experience, and reflection.104 Dewey’s corrective for the overdetermination of object lessons was a philosophy of education that put the questions in the hands of the child.

Visible illustration and the written word In addition to geological samples, charts, maps, and other artifacts in the School Depository, and art work in the Educational Museum, textbooks reiterated the object lesson approach. It took several decades for textbooks to become standardized, as individual schools could purchase books as they wished. However, there was a substantial discount for purchasing books from the School Depository. The Irish textbooks initially imported for the schools under Ryerson’s jurisdiction were jointly issued for both Protestant and Catholic denominations and were understood as the least sectarian of possible source books for the Canada West/Ontario system. By 1865, printers in Toronto and Montreal had begun to produce local versions of the Irish textbooks. For the first time, the books explicitly revealed the significance of object lessons in contemporary teaching strategies. For example, the Third Book of Lessons for the Use of Schools, a primer printed in Toronto in 1865 and modelled on Irish textbooks (c. 1850), states in its preface that the lessons in the book are based on “lessons on Objects according to the system of Pestalozzi.”105 Up to the mid-nineteenth century, school readers tended to have no illustrations, while some had decorative flourishes or small images (animals, religious scenes) at the end of a chapter. However, with the advent of object lessons, the use of illustration in books increased and was clearly meant to provide teaching opportunities.106 Early Canadian textbooks such as Hodgins’ Easy Lessons in General Geography or Campbell’s British American Series of School Books followed the idea that children should be introduced in a graduated fashion to progressively more difficult concepts. Hodgins’ geography lessons explicitly used engravings and woodcuts to illustrate “conversational trips.” In these, a map of Upper Canada included a set of questions that directed students as to how to see the map: “Point out the boundaries of Upper Canada.” For the question, “For what is Upper Canada chiefly noted?” the answer follows: “For its great lakes, fertile soil, and agricultural products.”107 The preface to the Third Reader in the Ontario Reader series (1885), for

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example, explains to the teacher that the use of illustrations is pedagogical in origin. While the preface acknowledges, “pupils should be led to study nature directly,” the author points out: the engravings teach what words could not. They are intended to aid the pupils in obtaining real conceptions of the ideas involved in the lessons.... It is essential to the proper understanding of a lesson, hence to the proper reading of it, that a child be able to imagine the persons, actions, objects, described in it. The illustrations will aid in developing this power of imagination, and the teacher by his questions and appropriate criticisms, and by a judicious use of his own greater knowledge and experience, will aid still more in developing it.108 The readings illustrated in the Third Reader include essays on the giraffe, the beaver, and the ages of trees, as well as poems by Wordsworth and a story by Tennyson. Thus the illustrations are evidently meant to function as a form of object lesson for a range of disciplinary areas. Pestalozzi had argued that picture books should precede the ABC books “in order to make those ideas that men express by words, clear to the children (by means of well chosen, real objects, that either in reality or in the form of well-made models and drawings, can be brought before their minds).”109 The image does not merely reflect a previously known object for the student but rather it is meant to bring to mind an object that can become known through observation. So a well-drawn image teaches new information – new information that is directed by the teacher and delimited by the questions asked. By 1883, the preface to the Royal Canadian Primer advises the teacher “that the illustrations should be used as object lessons for exercises in oral composition.”110 Furthermore, the lining papers for the book include “the thoroughly tested series of seat exercises, affording a means of manual training, they are specially intended to assist the learner in acquiring power to distinguish the forms of letters and to enable [the student] to name and remember them.”111 The forms are various shapes, lines, stars, houses, and, significantly, the Union Jack. Under the guise of lessons on shapes, a fundamental sign of citizenship, the British flag, is closely observed and remembered as the student works on recognizing and reproducing the various lines, diagonals, and sections of the Union Jack. Over and over, these sections reiterate the symbolic value of the shapes. The crosses of St George, St Patrick, and St Andrew tie together religion and state in the minds of young colonial

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subjects. The Canadian Drawing Course, Book 1, exemplifies the alliance of drawing as a subject with object lessons in the suggestion that “pupils should be taught to rely solely upon the judgement of the eye in estimating form, distance, and proportion.”112 Nevertheless, the eye must be guided by appropriate questions posed by the teacher about form, distance, and proportion. Thus the questions themselves serve to construct the socio-political knowledge, which the eye is supposed to innocently discover. In addition to textbooks, Ryerson’s Journal of Education for the Province of Ontario contributed to the spread of the new teaching methodology. In 1868, a paper on “Natural History” proclaimed the benefits of botany by outlining an object-lesson approach for teaching the progressive relation of genus, order, species, etc.113 Under “Papers on Practical Education,” the journal also reprinted articles on “Object Teaching” from American sources. One paper, reprinted in 1869 from the Pennsylvania School Journal, spoke of object teaching using the Oswego Method, which was itself indebted to Ryerson’s Educational Museum.114 Another paper on “Teaching from Real Objects” from the same source was printed in 1873, and advises that observation of real objects “cultivated admirably the organs of form and colour, thus training the imagination and developing aesthetic tastes as no other exercise could.”115 Teachers were also talking about object lessons, as when the superintendent of the Protestant schools of Montreal, S.P. Robins, read a paper entitled “Object lessons” at the Montreal annual teachers’ convention in October 1879. A history of the method and practice, Robins’ paper points out that Pestalozzi used object lessons chiefly as a means of cultivating language.116 A critical point is to have the child speak spontaneously but not randomly. Asserting that “the knowledge acquired must be discovered by the learners, not revealed to them,” Robins adds “intuitive knowledge can only be attained in the actual presence of the object of thought.” Furthermore, such knowledge is “almost necessarily fragmentary, disjointed, ill-arranged. It becomes science only when by subsequent effort it is reduced to an orderly system, in which the parts are duly correlated. This systematizing of the results of investigation is one of the most important parts of an Object Lesson.”117 Robins points out that teachers are the “guide of investigation … By suggestion and restraint [they] advantageously induce the discursive mind of childhood to conform.”118 Evidently the object lesson aimed to develop “intuitive” but not spontaneous learning. The child-centred education of the day may have let the child encounter the object but

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it did not allow the child to freely interpret the meaning of this encounter. The liberal humanist desire to focus on individual freedom to discover, to create, and to take personal responsibility for the ability to judge form is carefully and ironically limited through the systematic application of object lessons by qualified teachers. The inheritance of this kind of pseudo-child-centred learning permeates other innovative techniques well into the twentieth century.119 The expectations of the child may have changed, but there is little to suggest that knowledge building was anything but a well-articulated means to control what S.P. Robins described as the “discursive mind,” i.e. the “wandering, rambling mind of the child” that could be directed and coerced towards drawing the “right” answer from a set of staged questions.

The Educational Museum, object lessons, and citizenship The relationship of the Educational Museum to the object lesson is clearly established in these decades, a relationship that binds museums in general to the object-lesson approach. An article on the educational value of museums in an 1878 volume of the American journal The Architect points out that the museum “helps us to realise history by means of an object-lesson, and it initiates us into the traditions of art, by a similar process … To see for ourselves, means a good deal.” The article helps to establish the widespread currency of the object lesson among educators and many parents, and “the fairly sound understanding” of its premises, such as the role of observation, and the role of real objects.120 The Educational Museum – as an object lesson itself – was also open to the broader public, so the opportunity to educate the eye of adults was similarly on this pedagogical agenda. Specific hours were set aside for visitors to the school. While the visitors could not actually touch the paintings, busts, zoological or botanical specimens on display, nor would they receive an actual lesson on how to view such objects, nevertheless the arrangement of the museum objects reinforced the importance of classical and European heritage, scientific knowledge, and national boundaries to the organization of European art. Although Ryerson has often been cited for defending his extensive purchases of objects of art on the grounds that “objects of Taste” worked as “another agency of national civilization and refinement,” I am arguing that Ryerson’s primary motivation for conceptualizing the Educational Museum was to acquire the objects of “Practical Instruction,”

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including but not limited to objects of art.121 What has been overlooked is that Ryerson envisioned that the Educational Museum would be a storehouse of the objects that were the basis of “object lessons.” Arguably it is not aesthetic taste that occupies him, but the development of a controlled, yet curious mind that, through the use of objects of taste and objects of practical instruction, could be directed towards learning that sustained a vision of citizenship. Further evidence of this attitude is clear in Henry Scadding’s lengthy article on “Museums and Other Classified Collections, Temporary or Permanent, as Instruments of Education,” which was read before the Canadian Institute in 1871. The classification of objects would not only widen the “mental view” of the student but would also contribute to the “increase of a country’s resources.”122 Scadding argues that the place and function of museums and other classified collections in a system of education is obvious. His twenty-five-page discussion of the various museums under consideration concludes with the argument that “it is expedient, it is reasonable, it is devout, to assign a high place in schools to the knowledge which will help a youth from the very beginning of his career to a true view of the Earth on which he lives, of its constituent parts, of its relations as a member of the Universe.”123 The classified collections are central to the organization of knowledge that will render the youth “consciously, an interested and skilled worker in his place in the great Whole” (italics in original).124 Thus the conjunction of theories about the use of object collections, and about the object lesson as a means of structuring this use, along with the rise of centralized, universal education, results in the institutionalization of objects. These institutions, particularly museums, serve to consolidate a cohesive citizenry – one in which the youth knows his place in the world, and more specifically in a self-governing colony.

Concluding thoughts on object lessons and learning citizenship The relationship between object lessons and citizenship is neither linear nor causal. Yet the object lesson can be understood as a philosophical device that was deeply embedded in the logic of knowledge constructed in late-eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century educational practice. The turn to the object as the source of truth is utterly invested in empiricism and individualism; that is to say, object lessons guided viewers to encounter objects as self-evident. Object lessons asked students to catalogue every visible aspect of an object

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and then categorize relationships among these aspects, resulting in an incontestable set of relations. This process made object lessons the ideal means for teaching children the order of things and how to behave as a pupil and, subsequently, a citizen. The growth of public education in the nineteenth century was frankly acknowledged as being motivated by the desire to produce “good members of universal society.”125 What is more, the ongoing references to object lessons in the teaching literature between 1850 and 1890 suggest that teaching methods, curriculum materials, and teacher education were explicitly used as a means of embedding liberal humanist philosophy into the practice of citizenship as the paradoxical performance of externally controlled and delimited individualism.126 Although the specificity of object lessons as originated in Pestalozzi’s educational innovations has faded from view today, the idea that children learn through observation, description, and synthesis often remains unproblematically embedded in current educational practice. The inheritance of child-centred learning from John Dewey and other late-nineteenth-century educators127 who were influenced by Rousseau and Pestalozzi depends on a faith in the self-evident veracity of observation and the neutrality of the words used to describe objects. It is this supposed neutrality of descriptors that should be suspect, especially if the questions posed are predetermined and overdetermined. When a teacher asks a student how the moral of a story should affect her/his behaviour, the teacher assumes that there is only one moral, that there is in fact a moral, and that it should affect behaviour. Of course, this observation does not deny that a sense of relativism has impacted education to some extent. That is to say, the absolutism that object lessons relied on is often understood as socially constructed and meaning may be relative. However, I would still contend that much teaching, especially in the elementary schools, i.e., the same ages that Ryerson sought to teach through object lessons, still aims to teach the “facts” first. The choice of word, the choice of object, the sequencing of object lessons, the categorization of objects in relation to each other in museum cases – these are all coded within a complex and contradictory system of expectation and desire that wants the child to learn something specific. Thus the object lesson functions to contain the object-subject relationship. If the object is fixed or delimited in the ways it can be known, so too can the subject relation to it be fixed. If we question the authenticity of the self – whether through theoretical positions that understand identity as an effect, that is, as produced, or

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the supposition that the subject position is always ambivalent – then the role of the object lesson can be seen as an attempt to fix those relations. So when Ryerson collects artifacts on display at the Exposition universelle in Paris – objects gathered specifically to demonstrate the superiority of the French and of other Europeans, to justify colonialism, and to establish mechanical, technical, and intellectual superiority – he literally buys the objects that reproduce what we might call the meta-object lesson of nineteenth-century nationalism. The progress histories illustrated through the busts of monarchs of England, the master works of certain European artists, the artisanal successes of educational furniture manufacturers – they all suggest a desire to establish a predictable working relationship to the physical world. This is a way of seeing the world that organizes the physical relationships of the child to objects in a way that naturalizes those relations. It becomes impossible to see any other way of ordering those relations. The categories are thus naturalized, and the objects are the means through which this constructed neutrality is visibly reproduced.

Archival notes This time my archival notes explore the role of chance in the development of research – from the discovery of a compelling minor notation that created an enormous research project, to the value of following a hunch. The first occurred when I taught a graduate seminar in 1998 on the institutionalization of visual culture in the nineteenth century. While building the course syllabus, I found a brief, undocumented reference to an “educational museum” that was housed in the Toronto Normal School. As eighteenth- and nineteenth-century museums nearly always were housed independently, or within government buildings or art societies, I was surprised to find a museum in a teachers’ college. I wondered: how and why did a museum become part of an institution of public schooling? While public museums were established throughout the nineteenth century, none, to my (obviously limited) knowledge, was in a teachers’ college. And that prompted a curiosity about the perceived role of visual culture in education at the time. What did the founders think the museum was doing, and how did the arrangement and display of objects produce and restrict knowledge? In 1998, there was little or no information on the museum available on the web. The remaining paintings now in the Ontario legislature were not, as now, catalogued on a convenient website.128 If they 100  v isi bly ordered

had been, I might have missed the extensive records referring to all the other objects selected by Ryerson in his European travels. The itemized lists of Ryerson’s purchases in the Toronto Public Archives intrigued me: a spinning wheel, a loom, a specially commissioned thermometer. What purposes were these objects serving? The nearly obsessive way that Hodgins’ Documentary History of Education recorded seemingly everything done and written by Ryerson not only resulted in many volumes but also spoke volumes about the perceived value of this archive. As I spent more time with these records, I grew to appreciate Ryerson’s influence on education in Canada. I was able to open up my initial questions about the object of research – the Educational Museum – to a deeper conversation about the role of visual practices, particularly observation, as guided learning. This led to a refinement of my research archive, as I needed to learn more about the history of schooling, educational philosophy, and the nature of truth perceived. Making choices about how to bring together a research subject that easily overwhelms, I returned to the research objects. And that’s when I understood the significance of the object lesson and the importance of establishing how and why it was used in mid-century classrooms. The hunch arose from my sense that something was driving the development of the Educational Museum, but I couldn’t quite put my finger on it. Slogging through Hodgins’ many volumes on the educational history of Upper Canada, I found a number of references to object lessons. Secondary research revealed that Pestalozzi had used object lessons as a teaching device in early nineteenth-century Europe. However, nothing in Ryerson’s essays or Hodgins’ descriptions referred to Pestalozzi. Given the timing of the museum’s foundation, it didn’t seem likely that Ryerson was influenced by Froebel, who was usually the earliest pedagogue to be cited in reference to object lessons. So I followed a hunch that perhaps the textbooks introduced into the schools might reveal something about object lessons, possibly even Pestalozzi. The Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE ) houses a small historical archive. I made an appointment and brought along my research assistant. We were offered a large, square desk, which was actually four long tables pushed together, and provided with white archival gloves. We were surrounded by dozens of bookcases with thousands of nineteenth-century schoolbooks, organized chronologically by teaching subject. The research librarian found it difficult to help me. She asked what I wanted to see. I wasn’t sure. Which subject and year would I like to see? Not sure. She wanted to pull the books from the shelves for me. I tried to explain that I needed to move across disciplines, perhaps reading the table of contents and prefaces to many A Laboratory of Learning: Canada West  101

books. In the end, she said we could pull whichever books we needed, and she left us to it. As with the categories that shaped Ryerson’s collection, so too did the categories of the library shape the way in which the librarian imagined the direction of our research. I went over the key words that I felt would link the books to Pestalozzi: “observation”; “object”; “Mayo” (for Elizabeth Mayo and her contemporaneous use of Pestalozzi); “Pestalozzi.” I was also looking for any indication of teaching strategies being communicated by the author. We randomly pulled textbooks off the shelves – science, geography, literature – and started reading. If any key word or related concept showed up, we put the book on the table. As the books piled up, we started to notice that some dates of publication seemed to dominate. We moved books around the table into various relationships, by subject, then age level, but the words weren’t tied to those categories. Then we noticed a shift in place of publication. The earlier books were published mainly in England. Later, Irish textbooks showed up. Then Sarah, my research assistant, found one published in Toronto. So we looked at earlier volumes in the same series and we began to see a pattern revealing when the primers (early readers) were published in Ontario. This was when we realized that directions on how to use the textbooks were added to the preface at the time that the books were published in Canada. The textbooks were clearly directed at Canada West/Ontario teachers and used in the Toronto Normal School. As we narrowed the years and subjects, we eventually found a reference to Pestalozzi and object lessons. These two days of research may have been shorter if I had known what questions to ask, but I didn’t know then that the history of book publication in the province was going to be important. Perhaps I should have, but then I might have missed the references to object lessons in the Irish primers. The act of physically placing the books on the table revealed relationships that we hadn’t anticipated. Publication date, publisher, and preface style turned out to be more important than teaching subject. The thrill of finally discovering the explicit link between Ryerson’s primers and Pestalozzi was the best research lesson I could have or give. In one instance the archive drew me into a fifteen-year research project; in another, the two days at OISE in 1998 informed a few lines of text in this chapter. But that reference to Pestalozzi established Ryerson’s link to the continental pedagogies for me, which resulted in my interest in object lessons. This idea turned out to be central to my understanding of nineteenth-century museums in the two Canadas.

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Z  Chapter three  Y

Whose Lessons? Subjects of the Colonial Archive Patriotism will increase in Canada as its history is read. – Thomas D’Arcy McGee, 1865 A Noble dream … the special object of the office is to obtain from all sources, private as well as public, such documents as may throw light on social, commercial, municipal, as well as purely political history. – Douglas Brymner, 1882 The only patriotism that is worthy of the name must be rooted and grounded in historical knowledge. – Editorial, Globe, Toronto, 13 July, 1907

The over forty-year span between the comments about patriotism made by Thomas D’Arcy McGee in 18651 and those of the editor of the Globe in 19072 is a period sandwiched between colonial rule and self-governing dominion – one in which the citizens of the newly created provinces sought to negotiate a balance between national and colonial identities.3 On the eve of Confederation, D’Arcy McGee observed that patriotism would increase along with the recording of the nation’s history. This chapter focuses on how Canada’s history was written not only in documentary form but also in the visual culture of the nascent federation. These documentary and visual forms of historical knowledge were closely intertwined, depending on each other for a total picture of what Brymner described in 1882 as the “social, commercial, municipal, as well as purely political history” of the country. 4 At Confederation, the formerly separate colony of the two Canadas was united with two other British colonies: Nova Scotia and New Brunswick.5 As federated British North American colonies, their sense of geographical and cultural belonging was rooted more in the local and imperial than in the national. Patriotism to the united

Dominion of Canada was a concept that had to be nurtured into tangible truths; that is, “Canada” had to be written and imagined into national consciousness. New ideas about “patriotism” and “civic belonging” needed to be formulated and consumed, and cultural institutions such as the Literary and Historical Society of Quebec (LHSQ ) and the Educational Museum in Toronto responded. However, as we shall see, the narrative of colonial identity faltered in the face of new ideas about nationalism. In investigating this conundrum, I draw on theory about everyday practices and the paradoxes of narrative time to suggest that under the pressure to reconceptualize the social self (a self that now belongs to an expanded nation), the colonial way of being that dominated the two Canadas had to shift. In Upper and Lower Canada, the practices of learned societies and educational institutions, which had served to collect and delimit the unknown, now had to respond to an expanded view of nationhood.6 This national identity now stretched to include the former colonies of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, and would soon include British Columbia, Prince Edward Island, and Manitoba. So while I continue to discuss national identity, it has to be understood as somewhat different from the identity that had been carved out in the colonial Canadas. In this chapter, I take another look at the Educational Museum of the Toronto Normal School, and then, in a more extensive analysis, at the collection of the Literary and Historical Society of Quebec to examine how these cultural institutions evolved after mid-century, particularly during the years of focused debate about the impact of Confederation and Canadian identity.7

Subjects of the archive Much of the collecting, categorizing, and display practices used in these museums depended on visuality and textuality, interwoven strategies of representation that exceeded the limits of colonial governors, and shaped the collective identities of those people who began to articulate post-Confederation patriotism as a form of colonial nationalism.8 “Visuality” and “textuality” refer to those qualities of the documents or objects that are concerned with how text or image is read and/or seen. Many literary theorists have argued that textuality is a practice – that a text is not isolated from its circumstances of production.9 As Edward Said has argued, “texts are worldly, to some degree they are events … part of the social world, and of course the historical movements in

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which they are located and interpreted.”10 Similarly, visuality refers to the ways in which visual culture makes itself understood. This practice of interpretation refers to the multiple, and often contradictory or ambiguous, ways in which meaning is produced and consumed – discursively, bodily, and psychically.11 So, I wonder, can the objects of the colonial archive, like texts, be understood as “part of the social world” and yet also “reified objects”?12 In discussing “subjects of the archive,” I am wondering about how object collections participate in the production of possible narratives. If the narratives can be multiple, as a result of worldly experiences, then what makes one version matter more than another? One way to think about this might be to think how the collection may function as the subject or narrator of an authoritative narrative. While that is not possible, as objects are not sentient beings and don’t speak, we have seen that as a collection the objects do seem to have dominant narratives. How long do these narratives endure? Can elements of the collection be manipulated to articulate different or conflicting narratives, or do prior narrations have some kind of authority? It might be useful to develop an understanding of the role of what might be called the artifactual collective “voice” – both for the cultural historian and for the curator, who attempt to reposition artifacts in the assumption that prior histories will not interfere or erupt within new or revised narratives. A case in point may be the problems associated with the interpretation of the infamous Out of the Heart of Africa exhibition at the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto in 1990. The collection of artifacts gathered by missionaries was astutely recontextualized within a self-parodic framework by the curator. However, the exhibition was widely understood as racist by the diverse audiences who drew from the visual display an interpretation that was manifestly not present in the accompanying texts, yet which resided in the impossible-to-change relations of the object collection.13 I am proposing that the objects are not only passive carriers of significance that are subject to the constructions of historical identity as proposed by the collector, proprietor, or audience. Rather, once the collection has been constituted as a narrative element within a radical and specific textual moment (in this case, the story of early nineteenth-century colonial Canada), can the artifact collection itself regulate how it can be seen – at least until the textual moment shifts seismically? This idea of the collection may undermine or disrupt subsequent efforts to re-narrate a collection’s history according to changes in its perceived “objective” characteristics (regardless of whether or not these

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characteristics are reconceived in different moments of “scientific” understanding). Despite local or temporal desires – of the curator, the museum, or the audience – the formative impulse may dominate or irrupt into alternate readings, particularly if that moment of origin is traumatic or radical – as was the case when the original LHSQ collection was formed.14 The city and colony of Quebec was entering a phase of political, cultural, and social upheaval. While the rebellions of 1837 and ’38 made it obvious that colonial rule was not well tolerated, the British order of things did nevertheless emerge as the dominant narrative, and was not truly undone for over a century.

“Things before words, ideas before names” 15 As we have seen, museum histories, particularly in Canada, generally look at how individual museums emerged, merged, or evolved.16 The end of the nineteenth century represented a formative period for the modern museum,17 which is said to have emerged from the semi-private “ivory tower of exclusivity.”18 As I have argued, the exclusive nature of membership-driven museums in the 1830s was elitist, but not impermeable. The use of collections in and as object lessons in mid-century specifically addressed a wider public. In his notion of “civic seeing,” Tony Bennett has argued that specific forms of seeing are embodied in the visual environment of the museum.19 In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, “seeing civically was a practice to be undertaken from the singular and fixed spectatorial position that museums sought to arrange as the ideal vantage point from which to see and understand the logic underlying the exhibition arrangements.”20 So the arrangement of cabinets, labels, angle of viewing would encourage a way of seeing that reinforced civic learning. These lessons are contingent on their being understood and performed by the intended viewer. Bennett perceives these museum-based ways of seeing as attempts to divert the viewer from “unproductive forms of visual pleasure” (such as popular cinema).21 I argue that the colonial museum is not appositional to other forms of visual culture, but rather seems to operate with a more diverse set of pedagogical strategies in which civic lessons are repeated across different forms of delivery. The principal colonial institutions of culture in Quebec City and Toronto attempted to order civic identities through everyday encounters with the archive of objects. The objects found, described, and ordered in the colonial museum participated in the visual production of a tangible archive that was later to profoundly shape the public archives.

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This nascent archive was disciplinary but not yet separated according to discipline. It provided the stuff of civic lessons through a local lens that was resolutely colonial for decades after Canada became a separate Dominion. In the next section of this book, I analyze how civic seeing was not confined to museums but was similarly embedded in popular culture. In discussing museum education at the end of the century, Bennett borrows the idea from R.W.J. Selleck that the pedagogical use of objects demonstrated a late-nineteenth-century revival of interest in Pestalozzi’s theory “to teach always by things rather than by words.”22 However, as I argue in chapter 2, an explicit reliance on object teaching in the Pestalozzian manner was in place in the Canadas and continuously underwrote pedagogical approaches to object collections as early as 1855. The teaching of citizenship, belonging, morality, and responsibility was a pedagogical practice clearly informed by the premise of object lessons. Cultural institutions were significant vehicles for the drive to contain, describe, and celebrate the “local,” or what French theorist Michel de Certeau would recognize as the embodied “practices of the everyday.” As we have seen in chapters 1 and 2, colonial museums in the Canadas consumed, displayed, and collected objects that fulfilled strategies of colonization (narratives of progress and civilization, histories of barbarism defeated). Yet at the same time, tactics of resistance to those generalizing strategies meant that some narratives were contradicted. For example, objects affirming the disappearance of the aboriginal tribes – such as the painting The Last Huron – contradicted the daily presence of the Huron-Wendat at Wendake (the Lorette reserve). Moreover, the peasant/agrarian positioning of the canadien was at odds with the awarding of medals for “advancement in the arts” to canadien artists. How did a canadien who was constantly imagined as an unevolving peasant also manage to produce elements that demonstrated advancement in the arts? The ability to commingle seemingly contradictory narratives of progress helped to sustain these colonial museums well into the post-Confederation era. So, paradoxically, the very same trouble these museums tried to play down was actually the prerequisite of their flourishing. Disagreements took time to smooth over, such as those arising with the assimilation of the Society for the Encouragement of Sciences and the Arts (SESA ) into the LHSQ . Canadien professionals became members of the LHSQ at a strategic moment, but when the colonial environment changed as a result of political and social pressures, the LHSQ took up different survival tactics.23 The Colonial Archive  107

As with the Act of Union in 1840, Confederation exposed the performative contradictions of separate nationalisms, and so the tactics of everyday narratives were rethought but not renounced. The point that I am making is that by using artifacts as evidence of localized knowledge, colonial museums in the Canadas constructed flexible, if fragile, narratives of civic identity that resisted alternative political and social reframing. Object lessons posed easily answered questions about nationality, citizenship, and other social identities of belonging and difference. The dominant narrative gradually drew its audience through its constant reiteration. By the time that Confederation brought the colonies into the nation, the dominant narrative largely held firm.24 In what follows, I reconstruct the post-Confederation object lessons of the 1860s and ’70s through analyses of two contemporaneous illustrations, various records pertaining to the Educational Museum, and the published Transactions of the LHSQ activities. I then consider how the collections evolved through the 1890s, and end by considering the relationship between the object collection of the LHSQ and the total archive of the National Archives of Canada and the Archives Publiques de Quebec.

The Educational Museum and object teaching on a grand scale The Canadian Illustrated News (CIN ) and its sister publication L’Opinion Publique (OP ) were part of the significant expansion of visual print media in the 1870s. A weekly journal that was presented more like a magazine than a newspaper, CIN ’s heavily illustrated pages included photolithographs of major buildings, portraits of politicians, images of local events, and maps of military offensives across the empire.25 CIN also published images of significant commercial establishments, factories, and socio-cultural institutions. Two illustrations of events at cultural sites help us to reconstruct what the colonial museums looked like after Confederation, and how their object collections were put to use in the 1870s. The first illustration from CIN , “Conversation at the Normal School, Under the Auspices of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (Toronto), 12 June, 1875” not only shows the use of the school as a public lecture hall, but also gives a view of three museum rooms (figure 3.1). This print depicts what I believe is the first illustration of the interior of the Educational Museum.26 With this image, we can pay attention to how the object collection participated in everyday practice.

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3.1  Illustration of the interior of the Normal School, including three rooms of the Educational Museum, by Frederic Martlett Bell-Smith, published in the Canadian Illustrated News in June 1875.

Employing a multi-panel format, the illustrator F.M. Bell-Smith depicts hundreds of well-dressed men and women attending the lecture or conversation.27 A conversation, also known as a conversazione, was a popular form of social networking in the nineteenth century. CIN reported that the meeting was largely attended by members and friends of the Ontario Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. In addition to a talk by the society president on the good works they had achieved, there was an evening of entertainment ranging from musical numbers to a humorous talk by J.W. Bengough, a local artist known for his parodic portraits of local politicians. The paper also noted “not the least entertaining was the ‘great optical illusion,’ exhibited by Dr May, known as the Sphinx.” Dr May was then the superintendent of the Educational Museum. The central panel depicts Bengough on the podium in a large lecture hall with a galleried second floor. Built in 1855, the lecture hall had been designed by Fred Cumberland to seat 320 on the main floor with another 80 or so in the galleries. The large crowd is surrounded by several dozen examples from the extensive collection of busts of “eminent people, historical and modern” that Egerton Ryerson bought on

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several shopping expeditions to Europe in the early 1850s. The “Picture Gallery” is illustrated on the right of the print, and on the left is “the Assyrian Room.” The illustration makes it clear that part of the evening included the opportunity to peruse the museum rooms. Thus, the image provides visual evidence of the ways in which the public engaged with the Educational Museum. It not only describes the evening event but also functions as a detailed advertisement for the newly reorganized rooms. Visitors to the Picture Gallery would have seen an exhibition space arranged in contemporary style as a salon; formal portraits dominate the upper row and are crowded in against other paintings, which also seem to be mostly portraits and photographs. The historical narrative unfolds through the use of a hinged set of display boards: the illustration depicts a woman and two men in modern evening wear examining a revolving print stand, which displays the extensive collection of English engravings and portraits for which the room was well known to local residents.28 In his 1884 guidebook to Toronto, C.P. Mulvany commented, “The collection of paintings, indeed, is due to Dr. Ryerson, but the real credit of all that makes the Normal School Museum, is due to Dr. May, who has brought together, at great pains, a most important collection of fine engravings, historically arranged.”29 In 1870, the Normal School appointed S.P. May as clerk. In this position, he was sometimes called superintendent of the Educational Museum. Mulvany added that “Dr. May has caused many other improvements in the museum in question and is at present about to publish a catalogue of the works of art, which will be of the greatest value.”30 May was also involved with the Ontario Society of Artists (OSA ) in an initiative to get an art school started at the Toronto Normal School. Just a few months earlier, the government of Ontario had begun purchasing works from the OSA to begin a permanent art collection for the province. The “Ontario Collection” was to be housed at the Educational Museum. The OSA meeting that year was in spring, so perhaps the new paintings were already on display in one of the museum rooms.31 The illustration depicts the Assyrian Room as a large space in which dozens of people examine the glass cases, the large copy of the winged bull of the British Museum, and the other discoveries recently made at the ancient Assyrian city of Nineveh (Iraq). Cabinets of various sizes also display maps, artifacts, stuffed animals, and minerals. A later stereograph (stereoscopic photograph) of the Assyrian Room corroborates the accuracy of Bell-Smith’s illustration of the objects, while revealing that his use of perspective tends to exaggerate the size of the 110  v isi bly ordered

3.2  Stereograph (c. 1890) depicting the copies obtained by J. George Hodgins in 1867 from the British Museum’s collection of Assyrian artifacts, including the large Assyrian winged bull.

room. The stereograph shows that the winged bull copy was clearly not twice the height of a man, as is implied in the illustration. So, since artistic licence is not random, we might infer that the illustrator was probably striving to make the focal point of the room clearly visible to the newspaper’s readers. Bell-Smith’s attention to detail is obvious when we compare the stereograph to the illustration. The illustration represents clearly the medallions on the wall, the mounted artifacts in their niches, the legs of the glass display cabinet, and even the angled display unit inside the cabinet. No longer visible in the stereograph are the clustered objects seen on the lower shelf of the glass cabinet in the illustration. While unclear in the stereograph, a series of labels suggests that the objects they describe are now displayed flat and separately from each other. Close examination of the digitalized version of the 1879 illustration reveals that these clustered objects may have been some of the copies of cuneiform slabs that J. George Hodgins mentioned in his report of purchases to Ryerson in 1868. Hodgins, Ryerson’s deputy superintendent, was sent to London and Paris in 1867 to buy supplies for the library and the museum. His lengthy report of purchases lists the casts of sculptures by which “Mr. Layard’s explorations at Nineveh have enriched the British Museum.”32 Victorian archaeologists considered this discovery enormously important and it received extensive coverage in the popular and scientific press. The ruins of the ancient Assyrian civilization The Colonial Archive  111

found at Nineveh provided a picture of the previously unknown ancient empire (c. 700 BCE , this empire was referred to several times in the Bible). When Hodgins bought reproductions of the objects from the British Museum, he was also bringing artifacts associated with Christian heritage to the Canadas. In addition to the winged bull, he bought copies of slabs depicting Sardanapalus I, II, and III in various scenes, a large statue of Memnon, and the Rosetta Stone. The clustered, rocklike shapes arranged in the lower portion of the glass cabinet have a flat face, which is turned towards the viewers. These are most likely some of Hodgins’ latest cuneiform selections. The use of reproductions from the British Museum was a fairly common strategy of both colonial museums and provincial museums in Britain (as we saw in chapter 2). In the summary of his report, Hodgins adds a comment about “travelling collections of objects of art” that the South Kensington sent to local museums throughout Britain. “This, it may well be said, is ‘object teaching’ on a grand scale, and in a most attractive form, for the adult masses of England, Ireland and Scotland … these efforts are not only designed to [popularize science and art] but at the same time they tend to interest and instruct the masses not only by cultivating the taste, but by gratifying and delighting the eye by means of well appointed Educational Museums and popular exhibitions.”33 His comment about “object teaching” demonstrates how, by the late 1860s, object teaching as a commonplace phrase had begun to enter educational discourse. A report Ryerson wrote in 1871 again describes the Assyrian Room in detail after the visit of the governor general, Lord Dufferin, to the Educational Museum. Dufferin’s visit to this kind of cultural institution signalled an understanding on his part that these sites played a significant role within the colonial discourse, reaffirmed by his political presence.34 The passage in Hodgins’ report comments on the objects in the room, describes Dufferin’s interest, and points out that the governor general particularly admired the way that the plaster casts had been “bronzed and coloured in appropriate tints.”35 The attempt to make the cast look realistic is yet another gesture to the truth of seeing – the appearance of the real ties into dominant British notions of empiricism, that philosophical argument that knowledge relies on sense experience.36 The experience of seeing something that “looks real,” that is explained through visual examination, and that is accompanied by supporting evidence makes the knowledge of Assyrian culture real to the viewers. In other words, that which is manifest in the world is self-evident. In the same report, Ryerson reiterates that the Educational Museum was created after the example of “what has

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been done by the Imperial Government as part of the system of popular education – regarding the indirect as barely secondary to the direct means of forming the taste and character of the people.”37 Ryerson describes school apparatus, models of agriculture, and specimens of natural history of the country, as well as casts of antique and modern statues and copies of paintings. These “are labelled for the information of those who are not familiar with the originals,” and he adds that a general catalogue of them is in the course of preparation. As part of the purposeful development of “taste,” Ryerson believed that the objects participated in the development of a curious mind that could be directed towards knowledge, which sustained a vision of citizenship. The visitors to the museum would experience object lessons whether they were children in the model school, teachers in training, the ladies and gentlemen attending the conversazione in the lecture hall, or any of a “number of visitors from all parts of the country, as well as from abroad.” As Ryerson notes, these visits had “greatly increased during the year, though considerable before; many have repeated their visits again and again.”38 The conjunction of pedagogical theories about the use of object collections, the object lesson as a means of structuring this use, and the rise of centralized, universal education resulted in the institutionalized use of objects in daily educational practices that contributed to the creation of a cohesive citizenry – one in which a youth knew his place in what de Certeau called the practices of the everyday. As we saw in chapter 2, the object lesson can be understood as a philosophical device, deeply embedded in pedagogies comprising late-eighteenthand early nineteenth-century knowledge systems. The turn to the object as the source of truth allows the museum to narrate the relations of power – utterly invested in empiricism and individual experience – that sustain the visual narratives of good citizenship. May continued to employ and expand Ryerson’s strategy in his improvements to the museum, whether through the use of new displays, the planned catalogue, or public lectures.

A liminal narrative of nationhood: the LHSQ Museum, 1840–62 Just as the Educational Museum was continuing its colonial narrative of good citizenship, the Literary and Historical Museum of Quebec was also striving to maintain its attempts to visually codify and disambiguate the nation-ness of colonial British Canada. The

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significance of the LHSQ ’s formative moment lies not only in what was collected to fulfil the society’s pedagogical mandate but also in how the collection came to be made available to a wider public, and in where the collection was housed. The desire to “recover” this past – a time that preceded British Conquest – is itself a claim to have a pre-civilized state, a state that is understood to naturally prefigure the advanced state of this re-historicizing present. So the nature of the recovered objects and how they are situated in the past is critical to the writing about that past; equally significant are the other artifacts, documents, and specimens that record the present time of the nation. The making visible of these objects, whether through display practices, publication, or public lectures, contributes to the cultural narrative shaped for public consumption. I believe it is helpful to think about the structure of the narrative employed in the LHSQ collection through the lens of performative and pedagogical (fixed and stable) time proposed by literary theorist Homi Bhabha.39 Arguably, their object collections were catalogued, displayed, and protected by curators-cum-archivists according to paradoxical civic narratives. Performative time is the time of the present, in which citizens perform their understanding of what it means to belong to the nation as though the idea of nation is stable and unchanging. Pedagogical time is the kind of time that unfolds as a progression of events in which the idea of nationhood evolves (in Canada, that is generally portrayed as the country developing through settlement, resource exploitation, and federation). In “DissemiNation,” Bhabha argues that national time is always slippery or “double and split.”40 In other words, the way that stories are told about the past eludes a fixed narrative. The resulting ambiguity is aligned with what he describes as a “liminal nation-space.” By liminal, he means a space or threshold in which time can be understood as either performative or pedagogical. The spatial integration of the LHSQ into the primary corridor of power provided a visual enactment of what Bhabha has labelled the “performative present,” and Benedict Anderson the “meanwhile.”41 In Bhabha’s understanding of the narration of nationalism, the homogenized “people” are both object and subject of the story of nationhood, and it is they who perform the doubled time of the nation. Drawing on this notion of ambiguity in nation-time, I argue that the ordering of colonial objects provided a visual enactment of desire, which was itself performed in the shaping of the museum. The objects delineated a progressive and pedagogical history that taught the civilizing process of informed colonization. The LHSQ collections placed

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the found specimens, artifacts, and locally possessed objects of European inheritance in a “rational” and historical relationship to the present: in a pedagogical time frame. At the same time, such ordering strategies presumed a break between the timeless antiquity and “barbarism” of the past and the modernity of the performative present. In other words, for the colony to represent the progress of civilization, it had to already be civilized. However, the contemporaneous aboriginal presence always held the potential to disrupt the LHSQ ’s narrative. The ongoing presence of Christianized Huron-Wendat at Wendake contradicted the idea that “Indians” were part of the colonial past. The reserve continuously provided evidence of aboriginal people whose conversion was never quite sufficient to erase the traces of “barbarism.”42 Nevertheless, the dominant narrative was performed despite ongoing traces or disruptions undermining its trajectory. Steadfastly asserting the successful narrative of progressive, modern times, the LHSQ collections worked against the alterity of the contemporary native presence, and the negativity of a feminized past, to represent a stable, unified British colonial subject. This way of telling national histories is certainly not unique to the Canadas, and indeed similar cultural narratives survive well into the twentieth century.43 Simultaneously, however, performative time – which is nonsequential, ambivalent, problematic, and disjunctive – exposes the fragility and disrupts these narratives. Julia Kristeva might describe this paradox as the irruption of the sémiotique into the symbolique, when the linguistically repressed resurfaces into conscious language.44 Although Bhabha does not pay much homage to Kristeva, he does draw attention to Kristeva’s claim about how the borders of the nation are faced with a kind of double temporality,45 thus extending the idea of the liminality of nation-space to the psychoanalytic realm of subjectivity.46 To further understand how the idea of double temporality, or paradoxical time, has significance in narrative, I turn again to Michel de Certeau. In The Practice of the Everyday Life, de Certeau examines the ways in which social representation and ways of operating in society are located in everyday practice.47 By “everyday,” he means the practices employed to contain, describe, resist, and celebrate the local – namely, how individuals unconsciously navigate everything from streets to museums. Can we think about the “individual” here as the subject-in-process whose sense of doubled time both reiterates the strategies of colonial time, and simultaneously employs tactics of everyday experience to embody and negotiate the consumption of culture?

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De Certeau further argues that a theory of everyday life would challenge the seeming dialectic or opposition posed between the local and the global, or, in our case, variations in the local and the national.48 If perceived as having the relation of part to whole, the local stands in relation to a larger, dominant category (so the city relates to the province, the province to the nation, nation to empire). While this logic of relationship may be true to some degree, de Certeau argues that the strategies of everyday life and tactics of resistance to daily experiences necessitate that historians look carefully at the fullness of the quotidian. De Certeau provides insight into the ambivalent status of the citizen, who is caught between insistent identities, say, as colonist and as a nationalist, through tactics of resistance, the “mingling” of strategies and tactics, productive ambivalence, and outright disagreement.49 In the years between its early heyday of the 1830s and its revival in the 1860s, the LHSQ managed to retain a small, powerful membership that doggedly clung to the society and its pedagogical colonial narrative. The change in government structure after the Act of Union in 1840 meant that many of the politicians who had filled the membership roles were now operating from different capital cities [the capital of Canada East and Canada West moved several times between 1840 and 1860]. The annual reports by the association’s administrative council reveal ongoing concern with this unstable and declining membership. The reports also allude to an anxiety about an ongoing inability to reach quorum at business meetings, reduction in the number and attendance of public lectures, and the impact of temporary accommodations. The formation of a new library association in 1843 had “drawn off members from attending the meetings of the Society,”50 which left the society with only thirty-four paying members by 1846.51 That same year, the president expressed worry that the “chilling influence of a thin attendance” would dampen the ardour of even the most zealous of researchers; the meeting time was moved earlier in the hope that more members would attend.52 In 1849, a change to the official bylaws reduced quorum from nine members to three (one of whom had to be the president or vice-president).53 Judging from the records of the annual meetings, there were times when finding three active members seemed difficult! The 1852 report indicates that due to the reduction in quorum they were able to conduct business at the annual meeting – which meant they had somewhere between only three and nine members present. There was some improvement in the membership when once again some government officials returned to the city in 1852, and by 1854, the society was able to list one hundred members.54

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Despite ongoing worries about attendance, plans for an upgrade to the museum in 1853 pressed on. The annual report includes a lengthy report on the work done by a Mr May: At a very considerable expense your Council procured the services of Mr. May, an experienced Taxidermist and Naturalist, who had recently arrived from England, to mount, arrange, and classify, according to their natural families and orders, the whole of the Birds, Animals, Fishes, and Reptiles, now in your Museum, and to affix to each individual specimen a label with its Latin and English name.55  The report adds that May cleared up the “unsightly mass of confusion and decay” to the point that “distinguished strangers who have visited the Museum in its present improved condition, and who, from their scientific attainments, were competent judges, pronounced the collection of Birds to be the finest on this Continent. Mr. May estimated their value at a thousand pounds.”56 May also drew up a catalogue of the natural history specimens with “short, instructive [labels] upon each family and order.”57 Although I have not been able to find explicit evidence that Mr May is the S.P. May who brought order to the Educational Museum in Toronto in the 1870s, I believe this is the same man – clearly the LHSQ couldn’t afford to keep him and he likely moved to Toronto.58 In 1857, Ryerson refers to May as having experience with a “Natural History Society elsewhere,” presumably the LHSQ .59 What is clear is that the organizing, labelling, and cataloguing undertaken by May continued to reiterate the pedagogical assumptions underpinning both museums’ colonial narrative. In 1854, the LHSQ suffered substantial loss to the museum as the result of the burning of their recently acquired new rooms in the Parliament building (housing the post-1840 Parliament of the two Canadas). The society were offered the rooms in the Parliament of the two Canadas as a replacement for their rooms in the municipal building (the former Union Hotel). Despite May’s labelling and sorting, the need to renew some areas of the collection is revealed in the curator’s comment about the impact of the fire on the natural history specimens, when he added that the fire saved the society the cost of destroying the moth-eaten specimens. Yet another fire in 1862 wreaked significant damage on the library. Ironically, despite the potential for these fires to literally undermine the pedagogical narrative, the loss of their temporary rooms led the society to secure a safer alternate location. In

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addition, after each fire, the LHSQ received a government grant to replace holdings and repair bindings, among other improvements. In 1862 the society entered into an agreement to rent some space from the Presbyterian Morrin College in the Masonic hall. When the college outgrew that building, it refurbished the old city jail in 1868, and invited the LHSQ to accompany it to these new premises.60 The alliance with Morrin College provided the stabilization that the museum and library desperately needed. Throughout these years of turbulence for the society, the government continued to support the LHSQ through both annual and special grants, such as the £250 given to replace the museum fittings in 1853. This evidence of public funding for the LHSQ speaks as much – perhaps more – to the political savvy of its few current members as to the perceived need for a public museum and library. Membership gradually increased despite some ups and downs.61 The new rooms were more accessible, the library more current, and Parliament less transitory. (Rather than moving between Kingston, Montreal, and Quebec City, the Parliament of the two Canadas settled in Quebec City, which meant that potential members lived in the city, rather than being shifted about by the movement of Parliament between different cities.) Public lectures continued throughout the 1850s and ’60s, although it would seem attendance might have been thin. Still, the research into the history of the Canadas continued to follow the pattern of first being presented in a public lecture and then in printed form in Transactions. Despite the fire and subsequent relocation, 1854 saw eleven lectures presented, including a talk by Lieutenant H.G. Savage, “On the History of Quebec, from the earliest times.” Papers largely commented on “local and practical matters” such as meteorology, life rafts, and the Labrador Coast.62 Thus, the stories continued to support a progressive, liberal colonial narrative that was marked out in pedagogical time. The performative – potentially disruptive, ambivalent, and paradoxical – remained below the surface. The worldly or everyday did not seem to affect the practices of representation used by the LHSQ as long as it continued to be supported through government funding. This seeming stability was revealed as slippery and paradoxical as funding and political significance began to be questioned.

The literary and historical narrative of nation, 1860–80 As we have seen, many of the objects that defined the LHSQ museum collection were “lost” in a variety of ways between 1840 and 1860,

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mainly through the vagaries of fire and of neglect. In my pursuit of the remainders, I have found archival traces, which suggest that it is not the longevity of the specific objects such as maps, specimens, or models but rather the persistence of the voice – or “vote,” as de Certeau might argue – of the collection as a whole that is significant for colonialism. In a discussion of why people do what they do, de Certeau explores how belief affects practice. He defines belief not as the object of believing but “as the subject’s investment in a proposition, the act of saying it and considering it as true, in other words the ‘modality’ of the assertion and not its content.”63 He argues that the act of voicing one’s belonging can be taken as membership, even when all other forms of activism are no longer pursued (even where there are very few members). In his case study, de Certeau looks at how an annual vote (voice) for the socialist party signifies membership even when no other activity or beliefs support that membership. De Certeau’s use of this political example is to illustrate that strong conviction may ebb away, but the “voices” remain and are recorded as votes. The will to “make people believe,” he argues, gives life to institutions. So in the case of the LHSQ , the objects gave voice to the beliefs of its tenacious members, and arguably the object collection itself “voted” for colonialism. The way in which the LHSQ organized its collection denied the dualities of colonialism (antagonistically represented as white versus native, English versus French, elite versus business class, and typologized as masculine or feminine, strong or weak). One way of understanding the tenacity of the colonial narrative is to envision the potentially contrary evidence as being suppressed during the early period of British colonialism – as the suppression of a negativity that was already present in the original texts or objects used to construct the visual narrative. Julia Kristeva suggests that the sémiotique intrudes upon the symbolic through negativity or rejection. We might understand the vulnerability of the colonial narrative as lying in the impossibility of completely rejecting or repressing the voices of the undesired. The threat of disunion, of the dissonance smoothed over by the apparently agreeable union of the two societies, and of the forcible absence of “others” (aboriginal peoples, French Canadians, non-elite classes) who were homogenized by the LHSQ ’s ostensibly symbolic authority, all refute the apparent solidity of the story being told. So how does this denial continue to survive during the relocations, revival, and restructuring of the next hundred years? Underwritten initially by the provincial government, the revival of the LHSQ dates more or less from the early 1860s. Since I am arguing The Colonial Archive  119

that the collection visually presented the narrative of nation, it would be helpful to know what the collection looked like. To my knowledge there are no illustrations of the LHSQ museum, library, or lecture hall prior to an illustration of a meeting held in 1879 at Morrin College. Also published in the Canadian Illustrated News (as was the image of the Educational Museum), the image depicts the exterior and an interior view of the lecture hall. As the building still exists today, we know that currently the two large rooms on the main floor are accessed via two short staircases, on either side of the entry hall. While the staircase and entryway were renovated over the years, the main rooms still retain the galleries supported by columns as illustrated in the 1879 image. The illustration in the newspaper depicts the lecture hall, which is an architectural equivalent of the flanking, principal room of the LHSQ . The print provides a glimpse into how members would have used the rooms and how artifacts were incorporated in the public space as well as the museum-library. The full-height lecture hall is partially blocked by a semicircular inset on the lower frame, which provides a view of the exterior of the Morrin College building. With its restrained classical facade, pedimented roof, and Doric metopes, the building reflects its roots as one of the colony’s key institutions. The prison building was erected shortly after the English took possession of the French colony. Constructed between 1808 and 1814 after the British intensified their occupation of Lower Canada, the prison was one of the first in the colony to reflect English Palladian style. Its unique appearance marked the building as British and authoritarian – a combination of features that suited its later use by the Presbyterian Morrin College and the LHSQ . Titled the Annual Convention for the Association at Morrin College, Quebec, the illustration depicts a gathering of the Quebec Teachers’ Association (the pedagogues in the pedagogical!).64 The image portrays a man on a podium facing the crowd. This is likely to be Donald H. MacVicar, president of the association, who was a professor at Montreal Presbyterian College.65 Most of the audience appears to be attending to the speaker, although two men in the left foreground are engaged in a discussion about what looks like a map attached to one of the columns. The height of the room seems slightly exaggerated, as later photographs show the same galleries with a closer ratio of lower- to upper-floor height.66 On the wall near the podium is a large portrait of a Scotsman (note traditional headwear); two framed maps or illustrations are also on the wall, mounted above two globes and an urn-topped pedestal of unclear function. The items draped from the galleries are more maps,

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3.3  Image of the interior and exterior of the LHSQ . The interior depicts the meeting of the “Annual Convention for the Association at Morrin College, Quebec.” Published in the Canadian Illustrated News in November 1879, the illustration clearly shows the upper and lower floors, podium, and arrangement of some of the maps and artifacts belonging to the LHSQ .

flags, and colours (i.e., a flag that shows affiliation, as in national or school colours). The audience appears to consist of approximately ten rows of ten people on the ground floor, mostly men with a few groups of women. Approximately twenty to twenty-five more people are in the galleries; half of these are clusters of women. The fashionably dressed, all-white audience of teachers, professors, and other educators likely reflects the typical audience for public lectures. Women were present, although seemingly in small numbers, if the illustrations are accurate. From reports mentioned in the society’s Transactions, we do know that the wives of the LHSQ members often accompanied their spouses to public lectures. The clusters of women in the upper galleries appear to be relatively young and may be single female teachers who were members of the association. As single women, it would have been more appropriate for them to sit together, rather than among their male peers. The young women could also have

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been students of Morrin College, who were allowed to participate in the various activities held at the college.67 While the literal reading of illustrations fraught with artistic interpretation is a dubious archival strategy, in this case other contemporaneous writing corroborates that a full room (as described in the image) could hold one hundred people on the main floor, and several dozen in the galleries. The newspaper illustration provides visual evidence that aligns with a written description of the lecture room by James McPherson LeMoine, a LHSQ member, in his publication entitled Quebec, Past and Present: A History of Quebec, 1608–1876. LeMoine’s text details Governor General Lord Dufferin’s movement through the building on the occasion of the centenary celebration of the 1775 death of General Montgomery (who had led the British against the French at Quebec City). The presence of the governor general at a cultural institution is deemed worthy of extensive description, which provides us with more details about the rooms themselves. LeMoine describes how the governor general first entered via the grand entrance hall and ascended the “elegant, sweeping staircase” (which we can’t see in the illustration). The text also describes the galleries of the lecture room as having railings from which “flags of many nations and many colours were drooping”; “the raised dais [was] flanked by banners.”68 LeMoine notes that the library and museum rooms were open for the crowd in attendance. Not only does LeMoine’s text provide clues to the articles draped over the gallery rails, it also reinforces the idea that the rooms were used to attract a wider public. Another, more recent picture of the LHSQ rooms is available in a virtual exhibit mounted on the Internet that aims at developing a young audience for the history of the LHSQ .69 The exhibit draws on the present-day architecture of Morrin College, suggests how the library might have been arranged in the nineteenth century, and illustrates some of the original items in the LHSQ museum. The artifacts and specimens include an Egyptian mummy, a spear, a kayak, a model of a ship, and portraits. In the virtual exhibit, they appear interspersed between library shelves, on window ledges, and displayed on walls. This kind of distribution would mirror the practices in other combined library-museums of the period and recalls earlier reports that described the placing of a case of coins in the reading room. Nevertheless, we can’t rely on the accuracy of virtual exhibition for more than an approximate sense of the nineteenth-century layout. With no extant contemporaneous images of the LHSQ museum or library to confirm or deny this posited arrangement of the rooms,

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3.4  Photograph taken some time before the fire of 1890 shows the interior of the University of Toronto Museum, with wooden cabinets and display practices typical of the period.

I turn to the published Transactions to examine reports from the librarian and from the curator of the museum. These reports provide further clues as to how the new museum and library in Morrin College took physical shape. In the annual reports, the curators and the librarian provide a brief description of their accomplishments and a list of the purchases and donations for the year. Exactly how the society arranged the objects in their respective spaces is unknown, yet some sense of the presentation can be gleaned from the treasurer’s report. He mentions expenditures for glass cases, stands, and bookcases. In all likelihood the wood-frame and glass display cases were similar to contemporary cases from the 1880s seen at the University of Toronto (figure 3.4) and in the Educational Museum (see figures 3.1 and 3.2). Often, natural specimens were exhibited as an integral collection, as when donated South American bird skins were “mounted in good style by a professional taxidermist … and … exhibited in a separate glass case.”70 Glass cases were sometimes custom-made for particular The Colonial Archive  123

objects, or expenditures were made to repair or replace cases. On occasion, the curator would purchase specimens already in custom cases, as with the copies of geological specimens made by the Survey in the 1840s. In 1875, the curator of the museum made particular note of his commission of the “handsome center square case in glass and mahogany in which the ducks, grouse and some wild animals are seen to so much advantage.”71 With this description of the “center square” case, we finally have a clue as to the distribution of the cases. As in other Canadian museums at the time, most cases were likely arranged along the walls, with the “handsome” mahogany case in a position to facilitate viewing from four sides. The cases would have been visible from the galleries, which were extended in 1876 to accommodate more shelves and books. Morrin College supported the LHSQ during its renovations of the college. As a result, upgrades included a “roomy fire-proof chamber” to store “old and rare works” and an iron chest to store the records of the society.72 Seemingly, the more “valuable works” were removed from general circulation and categorized as requiring conservation. The curator’s reports point out that the “limited collection of coins and medals” could be found in the reading room, not for “the mere purpose of gratifying or amusing antiquarian interest, but with a higher and more important object.” Presumably, old coins and medals, from which historians drew “facts” and information, were “classed with historical documents, for they are of acknowledged value and service in the elucidation of history, especially of ancient history.”73 This report also gives the impression that the reading room was separate from the museum room. One of these must have used the matching room to the lecture hall. Given the presence of multiple large cases for display, it seems logical to speculate that the museum may well have been lodged in the room that matched the lecture hall. So with a somewhat better understanding of how the collections were exhibited, I turn to a consideration of how they were used. The public reach of the society seems to have achieved its apex in the 1870s, with increasing membership, attendance, and donations. By 1874, the council reported on the “unabated prosperity” of the society, with 350 associate members and 80 corresponding members.74 The council also reported the need to keep the rooms open in the evenings from seven until ten o’clock, in addition to the usual hours. The annual reports were increasingly positive about sufficient membership, healthy attendance at lectures, and the quality and quantity of holdings in the library and museum. Numerous reports detail the additions, through

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3.5  The model of the Royal William was the subject of a public presentation, which was published in the 1891 Transactions of the LHSQ . This illustration accompanied the article.

purchase and donation, to the museum and library. By 1873, there were 8,477 volumes in the library. The rooms were so popular that the council had to debate whether they would support a request to hold chess games there (this was denied, as “amusement ... would be repugnant to, and in violation of the Charter”).75 The museum was also growing and targeting audiences; for example, the report invited visitors to pay attention to the valuable collections of ornithology (birds), especially oology (eggs). LeMoine was the curator that year, and while he regretted that the museum did not have space to house “large denizens of our forest,” he encouraged donations of smaller specimens of the “Canadian woods.” Interestingly, LeMoine was the curator who had arranged for “the handsome center square case in glass and mahogany,” which not only reveals the presence of the large case, but also clarifies how the curator’s interests encroached on the museum holdings. LeMoine was writing a large book on Canadian birds at the time of the $76 investment in the large case, which was intended for the display of the birds!76 The published public lectures provide insight into the constant reiteration of the narrative of nation and the use of the objects during the lectures. Topics included papers that described the physical, intellectual, and cultural evolution of the Canadas. In 1877, LeMoine read a paper about the Royal William (the first ocean-going steamship), which laid the groundwork for a second paper in 1891 about a model of the ship in the LHSQ collection. Published by Archibald Campbell in 1891, the paper describes Campbell’s efforts to prove to the British Naval Commission that the ship was indeed built in Quebec City in 1831–32. His paper is full of exclamation and astonishment that the British were unaware that “Canada, this Canada of ours ... established a new epoch [of steam].”77 The paper was illustrated with an engraving taken from a photograph of a model of the ship that had been given to

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the LHSQ museum by “the late Mr. Henry Dinning.” In his lecture “On the natural History of the ‘Ursus Americanus,’” George Douglas refers to “the beautiful specimen of which now before us having been lately added to the collection of the Society.”78 Other papers refer to ancient and/or European countries that reproduce the progress of civilization, underwriting the naturalized imperialism of LHSQ research. Others contrast the civilized presentday Canadian to the indigenous and canadien populations, who are depicted as limited, weak, or incapable of development. For example, on 23 March 1878, William Clint read his paper on “The Aborigine’s [sic] of Canada” to the assembled crowd. His fifty-four-page essay has the not inconsiderable aim to “discover the whereabouts of the remnants of these once powerful tribes, their present condition, and what has been done for them by our Government.”79 Clint starts his paper with the assertion that the question of “our relations with the Indian inhabitants” of Canada should be of interest to his audience for two reasons. Firstly, as Christians they have the duty to lead “these people out of the darkness of heathenism,” and “raise them from their squalor and ignorance.” And secondly, they have the duty to prepare them for “the exercise of those rights of citizenship which are the birthright of intelligent British subjects of every color and creed.” Against this background of the civilized British, Clint draws a picture of the flawed “Indian” character. “The Indian” is described as having a monolithic character – “they” are democratic, yet lawless; generous and tender, yet warring, vengeful and treacherous. The British are described as helping to resolve battles between Indian tribes; “the treatment of the Indians by our authorities has continued to be kind and just.” Clint, like other authors who looked at the practices of the colonial government, notes, “We have, I think, no reason to feel ashamed of the course of the representatives of British authority towards the aboriginal tribes.” Certainly, his remark suggests that not only was there reason to feel ashamed, the feeling was prevalent enough to require strenuous disavowal. The opening address for the lecture season of 1877–78, “On the Society and its Collections” by James Stevenson, seems particularly reflective, and provides insight into the society’s archival objectives. Stevenson remarked on the society’s achievement of its original goals, read aloud a long memoir in French about an incident from the war of 1812, and lamented the loss of other papers “no doubt of much historical value” that were “all burnt up with the town of Niagara.”80 He argued that there was reason to fear that valuable documents were not

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safely housed, and as such the society had the duty to recognize this and “to protect the archives of the country by every means in its power.”81 This concern for the protection of historical documents remained evident throughout the LHSQ ’s nineteenth-century activities. While historical research was not as predominant an activity as the research on local subjects, the recovery of historical documents was an ongoing thread, regardless of whether the society was expanding or shrinking.

Helter skelter in dark, dusky cupboards: archiving the stuff of narrative The “recovery” of historical documents for the good of the nation was raised explicitly by Henry Hopper Miles in his paper “On Canadian Archives.” He noted that the notion “could hardly be expected to recommend itself, on the grounds of novelty or originality … [as] … the Society, in one form or another, has often had it under notice.”82 So although LHSQ members actively pursued the recovery of historical documents, Miles was refocusing the goals of recovery. He argued, “there is still plenty of appropriate work for the Society to accomplish in the way of historical pioneering.” By this, Miles meant that the occasional publication of historical documents was not enough – a complete collection of Canadian archives was needed.83 He pointed out that existing records were widely scattered across Canada, the United States, England, and France.84 He worried about the preservation of documents, dramatically sounding alarms based on the report of the record keeper at Government House in Montreal: “the vaults were usually musty and damp, and scarcely safe for the purposes of search, without the use of a stove. I gathered, in fact, from his remarks that at least two persons had accelerated their premature decease by too assiduously prosecuting there the work of searching for documents.” The archival encounters could be deadly! As cultural historian Carolyn Steedman argues in Dust: The Archive and Cultural History (2001), the microbes in the disintegrating red leather used to bind many nineteenth-century documents mean that the archive can literally be lethal.85 Miles applauded Nova Scotia for taking action at the urging of Joseph Howe in 1857 to examine, preserve, and arrange ancient records and documents. He closed his remarks with the recommendation for “the regular fyling [sic – filing] away of official documents,” and while this would indeed become an “unmanageable mass of documents,” an archival system should be established to ensure documents’ safety and access for historians.86 The Colonial Archive  127

The year after Miles’ paper was published in Transactions, LHSQ president William James Anderson published his paper on “The Archives of Canada.” Anderson’s paper reveals the close link between government funding and the LHSQ historical research activities. He notes that in 1832 the LHSQ received £200 from the House of Assembly “for the purpose of aiding the Society in the research after rare and interesting documents connected with the history of the Canadas.”87 This money continued to support the acquisition of documents, at least until 1843.88 The society obtained documents by painstakingly copying by hand from materials in other locations, through purchase, and/or through publication. Sometimes a grant was given specifically for obtaining documents; other times, the expense was financed from an annual grant.89 Often the grant money was used to underwrite the publication in Transactions of the papers presented by members and visitors to the LHSQ . Anderson’s paper establishes that the government also supported the acquisition of other objects of national interest, as when in 1839 the Legislative Assembly asked the LHSQ to become “custodians of the specimens of Natural History belonging to the Province.”90 Anderson’s paper also illuminates further the quest for a public record office. He notes that Miles was not satisfied with “the mere reading and publication of his paper” but that he had also drawn up a petition to the legislature. The petition resulted in the House of Commons ultimately approving an expenditure for the acquisition of historical documents, but the formal petition for a records office was referred to the Library Committee (where it died a slow death).91 Anderson also reported on his attempt to solicit Nova Scotia’s support for a federal archive, which Joseph Howe had resoundingly refused. Howe had written back, somewhat acerbically, that the Canadas should take care of their own records. This tension between Nova Scotia and Quebec about the role of a national archive echoes the Confederation debates concerning jurisdiction. The LHSQ returned with renewed vigour to the issue of establishing a public archive in 1877. I think at least some members imagined that the LHSQ collection would become the core of a national archive, thus ensuring the permanent protection and representation of their research, discoveries, and interpretations. The lobbying for a public archive was repeatedly discussed at the Ottawa Literary Convention, which hosted delegates from the LHSQ in October that year.92 Former president LeMoine reported that at the delegation L.P. Turcotte read a

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paper on the scattered “archives of the Dominion” that were “in some cases rapidly decaying through dampness, vermin and other causes.” Mr Turcotte argued for the necessity of collecting various manuscripts in each province. LeMoine’s report makes clear the shared concern of delegates about the neglect and chaos in the various locations serving some kind of archival function. “Instead of a Public Record Office, such as we find in the Mother country, we have no less than four Bureaux in Ottawa containing most important archives.”93 Turcotte’s paper again draws attention to the desire for a national, rather than provincial, archive. Fear for the loss of the archive through destruction was voiced nervously as “when it is borne in mind, how the priceless Records of our past history lie scattered, some eaten by rust or rats, others mouldering in subterranean vaults, others pitched helter skelter in dark, dusky cupboards in the different cities of Canada, inaccessible to the historian except at considerable expense, the undersigned think that it is high time to press for a State Record Office, under an able and responsible head.” A genuine fear of losing archival materials seems to underlie Turcotte’s hyperbole. The very next month, James Stevenson admonished his audience at the LHSQ ’s public lectures, reminding them of their duty to “take cognizance” of the vulnerable storage of historical documents and of the need to protect the country’s archives by every means in its power.94 He insisted the learned societies of Canada should direct their efforts towards collecting, sorting, and indexing what already existed. They should also join together to “memorialize” the Dominion government to establish a single Public Record Office.95 LeMoine wrote the “memorial” to the Dominion government, under the title “Archives of Canada – Memorial of the Society to the Legislature.”96 Like Turcotte, LeMoine seemed to fully fear not only the loss of “unpublished and fast-decaying records of the past,” but also the ability to document “a reliable history of Canada.” He noted that while the LHSQ was grateful that parliament had delegated Douglas Brymner and the Abbé H.A.B. Verreault to gather some reports, the society was nevertheless still pressing for a formal archive.97 In 1880 Douglas Brymner was appointed as the first Dominion Archivist – a direct result of lobbying from the Literary and Historical Society of Quebec.98 He was also the first to describe the uniquely Canadian approach to the “total archive,” a term that has come to mean the inclusion in the public archive of non-governmental records such as documents, images, maps, and pictures.99

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Following this success, the LHSQ continued to practise what it preached with the publication of a notice to citizens of Quebec City asking them to donate any historical materials – “letters, memoirs, &c, bearing on the history of Canada” – in their possession.100 The society reassured the public that donations would be well protected in the “newly fireproofed Vault in the basements.”101 In addition, the society had invested in new museum fittings to provide invaluable resources to aid “students of history as well as business men.”102 Relegated to a “dusty and dark corner of the museum, neglected, difficult of access, from want of covers, obliterated or torn titles; [the resources] have now been brought to light, their bindings and titles repaired and restored. Classified by order of date, they can be of daily and of easy reference, in a small room adjoining the library.”103 The resources in question were maps, plans, and periodicals such as the Quebec Gazette (dating from 1764), the Quebec Herald (from 1789), the Quebec Mercury (from 1805), and the Morning Chronicle (from 1847). One reason that journals such as the Quebec Gazette would be important for businessmen is that, as the official publication of the government, the Gazette reported many day-to-day business-related bills and legal actions. Arguably the success of the society in the 1870s sustained the LHSQ ’s lobby for a national record office. Its popularity is seen in such moves as the opening of the small reference room next to the public reading room. Improvements carried out by successive councils included the introduction of electric light, registers to heat the room, elegant bookshelves, and a selection of magazines and reviews, in addition to the purchase of standard scientific works.104 There was even mention that it might be time for the society to construct its own building. LeMoine reiterated this need for a dedicated space, remarking that the nine branches of the museum collection – birds, birds’ eggs, smaller Canadian animals, medals, fish, “Indian trophies,” wood, minerals, and relics – “will soon require a separate room.”105 All signs pointed to a healthy social, financial, and historical future for the LHSQ , but by the 1880s they had hit a snag that would profoundly change operations.

Loss of public funding: loss of primacy In 1882, a defensive tone begins to dominate the annual reports. The society is “down to 181 members” and “the museum though small is interesting … The council hope the government will see its way to continue the grant of five hundred dollars, this year, as usual.”106 Clearly the society council members were no longer the dominant players in

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local or provincial politics. In 1883, the LHSQ started to feel the impact of an emerging counter-narrative, confirming its sense of uncertainty. Irrupting from the possibilities posed by local and provincial politics, the suppressed other(s) started making noise. As the council of the LHSQ put it, we “regret that for the first time for many years past the usual pecuniary aid has not been, extended to [the LHSQ ] by the Provincial government. [We] are not conscious of having failed throughout all those years in judiciously applying towards the fulfilment of the duties which they owe to the promoters of this institution and the public, those funds which have been hitherto so generously bestowed upon them.”107 The reports of the council do not acknowledge any sense of a changing political reality; rather they focus on how to deal with the debt caused by the unexpected withdrawal of public funding.108 Reports do not identify the surfacing of alternative political voices underlining their political rejection, but the significance of liberal and moderate conservative canadiens in destabilizing the legacy of colonial provincial politics should not be underestimated.109 Absolutely confident of ongoing government funding, the LHSQ had accumulated debt that was not serviceable without the annual grant.110 The impact of this withdrawal of funds made it clear that the numbers of paying members could not sustain alone the society’s activities. In 1887, the president reported that “the membership has not increased, and through death, resignations and other causes, the Society has suffered much … We have not yet recovered from the loss of the annual grant of $750, which we received from Confederation until 1884, from the Quebec Government, in aid of this branch of our work.”111 While the government did provide a grant of $500 in 1888, it did not prove precedent-setting. The report of 1888 also reveals the tensions between the provincial government and the LHSQ . The society complains, “the Quebec Government has demanded certain original manuscripts relating to the early history of the country, which have been in the possession of the Society for a great many years.” After suing the provincial government, the LHSQ was forced to acknowledge that it didn’t own the documents; the society was only the custodian of the government papers. “Accordingly, the librarian handed over to the Provincial Secretary all the volumes of original manuscripts, and manuscript copies from the Paris and London archives, as described in his report 1888.”112 As late as 1890, LHSQ president Dr George Stewart continued to argue that the society’s primary aim is to “spread … reliable information regarding our country.” The society, “the oldest historical body in Canada,” was

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seen as still representative of a unified, English nation.113 In his presidential address to the society in 1892, Stewart insisted on the viability of its role as guardian of the country’s cultural heritage; the LHSQ remonstrated that it continued to be the source of the authoritative narrative of nation. However, as the provincial reclamation of historical documents makes clear, this “right to document” was not as evident as presumed.114 As custodians, the LHSQ had the right to gather and display objects but not the right to possess them. Ironically, the more they pressed for a national archive, the more the need to archive became obvious to the individual provinces. Despite the LHSQ ’s protestations, the province of Quebec established the right to possess and reclaim materials that the colonial government had commissioned the LHSQ to gather and maintain. As a result of these shifting rights to possess, curious circumstances gripped the collections to the point of redefinition.

What happens to the object collections? The museum seems to have been in hiatus during the 1880s. Although a curator continues to be listed in each of its annual reports, there are virtually no curatorial reports. In 1889, two sentences from the curator summed up the situation: “The Museum is about in the same state as at this time last year. Owing to want of funds there have been no additions by purchase; by donation we have received the following: Two medals from Hon. L.R. Masson; portrait of Zacharée Thelar-i-olin, or ‘the last of the Hurons,’ from W. Clint.”115 The donation of the portrait The Last of the Hurons is significant, not just because it was one of only two donations in 1889. The painting is a self-portrait of the artist and his son, and is a complex answer to the idea of a “last Huron” (the socalled last to have “pure blood”).116 Clint, the donor and the curator of the museum, is the same man who presented the long paper on the state of the “aborigines” to the society in 1878.117 In that paper, Clint described how the Hurons were decimated by the Iroquois, and later protected by the French. In the intervening years, Clint had progressed through the administrative positions of corresponding secretary and council secretary to become the curator of the museum. The painting provides clear evidence of a continuing concern to negotiate and document the record of what it deemed the “barbaric” versus the “civilized.” Yet, difficulties stemming from lack of funds meant that mission was threatened. The following year, Curator Clint advised that the society should seek the services of a taxidermist to look over the contents of

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the museum, “especially with a view to protecting them against the ravages of moths, but for this necessary work there has been no appropriation made during the past year. It will be necessary for the in-coming Council to take some action in this regard, if the Museum is to be kept in a fit condition.”118 Even with the membership relatively stable (190 in 1889), without the annual grant there was simply no way for the LHSQ to maintain the expense of running the museum and its publication program. In 1891, the Quebec High School purchased the collection of birds, natural history specimens, and plaster models belonging to the museum for $250. The librarian remarked that the museum room “which gave some relief to our overcrowded shelves” was vacated as it was required by Morrin College. Even after selling a big chunk of its museum collection, the LHSQ was still pressed for space.119 The 1890s continued to be difficult. The society seemed to expect that the grants would resume, but they did not materialize.120 The report for 1895 clarifies the political contest of wills that was affecting the LHSQ : “For many years the relations between the Society and the Government were of the most harmonious kind; but with the successive arbitrary attacks made by the late Government a disastrous change began. The whole history of this period is set forth in detail in the minutes of the monthly meetings: the gist of the matter is this: the Government gave a reduced grant at first, then seized seventeen invaluable historical manuscripts, under the specious pretence that they ought not to remain in private hands and finally went on reducing the grant till nothing was left.”121 Still expecting to restore “the former prestige” of the society, the LHSQ set up a public fund and asked the larger public for contributions in the expectation that their “larger objects” would continue to be widely shared. While contributions to the endowment fund were not overwhelmingly frequent, or large, they ensured a stronger financial future and provided evidence that the loss of government funding did not signal a complete loss of faith in the society’s ability to write a history of Canada.122 Among its benefactors were “the late Mrs. Renfrew, the widow of Mr. Geo. Renfrew, one of its oldest and most worthy members, who recently bequeathed the Society a legacy of $500.00, and Dr. James Douglas, now of New York, one of its former most zealous Presidents, who recently donated $500.00, with a promise of $500.00 additional whenever the Society’s endowment fund should reach $10,000.”123 Clearly the listing of significant patrons in the report is a jab at the short-sightedness of the current (French-led Liberal) government (which just happened to consist of canadien leadership). Also

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significant is the fact that the patrons were derived from the ranks of former members or their heirs. The high esteem the Morrin College administration held for Douglas meant that the college continued to align itself with the LHSQ by providing a long-term lease at favourable rates and matching funds for several improvements to the rooms. The scholarly legitimacy of Morrin College was extended to the LHSQ through a reciprocal arrangement in which the society received its rooms rent-free in exchange for providing access to the library (books, journals, maps, diagrams, and small geological specimens appropriately catalogued), and the promise to add £30 worth of books per year to the library’s holdings.124 The commitment and sure faith of the society’s constituents, who had the wealth and fervour to support the LHSQ ’s broad-based objectives, gradually began to improve the LHSQ ’s circumstances. However, the historical holdings were slowly diminished over the next several decades. In 1942, all the holdings from the years 1926 to 1938 were ceded to the Archives Publiques du Québec (APQ ). There was some disagreement about what was supposed to be permanently ceded to the APQ, as at least one artifact, the painting of the Royal William, was the subject of fairly intense controversy after World War II.125 The painting, which had been given to the society in 1908 by Douglas, was recorded mistakenly as having been donated sometime between 1926 and 1938 (as suggested in the APQ archive report of 1987).126 The Royal William had obtained a mythic quality in Quebec as the first steamship built in the Canadas – so much so that the painting was seen to visually codify national achievement. The misinformation and purposeful misdirection in the APQ archival records must be seen as a calculated reprisal against the LHSQ . This skirmish in the archives exemplifies the way in which the English-language society’s posture of unity came under siege in Quebec during the last half of the twentieth century. In looking closely at the museum’s reconfigurations, we are seeing not merely the evolution of a museum according to the changing needs of its manipulators – audience, curator, or proprietor – but ongoing attempts to maintain the dominant narrative of the learned society. The temporary suppression of colonization’s trauma present at the moment of the society’s origin meant that the object collection could endure extensive revision yet still retain its original narrative stance. Yet this held for only as long as the trauma did not resurface, or irrupt into the narrative as an impossible-to-ignore rewriting. However, the radical reconstruction of English-French relations in the 1960s and 1970s lifts the lid off a Pandora’s box of colonialism.

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1987 and changing realities The closing statement of the 1987 report of the archivist for the Archives Publiques du Québec calls for the APQ to “launch an offensive on the directors of the LHSQ by offering them space and technical assistance which would permit the LHSQ to recapture their place in the sun and to contribute to the protection of the ‘anglophone’ archival patrimony of the region of Quebec.”127 It is not clear if the archivist, M. Lapointe, means to suggest that the LHSQ should donate the rest of its holdings to the APQ or whether he genuinely fears the disappearance of the archival record. Regardless of his motivations, the expression “to launch an offensive” makes it clear that the archivist wanted the LHSQ to give the remaining historical documents in its hands to the APQ . The offensive was successful. The grand finale for the historical collection at the LHSQ came in 2000, when the APQ finally wrested the archival materials from the arms of the learned society. In a deal that seemed designed to save the LHSQ from cultural invisibility, the society “reassessed its mission,” and the government, for its part, invested in the renovation of the building that would serve as a library and cultural centre for the small minority of English-speakers remaining in Quebec City. The Morrin Cultural Centre, now managed by the LHSQ , is, according to its website, the “cultural portal to the heritage of English-speakers in Quebec City. It is also an impressive heritage site that has housed two prisons and a Scottish college.”128 A virtual library offers access to the Transactions of the LHSQ (1824–1924). The renovations necessarily required the removal of the old records, letters, transcriptions, and ledgers from the basement. The forty-four boxes of documents were transferred to the Quebec branch of the Archives Publiques du Québec, safely stowed and for the most part unexamined. Apart from my visit to review the fond numbers and file names,129 the forty or so uncatalogued boxes are likely to remain undisturbed for some time, and unlikely to disturb the most recent narrative of the survival of English in Quebec. Irony or pathos, the objects that were gathered to articulate the history and progress of the unified nation – a nation that posited the French and native subjects as part of a distant pedagogical past – are now viewed as remnants of a disappearing English culture. This outcome is an argument for how the museological reiteration of the modern nation through visual culture is a vulnerable narrative not always able to maintain the timeless stasis required to perform modernity. The tone of references to the LHSQ artifacts up until the era The Colonial Archive  135

following the separatiste debates of the 1970s and ’80s had focused on the museum as an exemplar of British colonial heritage. Despite the museum collection itself undergoing massive change, deaccessioning, curatorial revisioning, and pruning by fire and moths, the donations acted as replacements for the original objects and resisted the attempt to re-envision the LHSQ as a modern academic environment annexed to Morrin College. Alternate narratives result in the rejection of canadien history as agrarian and rooted in anti-modern beliefs; women challenge their lack of presence in the records of history; non-white citizens demand a voice; aboriginal presence undermines the apparent simplicity of Anglo and canadien historical claims to territory. All the suppressions necessary to the singularity of the colonial project irrupt into the symbolic present. This is the presence of negativity whose suppression, Kristeva argues, is necessary to the formation of subjectivity. The resistances voiced in Quebec through the “Quiet Revolution” were part of a systemic response to imperialism around the world. The specificity of Quebec results in the reformulation of French-English relations. The consequence for the artifacts of the LHSQ is that, by 1987, they can no longer speak of or “vote” for a colonial nation insofar as Quebec now insists upon its post-colonial alterity to Canada. In the colonial museum, shifts in local relations inevitably challenged the stability of pedagogical knowledges (which relied on stereotypes, empiricism, and evident truths). The instability of identities, the “double and split” of nation-time, speaks to how the sense of place or belonging is struggled over, conflicted, and intersecting. Originally, the LHSQ ’s collection attempted to remove the strange­ ness residing in disparate objects so as to articulate the desired tale of a nation unified under the progressive mantle of Victorian England. The attempt to render the strange as familiar, to homogenize the stories of native difference, required constant reiteration in the face of the foreign, which continually threatened the coherence of the imagined nation. And so, if we recall Clint’s attempts as a lecturer and curator to control the story of the “aborigine,” we can imagine that the “duty” of the British to “raise” the “heathen” can no longer be naturalized or normalized. The canadien vote for social democracy rewrote dominant ideas of nationhood. Once the story of the nation as a “colony to nation” itself was transgressed by that of French Canadian nationalisme, the object collection lost its vote and dissolved into separate artifacts. These were conserved, at least in theory, as part of an “anglophone” patrimony through the be-

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nevolence of the archivist of the APQ (the objects, of course, remain in the APQ ). The painting of the Royal William is now restored and hangs in the Musée National des Beaux-Arts du Quebec.

Archival notes I returned to the LHSQ archive last year in order to check that my earlier citations were accurate. In the intervening years, the archive had finally been moved to the Archives Publiques du Québec, which created an interesting dilemma. I now wasn’t allowed to see what I had already seen! The files are open only to researchers who receive permission from the LHSQ . When I contacted the new Morrin Cultural Centre, I eventually e-mailed the new director, explained my situation, and received his permission. I then had to send this permission to the Archives (in writing) in order to see again the files I had worked with ten years earlier. The irony kept me laughing through a frustrating process! So this little conversation about archival tensions focuses on the literal search through the public archive and its current impossible state. I arranged a visit despite some difficulty identifying exactly what I wanted to see. When I got to Quebec, I had two days. The archivist pulled two boxes, and I thought there must be more. As I couldn’t find the files that contained letters from Dalhousie pertaining to the LHSQ , I made an appointment to talk to the archivist on duty. What we eventually realized was that there were another forty uncatalogued boxes in storage. Needless to say, I wasn’t able to verify every citation that I had previously noted. The archivist said that she doubted the boxes would be catalogued any time soon due to funding constraints, but I was welcome to have each box brought up. I think that will have to wait for now, but I can reassure the eager researcher following in my footsteps that each of those boxes is internally organized, just not “in the system.” When I first tried to find the full image of the interior of Morrin College, I ran into numerous difficulties. When I looked for it in the digital files of the Library and Archives of Canada site, all that was available was a cropped digital version depicting the lower third of the image. At that point in early 2007, when I was doing most of this research, the Library and Archives of Canada did not know if it could find the rest of the image. So, in the meantime, I had access to a poor copy that was part of the virtual exhibition created to market the reconceptualized version of the Literary and Historical Society of Quebec as the Morrin Cultural Centre (http://www.morrin.org/eclectica/demof.html). The

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first seconds of the video comically present the stereotypical librarian, Mrs Beardsley, who enters the Morrin Centre and then turns to introduce the collection in a combination of spoken blather and text options in English and in French. The video then depicts the library room of the former LHSQ . Viewers actually looking for serious archival material might notice the carved bas-relief featuring two female figures reaching across a roundel in whose shadow a book-like icon lies. The figures look like personifications of Greek and Latin learning, judging by the clothing (Greek chiton and very loose-fitting toga/drapery, respectively). Above the roundel is a banner with the words “Magnum Opus.” There is no other indication of what is in the opus. The viewer must click on the book icon, which unfolds like a booklet on historical societies. It is titled “The Succinctly Erudite Boffin’s Guide to Learned Societies.” If one makes it to section 6.2, the 1879 image of the LHSQ meeting is visible, but not discussed. This boffin was left grateful for the image but puzzled about whether I’m the jerk.

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# PART TWO

`

Visibly Public: Spectacularizing Social Identities in Victorian Canada

$ We are Canadians. We recognize no monopoly on this name. It is by this honoured name that we insist on being called. – Leigh Gregor, 1898

When Leigh Gregor claimed the label “Canadians” for all people living in Canada in 1898,1 he argued that a new Canadian patriotism was in the process of being realized. Canadien, he argued, should no longer apply just to the descendants of the seventeenth-century French settlers. A professor at McGill University, Gregor brought an authoritative form of learnedness to his 1898 lecture presented to the Literary and Historical Society of Quebec. Talking to a room of English-speaking peers, he laid claim to a term that had been viewed negatively by British colonists for eight decades. He argued that there were three different levels (not types) of

patriotism: Canadian patriotism, British patriotism, and Imperial patriotism.2 He also insisted that these patriotisms were mutually compatible. Gregor suggested that the past twenty years Canadians saw the country change, saying “in recent times we have made veritable strides in the consciousness and pride of nationality.”3 In speaking to this emerging new Canadian patriotism, he pointed towards a changing awareness of the breadth of the country, as opposed to the specificity of each province: “Two great peoples, each representing high traditions, jealous of their dignity and their nationality, are citizens of a common country.”4 He added that while he was not sure what form “the New Canadian Patriotism” would take, he was sure “that it will rest on the corner-stone of concord and honourable emulation between the French and English sections of our people, upon common devotion to a common country.”5 Gregor acknowledged recent political debates concerned with the pros and cons of either maintaining the political status quo (of a self-governing colony such as the new Dominion of Canada) or moving towards a closer identification with imperial interests. “I rejoice,” he said, “as a Canadian when I see a true British patriot like Sir Wilfrid Laurier take the initiative in Imperial legislation.”6 As a canadien who had become the prime minister in 1896, Laurier personified Gregor’s notion of “common devotion to a common country.”7 This period, in the 1890s, of reciprocal respect between French and English populations, and of mutual – and oft-voiced – fidelity to the crown involved a remarkable series of public events that beg close attention. Numerous retellings and restagings of the story of British Canada were reconstituting and reimagining (as well as re-imaging) seemingly incompatible social identities. I argue that in the often-paradoxical visual renderings of assumed and desired social relations in late-Victorian Canada we see a spectacularization of particular identities. As Jim Mac Laughlin argued in Reimagining the Nation State (2001), the early stages of evolution of modern nations were rarely imagined or natural; instead, they authenticated themselves through a variety of structures and practices.8 Here, I examine how these processes were often spectacular in their representation and consumption. Large-scale forms of public celebration and commemoration depended on a variety of visual strategies to visibly define complex, slippery social relations. Virtually the entire population participated, to some extent, in the production and consumption of these spectacular events, making these visual articulations particularly momentous in understanding the visual culture of mid- to late-nineteenth-century Canada. The last decades of the nineteenth century saw the citizens of the Canadas, now Quebec and Ontario, work through the processes of national belonging and difference

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in significantly public ways. This is not to say that there were no parades or large social events earlier – of course there were (St. Patrick’s Day parades and carnivals in Canada East; St-Jean-Baptiste Day and fireworks in Canada East). Rather, there was an attenuation of large, public events staged on a grand scale in the second half of the nineteenth century. In this section of the book, I focus on how these spectacular public events had a constitutive role in convincing the public of the beliefs and benefits of post-Confederation Victorian Canada.9 I draw attention to this period of Queen Victoria’s reign because the celebration of her longevity exposes tensions and ambivalence in the relation between the newly created dominion and the imperial mother country of the British colonies. Specifically, I examine grandstand spectacles at the Toronto Industrial Fair – later named the Canadian National Exhibition (CNE) – and the celebration of Queen Victoria’s sixtieth jubilee in Quebec. These case studies allow a close examination of particular circumstances in the three largest cities of the dominion: Toronto, Quebec City, and Montreal. In these rapidly urbanizing and expanding populations, civic, provincial, and national interests are experienced as contradictory, paradoxical, and sometimes incredibly spectacular. In the 1980s and 1990s both cultural and social studies saw a surge in academic research on spectacle, parades, exhibitions, ritual space, souvenirs, and other forms of public celebration. Major contributions from scholars such as Robert Rydell on world’s fairs, and Mary Ryan and Susan Davis on nineteenth-century American parades developed theories of public celebration as a critical example of spectacle and civic ritual.10 In Britain and France, work on nationalism and identity often drew upon the histories of public ceremony staging – part of a larger turn to the representation and consumption of negotiated identities.11 Spectacle has been understood as social ritual,12 symbolic,13 carnivalesque,14 a form of public protest15 or celebration,16 and as ethnically specific.17 The literature on fairs and exhibitions has looked at how these practices manifest in a wide range of social phenomena: from world’s fairs, such as the Chicago or Paris Expositions, to relatively small country fairs.18 Parades offer another instance of civic order and have been studied across time and place, ranging from studies on Renaissance France to twentieth-century China. Likewise, the 1990s witnessed a growth of academic interest in the history and significance of specifically Canadian parades and public spectacle. Research tended to focus on specific interest groups, such as labour groups or university students in Toronto, or singular events, such as the visit of the Prince of Wales in 1860, or the 1907 tercentenary of Quebec.19 Cecilia Morgan’s analysis of the gendered performances of E. Pauline Johnson

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and John Brant‐Sero in Britain reminds us that spectacle was exported as well as local, gendered, and conflicted.20 Particularly beneficial with respect to the history of public spectacle in Quebec is Ronald Rudin’s Founding Fathers, in which he examines “celebrations on the streets” of historical figures Champlain and Laval.21 Among a range of practices, he outlines the rejection by the canadiens of the tercentenary events in 1908 in favour of a three-day commemoration of Laval. Thus while some work has been done on my objects of interest – the CNE and the St-Jean-Baptiste Day celebrations – I expand the grounds of inquiry by linking case studies from both Quebec and Ontario, cutting across and into canadien and British interests. Investigations of spectacle as a part of a larger event, such as the Canadian National Exhibition, have provided glimpses of the narrative and theatrical element of grandstand events.22 While this book does not aim to address the relationship of theatre history to spectacle, the relation is clearly played out through scenic effects,23 storylines, and acting styles.24 I refer to theatre when relevant in the case studies, but as a complex and separate art form, theatre needs its own deep study. These evolving narratives remain focused irredeemably on white and male protagonists. We see some women of varying classes in public activities, but generally in an ancillary way.25 They crowd the streets and the grandstands, but rarely participate other than to watch or be watched. Decorous or decorative, they nevertheless are present, unlike the unseen and unacknowledged minorities that were resident in the Canadas. While the story of spectacularization of identity is my main concern here, these practices are always residing in local practices of exclusion that stabilize visible identity. Aboriginals are treated as props, primitive and savage; black people are seldom represented in any capacity, despite their presence in Montreal prior to the British.26 I point out these marginalized presences when I find them.27 Sometimes I can do little more than simply note their occurrence, but truly the absences in the archive are staggering. I refer to how these gaps and absences affect my storytelling in some of the archival notes. Largely with respect to American or European events, much of the scholarship of the 1980s and ’90s explores the relationship between power, politics, civic identities, and public rituals of display.28 The public consumption of shared memories has opened up debate about the significance of souvenirs and other commercial forms, some of which we see in both the Toronto Industrial Fair and the Quebec jubilee celebrations.29 More recently, the relation between public display practices and various categories of belonging (with respect to race, gender, sexuality, ethnicity) have helped to complicate the perceived opposition of ritual and spectacle.30

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Cultural anthropology has offered new scholarship on the received notion that ritual arises from traditions of transformation and spectacle from institutions of modernity. Michael Herzfeld uses the concept of “displays of order” to explore how public displays function as both sites of resistance and sites of conformity.31 While I do not collapse the two concepts into one, I do seek to complicate spectacle by acknowledging the way that strategies of ritual, especially the reliance on repetition/reiteration, inform its realization and its effect on identities formation. In this section, I examine some of the ways in which the spectacularization of visual culture attains public following through novel and extravagant sensory strategies.

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Z  Chapter four  Y

Staging a Siege: Or, the Cultural Politics of Re-Producing Modern History In the late 1800s, the Dominion and Industrial Fair of Toronto was probably the largest annual fair in North America. Over the course of only sixteen days, 102,000 people visited the first exhibition in 1879.1 By 1887, 210,000 attended the twelve-day fair – an audience almost twice the resident population of Toronto at the time.2 The evening grandstand spectacle – featuring extensive fireworks and various presentations – drew an audience of 10,000 to 20,000 nightly. Fairgoers timed their visits so that they could review the various fairground attractions before settling in for the evening’s grandstand events. The fair was becoming an enormously popular and significant social event. However, entertainment was never meant to be the primary purpose of the fair. The mandate of the fair association was to educate the citizenry by encouraging the development of agriculture, horticulture, arts, and manufactures. Yet the fair’s very popularity threatened to disrupt this mandate. In a period when social proprieties dictated relatively narrow limits to social behaviour, the fair was a troubling phenomenon. Citizens saw the fair as having the potential to tempt as well as to educate. Popularity brought notoriety. Public opinion, reflected in the various newspapers through letters to the editor, articles, and advertising, revealed an ongoing debate about what was seemly and unseemly, desirable and undesirable, in the shows’ content and the visitors’ behaviour. Sometimes the local accommodations were minor, but when the exhibition set up a one-mile “busker-free zone” around the grounds, the organizers’ efforts to keep the fair educational and of moral benefit for the pubic became more evident. Often a letter to the editor resulted in the fair making official policy changes on the spot, as when complaints about the belly dancers on the midway in 1893 resulted in that part of the act being shut down overnight.

Announcements of such changes would be published promptly in the newspaper – whatever it took to keep the crowds coming. The grandstand spectacle often lasted two hours and featured a number of warm-up acts, such as jugglers, singers, and horseback daredevils, as the prelude to the main event. By the mid-1880s, the main event was a spectacular restaging of an historic event, such as The Last Days of Pompeii or The Burning of Moscow. The spectacles were either imported from other fairs in North America or England, or produced locally. The shows incorporated text, sound, light, staging, and numerous performers. Fireworks, known as pyrotechniques, were integral to the narrative. Set pieces depicting a brief, fiery vignette or figure typically provided a grand finale. However, both with respect to the grandstand acts and the fair as a whole, the Toronto public consumed mass culture’s offerings cautiously. This chapter looks at how and why tensions between entertainment and education affected the production and consumption of the grandstand events. In the multiplicity of its functioning, this form of visual spectacle – what we might call nineteenth-century “edutainment” – served to mediate, create, and reproduce contemporary social discourse about a negotiated citizenship in the post-Confederation Dominion of Canada. As a dominion, Canada kept a foot in its colonial past, while also producing rhetoric of territorial consolidation. I argue that while historical spectacle produced between 1882 and 1900 was unabashedly entertainment, it also visually codified cultural narratives about citizenship, empire, and Britishness. These historical spectacles in fact functioned as grand-scale object lessons. Given that the organizers of the Dominion and Industrial Fair were members of a local public who largely identified as British, it is unsurprising that many of these historical spectacles spoke directly to their Victorian audiences.3 And the practices of exclusion upon which inclusion in the post-Confederation Dominion of Canada depended were physically embedded in these visual and sensory tales.

On historical spectacle in Toronto In the last half of the nineteenth century, large public spectacles were increasingly common in major urban centres such as Toronto, Hamilton, Montreal, and Quebec City, and in similar centres in the United States such as St Louis, New York, and Chicago. Apparently the first Dominion and Industrial Fair (1879) arose from a frustration on the part of Toronto-area business and agricultural associations over the peri-

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patetic nature of the provincial agricultural fair. The province-wide fair travelled to various urban centres during its early history. It came to Toronto approximately once every four years (the other favoured sites being Kingston, Hamilton, London, and Ottawa). The success of the Dominion and Industrial Fair in 1879 guaranteed that this fair became an annual Toronto event. The title seems to have varied a few times in the first twenty years; sometimes it was referred to as the Industrial Fair (1893) and other times just as the Dominion Fair or the Dominion and Industrial Exhibition. Nevertheless, the fair occurred annually, attracted huge crowds, and introduced virtually every new invention to Toronto visitors. In recognition of its draw and size it was eventually renamed the Canadian National Exhibition (CNE ) in 1904, and it continues even today to attract over 100,000 people in a twoweek period each year. The urban public that attended these fairs was gradually becoming accustomed to large social gatherings, such as civic parades (see chapter 6), military reviews, and agricultural fairs. In 1879, although there was no show per se, the arrival of the governor general to open the first Dominion and Industrial Exhibition turned the first day into a spectacular event. The “Queen City,” as Toronto was nicknamed, was extensively illuminated at night, and James Pain exhibited special fireworks at the exhibition. Toronto’s grandstand spectacles of the 1880s and ’90s were indeed grand affairs by anyone’s measure. The length and magnitude of the performances, and the resulting attendance figures, were trumpeted as superior to anything ever presented elsewhere in Canada, and, generally, in the United States.4 In focusing on the specifics of these grandstand events, I am exploring how spectacle worked at certain moments in time. A comprehensive survey of the newspaper commentaries and the advertising brochures produced by the fair committee each year between 1879 and 1900 reveals that there was a growing interest in spectacular presentations from at least 1882. The years between 1882 and the end of the century are particularly telling in terms of grandstand events. Below, I start with a consideration of the 1882 military display and theatrical destruction of a mock schooner, entitled the Arabi Pasha, which seems to have kindled a taste for historical re-enactment in Toronto. In addition to this initial theatre, I examine grandstand spectacles such as The Siege of Pekin (sic, Beijing) (1887), The Siege of Sebastopol (1888), and The Burning of Moscow (1889) to establish how the first spectacles took shape. I focus particularly on the staging of The Battle of Tel-el-Kebir (1893) as an example of a production with many players,

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a complex script, and local details. Resistance from Torontonians to certain elements in the show reveals the irruption of local subjectivities into the apparent homogeneity of these travelling fairground shows. In the case of The Siege of Sebastopol – a spectacle that had toured in Britain, the United States, and elsewhere in Canada – the staging of the Toronto production was based on a story by a local soldier who had participated in the original battle. The nearly twenty years of historical spectacle at the Dominion and Industrial Fair includes fairly consistent tension arising from local spectators. They pushed and complained and more or less made the shows suit themselves. They expected to see local soldiers perform the sieges, hear local bands provide the acoustic ambiance, and see local fireworks companies “stage” explosions, yet these audiences also demanded a truth in representation. Spectators complained about racy entertainers, yet insisted on bloody details in battle. Equally, the producers of the grand events were driven by the need to succeed financially, which often conflicted with the fairground management mandate to educate. Before examining these events and their narratives of verisimilitude, I propose a theoretical framework for a both locally specific and generic set of interpretative criteria. What mechanisms participate in the consolidation of social memory? What is happening in this “spectacular space”?

Theorizing spectacle, social memory, and public storytelling In his early work on the Olympic Games, John MacAloon proposes a theory of spectacle as a social phenomenon distinct from festivals, games, and rituals.5 In seeking to more narrowly define cultural performance from the all-inclusive behavioural models proposed by social anthropologists Erving Goffman and Gregory Bateson (among others), MacAloon argues that the importance of spectacles resides in their emphasis on “visual, sensory and symbolic codes; they are things to be seen.”6 MacAloon argues that spectacle is a “public form of thinking out, of telling stories about certain growing ambiguities and ambivalences in our shared existence.”7 Events that are meant to be seen, spectacles provide a means through which a negotiated social identity can be imagined and embodied. The stories of shared existence that inform social identity – including aspects of belonging, difference, and ambivalence – are made tangible in the sensory field created via spectacle. This seems particularly true in the case of post-Confederation

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Ontario, where provincial antagonisms encouraged the bypassing of nationalist identity in favour of a British identity. Although MacAloon focuses on the twentieth-century phenomenon of the Olympics, he provides a useful conceptualization of the visuality of spectacle in general; he argues that spectacle “is about seeing, sight, and oversight.”8 The conjunction of seeing, sight, and oversight means that we have to look not only at what is said but also at what is not said, and, in the case of ongoing spectacles, how oversight is incorporated into what is shown. In addition to examining extant evidence, we need to look at negative evidence – gaps in the archive. However, paying attention to the elements that are absent in representation is difficult, for how do we know what is missing, overlooked, or purposefully not shown? In addition to spectacles, a number of educational entertainments were popular during the nineteenth century. Forerunners to the popular culture of the twentieth century, panoramas, dioramas, and cycloramas introduced large-scale, popular optical media.9 Denise Oleksijczuk has argued that panoramas not only identify and locate objects in three-dimensional space but they also bring politically charged historical narrative. Furthermore, the technological innovations of the panorama, such as the ability to show two different views of the same city, created a sense of truthfulness about the representation. As she eloquently states, “the act of seeing” is changed into “the act of believing.” Thus, these kinds of visual spectacle can be understood as a form of edutainment that taught and supported identities.10 If spectacles, particularly historical enactments, can be envisioned as the tangible stories of shared existence, which in turn locate the citizen with responsibilities to the modern state, then we need to consider how such stories work. An enormous amount of work has been done on nineteenth-century historiography, particularly the impact of postmodernism on the understanding of history.11 In what follows, I consider the significance of thinking about how history is written into and by visual culture. In his reflection on the significance of cultural studies for historians, Iain McCalman offers the following: “representation and experience might be ontologically distinct, but most of us [historians] agree that they are mutually constitutive. Structure shapes practice, but equally practice generates new structures.” He continues with an observation on the “storyness” of life. Of interest to me is his use of the phrase “cultural narratives” as meaning “those stories that circulate widely and insistently across many media within a specific society or set of societies over a given period of time. These include non-literary

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forms such as theatrical performances, spectacles, shows, paintings, prints, and songs.”12 It is this storyness that I have been exploring for the last fifteen years. I believe that one of the most significant contributions to the telling of stories about history emerged from Hayden White’s work on nineteenth-century narrativity. In “The Value of Narrativity,” White draws attention to the importance of narrative closure, by which he means that the “tale” is written with a moral ending clear to the historian from the first word. The romanticized history writing of the nineteenth century often invoked this narrative strategy.13 White writes, “Narrativity … is intimately related to … the impulse to moralize reality, that is, to identify it with the social system that is the source of any morality that we can imagine.”14 White’s interpretation of Thomas Carlyle’s The French Revolution (1837), for instance, provides a way to think about the significance of narrative form as employed in nineteenth-century re-enactments of historical events. White argues that the detailed accounting of the sights, sounds, and smells of the revolutionary making his way along Parisian streets evokes a visceral experience for Carlyle’s reader. The moral justice of the battle is embedded sensorially in the narrative as it unfolds: “O glorious France, that has burst into universal sound and smoke; and attained – the Phrygian Cap of Liberty!”15 White argues that romantic “emplotment,” or shaping, of the historical narrative by the historian’s poetic style sought to evoke sentiment, which stirred readers to imagine themselves on the battle lines.16 Certainly the emphasis on sensory experience calls to mind the empiricist insistence on knowledge obtained from sense experience. Common to most, if not all, grandstand spectacle was a particular type of historical writing such as White examines in Metahistory.17 He looks in detail at Tolstoy’s The Sebastopol Sketches (1856), which is written as a firsthand account of the Crimean War and gestures towards his later work, War and Peace (1868). As part of a much larger, more complex argument, White attempts to set up a way of organizing historical texts into categories; the historian presents the evidence through three means: emplotment, argument, and ideological implication. One of the types of emplotment is Romance, which is the drama of selfidentification, including a hero’s triumph over evil. Romance in turn often uses a formal descriptive mode of argument, as in “any historiography in which the depiction of the variety, color, and vividness of the historical field is taken as the central aim of the work.”18 In his study of Tolstoy’s Sebastapol Sketches, White points out this formal characteristic in the way the story represents the experience of “Everyman,” or the

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man in the street – in this case, foot soldiers as well as officers, citizens as well as militia. Tolstoy’s story of aggressive patriotism alongside a desire to inform the Russian public of the truth of the army’s deficiency created a kind of realism that echoed the emerging Realist school in European art. Indeed, the desire to convey the everyday realities of contemporary life, and its accompanying distress, chaos, and contradictions, informed much avant-garde artistic production. White also ties nineteenth-century history writing to the attempts to write a nationalist discourse emerging from a sense of social identity rooted in a shared experience.19 In History and Criticism, Dominick LaCapra draws attention to the “dream of a ‘total history’ corroborating the [nineteenth-century] historian’s own desire for mastery of a documentary repertoire and furnishing the reader with a vicarious sense of – or perhaps a project for – control in a world out of joint.”20 LaCapra’s focus on the historian’s attempt to impose order on complex and paradoxical events provides a way of thinking about how the designer/producer of the grandstand spectacle acts as a nineteenth-century writer of history. Taking cues from contemporary historical fiction, like Tolstoy’s, or from news reports of recent battles, the designer/producer writes and stages a spectacular narrative – one that arguably furnishes the viewer with a vicarious sense of control in a changing world. Like White’s argument about moral closure, sensory experience, and the narrative form of historical writing, LaCapra reinforces the need to look at how the narratives of history are recounted. The relationship between narrative and spectacle has been taken up in provocative ways in the field of film studies by writers such as Geoff King, Steve Neale, and Tom Brown.21 In particular, Brown turns to theoretical work on spectacle and posits a clearer relation of historical film to historical spectacle. Referring to King, Brown explores the idea that narrative implies a horizontal linearity and spectacle calls on a moment of vertical wonder. By this King means that an audience expects narrative to unfold along a linear timeline, whereas spectacle produces its effect in a vertical moment of time. Brown challenges this seeming oppositional approach, as it presents a “clear obstacle to the consideration of the significance of spectacle to story.”22 Brown thus proposes two categories of historical spectacle within historical films: “decor of history” and “the spectacular vista.”23 For my purposes, his notion of spectacular vista is significant: “excessive in scale and qualitatively excessive (a battle occupying a large valley would be a stereotypical example)” (parentheses in original).24 He argues that the mere Staging a Siege  151

depiction of the spectacular vista does not in itself create spectacle, and draws attention to the strategic devices of film such as the use of lighting, movement, crane shots, etc., that establish the scene as spectacular storytelling (not mere decor). Similarly, I argue that the grandstand spectacle used particular strategies of representation – point of view, lighting, music, sound, fireworks – to enhance the “historical gaze,” i.e., “the gaze [that] addresses the knowledge of the spectator at the same time as proposing a look to the future, a foresight, in which the character appears to see his own place in history.”25 Brown also argues that in historical spectacle, this gaze is a means through which films address the historical knowledge of the spectator – so spectacle is not necessarily confined to static “vertical” space (as King suggested) but has the potential to move horizontally through projected linear time simultaneously as it occupies a singular moment in time. The combination, while paradoxical, is achieved at least temporarily through the use of strategic devices of film. Other contemporaneous visual forms using narrative, such as panorama, are also related to spectacular history-telling. In Shivers Down Your Spine (2008), Alison Griffiths explores the visceral power of the panorama (as well as science museums, IMAX cinema, and the planetarium) as forms of immersion. She argues that such an “immersive view” functions as a short-lived invitation to step inside a virtual, highly illusionistic world.26 While the immersive spaces she studies do involve a mix of education and entertainment, nevertheless I distinguish the spectacle from the kinds of immersion Griffiths discusses. Spectacle presents a highly illusionistic world that is all the while meant to function as realistic.27 Unlike the short-lived immersive view that Griffiths argues characterizes the panorama, the cinema, and the planetarium, the strategies of representation employed in spectacle – indeed the very intentions of historical narrative – are not short-lived or ephemeral. However, they do engage the body in an interactive fashion, involving many of the spectatorship issues raised by Griffiths. Historical spectacles work by enticing the viewer to vicariously participate in a decisive moment. The pyrotechnics, panoramic scenery, and sounds of battling legions engage the viewer in a multimedia sensory experience that concludes with the moral authority of historical “fact.” Victory and righteousness are embedded in the spectacle. Spectators already know the outcome: the acts leading to the finale proceed with a narrative clarity that protects the viewer from overexposure to the underside of the battle experience. Political uncertainties are

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edited out of the sensory experiences of the viewer. Failures in strategy, battles, or even wars are rewritten as steps towards successful outcomes. The constructed truth of the events is what is remembered and re-membered, i.e., felt in the body. This is what is seen, felt, and heard by the spectators of grandstand historical spectacle. Fatigued by the day’s activities, closely packed into the stands, jealously guarding good seats with a view, the spectators anticipate and receive an experience of affect.28 These are not passive experiences, presenting a mere simulacrum of everyday life. Thus the particular events selected for representation are significant; moreover, historical re-enactments retain an attachment to specific occurrences – quite unlike Guy Debord’s argument that all modern spectacle is a refusal of lived reality. While specifically talking about modern society in the context of the 1960s, Debord’s understanding of spectacle as mere simulacra has dominated much of the academic discussion of the genre (regardless of period). Debord argues that society tends to re-enact its alienation from lived experience as it watches itself, that is, the society itself becomes a form of spectacle.29 Debord claims that media-saturated twentieth-century viewers are distanced from events, which have become mere spectacle, devoid of human agency. To some degree, we can see this in current visual politics – in which CNN , for example, defines the reality of war. However, the notion of spectacle as a genre of cultural performance that reenacts, modifies, and challenges strategies of knowing about modern life suggests that this form of representation is not merely simulacra but is in fact a paradoxical genre. While historical spectacle fictionalizes, it also attempts paradoxically to re-member a lived reality – if not a contemporary reality, then one that lies within the viewer’s historical imagination. Thus historical spectacle attempts to stabilize a multitude of events, details, and beliefs into a functional social narrative. And it does this in a period of transition between old world values and modern technologies, between the development of numerous visual devices – the stereoscope, the cyclorama, the photograph, the moving panorama, historical spectacle – and the development of film. Where does this leave us, then, with respect to the historical spectacle? I suggest that in order to comprehend the complexity of visual codes and meanings that reside in the historical re-enactments, we need to consider the role of visual storytelling in “the spectacular historical vista”: spectacle; the moral closure implied in that historical narrative; the genre-specific aspects of cultural performance; narratalogical desire; as well as the representational strategies of affective

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dramaturgy. This form of dramaturgy does not preclude storytelling but seeks to enhance it through the sensory amplification of specific moments in the tale. With nineteenth-century spectacle, the audience could have their cake and eat it too: they could feel the affect of contemporary theatre combined with the civic pride associated with realistic narratives of progress and civilization.

Producing historical spectacle Historical spectacle typically included dramatic performance, elaborate sets, scripts, and painted scenery. An extensive literature has developed in the last decade on the variety of visual culture representing historical events in the early and mid-nineteenth century. In The Spectacular Past, Maurice Samuels focuses on the visual impact of romantic “historical spectacle” found in wax displays, panoramas, and boulevard theatres.30 Rosemary Mitchell has traced the contemporary emergence of this kind of visual history in England.31 Isabelle Saint-Martin, Lise Andriés, and Geneviève Boléme map out the form, thematics, and audiences of such productions in France.32 Caroline Hodak’s fine thesis on French and English circuses examines the movement of certain forms of equestrian shows towards circus events. Hodak argues persuasively that the “staging of collective ties through the representation of [historical and current] events” owed at least as much to London as to Paris.33 In North America, the representation of historical events was rooted in specific British sources, but reflected the general interest in historical spectacle in Europe at the time. In the last two decades of the nineteenth century, a form of historical spectacle emerged in Canada, the United States, and on the continent that moved from the interior stage to the large performance spaces available at exhibition and fairgrounds. This expansion of scale meant that pyrotechnics – the science of firework displays – could be used as part of the scenic narrative. While the use of fireworks was relatively common in the celebration of civic events in North America and elsewhere, their use in spectacular re-enactments intensified the demand for more dramatic fireworks. This included more elaborate set pieces and more integration of fireworks into the drama. Set pieces were “set” or staged as a single piece. Fireworks would be attached to an elaborate wooden framing that facilitated the lighting of multiple fireworks in a coordinated fashion. They could also take the form of a coordinated release of coloured fireworks that looked like a wheel or arch. Other set

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4.1  “Grande Finale of Fire-works in Honor of the Prince of Wales and the Successful Completion of Victoria Bridge, Montreal, Canada,” by G.A. Lilliendahl, Esq., of New York, August 1860.

pieces included fireworks arranged on frames that could be raised into the air using helium balloons. A rare night view of a fireworks exhibition in Montreal, Quebec, was published to commemorate the visit of Prince Albert (Prince of Wales), who attended the inauguration of the Victoria Bridge in 1860.34 The engraving illustrates an enactment of Poseidon riding a shellshaped chariot, fireworks, and set pieces. In the lower left side, a boat is decorated and lit up as if the god of the sea, Poseidon, were leading his sea horses across the harbour – a symbol of the power of the sea. The fireworks were set up on floating platforms (probably rowboats) arranged alongside the new bridge. Along the dock are three large set pieces formed by attaching gaslights to wood frames. On the left we see the Prince of Wales’ heraldic badge consisting of three feathers and the motto “Ich Dien” (an abbreviation of German for “I serve”). The middle piece illustrates an elaborate fountain with water seemingly spouting out the mouths of sea mammals. On the right is the official coat of arts for the monarchy, with the rampant lion and unicorn, the

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shield of the Order of the Garter, and the motto “Dieu et Mon Droit” (French for “God and My Right”). The literal reference to divine right to rule, alongside the symbolism of the prince and Poseidon, and the new technology of the bridge, all reiterate the power and progress of the British Empire. This image illustrates the way in which fireworks were used to create visual narrative, sometimes symbolic, sometimes literally spelling out words. The elaborate unfolding of spectacles depended on the role of fireworks and lighting effects. Staged fireworks began to be incorporated into the larger interior venues as part of the dramatic events in Canada in the early 1880s. The strategic placing and lighting of a shooting star firework could, for example, make it seem that a building had been shelled. Firecrackers produced a sound not unlike the recently manufactured Gatling gun – an early form of the machine gun. Multiple streamers implied the explosion of an armoury. Thus elaborate firework productions demanded skill, experience, and a certain amount of bravery, as it was often unstable combinations of gunpowder and chemicals that produced the effects of colour and light. One of the most prolific of the nineteenth-century firework manufacturers was a self-declared professor, James Pain of London, England, who was the pyrotechnicist to the Military Academy. Pain and Sons made fireworks and produced spectacular set piece displays for royal and civil events. Pain’s father produced the displays in Hyde Park that celebrated the signing of the first Treaty of Paris in 1814. The Pain family name was associated with “shining gunpowder” as early as the seventeenth century, with the arrival of the first Pain, a Huguenot from the Channel Islands who settled in London and manufactured gunpowder for the government of King Charles II. Figure 4.2 is an advertisement for Pain’s early twentieth-century fireworks below a view of the Hyde Park fireworks of 1814.35 This was a particularly elaborate staging, in which the summer palace in Hyde Park served as the mount for various fireworks and set pieces. The feathers of the Prince of Wales are clearly visible on the left side of the image. The simultaneous explosion of fireworks created the impression of a feathery crown emanating from the building. The extensive light cast is the illustrator’s way of showing how strong and long-lasting the “unnatural” light is in comparison to the dark area of the background. By the 1880s, Pain and Sons had offices in London, Liverpool, New York, and Melbourne. This expansion occurred simultaneously with the integration of fireworks into elaborate historical spectacle. In an article on the Pain family business, Eric Montague argues that Pain pioneered the business in

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4.2  Advertisement for “Pain’s Fireworks” from the late nineteeth century, including a colourized version of the display in Hyde Park, London, in 1814, an early poster for Guy Fawkes Night fireworks, and examples of fireworks in original wrappings.

North America, and by 1884 his son, Henry John Pain, took over the American interests.36 Henry Pain established a small stage for outdoor performances at Manhattan Beach, New York. At least one rival gunpowder firm emerged in North America, in the small-scale operations of Professor Hand & Co. Founded in 1859 by William Hand in Thorold, Ontario, the company soon after moved to the larger city of Hamilton. Working with Walter Teale, the two provided fireworks for numerous local fairs and civic events.37 The large displays that Hand produced in the 1860s and ’70s usually consisted of set pieces that ranged from depictions of animals, such as pigs or cows (appropriate for agricultural fairs), or a crown (often to commemorate a royal event, such as the queen’s jubilee). Thus Canadian fairgoers

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began to anticipate fireworks displays as part of the grand finale or closing events of the fair. Under the headline of “entertainments,” newspapers would announce the type and extent of fireworks as a way of attracting a large, paying audience. Other entertainments included such features as the “Little World,” arguably educational as well as entertaining in its depiction of famous buildings in miniature. Demonstrations of livestock, even horse dressage, were listed under “agriculture.” The line between pure entertainment and education was drawn but remained slippery. In the next section, I look at how a demonstration of new technology at the Dominion and Industrial Fair helped stimulate demand for elaborate edutainment in Toronto.

The Arabi Pasha: fact and fiction In a promotional brochure for the fourth Dominion and Industrial Exhibition in 1882, the directors of the fair association enticed the public with the promise of a live demonstration of military prowess. The military often participated in civic events, such as a “march past,” in which a troop would literally present itself for inspection by marching past a visiting dignitary such as the governor general. His presence would prompt a celebration of pomp and circumstance, often including a march past with colours (flags and standards), performances by military bands, or equestrian manoeuvres. The public was generally invited to such events, both to see the dignitary and to witness the strength of the local military. Acquainted with military march pasts, the public was familiar with the numbers and physical deportment of soldiers on parade, but this event promised more: a realistic demonstration of military hardware. The advertisement declared, “A Special Grand Practical Illustration of the Mode of Modern Warfare in the water and the use of the Torpedo will be given on the lake in front of the Exhibition Grounds by the Firing and Explosion of Shells on, and the blowing to atoms of a large vessel prepared to represent a Man of War, under the direction, by special permission, of an officer of the Royal Military College and Kingston, and Major Gray’s Toronto Field Battery of Artillery.”38 At least, this was the intention. But what initially was meant to be an edifying demonstration of Canadian military competence became a means of visually representing the recent success of the British military in Egypt and the Sudan.39 In the weeks and days immediately preceding the opening of the 1882 exhibition, headlines dominated the newspapers that described

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the British attack against Ahmed Orabi Pasha (known to Europeans at the time as Arabi Pasha), who was the leader of the anti-colonial resistance movement – the “Egyptian rebels” as they were branded at the time. Part of a long military presence in what was then known as the Soudan, the British campaign was closely followed in the press. In the week of 4 September, the estimates of Orabi’s forces at 30,000 men far outweighed the 12,000 to 15,000 men under British General Garnet Joseph Wolseley. Some estimates of the rebel forces reached 62,000.40 Reports in the press alluded to the ineffectiveness of Wolseley’s command – his training of the troops and incompetence in the reckless exposure of men to sunstroke.41 Orabi was reported as “bold,” a threat to the Suez Canal, holding a formidable position, and there were serious fears of a “native uprising.”42 However, on the morning of 11 September, new headlines declared “Arabi Repulsed” and “A Magnificent Victory” at Kassasin.43 Suddenly, estimates of Orabi’s forces plummeted, Wolseley was back in favour, and newspapers confidently predicted victory for the British. Just as quickly, a “large vessel” (a refitted schooner) moored off the exhibition grounds was named the Arabi Pasha, and the originally scheduled demonstration of Canadian military capabilities became an opportunity to glorify British imperial prowess. Descriptions of the “to-bedestroyed ship” started to appear in the press. Now the focus was on the “rakish looking craft, a brigantine … She had a black hull, and her appearance was entirely in keeping with the flag she flew, half-pirate and half man-of-war.”44 Using black pasteboard and wooden framing, the fair organizers modified the schooner to present a profile that echoed a man-of-war or ironclad, an early warship that was familiar to the public. Visible in outline form, a representation of Orabi was positioned on the deck. The pseudo-warship presented a recognizable outline, which would appear in wartime illustrations in the press. For example, several ironclads patrolling the Suez Canal are shown on the front page of the 9 September 1882, edition of the Canadian Illustrated News.45 The ironclad or man-of-war is depicted with an active war pennant flying from the mast, and the British man-of-war flag flies aft. A ship that did not show its colours (its flag) would be taken to be the enemy or a pirate ship, and could be fired upon without warning. The words used by the Toronto press originally to describe the “large vessel prepared to represent a Man of War” shifted to include colourful language such as “rakish,” “black,” and “half-pirate and half man-of-war.” The tone of the description exemplifies a dramatic shift in the way the ship was

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4.3  Two “Ironclads” on the Suez Canal are visible in this illustration from the September 9, 1882, edition of the Canadian Illustrated News.

physically and verbally represented. Maritime law required the use of flags on ships. The flags signalled whether a warship was actively at war or at rest in port. The audience would have known how to read the flags and the difference between a pirate flag and a man-of-war pennant. Thus, the “Special Grand Practical Illustration of the Mode of Modern Warfare” had become a vehicle to persuade thousands of Victorian Canadians that imperial progress was as inevitable as the destruction of the “rakish” brigantine with the “black hull” was predictable. An estimated 45,000 people witnessed the mock bombardment of the Arabi Pasha – more than the total number of troops who participated in the Egyptian campaign!46 The new torpedo literally demolished the fake man-of-war, and metaphorically torpedoed the resistance forces in the Sudan.

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A mock obituary for the ship, printed shortly after the bombardment, reinforced this swift revisioning: “[T]hy glorious old age ended in a manner that could not be improved upon, and the only matter for regret is that thy dusky name-sake was not aboard of thee to take a final leap skyward before he sank forever from view.”47 Within days of the demise of the mock man-of-war, Orabi Pasha was “grovelling in the Dust,” apparently asking pardon for his life after Wolseley’s troops captured him just outside Tel al-Kebir (then referred to as Telel-Kebir).48 The staging of a metaphoric representation of the Sudan campaign marks the beginning of an explicitly visual conflation of public entertainment, education, historical memory, racism, nationalism, and imperialism. For the most part, the Toronto crowd seemed delighted to see the black pasteboard captain sunk – albeit with an excess of shells, torpedos, and dynamite. The crowd delighted in this metaphorical elimination of the “dusky” foe.49 Nevertheless, some witnesses expressed ambivalence about the precedent provided by this particular form of spectacle. “The wisdom of introducing features so foreign to the real object of the fair has been questioned by not a few. But whatever force there may be in the objections raised to this – and it must be admitted that they have some force – the success of the new departure is indisputable. It may be said that some novelty of like attractiveness and of inconsiderable expense will be a feature of next year’s fair.”50 This concern about departing from the “real object of the fair” is with respect to the mandated educational and commercial purpose of the Dominion and Industrial Fair. However, it was understood that the fair also taught people about the Dominion of Canada and her industry in general. It was a cultural and political venue as much as commercial, so the shift from an exhibition of military apparatus to the metaphorical defeat of Orabi Pasha worked. The destruction of the mock man-of-war did fulfill the original intention to demonstrate the latest technical advances in military defences, and it also provided a timely and socially valuable lesson about the might of the British Empire. What citizen would not be moved to patriotic identification by such a grand display? The fact that this narrative happened to take place at a moment of intense nationalist debate is not coincidental. In the early 1880s, there was a general optimism about imperial unity, based in part on the economic prosperity evident in the opening of the intercontinental railway and subsequent commercial trade expansion.51 The attendance at the 1882 fair by the governor general, the Marquis of Lorne (1878–83), who happened to be the queen’s son-in-law, certainly underlined the

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role of the British monarchy in Canada.52 The ties to the British crown were strong, and fed into the representational strategies employed in the sinking of the Arabi Pasha. A fear of frivolous novelties gave way to the perceived value of edutainment. As we shall see, the precedent for combining “practical illustration” and storytelling, history and metaphor, sight and oversight, eventually emerged at the fair with some regularity.

Other disasters and sieges, 1883–92 Perhaps heeding the cautions expressed about the spectacular destruction of the Arabi Pasha, the fair organizers attempted no further “novelties” at the fair. The attractions of the 1883 fair – from sports to regal visit, railway to pyrotechnics – were the subject of a long promotional piece, nearly two columns in length, in the 5 September issue of The Globe. Princess Louise undertook the regal visit, along with her husband, the governor general, Lord Lorne. The installation of an electric railway was as entertaining as educational; both the railway ride and J.J. Wright’s use of a new technology proved to be a big public draw. Towards the end of the ten-day run of the fair, on the night of 18 September, Professor Hand exhibited “many startling effects in pyrotechnics. Designs of all sorts from the weird and strange to the most graceful and beautiful.”53 Hand’s main “piece” was his “descent from the cupola of the Main building in a chariot of fire. The chariot’s front is a dragon spouting out smoke and flame … while the sides are flaming, vari-coloured roaring wheels, and the whole forms an intensely startling scene.”54 This description provides a sense of the vivid and sensational aspects of a set piece. In addition, the Beckwith family performed their somewhat distasteful-sounding water show, which included smoking and eating underwater in a glass tank.55 So there certainly were “novelties” and attractions at the 1883 fair. However, the combination of history and entertainment was not broached until the following year. In 1884, a one-night entertainment held in front of the grandstand represented the Storming and Capture of Alexandria (also part of the Sudan campaign). The Globe reported that the representation would take place on 16 September, Governor-General’s Day.56 In 1886, the trend towards grand historical spectacle continued when the exhibition imported Pain and Son’s multimedia event The Last Days of Pompeii. The theme drew on the popularity of Edward Bulwer-Lytton’s novel of the same name, which described the eruption of Vesuvius in 79 CE and the destruction of the city of Pompeii (the ruins

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4.4  “’A Typical Night Scene,’” illustrating the Manhattan Beach version of Pain’s “The Last Days of Pompeii.”

of Pompeii were discovered in 1748 and excavated throughout the nineteenth century).57 Pain and Sons had been working with the theme for a number of years, with at least several iterations originally mounted in Britain as early as 1878.58 Pain and Sons had produced a fireworks show on the theme for six months in succession at Manhattan Beach, New Orleans, Louisville, and Chicago. These pyrotechnic displays were composed through elaborate staging that relied on backdrops, music, and timed release of fireworks that simulated explosions, lava, and fire. A detailed engraving of the Manhattan Beach enactment was published in Harper’s Weekly in 1885, which gives some sense of the overall effect (figure 4.4). As with any rendering of an unfolding, time-based production, the image illustrates just a moment during what was probably a twenty- to thirty-minute event. In the scenario represented, the volcano appears to be erupting and the building is covered in flaming lava. The effect of an explosion is achieved with fireworks; actors run along the shore to escape the “flames,” which are really smoke that is billowing through open “doorways” cut into the painted scene. Moving to a much larger venue, the Toronto version of the show included a massive backdrop painted by a local artist. The back cover

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4.5  “The Last Days of Pompeii,” back cover of the Toronto Industrial Fair Program.

of the fair’s 1886 program for the fair depicts a vignette of “Pains ‘Last Days of Pompeii’” (figure 4.5). The colour image focuses on the moment in the spectacle when the “pasteboard” mountain (a stiff material made from thin sheets of paper glued together) appears to be exploding and coloured “flames” erupt on the unsuspecting city below. The fireworks of Pain and Sons constituted a novel sound-and-light show that was staged against a backdrop of a “colossal painting, by S.R.G. Penson and his assistants, covering thousands of square feet of canvas, representing ‘The Eruption of Mount Vesuvius’ and ‘The Destruction of the City of Pompeii.’” The promotional brochure and keepsake printed by the fair organizers proclaim the event was “the grandest scene ever presented in the Dominion of Canada.”59 The Globe reported on the success of the first presentation of the fireworks show

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on “Citizen’s Day,” and noted that the mayor had declared the day to be a half-day holiday, which meant that thousands of citizens could attend. The description published in The Globe reveals that “When the lights were turned on the scenery it was found that the paints had produced a vivid picture of the ancient city ... The effect was heightened when a mass of coloured light was thrown on the scene.” The report notes that many performers took part in a grand reception, a procession of “soldiers and priests” was conspicuous, and “amid the strains of gay music the volcano begins to emit smoke and flames.”60 The major achievement of the Toronto rendition was the painting of the enormous scenic backdrop. Seymour Penson, the artist who coordinated the small army of painters and builders required to complete it, was a local painter and member of the Ontario Society of Artists (OSA ). In addition to his artistic career, he had been known for his scene painting since at least 1873 when he did mural paintings for the Toronto Opera House. In his undated memoirs, Penson proudly reported that the scenic painting for The Last Days of Pompeii was two hundred feet long (running length).61 The memoirs include enthusiastic comments about the prescience of H.J. Hill, the manager of the fair, for having brought Pain’s production to Toronto. The following year, the team of Pain and Penson followed the success of 1886 with a staging of The Siege of Pekin (Beijing), the decisive event in the Second Opium War of 1855–57. The spectacle relied on the precise coordination of fireworks, scene painting, drama, and military bands. A local reporter covering the opening day of the 1887 exhibition described how a “shadow of Mr. Pain’s Chinese city and canvas mountains” was cast on the newly built Fort Rouille monument. Recently erected on the fairgrounds, the monument was to be unveiled during the fair by Lord Lansdowne, the governor general of Canada (1883– 88). In quoting a speech by exhibition president John Jacob Withrow, the reporter drew attention to his comment that the “shadow” would soon be gone: “The city of Pekin obscures the monument, but in a few days the bombardment will take place and Fort Rouille, instead of being a suburb of the celestial city, will occupy a prominent position on the shores of Lake Ontario.”62 The temporary dilemma posed by the unsightliness of the city of Pekin was not due to distaste for the size or quality of execution of the set; the set was reported to be of such illusionistic superiority that one visitor asked if he and his family could picnic on the distant mountains!63 Rather, the problem with the pseudocity was that it blocked the view of the commemorative obelisk dedicated to the memory of the first Western fort built in the province.

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What intrigues me about this account is the way it reveals discomfort with a crowded visual field. The canvas city obstructed the view of the governor general and the monument to the founding of Fort Rouille (later Fort Toronto and then Fort York). With the spectacle not scheduled until the last day of the fair, the citizenry was being asked to tolerate the presence of the unreal until it could be realized. The complaints received by the fair manager, H.J. Hill, also reflect the tensions presented by this kind of entertainment. The first night the dramatic spectacle was mounted, the press reported complaints about the inclusion of “novelty acts” during the show.64 Writers in the press also complained about not being able to see or follow some of the acts: “Some of the Royal Grenadiers (dressed as French Zouaves) and of boys (representing British tars) … performed some exercises with bayonet and cutlass which were invisible on the grandstand.”65 For the next week or so, Pain tinkered with the script, evidently in response to the expectations and size of the Toronto audience. The fireworks display presented in Manhattan Beach was obviously a much smaller affair, with hundreds rather than thousands in attendance. Given the size and extent of the Toronto version it was clearly a challenge for Pain to make visible, to a huge crowd, the basic elements of the drama. The report in The Globe on “Farmers Day” enthused, “the combined pyrotechnic and pantomimie [sic] scene, ‘The Siege of Pekin,’ improves with every performance. Last night it ‘went’ with a vim and dash that made it one of the most thoroughly enjoyable features of the Exhibition. The details are now well in hand and the performers thoroughly up in their parts, so that the plot is brought out in a way easily to be understood, though not a word is spoken.”66 The complimentary review of the evening grandstand event implicitly refers to the difficulties of comprehension in the earlier performances during the week. Although Pain had mounted the grandstand show previously, he was able to rapidly adapt to the demands of local viewers.67 The productions of 1888 and 1889 again employed the scenic painting of Penson and the pyrotechnic skill of Pain and Sons. Descriptions of the sets reveal the physical structures underlying the spectacle. For example, the set for The Siege of Sebastopol (1888) was over three hundred feet (ninety-one metres) long, over seventy feet (twenty-one metres) high, and one hundred feet (thirty metres) in depth – “the largest scene ever painted” according to the advertising (figure 4.6). “No other Fair on the American continent has ever attempted to give their patrons such a magnificent spectacle as this, owing to the enormous expense attending it,” crowed the local press.68 The vignette captured

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4.6  A “Grand Firework Display and the Brilliant Spectacle, The Siege of Sebastopol every evening,” illustrated on the back cover of the Dominion and Industrial Fair program in 1888.

on the back cover of the 1888 program gives a sense of the extensive participation of military extras, the way in which the fort appears to burn, and the dramaturgy of the scene. Soldiers dressed as Zouaves gesture, crouch, and fall as they enact the battle. The scene of Toronto above it provides a glimpse of the busy Toronto port, with many schooners lying off the docks. Despite the significant expense for the spectacle – the bill for the special attractions was $6,326.50 (which included illuminations as well as the fireworks) – the fair of 1888 ended up with the largest surplus of its history to date: $4,885.69 The staging of The Burning of Moscow in 1889 included over six thousand square feet of painted scenery.70 This set drew extensive commentary in the press. As early as 31 August, reports appeared regarding

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the “immense structure” being erected. Some pre-existing structures were evidently employed: “[D]own at the front of the grounds, workmen are again engaged in transferring the long-suffering monument to the memory of Fort Toronto [Fort Rouille] and the cherished log huts of the York Pioneers to some distant corner of the world – this year they will stand in the suburbs of afflicted Moscow.” The writer, in a mildly condescending tone, added, “In passing, it may be said that the preparations for the annual fire-works display seem this year, so far as can be judged from present appearances, to be more pretentious, massive and imposing than on any previous occasion. Some of the towers and palaces of Moscow are wondrously impressive from a distance.”71 Once again, the redeployment of the Fort Rouille monument did not go unnoticed. The Globe reported on 11 September, “[S]omehow one has a feeling of pity for the placing of Moscow in front of Fort Rouille. Heaven help us. France was snowed under bad enough at the real Moscow affair without a French monument being hid by the mimic representation of the event.” Reports of pretention and mimicry suggest some disdain for the spectacle. Yet the spectacles were clearly also taken very seriously; for example, they were considered capable of committing a moral offence in blocking the view of a monument or fort. Nevertheless, the reports reveal that great efforts were made to attain a convincing level of imitation, including the hard labour of the workmen who apparently took over eighteen hours to flood the miniature sea in front of the city set. The scenery of the “mimic city” was described as “intensely realistic and is the work of Mr. Seymour Penson, a Toronto artist. There is a deceptive haze hanging over the city, and from the window of THE GLOBE office in the Press Bureau it would be a really difficult matter to distinguish the rising turrets and bastions of the distant city to be but carpentry, canvas and pigment.”72 The panoramic paintings and props attempted to recreate in reduced size the reality of Peking (Beijing), Sebastopol, or Moscow. Equally, the presentation realized an historical text. The grand scale re-enactments, in which hundreds of local soldiers represented Zouaves, Grenadiers, Cossacks, etc., accompanied by the light and sound of fireworks and military bands, gave concrete perceptual form to events that the audience would only have known previously through the medium of written texts. It is dramaturgy at its excessive best. Recalling Hayden White’s term “Romantic emplotment,” I would argue that these dramatic scenarios allowed self-identification, particularly the sense of heroic triumph over evil. The spectacles literally

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4.7  “Not a World’s Fair but Nearly So,” program cover for Toronto’s Industrial Fair in 1893.

performed “the depiction of the variety, color, and vividness of the historical field” that White argues is the central aim of literary Romance. The dramatic spectacle was concerned not only with a mimetic realism but also with the desire to convey the sensual qualities of daily life. The following year’s production enhanced this sense of self-identification specifically for Toronto audiences, as the spectacle drew upon a local witness to verify and clarify the intensity of battle experience. Not only did soldiers clash on the pretend battlefield, but cultures, languages, and expectations collided resoundingly at the Toronto Industrial Exhibition of 1893. Farmers met Bedouins, cows trailed camels, and butter-churning technology challenged the draw of the electric railway.

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4.8  Cairo Street, World’s Columbian Exposition, 1893, illustrating two photographs of tourists interacting with the actors and camels that populated the staging of “Cairo Street”.

Upstaging the world: The Battle of Tel-el-Kebir Deliberately setting out to compete with the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair – also known as the World’s Columbian Exposition – Toronto was one of the few large cities in North America that decided to hold their annual fair that year. “Canada’s Great Industrial Fair” was advertised as “Not a World’s Fair But Nearly So”73 and claimed to have the “latest novelties and specialities,” including “many new features.” In part, the new features were a response to Chicago’s exposition, which had introduced the “Midway Plaisance” as a dedicated site for a bazaar entitled “The Congress of Nations,” famously including “Cairo Street” (figure 4.8).74 The photograph on the left illustrates boys who hold the leads of camels with drivers, posed in front of eastern-style architectural features. The photograph on the right of figure 4.8 depicts two western

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4.9  Bedouin Exposition Company, Chicago World Fair, 1893, a colourized photograph of the men on horseback who were part of the Bedouin Exposition Company. The company also sent men, horses, and camels to the Toronto Industrial Exhibition.

couples on camels as they are led through the “streets” of the fair. It is a complex “street scene” from “Cairo” in which western spectators mingle with “locals.” The gaze might be on the East, but they all seem to be looking at each other. In Toronto, the manager of the fair, H.J. Hill, contracted several exhibitors directly from the Chicago World’s Fair, which was still running when the Toronto fair opened in September 1893. The purloined acts from Chicago’s Congress of Nations included peoples from Java, Dahomey, Tuni, Algeria, Egypt, and Turkish harem dancers. Hill also managed to obtain some of the performers working for the “Societie Hamidie” (also known as the Bedouin Exposition Company) to work on the midway as part of an “illustration of Oriental life” (figure 4.9).75 For westerners of the period, the “Orient” included the Middle East, northern Africa, as well as India, China, and Japan. The Bedouin Exposition Company continued to perform daily at the Chicago World’s Fair both on “Cairo Street” and in the Arabian circus. However, the company did manage to send a detachment of horses, camels, riders,

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and swordsmen to Toronto, some of whom made quite an impact on Toronto visitors. Under the headline “The Angry Arab and His Camel,” there is a report of a “dusky Arabian” that depicts him as illiterate, heathen, wily, wicked, and wild.76 The article is worthy of this extensive quote: The dusky Arabian in charge of one of the camels has changed his first favourable opinion regarding Toronto to one of utter contempt. A crowd had surrounded his animal yesterday afternoon, when the seemingly amiable driver said to an admiring beholder, “Ju-m-m-p o-n; j-u-m-pp on.” The invitation was accepted, the camel climbed onto and the procession started. After the dismount the wily traveller via camel argued that it was purely an invitation ride, and therefore, free, but as a compromise offered his sole financial posession [sic] – a solitary dime. Thereupon the soul of the Arab waxed wroth, and his tongue wagged fast, as he heaped pure Arabian anathema on the astonished Canadian from North York. One could easily see that he was utilizing the strongest curses the Koran contains, the while his eyes flashed wickedly, and his arms gesticulated wildly. The climax came when, pocketing the ten cents, the offended visitor from the east struck an attitude, gave a vicious pull at his belt, and shouted: – “Chee-cago no good? Bah! To-ront-o no good,” (a spit signifying his overwhelming contempt); “Chee-cago good! good!! good!!! And as he led his beastie away from the Christian dogs, the camel sympathized with him to the extent of a unique nasal gurgle. Exactly how the reporter knew what the man was saying is unclear, as one hardly imagines “pure Arabian anathema” was readily understood in the very British Toronto of the 1890s. However, the easy reference to the “Koran” implies that the reporter somehow knew this “dusky Arabian” might get his curses from the Qur’an. Equally, the ongoing reports of the day at the fair highlighted the Arabian contingent as particularly newsworthy (virtually no reportage regarding the other “nations” is evident in the press). Reports on other entertainments make reference to “Orientals,” who are clearly more specifically Arabian. The “Midway Plaisance is daily drawing big crowds, which seem pleased with the Oriental dancing and sword combats.”77 The “gorgeously and picturesquely attired Arabians repeated the feats of horsemanship and acrobatic tricks of the previous day.” “Dark-skinned Orientals cry their wares, comprising trinkets of

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various descriptions, some of them pretty and of curious designs.” The elision of the Turkish dancers along with the Arabian horse troop into the generalized notion of Orientals is, of course, not surprising – not just because we are now accustomed, thanks to Edward Said, to noticing expressions of Orientalism, but also because at the time the Turks were technically ruling Egypt.78 Turkish troops had been occupying Egypt since the Anglo-Turkish military convention of 1882. Thus both Turkish dancers and Arabian horses were seen as being from the same part of the “Orient” – that vast geographic area of otherness stretching from northern Africa through the Middle East to Asia Minor. Distinctions among “Orientals” were not drawn at the fair. Turks, Egyptians, and Arabs were all represented as equally inscrutable, and, through a racist lens, equally entertaining. The orientalism that haunts the entertainments of the midway is further embedded as recorded and archived truth in the historical narrative of the battle of Tel al-Kebir, where Wolseley’s troops had captured Orabi Pasha. Tel-el-Kebir, the grandstand event of 1893, also provides a micro-history of the ways in which the dramatic elements of historical spectacle are shaped by local authority. Significantly, I have found no evidence that The Battle of Tel-el-Kebir was staged anywhere in Canada, the United States, or England prior to this staging in 1893.79 The promotional brochure for the fair describes this event as a “Grand Military Tournament & Fireworks Spectacle.” The colour lithograph on the fair’s brochure depicts columns of soldiers, detritus of battle, and active bombardment. Draped by the flags of the combatants – the British and the Egyptians – the central roundel depicts the pyrotechnic effects of shooting rockets in the background and the smoke that lit up the evening sky. The illustration transcends its conventional flatness through the use of a foreground, suggesting earlier narrative events such as the arrival of the British artillery (lower left), and the fallen drum that lies askew next to the demolished wagon (lower right). The visual device invites the viewer to “see” the narrative unfolding from foreground to inevitable background. This exceptionally sophisticated layout functions, whether intentional in design or not, as a continuous narrative that runs from front to back, rather than the typical western narrative text that runs from left to right.80 Furthermore, the text suggests an escalation of historical veracity in the use of the phrase “grand military tournament,” when previous evening events were described as “fireworks,” “mimic war,” or “great fireworks spectacle.” The visual vignette captures the uniqueness of this particular historical spectacle: it is an Ontario-based production that was specifically created to respond

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4.10  “Grand Military Tournament & Fireworks Spectacle ‘Battle of Tel-el-Kebir,’” back cover of the Industrial Fair Program, 1893.

to the anticipated competition posed by the World’s Fair in Chicago, cloaking that response in a compelling, historical narrative recited by a local man who had volunteered to serve in the British forces. The realization of The Battle of Tel-el-Kebir at the 1893 fair brought to life the events symbolized in the bombardment of the Arabi Pasha at the fair over ten years earlier and recounted the personal memories of an anonymous “Torontonian who was a private in General Wolseley’s army.”81 The grandstand event also provides clear evidence of the self-conscious fashioning of history as locally relevant storytelling, which arguably underlies historical spectacles in general, whether re-enactments of recent events or ancient disasters. These spectacular retellings make possible the consolidation of public memory about the significance of a given event through the graphic rendering visible

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4.11  The Battle of Tel-el-Kebir script on Hand & Teale’s Spectacular Co. letterhead, featuring a sketch by Seymour Penson depicting British soldiers preparing to attack the fort at Tel-el-Kebir, c. 1893.

of “known” details. The public’s thinking-out of stories – their rearrangement around shared notions and their consumption as “true” (somehow faithful to an unknown original, like a mimic war) – ensures the contribution of historical spectacle to social memory. The daily press reports were extensive: according to them, the crowds eagerly anticipated “the great military spectacle and realistic war scene, the battle of Tel-el-Kebir, in which over 300 military will be engaged, with batteries of artillery, troops of cavalry, etc. and a magnificent display of fireworks.”82 In multiple re-presentations of the Anglo-Egyptian campaign, the newspapers re-told, re-shaped, and re-visioned the events of the 1882 British campaign against the leader of the Egyptian resistance, “Arabi Pasha.” While all the narrative elements of the “Story of Tel-el-Kebir” were largely shaped by the “thrilling tale” recounted by J.M.B., published photographs and other depictions of the 1882 campaign also focused attention on the railway, as it facilitated the movement of troops and munitions. The influential daily The Globe dedicated a significant portion of its front page to this graphic description of the historic battle. While the press refers to the management of the spectacle by Professor Pain, I have found no evidence of his participation. Rather, apparently driven by the competition with the Chicago World’s Fair, a new

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4.12  Detail from the panorama sketch of the Battle of Tel-el-Kebir set, designed by Seymour Penson in 1893.

company, Hand & Teale’s Spectacular Co., created a spectacle that was uniquely Canadian. Working with Seymour Penson (the set designer who previously worked with Pain), Hand and Teale developed The Battle of Tel-el-Kebir in 1893. I found the script in the archive of Hands Fireworks, the descendants of Hand and Teale (figure 4.11).83 Typed on the letterhead of Hand and Teale’s Spectacular Co. of Hamilton, Canada, the script lays out the scenes and “specialties” (such as dancing girls illuminated by “red light”) and describes the movement of the various actors. The letterhead includes a scene of the battle and includes a promotional escutcheon advertising, “Spectacular dramas in connection with pyrotechnique displays arranged for all parts of the world.” The accompanying image is a condensed version of a larger sketch done by Seymour Penson in 1893 (figure 4.12). Penson’s original drawing depicts a panoramic view of the battleground, featuring the railway line and redoubt (fort) that were so prominent in the original reports about the battle in 1882, and in the spectacle of 1893. The sketch is clearly labelled “Scene for The Battle of Tel-el-Kebir, Designed by S.R.G.

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Penson. The property of Hand & Teale. Hamilton, Ont.” Note how a minor feature in Penson’s original, the “Arabian tents” near the fort, look suspiciously like Plains Indians’ tepees A comparison of the destruction of the refitted schooner Arabi Pasha in 1882 and the historical spectacle The Battle of Tel-el-Kebir in 1892 reveals how historical truths can be woven from battlefield reports, newspaper coverage, and a personal account into what we might understand as a social memory picture. In the earlier spectacle, the battle of Kassasin on August 28, 1882, had proven decisive not only in the outcome of the campaign but in the social imagining of Wolseley as heroic. The newspaper accounts of the Arabi Pasha, the “to-be-destroyed” man-of-war, focused on the repulse of Orabi Pasha’s troops at Kassasin (about five miles from Tel al-Kebir). Ironically, J.M.B. omits completely the battle of Kassasin in the published 1893 account of the campaign. Kassasin had become a minor skirmish on the way to the more important event at Tel al-Kebir. The private’s story starts with a description of the horrors of the campaign’s early days and weeks, preceding Kassasin, which are magnified in comparison to the 1882 reports. J.M.B.’s account also contains no hint of the 1882 press reports questioning Wolseley’s competence. “Passing over all the intervening events,” J.M.B. writes, “I will endeavour to describe the memorable night march immediately preceding the charge on Tel-el-Kebir.”84 This selective account of events (some can be simply “passed over”) raises questions about historical narrative’s form and function. Ann Rigney suggests that the rhetoric of historical representation needs to be examined alongside the complex and often paradoxical relations between texts and material work. Although she tends to assume the unproblematic “reality” of events, and focuses on the influence of the historical writer, her argument usefully seeks to identify the ways in which “historical discourse gives shape and meaning to historical reality and so can inspire or shape collective action.”85 In J.M.B.’s 1893 report about his 1882 experience, historical discourse, the narrative absences and choices, actually shapes his memories of the “thrilling battle” and thereby radically influences the collective imagination that depends on his (his)story. J.M.B. graphically details the silence of the march. He includes a long description of the personal tensions he felt among the men, which he claims were broken temporarily by his humming of “The Girl I Left Behind Me.”86 The tune would have been familiar to the audience, as it was a popular folk song written in the form of a march. One version of the lyrics ends with:

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The hope of final victory Within my bosom burning Is mingling with sweet thoughts of thee And of my fond returning But should I n’eer return again Still with thy love I’ll bind me Dishonor’s breath shall never stain The name I leave behind me The stirring refrain pulled at heartstrings and imperial honour simultaneously. Moments before the advance, “the officer in blue and the private in white lie side by side,” awaiting their fate. In contrast to the tense and ordered silence is the colourful pandemonium of the charge “red and green and white” and the loss of colour characterizing defeat: “Arabi’s cavalry, in their snow white uniforms … sought safety in flight.”87 The loud “cheering” of the soldiers during their final advance follows the initial chaos. These same emotions and sensations are reiterated in the published descriptions of the 1893 spectacle: The battle piece was the principal part of the entertainment. It is an elaborate representation in which over 300 men are engaged. There is a fort with walls and embrasures and redoubts … [The Arabs] in their red and white and green robes … present a bright appearance under the calcium lights … Presently … the sound of the bagpipes, tangled with the more distant strains of “The Girl I Left Behind Me,” attracted the spectator’s attention … There was a dashing to and fro of mounted officers … soldiers are emptying their cartridge pouches with Gatling-gun rapidity … broadsides of rockets fill the sky with showers of prismatic stars, and … the discharges [of the cannon] shake the grand stand and startle the timid spectators … It is seen that the Arabian warriors in their spectral white robes have been beaten again as they were in that early morning engagement in the campaign of 1882 [italics in original].88 Colour, movement, sound – the elements of drama – closely reflect the sensory elements of J.M.B.’s account. The spectacle was a triumph of planning, historical presumption, and visual culture. The spectators were reported as being “unanimous in their verdict that the evening performance is the best that has ever been given by the fair.”89

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Certainly, the spectators understood the spectacle as performance, but the colour, noises, and frenzy of the Arab actors were naturalized by the historical accuracy claimed by J.M.B. and The Globe. The “spectral white robes” of the defeated Arabs was a purposeful use of phrasing that conjured both a visual and an emotional reading, and gestured towards concepts of the foreign, ghostly, and unfamiliar, associations that were themselves reiterated by the daily presentations of “Oriental life” at the midway. The defeat of Orabi Pasha was consolidated as visual and written text through historical spectacle at the same time that the midway positioned the all-inclusive (and therefore exclusionary) “Orient” in the imagination of fairgoers. This easy orientalism conflates Arabs, Turks, and Hungarians as objects of study on the midway.90 So while the Arabs’ look returned, or even initiated, a look of curiosity, they did not control the meanings invested in that looking. The identity of the victors was clearly drawn. The British were the only recorded source of order in the assumed chaos of the East. In reporting on the spectacle, the local press described the Arabian actors as lacking military precision and order: “a host of Arabs … present a bright appearance … [and] go through some merry-making.” In marked contrast, the British “swung into view out of the darkness” in a tightly formed “column headed by a troop of cavalry.” After the mimic battle was over, “the military force marched past the grand stand” to mark the end of the performance in a manner not unlike the “brilliant review [of 1882 that] was held in the presence of the Khedive and the Duke of Connaught, while Arabi himself lay a prisoner in the citadel [at Cairo].”91 Adding insult to colonizing insult, the grandstand spectacle was no longer confined to a single presentation, as with the Arabi Pasha in 1882, but was now re-enacted daily in front of nearly twenty thousand spectators each evening. The newly built grandstand, seven hundred feet long and with three times the capacity of the former structure, was jam-packed every night.92 The sensory quality of the spectacle, physically felt in the reverberations of the grandstand, also served to define a “memory picture” of the great battle. At its excessive best, the reports call attention to “The belching volleys of flame and smoke; broadsides of rockets fill the sky, heavy thundering of the cannon, whose discharges shake the grandstand and startle the timid spectators.” This embodied and embedded memory consolidates the negotiated relationship of the national yet always already imperial citizen. Such visceral memory consolidates the right and might of the British Empire

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in the minds of its British subjects. They opt for mass entertainment in the common acceptance that these experiences are educational and historically accurate; this is confirmed by military authority, and shaped by communal consumption. The specifics of the drama, provided by the private from Toronto, bring home imperial success and lodge feeling and historical knowledge in the body of the spectator. While historical spectacles continued for another few years, arguably 1893 was the pinnacle of such narrative boasting. In 1896, the grandstand event was wholly devoted to the Queen’s sixtieth jubilee; in 1900, to the siege of Mafeking (central to the Boer War). But by 1902, entertainment won out over ostensible education, at least in the grandstand. Bolossy Kiralfy’s production of The Orient focused on an abundance of dancers and reduced narrative sequences, and featured performing elephants and seals. It was the harbinger of the circus acts and balletic display that would dominate the grandstand spectacle until its demise around the mid-twentieth century.

The cultural politics of a modern history For all its appeals to national pride, the historical spectacle at the Dominion and Industrial Fair was clearly rooted in British history. The events at Beijing and Sebastopol both occurred in the mid-1850s and were constructed as mid-Victorian exemplars of the necessary evils of progress. The actual campaigns were sufficiently in the past so as to be distanced and historicized through public spectacle, yet recent enough to reflect the glory of Queen Victoria, who celebrated her fiftieth Jubilee in 1887. Complacent in their certainty of liberal values, industrial acumen, and British parliamentary freedoms, the more than 100,000 visitors to the fair celebrated the achievements of Victoria’s reign as the natural consequence of fifty years of progress. Reshaped through their performance in Toronto by the specific politics, place, and time, the re-enactments of the sieges rationalized the contradictions of contemporaneous discourse on nationalism and imperialism. For them, being Canadian is being British, regardless of country of origin. I am arguing that historical spectacles can serve to localize – to bring home – memory pictures of distant, yet significant national and imperial events. Spectators’ abilities to receive a negotiated history of events were shaped through a collective memory. In June of 1887, the queen’s fiftieth Jubilee had provided the occasion to remind Torontonians that “the development of free representative institutions in Canada and in the Australian colonies will do more to perpetuate

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the glory of Her Majesty’s reign in these vast regions than the rapidity of their material growth, astonishing though that is.” The editor of the Toronto Globe added, “Her Majesty’s name will ever be identified with the establishment of free Parliaments and Responsible Government in the Colonies, which are fast becoming great nations.”93 And just as The Globe predicted, the 1887 jubilee witnessed an astonishing outpouring of advertising, parades, and commemorative poems and songs from British subjects in Canada. Medals were given to school children and patriotic songs sung in various venues. In his 1887 book of reminiscences of the period, Conyngham Crawford Taylor outlines a wide range of events designed to bring home to Torontonians their relationship to the British Empire.94 In other words, Canada, an independent nation since 1867, was still very British, and the citizenry understood themselves through a lens of normalized colonialism. Institutionally, the country was a manifestation of Victorian accomplishment, and progress seemed to depend on Victorian culture.95 Perhaps more importantly, as the editor went on to describe it, national progress – celebrated, for example, at the Dominion and Industrial Fair – was possible as a direct product of imperialism: There have unfortunately been many wars during Her Majesty’s reign, and more than one of these has been a great war. Whatever may be thought of the justice or the policy of some of these wars, it can truly be said that in them all the soldiers, English, Irish and Scotch, proved that they still possess pluck, endurance and all the other qualities by which this mighty empire has been built up, not the least being that sincere, earnest loyalty which is the especial characteristic of all the peoples of Great Britain and her Colonies, a loyalty which the personal virtues of the Sovereign have done so much to confirm.96 Certainly there was some debate about the wisdom of both the Chinese and Crimean engagements. Locally, though, the focus on the virtues of individuals – the soldiers, the Queen, the Queen’s subjects – helped to personalize distant imperial wars, to rationalize the larger political relations of Canadians to the monarchy, and to legitimize the consumption of traumatic historical events through performance. Always recognized as spectacle, the historical re-enactments vacillated between the accurate depiction of material events and pyrotechnic displays; thrilling and dramatic, the affective narratives of historical

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spectacle actually claimed the spectators as participants, yet permitted a distancing that made history safe enough to know.

Archival notes The day I arranged to go see Hands Fireworks in Prescott, Ontario, I had little expectation of finding anything of direct value to my research on the historical spectacles at the CNE . I knew Hands had done some set pieces, and the company headquarters were relatively close, so I thought it would be interesting to check them out. To set up the appointment, I called the company’s main office to see if they kept archives, and if I could come to visit. Eventually I was directed to Lori Brown who made it clear that she wasn’t an official archivist. But she was pretty sure that there were some old boxes of materials that I could look through, if I wanted. If I wanted? I was delighted at the prospect of seeing some old advertising catalogues. She didn’t think anything went back before 1900, but it would give me a better idea. Lori escorted me into a large room that was obviously being used as a design workshop, with large tables and lots of samples, paperwork, etc., in view. At the back of the room were more long tables with regular cardboard boxes stacked two or three deep. She pulled out a few, saying that these appeared to be the older ones. There were some advertising catalogues from the early 1900s with lists of set pieces and their individual and bulk prices. Since I had piqued her curiosity, she was keen to help me sort through the boxes to look for anything of interest. There were several pairs of 3D glasses (not sure what show would have required them) lying on top of some folded parchment paper. She pulled that pile out and said, “Oh, look, this seems older.” It was a set of drawings, in triplicate, by Seymour Penson for the staging of The Battle of Tel-el-Kebir. She opened them up and we could see that Penson had used a long sheet of paper, twenty-four inches by twelve inches, to work out the placement of the various narrative elements (as seen in figures 4.3 to 4.6). She handed one copy to me, “Here, you can have this. We don’t need three copies.” I almost cried. First, I said no as it would disturb the archive. She laughed and said, “What archive? Besides, you talking about Hands would be good advertising. We’ve been around a long time!” So, I gratefully acquiesced and walked out with a copy of Penson’s drawing. Oh, and a pair of the 3D glasses for fun. This was the first evidence I had that an historical spectacle had been produced entirely in Canada. Secondary literature had mis-

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takenly listed the spectacle that year as “The Battle of Soudan.” While Tel al-Kebir was part of the Sudan campaign, this clearly was not solely a display of set pieces that visually depicted generic battle motifs. Another account said that the 1893 spectacle was created by Professor Pain, which it obviously wasn’t since Penson had signed the drawings in the archives of Hands Fireworks. This find led me to the discovery of Penson’s undated manuscript, which detailed the size and extent of the production. It was clearly Toronto’s answer to the Chicago World’s Fair – just as the fair organizers had proclaimed in the 1893 brochure, “Not a World’s Fair but Nearly So.” And it was all-Canadian in production, which fed into my thesis that historical spectacles were much more responsive to local pressures than studies of the genre suggest. Yes, the shows travelled, but not this one. And when they travelled, it was rarely with all the components of the originating venue. The second archival experience for this research was at the CNE archives. At the time of my first visit in 1998, Linda Coban was just beginning to catalogue the archive and was very supportive of my research. When I finally found the elusive building on the CNE grounds, she found me a tiny desk space next to a six-drawer vertical file. She told me what was supposed to be in each drawer, and said, “Let me know if you find something.” Amazingly, there were samples of most of the small brochures that the Dominion and Industrial Fair produced as souvenirs for the fairgoers. This was the source of the colour images I use in the chapter. The choice of colour, text, and size of the main image of the spectacle was especially informative. The relatively strong emphasis on the shows (as opposed to the relative disregard in the press for these entertainments) revealed much about their marketing. The text always described the productions in terms suggesting that they were informative as well as entertaining. The last small archive I visited was Hampshire County Archive in Winchester, England.97 They had recently received the archival files for Pain and Sons! I had written to the apparent heir of James Pain and he had responded with the information that he had given the remaining posters and associated fireworks materials to the county archive, with the exception of a large poster for The Fall of Pekin, which was hanging in his bathroom. Darn. I guessed I wasn’t going to see that one. So I managed to squeeze in a visit to the archive on my way to a conference in Bristol. Gill Arnott was very happy that I wanted to see the material, although she apologized for the lack of comfort in the viewing: the collection was located in a small series of rambling rooms that would have been the servants’ quarters for Chilcomb House, the large

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historic home on the property. Their holdings were spilling across every square metre of space, framed work leaned against shelves, and unpacked boxes were stacked near the door for processing. When she led me outside, I was really beginning to wonder where we were going. The Pains material was stored in a locked metal transport container! But, as a result of the donation and their capacity to house it, I was able to see several wood frames for set pieces, such as a Catherine wheel, as well as the paper tubes that held the fireworks. In addition, there was a box full of papers, catalogues, magazines, account books, and photographs. Most of it was twentieth century, as at Hands Fireworks, but I did find several representations of Hand’s historical spectacles. These included images of another interpretation of The Fall of Pompeii, which was depicted on the cover of the Alexandra Palace brochure of 5 November 1878, and the Harper’s magazine illustration of The Last Days of Pompeii, which was produced by Pain at Manhattan Beach in 1885. This remarkable image shows in clear detail the way in which black pasteboard was used to “build a volcano” and how the stage was set with different buildings (see figure 4.5). The luck or happenstance that results in the discovery of nineteenth-century ephemera is extraordinary, yet without it, I could not have known how the stage was set, nor could I have imagined the visual impact of the fireworks. The discovery of a script at Hands Fireworks made the performances come alive, as it indicated how music and voice were used. These archival notes are meant to reveal how the element of chance affects the supposed distance of the historian from her story. While I do not claim that it is impossible to search for what actually happened, I am also deeply aware that what I found may be all there is, or it may be a fragment. And if a fragment, what does this suggest about the gaps in evidence? We can theorize about the presence of negativity; the irruption of the suppressed into consciousness; the narrative form of nineteenth-century storytelling; and the impact of dust on the remnants of the archive and its archivist. But in the end, this history attempts to weave the visual and other evidence found into a compelling story that insists cultural practices must be understood as paradoxical. We need to tolerate evidence of the local and global, specific and generic, belonging and difference. In tolerating that paradoxical tension, we can see how shifting politics of location, gender, and race may affect our construction of meaning, and what that tells us about the sociocultural narratives of a place and time.

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Z  Chapter five  Y

Bilingual Memories: A Souvenir of the Diamond Jubilee in Quebec City, 1897 God Save the Queen ­– Vive la reine!

Royal subjects around the world celebrated Queen Victoria’s sixty-year reign with an orchestrated fervour that solidified the queen’s identification as the nation, not just of the nation.1 The success across the Commonwealth of the jubilee marking her fiftieth year on the throne, with its global performance of queen and empire, had set the stage for an even grander explosion of fealty from British subjects around the world. The overwhelming scale of these festivities, their global expanse, and the huge expenses incurred all point to an enormous mobilization of resources alongside public and personal energies throughout the empire. Although there were certainly voices of discord in the United Kingdom,2 these were drowned by sentiments of delight and demonstrations of loyalty. Adding its voice to the many, the citizenry of Quebec swore fealty and devotion to its monarch. Newspapers, poems, memorabilia, and personal accounts of the jubilee celebrations in Quebec repeated messages of good tidings to the queen alongside exclamations of loyalty and pride on the part of both the canadiens and the English-speaking populace.3 Across the globe in the various languages of the British empire, the many ovations to the longevity, generosity, and sagacity of the queen suggest an imperial cohesion to the jubilee celebrations, which must be suspect if only for its apparent solidarity. One strident voice was certainly heard in Ireland, where James Connolly wrote an extended address to the workers of Ireland in which he exhorted them to rise up against the “sham ‘popular rejoicings’ at this glorious (?) [sic] commemoration.”4 The Irish discontent was also voiced in Toronto, where one commentator describes at length the Irish protest of the jubilee,

yet also dismisses it as insubstantial. Certainly, adversity and diversity have underwritten colonial identity formation in English and French Canada since settlers began to arrive.5 Within Quebec, ongoing debate since the British Conquest, primarily in French, focuses on nationalism and survivance, especially the survival of French Canada. Thus we would not expect to find ovations to the queen in French. So how do we explain the cries of “Vive la reine”?6 Social historian Gerard Bouchard offers a schema for understanding collective imaginaries, and argues that les canadiens’ collective sense of powerlessness inspired an ironic and ambivalent loyalty in Canadian politics.7 This seeming loyalty has often been credited at least in part to the role of canadien clergy, who preached compromise and compliance. Jocelyn Letourneau argues instead for an understanding of multiple and conflicting narratives of Quebec’s past that exceed the major representations currently dominating discussions of Canadian nationalism. This excess lies in the incommensurable, or in that which cannot be measured within the apparent possibilities.8 In other words, “powerlessness” does not sufficiently represent the multiple positions occupied by the canadiens, particularly during the last half of the nineteenth century. While British imperial rhetoric managed to silence republican criticisms of the monarchy in England, Canadian resistance seems to have been quietened by the rise of liberalism in 1890s Canada. Both English and French liberals challenged earlier criticisms of British colonial practices (for example, the awarding of administrative positions to a select British elite). Thus the ascendance of canadien liberals strongly influenced the political rhetoric we see appearing around the time of the jubilee.9 British foreign and domestic policies were often seen as acceptable due to the perceived humanism of British parliamentary procedures.10 In this and the following chapter, I examine one moment in the time and space of nationhood: the celebration of Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee in Quebec. In this chapter, I examine a souvenir booklet published in Quebec City in 1897, as an act of commemoration, and in chapter 6, I look at extant evidence about the planning and realization of the jubilee parade in Montreal, as a performance of social relations. These two instances reveal how the celebrations of monarchy trouble, yet clarify, the working relations between the English and the French in late-nineteenth-century Quebec. I deconstruct the complex narrative structures that underlie these two manifestations of “jubilee fever” so as to better address the ongoing implications of these apparently seamless expressions of joy.

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5.1  “Quebec Jubilee … Souvenir Number,” cover, 1897.

The commemorative booklet, the Quebec Jubilee Souvenir Number, and the Jubilee Parade celebrated the Diamond Jubilee as a momentous event in the life of the monarch and in the life of British Canada.11 Even though the act of Confederation was passed thirty years earlier, Canada was still very much a British dominion. The emotional and social significance of the monarchy was present in everyday life; from schools and churches, to courts and businesses, the stamp of Britishness affected teaching, preaching, legislation, and economic interactions. In this chapter, I focus on a souvenir brochure because the complexity of the visual and textual narratives allows a deeper consideration of how the incommensurable can reside in the seemingly obvious.

The look of the book The Quebec Jubilee Souvenir Number was published in Quebec in 1897 and sold for ten cents. The heavily illustrated booklet literally sandwiched a bilingual essay about the queen’s sixty years on the throne between local advertising. In the appendix to this chapter, I list the pages from front to back so as to clarify the way that a reader would actually experience the booklet. I refer to the recto and verso pages – the pages that printers understand as the front and back of a single sheet of paper. In referring to manuscripts or bound volumes, historians, bookbinders, and other specialists in historical papers refer to the right-hand page as “recto” – it is understood as the front of a leaf. The back of that page or leaf is the “verso” – the left-hand page for the following two-page spread. The relationship between the two sides of the page may be as important as the relationship between the two-page spread that the reader experiences when turning each page. The booklet consists of a five-page, bilingual account of the sixtyyear reign, all of which is on recto or right-hand pages. A further two pages of text, one referring to the jubilee celebrations in London, the other on Queen Victoria as a child, are in English only. The ten full pages dedicated to advertisements of local businesses are mostly located on the verso or left-hand pages. The only exception is in the last two-page spread where both pages are advertisements. The ads sometimes include images related to the monarchy and to Quebec, such as engravings representing Windsor Castle or the Quebec City Town Hall. Some of the figures that I include in my discussion show double-page spreads, and others show the recto and verso of a single page. In order to facilitate comprehension of the complex structure of the booklet, I have attempted to make these distinctions clear.

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The twenty-page publication carries contradictory, yet apparently satisfying, meanings for both its English- and French-speaking audiences. I wonder why this is so. In order to satisfy my curiosity I trace what I call the “visual archaeology” of the narratives present in the booklet. Along and across complex layers of meaning, as in an archaeological dig, the sedimented cross-sections are rarely in absolute distinction from one another. Words and images, I argue, are arranged purposefully so as to reinforce the appearance of stability, equality, and confidence in the social order. However, the minor variations in the schema, and the juxtapositions, sequences, and elisions reveal ongoing resistance to the dominant narrative of the jubilee. Whether these irruptions of resistance are intentional and yet somehow invisible to the authors and the readers is part of my query. This is not a story of purely national, ethnic, classed, or gendered tensions, although all are present. In what follows, I examine how the ordering of the pamphlet confirms the memorializing function of the souvenir, and how the slight diversions from the authorized story suggest other meanings, meanings that trouble the story’s apparent hegemony. This is not to deny that the booklet could also be looked at as an example of the growth of modern commerce in the city, and that the apparent homogeneity of the stories benefited business interests. I will let that possibility accompany me through this discussion, but I am more interested in the visual structuring of the booklet and the way the stories are told. I argue that the significance of the booklet lies in its constituent narratives, that is, in its storylines or “texts,” both verbal and visual. In addition to the use of a written text to recount the story of the queen’s reign, there are other stories vying for the reader’s attention. Depending on who is reading and when, the “other” stories may take precedence over the authoritative monarchical tale; the reiterative placement of advertising, portraits, city views, and other images in the booklet construct such stories. I have identified these four stories as the visual biography of the queen, the visual biography of Quebec City, the advertisement-based record of liberal progress in the city, and the double, yet not separate, French and English versions of the principal written text. The images do not merely illustrate a passage or page of text; rather, they create alternate storylines, which have the capacity to extend, contradict, or mediate the meanings contained in the words. I briefly describe what I mean by each of these narratives and then discuss the ways in which they intersect with and reconstruct each other.

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Obvious narratives: queen, home, and country A celebration of the sixtieth year of Queen Victoria’s reign, the Quebec Jubilee Souvenir Number presents the queen’s life story as a significant parallel to the evolution of the empire and the colony. The biography of Queen Victoria is related through both visual and textual storylines. The front cover, with its semi-schematic portrayal of the queen regnant surrounded by the flags of her dominions, presents the ruler emblematically with a title and motto confirming the absolute congruence of God, queen, and country (see figure 5.1). The story of the queen as woman and monarch begins on page 3 (figure 5.4) with the bilingual text Queen Victoria’s Jubilee: Sa Majesté la Reine Victoria. The texts are illustrated by a sequence of images including representations of the queen’s early homes, of her parents, and of the queen herself at the age of seventeen, at the time of her succession to the throne. The next recto page illustrates the queen at ages eight, fifteen, and twenty-two. Other images portray Victoria at her coronation, as a young wife, as a widow, and in her jubilee regalia. The ages chosen seem to mark both stages of life and moments of moral significance. This evolutionary profile of the queen’s life suggests the topos of the “ages of man”; that is to say, the queen is not only a monarch, but also a maturing individual, who moves through life stages, which make different demands on her as mother, queen, and a “good woman.”12 Following this sequence, the visual narrative seems to affirm a natural life progression that leads to the ascent of a female ruler. On the other hand, Lynda Nead has argued that Victoria’s gender contests this “ages of man” topos because the category of “woman” was traditionally interpreted as immature, which is to say that she did not grow old or wise.13 However, in this instance, Victoria’s visual and textual biography may use the familiar male model to construct her as an unique yet “normative” deviation from the norm. Her biography represents her as ordinary, accessible, and of the people. This use of the “ages of man” image, which illustrates the life cycle from birth through maturity and death, matches the natural evolution of the individual, seasons, and day to the natural evolution of the regime of power, the imperial monarchy. Ending with “the latest portrait of the Queen,” such a visual biography presents the normative events of a life cast through a literary trajectory, with the expected sequence of tragedy, perseverance, and triumph.14 The visual narrative also contests the view of some of her advisers that Victoria should have retired when the Prince of Wales reached the age of majority. Her gender and sexuality were problematic

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5.2  “Hon. S.N. Parent, Mayor of Quebec. – Hon. S.N. Parent, Maire de Québec.” Quebec Jubilee Souvenir Number, 1897.

5.3  “The Town Hall ­– Hôtel de Ville,” Quebec Jubilee Souvenir Number, 1897.

5.4  “Queen Victoria’s Jubilee: Sa Majesté la Reine Victoria,” Quebec Jubilee Souvenir Number, 1897.

5.5  “Basilica. – Basilique.” “English Cathedral. – Cathédrale Anglaise,” Quebec Jubilee Souvenir Number, 1897.

5.6  “Edward, Duke of Kent, Father of the Queen. – Edouard, Duc de Kent, Père de la Reine”, “Victoria, Duchess of Kent, Mother of the Queen. – Victoria, Duchesse de Kent, Mère de la Reine.” Above “The Queen at the Age of Seventeen Years. La Reine à l’Age de Dix-sept Ans.” Quebec Jubilee Souvenir Number, 1897.

in the natural evolution of a monarch, so the visual reiteration of its normative quality must be understood as a political statement, and not only a life story.15 This visual story is extended through the illustrations of the royal residences, which symbolically frame the queen’s biography by literally framing the narrative of her life. The label “The Queen’s Birthplace” accompanies the depiction of Kensington Palace. The next residence is Osborne House, built for Queen Victoria and Prince Albert a few years after they were married. The last page of text illustrates Buckingham Palace, the site of governance, and Balmoral Castle, her retreat from the responsibilities of the monarchy. The successive images present a logical progression of sites, but each site is also representative of a different moral virtue, much like the stages in the queen’s own life cycle. As Nazair LeVasseur, the author of the text, put it, “Her Majesty has been, during her long and eventful reign, a model wife, mother and Queen, and the many virtues which she has exemplified in her own person have had an influence not confined within the limits of her Empire.”16 Juxtaposed with the biography of the queen is the parallel story of the mayor, the Honourable Simon-Napoléon Parent, and his urban dominion. Located on page 1, following the emblematic portrait of the queen on the cover, the portrait of Parent marks the beginning of the second visual narrative: the story of the jubilee in Quebec City. Even though the original printing resulted in a poor quality reproduction of the full-length image of the mayor, he was easily identified by the local population, which had reaped great benefits during his tenure (figure 5.2). Parent was a popular mayor, known for his success in revitalizing business investment in the city and for his beautification projects. Indeed, he was responsible for speeding up the building of the new city hall, where the full-length portrait hung.17 Visible through the window in the portrait of Parent, the city hall is again illustrated on the verso (page 2) that followed. Opened nine months earlier, the city hall symbolized the progress being made on economic, social, and cultural fronts (figure 5.3). This is an instance when the relation of recto to verso is significant. The image of the mayor is literally backed by the city hall, and prefaces the beginning of the queen’s biography that starts on page 3 (figure 5.4). Other institutions of power in the city are continuously inserted on the advertising pages, which occupy the left/verso sides of the two-page spreads. Vignettes of Quebec City sites face images of the queen. The Roman Catholic basilica and the Anglican cathedral on page 4 (figure 5.5) face the queen and her parents on page 5 (figure 5.6). Again, poor

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quality printing is virtually irrelevant to the reader, who would have seen these images of the Duke and Duchess of Kent on numerous occasions. The queen was, by definition, the head of the Church of England, which is part of the Anglican Church – thus, the caption reads “English Church.” A vignette of Jacques Cartier Landing at Quebec and a depiction of the Old St. Louis Gate are positioned opposite the images of the queen at eight, fifteen, and twenty-two years of age (on pages 6 and 7). A view of Le Chateau St. Louis en 1694 is the only title given in French but not English. It is placed next to Calèche Moderne, which has Modern Caleche handwritten above it. These two images face two images of the queen (taking the oath on her coronation and a portrait from 1846). The French basilica is beside the English church, gesturing towards the historical progression from French to British rule, and the sideby-side reality of French and English in the city. The illustrations of Jacques Cartier’s landing and the city gate built by the French signal the era of the ancien régime. The image of the Chateau Louis actually works to carry the multiple and merging histories of the city in its conversion from the home of the French government to its subsequent refurbishment and use by the English governor. Thus, this second narrative portrays the past and present of the city; it is a visual story running along the verso pages, in relation to the story of the queen. The advertisements in The Quebec Jubilee Souvenir Number constitute the third major visual field. These pictorial advertisements also occupy the verso pages and run continuously through the body of the booklet. The alternation of English and French advertisements parallels the English, then French sequence of the header on each page; Quebec Jubilee Souvenir Number heads each page of advertisements, while the translation, Numéro Souvenir du Jubilé de Québec, tops each page of the queen’s jubilee text. Substantial half- and quarter-page ads provide evidence of the health of numerous businesses, ranging from manufacturing and insurance to dry goods and wine merchants (see figure 5.5 for a typical layout of advertisements with images of the city). The physical symmetry of the souvenir booklet’s design is consistent to the point of predictability. This sense of studied balance is equally evident in the fourth narrative, which is a bilingual, written summary of the queen’s sixty years on the throne. The symmetrical text is seen in figure 5.4 and figure 5.6. Wrapping around most illustrations, the last page of the jubilee story is just in French, as the translation takes up more space. Through a detailed review of the improvements in economic, judicial, and territorial arenas during the sixty years of Victoria’s reign, the written

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text provides a counterpart to the visual biographies of the queen and the city. Just as the body of the queen ages and the dominion expands, Canada matures over the same sixty years between 1837 and 1897. These narrative lines – visual and verbal – can be understood as the subplots of a kind of novella. The booklet presents a story that relies upon the reader’s belief in the inherent truthfulness and naturalness of the history being recounted. The separate visual and verbal histories – of the queen, of the city, of the country – are meant to be read not as discrete commentaries but rather as an interwoven totality. These obvious stories re-present the disparate events of local, national, and imperial histories as a single, cohesive narrative that refuses, as Walter Benjamin eloquently argues, to acknowledge the barbarism underlying every act of civilization.18 By this return to Benjamin, I am signalling an awareness of the exclusions and omissions that inevitably occur when a narrative of imperialism is told. In the next section, I look at the often barely present indicators of alternative narratives that run under the surface of the obvious stories of queen, home, and country.

Rereading the narratives: images, text, and advertisements If we look again at the visual biography of the queen, it is apparent that the cover image of Victoria emblematically frames the text as a whole but does not present a bodily reality. In following the visual format of a coat of arms, the image is particularly heraldic. Flattened, the image of the queen’s body functions as a symbol of monarchy, rather than as a concretization of her corporeality. The heraldic ribbon that runs across her body, with the motto of the British monarchy, “Dieu et Mon Droit,” reinforces this visual reading. The saying appears on the British coat of arms, and when literally translated refers to the divine right to govern (“God and My Right”). Ironically, the divine right of the British is expressed in French. A remnant of the Norman Conquest, the adaptation of the motto in the fifteenth century reflected the primacy of French as the official language of the English court under King Henry V. The motto was in constant use in the nineteenth century, often used in visual culture, as in illuminations, fireworks, and letterhead. In distinct contrast to the queen’s emblematic figure, the body of the mayor, as represented in a full-length portrait, is the first in the album to be illustrated mimetically. Painted a year earlier by Robert L.

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Wickenden, the portrait was commissioned by the city council in order “to underline the numerous improvements which had been accomplished during [Parent’s] administration of the municipality.”19 While the image of the queen on the cover functions as an emblem of British sovereignty, the image of the mayor reminds the viewer of local governance. The corporeality of the mayor – that is, his bodily immediacy and historical presence – opposes the emblematic representation of the queen and reinforces the lived reality of Quebec’s citizenry. They know his bodily reality as a mayor who got things done. Neither symbolic nor titular head of government, Parent was the representative of the body corporate, who made people believe that liberal progress would benefit the canadiens. Mayor Parent was the one responsible for administering the celebrated British liberties and benefits in the town. Placed before the queen’s biography (figure 5.4), the image of the recently opened city hall (figure 5.3) reinforces Parent’s role in enforcing British liberties. The city hall signals the authority invested in Parent by the citizens who elected him to fulfill civic aspirations. Citizens knew the mayor locally as “le maire des grands travaux” (the mayor of large public works – a Jean Drapeau of 1890s Quebec).20 Closely aligned with Prime Minister Wilfrid Laurier’s Liberal progressives, Parent had just been appointed president of the Compagnie du pont de Québec (The Quebec Bridge Company). Over the next few years, he would be publicly commended for his expansionist policies in the domains of construction, tramway development, and the Louise Basin extension. In arguing that the mayor’s body and the civic buildings represent the local manifestations of imperialism, I am suggesting that the body of local accomplishments rationalizes and makes tangible the textual story of the queen and empire. Another souvenir booklet, Queen’s Diamond Jubilee Souvenir, was published in Montreal following a similar format, with bilingual text but no author acknowledged; ads were interspersed in the text and not confined to the verso pages.21 The local advertisements are the only indication that the booklet was published in Montreal. No textual references to the city are made. Although similar in telling the story of the queen, the Montreal souvenir booklet does not reveal narrative lines comparable to the Quebec booklet’s. Another souvenir book used the emblemata of empire (the cover image), followed by a full-page, three-quarter-length photograph of the mayor (and story about him on the verso), and a lengthy account of the monarchy written only in English.22 What we may be seeing here is the necessity of placing the

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mayors of these two cities into a specific relationship to the empire. Both mayors would have faced the ongoing tension among the diversity of local economic factions (sometimes divided on political grounds, sometimes according to class, industry, or other economic interests).23 The need to constantly oscillate between Britishness and local interests was arguably more intense in the French/English environment than it was in English-dominated provinces. Given the visual evidence of the schema (emblematic ruler, body of the mayor, then text about the queen) and the real differences faced by the mayors, it seems possible that the body of the mayor was meant to provide a legitimate local entry point for the colonial audience into the jubilee story. The choice of the full-length portrait mode does not merely conform to conventional genres, but appropriates the most significant format of portraiture to launch the jubilee story. To return, then, to the significance of the portrait of Simon-Napoléon Parent, the mayor of Quebec City, in the Quebec souvenir number, a full-length portrait was a more expensive format in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and was typically used as a formal statement of power, money, and privilege.24 I believe that the reproduction of the painting, rather than readily available bust-length photographs, was a means of illustrating Parent’s manifest influence in Quebec City. The painted portrait is remarkably different from the queen’s emblematic depiction on the cover. Given this, and the supporting “portraits” of the city sites, I am arguing that this visual narrative of the city was meant to facilitate the reading of local issues in conjunction with the story of the queen and empire – thus reproducing a paradoxical, yet tolerable and productive, vacillation between nationalism and imperialism.

Parallel but not entirely bilingual texts Parent’s improvements were the very sort of activities that the bilingual jubilee text identifies as crucial to the agrandissement (betterment) of the canadiens. The structure of the parallel texts implies that the author of both the English- and French-language texts is Nazaire LeVasseur (1848–1927). Placed at the end of the French language text, his is the only authorial name attached to the written text. LeVasseur was a wellknown canadien writer and journalist. He was fluently bilingual and an active Liberal Party member who later became the Canadian consul in Quebec for several South American countries. Well placed politically and socially, LeVasseur was a logical choice to pen the bilingual jubilee text.

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Shortly before writing the jubilee text, LeVasseur wrote “Le Carnaval 1996.”25 I believe that the story, set one hundred years in the future, provides insight into the sense of excitement and expectation that many canadiens were feeling in 1896, the year when LeVasseur’s story was likely written. Employing the authorial device of projection, LeVasseur’s narrator provides a futuristic overview of a century’s progress, from the 1890s to the 1990s. The story centres on the visit to the Quebec Carnival in 1996 of a young man from France. During his transatlantic voyage, the Frenchman meets an elderly Québécois whom he calls le vieillard (the old man). The year 1896 is particularly important in the annals of canadien history, because Laurier’s 1896 election as prime minister had sent a strong signal that the Liberals, under the leadership of a bilingual canadien, were emerging from a century of British conservative rule.26 Laurier’s reputation for passionate debate, his tendency to seek compromise in tensions between the English and the French, and his desire to promote Canada fed the optimism that underlies LeVasseur’s story of the Carnival in 1996. Given that the story was set in a fictional Quebec one hundred years later, the story was likely published in a local paper in 1896.27 Using le vieillard as his narrator, LeVasseur fancifully details the benefits that the province will have accrued during the twentieth century. Le vieillard argues that progress, represented by extensive train networks, advanced communications, and the comprehensive use of electricity, is the direct consequence of the judicious use of Quebec’s natural resources, both human and physical. Le vieillard observes, “The fact is that, in the 1990s, in Toronto and in many other towns in Ontario, as well as the Eastern United States, the English language has almost completely faded away. French has become the language of social, political, and financial relations.”28 Le vieillard tells the young man that the strengthening of the French language, which had commenced in the 1890s, led inevitably to the unprecedented expansion of the “French element” in Canada. The same socio-economic factors of 1890s Quebec that LeVasseur uses to validate his futuristic predictions underline the themes of liberal progress that permeate the various textual and visual narratives in the Quebec Jubilee Souvenir Number of 1897. The theme of liberal progress facilitates the transition from the Francophilic writing of LeVasseur to the Britophilic texts in the commemorative brochure. The point is that liberalism provides a rosy view of the future. On this ground, the English and the French find common interests, despite their being expressed slightly differently.

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The linear progression of the souvenir text and the reiterated themes of progress can be understood as implicitly moralizing – the queen wants to be good, the queen is the empire, therefore the empire is good.29 However, the presence of a bilingual text, especially one written by a known proponent of canadien interests like LeVasseur, suggests that the meta-narrative of the text is also meant to address specifically the French-speaking populace. While there were many jubilee brochures, few were bilingual. So we need to look at how this address was achieved, without assuming that the narrative “purely” reflected a dominant culture, or the combined interests of French and English business. The seemingly bilingual text was not quite as bilingual as it appears. A careful examination of the narrative lines of the text reveals an occasional fracture in the smooth surface of the Quebec Jubilee Souvenir Number. Despite symmetry of presentation, the parallel yet not identically bilingual texts differ in small, but significant, details. The minor, yet meaningful, differences between the two versions are underscored by the fact that the celebration of sixty years of Victoria’s reign also coincided problematically with the sixtieth anniversary of the rebellion of Lower Canada in 1837. The subtitle for the English version of the text is Sixty Years on the Throne. Differences in the parallel text, structured to echo physically the layout of the English text, are evident, for example, in figure 5.4. The subtitle Sixty Years on the Throne does not translate as the French text’s subtitle Le jubilé royal à Québec. Rather, the French text clearly signals that the jubilee story is about “The Royal Jubilee in Quebec City.” This subtitle, with its emphasis on the experience of the jubilee at a specific moment of time and in a particular place – Quebec City, 1897 – immediately opens up other possible readings for canadien readers. This local reality permits the cries of “God Save the Queen” to be voiced by English and French alike.30 In the French-language version of the text, LeVasseur refers to the period of Victoria’s ascendency to the crown as “marquée au Canada par les troubles politiques et sanglants de 1837” (“marked in Canada by the political and bloody struggles”).31 The “political and bloody struggles” marking the 1837 rebellion in Lower Canada thus define the character of the first years of contact between the canadiens and the British crown, both in French and for the French-speaking. Yet omitted from the French text is any mention of the 1838 rebellion in Upper Canada, which occurred in response to economic repressions similar to those

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faced by the rebels in Quebec. Perhaps the French version of the text overlooks this rebellion because mentioning it would dilute the significance of the canadiens’ uprising. In the English text, the two revolts (separated by nearly a year) are subsumed into a single “rebellion.” The English text notes that the opening years of Her Majesty’s reign were “marked by the rebellion in Canada.” The choice of words in the French text could not have been a question of chance, not in the public language of a man, LeVasseur, who championed the French language and, indeed, who prophesied its ascendency. This obvious point of departure from the assumed bilingualism of the publication signals the transgressive potential of a non-conforming text. The references to the formative years of Victoria’s reign in Canada in French and in English are thus far from synonymous, either linguistically or culturally, and public memory appears to be socially constituted according to whether the reader is of French or English heritage. The different placement of a small paragraph regarding the mayor and the jubilee festivities further complicates the relationship between the English- and French-language texts. The paragraph appears on the first page of the English text but on the last page of the French version, where it appears in slightly altered form. In the French version, LeVasseur omits to mention that the St-Jean-Baptiste Society will be participating in the official opening of Victoria Park. The participation of the canadien society marks acceptance or support of the queen. The English version of the text, though, does report that the society will participate in the opening of the park. Local politics merge with the national and the imperial in LeVasseur’s presumably purposeful omission. I will return later to some of these relations, but of immediate significance is Parent’s rhetorical act of humility in refusing to be memorialized in the naming of the park. Against the city councillors’ intention to name the park after the mayor himself, Parent instead insisted that the park be named in the queen’s honour. Minutes of the Municipal Council for 1897 confirm Parent’s magnanimity and the importance of Victoria Park to Quebec. The publication includes the first council entries on the decision to buy the land, the name change, the speeches of the dignitaries who officiated at the opening of the park, and the letters to and from the queen and her representatives obtaining permission to use her name.32 Parent’s gesture of refusal actually linked him directly to the queen. Furthermore, Parent’s success in arranging the

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opening of Victoria Park on Jubilee Day resulted in the double triumph of having the province’s lieutenant-governor in attendance at Quebec’s jubilee celebrations of 22 June 1897, and not in Montreal. The ongoing rivalry between Quebec City and Montreal33 was possibly at the root of Parent’s efforts to ensure that Lieutenant-Governor Joseph-Adolphe Chapleau was on hand to officially open Victoria Park.34 Chapleau’s presence in Quebec City gave Parent a visible cachet that was denied Richard Wilson-Smith, the mayor of Montreal. The lieutenant-governor had long-standing ties to Montreal and his presence would have been equally desired, if not expected, in that city for the jubilee. Semi-retired from active politics, Chapleau managed to rise to the occasion long enough to hold an open house at Spencer Wood (government house). The French and English press commented on Chapleau’s presence, including the observation that “all of Quebec’s best society [was] doubtless present to enjoy the splendid hospitality of Sir Adolphe [Chapleau] and his estimable lady.”35 LeVasseur’s text also positions the mayor as critical to the jubilee celebrations’ success insofar as it credits Parent with having initiated the request to the St-Jean-Baptiste Society’s provincial representatives to move the annual St-Jean-Baptiste Day celebrations from the 24th of June to the 22nd so that they would coincide with the jubilee celebrations. I explore the implications of this accommodation further in chapter 6, but for now I am drawing attention to the perceived role of the mayor. The credit for this change of date is more subdued in the St-Jean-Baptiste Society of Quebec’s report (1897) on the celebrations, which states “the civic committee first obtained the support of the St. Jean Baptiste Society which graciously consented to advance by two days the celebration of the birthday of its Patron saint.”36 At first, I thought that the small counter-textual insertions and negative evidence provided by LeVasseur’s omissions suggested that the grand narrative of the Quebec Jubilee Souvenir Number had been effectively transgressed by LeVasseur’s known francophile perspective. The blessings of constitutional monarchy – progress, individual rights, and financial growth – certainly seemed challenged by LeVasseur’s reputation and the differences in the so-called bilingual text. However, in light of the subtleties of LeVasseur’s manoeuvre and the fact that he too was acting within the Liberal imperial agenda, the differences in the text were not simply oppositional. LeVasseur himself was to demonstrate a remarkable flexibility on francophilia when he accepted a position as the consul for Brazil in Canada! Thus, it seems

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the differences in the not-quite-bilingual text were not seen as irreconcilable at that moment in time, in that particular place. Consider the possibility that the voice from below – the canadiens’ – was not really below. Why would LeVasseur play with the layout of the text? By placing the paragraph about Victoria Park at the beginning of the English text, the canadien mayor and the St-Jean-Baptiste Society are shown clearly supporting the crown. The movement of this text, and its slight rewording in the French version, downplays the StJean-Baptiste Society’s compromise in changing the date of the annual canadien fête. Furthermore, the French version of the text omits Parent’s involvement in naming the park in honour of the monarch. This repositioning of the section on Victoria Park literally and metaphorically undermines any potential perception of supplication on the part of the canadiens. This juggling of affiliation and loyalties is also evident in the speeches delivered by the Honourable Mr Duffy, commissioner of public works, and by the Honourable J.E. Robidoux, provincial secretary, at the opening ceremony for Victoria Park.37 The mayor and the lieutenant-governor both spoke in French, followed by Duffy, who read his speech in English. Only the French-language press summarized Duffy’s speech, which was not reprinted in full in any Englishor French-language newspaper of the day.38 In what appears to be his first address to the citizens of Quebec, Duffy praises the benefits of the English flag. He declares that wherever the flag has gone, so, too, have appeared the benefits of the English constitution, which has enabled progress in the arts, sciences, and commerce. Although he acknowledges that “we” are the children of France and England (as a consequence of the “glorious battle of the Plains of Abraham”), nevertheless, Canada “which is today so prosperous owes everything to England.”39 That leaves little doubt about the perceived value of British rule. So why was Duffy’s speech popularly received and even summarized in French in the daily papers? The laudatory French-language speeches reveal at least part of the puzzle’s answer. The canadien audience (largely unilingual, as were the majority of the English-speaking residents of Quebec) heard the rest of the speeches in French. Several of these were reprinted in the local press both in French and translated into English. The speeches of Parent, Chapleau, and Robidoux detail the particular nuances of the relationship between the canadiens and the British. While the words of Robidoux’s speech were indeed “Vive la Reine [Long live the Queen],” they

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were not spoken in English. Nor did he echo the oft-repeated phrase “God Save the Queen.” Rather, his exhortation was preceded by the call “Vive la France [Long live France].”40 Robidoux makes explicit the imagined relationship between the canadiens and the crown that permitted the outpouring of devotion to the queen. As long as the focus was on the honour of the queen who would uphold modern liberties, British government could be seen as compatible with canadien patrie – a patriotism that melded French cultural values with British liberties. The queen was understood both as the woman who wanted “to be good” and as the embodiment of British liberty. She would not, therefore, act arbitrarily. Robidoux is suggesting that under Victoria the canadiens had been treated fairly, at least more fairly than under her uncle, William IV, and her grandfather, George III. Robidoux implies that those kings were seen by the canadiens as ruling capriciously (e.g., as when the province of Quebec was divided into Upper and Lower Canada by the Constitution Act of 1791, thus benefitting English settlers in the west). Citing the intervention of Monseigneur Forbin Janson (who argued for the return from exile of the 1837 rebels), Robidoux argues that Victoria listened to her people, not her ministers. Recalling Lord Durham’s condemnation of the canadiens after the rebellions, Robidoux refutes Durham’s accusation that they were an ignorant people who deserved to disappear. He cites the achievements of individual politicians, from Papineau to Laurier, and of literary men and women, including poets, historians, and writers, as detailed evidence of the progress of the race under the beneficent rule of Victoria.41 Robidoux attributes this notion of progress – progress in political power, education, and the technological innovations of rail, communications, and trade – to the combined strength of the canadien spirit merged with British liberty and justice. Standing on the same platform at the same event, two politicians, one of English and the other of French descent, articulated apparently contradictory interpretations of the significance of “God Save the Queen.” Yet, at the same time, they mutually confirmed Queen Victoria’s centrality to the divergent interests of their multiple audiences.

Advertising nationalism The Quebec Jubilee Souvenir Number visually demonstrates the narrative strategies that sustained the voices of seemingly disparate interests. The narrative threads intermingle compellingly so as to make it possible to support imperialist realities without denying nationaliste de-

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sires. LeVasseur’s French memory of the rebellion graphically recalls it as both politically motivated and “sanglant” (bloody), reminding the canadien population that both the physical confrontation and the political situation has changed in the past sixty years. Just as Robidoux pointed out, the exiles had been allowed to return to the embrace of “la patrie.”42 The canadiens had not been silenced as Durham recommended in his post-rebellion report. Rather, there was a growing nationaliste movement, which was gathering political strength in the 1880s under Henri Bourassa. Laurier’s attempt to placate the nationalistes and the English conservatives through a policy that supported British constitutional politics alongside Canadian economic selfdetermination was working at that moment. This was evident at the national level in the popular delight at Laurier’s reception in London, where he had gone to attend the Colonial Conference, scheduled to coincide with the jubilee. How do the narrative threads of the Quebec Jubilee Souvenir Number mediate the different understandings of Laurier’s Liberal vision? On just eleven pages, forty-three advertisements dominate the twenty-page brochure. Unlike most contemporaneous pamphlets or souvenir albums, in this the advertisements do not follow the main body of the text; they permeate it. Other jubilee brochures typically contained advertisements, but these were generally placed at the end of the primary text. Arguably, the pattern of advertisements in the midst of text highlights the significance of both visual and textual storylines, as well as their intertextuality. Thus the visual storylines were as essential to the defining text of the Quebec Jubilee Souvenir Number as were the written words of the bilingual text – each page could be read and viewed as an interwoven, cumulative text. Just as the physical symmetry of the written texts suggested equal status for the English- and French-language versions of the jubilee story, so, too, the layout of the commercial story re-presents a symbiotic relationship between the crown and the city. The first two-page spread appearing after the title page contains two advertisements for large, English-run companies. Campbell and Brodie, a manufacturer of boots, shoes, and rubbers, sponsors one advertisement. Another is for Western Assurance, an insurance company. Both claim more than provincial status in their copy, with Campbell and Brodie advertising that they manufacture locally and also import products. Western Assurance reminds its audience of its international standing in England and New York, as well as Toronto and Quebec. These English advertisements face the full-length portrait of

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the canadien mayor, providing further visual evidence of the carefully balanced linguistic, cultural, and corporate interests of the city. If my emphasis on the advertisements alongside the images seems tenuous, then the next two-page spread seems to affirm that the effect is intentional. And if the image of the mayor represents a canadien presence, then the following pages also reiterate the verso-recto relationship of the two previous pages. Again, the advertisements are on the left and the celebratory images are on the right (see figures 5.3 and 5.4). Here the commercial statements are somewhat more linguistically complex. For example, an advertisement for Le Magasin du Louvre with a canadien proprietor, “A.N. Cote,” uses English text to assert that business is booming (“Our Dress Goods Department is Booming! Our Gents’ Furnishing Department is Booming! … Our low price pressure makes things boom all along the line”).43 Similarly complex, the heating company O. Picard & Son applies a rigorous bilingualism to its text but employs a unilingual header: “The Hot Water Heating Apparatus of the Above Building [City Hall] Was Installed by Us.” The two advertisements explicitly draw the English audience’s attention to the company’s commercial success in having been chosen to provide the heating apparatus for the city hall. Is this because the semantic value of the Hôtel de Ville, a building constructed by a canadien architect under the auspices of two canadien mayors, is already tipping the two-page spread away from its careful balance of Canadian/British, French/English and towards canadien history and accomplishment? Or is it merely that O. Picard & Son have every intention of installing a gas or steam heater in as many English homes as possible? There is an argument for both motivations, and indeed their potentials intertwine. The placement of English and French text may implicitly acknowledge the explicit desires of the entire financial community, which continuously strove to extend its client base, not only for profit, but also in the name of progress. Since progress is measured both in terms of personal success (the economy of individualism) and success of the city as a whole (with respect to its provincial and national competitors), the advertisements articulate both canadien pride and capitalist ambition. The printer of the Quebec Jubilee Souvenir Number makes a claim that clearly underlines this concern with notions of progress: the modern Telegraph Job Printing Office is described as “the only up-to-date plant in the city.”44 The printer’s half-page advertisement is inserted on the horizontal between the second and third page. Looking like a last-minute addition that was inserted after the booklet was typeset,

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the printer’s ad seems to be correcting an oversight. However, the insert’s location may have been a strategic gesture on the printer’s part, as it breaks the orchestrated balance of the designed layout. Whether intentionally placed or not, when the insert is turned over, its blank verso blocks the French name of Le Magasin du Louvre, the City Hall/ Hôtel de Ville, and the name of O. Picard & Son. Thus it is impossible to see the Hôtel de Ville at the same time as the images of Kensington Palace and Osborne House. The insert reasserts the emblematic and physical separation of the local from the monarchical; I argue that this gap was essential to rationalizing the institutions of imperialism within the lived realities of “la patrie.” This judicious and strategic blinding or erasure is one of the ways in which progress and nationalisme reconcile. Other juxtapositions within the Souvenir Number also define the modernity of Quebec City and its progress during the reign of Victoria. The two-page spread for pages 4 (figure 5.5) and 5 (figure 5.6) presents a complex design layout: the sexpartite division of page 4 features two advertisements on the upper third of the page, two images in the centre third, and two ads on the lower; and page 5 has three portrait cameos, two in the upper third and one centred in the lower third of the page, with English and French text symmetrically arranged in the lower twothirds of the page (figures 5.5 and 5.6). Thus each page is harmonized internally and balanced, albeit not symmetrically, over the two-page spread. In particular, the imagery on these two pages reinforces the idea of a strong relationship between Quebec and Queen Victoria. The joint presence of the Roman Catholic basilica and the Anglican cathedral on the page of advertisements signals the spiritual past and present of the city. The recto images depict “Edward, Duke of Kent, Father of the Queen” next to “Victoria, Duchess of Kent, Mother of the Queen” (figure 5.6). At the apex of an inverse triangle is the image of “The Queen at the Age of Seventeen Years,” i.e., at the moment before her accession to the throne (only months before the 1837 rebellion). The contiguity of recto and verso images works to underline the spiritual foundation of the nation and empire; the formative aspects of both the local and the imperial were drawn through literal illustration. Aligning the religious institutions of the city with the moral upbringing of the queen ties religious practice to morality. This moral upbringing was crucial to the formation of the monarch, who refused the self-indulgence of previous kings, acted according to the motto “I want to be good,” and ensured the survival of both the French and English religious institutions of Quebec. Both Catholics and Protestants could

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understand that the queen’s moral status was an example to everyone regardless of faith. Thus the visual narrative of these two pages supports the emblematic relationship between crown and citizen; the use of the emblem functions to disembody the queen sufficiently so as to allow the monarch/crown to represent a diversity of her subjects. On the other hand, the verbal text physically embodies and fills the story of the immediate past in the careful delineation of the specific accomplishments of the crown: Victoria’s personal, military, social, and political successes. The advertisements display the achievements of Quebec City, such as the advertisement for J. Savard, who describes himself with three words: “Temperance * Family * Grocer” (figure 5.5). He claims to own “the best up to date family grocery store in Canada.” J.M. Aubry’s company imports and manufactures “Décorations Artistique et Religieuse” (Artistic and Religious Decorations). Aubry aimed his French-language advertisement to the local, predominantly Catholic canadiens. Geo. Tanquay’s successful “Wholesale” business occupies substantial warehouses. His listing of four numbered building locations on St Andrew Street, the wharves at St Andrew Street, and those at Dalhousie Street in Lower Town indicate a very extensive set of holdings. The soon-to-open “Turkish and Russian Baths” suggest that there is time and money available for leisure pursuits in the modern city. The multiple narratives of pages 4 and 5 are similarly reiterated throughout the text. Pages 6 and 7 continue the visual and verbal narratives of achievements, such as Grenier’s “Leading Quebec Grocer” and Quebec’s “Oldest Canadian Fire Office under Dominion License,” which are placed alongside the bilingual text’s description of territorial and commercial expansion under Victoria (pages 6 and 7). Likewise, the visual narrative on the same page describes the history of the ancien régime of French Canada through images of “Jacques Cartier Landing at Quebec – Jacques Cartier à Québec”45 and “Old St. Louis Gate – Ancienne porte St Louis.” Note that the titles are in English first, followed by French. These images are on the verso page positioned opposite the recto page featuring three portraits of the queen. The three monarchical portraits continue the visual narrative of the preceding pages, illustrating the biography of the queen. Yet, in isolation on the two-page spread, these same images function to signify the beginning of the reign in much the same way that the images of Old Quebec signal the roots of contemporary Quebec: they both connote the passage of time by spotlighting unique temporal moments (e.g., Cartier’s “landing” or the queen “at age eight”) and by presuming a natural progres-

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sion across an unrepresented timeline to the present. The images establish the beginning of the story of Quebec and of the queen, while the advertisements represent the culmination of years of progress in the modern present. The specific twists of the bilingual text discuss “the principal wars” unproblematically after the political history of the reign and before its commercial history and thus reinforce this teleological model of inevitable progress. The brochure offers a brief history of Canada’s economic expansion, buttressed by convincing numerical detail, as the inevitable outcome of the reign’s natural evolution: “We had not one locomotive in Canada when Victoria came to the throne. Now we have 16,000 miles of railway, 1,948 engines, 2,058 passenger and baggage cars, and 56,929 freight cars carrying our goods and produce.”46 It is no longer surprising that these details of Victoria’s reign on page 9 are prefaced by the paired images of “Chateau St. Louis en 1694 (St. Lewis Castle in 1694)” and a “Calèche Moderne” (a modern horse-driven carriage), which function as symbols of ancient and modern Quebec. We have seen the complex and inter-related narratives that twist and turn through visual and written text. At some level these stories no longer rely on explicit recognition, but on a tolerance that permits the contradictions to ride on the back of the readily consumed narratives of queen, home, and country.

Buildings and narratives: building a narrative The visual storyline depicting the queen’s official residences literally institutionalizes the monarchy. The story of the official edifices starts with the queen’s birthplace, Kensington Palace; moves to Osborne House, the country residence of the young monarchical couple; and finally ends at Buckingham Palace, the mature queen’s primary residence. These images consciously mark the physical and metaphorical boundaries of the queen’s biography. If, as I have argued above, the title page functions emblematically and the start of Victoria’s personal narrative begins on page 3, after the representation of the mayor, then the placement of the queen’s residences can be seen as marking the opening and closing of her personal story (and reiterating the ages of man topos). Kensington Palace is the first to be illustrated and it is placed above Osborne House on page 3 (figure 5.4). The last page of written text, page 15 (followed by three pages of advertisements), includes an illustration of Buckingham Palace, another of Balmoral Castle, and is flanked, on page 14, by an idyllic representation of Windsor Castle.

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The written text refers only to Kensington Palace, and then merely as the childhood playground of “Little Vic.” Explanations are evidently not necessary for the informed readers of this souvenir booklet. Equally, an explanation of Quebec’s architectural narrative would be superfluous: the image of the “City Hall – Hôtel de Ville” naturally precedes the queen’s architectural narrative. The prints, photographs, and drawings of Quebec’s churches and historical sites punctuate the visual biography of the queen’s residences. Presumably it is not coincidental that the final images of architectural sites are on page 16, following the last page of the queen’s biography. The images of the “Old Hope Gate – Ancienne Porte Hope” and the “Martello Tower – Tour Martello” provide a local image of French colonial life as the conclusion to the experience of Victoria’s reign recounted in the booklet.

Gaps and addenda Lest it appear that the entire publication exemplifies a carefully resolved interweaving of different yet compatible interests, some differences seem to exist without explanation. There is more English text than French in the Quebec Jubilee Souvenir Number on the whole. While the written text about the jubilee appears in both languages with minor variations in wording, there are two additional pages of English text, unsigned, that follow LeVasseur’s text. One focuses upon the international aspects of the jubilee (page 13) and one on Victoria’s life as a child (page 15). Perhaps the English-language reminder of the international reach of the crown also functions as a reminder of the Dominion of Canada’s real limits. The crown remains in control of the liberties it grants – the story of the crown starts and ends the brochure. Quite possibly this text was part of the jubilee promotional materials provided by the colonial office. Certainly the details, even some phrases, are similar to the many other jubilee publications that year. More curious is the combination of the separate story of Victoria’s childhood with a paragraph describing an upcoming entertainment, the re-enactment of the Siege of Sebastopol. This paragraph was in addition to an advertisement in the booklet for the open-air performance of The Siege of Sebastopol as a “Fitting Jubilee Celebration” (see figure 5.5). Furthermore, the paragraph functions as more than an advertisement for the spectacle: it amplifies and expands awareness, for Victoria’s subjects, that the historical spectacle will provide an object lesson in imperialism. On the other hand, the insertion of this paragraph could be a random pairing similar to the economy of typeset-

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ting seen in contemporaneous journals. For example, an excerpt from a novella precedes an extensive report of the jubilee, which is followed by the publication of a music recital.47 But I believe the advertisement for the re-enactment of the siege was made to fit on this particular page. Many writers of the period considered the siege to be one of the most important battles of the Crimean War.48 The text describes the battle as “undoubtedly one of the most important events in the reign of Queen Victoria.”49 As a possible literary parallel to the battle of the Plains of Abraham, generally described as the “siege” of Quebec, the image of The Siege of Sebastopol may be meant to remind the reader metaphorically of defeat – a similar defeat marked the shift from French to British rule in Quebec. It is unclear if the writer intended to contrast the spectacle to the historical reality. However, the laudatory language viscerally constructs the ongoing reality of survivance for the canadiens. The unidentified author of this brief paragraph concludes that the realism of the “300 feet of scenery, over 100 uniformed soldiery … and all the din of the battle” make it “hard for the spectator to realize that what he sees is only Mimic War.”50 The trauma of battle is simultaneously rendered as “mimic” – obviously a representation – yet nevertheless also evokes the sounds and feelings of war. In multiple instances, the “souvenir” booklet invites the spectator to vicariously relive the terror and chaos of the battle. Perhaps the advertisement and its placement serve as a reminder of the historic distance that progress and civilization have provided between the Plains of Abraham and the jubilee parade (and equally between the 1837 rebellions and the 1897 jubilee). As a mimic war, the spectacle acknowledges the representational status of its affect, and its realist effect becomes accessible only by simultaneously evoking memories of the local chaos preceding the calm of Victoria’s reign. Despite the appeal of this interpretation, I remain cautious of overinterpreting every chance pairing of image and text. It doesn’t actually matter whether these pairings were intentional or not; what matters is their effect on the reader. The fact that the last page has one paragraph on the queen’s childhood and one on the staged Siege of Sebastopol does evoke multiple reminders of the themes of the jubilee: progress, civilization, and conquest, whether intentional or not. The complex narratives that shape the Quebec Jubilee Souvenir Number create an image of an entire population joined in one instance by the call “God Save the Queen.” However, realizing that the booklet represents local sites and concerns designed to appeal to a diversity of audiences allows me to further question why a conquered nation would

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glorify the name of the conqueror. Why in the world would a canadien cry “God Save the Queen”? I can only assume that the complexity of the storylines is at least in some instances surely intentional. LeVasseur must have been aware of the disparity between the bilingual texts. Not only does he describe the same event (as in the rebellion) differently in each version, but also the nature of the difference suggests that specific nationalist politics dictated the necessary content of one version as opposed to the other. This awareness is particularly evident in the different placements of the Victoria Park descriptions, which appear in the second paragraph of the English version and in the penultimate paragraph of the French text. Therefore, I conclude with a discussion of this discrepancy. The English version is headed by “Queen Victoria’s Jubilee. Sixty Years on the Throne”; the French title is “Sa Majesté la Reine Victoria. Le Jubilé Royal à Québec” (Her Majesty Queen Victoria. The Royal Jubilee at Quebec City). Once again employing an ironic twist in his first paragraph under the French rubric, LeVasseur commences with a fairly dry account of Victoria’s succession to the throne and immediately moves into a catalogue of names, dates, and events. Thus, he totally ignores the actual local celebrations of “Le Jubilé Royal à Québec” until his concluding paragraphs. The English version starts with two long paragraphs extolling the virtues of the “woman, wife, and mother, as well as the merits of the constitutional monarch.” The booklet then describes the celebration of the Diamond Jubilee not so much as the rejoicing of a great nation as “the acclaim by all races of a woman whose high station has given prominent display to those eminent virtues which command the respect of mankind.” This is not mere rhetoric or hyperbole, however. The underlying “acclaim” expressed in the second paragraph affirms that these sentiments are equally and emphatically felt in Quebec: In this feeling of personal loyalty and devotion, the Dominion of Canada is second to no part of the Empire, nor are the inhabitants of the old fortress of Quebec at all behind the rest of their Canadian fellow citizens. The French and English speaking sections are a unit in this and proof of the cordial feeling of the former is to be found in the contemplative change of the great national feast to Jubilee Day, when the opening of the Victoria Park, for which the city is indebted to its Mayor, Hon. Mr. Parent, will derive additional éclat from the annual procession of the St. Jean Baptiste Society.51

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The English version of the booklet foregrounds this same paragraph as a necessary consequence of the desire to demonstrate French loyalty to the crown. Furthermore, the French version features text on local events at the end, which is restructured to veil or mute the significance of the St-Jean-Baptiste Society’s compromise. The English version duly credits Mayor Parent for his critical role in the founding of Victoria Park. Indeed, we have seen that he insisted on his name being replaced by that of the queen. This is a rhetorical gesture that we might recognize as self-effacement – but what better replacement of the self could be desired than having one’s shoes, so to speak, filled by the reigning monarch? Indeed, the fact that the jubilee parade had to approach Victoria Park by marching down “Parent Boulevard” could not have been overlooked by the 20,000 parade spectators who followed the route to the park’s grandstand, where the queen’s representative, the lieutenant-governor of Quebec, gave his speech. Despite the awkward phrasing, it is clear that for the English reader in Quebec the proof of canadien cordiality lies in the St-Jean-Baptiste Society’s decision to change the date of their annual procession to that of the jubilee. This evidence is exactly what is excluded from LeVasseur’s French version of the events. While he repeats the assertion that the French and English are united in their acclaim of the throne, his phrasing personifies Quebec as an entity that sanctions unity, participates in the jubilee, and addresses the throne. As well, the shift from individuals, “the inhabitants of the old fortress of Quebec,” to the singularity of “Québec, le fort vieux, berceau de la civilisation du nouveau monde” underlines the different orientation of the canadiens to the relationship between them and the crown (Quebec, the old fort, the cradle of civilization in the new world). The totality of “Quebec” – a Liberal Quebec empowered by technological, social, and political progress to “sanctionne l’union si désirable du Français et de l’Anglais” (sanction the highly desired union of the French and the English) – ­ subsumes the English presence in Quebec. Quebec is portrayed as an entity that chooses to accept the gracious sovereign:52 “Québec éternisera le souvenir de la fête par l’inauguration solennelle d’un parc public qui portera le nom de Victoria” (Quebec perpetuates the memory of the celebration by the solemn inauguration of a public park that carries the name of Victoria). This move to personify Quebec prevents the discussion of individual personalities with respect to the question of loyalty. Parent is not applauded, but neither is the St-Jean-Baptiste Society. Although I have not been able to find any printed trace of resistance

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to the decision of the St-Jean-Baptiste Society to combine their annual procession with the jubilee parade, the absence of applause in LeVasseur’s French version of the text suggests that there may have been some unspoken, or at least unrecorded, distaste. If there was only that absence in this text, it would not be possible to make this tentative suggestion. However, there is an extraordinary gap in the publication record of at least two local journals suggesting that the “negative evidence” of LeVasseur’s text is significant. Le Canadien Français and Le Jean-Baptiste had been published annually in Quebec on the occasion of St-Jean-Baptiste Day. The former was published from 1889 to 1891, inclusive, the latter from 1887 to 1892, inclusive. Both of these publications have a gap in publication in the 1890s. Le Canadien Français resumed regular publication in 1899 and Le Jean-Baptiste in 1902.53 The lacuna in the publication records coincides quite closely with the rise of the Liberal Party in Quebec and, notably, with the dates of Parent’s mayoral tenure. Exceedingly popular, according to contemporary accounts, Parent, the Liberal MLA (member of the Legislative Assembly) from 1890, was elected mayor in 1894.54 He was to become premier of the province in 1900. Whether or not Parent was responsible for the gap in publication is not the issue, and certainly the existing archive does not reveal any such relationship. However, his success was symptomatic of the weakness of the anti-Liberal nationaliste movement at the time, which did not revive from its initial flourish in the late 1880s until Henri Bourassa gained greater profile in the late 1890s. What is significant for our purposes is that there is a publication gap. This is “negative evidence”; the absence of what might be expected as the only contrary voice in the generalized adoration of the queen looms large in the archive. Why did LeVasseur not mention Parent and the St-Jean-Baptiste Society in the French text? Why did these two publications cease during Parent’s tenure as mayor? Public statements such as the address of R.P. Boisseau, the general president of the St-Jean-Baptiste Society, to Monseigneur Marois suggest one answer – perhaps partial – to these absences. Published in L’Événement, one of the conservative French-language newspapers in Quebec at the time, Boisseau’s address appears to offer an explanation for moving the celebration of what is, after all, a saint’s day mass to the date of the queen’s jubilee.55 Acknowledging the close bonds between “la Nationalité Canadienne-Française et la mère bien-aimée l’Église Catholique” (the French-Canadian nation and its well-loved mother, the Catholic Church), Boisseau is careful to credit both the church and the sovereign for their roles in the “agrandissement” of the canadiens.

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In particular, it is to the reign of Victoria that Boisseau credits “la réalisation de nos libertés constitutionnelles” (the establishment of our constitutional freedoms). According to Boisseau, that is why the canadiens hold in their hands both the maple leaf and the rose (the emblems respectively of French Canada and Great Britain). The equally carefully worded response of Monseigneur Marois to Boisseau’s address, which was also published in L’Événement, confirms the tacit agreement that church and state, Roman Catholicism and Anglican parliamentarianism, can work hand in hand. The unprecedented integration of federal, provincial, and municipal politics with nationalist sentiment in the St-Jean-Baptiste Day Parade of 1896 epitomizes this tentative working relationship between nationalisme, Catholicism, and Liberalism. In the year before the jubilee, Wilfrid Laurier had chosen to salute the end of eighteen years of Conservative government and his inauguration as the first canadien prime minister through his official participation in the 1896 St-JeanBaptiste celebrations in Quebec City. While the euphoria of union did not last beyond the end of the decade, it was an essential component of the canadien conception of the relationship between crown and nation in the 1890s.56 La patrie – the sense of a nationaliste homeland – was reconcilable with the British monarchy precisely because the institutions of the crown were conceived as matching the progressive intentions of a canadien-dominated liberalism. For the first time in Canadian history, the prime minister, the premier, the mayor of Quebec, the lieutenant-governor, and the provincial secretary were all canadiens (even if some were Liberal and others Conservative). The Quebec Jubilee Souvenir Number represents all of these relations, and the multiple strands of narrative address the nuances of different subjectivities throughout. The visual narratives related through portraiture and city views create other texts that hover between the written, the imaged, and the imagined. The full-length portrait of the mayor, inserted between the three-quarter view of the queen and the doubled account of the jubilee, may serve to inscribe the subaltern voice of the canadiens as emphatically as do the discrepancies in the written texts. Mediated by the visual archaeology of the page, the narratives of the images and the English- and French-language texts reveal subtle differences that function to satisfy contradictory viewpoints. However, there is a dominant narrative that suits, perhaps for different reasons, the purposes of its readers. While LeVasseur’s text was not a rote translation, clearly there is no doubt that the multivocal exhortation of “God Save the Queen” was nearly bilingual. Vive la reine!

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Archival notes: methodologies unhinged Born and raised in Quebec, I have lived the tensions of a “have” and “have not” province. Ironically, as a Québécoise d’extraction Anglaise (Quebecker of English extraction) of a certain age, my experience was largely of the “can not” variety. Despite being bilingual, my mother tongue is not French; therefore, many jobs were out of reach in the post-FLQ (Front de Libération du Québec) 1970s. This experience definitely impacts my view of the French-English tensions in Quebec. When I was doing some research on the floats used in St-Jean-Baptiste Day parades (see chapter 6), I couldn’t help but notice that bilingual memorabilia were created for the Diamond Jubilee. I was shocked that the St-Jean-Baptiste Society apparently gave up its national holiday to honour the queen. Thus, this story of archival encounters is about methodology, a return to the ideas about an interdisciplinary research triad that I discussed in the introduction. This archival insider’s report is about finding material in the archive that was incompatible with the experiences and histories in my larger “research archive.” In my discussion of the research archive in the introduction, I include the experiences of the researcher, because such experiences not only affect my subject position, they also affect what I know is likely to be available in the archive. Growing up in the shadow of “Vive le Québec,” the idea of “Vive la reine” was an impossible concept. Who would say that in French, or in Quebec? And why? In looking for answers, I found the Quebec Jubilee Souvenir Number Its structured bilingualism and small refusals, gaps, and omissions forced me to rethink my understanding of the solidity of French-Canadian nationalism. The archive pushed back. I initially found the Quebec Jubilee Souvenir Number in the Musée de la Civilisation, Archives du Séminaire de Quebec as part of my research for the Literary and Historical Society of Quebec (chapters 1 and 3). It was a sidebar to a larger research project on visual culture in Quebec in the 1890s, especially focusing on the jubilee parades and use of chars (floats). However, as I spent more time with the brochure, I realized it held a story in and of itself. Few jubilee brochures are bilingual, and fewer still reveal the ongoing tensions of colonization. There is more work there for other cultural historians. But what I did find was the use of “Vive la reine,” when previously I had seen the expression only in English, even when in a bilingual or French-only publication. “God Save the Queen” was a phrase, a toast, an exclamation. I didn’t find it literally translated until I read the bro-

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chure, and even then, it was not a literal translation. “Vive la reine” means “Long live the queen,” not “God save her.” A research project of its own, this linguistic moment signalled my ignorance. Still partial, my knowledge of that moment is informed by what I know of the 1970s as much as by what I know of the pre-Confederation Canadas. This little document opened a door to a particular moment in Quebec when possibilities for canadien agrandissement seemed imaginable, at least to the likes of men such as Nazaire LeVasseur. His writings, especially the story “Le Carnaval 1996,” gesture towards a dream unfathomable to me. The Quiet Revolution of the 1950s and ’60s, the violence of the FLQ , and the rise of the Parti Québécois with the French language bill did not allow young English Quebeckers of the 1980s to continue blindly in linguistic and other cultural separations. The history of Quebec from 1940 to the present is punctuated by moments such as the “Quiet Revolution,” which is understood as a cultural refusal of the church control of social and cultural life. When I refer to the violence of the FLQ , I am recalling my experience of witnessing the subjection of friends to the War Measures Act after the murder of Pierre Laporte by the Front de Libération du Quebec. Several of my school friends had been questioned and some of their socialist parents had been arrested. A rumour went around our neighbourhood suggesting that the car in which he was found belonged to someone who lived near my family. The violence was close to home. I felt the rise of the Parti Québécois as an anti-Bourassa (then premier of Quebec) movement, and was excited by the possibility of change – not just linguistic or cultural, but social and political. Commonly referred to as “the language bill,” Bill 101, meant to safeguard the continuity of the French language, resulted in some illogical outcomes – such as the insistence that we relearn some basic vocabulary, like the use of “hambourgeois” for “hamburger” – but we got over it. And many young people in Quebec today are bilingual and thrive in a culturally rich and multivalent social atmosphere, which I could not have imagined as a teenager in 1970. So this archival note is meant to draw attention to how the “research archive” contains memories and experiences that need to be examined, not merely accepted as a historian’s “bias.” Some point of view is inescapable; sometimes it can be laid out for inspection, but it can become an excuse to insist on a particular methodology, or to ignore the pressure of that experience on practice. Realizing the impact of experience on research practice requires an interrogation of my “research archive” rather than a passive acceptance of disciplinary parameters. It is not enough to self-reveal in the introduction to a research project.

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We need to take responsibility for the pressure of personal experience and memory so that we can begin to see more ethically, and truly try to do no harm. So maybe the object lesson of this chapter on the Quebec Jubilee Souvenir Number is that the interests of opposing forces do not have to be consolidated into acts of civilization that are always already barbaric.

Appendix Description of each page in the Quebec Jubilee Souvenir Number

Front Cover Page 1 Page 2 Page 3

Page 4

Page 5 Page 6 Page 7 Page 8 Page 9 Page 10 Page 11 Page 12 Page 13 Page 14 Page 15 Page 16 Page 17

Illustration of the queen surrounded by flags, with motto: “God Save the Queen.” The back of the cover – Illustration of Mayor SimonNapoléon Parent, standing full length. Advertisements: top, Le Magasin du Louvre; bottom, O. Picard & Son. Image: a small image of the city hall. The start of the bilingual story of Queen Victoria’s Jubilee. Additionally, Kensington Palace and Osborne House are illustrated. Four advertisements: top, J. Savard and Geo. Tanguay; bottom, J.M. Aubry and The Siege of Sebastopol. Images: Basilica and English Cathedral. Images of the Duke of Kent, the Duchess of Kent, and Queen Victoria at the age of seventeen. Advertisements, plus vignettes: “Jacques Cartier Landing at Quebec” and “Old St. Louis Gate.” Images of Queen Victoria at ages eight, fifteen, and twenty-two. Advertisements. Text and image. Advertisements. Text and image. Advertisements. Text and image. Advertisements. Text and image. Advertisements. Advertisements.

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Z  Chapter six  Y

“The Body Corporate Gets a Wriggle On”: The Civic Parade in Montreal, 1897 On the morning of 21 June 1897, the editor of The Gazette reported that nearly 100,000 people were “jubilating” on the streets of Montreal.1 Women in fancy hats and men in bowlers chatted among themselves and pointed out the arrival of each section of the civic parade that was organized in celebration of Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee. The reporter’s use of “jubilating” catches the sense of participation of the crowd, as opposed to the passivity often associated with parade spectators. Seemingly, the overcast day and occasional shower did not dampen the general enthusiasm. An illustration in La Presse two days later depicted a well-dressed crowd crammed into every possible viewing space (figure 6.1). We are shown Ste Catherine Street bulging with spectators several rows deep. A few umbrellas can be seen but most spectators stand stoically in damp coats and hats; buildings are decked in bunting, and flags fly from nearly every possible mast. The grand procession, on which many had worked for many weeks, wound its way majestically along the streets of Montreal. On avenue de Lorimier, on rue Ste Catherine, and at Dominion Square, thousands of people waited patiently.2 Marching men, brass bands, athletic teams, and large parade floats slowly moved past the admiring crowd. The large allegorical chars or cars, as the floats were popularly known, seemed to glide with ease along the recently installed tramlines. Reports about the parade in both English and French repeated the claim that over 90,000 people lined the streets to watch the nearly 20,000 parade participants. Well cued, the crowd burst into cheers at the first sight of the three chars, titled La Province de Québec, La Confédération, and Duvernay, which had been illustrated in La Presse two weeks prior to the parade. A full page was dedicated to the description and illustration of nine of the parade chars; the article also identified which of the

6.1  “Le Défile de la procession civique sur la rue Ste. Catherine” (The progress of the civic parade along St. Catherine Street), La Presse, 23 June 1897.

different branches of the St-Jean-Baptiste Society had sponsored each char (figure 6.2). Significantly, the new char in the St-Jean-Baptiste parade repertoire, entitled La Confédération, had been introduced to readers of La Presse on 5 June, earlier in the week than the parade overview provided on 9 June and several weeks prior to the jubilee weekend (figure 6.3). Readers were informed that the parish of Notre-Dame, the most important section (or chapter) of the St-Jean-Baptiste Society, was the sponsor of the char. A lengthy caption described how the allegorical figure representing Confederation would ride in “an elegant ship.” In the illustration, we see the crowned figure, representing Canada, seated and dressed in a flowing gown, holding her sceptre high. The caption identifies the other allegorical figures who would be on the char: Ontario, in the front, would hold the Canadian flag high; Quebec, at the rear, would hold “the rudder of the ship of state”; the other provinces would row.3 The personifications of Quebec and Ontario are clearly visible in the small engraving reprinted in the newspaper. A complex meta-

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6.2  “Les Fêtes Jubilaires,” La Presse, 19 June 1897.

6.3  “Le char de la Confédération,” La Presse, 5 June 1897.

phor for the new Dominion of Canada, the char carefully manifested the sectarian and ethnic compromises that had been cautiously worked out prior to the parade date. The unusual amalgamation of the jubilee celebrations of 1897 with the traditions of the popular St-Jean-Baptiste Day parade clearly needed explanation, and the newspaper illustrations were the educational vehicle that allowed the crowd to develop expectations about the unfolding of the traditional procession. In this chapter, I argue that popular culture served as a public forum in which social and cultural identities could be represented within the dominant imperial discourse and yet still retain an often-virulent anticolonial rhetoric. I consider how and why, at this particular moment and location, popular culture could become the site for the negotiation of multiple, conflicting local and imperial identities. The things of the parade – allegorical chars, the crowd, and their jubilee fever – stand out from the general background and focus my attention in this chapter. As Bill Brown points out in the edited collection Things (2001), an object can be understood as a particular thing that occupies attention in specific ways at certain times.4 Thing theory recognizes the desire for things that evade ideas or theory. Some things seem to have an ability to renew their significance over time. What draws my attention here is the way that things or objects of visual culture do not refuse theory or thinking about them. Rather, things trouble theoretical inquiry. In this

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chapter I look at the things of the civic parade to let them trouble the history and theoretical approaches to understanding representations of the jubilee year.

Jubilee fever Like every city, town, and village in the British Empire, in June 1897 Montreal experienced what can only be called “jubilee fever.” Queen Victoria had been on the throne sixty years – a monarchical record unparalleled since the reign of Queen Elizabeth I.5 The editor of Montreal’s popular daily The Gazette appears to be as caught up in jubilee mania as the rest of the queen’s subjects. Describing the widespread jubilation, he declares, “when the emotions are aroused it is natural to man to get up and do something. When the individual is happy there is an inclination to manifest the fact to others.” He attempts to describe what happens when everyone is aroused: “When the contagion becomes more general and spreads to a whole community, the entire body corporate gets a wriggle on, and ten-to-one that they form a torchlight procession, or, if in daytime, a parade without torches.”6 This chapter concerns this “entire body corporate” and the “parade without torches” that occupied the citizens of Montreal on 21 June 1897. The queen’s Diamond Jubilee constituted a space for the exchange of pleasantries, mutual joyousness, and shared manifestations of civic pride – the entire body corporate got a wriggle on. Throughout the empire, jubilee reports in the daily press, published poems, souvenir booklets, songs, and books reiterated universal acclaim for the monarch and her reign.7 As we saw in chapter 5, there were some exceptions, as in the rousing anti-throne speech delivered by Irish nationalist James Connolly. But many Commonwealth citizens – from London, Ontario, to London, England; from Calcutta to Melbourne; colonizers and colonized alike – declared loyalty to the queen and delight in her longevity. Which begs the question: why were the voices of the canadiens, French, Hindu, Africans, and other colonized peoples seemingly raised in unison with the colonizing British? Recent research on such responses to colonialism and nationalism suggests that an understanding of colonized peoples needs to be situated in terms of specific and local practices.8 This work has helped to challenge the normalizing of nationalism as a natural outcome of nineteenth-century economic and social growth.9 This research also draws attention to the racial, gender, and class differences that often undergird the particular social and cultural beliefs and practices that

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affect the course of nationalism in defined locales. The work of Sunera Thobani has highlighted the racial underpinnings that have sustained nation-formation in Canada across time.10 The visual culture of the public arena, which is served by the jubilee celebrations, provides an example of how white, male civic societies construct nationalism as obvious and normal, whether in terms of the naturalness of the canadien-versus-British conflict over patriotism, or working-class values versus elite forms of governance. The racialization of nationalism often remains uncontested by the very “obviousness” of the social and cultural conflicts represented. A clear narrative of progress, as represented in the jubilee celebrations, further embeds the invisibility of immigrants, women, and the poor, when the only forms of opposition are cast as French versus English, or Catholic versus Protestant. Thus in looking at representations of progress, we need to see the portrayed conflicts as constructions. And in looking through a lens that understands race as a supporting mechanism, we can see the importance of the attempts to define the French-speaking canadiens as a race. We see traces of this struggle in the parade. Nevertheless, the uncanny alignment of monarchical zeal and canadien patriotism suggests that, while not seamless, imperialism and nationalism were nevertheless seen as compatible – at least, at this particular moment in Montreal. In chapter 5, I argued that compromise and celebration were evident in a single booklet. This chapter exposes how the jubilee celebrations articulate a coincidence of desire and practice on the part of English and French 1897 Montreal on a large scale. This negotiated identity parade defies inherited notions about the incompatibility of British imperialism and canadien nationalism, and reveals how both founding nations could position themselves as the only players in the nation field.

Solidity and solidarity Despite the apparent solidity of the mass jubilation, a number of historical moments make me wonder how there could ever have been an unbroken voice of monarchical fever in Quebec. What happened to the antagonism between the English- and French-speaking populations that underwrote the divisiveness of the North-West Rebellion and the Riel affair, which had exploded in the press only a decade earlier (1885)? Where are the roots of Henri Bourassa’s nationalist politics, which erupted within a few years of the jubilee?11 And a succession of anti-federal, anti-imperial moves in the twentieth century informs the inherited notion of the canadiens as always wanting separation,

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one that is often expressed in the nineteenth century as a return to the union of all French descendants on the continent. So why was a desire to belong to, and to show loyalty and adoration to the (non) mother country being voiced? The family as a motif seems to have been constructed as a self-evident blueprint for relations between the mother country and her colonial children, and, more specifically, during the jubilee celebrations as the proper relationship between the queen and her subjects. As an historian and native Montrealer, albeit of English extraction (as my Québécois friends will tease), I am inherently suspicious of applying the “happy family” model of empire to what I have experienced in Quebec as a divided history. In addition to the ever-present notion of Britain as the motherland and the colonies as “daughter lands,”12 Queen Victoria was frequently referred to as the mother of country and empire. The argument was made that neither longevity nor power alone could account for feelings of patriotism. Rather, the source lay in the recognition that “she is the head of the nation, its sovereign, its mother, its friend.”13 In England, the British had fashioned the queen as a mother figure for many years: for example, in the Bishop of Wakefield’s jubilee hymn, “Oh, Royal heart, with wide embrace / For all her children yearning; Oh, happy realm such mother grace / With loyal love returning!”14 Of course, much of this rhetoric was a means of reconciling her gender with the monarchy; she was the first female monarch since Elizabeth I, who reigned from 1558 to 1603 (and was one of the few monarchs who had also ruled many decades). Thus her womanly virtues rationalized the necessity to accept a female monarch. The emphasis on her womanly heart was typical of the unending references to her marital status, the benefits of her being a mother, and the nurturing function she served for both her biological and civic families. Although a widow at the time of the jubilee, the queen’s motherly function at home was extrapolated to her mothering of empire. “May all love, / The love of all thy sons encompass thee, / The love of all thy daughters cherish thee.”15 Post-colonial theory would prompt us to ask: where are the voices of discontent, the subaltern, the hybridity of long-colonized subjects?16 Were the subjects of the queen so happy to be children of the empire? Certainly the two centuries and more since the ceding of New France to Great Britain had been marked by resistance and refusals, whether political, cultural, or revolutionary. The 1837 rebellion, the hanging of Riel, conscription crises, the Quiet Revolution, the Front de Libération du Québec (FLQ ), and the War Measures Act have demonstrated that the roots of canadien resistance have a long history that continues to haunt

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the province.17 So the blanket enthusiasm of the jubilee reports seems too solid, too unlikely. Yet, the more research I do, the less doubt I have that the canadiens living in and around Montreal performed as if they did indeed embrace the jubilee celebrations as much as, if not more so than, the English Montrealers. The editor of The Gazette was right in his observation of widespread enthusiasm: virtually everyone was literally and metaphorically wriggling in a single mass at the various events spread across the three days of celebration (20–22 June).18 But why? And why were the canadiens apparently celebrating the jubilee with the English Montrealers? To address these questions, I return to the effusive descriptions of the parade, and then examine the unstated agendas that inform the extensive solidarity underwriting imperial rhetoric. I argue that parades and processions are not passive spectator entertainment but part of a complex and often contradictory cultural domain. Parades are yet another instance of visual culture in which the broader public actively participates in ambiguous or paradoxical, yet satisfying ways. We need to look at how this is sustained locally, and at the significance of accepting paradoxical tension. In questioning the representations of this event in the press, and their realization in the jubilee events, I examine the visual strategies employed in order to get past the apparent uniformity of the published responses. While ruptures or pauses in the applause are difficult to establish, the details of planning and realization provide evidence of conflict and resolution among the various factions involved. There seems to have been a concerted effort to achieve compromise. As we saw in chapter 5, the Quebec Jubilee Souvenir booklet demonstrated the complexity of the different positions held simultaneously by various participants in the festivities. Equally, the jubilee celebrations in Montreal provide a good testing ground for the homogeneity of representations, because there has been an undeniable history of conflict in Quebec. Unlike the peoples of many other British colonies, these colonists were not totally subjugated through political disenfranchisement, slavery, or assimilation. Although efforts at assimilation were attempted, the ongoing claims for equal or even special status affirm that the canadiens saw themselves as significant participants in the economic and social development of Canada. In looking at this particular moment in time and in space, I offer a nuanced view of the 1890s notion of canadien nationalisme, whose advocates engaged willingly with British imperial rhetorical practices. The canadiens were not conquered or submissive, but confident and self-promoting. As we shall see, there are several reasons why the al-

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liance of monarchical rule and nationalisme was favourably received. Before turning my attention to the details of the 1897 celebrations, I look at earlier civic parades in order to establish what traditions were maintained, and which were unique to Montreal’s Diamond Jubilee celebrations.

Why do parades matter? As recent academic research has established, parades can either reproduce or challenge relations of power. This idea of acting out or reiterating existing, local relations is apparent in the formative research on parades. To some degree the jubilee parade operates according to Davis’ conception of parades as a public performance in which the participants demonstrate or act out their civic pride.19 As Davis points out, acknowledging a parade’s politicality avoids any denial of its context – one of both contest and confrontation that may resist its performative veneer. Similarly, relying on an oppositional model of “conflict or consensus” as the motivational pattern of social interaction, Hammerton and Cannadine’s 1981 study of the jubilee festivities in Cambridge, England, found that what was ritualized was consensus, not conflict.20 If we hold to the conflict-or-consensus notion of the parade, indeed we will see reiteration in the 1897 jubilee parade, in its repetition of established parade formats and practices. Challenge remains latent in the use of allegorical chars, which had previously been seen only in the traditional St-Jean-Baptiste parade. Although the jubilee parade is obviously performative, it is not simply or only an example of an urban performance of class or other social difference; rather, the parade is also a performance of a self-consciously unified city and nation that negotiates unique and paradoxical social relations. My research is driven by the perplexing question of why the canadiens would allow their national saint’s day celebrations to be annexed by the queen’s jubilee. I also want to think about how the parade participates in a larger visual culture. The parade’s accompanying visual ephemera – illuminations, transparencies, souvenirs, and decorations, even bonfires – are also critical to seeing this civic performance’s complex intersection of social practices. What can we understand of these practices? Their archival traces, particularly in the press, elucidate some sense of how such public events were anticipated, recorded, and re-presented. Articles and illustrations published prior to the event engender anticipation: What was the public being “taught” to see? How was it cued to “read” the complex and often novel symbolic elements? How

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does intention influence design and production? What is the role of souvenirs? In terms of records of the event, the archive offers a number. Some are immediate reports of the event in the daily press. Other responses emerge over time, in such formats as official reports or entries in annual proceedings. I have stumbled across some of these, tracked others down – there are invariably gaps. But in asking such questions I am seeking to broaden an understanding of visual culture’s significance as social practice. Thus, we need to ask what moments of the parade are recorded and why. If particular allegorical chars are illustrated in newspapers, we need to ask: why those? Why this section and not another section of the parade? Sometimes the answer is convenience, but nevertheless, I argue that viewpoint matters. And how is viewpoint represented subsequently? What is worthy of republication in the press? What moments of extraneous incident are reported alongside the record of the solemn? The prior illustration of the allegorical char of Confederation cued canadien visitors not only to see the monarchical figure of Confederation atop her throne and the metaphorical relations among the allegorical figures on the char. Text accompanied the illustration, pointedly stating that the parade would be a “solemn” event. Why? Perhaps there was some anxiety that the crowd would be distracted from the uplifting themes underwritten by the planning committee. In what follows I tease out possible answers to these questions as a means of seeing the ordinary and the extraordinary that troubles the visual culture of the jubilee.

Parades in Montreal prior to 1897 Public parades in the Canadas usually celebrated major civic events, such as the queen’s jubilees, anniversaries of the founding of the St-Jean-Baptiste Society, religious and statutory holy days such as St Patrick’s Day, or one-off occasions such as the return of the voluntary militia from battle.21 Annual processions such as those of the Caledonian or Irish societies featured members, usually men, who marched along the street and gathered in a large park, field, or farm. The most common parades in nineteenth-century Canada may have been the military reviews. Such processions usually ended in a formal “march past,” which was a mustering of all the militiamen in the area – perhaps the volunteers or the regular forces – who would present themselves for inspection. They would literally march past the senior military representative, such as the lieutenant-governor, or perhaps a member

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6.4  “Reception of Canadian Volunteers on the Champ de Mars at Montreal,” London Illustrated News, 1887.

of the royal family (figure 6.4). To celebrate the jubilee marking the fiftieth year of the queen’s reign (1887), both regular militia and volunteer forces participated in a military demonstration. This instance of performance would have had extra significance locally in that some of these same troops had recently been deployed in the highly publicized and intensely debated suppression of the North-West Rebellion of 1885. The rebellion was the brief and highly contentious uprising of the Métis (descendants of French and aboriginal, mainly Cree, parents) against the federal government. The hanging of Louis Riel, the leader of the Métis rebels, was hotly contested at the time, and it is still widely believed that he should not have been executed.22 Given the importance of the rebellion for French and Métis rights, the mustering of

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the troops would have reminded the spectators not merely of the distant queen or the ongoing oppression of certain subjects, but rather of the real power she and her representatives still exercised in post-Confederation Canada. French-language periodicals such as La Presse commented on the events of the Golden Jubilee with an editorial and headlines such as “Cinquante ans de gloire” (“Fifty years of glory”) and “Le progrès au Canada” (“Progress in Canada”). The press followed standard practice in publishing details of the queen’s biography and listing the primary social, political, and economic achievements of her reign. The celebratory events of the day included a march past and the delivery of speeches at various venues. A “few thousand” spectators watched the military review and enjoyed the illuminations, bunting, and transparencies. Transparencies, which were commonly used as celebratory decorations in Canada at this time, illuminated an emblem, portrait, or scene from behind to create the effect of its being transparent. The images were often no larger than eighteen by twelve inches, but as they were integral to decorating schemes, the press often commented on them. Some transparencies used screens through which gas lighting, and later electric lights, could be seen. Montreal-based newspaper La Minerve reported that the intricate transparencies decorating the Mechanics Hall represented the progress of the sciences in the last fifty years.23 Images of steamships, railways, the telegraph, the telephone, and the Victoria and Lachine bridges narrated this theme. The central piece in the building facade was a display of flags that encircled an image of the queen. Decorations such as illuminations, transparencies, and set pieces should be understood as significant visual components of the celebrations, even though they were often so ephemeral and fragile that they disappeared within days. The other significant form of civic parade, referred to as Le Grand Procession, started in the 1840s and was the crowning event of the annual St-Jean-Baptiste Society’s celebrations.24 Often spread across several days, and held in different parishes, churches, and schools, the festivities could include religious, sporting, and social events. School children received honours and scholastic awards, which would be based on recitation of catechism or other religious activities undertaken during school hours. Sports events often centred on matches between local athletic clubs and teams visiting from other parishes. Although the extent and nature of the celebrations varied each year, there was consistent representation in the formal procession from the local parishes, athletic associations, benevolent societies, and voca-

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tions. While the marchers were always men, the inclusion of workers along with philanthropists, athletes, and clerics ensured that virtually the entire French-speaking male population participated. Class difference was diminished as ethnic identity took prominence. The national fete was by far the most popular cultural event of the year. June 24 was chosen because the saint’s day had been celebrated in the early years of French colonization in Quebec and the day conveniently fell close to the longest day of summer, thus facilitating public celebration well into the night. Le grand procession always included historical and allegorical elements, although sometimes these were minimal, perhaps only a representation of the saint and a shrine carried on a pallet, as is typical on Catholic holy days. Frequently, costumed figures would walk in an historical cavalcade that represented a diachronic survey of key historical figures. Sometimes the figures travelled on horse-drawn chars allégoriques that depicted scenes of life during the ancien régime, allegories of patriotism, or historical figures such as Cartier or Duvernay; a juvenile Saint Jean-Baptiste was always present, whether on a char or walking. The St-Jean-Baptiste Society planned and realized the parade, often partially funded by the city corporation, to celebrate foi (faith) and stimulate la patrie (nationalism). Ludger Duvernay is credited with revitalizing the celebration of the saint’s day in Quebec in 1834. However, the larger public celebration with procession did not occur until 1842, when Duvernay returned to Quebec after his exile (due to his participation in the 1837 troubles).25 By the mid-1840s, several towns in the greater Montreal area included a civic procession as part of the saint’s day celebrations. Usually one town in the area, as far away as St-Eustache or St-Jean (up to eighty kilometres away from Montreal), would host a more elaborate parade, which often included allegorical chars. There seems to have been an agreement that the location of this grand parade would move around. The national convention of the St-Jean-Baptiste Society, a grand meeting of most of the members, was usually held the day before the parade, and always provided an opportunity for politicking. For example, when Wilfrid Laurier was elected as the first canadien prime minister, he celebrated his victory with a triumphal entry into Quebec City in the 1896 St-Jean-Baptiste Day parade. The civic parade clearly signalled nationaliste ideals, but it also gestured beyond religious and geographic boundaries, towards the canadien alliances with France and Catholicism. The tricolour flag of France was often seen decorating chars and homes. The national saint’s day

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always included a Pontifical Mass with messages about the role of religion and patriotism. Sometimes English-speaking Irish Catholic citizens would participate in the French mass.26 The ties of the local populace to Catholic church doctrine are readily visible in the structure and content of the participants as they leave mass: the all-male procession of labourers is led by the leaders of the regional societies, who are in turn marshalled by the “division heads”, or representatives of each chapter, as they leave mass. The days of celebration also brought together canadiens living across the country and in the northern United States. The Montreal press also noted festivities in Malone, New York, and Burlington, Vermont; often, groups from Quebec would be asked to send delegates to these celebrations.27 Equally, there were often contingents from out-of-province parishes in attendance at Montreal-area processions.28

Specific and generic: the 1884 and 1885 St-Jean-Baptiste Day parades As we have seen above, the 1897 parade featured a number of the allegorical chars. Even a few years earlier, in 1894, the press had reported on the return of allegorical chars; in Joliette, Quebec, over fifty of these chars were part of the grand procession. According to the press, the parade was held on Tuesday, 19 June, with other festivities across the province being held on 24 June, the usual day of celebration. Celebratory activities included the revival of bonfires – “les feux de la Saint Jean qui furent si longtemps en honneur au Canada” (“the St-Jean bonfires that have been in honour of Canada for so long”).29 As Alan Gordon points out in Making Public Pasts (2001), the history and meaning of the bonfire was not completely understood, which “left the tradition open to new context-specific interpretation.”30 Also known as the “feux de joie,” the bonfires became associated with canadien continuity, and served to link the current citizenry to the past Similar features characterized celebrations in the 1870s and ’80s. Although I was not able to find an image of the 1884 parade in Joliette, an illustration of Montreal’s parade in 1874 shows that at least two allegorical chars were present (figure 6.5 ). In the image, we can see the extent of the procession, numerous spectators, use of flags, a brass marching band, and a horse-drawn allegorical char at the lower left edge. The char appears to be enacting “Vive la canadienne”: a song – almost a nationalist hymn – that celebrates the love and life of a canadien couple. Two figures are dancing, another sits on a toboggan;

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6.5  “La Procession Passant dans la rue St. Jacques” (The parade moving along St. Jacques Street), Canadian Illustrated News.

the flags at the rear depict the beaver and the maple leaf, symbols that the St-Jean-Baptiste Society adopted when it was first formed. The allegorical chars often carried boys and girls, men and women, who acted out an intergenerational historical scene that required participants of all ages and mixed gender. Members of the St-Jean-Baptiste Society from New York or Vermont are most likely carrying the American flag in the image. Further along the street is the char that held the young boy playing the role of Saint Jean-Baptiste. The crowd appears to be well dressed, each according to his class; bowlers, caps, and top hats suggest a range in what constituted the men’s “best apparel.” However, in 1885, Montreal decided to leave “les grand demonstrations” to other, smaller centres.33 La Presse reported on the celebrations at St-Jean, L’Assomption, and St-Eustache. Only St-Jean held a civic parade. Details of the mass, speeches, evening bonfires, and procession occupy many column inches; the articles catalogue the order of marchers, the names of the sponsors, and, in some cases, the title of the allegorical chars seen that day in St-Jean.31 The press provides a full report of the “messe pontificale,” in which Sa Grandeur Monseigneur Fabre spoke on “Religion et Patrie.” According to the La Presse articles, the speech contained “des idées larges et justes et c’est un de meilleurs qui aient été prononcés un jour de fête national” (“broad-ranging and fair ideas and it was one of the best [speeches] that has been given on the national holiday”). The report noted that the chars of the boulangers, mechaniques, and other local artisans and merchants preceded the traditional St-Jean-Baptiste char. At the end of the procession came the members of the “comité de régie de la St.-Jean-Baptiste et enfilé la Cavalcade, que était en tous points semblable à celle qui a figuré l’année dernière dans la grande procession à Montréal” (“regional committee of the St-Jean-Baptiste Society and followed by the ‘cavalcade,’ that was in all ways the same as that of the year before in the large/major procession in Montreal”). A cavalcade usually consisted of men dressed as historical figures who were either marching or arranged on a char. Maybe Montreal’s graciousness in allowing others to mount the big procession was as much economic fatigue as generosity! A note of cynicism can also be detected in the reporter’s opinion of the allegorical chars: although he notes that they were nicely decorated, he adds that they were for the most part “des réclames faites par des participants et n’avaient pas de caractère effectivement national. L’idée de mettre le nom et l’adresse d’un artisan ou d’un marchand, sur un char n’est nullement patriotique” (“[the chars were primarily] advertising by the participants and did not have a truly nationalist character. The idea of putting the name and address of

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an artisan or merchant on a char is not exactly patriotic”). The night in St-Jean ended with a bonfire and fireworks display. The crowds were so large that the newspaper reported the difficulties of many trying to catch the train back to Montreal. Indeed, a third train had to be rented for the evening. Other towns were the subjects of much briefer reports. Hundreds of people watched fireworks in Longueuil, Quebec, while an historical cavalcade marked the procession in Ottawa, Ontario. The editorial reports in La Presse pay particular attention to Ottawa’s cavalcade, in which the costumes were “des plus riches et s’adaptaient parfaitement aux personnages et aux idées du temps” (“very sumptuous and perfectly suited [to] the people and ideas of the period”).32 The reporters also noted the presence of forty-six sister-societies and over a dozen chars. These were typically horse-drawn, decorated wagons of various shapes and sizes. In L’Assomption, Quebec, between five thousand and six thousand citizens celebrated mass and attended the procession and evening delights.35 At least twenty-eight chars allégoriques were present, ranging from “un atelier de sculpture” to “une machine à beurre,” (“a sculpture studio” to “a butter machine”!). Only one had an allegorical or historical theme – a representation of Jacques Cartier (whose 1534 landing at Quebec City is often marked as the beginning of the French presence in Canada). The reports briefly mention the procession in Saint-Hyacinthe, which included fifteen allegorical chars (no description given). Describing the celebrations at Whitehall, New York, the reporter cryptically and sparsely commented, “les canadiens de Whitehall ont célébré la fête nationale avec enthousiasme” (“the Canadiens of Whitehall celebrated the national holiday with enthusiasm”).34

1887: Golden Jubilee and St-Jean-Baptiste In comparison to the 1885 fête nationale, the St-Jean-Baptiste celebrations of 1887 were complicated by the proximity of the festivities planned for Queen Victoria’s Golden Jubilee, celebrating fifty years on the throne, and by a return to Montreal that year of the large StJean-Baptiste Day parade. Looking at the reports for the two parades of 1887 provides a way of judging how local expectations of the St-JeanBaptiste celebrations might have been embedded in practice by 1897, and which practices seem specific to the events organized for the Diamond Jubilee. La Minerve describes several thousand spectators along the street who watched the volunteers and various battalions marching towards Fletcher’s farm (where the march past took place on 22 June).36 The Civic Parade  237

The report includes the names of the commanders, such as General Sir Frederick Middleton, famed locally for his leadership during the North-West Rebellion (1885). La Minerve also describes the illuminations on various buildings, as well as the hanging of Chinese lanterns and the placement of transparencies, like those illustrating “progress” on the Mechanics Hall. On the same page is a description of the Congrès national that was meeting in Montreal that day, and a list of the parade details for the next day. (So, the national meeting of the St-JeanBaptiste Society was held on the day between the jubilee celebrations and the national fete.) In comparison to the jubilee march past, the press reported that upwards of twenty thousand participants and spectators viewed the StJean-Baptiste Day parade. While the press may have exaggerated, the parade was enormously popular (and similar numbers were claimed in the past). La Presse bemoaned the lack of allegorical chars, but noted that each section of the St-Jean-Baptiste Society had contributed to the general spectacle by competing to see which had the largest number of members under its banner.37 On 23 June, the day before the parade, a brief note urged the typographers and shoemakers to attend in significant numbers. It seems that the shoemakers were being solicited to swell their numbers, to make a good showing among the other artisan groups. Even though the queen’s Golden Jubilee and the St-Jean-Baptiste Day parade in 1887 were commemorated only a few days apart, they were treated as distinctly different events. Although La Minerve noted that some people took advantage of the timing of the jubilee to put up their St-Jean-Baptiste decorations a few days early, there was no attempt to combine the two events.38 Citizens obviously saw decorations such as the maple leaves placed in front windows or maple boughs arranged along the sidewalk as specific to the St-Jean-Baptiste celebrations. There does not appear to have been any sense of competition in these decorous and decorative gestures. Thus the unique consolidation of the two festivities into one grand parade ten years later suggests that something else very different was happening discursively and in practice in Quebec during the final decade of the nineteenth century. Something was shifting in the relations, or imagined social and political relations, between the canadiens and the English. The 1885 parade and other associated festivities help to reinforce and perpetuate an institutionally sanctioned and widespread social identity of the canadiens as a race of people who, regardless of place of residence, consider themselves canadiens. This distinction of race

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is particularly significant, as it engenders or signals a moment of selfawareness for the canadiens; there was a repeated longing expressed for the “union” of the descendants of the original French settlers, a union that transcended Quebec’s borders and included the appellation canadien.39 However, by the end of the century, the territorial boundaries of the nation supported claims by anglophones to be Canadians too (see introduction), and the press began using canadiens Français more frequently. After Confederation, Quebec was no longer one of the Canadas. By the 1890s, the province was one of eight, which shifted the meaning of “Canadian.” British descendants often did not adopt the self-labelling as Canadian until well into the twentieth century. However, the term canadien became less specific to the descendants of the early French colonists. There may be more than coincidence to the decision to use “Canada” to describe the whole country. The territorialization and localization of canadien may well have been one of the factors underlying the very different approaches to the celebration of the 1897 jubilee in Montreal.

“Sixty Years of Progress”: the civic parade of 1897 Remarkably, 1897 marked the sixtieth anniversary not only of Victoria’s ascension to the British throne but also of the Lower Canada rebellion. Given that the rebellion – which is at the heart of the St-Jean-Baptiste Society – was still remembered as “les troubles sanglants” (“the bloody struggles”), the co-celebration of the two anniversaries is all the more surprising.40 Furthermore, the jubilee rhetoric worldwide celebrated progress in the British Empire. The coincidence of memory and violence permeates the celebrations in barely noticeable ways. In what follows, I look at the careful narrative of progress that evades accounts of the violence underlying colonial battles, and the suppression of opposition and cultural difference. A close examination of the parade and associated events reveals how once again cultural civic practices rely on visibility and visual narrative to contain and structure contemporary ideas about belonging and difference within a seemingly obvious narrative. As Arthur Weir puts it, the “allegorical cars … the crash of bands and the various costumes of the thousands of men who composed the parade itself … set forth much of the story of this good old Province of Quebec.”41 That story of good old Quebec was recounted throughout Montreal’s three-day jubilee celebration in 1897. Sunday, 20 June, marked a day of religious masses in French- and English-speaking Catholic cathedrals

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across the province. Monday, 21 June, was set aside as a public holiday, enabling most workers to have the day off. In Montreal, Monday’s festivities included the parade, athletic events, and bonfires typical of St-Jean-Baptiste celebrations. Tuesday, 22 June, was set by the queen as the date around the globe for the celebration of her jubilee – importantly, Tuesday was not a civic or statutory holiday, but in Montreal it included “the great military parade,” the march past, speeches, and fireworks. What does the jubilee’s lack of official holiday status, compared to the sanctioned St-Jean-Baptiste Day, suggest? What seems to have been unique to Montreal is that the civic parade on Monday was essentially a St-Jean-Baptiste Day parade with the nominal addition of the British societies, which joined in at the end of the canadien procession. Judging by size and attendees, the principal event of the jubilee celebrations was “un grand procession” (a large parade); it was not the product of a spontaneous rising up of the community, but rather the result of long hours of planning and compromise by the body corporate. Montreal’s response to the queen’s jubilee was in fact cautiously developed over the preceding months. Unlike the last-minute quality that Tori Smith ascribes to the London jubilee celebrations, the Montreal event was the result of carefully negotiated public and private compromise and insistence.42

Negotiations According to its archive, the St-Jean-Baptiste Society proposed the combination of the two civic events. The society’s president, Judge Adolphe-Basile Loranger, first approached the city’s mayor at the end of March. On 5 May, Loranger addressed the general committee of the city and requested modest financial support of $2,000. The Gazette, an English paper, reported in detail on Loranger’s address to the committee – as if the careful negotiations between the St-Jean-Baptiste Society and the city had to be cautiously recorded, so that all would know how the joint event was initially imagined. Loranger is quoted as saying that the society “had decided to abandon the usual St-JeanBaptiste procession on 24 June, and join with the citizens of all nationalities in doing honour to Her Majesty Queen Victoria.”43 Loranger added “that the question of having allegorical cars in the procession had been talked of, but it had been determined not to on account of the expected magnitude of the gathering. The parade is not one of any par-

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ticular nationality, but of the subjects of Her Majesty, who have no more loyal or devoted citizens than the canadians in this province.”44 While Loranger suggests that a concern about unmanageable crowds drove the decision not to use allegorical chars, his reference to the parade as not being about “any particular nationality” reveals his awareness that the use of allegorical chars was in fact associated with the canadiens as a nation. Allegorical chars had only ever been used in the explicitly nationaliste St-Jean-Baptiste Day parade. In deciding to abandon the date and traditional use of allegorical chars, the St-Jean-Baptiste Society was demonstrating a willingness to realign its nationalism with imperial boundaries, even at the cost of weakening its prior nonterritorial claim to represent all canadiens. The decision to decline the invitation to send parish representatives that year to the festivities organized by St-Jean-Baptiste societies in Lewiston, Maine, and Malone, New York, further underlines this new direction.45 Ironically, two English members of the general committee eventually proposed the idea to use allegorical chars. The Reverend J. Edgar Hill and Mr Darlington both expressed the opinion that “the allegorical cars would be a most important factor in impressing on the minds of the people, especially the young, the glorious events they were celebrating.”46 The Gazette reported in extensive detail on this meeting, devoting an entire column of the paper. A Mr Walter Paul is quoted as saying that the committee should be “GRATEFUL TO THE FRENCH CANADIANS for waiving their right to hold their own procession on the 24th” (upper case used in original).47 Perhaps these Englishmen were referring to young canadiens who would have been more likely to turn out to watch a procession had it used the extremely popular format of the St-Jean-Baptiste Day parade. Certainly the English committee members were aware that allegorical chars would be recognized by the canadiens as having more than a literal value. After extensive discussion, the parade committee received the extraordinary amount of $5,000 to help produce the allegorical chars. In a newspaper report of 5 June, the published itinerary for the jubilee events indicated that the parade was planned for 21 June and the march past for 22 June. Given past attendance figures and the efforts people made to get to the town or city hosting le grand procession, the idea to pirate the most visible aspect of the St-Jean-Baptiste Day parades was soundly strategic and downright pedagogical in intent. The use of themes such as progress, Confederation, and colonization were virtually certain to impress the benefits of the monarchy on the minds of the people.

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Planning the parade’s progress Despite extended and troubled planning, the press reported on a number of jubilee events that did eventually attract the wholesale support of seemingly everyone in the community – if only days beforehand. As we have seen, the editor of The Gazette exclaimed the next day, “The whole city turned out in joyful parade. The lawyer laid aside his brief, the doctor deserted his laboratory … the housewife put aside her domestic duties … ; in fact everybody forsook his daily tasks and joined in the universal jubilation … The whole city and suburbs got a move on.”48 English and French observers agreed on the magnitude and diversity of the crowds at the parade. So what did the crowd see, and how much of this visual text could be read? Arguably, the early description of what was planned aided the legibility of the chars as well as other visual devices, such as slogans and mottos on complex fireworks displays. Publishing sketches of the parade chars, along with their titles and details of the participants, allowed the spectators to look for their parish entries and to recognize the chars as they approached. Once legible, the chars become the primary elements in the narrative construction of the parade as a whole, and in the larger story of Canada and her queen. The recognition of specific symbols such as flags, shields, and the allegorical figure of Confederation allowed the audience to read and articulate the relations among the symbols and to construct a comprehensive phrasing of the allegory. Each allegorical char can be understood as fulfilling the function of sentences or paragraphs in the larger story articulated by the parade. This is a story that adds up to more than the tale of a grateful people, but rather works to delineate a particular history of progress and compromise that served the two dominant peoples in Quebec. The newspapers, then, act as a primer that coaches their readers to identify what they see. While the parade’s story aligns with the widespread notion of liberal progress held by most nineteenth-century western nations, what is different is that the canadiens, primarily, told the Montreal version of jubilee-mania. Arguably, the principal narrator of the story was the St-Jean-Baptiste Society; the co-authors were the other French and English benevolent leagues and societies then flourishing in Quebec. As we can see in the description of the parade lineup, these societies operated in many of the parishes that sent a contingent to the procession. We know that approximately twenty thousand men and a handful of women and children (who mostly portrayed allegorical characters

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on chars) participated in the procession. Linked through social, cultural, and political ties, they were also marked by differences of alliance and allegiance.49 The first section of the parade, by far the largest, was composed of the many canadien contingents. After them came what was referred to as the English portion. These were the marching British men from groups such as the St Andrew’s and St James’ societies. As we shall see, these associations demarcate both the tensions and the camaraderie that marked the celebratory events. The canadien portion of the parade was divided into four divisions, reflecting the geographic divisions of the St-Jean-Baptiste Society in the greater Montreal area. The divisions were in turn organized by parish and followed a geographically determined order: Northern, Eastern, Central, and then Western. A commandant, who was followed by the athletic societies of his parish, headed each geographic division. Athletic clubs, bicyclists, football and other sports groups lined up behind the marshal. Most of these teams, including many from out of town, would be participating in games that took place later the same day. The athletes preceded the benevolent societies and associations, which ranged from youth sports clubs such as the Jeunes Montréals (local quasi cadets) to the Sodalities (a pious confraternity for Roman Catholic laity). Other men represented the Congrégation des Hommes (Men’s Society), Forestiers Canadiens (Canadian Foresters), Société du Temperance (Temperance Society), and Congrégation des Jeunes Gens (Young Men’s Society). All these groups were open solely to canadiens. Many parishes had local chapters of these groups, so they marched with their parish rather than in a grand massing of all members of an association. Next in line were the artisans and labour-specific groups, including grocers, carriage makers, painters, bakers, and barbers. Again, the various artisans and merchants marched according to affiliation, yet under the parish divisions. The artisan groups generally participated in a blanket organization, Les Artisans Canadiens-Français, founded in 1876 as a mutual aid society. Here we see the emergence of the self-labelling of Canadiens-Français, rather than canadiens. This reflects a shifting sense of self from broadly racial to French-speaking and local, i.e., the French in Canada, no longer the French in North America (as those speaking of a union desired). Mandated as an exclusively French-speaking society, Les Artisans Canadiens-Français also forbade participation in any of the secret societies that had been prohibited by the Catholic church, particularly those supporting unionization (of labour groups, not to be confused

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with the desire for a union of canadiens).50 A competing benevolent society, the Alliance Nationale, had a significant turnout, especially considering that the society had been founded only a few years earlier (1893). This society was dedicated to the moral and material aid of French-speaking Catholics.51 Real differences in the ideologies and practices of the canadien societies did not affect their ability to march together according to parish and to participate in the construction of allegorical chars that would represent that parish’s contribution to the parade. Their differences were often located in class and economic advantage, yet they also demonstrated their attachments to each other as members of the same parish and, ultimately, the same race. No one society could claim to have a larger presence by massing together; thousands of men who would fight to defend a certain kind of piety or the right to unionize saw those differences neutralized by the distribution according to parish, to place of residence. Paradoxically, the interior structure of the traditional parade bound the people both to place and across place. Parish affiliations took precedence, yet the reiteration of allegiance according to occupation, ideology, or social practices affirmed attachment to race. The enormity of the canadien section of the parade and the numerical superiority both in participants and observers spoke to the significance of the canadiens as a single mass in an overwhelmingly British Canada. If we turn now to consider the internal narrative of the allegorical chars, we can see similar patterns of differentiation and belonging articulated through visible power relations among the canadiens that serve to contain and maintain a tenable, if fragile, narrative. The French-language press illustrated and sometimes described details of chars with mottos and themes. Reports about planning committee meetings, the parade route, pleas to different groups to join their confréres, etc., ensured that readers knew how to read the parade elements properly. From these descriptions, the readers knew that the electrical tramway company of Montreal had donated a number of the platforms used to support the chars. Each platform was twenty-five feet by seven feet, and fitted with wheels that would move smoothly along the electrified rails, so a large and regularized display format would create a harmonized appearance throughout the parade. The size also permitted the elaborate staging of allegorical scenes and easy visibility. In addition, these chars would be on display at the exhibition grounds after the parade, so there would be plenty of opportunity to read and review the key allegorical elements of the parade narrative.52

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The nineteen allegorical chars illustrated the theme of progress, a subject that dominated jubilee celebrations throughout the empire. The themes of foi and patrie, typical of the traditional St-Jean-Baptiste Day parade, were present still but subsumed into the narrative of progress. The published details of the parade order indicated that the first char would represent an allegory of progress or Le Progrès. One reporter referred to it as the “char d’Angleterre” (“the British float”) and another as “the great plough of agriculture.”53 Progress was also illustrated a few weeks before the parade in the overview published by La Presse on 9 June (see figure 6.2). The char was identified as the allegory of agriculture and described as a massive plough being guided by a blond-haired goddess.54 As the English columnist for The Gazette noted, “a more suggestive and appropriate picture could not have been placed in a foremost place in the parade.” This was the plough of progress forcing its way – literally tearing a path through the colony to claim the land from sea to sea for Canada. The rest of the procession continued to narrate the tale of Weir’s “good old province.” Rather than hear “good old” as a single phrase, think of it as “good” and “old”: there is a contemporaneous connotation to these words: “good” connects to Victoria’s famous declaration that she wanted to “be good” (connoting morality and propriety), and “old” distinguishes Quebec as the oldest and most important province in Confederation (connoting authority and seniority). Progress is the achievement and marriage of the good and the old. According to the list published in English, the char of Progress preceded allegorical chars entitled Music, Commerce, Agriculture, Antiquity (which presented a history of French Canada), The Province of Quebec, Confederation, Duvernay, Work, War, Industry, and Colonization. Sometimes the chars were not described other than as the products of a particular mercantile or artisan affiliation. Chars representing the press and the electric company brought up the rear. Following behind the English societies, they were not considered to be part of the French societies’ contribution. Both the English- and French-language press heavily advertised the component parts and the path of the parade. On 17 June, prepping its readers to find the perfect spot from which to watch the parade, The Gazette published the planned route. It went from the Champ de Mars (Craig Street) to de Lorimier, Ste Catherine west to Peel, Windsor, St James to Chaboillez Square, Notre-Dame, McGill, Craig, and back to the starting point.55 Circulating through the main commercial areas of the city, the parade took advantage of the larger boulevards so as

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to ensure maximum public access.56 As Bettina Bradbury and Tamara Myers note, by the 1840s in Montreal, spaces along the waterfront and streets had been widened. These fed into the British-style public squares, which had been introduced by the English in the early part of the nineteenth century. This infrastructure growth facilitated the movement of religious and military parades.57 Champ de Mars was just this kind of large gathering ground, and it had direct access to the tramway lines. We have some sense of what several of the unique allegorical chars looked like because on 19 June, La Presse issued a heavily illustrated special jubilee edition. Functioning as memorabilia, the issue included seven pages of images of the queen, her extended family, and her residences. As well, the issue included a nearly full-page spread, which outlined the official published program and depicted nine of the electric chars. These chars were designed by the “comité artistique” of the jubilee planning committee, which included Louis-Philippe Hébert and Octave-Henri Julien, two well-known artists of the day (see figure 6.2).58 On 24 May, the committee had presented fifteen sketches for the allegorical chars, and members of the society accepted nearly every design almost immediately. The committee reported that forty allegorical chars would participate, including fourteen that would “be moved by electricity.” A $2,000 payment was to be made to James Pain and Sons for fireworks. Clearly a massive and impressive show was being planned! Certain designs were reserved for the most important divisions, and a few more designs were still being negotiated. On Wednesday, 23 June (two days after the civic parade), La Presse illustrated a segment of the parade as it had passed along rue Ste-Catherine (figure 6.1, again). This image includes three of the nine chars, which had been illustrated a week earlier. The three chars visible in the newspaper are La Province de Québec, La Confédération, and Duvernay. These were the three that were illustrated from the original designs from the art committee.59 The illustration of these particular chars highlights the organizing metaphors of the parade story, crystallizing the idea that progress depended on the perceived complementarities of British parliamentary liberties defined through Confederation and canadien cultural freedoms. As we look more closely at each char, it will become clear why this ordering is so powerful. The St-Jacques section of the Central Division sponsored the first char gliding smoothly up Ste-Catherine, the allegory of the province of Quebec (figure 6.6). Figure 6.6 is a detail taken from the earlier publication of 19 June in La Presse. Leaning against a Martello tower, perched

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6.6  “La province de Québec – Section St. Jacques,” La Presse, 19 June 1897.

on the rocky outcrop of Quebec City, the personification of Quebec rests her arm on the province’s coat of arms and holds an orb by her right side. Behind the tower flies the tricolour flag of France. Likewise dressed in a variation of classical robes, the crowned young women who sit in front and alongside her also hold shields. The details of their shields are not clear, but the escutcheons with flags that decorate the sides of the char clearly show the Canadian Red Ensign on the left and the French tricolore on the right. The Carabiniers Victoria played a special fanfare announcing the arrival of the St-Jacques section; their brass instruments blared as they played the short musical piece. The portrayal of the parade’s progression in figure 6.1 seems a little compressed. It is hard to imagine that all the members listed in the society’s section could fit into the narrow space illustrated between the char of La Province de Québec and that of La Confédération. In those few feet were members of the Union de St-Joseph, Union typographique Jacques-Cartier, Union St-Pierre, La ligue de Tempérance, Union des Commis-marchands, Cercle Catholique, and Le club St-Hubert. Perhaps a little artistic licence was required to show these key chars in relation to each other within one illustration.

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While I briefly mentioned the char La Confédération in the introduction, I want to draw attention to the proximity of the chars to each other and what we can see in the details (figure 6.1). The brass band playing the fanfare for La Confédération is barely visible, with only a trumpet and tuba outlined. Numerous men, their heads indicated by the slightest curves, walk behind the band. We know, as would the spectators, that these were the members of the St-Jean-Baptiste Society, and therefore the society that sponsored the allegorical char. The organizing committee noted the impression made by the char representing La Confédération upon first release of the designs: “this car produced without question the most striking effect and was reserved for the most important section, that of Notre Dame.” Two weeks before the parade, the front cover of La Presse displayed the design of La Confédération (figure 6.3). The illustration and description of the char carefully outline the meaning of each figure: “Il représente la Confédération, portée sur une nef décorée de fleurs et de drapeaux: guidée et gouvernée par les deux provinces les plus importantes: Québec et Ontario, et manœuvrée par les provinces les plus jeunes de la Confédération” (“It represents Confederation, carried on a ship decorated with flowers and flags: guided and governed by the two most important provinces: Quebec and Ontario, and manoeuvred by the youngest provinces of Confederation”). According to the text, the allegorical figure at the bow of the boat is meant to personify Ontario – a young woman holds aloft the Canadian flag, the Union Jack, and in her other hand, she holds the coat of arms of Ontario by her side. As I pointed out above, the figure of Quebec firmly holds the rudder of the ship of state, leaving little doubt about who actually keeps the country moving in the right direction! Note how Quebec is strategically located behind the queen. The figure of Quebec, representing the former Lower Canada, is also standing a foot or so higher than Ontario, the former Upper Canada, thus inverting the implied relations between the two colonies. The youngest provinces power the boat and the figure of Ontario stands slightly above them, yet lower than the personifications of both Confederation and Quebec. The two senior provinces literally contain and corral the narrative of the expanding nation and her monarch between them. The brief accompanying text points out that Montreal was preparing to celebrate the jubilee of the queen “with dignity” – a turn of phrase that may have been a not-so-subtle poke at the sometimes “farcical elements” that occasionally appeared in St-Jean-Baptiste processions. However, it appears that dignity did not reign completely, since later commentary

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6.7  “Duvernay,” Detail, La Presse, 19 June 1897.

in The Metropolitan Jubilee Souvenir refers to the “whimsical” and even “grotesque” designs that “provided laughter for the multitude.”60 The last char, barely visible in figure 6.1, is described as Duvernay and was sponsored by the St-Joseph section of the society’s Central Division (figure 6.7). A life-sized representation of a beaver perched on a dome-shaped beaver lodge sits at the front of the char. On the same level, a dozen people sit on chairs arranged in an intimate circle. The banner arranged along the edge of the char describes them as “la famille canadienne.” This family includes a mother, a baby, and men and women of various ages next to children; one of the men wears a knitted cap or toque and smokes a clay pipe. The beaver and the canadien with pipe and cap were motifs directly associated with canadien identity, which had been incorporated into the symbols adopted by the St-Jean-Baptiste Society. Behind the family, on an elevated platform, is a massive pedestal topped by a large bust that was well known to the crowd as a representation of the larger-than-life Ludger Duvernay. The coat of arms for the province (including another beaver atop it) is attached to the side of the char. Below it is draped a banner with the society’s motto: “Rendre le peuple meilleure” (“to better the nation”) which is balanced by another sash with the words “Rallions nous.” “Sous

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6.8  “Le ‘March Pass’ du 65ième à la parade d’hier à la ferme Logan” (The parade of the 65th Regiment yesterday at Logan Farm), La Presse, 23 June 1897.

le drapeau, rallions” (“rally around/to the flag”) has the militaristic tone of a call to arms. The phrase was explicitly taken up as a title in a hymn written for the 1874 celebration of the fortieth anniversary of the St-Jean-Baptiste Society.61 In the second line of “La Marseillaise de la commune” (a version of “La Marseillaise” adopted by the French Commune in 1871), the phrase would certainly be recognized as a call to the people. In 1867, the both famous and infamous Roman Catholic priest and historian Lionel Groulx used the phrase to rally the canadiens to support the new flag reflecting the federated provinces.62 Le “March Pass du 65ième” of 22 June is illustrated on the lower half of the same page of La Presse as the three allegorical chars in figure 6.1 (figure 6.8). The image represents the moment when the 65th Battalion was passing in front of the grandstand in Logan Park. Hours earlier, the battalions had assembled at various gathering points before joining the military procession, which marched along the same streets taken by the St-Jean-Baptiste Day parade the day before. (Thus, the soldiers figuratively and literally reclaimed the ground for Britain.) Placed below the image of the civic parade, the image of the march past is implicated in a visual mapping that emphasizes its greater significance, even if it was the smaller gathering. While the parade was

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the first and larger event, it occupies a smaller space on the top half of the page (the image is squished between columns of text on either side). Both images present packed spectator spaces, although the StJean-Baptiste Parade drew at least five times the number of participants (of course, this huge attendance was probably facilitated by the fact that the parade day was declared a civic holiday). June 22 was, however, considered the most important of the jubilee days as it was the queen’s designated day for celebrations. The local French-language press recounts the day with delight: “At an early hour, the population of Montreal was awakened by the noise of fanfares.” With no apparent discrimination between the different events in terms of their relative success, La Presse reports 15,000 men in the civic procession, and 20,000 spectators for the military review. We have to wonder how many spectators were at the parade: 80,000? 100,000? English- and French-language press are equally complimentary about the efforts put forward by both the British societies and the canadiens. One French-language reporter was pleased to note what a citizen of British origin had called “Three cheers for the 65th and loyalty!” He added, “Nous sommes heureux de savoir de justice rendu au seul bataillon canadien-français qui a prix part à ce parade des fêtes jubilaires.”63 (“We are happy to know that justice has been given to the only FrenchCanadian battalion that took part in this jubilee celebration parade.”) It seems that at this moment, at least, there was some degree of mutual admiration and trust among citizens of all backgrounds. In 1885, the 65th Battalion (the Mount Royal Guards) fought with the Alberta Field Force under Major-General Thomas Bland Strange against the Cree at Frenchmen’s Butte – the infamous debacle of the North-West Rebellion. The 65th Battalion was known as the only battalion consisting of solely canadien volunteers. It is hard to imagine that the resonance of that rebellion did not disrupt the seamless elision of the sixtieth anniversary of the Lower Canada rebellion into the jubilee. Also simmering under the surface of loyalty is the perception of the disloyalty of the Cree. However, of all the battalions that could have been featured in the illustration, it is the 65th Battalion that La Presse features. In the military review, the 65th Battalion marches with the Quebec flag prominent. So even while celebrating the imperial jubilee, La Presse manages to bring the focus subtly to the only canadien participants in the march past. Equally, the illustrations of the civic parade featuring allegorical chars serve to bracket Confederation between old Quebec and Duvernay. Progress, yes; submission, no.

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1897 – “United We Stand” Tales of progress, largely confined to newspapers and transparencies on previous occasions, percolate into all the jubilee celebrations of 1897. As we saw in the early negotiations, Loranger’s reference to the jubilee parade as not being about “any particular nationality” does not stand up to scrutiny. Allegorical chars were employed in the explicitly nationaliste rhetoric of the St-Jean-Baptiste Day parade, as we see in the focus on chars such as La Province de Québec and Duvernay. In deciding to relinquish the date and the traditional use of allegorical chars, the St-Jean-Baptiste Society demonstrated a clear desire to realign its nationalism with imperial boundaries, even at the cost of weakening its prior non-territorial claim to represent all canadiens. Despite the published reports of general and especially English support for the use of allegorical chars in the jubilee parade, there was apparently also concern that the parade might include nationaliste connotations. There was some difficulty in getting all the English societies to participate. The Irish were publicly commended in The Gazette when, on 17 June, they finally decided that they would join the parade. It seems that the Irish were reluctant to parade with anybody! If they paraded with the English, they’d be seen to condone the British regime that was suppressing the Irish language and culture. If they paraded with the French, they would be approving the merging of British with French agendas. In the end, they followed the pressure of local protocol. That same day, the General Committee had been told that there was still some doubt as to whether the Caledonian and St Andrew’s societies would join the parade. A few days prior, the St Andrew’s Society had tried to convince their fellow Scotsmen to reverse their earlier decision to not take part. After a “very long and desultory discussion,” the society decided that “all Scots and sons of Scots” would be invited to join the civic parade.64 Seemingly, the Scots were not entirely convinced by Loranger’s claims of loyalty and neutrality on the nationalist issue. Although the Scots had participated in St-Jean-Baptiste Day celebrations before, such as their fiftieth anniversary banquet in 1884, there was apparently some reticence when faced with the striking precedent of combining the two civic events under one umbrella.65 The public pleas for attendance suggest that the local British societies were well aware that the parade was in all aspects essentially a St-JeanBaptiste Day parade to which an English section was appended. The

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British societies certainly dragged their feet and were slow to make the commitment to attend. However, on the day of the parade a number of British societies participated, including the St George’s Society, Sons of England Benevolent Society, St Andrew’s Society, St Patrick’s Society, and Irish Catholic benevolent societies. On the surface, though, the published subjects of the allegorical chars testified to the shift away from the very specific narrative of canadien history that had informed the grand processions of earlier years (as discussed above). In those years, the ideas demonstrated by each allegorical char were clearly focused on local development, artisanal identity, the history of the canadien population from the arrival of de Maisonneuve, the founder of Montreal, through Duvernay, the founder of the St-Jean-Baptiste Society. In 1894, over fifty allegorical chars participated in the parade at Joliette, and in Montreal units of cavalry dressed in historic costumes designed to represent several nationaliste episodes. Although elaborate chars were not prepared every year, participants of note rode on some form of transportation so as to be easily seen by spectators. At least one commentator remarked on the return of chars in 1894 after a few years’ absence, which he credited to the poorly organized festivities in smaller towns. This shift from allegories of patriotism defined by race, language, and religion to a visual narrative of patriotism marked by loyalty to the crown provides a dramatic example of visual culture as constitutive of new knowledge. The elaborate mechanism of a parade with allegorical chars was not only at the service of the English, who thought they could impress upon young minds. This format also served the complex needs of the St-Jean-Baptiste Society of Montreal. The Monument Nationale, the institutional headquarters for the society, had only recently been finished, and at that same moment the society was seeking $150,000 as a mortgage loan in England. Prime Minister Laurier was attending the Colonial Conference, which had been timed to coincide with the jubilee festivities in London. Laurier was the first canadien prime minister, and brought a spotlight to Canada and her two nations. Presumably, the society was attempting to reinforce its position as loyal subjects – both at home and abroad – despite the evident desire to maintain a distinct cultural identity that the building of the Monument Nationale indicated. In addition, the society wanted to draw in its overly independent, decentralized sectors in outlying towns to capitalize on the momentum offered by the new headquarters and its program of instruction.66 The society needed those towns and villages

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to support the central organization, both financially and socially. In part, the emergence of new mutual aid societies further stimulated the move to centralization. New societies such as the Alliance Nationale presented competition for both membership fees and allegiances by pursuing a mandate similar to that of the St-Jean-Baptiste Society. Thus the jubilee festivities offered a unique opportunity to incorporate the St-Jean-Baptiste Society’s needs into the shifting definitions of nationalisme that had begun to incorporate territorial parameters. Arguably, it is not coincidental that the roots of what Richard Jebb describes as colonial nationalism occurred at the very moment when canadien interests most clearly aligned with those of the city, the province, and the country.67 Perhaps it is not coincidental that the president of the St-Jean-Baptiste Society happened to be Adolphe-Basile Loranger, a judge of the Superior Court (Puisne Judge) for the city – someone who could call on both English and French political loyalties. But this is not to suggest that he or the society “sold out” to the English! Rather it was the “body corporate” of the society that sought this alliance, both to consolidate its standing within the community and to demonstrate to the world that the liberalism of Laurier was in line with the inherited institutions of British imperialism. Colonial nationalism – that is, the nationalism that came to be defined through territory, language, and religion – was apparently quite compatible with imperialism.

The dilemmas of visual culture studies In 1897 Montreal, the citizens performed a dual allegiance by marching for the queen’s jubilee but in a forum that celebrated the national saint. Although the jubilee parade is obviously performative, it is not an example of Davis’ class-divided city, but rather a self-consciously unified city and nation that participate. This is not a case of consensus as Davis found in her study of early nineteenth-century Philadelphia, for, as we have seen, the canadiens and English were operating from quite different positions on nationalism, loyalty, and self-identity. However, the parade’s reiterative function often constrains its performative value. What I mean by this is that parade historians often present the parade theoretically as a site of contestation, but in practice find that the contestation is mediated and constrained through local custom, opinion, the law, and, occasionally, force. Thus, for Davis, for example, the nineteenth-century American parade tends to reiterate existing relations, including those relations that are tenuous and fractious. So to

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what degree does performativity, or the production of the citizen/subject, occur? I will come back to this. While such methodology reveals a debt to a social history informed by cultural anthropology, the use of the “contest or conflict” model tends to trap the researcher into a reading of a single event as symptomatic of contemporary society as a whole. The separation of ritual from its larger performative context, i.e., from the history of similar and dissimilar incidents, results in a “So what?” type of social history. By this I mean that studies of ritual are reduced to studies of individual events whose relevance to each other is tenuous or overdetermined. In such approaches, local specificity is smoothed over and simple, underdeveloped patterns are taken as definitive. It is not even sufficient to argue, as does Guy Debord, that in spectacle or ritual there exists “a state of signification to which all of society becomes a theater for the fictions it has created for its commodities.”68 To this obviously consumption-driven model of modern society we may be tempted to respond, “Of course, but so what?” What do we learn from this isolation of pattern to particular circumstance? In proposing that we question the traces of the archive for more than that which is evident, rubbing along and against the grain, I am trying to figure out how to do both close reading in the archive yet also place those findings into a performative space that is local, yet unfolds over time. While micro-histories of social practice tend to explain local hierarchies through a deeper reference to synchronic societal phenomena, these histories also need to appropriate from the historicist model the tendency to see events in relationship to previous events. Having said that, I caution that this historicism needs to be recognized not as an interpretive end, but as part of a dialogical relationship between the local and the generic. Thus the symbolic values that individuals know and share at any one time and place, that shape “their relation to the active centers of the social order,”69 are limited not only synchronically but also diachronically by public memory. I am arguing that ritual enactment – performative and carefully reiterative of contemporaneous values – should be understood as simultaneously operating beyond local time. So the analysis of the parade is possible only in relation to its previous iterations, and yet it has unique aspects that interrupt the attempt to reiterate. Perhaps the contribution of Victor Turner in his work on liminality is helpful here, in that he understands public performance as more than the negotiation of present politicality. For Turner, the parade

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contains the potential to function as a space of actual negotiation and shift – action that is not confined to the enactment or re-enactment of existing, often difficult relations of power.70 The jubilee celebrations of 1897 in Montreal provided an opportunity for the canadien societies to reiterate a known story alongside the production of an other story of racial identity. The crux of the narratives – whether literal, visual, or symbolic – was that they addressed both the English and French, across and within class and place. The parade was meant to be read or viewed simultaneously, yet not as a bilingual text; it could not carry the same meanings for both groups. This does not mean, however, that the English proceeded in ignorance of the canadien agenda, or that the canadiens did not also accept the English narrative of empire. However, it is within the real differences between the lived histories of parades in these two domains that the liminality of the jubilee parade is specifically revealed. Maybe it is more akin to a Venn diagram, with overlapping areas of interest founded in a discourse of liberal nationalism. It was not a model of consensus with nearly overlapping interests: rather, canadien nationalisme could express foi and patrie at the same time that canadien chars depicting La Confédération and Le Progrès authorized English imperialism. The body corporate that wriggled throughout the city moved in and against these different positions. The subject/citizen pulls and pushes identity locations in ways that do not need to be simple. The body corporate is not a singular body but bodies that wriggled – all wriggling but not all the same. Thus I conclude with the suggestion that parades of monumental importance for contemporaneous viewers may be best understood as liminal sites of public memory and performativity. As we have seen, canadien nationalisme underwent territorial reconstruction during the 1890s. Geographic boundaries were perceived as equally expedient or even more beneficial to the advancement of the canadien than the boundaries of language and religion, which had defined patrie until then. What had become the defining criteria of nationalism in recent memory were not abandoned but were cast into the uncertain space of empire. Loyalty to queen and empire required territorial limits to national identity, which as a social construct itself had to be visually re-codified. The jubilee parade was as much a social actor as theatre, as much a space of change as a theatre of performance. The parade helped to consolidate and materialize the paradoxical desires about race, imperial progress, and nationalist identity. Spectators, English and French, participated in a significant cultural experience that offered a

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temporary and contingent ability to bear difference, while celebrating belonging. Even if it did not make sense.

Archival notes: excess of detail Squished against a temporary railing on Mount Royal on the evening of St-Jean-Baptiste Day, 24 June 1978, I had the momentary sense of being in danger from the pressure of crowds of celebrants. That year was particularly exciting as the Parti Québécois were in power; as a young Montrealer, I was just grateful to have voted out Robert Bourassa in favour of someone who seemed to care about us. Naive, yes, but still thrilling. So the 1897 La Presse editor’s comments about wriggling in the street had a visceral and embodied reality for me. This chapter became a chapter of its own when I realized that Montreal’s three-day jubilee event represented something unique, yet was also embedded in decades of local practice. The illustrations of the allegorical chars drew me into the visual narrative. I did not expect the use of chars. What I had seen previously were variations on the march past. I understood that the civic parade consisted of like-minded men. So the chars became the object of my obsession. Once I realized their tie to the St-Jean-Baptiste Day celebrations, I started to track the activities of the society on and around 24 June. This research archive was shaped by my personal experience and expectations about the singular importance of St-Jean-Baptiste to the Québécois. That experience made me question why the parade happened on 21 June. It seemed impossible to me. How could this date have been justified? How could it have been co-opted? I was surprised to find evidence of co-operation, negotiation, and genuine (-sounding) declarations of “Vive la reine.” Newspapers of the day hold much of the recorded voice, which details the minutiae of the jubilee committee and the presentations of various interest groups. In addition to this plethora of detail (all of which had to be painstakingly read in microfiche reading rooms), both the contemporaneous publications by the city and the St-Jean-Baptiste Society and journals extended the mass of material available to me. Much of this material lies relatively inaccessible, in collections that require the presence of the researcher. This is a good thing in some ways. The explosion of digitalized archives in the past decade seems to facilitate access, yet this is an access fraught with problems. Someone is making decisions about what is digitized and what is not.71 Who decides what to

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tag and make searchable, and how does she or he decide? I know from experience that when I ask if a document is digitized, that request may result in its being placed in the “to be processed pile.” Great, but what about the stuff I didn’t know about and didn’t ask about? Where is that material? Furthermore, digitization of government or publicly held documents serves to reiterate the collection and preservation practices of previous historians and archivists. While the desire to be proactive with respect to current social and political issues may result in the creation of virtual displays using controversial or buried materials, the choices are nevertheless being made from an overdetermined set of possibilities. What of the ephemera that simply doesn’t survive: the parade posters glued to hoardings, the souvenir pull-out from the local newspaper, the letters sent to relatives who did not witness the event yet read about it in the reports from sisters or husbands? As well, digitization does not necessarily reach towards private or corporate archives. However, for a fee, I was able to ask for certain pages of La Presse to be scanned. The paper has not been digitized, but is offering a “memories” service, in that people can ask for particular pages for framing, etc. A lot of the resources for the research archive in my own research triad have not been digitized, nor are they easily accessed. So I still find myself sneezing in dusty archives, wondering if the digital images on the convenient website wouldn’t be enough. To bring this conversation back to Brown’s thing theory, sometimes I get tired of the dirt of things and so the disembodiment of the virtual environment becomes paradoxically attractive.

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# PART THREE

`

Visibly Related: Small Group Portraiture and the Display of the Social Self

$ Small group portraiture invites reflection on how notions of self, identity, and self-representation are inevitably conjoined to a larger sphere of location. The distinction between self and identity draws attention to the difference between what constitutes the singular person and what informs and forms a relationship of identity between self and other. Sociology and philosophy often make a distinction between these concepts in order to focus on the individual characteristics or inherent aspects of self. Furthermore, various kinds of identity studies often see identity as an expression of belonging, such as national, ethnic, or gender identity. I am using the notion of the social self as a means to explore expressions of the self as part of a group. The images of the different groups discussed here – schoolgirls, family, and male friends – all evince the ways in which visual culture and acts of representation work to consolidate group belonging. I argue that

these belongings speak to local identities as well as larger socio-cultural and political divisions. The group portraits provoke questions about the significance of categories of differentiation, expressed in contemporaneous ideas and practices of class, race, gender, and nationality. But more so, they address the intersection of these constructed categories of difference. As a theoretical model developed within the discipline of sociology, intersectionality examines how various socially and culturally constructed categories of discrimination interact on multiple and often simultaneous levels. Indeed, as Susanne Knudsen argues in her investigation of minority identities, these forms of oppression interrelate and reveal the “intersection” of multiple forms of discrimination.1 Research that is driven by uncovering instances of such acts of oppression often relies on assumptions about the relative stability of the categories. Critiques of early research in the feminist movement led to the understanding that many discussions about the fate of middle-class white women ignored the diversity of class and race among their female contemporaries. Yet even these critiques took gender as a fixed or stable category by opposing it to “sexuality.” Work such as Judith Butler’s on the performativity of identity, for example, deconstruct the stability of this opposition of gender and sexuality. More recently, Butler has reconsidered the way those ideas of performativity seemed to discount the pervasive impact of gender norms, as though gendered roles were simply articles of clothing we could choose and take on and off at will.2 If we think again about how Bhabha, for instance, suggests that performative and pedagogical time are simultaneous, yet differently enacted and with different weighting of influence, then we can imagine that our ideas about an elite class of women may be relying on assumptions regarding stable categories of identity, such as womanhood.3 So perhaps these categories should be explored with the assumption that they are unequally weighted or enacted; for example, we must ask when race matters more than ethnicity, and if this is a question that can be asked of a particular time and place. If the girls’ world is predominantly filled with women of varying status and power, how do they relate to the few boys attending the junior class? Or to the male and female teachers? What happens when a girl’s religious affiliation is potentially as significant to her life as her class? Does gender continue to function as a primary category, or is it active in a complex of relations whose meaning becomes significant only at particular moments in time? If meaning is so localized, then what are the implications for the study of those moments of representation? These are some of the questions that are addressed in the final three chapters of this book.

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Group portraiture and the representation of belonging The group portrait – photographic or painterly – is a purposeful representation of personal relations, relations that may be manipulated by the artist or photographer and are undoubtedly constructed by the group members.4 The medium of a given representation will also present limitations and specificities that affect the potential reception and interpretation of the images. A composite photograph and a painted family group portrait are both examples of visual culture that demonstrate the way that late-nineteenth-century Canadians saw themselves, and created visual records of their visions of belonging. Known in the discipline of art history as “conversation pieces,” paintings of small groups became popular in eighteenth-century Europe. I explore the definition of the conversation piece further in chapter 8 in relation to a family portrait, but all the group portraits examined here speak to the idea of conversation. The people depicted, or re-presented, in these domestic situations are engaging consciously in a conversation between themselves and their viewing public. The sitters are re-presenting themselves to spectators who are already acquainted with them. In a sense, this is a rhetorical act in which the sitters attempt to persuade a known audience that they form or conform to the social expectations arising from their shared relations. In his iconic study The Group Portraiture of Holland, art historian Alois Riegl (1858–1905) argues that the artists of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Holland radically altered the viewer’s relationship to works of art. He believed that group portraits by artists such as Rembrandt and Frans Hals reflected an egalitarian viewpoint not found in the more hierarchically structured Italian works of the same period. In her discussion of Riegl, Catherine Soussloff argues that Riegl expanded the notion of the sociality of portraiture to include the psychology of the past and present viewer.5 I am not claiming here to understand the psychology of any viewer; rather, I am interested in looking at what socio-cultural factors seem important to the ways in which people tell stories with and about group portraits. Group portraiture depends upon the definition of intimate space and the kinds of conversation that happen there. It is the nature of this space and the implications of its representation that concern us. These spaces may be interior or exterior locations but they are inevitably socially organized. As such, these spaces become indices of social hierarchies; that is, the particular space depicted reveals the hierarchical placement of individuals in space, their physical relationship to the constituent elements of the place – the built environment and its contents – and their interdependent

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relations of domination. The various relations among individuals portrayed, the viewer, and the surroundings are defined according to such socio-cultural and politico-economic categories as gender, class, and status. These relations are not merely ones of difference: they can also be relations of dominance. So what do we know about the production and consumption of group portraiture in Canada? The literature on nineteenth-century North American portrait painting has tended towards biographies of artist or patron, rarely examining larger social or cultural issues, and is largely concerned with American subjects. However, there have been some compelling studies recently on the relationship between portraiture and social identity. Bryan Zygmont looks at how the politics of the sitter affects the choice of artists and representational style in his study of early nineteenth-century portraits in New York.6 In the book that accompanied an exhibition of American portraits by and of gays and lesbians, Jonathan Katz and David Ward explore the ways in which sexual desire is represented under a kind of cultural camouflage.7 While Richard Powell focuses primarily on contemporary art, his overview of portraits of black sitters explores how the black subject may seek to subvert dominant racist representations.8 These book-length studies speak to how portraiture is being examined as a genre that is not merely reflective or mimetic, concerned solely with presenting an image that portrays a physical reflection of a sitter, but rather may also make visible the tenuous or contested narratives of the subject. Canadian portraiture studies also tend to focus on contemporary or twentieth-century subjects, such as the special issue of Revue d’art canadien/Canadian Art Review (RACAR) – “The Portrait Issue/La question du portrait” – which revealed a wide range of approaches by Canadian art historians.9 The subtitle in French reveals an interesting motif in that “La question du portrait” suggests that what portraiture, as a topic, represents remains in question or problematic. Photographic studies, such as Jana Bara’s 1996 research on William Notman’s photographs of Bill Cody and Sitting Bull, examine the importance of questions about the circulation of portrait photographs in Canada and the United States.10 Indeed, the explosion of interest in photographic studies in the last two decades has provided a much-needed stimulus to research in the production, circulation, and reception of images. The debates have deepened conversation on the social significance of pictures, whether these are photographs or other visual forms. Recent work in the history of photography provides compelling evidence for the role of photographs (and, I would argue, some paintings) in representing Canadian identity. I discuss much of this work in the chapters

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following, but want to acknowledge here the contributions of those who dig into the ideological and socio-political significance of early photographic practices in Canada, such as Joan Schwartz, Colleen Skidmore, Carole Williams, Sarah Carter, Sarah Bassnett, and Susan Close.11 Several essays in Carole Payne and Andrea Kunard’s edited collection The Cultural Work of Photography in Canada offer a variety of critical approaches to photography in nineteenth-century Canada.12 The reconsideration by Robert Evans of the role of collections of photographs in colonial discourse, and the examination by Sarah Bassnett of the way in which immigrants were “shot” in early twentieth-century press photography open up ways of thinking about the social significance of the circulation of visual culture, particularly photography.13 The case studies featured in this section demonstrate that group portraiture represents a complex narrative form, which can tell stories about significant relationships. In chapter 7, I look at a composite photograph of girls attending the Misses McIntosh seminary for ladies in order to examine the social identities of middling-class girls in Montreal in 1874. The group portrait of the schoolgirls is not only a representation of their relations to each other but also reveals their attachment to their teacher at the moment of production, and across subsequent years. Fixed into a photographic album, the portrait participates in multiple, sometimes paradoxical stories arising from the life stories of the girls. The following chapter looks at a family portrait of a bourgeois canadien family in 1907. Here I draw attention to the way in which the artist and father uses family portraiture to produce a stable narrative of success. The last chapter tracks a journey across time and place, the journey of a group portrait of three male friends. Painted in 1772, the image is exchanged multiple times in ways that render the portrait a commodity in the construction of Canadian identity across two centuries and two continents. In this section, I focus on the ability of visual culture to impact the negotiation of a relationship of identity between self and other.

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7.1  Girls from Bute House in a composite photo, “The Skating Party,” Montreal, 1873.

Z  Chapter seven  Y

“Born with a Silver Spoon and Fork”: Photographic Testimonies of Acculturation, Montreal, 1873 Armed with “a silver spoon and fork,” “simple dress for various seasons,” and pocket money to pay for her contribution to the Sunday collection at St Andrew’s Church (Presbyterian), Minnie Gibbs arrived for the winter term at Bute House in 1873 well prepared. Aware of her privilege and full of plans, she knew the pursuit of “higher purposes” had its own costs. Courses in language, literature, singing, and gymnastics would “cultivate her physical, intellectual, and moral development.”1 Extra fees for advanced painting and music classes were affordable, but not for everyone in the class. She knew a couple of the new girls were in attendance only through the good graces of the Presbyterian Church mission. And the limits on what they could do with this education were almost as restrictive as the “simple dress” they were required to wear to class. Certainly “simple” dress was not simple! In a group photograph from 1873, we see fourteen-year-old Minnie at a skating party with her classmates. Seated second from the left, young Minnie is in a light-coloured hat with a scarf over one hand and a patterned blanket covering her lap (figure 7.1). The photographer seems to have caught her and her friend, Lizzie, in an awkward moment as they crouch down to arrange their blanket, scarves, and laces (in Lizzie’s hands). It is difficult to see whether they have their skates on. Those viewers unfamiliar with composite photographs might not realize that the girls were not caught in a moment of rural unruliness but were instead posed by William Notman in his photography studio. All the girls and their teachers needed to be photographed separately or in small groups in the studio – a process that would have taken several weeks to complete. Individually numbered, the extant studio portraits tell us that Minnie and Lizzie, along with four other girls, were the last

to have their portraits taken. Notman had managed to take hundreds of photographs between the first day of sittings and the day that Minnie and Lizzie finally arrived. Yet once they were all posed and photographed, Notman managed to produce the composite photograph relatively quickly. He arranged the individual photographs of the girls so that they appear to be talking, skating, and strolling in pairs and small groups. What they might have said to each other and how they might have told the story of their outing is slowly exposed below through extensive examination of the details of the girls, the school, and their daily practices. As I look more closely at these kinds of details, the significance of group portraits to the construction and articulation of visual identities becomes more apparent. Throughout this section, I look at how group portraits provide visual narratives of intersecting relationships – relationships that reveal how the sitters come to know and represent a multitude of socio-cultural knowledges.2 In this chapter, in particular, I examine the literal composition of this and other group photographs as testimonies of acculturation that demonstrate their socio-cultural locations. As the girls meet each other, spend time together in class and on outings, and share a significant period of growth, they begin to adjust to school culture, and in turn to amend the culture of the school. The case study taps an unusual photographic archive that includes extensive documentation. The abundance of the Bute House archive allows a deep examination of the process of learning to be social. The photographs in the album are often labelled, sometimes annotated, and arranged. The details provided through Notman’s studio practices allow us to match names to faces, in the album and in other group photographs of the students. As we follow the lives of Minnie, Lizzie, and some of the other girls, we come to see the way in which the group portraits serve as testimonies of the process of acculturation, both in the representation of particular moments and across time, as the album provides witness to later events and memories.

“The Link Between the Old and the New Régime”: a Victorian album The Misses McIntosh ran the seminary at Bute House at 844 Ste Catherine Street in Montreal for over a decade. The two younger sisters, Annabella and Annie, seem to have shared the various tasks related to running a day and boarding school, while Isabella McIntosh took on the job of principal.3 From early 1862 until 1873, they trained girls

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7.2  Front Cover, Victorian tooled leather photograph album, inscribed “I.G.M.” (Isabella Glass McIntosh), 1873.

in the social and intellectual ways demanded by a complex urban city, which had undergone the strain of riots, economic distress, colonial dysfunction, and an exponential growth in population. In acknowledgment of her dedication, a unique Victorian photograph album was presented by some of these young women to the school principal upon her retirement in 1873 (figure 7.2). Bound in embossed leather, the album contains fifty-four heavy pages, with nearly two hundred photographs. Circumspect, slightly battered, and labelled simply “I.G.M., Bute House, 1873” – “I.G.M.” for Isabella Glass McIntosh – the cover belies the complex stories narrated between its covers. Central to the case study is the composite photograph found towards the end of the album, on page 50, labelled “The Link Between the Old and the New Régime” (figure 7.3). The “link” is a composite photograph dated 1874 that depicts twenty young women and girls.4 Most of the girls are posed in intimate proximity, sewing, reading, playing piano, or chatting. Seated on the sofa in the middle of the room, a blond-haired girl leans forward to whisper

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7.3  “The Link Between the Old and the New Régime,” wet-collodian composite photograph, 1874, by William Notman. IGM Bute House Album.

in the ear of the girl seated next to her on the sofa. The girl playing the piano turns away from her music. Occupying the left foreground of the photograph, a baby is perched on a cushion. The painted carpet and background wall raise questions about authenticity. Was there such a room, and did it look like this? Why are these girls posed together yet seemingly without direction? Unlike the skating party photograph, in which the girls were engaging in the same outdoors activity, the girls here seem randomly occupied. When I first viewed the album and then the composite photograph, I was struck by the handwritten title of the photograph, “The Link Between the Old and the New Régime.” Fluid, instantly recognizable to me as a nineteenth-century, probably British cursive script, the caption captured me. I have researched numerous eighteenth-- and nineteenth-century group portraits – paintings and photographs – and so recognize the similarities of stance, props, and locations that cross these media. Group portraits are always about the construction and presentation of group identity, and usually they portray a fixed

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and carefully constructed narrative about group relations. Composite photographs could include absent family members, as it was easy to cut and paste in this nineteenth-century version of Photoshop. Sometimes family members were travelling, and an earlier photograph was simply pasted into a new group portrait. However, since this composite photograph is located within a school’s memorial photographic album, the French spelling of “régime” in the title suggests a self-conscious reference on the part of the label writer to the refined education of young women of a certain class. With the exception of the learned elite, most people of Anglo descent in Montreal at the time would not have been able to write in French, so this one word reveals not only the success of their studies in French, but also an ability to play on the word, which can mean rule, reign, or regimen. Whose regime has changed? This question is explored throughout the chapter, as I consider the stories of various girls, their teachers, and the history of the school. Constructed both literally as a composite photograph and figuratively as a product of a complex and contradictory set of social demands and possibilities, the image and its caption gesture towards a deeper conversation. Refusing a simplistic understanding of these girls as merely representative of privilege, I want to pursue that conversation and listen to how their individual and group narratives align and yet also collide. Recent academic research on gender in nineteenthcentury Canada has focused attention primarily on working-class, non-white, and underprivileged populations.5 While this research provides a necessary corollary to monolithic histories featuring liberal progress and political figures, it has led ironically to the consolidation of white women of middle and upper class as equally monolithic. I am suggesting that by paying attention to the material practices and economies of desire in these young women, we can complicate the histories of gender, class, and race that have rendered suspect any study of those who occupy dominant social categories. The album provides an opportunity for what cultural anthropologist Clifford Geertz described as “thick description.”6 Elaborating on Geertz’s notion, Stuart Clark has argued that some historians appropriate the idea of detailed description but tend to do “thin history,” in that they fail to understand that adverbial description needs analysis, not only reportage.7 Geertzian thick description does not purport to establish truth but focuses instead on the success or failure of the object in terms of what it purports to be. In many cases, Victorian photograph albums do not lend themselves to more than a physical description of the sitter and guesses at the possible relations between sitters.8 “Born with a Silver Spoon and Fork”  269

However, in the Bute House album, significant material evidence is present. Somewhat atypically, the sitters’ names are frequently written below or on the back of the photographs. Many of these are further identified with a married name, seemingly added sometime later, often in another hand. Sometimes the word “Mrs.” – with no last name – is appended below or beside the original name, as if the annotator was awaiting further information about the young women’s life after graduation. Additionally, the photographer is usually identified by name or by a studio name, with its location printed below or on the back of the photograph. Although William Notman took many of the photographs, the work of other photographers is evident. Montreal photographers include James Inglis, J.G. Parks, and Alex Henderson (10 Philips Square); Ontario-based photographers include A. McIntyre and H.W. Weber of Cornwall, and J.N. Edy & Co. of Brantford, Ontario. Additionally, a few photographs are from as far afield as Chicago (Barnard and Matthews of Chicago Photo) and Scotland (John Fergus of Largs and G.W. Wilson of Aberdeen). In addition to the wealth of material evidence in the album, substantial genealogical data is held by the McCord Museum archives. The American donor Diane Stevenson decided to donate the material to the McCord after genealogical research revealed that she was not closely related to Isabella McIntosh. She had hired Christopher Cunningham to find out what he could about the mysterious album in her collection. Cunningham uncovered extensive biographical data concerning McIntosh and her students, including birth, marriage, and death certificates.9 Stevenson believes she may have inherited the album through McIntosh’s first cousin, once removed. The extent of textual and visual evidence is so unusual that the McCord Museum has classified the album as a national treasure.

Approaching the Bute House archive: theory and practice In Raw Histories (2001), anthropologist Elizabeth Edwards argues that we need to look at photographs as not just “of” things but rather as historically specific documents.10 Thus we may have a habit of looking at old photographs and albums as if they are similar to ones we make ourselves. Edwards draws attention to the ways in which anthropological photographs can reveal unexpected circuits of meaning, and adds, “we often need to consider circuits, not simple place.”11 As historically

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specific objects, the composite photographs provoke different kinds of questions than do other kinds of portraits. Additionally, the extent of the photographic archive for the Bute House album permits a deep reading both against and along the archival grain. Walter Benjamin’s famous utterance that it is the task of historical materialism to “rub history against the grain” is part of his reflection on the nature of documents of culture.12 A critique of cultural history, Benjamin’s argument was shaped by the idea that the archive only reveals what the dominant forces in society choose to record. Thus, he argues, we need to actively question what is anomalous, what seems missing, and that which we cannot know. So when I cannot find something in an archive, it does not mean that it was never meant to be there. But it may also be the case that I am trying to fill in blanks without really knowing the size of the gap. So despite the enormity and richness of this archive, I have to remain ready to accept its paucity and reluctances. Ann Stoler, on the other hand, draws attention to the virtue of searching along the archival grain.13 By this, she means looking differently at what is in the archive. She argues that “the search for dramatic ‘reversal,’ ‘usurpation,’ and successful ‘appropriation’ can hide ‘events’ that are more muted in their consequences.”14 These are the subtleties of reading extant documents as if they constitute archival events, in other words, moments of record that reveal inconsistency and doubt, as well as social categories of certainty. Stoler’s particular notion of event echoes the idea that I am exploring, in which archival research is a process of encounters. These encounters with the messy accumulations of various archives reside uncomfortably next to interpretations of that material. So if the happenstance that gives access to an excess of data related to the Bute House school photographs can be harnessed as an opportunity to explore a density of “archival events,” then maybe the photograph album can provide a way of thinking about these women’s lives in other ways. Yes, these young ladies are white women of privilege who received an elite education that positioned them to become the wives of successful businessmen, professionals, and politicians. But that is not all they are. Their lives have an excess that is not contained by this formulaic understanding. What happens when they don’t marry? Don’t marry successfully? How is success measured? What if they die young? What does ethnicity mean for these girls? Is the class of whiteness sufficient to categorize them as dominant? What happens when religion

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matters more? Given that this category of “elite young women” may not be as homogeneous as the album implies, I draw on the concept of intersectionality as a way to problematize gender as a social category. If we posit that these girls are simultaneously subject to oppression while being the very embodiment of privilege and its relations of power, we can begin to question the seeming obviousness of the group photo and its album. Drawing on this notion of intersection, while keeping Benjamin and Stoler in mind, I suggest that the Bute House album has the potential to expose minority as well as dominant identities. As such, the notion of intersectionality may prove helpful in thinking about how these women are complex human beings who are not always just what they seem.

In her hands: group portraiture and composite photos The consumption of group portraiture means literally the buying and displaying of spatially and historically specific identity affiliations. An evolution of the popular and commercially successful scrapbooking craze of the 1850s,15 the popularization of photographic albums after the 1860s led to a demand for photographs both for insertion into personal albums and for exchange with friends and family. Thus, albums imply coherence, both as constructed things and as objects of discussion and display. For example, a scrapbook compiled by a Montreal socialite, Mrs Bourne, includes a group portrait of the Allan family and a detailed key providing the name of each family member.16 Andrew Allan, founder, with his brother Hugh, of the Montreal Ocean Steamship Company, was wealthy, politically active, and involved in many social institutions in the city. Mrs Bourne, a social acquaintance of the Allan family, was clearly participating in some kind of significant social exchange when she compiled her scrapbook. Often the exact set of relationships, the importance of one photograph over another, or the moment of acquisition is unknown. So how do these acts of naming, possessing, and declaring membership in a group come to have significance? In the case of certain composite photographs, the McCord Museum holds several copies, evidently owned by different families. Some are framed, while others are loose or in albums. This multiplicity suggests that the photograph, as an object, participates in a consumption of culture – a circuit of meaning – that enables individuals to construct social identities. Borrowing from these formulations about the consumption of culture, I consider how any examination of the group photograph

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needs to acknowledge the novelty and marketing of the object alongside the relations among the subjects. In labelling this section “In Her Hands,” I am drawing attention to the hands that commissioned the composite photograph as well as the album. I am also thinking about how the album was held, shown, and studied. Historians of the composite photograph have traced its early use by William Notman, who was one of the first photographers to adopt it as a lucrative commercial offering.17 Notman was something of an anomaly in Canada in that he maintained a successful studio practice for several decades and established studios in Montreal, Toronto, and Boston. Other photographers did sustain significant practices but rarely expanded their businesses to this extent. Notman’s studios produced some of the earliest composite photos of school groups (some photo historians would argue the earliest). In looking more closely at his studio practice, we can see how the constructedness of the group portraits in the Bute House album provides a way of understanding the likewise constructed nature of the identities represented.18 Using what is known as a wet collodian process, William Notman provided thousands of photographs to an increasingly diverse clientele. By 1866, many middle-income families could afford the cost of a portrait. The wet-plate process was used to produce a positive print from the exposed plate. It was a vast improvement on the earlier wetplate methods of ambrotype (using a glass plate) and ferrotype (using a metal plate). Since the wet collodian process produced a negative, the photographer could make and market multiples.19 These could be produced in various sizes, including carte de visite (business card size), cabinet size (fifteen by ten centimetres), and larger versions. The ability to reproduce the images was critical to Notman’s commercial success; with multiple sitters, there would be even more people interested in buying the same image. So if we return to his image of the skating party, we can begin to imagine how appealing this kind of photograph was for both him and his sitters, despite the longer exposure time – an additional twenty seconds or so – required for such a photograph. While that might not seem long, the impact on the sitter, especially the children, would have been dramatic. Yet Notman took many successful photos of moving subjects, such as babies, children, and athletes. He utilized a variety of strategies to “still” the subjects, such as propping babies on soft cushions that inhibited movement or having a tennis player hold a pose in midmotion. The composite photograph permitted the construction of an active field, one in which activity was apparently being frozen in time.

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The studio practice, though, was painstaking, as each photograph of the sitter or small group was pasted individually into the narrative action.20 Notman’s first outdoor composite school photograph was “The Skating Party” of 1873. This undoubtedly was stimulated by the success of his 1870 composite “The Skating Carnival, Victoria Rink,” which was reproduced in the Canadian Illustrated News and described as “a beautifully coloured photograph.” The commentary also describes how Notman displayed the composite in his studio, where he placed it in a “recess draped with crimson curtains” and under special lighting. “The visitor has before him the scene exactly as viewed from the gallery of the Skating Rink. The deception is complete.”21 In “The Skating Party” (figure 7.1), Minnie Gibbs participates in the deception that seems “exactly as viewed.” The girls are posed in the studio, the “ice” is a zinc sheet that Notman created to simulate ice – even the marks of the skates can be seen on the zinc “ice.” He relied on talented local artists to paint the backdrop. Any Montreal viewer would easily recognize the scene as Mont Royal, which was located a healthy walking distance from Bute House. Figures in the middle ground would be photographed at an appropriate distance, so that somewhat accurate proportions could be maintained. The studio print of Minnie and her friend makes the cut-and-paste process obvious. Remnants of the studio, or “taking room” as it was known, have been excised carefully. The success of the object in representing its intended view is nearly absolute. While she does seem to be teetering a bit, the overall impression of Minnie and her friend getting physical exercise also completes a metaphorical “picture” of young schoolgirls who have taken their curriculum outdoors. Due to Notman’s exceptional cataloguing of photographs, we know that the sitters for the composite titled “The Link Between the Old and the New Régime” were photographed singly and in small groups. The photographer used cabinet-size photos, except for the baby, who was photographed in the smaller carte de visite size (so the baby would be in correct proportion to the other sitters). Notman’s studio personnel cut out the figures, pasted them on a painted backdrop – in this case, a reasonable facsimile of the principal room at Bute House – and then the whole was re-photographed. In most cases, composites were marketed to the individual sitters and their families. In this case, no other extant copy of the composite is known by the Notman archivist. The image – 11.4 by 15.8 centimetres – is pasted directly into the album, which suggests that whoever gave the photograph to McIntosh chose not to mount it on card because she knew it was going in the album. It is

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the only composite in the album, and the only page with no identifying details. Such differences suggest that this group portrait was planned as an integral part of the album and that this group of women needed no further explanation, either to the sitters or the recipient. In her hands, the composite photograph is glued into the album with care and full knowledge of the relations that elude me. So what does her album reveal?

The evidence of an album What can we make of this album, with its many cartes de visite and a few group photographs? Photo theorists such as Geoffrey Batchen would argue that the cartes de visite perform a kind of middle-classness, 22 yet, as we shall see, girls fall quickly from even that tenuous economic status in a world of bankruptcy, sudden death, and unpredictability. Other scholars and photo enthusiasts have regarded this type of album as a platform on which to write their own narrative of desire. As long as the sitters remain unnamed, their stories can be presumed or consumed by the imaginative interaction with later viewers.23 Gillian Poulter’s Becoming Native offers insight into the purposeful composing of identity that drove sitters to purchase, give, and display Notman’s photographs.24 Notman’s practice of numbering all his photographs and recording them in his picture books reveals the names of sitters, although these are sometimes unclear, use titles rather than first names, and can be difficult to read because of the nineteenth-century script. But the clustering of images taken prior to the production of a composite photo also provides a glimpse into social practices that exceed the photographer’s control: the schoolgirls went to the studio alone, with friends, or with other family members to sit for their photos.25 In addition to evidence gathered from Notman’s picture book, other evidence about the composite photograph can be obtained from the three other group photographs in the album. Not composites, but still captivating, these group photographs would have been taken in the studio in one sitting. One is labelled “Group of Christmas, 1866” (on page 13 of the album). The same photograph is repeated in a slightly larger version on the following page in the middle of two other groups – “Group of 1865” and “Group of 1867” (figure 7.4). The three group portraits are pasted on one page with columns of girls’ names flanking each photograph. Since the number of names matches the number of sitters, each girl is identified. While it is not clear to me who is who, the album compiler and recipient were surely able to attach name to face.

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7.4  Group photographs of the girls at Bute House in 1865, 1866, and 1867, with lists of names identifying each girl alongside, IGM Bute House Album.

The list of sitters makes it clear that some girls were at the school for a minimum of two or three years, as their names are repeated in two or more of the group listings. Louisa Ouinette was in all three photographs. Franco-Ontarian, Louisa was sent to school in Montreal, and married, as presumably expected and anticipated, an Englishman, Stanley Houghton Holt, a government employee in Plantagenet, Ontario, in 1873. In the 1866 and 1867 photographs, Kate Monk’s name is appended with “Mrs. Damereau”; she married Louis P.C. Damereau, an artist from Boston, Massachusetts.26 Susan Roberts is also later identified as married, with “Mrs.” written next to her name. She remains un-

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traced in the genealogical report but she counts among the married. So what does this level of detail about the images mean? We can ask what the object purports to do. The photographs succeed at demonstrating a close relationship between the girls. They are defined as a group. What does it mean to be a Christmas group? Drawing from the genealogical record, we know something about these girls. Of the nine girls in the group of 1866, one may have been a cousin of McIntosh’s, five came from different towns in Quebec and Ontario, and three remain unknown apart from their names. Maggie, Sarah, Annie, Mary, and Louisa range in age from fourteen to eighteen. A small group, the girls were of different ages, came from different towns, and presumably met at the school. This suggests that “group” identity for these girls was about being together at Bute House, sharing classes, activities, and in many cases a room in the house as boarders. As I explore the album further, other “group” identifiers emerge. Internal evidence suggests that there are a minimum of two people who wrote the captions under the other photographs, quite probably the original collator of the gift album and, later, the recipient. The addition of more photographs, keepsakes, and married names to the album pages adds to the likelihood that the album evolved after being given as a retirement present. Martha Langford argues that photographic albums employ an oral-photographic framework – the idea that the album uses oral narrative over time – an idea that certainly seems to be at play in the evolution of the album.27 Langford evocatively describes the stories as suspended conversations, hanging just beyond our hearing and unavailable to us as we attempt to construct meaning from the object. However, the inclusion of obituaries, cartes de visite, and announcements for events that took place long after 1873 suggests that this album was the object of many social visits and conversations that we might be able to imagine. As an example, inserted on page 45 are a Christmas card dated 1884, a loose leaf, and a card with the caption “Jerusalem,” which has various botanical samples glued to its front. Dating from 1874, the composite photograph is on page 50 of the album. Yet, the signatory page, dated 1873, is page 53. The compilers of the album obviously left some pages free for Isabella McIntosh’s personal use. Page 45 was likely empty; page 46 is still empty. Pages 47 to 48 feature photographs of young boys and girls from the “Infant Class.” This suggests that McIntosh inserted these photographs after receiving the album. Thus, the album is a testament to the girls’ lives, in which expectations and assumptions about gender, class, race, religion, and age are articulated at particular moments and across

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a lifetime. I imagine the arrival of the Christmas card ten years after McIntosh’s retirement stimulated memories of when Jessie, now married, was under McIntosh’s care. Jessie is one of the girls whose story I have tried to discover. As I look as the traces of the girls’ lives, I look for what fits the expected narratives, what does not, and why. I turn now to consider the significance of the school.

Schooling and religion in mid-nineteenth-century Montreal Bute House was one of five or six privately run seminaries for young women that emerged in the mid-nineteenth century. Lovell’s Montreal Directory lists five private schools for girls during this period. In 1873, for example, Mrs Andrews, the Misses Forneret, Miss Jane Lauder, Mrs Lay, Miss Mary Peddie, and Misses Symmers & Smith all targeted young ladies in their advertising for schools and seminaries. Geared to meet the needs of Protestant, English-speaking girls in Canada East, these academies, schools, and seminaries provided an education that was unavailable otherwise. The distinction between seminary, academy, and school seems to lie in the background of the principal teacher, in that seminaries tended to focus on a single religious denomination. Academies, also faith-based, tended to accept a wider range of denominations. Additionally, a seminary or academy generally referred to a private institution of higher or secondary learning, while school was used as a more inclusive term. The number of English seminaries and academies for girls and young women highlights the lack of any French equivalent. There was no provision of schooling for francophone girls beyond a rudimentary elementary education aiming towards basic literacies.28 English-speaking Catholics were equally disenfranchised by class and social background; largely Irish and poor, these girls would seldom finish more than a few years of early education.29 The education of girls after grade six was limited to private schools, as the public High School for Girls was not opened until 1875. In her work on the social and intellectual history of Quebec, Susan Mann notes that at the time of Confederation the notion of “separate spheres” as applied to gender was also applied to English and French Canadians.30 In Montreal, in the 1860s and ’70s, we see this separation of girls from boys, and anglophones from francophones. However, that did not preclude mingling across language and gender. To further the work of Mann, I consider how anglophones were not alike, especially

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since differences in religious denomination seemed to affect schooling choices. The latter quarter of the nineteenth century witnessed ongoing debates on the nature of education for women. For Catholics, the role of the Church was particularly forceful in the 1860s to 1880s. Pope Pius IX had condemned outright the higher education of women. The rise of the Ultramontanes in Quebec (e.g., Lionel Groulx) and the refusal of the separation of church and state meant that Catholic clergy in the province regularly challenged state-supported education.31 Although a ministry of education was formed in 1867, it was abolished in 1875 due to pressure from the clergy. For Protestants, the schooling of girls seems to reflect the issues that differentiated the Church of England from the Church of Scotland, especially in terms of the relation of state to church. Following Calvin and Presbyterianism, the Church of Scotland was not adopted as an established state church (like the Church of England) and did not support the interference of civil courts in church life. Conflict over the attempts of the state to appoint bishops and over the imposition of a common prayer book across the United Kingdom led to a schism within Presbyterianism that was known as the Disruption of 1843. The Scots in Montreal were caught up in this division. In the 1860s and early ’70s, most of the Presbyterian congregations in Canada eventually agreed to unite into one entity, the Presbyterian Church of Canada. This division and debate was ongoing during the period of formation of the Misses McIntosh school. These debates meant that the beliefs and practices of schoolteachers came under close scrutiny. The focus on the role of the Bible, a relationship to Christ, and the spiritual mission in Presbyterianism were considered fundamental to the education of the whole person. Thus, when we look at private girls’ schooling, we also need to consider how the religious practices of the school created a spiritual environment that was ideological and practical. Several schools, including Bute House, placed advertising in The Presbyterian, a journal tied to the Church of Scotland. The McIntoshes frequented St Andrew’s Church, which was formed after the division of St. Gabriel’s in 1813. St. Andrew’s opposed the 1875 union and remained connected to the Church of Scotland. Undoubtedly the parents who chose Church of Scotland schools were looking for specific Presbyterian values. Of course, there were exceptions that undermine this black-and-white interpretation. As the evidence of the Bute House album archive suggests, there were some Catholic girls of both anglophone and francophone families who were sent to the private Protestant seminaries. In what follows, I look closely at the specific characteristics of Bute House

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that may have encouraged parents to entrust the Misses McIntosh with their girls by examining what is known about the teachers, the curriculum, their everyday practices, and the girls themselves.

The Misses McIntosh: moral and intellectual pursuits The first recorded activity of the Misses McIntosh’s teaching is an 1861 listing in Mackay’s Montreal Directory indicating that the women were operating a preparatory school at 13 Phillips Square.32 In the Lovell’s directory of that year, McIntosh N[icholas], a cousin, is listed as “cabinet maker” at the same address, 13 Phillips Square; in the same issue, their father, Neil, is listed as having “Commercial Chambers” at 87 St-Antoine; the following year, he is listed in Mackay’s Directory as MacIntosh, Neil, at “Burnside House, McGill College Avenue.”33 For unknown reasons, the women moved the preparatory school to Burnside House, which had recently become their family home. Burnside was located on the original McGill homestead, which James McGill had donated towards the formation of a university. The official opening ceremony for McGill University took place in 1821 in Burnside House, McGill’s old home.34 This is the Burnside that later became the site of the Misses McIntosh school, which raises questions about the relationship between the McIntoshes and the McGill trustees. As historian of education Rod MacLeod puts it, the relationship between the McIntosh women and Principal William Dawson was “tricky.”35 Isabella McIntosh’s father leased the forty-seven acres of farmland that was bequeathed to McGill and was quite reluctant to give up his long lease when the university wanted to develop the land. When he died in 1861, not only were the sisters left without paternal income, they also saw their home under threat. In any event, their father’s death meant the young women had to continue their business enterprise. They placed announcements in local directories and advertised Burnside House extensively in The Presbyterian in the 1860s and early ’70s, in some years every month. The journal was the mouthpiece of the Presbyterian arm of the Church of Scotland in Canada. Four of the seven referees mentioned in the ads were Presbyterian ministers; the others were a Member of Parliament, a Member of the Provincial Parliament, and one “esquire.” Burnside House was advertised as being “situated in one of the healthiest parts of Montreal.”36 Capitalizing on the location of Burnside on the McGill estate, the school had easy access to the fields then surrounding the university. Clearly the women were using location as a feature of the

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school that would distinguish them from the others in operation in the 1860s. Their primary competitor seemingly was Mrs Simpson’s Presbyterian boarding school for young women, which was advertised as being located in “the most airy and healthy part of Montreal.” At 108 Mansfield Street, Mrs Simpson’s “Establishment for the Board & Education of Young Ladies” was south of Sherbrooke Street and not quite in the same proximity to McGill University. She did, however, have a house “designed by an eminent Architect expressly for a first-class Boarding-School.” The potential rivalry between the schools can be seen in the competitive placement of their advertisements in The Presbyterian in 1868.37 Some years the advertisements end up on the same page; other years many pages separate them. Within a few years of their father’s death, the McIntoshes had to consider another location for their school. McGill University was still in its formative years but the board of governors was gradually approving building projects. MacLeod has suggested that McGill began to pressure the women to leave Burnside so that it could be developed for the university.38 A listing in Mackay’s Montreal Directory indicates that the McIntoshes moved to “Bute Place” shortly after 1 September, 1864.39 We have some idea about the curriculum through the pamphlets printed by both the Misses McIntosh and Mrs Simpson. These list the price per term, the cost of boarding, and extra fees for advanced training; they also reveal details of the curriculum and, to some extent ,describe the shape of daily work. The “Educational Circular” for Bute House is undated, but presumably it came after 1866, when “Bute House” replaced the name of “Bute Place” in the directory listings. The circular, a folded sheet of A4 paper, could be dated as late as 1874 in that it was found in a file along with a letter dated the 28th of January of that year.40 The fees seem relatively similar, as $80.00 a term for board and tuition was advertised in 1863 and 1865 for two other schools (Mrs Simpson’s for ladies; the Montreal Collegiate School for boys).41 Bute House was charging $100 a term in their undated circular (date range 1866–73). Day pupils paid around $10 a term at the various private collegiates, seminaries, and schools. As the private schools were charging about the same amount, cost would not seem to be the deciding factor in which school was chosen by parents. The core curriculum courses for young women and young men seem to be more similar than I would have expected, given the entrenched gender biases of the period. Although the number of lessons and the optional classes varied, standard to all were English, French, Latin, and music. “Higher English studies” are not defined in the Bute House

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prospectus, whereas at The Montreal Institute for the Education of Young Ladies, studies in “The English Language” included “its grammar, history and literature, elocution and composition.”42 The “English Department” of the Select Grammar School (for boys) offered reading, writing, arithmetic, grammar, composition, history, geography, and natural philosophy.43 Mrs Simpson’s pamphlet describes the studies for the elementary, junior, intermediate, and senior classes. Arithmetic, history, geography, religious instruction, French, and Latin (which started at the intermediate level) are listed. As in British schools of the period, the studies are classed as either “English” or “Classical” studies. I believe that the similarity of the offerings for boys and girls can be understood as part of a modernizing trend in education. As I argued in chapter 2 the introduction of European training systems in Ontario in the 1850s and ’60s resulted in new textbooks, teaching styles, and teacher training. While the method of teaching being offered is not apparent in the advertisements, many schools speak to the broader goals of the educational “formation of suitable Moral and Intellectual Habits, rather than the mere memorial accumulation of facts.”44 This represents the major shift from the early to mid-nineteenth-century learning-through-memorization model to a more student-centred education, as we saw in the earlier discussion of the influence of Pestalozzi and his contemporaries. Mrs Simpson’s very comprehensive circular also lists the modern textbooks, such as Lovell’s General Geography. Described as “the only complete account of the British Colonies, the East India Islands and those other parts of the World which are generally passed over in comparative silence by other Geographies,” the book was advertised with the desideratum that “no respectable School now pretends to teach Geography without [it].”45 The modern training of the whole person emphasizes the intellectual and moral formation of pupils. Where Pestalozzi had emphasized the use of object lessons to engage young pupils to learn from objects in their everyday world, other theorists argued that moral training had to be specifically addressed so that education would have a higher value. The emphasis was on training the whole child. As a Canadian educator, Mrs Holiwell, argued, “Education to be efficient must have this training in view, not merely a polishing of the surface or a drawing forth of certain talents, but grasping the moral with the intellectual, thus producing a harmonious whole.”46 Parallel to this development in educational intention was the promotion of the ideal environment to achieve these goals: the boarding school for girls. Boarding schools for

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boys had been in use for centuries, with the full understanding that the young man would be trained to his adult profession, whether soldier, cleric, or lawyer. Boarding schools for girls were relatively uncommon before the nineteenth century. The philosopher and physiologist grandfather of the famous Charles Darwin, Erasmus Darwin, promoted the value of boarding schools over home education for girls as early as 1797. He advocated that they should learn appropriate subjects such as physical exercise, botany, mineralogy, and experimental philosophy within a boarding school environment – a setting in which girls could learn the social and interpersonal skills essential to the useful deployment of their education.47 While Darwin was presenting a hypothetical educational plan, by the mid-nineteenth century his position on the value of boarding schools for women had become relatively well accepted. The various schools that offered board to young ladies in Montreal used words such as comfort, home-like, family, healthy, moral, Christian, loving to describe the school environment. Mrs Simpson promised that “the health and comfort of pupils are sedulously attended to, and no pains are spared to ensure for them every mental and physical advantage.”48 On the same page of advertising, the Misses McIntosh promised that they “devote their whole time and attention to the instruction and comfort of their Boarders.”49 While the schools seem to offer similar comforts, educational philosophy, and opportunities, the Misses McIntosh school seems to be the only girls’ school to offer gymnastics, a resident French governess, a progressive infant school, opportunities to teach in the infant school, and participation in Christian missions.

Bute House girls Arguably, the principal of Bute House, Isabella Glass McIntosh, represents an important link in the progression of the schooling of Protestant girls in Montreal. She was a pedagogical innovator and one of the first to introduce gymnastics in the local curriculum. The physical training of girls was achieved through gymnastics and outdoor activities, such as skating. The prospectus describes the gymnastics costume as “a black skirt and a scarlet flannel garibaldi.” Fashioned after the loose shirts worn by Giuseppe Garibaldi (the Italian revolutionary), these blouses allowed the girls to actively participate in gymnastics with the aid of the copious material gathered into the shoulder seam. The loose-fitting blouse permitted the use of gymnastics equipment such as balls, hoops, and “clubs” or batons.50 An 1872 group photograph “Born with a Silver Spoon and Fork”  283

7.5  “Mr. Barnjum’s Gymnastics Group,” Montreal, 1872.

of young women who are part of “Mr. Barnjum’s gymnastics group” shows the girls wearing a uniform remarkably like that described in the Bute House prospectus (figure 7.5), although the intended setting is unknown. While at first glance these girls appear to be dressed all in black, a slightly different tone can be seen in the black-and-white photograph. The garibaldi blouses could easily be red, as that colour showed up as black in photographs. No mention was made of jaunty caps in the regulation uniforms listed in the McIntosh pamphlet, but otherwise, these uniforms reflect the dress requirements of Bute House. The photograph illustrates the girls in Notman’s studio standing in front of a painted outdoor backdrop. Several girls hold weighted clubs or twirling batons. Arranged in front of the seated girl are rings, weights, and a skipping rope. Although I have not been able to determine positively that the girls are from Bute House, they certainly look the part. I do know that the Bute House girls received instruction from Major Barnjum, who was to open the first public gym in Montreal. His

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photo in the Bute House album is unlabelled, but the Notman picture book number reveals his identity. Barnjum’s presence in the album ties Isabella McIntosh and Bute House to the emerging understanding that exercise is critical to the education of the whole person. Returning again to “The Skating Party” (figure 7.1), this image illustrates the young women obtaining exercise. Note the girls descending on a toboggan in the background, and groups of women walking in pairs and singly. At least two sets of snowshoes are evident. While these are quite possibly Notman’s props, as he was well known for constructing winter scenes in his studio, they are also indicators of physical movement that would have require unhooped, unrestricted skirts. While hoops were slowly losing their popularity, the emergence of the bustle and more narrow skirts did not exactly encourage exercise. The girls’ skating strides demonstrate the volume of skirt required. Simple and functional dresses and coats were required not just for inculcating modesty, but also for movement. In addition to regular staff and teachers of extra lessons, such as Barnjum, Bute House employed professors from the University of McGill, such as elocution professor John Andrew, Esq., who was Scottish-born. Specialist teachers were brought in for the teaching of languages. Signor Angelis, who taught Latin, died in 1882, and was seemingly replaced by Signor J. Hayazer. The relatively young François Xavier Dominique Ducharme was professor of music.51 The in-house French governess seems to have been Mademoiselle Girard. It is not clear why McIntosh refers to her as family (in the prospectus). The school also provided teaching opportunities to at least a few of its graduates, as in the cases of Isabella McIver and Emma Pelton. The album labelling reveals the changing status of the young women as they move from being named by first name to the title of “Miss.” In the Bute House album, Miss McIver’s photograph appears near the end of the album; photos of infants are arranged around her image. A letter from Miss McIver to the former Miss Pelton talks about the children in her class being affected by mumps and how on “days when things do not go very smoothly the children keep calling for ‘Miss Pelton.’”52 She also refers to the “quantity of book keeping” she had to complete. Miss Pelton adds she had begun to lose “her interest in the Inft. Class” when Miss Shearer left to get married. The use of “Miss” as a form of address between friends seems to indicate that the young women had assumed formal roles in the school. A number of the Bute House girls became teachers at other private schools. Thurza Pitt ran a “select school for young ladies and children” in the 1880s and ’90s with her sister, Ellice

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(Lovell’s Montreal Directory, 1881, 1885, 1895). One former student, Jessie MacKay, took over Bute House when McIntosh retired. In 1873, Jessie married Thomas Watson, a banker and real estate investor, who then bought Bute House. The school was renamed Mrs. Watson’s School for Young Ladies in 1874. Further distinguishing Isabella McIntosh as an educator was her interest in natural history (botany, geology, and zoology). In a paper on “Canadian Ferns,” James McCord noted the exhibition of “a collection of native ferns, collected and prepared by Miss Isabella McIntosh (of Burnside House).”53 McCord was speaking in his capacity as the recording secretary for the Canadian Naturalist Society. While the snippets that refer to McIntosh in the published literature are limited, McCord’s notation affirms her sustained interest in botany. She had compiled a collection of ferns of some note. Much like Mrs Sheppard, with her record of conchology in Lower Canada (chapter 1), McIntosh was actively involved in collecting, analyzing, and displaying local natural history. More than likely she would have conveyed this to her pupils as one of the “higher English studies” (as opposed to classical studies), possibly even using the ferns in an object lesson. While we might think of English studies as the teaching of literature and grammar, the use of “higher English studies” refers literally to the study of a subject in the English language (as opposed to Greek, Latin, or French). A report on Isabella McIntosh’s retirement published in The Presbyterian in 1874 provides further insight into her standing in the community as a progressive educator. The monthly journal published reports on issues relevant to its spiritual community, such as the description of an ordination, the death of an important figure in the religious community, or a financial report from one of the various missions in the province. Unusual, even by their account, the inclusion of a report on the closing of “Miss McIntosh’s educational establishment” in the journal was modestly described as “without impropriety perhaps.”54 The retirement event was described as “of no small interest to the people of Montreal and to many in remote parts of the Dominion as well.” The close of the spring term was held “in the Synod Hall, University Street, on the evening of the 12th of June,” in the presence of “an influential and fashionable audience drawn from many quarters and creeds.”55 The phrase “many quarters and creeds” speaks to diversity worthy of further comment. This diversity of creed is significant in understanding the attraction of the school to some parents. The address of the Reverend Gavin Lang of St. Andrew’s Church reviewed the history

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of the institution, which he characterized as “an educational marvel.” He added that “A thousand young ladies had been trained under that roof, and it would be a source of satisfaction to the retiring principal to hear from time to time of hundreds of that large number who had been permanently and richly benefited by the instruction and good principles instilled into their minds and hearts.” A thousand young women! And he added that no student needed a formal invitation to visit McIntosh. “Bute House, he knew, would continue to be what it always had been, a school and home where love is the power.” This tribute provides a glimpse into the quantitative and qualitative aspects of the school, and the high regard in the Presbyterian community for McIntosh and her family. McIntosh was particularly avant-garde in the introduction of a modern system of kindergarten education (at least a decade before this kind of schooling was introduced in the Montreal public system). In the undated prospectus (c. 1866–73), she refers to the First or “Infant Class” forms as: perhaps the most interesting part of the establishment. A room capable of accommodating fifty has been appropriated to the use of Pupils of both sexes, from five to eight years of age. It is fitted up with a gallery and has all the appliances for carrying out what is known as the ‘Training System’ which is based on a regard to a child’s threefold nature, physical, intellectual and moral. It therefore possesses what is necessary to the cultivation and development of each.56 I believe that at this date McIntosh’s reference to the training system was probably a reference to the Pestalozzian system, which used “appliances” (object lessons) and advocated the same threefold nature of the child. As late as 1886, W.R. Benedict wrote that Pestalozzi believed “man to have a threefold being. He was body, mind, and conscience.”57 While both Pestalozzi and Friedrich Froebel were frequently mentioned in mid- to late-nineteenth-century educational literature, by the end of the century, Froebel had gained more popularity in North America.58 On the other hand, his use of “threefold” was quite complex and drawn from the threefold nature of God, with an emphasis on demonstration, manifestation, and revelation.59 In his book on adapting Froebel’s system to American schools, W.N. Hailmann argues that Pestalozzi “showed how to develop the receptive powers, Froebel teaches how to develop the expressive powers.”60 This is an interesting “Born with a Silver Spoon and Fork”  287

discrimination at this point in time, and it points us to the encouragement of expression in “the new education” of the late nineteenth century. As I argued with reference to Egerton Ryerson in chapter 2, educators in Canada West adopted the Pestalozzian system by 1855 because it offered a practical education suitable to a broadly defined citizenry. The use of object lessons was a means to teach children about the world around them in an immediate and embodied way. McIntosh was very much in the forefront of pedagogical theory and introduced these new ideas to the Montreal infant school, well before Froebel’s system appeared in Montreal public schools.61 Again revealing the intersections between religion and schooling, the participation of the Bute House schoolgirls in several Presbyterian “missions” suggests that the school was educating the whole person. Certainly, practical engagement with local missions encouraged the philosophical and spiritual development of the child. Many of the Presbyterian congregations in Quebec and Ontario were self-defined as “missions,” such as the French-Canadian mission in La Prairie. The girls regularly contributed to the “French Canadian Mission,” whose aim seemed to be bringing Protestantism to Catholics! A letter to the editor of The Presbyterian, in August 1866, notes the donation by Bute House of $66.00 to the mission at La Prairie. The writer describes how “the handsome sum was realized from the sale of articles, principally the handiwork of the pupils. The amount has been contributed by them for the support of several missions.” A note in the same journal in 1874 expresses thanks for “the donation of forty dollars towards the manse Fund. Several other churches have also been cheered by receiving valuable aid from this source.”62 Another report on scholarships shows the aid extended to the French Canadian Missionary Society from “Churches, Missionary Societies and Sabbath schools, for Donations and Scholarships.” Bute House was the recipient of one of the thirty-seven scholarships given that year. Eighteen went to Sabbath Schools of the Canada Presbyterian church; nineteen were divided among private educational establishments in Quebec, Ontario, and England (six were in England, and ten in Brantford).63 The scholarship to Bute House supported a French-Canadian student there. No evidence suggests that the pupil was one of the girls in the album – perhaps he/she was a day student in the infant class. Missionary work was not confined to overseas or foreign missions in the Presbyterian church; on the contrary, part of the Presbyterian creed was the mission to spread the church at home. I believe that the opportunity to practise the principle of mission work at

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home was another feature of Bute House that was important to parents and to the future life choices of many of the girls. As we shall see, some of the girls’ lives suggest that the mission at home could also become a life work, not merely an academic requirement. While there is no indication of why Isabella McIntosh chose to retire in 1873, the death of her sister Annie, in 1871, and her mother’s ill health were undoubtedly contributing factors. McIntosh continued to live with her mother and presumably nursed her through the last year of her life. Certainly, the planned opening of the (Protestant) Montreal High School for Girls was going to affect McIntosh’s student base. After prolonged discussion, the high school opened in 1875. The prospectus for the “High School for Girls under the direction of the Protestant Board of School Commissioners for Montreal” was published in 1875.64 A new building for the high school was opened in 1878, despite apparent resistance from some taxpayers; it was located in the St-Antoine ward, near the former Bute House. In his opening address of 1878, the Reverend John Jenkins, chair of the board, defensively observed that they had already “gathered into our schools twelve per cent of the whole Protestant population of the city,” even though it had been only five years since they had obtained funding from the legislature (1873, the year McIntosh retired).65 Jenkins notes the tensions among Protestants on the question of “State or public education” involving taxation. He makes it clear that without the school tax the High School for Girls could not have been established. He also urges those who were arguing for lower tax not to cause the “disgracing of our city in the eyes of our whole Dominion” and undermine the work of those Protestants who “put their hand, with seeming firmness, to the educational plough.”66 Apparently the major objection was the cost of high schools. Yet Jenkins points out that the average cost per pupil in the (boys’) high school was $4.89; the average cost per pupil in the High School for Girls was ninety-seven cents.67 He adds that 241 boys and 226 girls were attending the high school, which was located in the St-Antoine Ward, “in which reside most of those Protestant parents who do business in the West and Centre Wards. From these three wards a very large proportion of Protestant taxation is derived. Surely, the St. Antoine Ward is entitled to some such consideration as that which the Board has hereby given it.”68 It would seem that there had been some complaints of favouritism about the location of the high school. However, the location made sense given the close ties between McGill University and the high school – some professors, such as John Andrew, who had taught elocution to the Bute House girls,

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continued to teach elocution but now at both the university and the new high school. Several of the Bute House students enrolled in the first class of the Montreal High School. The prize list for 1876–77 indicates that Jessie Ross obtained a “Senior School Certificate” with prizes in elocution and calisthenics – the gymnastics classes must have paid off! Kate and Fannie McLaren both won Honours (English, Literature, Composition, Geography, and Elocution). Presumably some of the girls who were at Bute House stayed on when the school changed hands. Glimpses of what happened to the girls are visible in the photographic album in the sense that it continued to have a life after its compilation. The addition of photographs dated after McIntosh’s retirement, along with other bits of memorabilia, suggest that the girls did indeed write to and return to visit their teacher.

The album as retrospective exhibition Some of the material in the album dates from as early as 1861 and as late as 1880. However, Bute House was established in 1864 and closed in 1873. So, arguably, the Bute House album functions as a retrospective exhibit of the lives of McIntosh and her students (figure 7.6). Suitably located across the street from the current entry gate to the University of McGill, Bute House school was a three-storey building with an attic. With its grand columned entrance and balcony on the second floor, the school presented a formal front to its public. The photograph of the house, labelled “Bute House 1873,” shows at least twenty-four young women with teachers standing in pairs and groups on the stairs, balcony, and at each window. The left-hand window on the second floor includes two young women holding a baby. The building’s location would have kept the school in the “healthiest” neighbourhood and located on the prestigious stretch of Sherbrooke Street in the St-Antoine Ward. I cannot explain the triple B marked on the fence next door, but given that the fence or wood hoarding does not look permanent, it does not seem to be on school property. The photograph of the house shows up in two places in the album. It initiates the story of Bute House album, placed on page 3, and finishes the story of the girls, on page 45. In addition to the young women, we have seen evidence of young boys in the album, presumably attending the infants school. The photographs of the boys are grouped on pages 51 and 52 of the album, which are found after “The Link Between the Old and the New Régime,” yet immediately before the signature page featuring the thirty-two “affec-

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7.6  “Bute House,” IGM Bute House Album.

tionate pupils” who offered the album “as a slight token of our affection and esteem” when McIntosh retired. Some of the boys’ families have been identified as Montrealers, which suggests that the boys were day students. Two of the boys, David and George McGoun, are the younger siblings of Jane, whose photograph is on page 26 of the album. On the next page are three other boys, including two photographs labelled on the back “Tommy Hill infant class,” and Herbert Evans “Infant Class, 1873.” Robert Reekie, the brother of Maggie and Lillie (on page 36), also lived in Montreal; his family were members of McIntosh’s congregation, St Andrew’s Presbyterian. McIntosh obviously knew the family and kept in touch; Maggie’s death in 1884 is written in the album in the space beside her maiden name where “Mrs” would have gone if Maggie had married. There are numerous references to the married status of other students, much fewer notations of deaths. The earliest death annotated is that of Mary Taylor in 1861. Her photograph is dated 1857. The latest death recorded is that of Emma Hill, who died 27 November 1885. McIntosh had recorded Emma’s married name, “Mrs. A. Adams,” so it would seem that McIntosh kept in touch with students or followed their life events through the local paper or reports from other former students. Some photographs are inscribed on the back with personal

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messages, occasionally dated – such as “with love from Fanny Godfrey, Montreal Sept 24/74.” A calling card for “Mrs. Ramsay, 69 Victoria Street” is inserted behind the photograph of a different student. A card for a “Mrs. J.B. Learmont” is inserted behind another – again, a different student. A total of five calling cards, including a black-edged mourning card, are inserted behind various photographs. A Christmas card, signed A.W. and J.F. Ross, Victoria, B.C., 1884 is from Jessie Cattanach; the 1862 photograph was among the earliest in the album, again suggesting a long-term relationship with her teacher that survived Jessie’s various relocations across Canada with her husband. Jessie is one of the four young women upon whom I now turn a closer look.

The girls’ stories The richness of the archive for the Bute House album allows me to burrow further into the lives of the young women at the school. Here I look at the stories of the baby, Minnie Gibbs, Caroline Pelton, Kate Dean, Kate Lighthall, and Jessie Cattanach – all were portrayed in the composite photograph. I was able eventually to identity seventeen of the twenty-one girls in the composite photo, through a lengthy examination of the Notman picture files. Yet, I still couldn’t figure out who the baby was or why it was depicted. How did it figure in the relations depicted? My mind ran to all kind of dramatic reasons, such as illegitimacy. Was it the child of one of the girls? Miss McIntosh? Of course, the actual reason turned out to be far more prosaic. While waiting in the McGill archives for several boxes on the founding of the Montreal High School for Girls, I browsed through a finding aid and the name Pelton popped out at me. There are two Peltons mentioned in the album, one a teacher, the other her younger sister, who was a student at the school. In the file, I found a letter to Mrs Caroline Pelton Shearer from Miss McIver.69 Caroline had taught at the school; Annabella McIver, a former student turned teacher, wrote the letter. Written on mourning paper, the black-edged letter visually reproduces the social practice of observing mourning for a year after a close death. McIntosh’s sister, Annie, had died in December 1871, and presumably all the teachers and boarders would have participated in the public mourning. While this letter is written almost two years later, Miss McIver is either maintaining mourning practices as someone very close to Annie, or using leftover paper as a cost-saving measure. The letter writer appears to have normalized the writing paper, as McIver reveals a homelike environment in which mourning is not

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mentioned. Rather, the gossipy letter emphasizes the girls’ social lives, reading letters aloud at night, the boys being kept apart and thus unable to listen to the reading of the letters, the frustration of seeing someone in church but not quite catching up with them, etc. She solves my problem of the baby, adding: “[A]nother important fact is that we have got a baby in the house and he is such a darling boy. Mrs. Gibbs has gone … home [next word illegible] Fri for five months [next word illegible] With Mrs. Watson, [signed] A. McIver.”70 Apparently, Mrs. Gibbs had left her baby in the care of the school, while she and Mrs Watson travelled to Upper Canada. Although the cross-writing71 makes it difficult to read every word, the writer does identify the baby and that his mother left him at Bute House for five months. Not clear is whether the Mrs Watson concerned was the Mrs Watson who was to take over the running of the school in 1874. However, it is clear that the school was understood as a home. A larger social environment, the house and its residents could assume the care of the infant sibling of a student. So the baby turns out to be the brother of Minnie Gibbs.72 Now fifteen years old, Minnie Gibbs, the teetering skater of the “Skating Party” composite, was also a signatory of the album and is depicted in “The Link Between the Old and the New Régime.” Perhaps Minnie was understood to be taking care of her younger brother, or perhaps the caring environment of the school served to make this long-term babysitting possible. Born in Oshawa, Ontario, Minnie was one of seven children. Her father, Thomas Nicholson Gibbs, seems to have been a stern parent and “intensely disliked” by his employees due to his harsh labour practices. Gibbs was Oshawa’s chief businessman and financier, and dominated local politics in the 1850s and ’60s. Later elected to a federal seat, he was known for vote buying and corrupt business practices.73 It would seem that Minnie benefited from his financial success by being sent as a boarder to Bute House. Of Methodist background, she likely would have attended the same church as the rest of the boarders, the Presbyterian St. Andrew’s that Isabella McIntosh favoured. I see Minnie herself as representing all that links the old and the new. Not quite old enough to graduate with the last of McIntosh’s students, she continues her Protestant education at Mrs Watson’s school in 1874. Like Mrs Watson herself, she transitions from one regime to another. Her new teacher, described as being characterized by “[g]race, kindliness and firmness mingled with gentleness,” would have supported her through this change. Minnie presumably continued under Mrs Watson’s motherly and principled guidance for a few years. Two

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7.7  “Miss M. Gibb,” photographed on two successive days, 16 and 17 July 1882. Notman & Sandham photographers.

later photographs taken successively on 16 and 17 July 1882, are interesting in that the first shows Minnie in formal dress, the second in a frilly day dress complete with parasol and astounding bracelets (figure 7.7).74 The images, taken by Notman, give away little information about the sitter. However, the marked difference between formal and lace extravaganza suggests that Minnie was purposefully recording two versions of her public self. Minnie does not surface again in the archive until 1892, when she is officially recorded as Mary Eliza Gibbs on a marriage register. At the age of thirty-five, Minnie had married William Steward Phelp, a medical doctor who practised in Ottawa. Returning to the letter from Miss McIver to Mrs Shearer, I now consider the recipient of the letter, Caroline Pelton Shearer. Known as Carrie by her friends and family, Caroline Pelton had been hurried into the teaching profession when her father abandoned her mother in 1861.75 On the back of a Notman photograph in the archive is the brief notation, “a graduate of McGill Normal School in 1861.”76 Before arriving at Bute House, Pelton taught in Buckinghamshire, near Ottawa.

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Snippets from different letters describe the everyday world of Pelton and her companions. Her friend Alice Godfrey wrote to Pelton to explain that classes at Miss McIntosh’s school were suspended in 1861 due to “Mr. MacIntosh’s [sic] death.”77 Instead of attending regular classes, “Alice, Minnie, Fannie and Alfred had to occupy themselves with dancing [lessons] from Mrs. Gibbs” for two hours a day. These letters from Pelton to Alice Godfrey and to her mother and father indicate that she was impatient for the school to open after the mourning period. “If I were compelled to remain in the house for a month with only them [Mrs. & Emily Kendall] for company, I should put an end to my existence, or do something equally bad.”78 Terribly dramatic, her writing expresses desperation, the needs of her mother, and her personal aspirations. In a letter dated 4 October 1861, her mother tells her that the money sent from her teaching stipend “arrived just in time to pay the rent” on her flat. Her mother also warns her to be careful of the danger of crossing fields to get to the school, “especially with cows being let on.” Pelton is also prompted to “remember that you are in some sort, a public character.” No doubt the latter was a reference to the legal responsibility of teachers to act in loco parentis, that is, as a stand-in for parents. As such, these women were expected to be exemplars of respectable womanhood. In particular, as a rural schoolteacher Pelton would have had all the eyes of the town upon her.79 In moving to Montreal and securing a position in the relative security of Bute House, Pelton may have felt less exposure. Subsequent letters reveal no such tensions once she arrives at Bute House, probably in 1867–68.80 The archive reveals that as a result of her position her younger sister was able to avoid the working world. Emma Pelton benefited from her sister’s position and attended Bute House as a student. Emma flourished and eventually went on to marry George Beall, a member of the Beall family who just happened to share the Peltons’ pew at St George’s Anglican Church.81 Many of the girls also married into the English establishment in Montreal, thereby connecting families such as the McGills, the Molsons, the Lymans, and the Allans. In the photo album of the Bourne family, which had the composite photo of the Allan family with details of every family member, there are also numerous cabinet and carte de visite photos. Family and friendship relationships draw attention to the ways in which even the girls of staunch Presbyterian background are integrated into Church of England families. Kate Dean married Charles Lyman. As the sister of Ann Dean, who married George Lighthall, Kate links progressive education, business, and Presbyterianism. Her

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sister left significant a significant endowment to McGill University to further the education of women. The Lymans founded a business dynasty in pharmaceuticals that continued well into the mid-1950s. Further, they all were Presbyterians who made significant contributions to their particular congregations and to the Scottish denominations across the city. However, there are a significant number of students who did not fulfill their prescribed roles. Several girls died while attending the school. Consumption, fever, and undescribed illnesses brought finite closure to their ambitions. Others remained single, some went on to teach, and some never married. The story of Kate Lighthall illustrates how one wealthy young woman was able to become a respected member of Montreal high society without the benefit of marriage. Kitty, as she was known, founded a Sunday mission class in her church, in which she taught Chinese immigrants both the English language and the Christian message.82 Lighthall has a fascinating biography worthy of much lengthier discussion. She evidently pursued mission work locally, was involved in a variety of learned societies, attended fashionable and exclusive events, and managed her wealth in such a way as to make spinsterhood seem a delightful alternative to marriage.83 The family archives held at McGill Library include a file on Lighthall, which offers numerous documents that span her lifetime. A small transcription of the “Ladies of Llangollen” accompanies two small photographs of the “ladies dressed as men” (from the Gossiping Guide to Wales). The ladies had lived together in the small village of Llangollen, and much speculation about their sexual orientation circulated in local gossip. In 1924, Lighthall literally travelled around the world, accompanied solely by a male guide, to whom she paid a substantial retainer. A tiny account book details her expenses in London, Madras, Agra, Delhi, Calcutta, and Jerusalem. Clippings from local newspapers make it obvious that Lighthall kept track of her female peers, such as Miss Marie Louise Lammerts van Bueren, who was at school at the same time as Lighthall. A note from her brother Will says, “love to you both.”84 Just who these two are remains unclear, but we can infer that Lighthall lived a full and rewarding life without the need to marry. Other Bute girls thought they had achieved success but it was ephemeral. Jessie Cattanach married well and moved to Winnipeg with her husband, where he became the city’s major land speculator. When he went bankrupt in the 1880s, Cattanach went through numerous moves as her husband sought new opportunities. Ethel Newcomb must have thought she was set when, as a minor, she married a British gentleman,

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Richard Gordon Smith, and moved to London, England, with him. By 1889 he had abandoned her and their three children in Cheltenham, Gloucester, as he wandered the Japanese countryside in search of folk tales. Nevertheless, he did leave them living in relative luxury with a housemaid, a cook, and a nanny.85 If we look again at the Bute House album, with some knowledge of the many lives affected by McIntosh, we see that the photograph album is not a simple reflection of a life of elitism. The education was progressive, the environment protected, but there were no guarantees. Fathers died, abandoned, and disappointed. Mothers supported daughters yet depended on girls as young as fifteen to take care of their babies. Husbands’ fortunes rose and fell despite family and religious connections. And some young women were able to live lives without the encumbrance of dependants. Religious affiliation was important; even the particular pew one sat in mattered. The ongoing relations of these girls speak to how class, while significant, did not limit participation with girls of other class backgrounds. Congregational affiliation maintained links. A singular personality such as Isabella McIntosh’s provides a link between students and teachers, stability and instability, strengths and weaknesses. Maybe the “link” was the photograph itself, providing evidence to McIntosh of the continuity of her regime and the smooth continuity under Mrs Watson’s guidance. While there is no published biography other than the article in The Presbyterian that marked her retirement, undoubtedly Isabella Glass McIntosh was remarkable. Her study of botany, along with her willingness to embrace the latest pedagogical theory and her ability to put it into practice (for example, the gymnastics classes) provides evidence of McIntosh’s lively and progressive mind. As the recipient of the photograph album, McIntosh is trusted to safeguard the students’ histories. Despite individual failings – whether through chance or weakness – the group remains whole. The limitations of personal lives do not diminish group cohesion, yet they do render it paradoxical. Without doubt, the Bute House album is a national treasure. It provides the possibility for a long and deep look at the gendered implication of girls who actively created group identity affiliations in relation to a favoured teacher. Their insistent visual presence complicates any discussion of gender, age, class, and privilege in 1870s Montreal, Canada, and insists that girls matter. Ninety-seven cents – the amount spent annually on girls in public high schools – is clearly not enough to compensate for what the Bute House girls got in their education.

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Archival notes In the body of this chapter I have described the surprising extent of the documented archive for the Bute House album. What I didn’t discuss was the way in which such a find can be overwhelming. So I had to work through the implications of the research triad method even more often than usual. The idea of an ongoing dialogue or negotiation between the research subject, object, and archive is discussed extensively in the introduction. Since so much information exists in the “research archive,” I found myself constantly oscillating between how much of the history of Protestant schooling was needed as compared to how much of the personal biographies was pertinent to the story I was trying to tell. The more that I was drawn to the individual biographies, the more I realized that the life trajectories of the girls were related to the reasons for them being at Bute House. Their representation in the album was simultaneously a story of their identity as a group, and of the intersections of their individual lives with that group. In limiting my discussion to four young women, I was forced to make qualitative judgments about who to include. I can rationalize their inclusion in terms of the differences in their lives that point to the tensions I see in the representation of a group identity. However, I also realize that I began to respond personally to some of these young women. The young deaths of some of these women underscored their vulnerability – despite their privilege, they could not avoid untreatable conditions such as pneumonia. The stories of Kitty, Carrie, Jessie, and Minnie could have been a book in itself. I hope to return to a deeper consideration of their maturity, as their very different experiences speak to much denser and more complex lives than histories often recount. My attachment to these stories certainly affected my research subject. How am “I” invested in the outcome of this research? As a Montrealer and a daughter of a Church of England family, can I inadvertently collapse the historical distance between Bute House and now? Can I claim some sort of empathy just because I know the conditions of being raised in an Anglican household that could not tolerate “sin”? I remember no sense of “mission” attached to our Anglicanism, but recall the older women in the community holding steadfast to the idea. Some of those women would have been born about the time that the Bute House girls were having the last of their babies. So living with the concept of “mission” as a purpose is only two generations removed from my own upbringing. It is closer or further or nonexistent for other readers. Yet how does this experience affect how I as an academic make my choices

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about the subject of research? Because I believe that academics need to have these private debates with ourselves, I see the research triad method as a way to explore these implications without losing sight of the academic and disciplinary frame within which we work. I do not want to read personal narratives in academic work unless those stories are historically grounded, deal with extant and missing archives, and address questions of ethics and significance. The fact that I was baptized in St George’s Anglican Church is not relevant to my readers except that it may have influenced how I look at Protestantism in Montreal. I include this in the archival notes because I am sure that researchers, whether students or academics, need to figure out how to live with the paradox of an institution that still prizes objectivity while we all know that we enact subjectivities that affect how we are in the world. How do we bring consciousness to that subjectivity and yet still do research that matters to a larger audience? This is not a question that I expect to answer with my experience, but in talking about it I expect to have my readers interrogate the nature and quality of the history I choose to tell. Yes, there are reasons I make choices that are about me. But more importantly, I believe this thick description of the young women’s lives challenges an inherited notion – a presumption – that women from elite families are uniformly privileged and their lives are insignificant reflections of their father, husband, or brother.

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8.1  A family portrait, or Scène Familiale (now known as Jeanne at the Piano) by Ludger Larose, 1908.

Z  Chapter eight  Y

The Family Portrait: Portrait of the Artist as a Successful Man There was a picture of the family over the mantel-piece, removed thither from the front room after Mrs. Osborne’s death – George was on a pony, the eldest sister holding him up a bunch of flowers; the younger led by her mother’s hand; all with red cheeks and large red mouths, simpering on each other in the approved family-portrait manner … Some few score of years afterwards, when all the parties represented are grown old, what bitter satire there is in those flaunting childish family-portraits, with their farce of sentiment and smiling lies, and innocence so self-conscious and self-satisfied. – William Makepeace Thackeray, Vanity Fair

Intérieur: scène familiale, painted by Ludger Larose in 1907, depicts a young family engaged in various activities in their parlour, or salon as it would have been known in Quebec (figure 8.1).1 A small girl is receiving a piano lesson from a young woman whom we assume to be her mother. Meanwhile two young boys are reading, one alone, one with an older male, presumably his father. This apparently innocuous example of group portraiture depicts a seemingly ordinary scene of family life. It is the unproblematic product of a lesser-known Quebec artist. Or is it? Would Thackeray condemn the children’s innocence as “self-conscious and self-satisfied”?2 Is the painting “in the approved family-portrait manner”? Even at first glance, it is obvious that the children are busy, not simpering. Moving from foreground to background, the painting reveals a partial view of a front parlour. The delicate curtains on the bay window in the distance are sufficiently opaque to keep the viewer in the room and focused on the children. From the youngest sitter in the foreground to the eldest in the background, the viewer is drawn to read each element of this domestic scene as a landscape. The eye moves back around the key objects in the scene as if the viewer were being guided in how

to see the image. The small canvas demands a few minutes longer from the viewer. I wonder why just one wall is shown. This is not a general view of the parlour, or even a group portrait that reveals facial features. The use of profile views for the two younger children, and the distant view of the older boy and father figure, seem to imply that our attention should be on what the family is doing as opposed to identifying each individual. So I wonder how and if this painting works as a “family piece.” Rather than letting it languish in the lesser genre categories of Canadian painting, I examine it as a relatively uncommon example of a Canadian “conversation piece.” I argue that the choice of this particular format reveals the artist’s intention to literally paint himself, through his francophone family, into a visual discourse that signals other local and national identifications, if we but look more closely. The choice of the “family piece,” just like the choice of a composite photograph, is purposeful and constitutive. In having purpose, the genre of portraiture and its sub-genre of family portrait reveal intention. Whether this intention is visible to the viewer, or indeed matters to its audience, is also significant in any debate about the role of visual culture. In this case study, I argue that by thinking about intention, we may be able to better understand the role of portraiture in general, and the ways in which artist depictions of self and family participate in an aesthetic and social circuit of meaning. Additionally, I argue that the portrait genre can function constitutively when it is predictive or presents an imagined future – a future that the image itself helps to realize. Thackeray’s description of the “family piece” as painted farce helps us to problematize this kind of small group portrait. In many ways, it does work as a piece of theatre, probably not farcical. In art, the “family” or “conversation” piece plays out an ideal or desired set of relations at a particular moment in time. Typically, the conversation piece would have graced the walls of the salon, or the front room. In that location, it would have been part of a public representation to visitors and family alike. The idea of conversation emerged from the social practice of conversazione, which was a formal and public discussion generally related to the arts, literature, or science. As we saw in chapter 3, the conversazione at the Toronto Normal School (1878) depicted a large gathering of like-minded people at a lecture. This sense of public discussion underlies the conversation piece. An image for public consumption, the family piece draws the viewer in, as a participant in the conversation and not merely a spectator. The reader of Vanity Fair understands that Thackeray’s image of the family “simpering on each other” was merely a conceit – in this

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instance, a device the author used to draw attention to other aspects of family intercourse. Prior to describing the family portrait, Thackeray recounts how George, the heroic boy in the portrait, had lived a decidedly different experience in the room where the image now resides. “[George] had been horsewhipped in this room many times; his mother sitting sick on the stair listening to the cuts of the whip.”3 In analyzing similar novels of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, Christopher Flint makes a particularly pertinent observation about the relationship between private experience and public representation. He argues “countless works of fiction document the urge to manifest family by displaying artful images that, while they are meant to idealize the family, persistently mirror its problematic relationship to representation.”4 Flint suggests that portraits are employed within novels in order to embody the writer’s investment in realizing convincing characters. In a similar fashion, the visual artist is invested in producing a convincing representation. Thus references, in novels, to family portraits may reveal a self-reflexive obsession with the tensions between private experience and public performance.5 Can this also be seen in the act of producing the family portrait? In his analysis of the troubled Vicar of Wakefield’s family, Flint points out that the family’s lack of artistic insight results in a parodic conversation piece in which none of the subjects engage each other! So although Thackeray discounts the family piece as farce, he also exposes the tensions that underwrite the failed desire for a normative representation of the family.

The family piece as domestic landscape In my research on the eighteenth-century portraits of Edward Onslow, I argued that locations in private homes were more, or less, private. The most private were the most likely to be able to tolerate images of a problematic family member.6 The front parlour, on the other hand, was meant for visitors – a site for normative representations for public consumption. The parlour was often set aside from daily life, with furnishings protected and children excluded. So Intérieur: scène familiale confounded my expectations of the most public space of the private home. The academic study of historical portraiture underwent a kind of renaissance in the 1990s, particularly in Britain. Most of this research focused on the eighteenth century, a period when the genre was extremely popular among the middling as well as upper classes. Marcia

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Pointon’s Hanging the Head substantially expands the understanding of eighteenth-century British portraits.7 She argues that the sites that accommodated portraits were part of a network of visual communication determined by social rules, artistic convention, and commercial practice. Kate Retford suggests that by the late eighteenth century family portraits had begun to represent “a new language for conveying the possibilities of private life.” Her focus on what she calls the cults of sensibility and domesticity allow her to see how new feelings were represented in family portraits. In examining the representation of sentiment, Retford illustrates how portraits of the period can portray both “the normative and the actual.”8 However, little work has been done on group or family portraiture in North America during either the eighteenth or nineteenth centuries, other than limited considerations within larger works focusing on photographs, particular locations (such as the west), or time (Civil War), or on specific demographic categories (African Americans).9 Virtually no scholarly activity whatsoever has focused on eighteenthor nineteenth-century painted portraiture specifically in Canada, although some critical intervention is emerging. The work of both Charmaine Nelson (on the black female subject in western art) and Susan Close (on female photographers) attends to the representation of sexuality and gender identities.10 Nevertheless, Canadian group portraiture remains under-investigated, presumably in part because so little of this genre survived into the twentieth century. I offer the concept of the domestic landscape as a means of approaching and interpreting the family pieces of the little-known early twentieth-century Quebec painter Ludger Larose, particularly his Intérieur: scène familiale. While this painting conforms in some ways to conventions of late-eighteenth- or early nineteenth-century portraiture, it also resists the norms of Post-Impressionist or Symbolist group portraiture. So maybe if we look at the painting as a domestic landscape, we can locate the image within a broader set of visual practices than the study of group portraiture typically explores. In addition to imaging the family itself, the depiction of situational details also invites us to understand the conversation piece as representative of socially specific spaces. More specifically, painted conversation pieces provide an opportunity to examine the material means through which social relations were seemingly organized. By this, I mean that the furniture, the fittings, and other objects all define how the depicted space becomes an occupied place with specific sets of relations, expectations, and practices. Since the family group was

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generally portrayed in socially significant locations such as a parlour or an identifiable outdoor space, the meaning of the site, its defining characteristics and attributes, and its position relative to other family spaces was clearly seen as important to the sitters and the artist. This specificity and importance suggests that analyzing the portrayed site may help us better understand contemporaneous desires for interand intra-group relations. As a “domestic landscape,” the family portrait shares significant characteristics with landscape painting. In Linguistic Landscape (2009), Elana Shohamy and Durk Gorter point to the ways in which the concept of landscape ties space to socially meaningful places. Here, linguistic landscape refers to “the attention to language in the environment, the use of words and images displayed and exposed in public places.”11 Similarly, the painted domestic landscape uses the painted space to reveal socially meaningful places. Here I am similarly drawing attention to how the space of family portraiture needs to be understood simultaneously and sometimes ambiguously as public and private, as constructed and reflective, and as a strategic representation of place. So, the domestic landscape looks at the use of domestic objects and their users who are displayed and exposed for public consumption. The term “domestic” is critical to understanding the family piece because something about “home” is always being exhibited to the viewer who is in conversation with the sitters. What is home, where is home, who recognizes home – all are significant in the ways in which space becomes socially specific. In addition to the significance of the term as it relates to domestic space, landscape as an artistic genre also points to the expectations of its viewers. Landscape painting is now accepted as a format that does more than accurately capture a view; it can also reveal social relations in space, the specific economies of rural environments, qualities of the picturesque or sublime, and psychic investment in particular sites. Ray Lambert explores how the nineteenth-century artist John Constable sought “to unite nature with imagination.” Lambert examines contemporaneous landscape theory that explicitly acknowledged the artifice of painting, and did not assume that the landscape painting was a mere reflection of the site represented. In his discussion, Lambert also draws on J.J. Gibson’s theory of “direct perception,” in which perception is an active rather than passive activity, “a purposive interaction between the perceiver and his environment.”12 Lambert’s is a complex discussion about how the perceiver notes elements that affect what they see; for example, if an occluding edge conceals or reveals something else in a picture, then the viewer sees a continuity

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between those depicted objects. If an object in a painting establishes a relationship of continuity between various elements in the painting, then we need to look at how objects are placed, their texture, legibility, etc. The argument leads to an insistence that style needs to be reconsidered in landscape painting. Lambert also establishes how Constable drew on aesthetic theories of the day to create images that purposefully engage the viewer in an active reading of the landscape. Similarly, I suggest that if we see family portraiture as a means to “actively read” the intention of the artist, we can assume that the placement, texture, and legibility of objects actually mean something. In using the term domestic landscape I am pointing to the way in which family portraiture uses stylistic and aesthetic values of the day to engage the viewer in a dialogue. In other words, the principles and practices of picture construction – the artifice of the art of painting – matter to the stories the artist tells, whether the artist is a landscape artist or a portraitist.13 I believe that the metaphor of “domestic landscape” works to draw attention to the spatial details of the home and its occupants; thus we might understand more about the family than a portrait typically is thought to reveal. Because we are looking at artistic intention, it makes sense to examine the contemporary understanding of the genre. If the home is seen as a landscape, do relations of space become more obvious? A domestic landscape, the family portrait, now puts the group into the particular space of the home, which carries social and cultural values specific to time and place. Can this perspective shift the viewer’s expectation from a focus on examining the individual sitters to a consideration of the sitters in particular spaces? What is in the foreground versus background? How does the domestic landscape unfold around and between the sitters? To understand the dilemma of the family piece, as Thackeray would describe it, I consider how the representation of specific family members emerged from the practice of what was known as “genre painting.” In the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, genre paintings would depict everyday characters engaging in common activities, such as drinking in a pub or playing music at a party. Genre paintings were theme-based images particularly sought by the emerging middle classes in trade-rich countries such as the Netherlands, France, and England. The people portrayed would be recognized in terms of their class and occupation, but not as particular individuals. During this period, the genre of small group portraiture evolved out of more fanciful scenes with supposedly unknown sitters – scenes such as Jean-

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Honoré Fragonard’s The Swing (1767), which features a young man hidden by bushes who watches an unidentified woman being pushed on a swing by her husband. In the early 1800s, artists in England, France, and Italy began portraying known sitters, often in family groups.14 By the end of the century, the family piece had shifted from these fairly formal displays of family members to less formal representations. Retford argues that the genre began to champion the sensibilities of the late-eighteenthcentury family, such as the demonstration of affection and intimacy.15 In late-eighteenth-century America, the family piece was adapted by George Washington and became quite popular as a means of depicting family and national achievements (actual and desired).16 Christopher Flint notes that the genre was also subject to comic interpretation in later Victorian literature.17 By the early twentieth century, the family piece was a convention rarely used. Photography, which had begun to replace painted records of middle-class familial relations in the late nineteenth century, ultimately proved a more satisfactory way to produce inexpensive family portraits. Composite photographs compiled from individual images could represent small and large groups effectively, if somewhat awkwardly.18 Few, if any, group portraits were painted in Canada in this period. So this begs the question of what the 1907 painting of a family scene meant to a contemporary painter in Montreal? Intérieur: scène familiale by Ludger Larose provokes a set of questions by its very existence: why would the artist do a family piece? Why in 1907? And what is meant by “scène familial,” which translates to English somewhat ambiguously as familiar scene, family scene, or family portrait? As with the Thackeray quote that started this chapter, the setting of the picture frames the representation of desire and fear. The domestic landscape that reveals local and temporal expectations of class and gender, as well as family histories, is articulated and manipulated through spatial organization. Thus, if we can assume that the depiction of the parlour or salon signifies particular relations, then how can we come to understand that significance? When I first encountered the image in the early 1990s, the painting was described as a bourgeois interior depicting a tranquil and harmonious family life.19 Nothing specific was known about the image or the sitters. Although the oil painting was signed by Ludger Larose and dated 1907, no title or label was added that would identify the family depicted. The canvas, donated to the Musée du Québec by Andrée and Marcel Corbeil, who purchased it from a Montreal gallery, has no

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earlier provenance. There is no other extant family or interior scene by Larose. This genre does not appear to conform to the artist’s pattern of subjects in the way that, for example, rural scenes are common to Clarence Gagnon’s oeuvre, or still life to that of Ozias Leduc, two of Larose’s contemporaries.20 Rather, Larose produced still life, single portraiture, academic studies of the male nude, church paintings, and landscapes. Nor does the group portrait echo the melancholic or Symbolist interiors of his American and European peers. These artists often used models in languorous poses to articulate a melancholic or contemplative mood. The American Impressionist interiors of Edward Tarbell and John White Alexander revel in a languid atmosphere that speaks to a lifestyle of money and the pleasure of repose.21 Edouard Vuillard, one of the French Post-Impressionists, was most noted for painting portraits of multiple, generally posed models, often family members in constructed scenarios.22 Larose, on the other hand, was well known for his ability to depict figures in academic style – i.e., Larose was able to respond to the demands of the French Academy to produce a series of works in a classical tradition, such as drawings of male nudes.23 Gustave Moreau, his professor at the École Nationale des Beaux Arts, in Paris, wrote a letter of recommendation that praised Larose for his “remarkable sense of design and for painting of studio figures.”24 Larose was able to exploit his ability to reproduce a close likeness in his portraits of single sitters. Exhibition catalogues from the Art Association of Montreal list titles such as Portrait of a Child; La leçon maternelle.” These unnamed sitters were often well known to contemporaneous viewers, but frequently the names of the sitters would not be included in the exhibition catalogues. An undated photograph of Larose portrays him in his studio in the process of painting a self-portrait. The photograph reveals at least one other portrait, which is leaning against the wall of his studio (figure 8.2).25 The self-consciousness of Larose’s family portraiture and selfportraiture suggests the gender, class, and race consciousness of the artist. In other words, both painting and photography image and imagine the artist as a man who is very much a player in the social current of the city. The depiction of another man perched against the wall in the background is a larger than life-sized portrait of a man of some means. Although unidentified, this man is Larose’s contemporary. The details of the shirt and suit jacket are modern. Such details point towards a commissioned portrait, which is in itself a testament to Larose’s aesthetic and social success. Larose was known to have accepted portrait

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8.2  Larose in his Studio, black-and-white photograph, c. 1908.

commissions, and his last known work was a commissioned portrait of Mayor Médéric Martin in 1915. In looking at the artist, his choice of genre, and the details included in the portraits, we can see again how visual culture acts in a constitutive fashion. Larose uses selfportraiture to portray all those aspects of self that he wants to make visible. In making them visible, these characteristics in turn become known. Thus the genre serves to reify and consolidate the aspects of his character that he wants affirmed. Below, I look at how the family portrait also functions to articulate Larose’s ambitions and achievements.

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It provokes a conversation with its viewers, which focuses attention on the familiar scene.

Conversations with Intérieur: scène familiale, 1907 In mid-1991, Evelyn Dufour, the great-granddaughter of Ludger Larose, was instrumental in establishing that this painting did depict members of Larose’s family. Evelyn initiated an exhibition entitled 3 Générations, une histoire visuelle – a visual history. Mounted at the McGill Faculty Club in Montreal, the exhibition established a renewed interest in Ludger Larose. A formerly well-established and respected artist of his day, his work was not well known in the 1980s.26 However, his second- and third-generation descendants were able to track his work in private and public collections. Marcelle Dufour, Larose’s granddaughter, told me what she knew about the painting. She identified the little girl at the piano as Jeanne, Larose’s daughter, and the boys as his sons, Paul and Marcel.27 She pointed out that the mother figure is actually Jeanne’s aunt, and the father figure is Larose’s brother Alfred. While there is no evidence as to why Larose asked his sister-in-law to model, the painting still functions as a family piece because it depicts normative social relations among immediate family members. I suspect that Larose was depicting his family story, but that the family story did not require his particular likeness. It is still a scène familiale – a familiar scene and a family scene – and so his models fulfill the positions of mother and father. Indeed, even Marcelle thought that the mother and father figures were her grandparents as late as 1985, when she wrote a paper about the painting for a course on Canadian art history.28 As I work through the various considerations of the material and socio-cultural significance of the image, I reconsider the significance of this knowledge. Does the identification of the daughter reassure us, now, that this is a family scene, or reinforce that it was a scene that would be familiar to other French-Canadian families of the era? Do we have to choose? Intérieur: scène familiale is most likely a title acquired through a subsequent owner, perhaps when the Corbeil family bought the canvas in the 1920s (after Larose’s death). Larose’s extant paintings are signed and dated but not titled (see Appendix A ). As in his other canvases, the oil paint in Intérieur: scène familiale is worked to a smooth, polished surface. The colour appears to conform to actual objects, such as the warm golds and reds of the carpeting. Larose was obviously concerned with the depiction of light. Here, the natural light streaming through

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the bay window is variously depicted – reflecting off the highly polished wood of the piano, passing through the glass balls enclosed by the claws of the piano stool, and absorbed by the wool carpet. The painting portrays what appears to be an intimate scene of a family at home in their salon or living room. Whether or not the viewer is meant to believe that the scene exists prior to the moment of depiction is surely a question of narrative. As with any storytelling, the narrative that emerges is rooted in the possibilities of the moment. A contemporaneous viewer would recognize how the elements of the story are woven together through description and action. There is no reason for the viewer to assume that the painting is anything other than a depiction of family life. At only 86.8 by 68.9 centimetres (34 by 27 inches), the comparatively small size of the canvas also invites the viewer into a closer relation; I had to step close to the image to see the details. Each member of the family is occupied. The father sits in the recess of a bay window and seems to be assisting his older son with a written task. He appears to be correcting his son’s work, pointing to something in the book held between them. A younger boy is absorbed in the picture book he holds on his lap. The mother assists the young daughter with her music lesson. The Montreal census of 1901 reveals that the Larose family lived on Laval Avenue and that the children were three, two, and one. So six years later, in 1907, they could have been as old as nine, eight, and seven. As the painting could have been started any time prior, and the young boys seems younger than seven, I’m inclined to believe that Larose may have started the painting earlier, or drawn on previous paintings of the children. The mother figure is dressed conservatively but fashionably for 1906–07. Nothing about her appearance is unusual except perhaps the way her hair is dressed. It seems to be held back in what, today, is defined as a French braid. It was highly unusual for a mature woman of that period to wear her hair down in this manner.29 As a contemporary women’s magazine declared, “a woman can be ridiculed if she is poorly coiffed, that is to say if she wears a structure out of harmony with her character, too voluminous or insufficient.”30 Contemporaneous photos of females with hair straight down or braided are almost always depicting girls.31 The only illustration I could find of a woman with her hair down is in a night time scene depicted in an ad for a product to relieve menstrual distress (presumably taken at night). This may have been a local fashion, but given that we know the sitter was not actually the children’s mother, it may just be that Larose painted the hair

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of the sitter, not a mother’s hairstyle. This discrimination is significant because regardless of whether she is a young mother or the aunt, she is assuming the mother’s role in this image. She is actively teaching music to the younger girl. This raises issues of class, as women of the upper classes would seldom have been directly involved in the raising of their children. However, women of the middle classes were very much engaged in the extended debate on natural mothering that had been reified in Rousseau’s Enlightenment philosophy. As we shall see below, the specific pedagogical practices in effect in Quebec at this time support the notion that this woman was, and is, meant to be seen as the child’s mother. The setting in which this family scene unfolds is delimited by the interior architecture, and defined by the objects surrounding these figures. The view of the salon is partial, revealing half of a baywindowed room with tall walls articulated by deeply cut ceiling mouldings. A familiar scene, the architectural detail nearly conforms to that depicted in contemporaneous photographs in the Notman archive. For example, the architecture echoes that in a photograph of a “Mrs. A.R. Creelman’s drawing room” (undated) and is similar to that of “George Washington Stephen’s house.”32 The latter, photographed by William Notman in 1908, is located on Sherbrooke Street in what is now downtown Montreal. Although the exterior of Stephen’s house was atypical in its use of added gables and porches in comparison to his neighbours, its interior was similar to a number of homes along Sherbrooke Street, on both the west and east sides of Avenue du Parc. In the well-appointed St-Antoine ward, the houses were largely owned by the elite families of Montreal’s English community. A little farther east, similar upscale homes were built in the 1880s and ’90s on Laval Avenue, where the Larose family moved in 1906.33 Even today, these houses are referred to as mansions. These stately homes were occupied by the wealthiest of the canadien professional class, including Mayor Martin (1914–24). Many well-known institutions were located in and around the area, including the Plateau School, which employed Larose until they fired him in 1907. The Monument-National of the StJean-Baptiste Society was nearby, as well the École des Beaux-Arts. All around the square, Montreal’s rising upper-middle-class canadiens built Second Empire homes faced with Montreal greystone.34 The use of a single painting to make observations about an artist, the sitters, or even the significance of the furnishings is obviously fraught with tension, and outright problems of interpretation. Nevertheless, I argue that the idea of the domestic landscape allows viewers today to

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see the furnishings as constructing a specific kind of social space. This kind of family image, whether a photograph or painting, often circulates today with no provenance or knowledge of the sitters. Perhaps the narrative intentions of the artist and/or sitters can be explored further through the idea of landscape, which places purposeful boundaries around the constructed space. The discovery that this scène familiale was indeed a representation of the artist’s family drew me into a conversation with the sitter, reminding me again of the idea of the conversazione. I wondered if the conversation was meant to be an intellectual exchange. What ideas about the family and himself was Larose intending to explore, to discuss? How much of this family piece is about Larose himself, and is the image meant to function as a conversation about the role of the artist in Montreal in 1907? In my attempt to find out more about Larose, I found bits and pieces of information in the archives of museums that held his work, had conversations with his granddaughter, and reconstructed what I could from contemporaneous documents that gave some indication of life for a canadien of reasonable means. The painting insisted that he was a member of the petite bourgeoisie in Montreal, but his relatively poor background made this seem unlikely. Why was Larose able to live in such style? And why did he use the genre of the scène familiale to depict that life?

Lifestyles of the fairly rich and nearly famous: Ludger Larose (1868–1915) The most astonishing source of information about Larose is his Livre de dépenses. An account book, or journal of expenses, in which Larose listed daily expenses and activities for nearly twenty years, this was subjected to close scrutiny by Alison Longstaff in her dissertation in Quebec studies. Entitled Un artiste au quotidien au tournant du XX e siècle: Le cas de Ludger Larose (1868–1915), Longstaff’s thesis, on the “everyday life of an artist at the turn of the twentieth century,” is an extended analysis of his journal. Doing her doctorate at the Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières, she follows tradition in her use of French academic writing, with its emphasis on description, analysis, synthesis, and conclusion. The fortunate outcome for me is that she provides details that confirm most of what I had gathered from the little writing on Larose that was available before she published her thesis in 2008.35 While her discussion of the family piece is more of an aside, she points out how the painting “dépeint les conforts de la vie urbaine, non

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d’un magnat de l’industrie canadien-anglais, mais d’une famille que est définitivement canadienne-française, la sienne” (“the painting depicts the comforts of an urban life, not of an English Canadian industrial magnate, but of a family that is definitely French Canadian, Larose’s own”).36 Definitely French Canadian, the family lives in urban comfort. So how did he arrive at such comfort? Larose lived his entire life in Montreal, with the exception of a few years of study in Europe. Prior to that, he had worked as an apprentice or labourer at the Notman Photographic Studio in Montreal for a brief period (late 1883 to mid-1885).37 He would have made barely enough income to survive, never mind study in Europe. Nevertheless, in 1886– 87, Larose was able to study with Abbé Joseph Chabert, a French priest who had studied in Paris at the École des Beaux-Arts and gave classes in painting and sculpture in a Montreal industrial college, L’École des Arts et Manufactures.38 Larose spent part of 1887 and 1888 studying in Paris, relying on his savings. He had already returned to Montreal in 1889 when he had the good fortune to win a contract from curé Alfred-Léon Sentenne to paint several large canvases for the chapel of Notre-Dame Cathedral in Montreal.39 Thus Larose experienced his first big break in being able to return to Paris to study for several more years. The commission to paint the three large canvases for the chapel was in all likelihood obtained as a direct result of Larose’s prior experience in Paris. These studies would have removed the stigma of being seen as a provincial artist and transformed Larose into one whose work had been legitimized by the École des Beaux-Arts. The recognition of his advancing skills is also evident in a comment, by Louis Fréchette, in his article “A propos de peinture.” Fréchette notes, “M. Saint-Charles et M. Larose sont deux exécuteurs de distinction, du coup de pinceau solide et bien vivant, qui n’ont qu’a travailler pour aller loin” (“Mr. Saint-Charles and Mr. Larose are two artists of distinction, with a solid and lively style, who only have to work in order to get ahead”).40 It is probably not coincidental that Fréchette’s observation was timed shortly before Sentenne wrote the contract – perhaps the announcement of the plan to send Larose preceded the contract and actually prompted Fréchette’s comment. While I have found no written evidence for a relationship between Fréchette and Larose, I am quite sure that they knew each other. As we shall see, both were extensively involved in the relatively small local arts community, both were members of the Masonic Lodge, and both were anti-clerical (in that they both did not believe that the clergy should control education).

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Fréchette provides a focal point for the relationship between arts and politics in Montreal – a relationship that is crucial to understanding Larose’s portrayal of himself and his family. In a biographical essay, Jacques Blais describes Fréchette’s artistic and political career, which was stormy and marked by depression, success, and frustration.41 He had abandoned his profession as a lawyer when he inherited money from a wealthy aunt. He went into voluntary exile in the United States in the late 1860s to protest Confederation. An advocate of annexation, Fréchette went to Chicago to write about and advocate for FrenchCanadian interests.42 He ended up returning to Quebec in 1871, where he developed his career as a journalist. He wrote numerous articles about the arts and politics along with poems and plays. In June 1880, he was the first Canadian to be awarded a Montyon Prize by the Académie française. In the 1880s, Fréchette published numerous works, including several anti-clerical pamphlets under a pseudonym. Fréchette’s stint at Le Canada artistique is not really surprising, given that this was a publication known for its liberal leanings. Banned in 1893 by the clergy, it was adamantly anti-Ultramontanist. Continuously critical of education policy in general and the subordinate position of women, the journal challenged the dominance of the clergy in education and championed educational certificates for clergy and secular teachers alike. As we shall see, Fréchette and Larose shared these radical sentiments. It is ironic that Fréchette’s support of Larose in the 1880s may, quite possibly, have helped Larose return to his studies in Paris under the patronage of the church. At the end of the century, Paris was seen as a kind of finishing school for Canadian painters, as is revealed in the conditions set out by Sentenne in the contract with Larose. Item one stipulated that Larose had to work on the canvases under professors at the École des Arts de Paris (a list of the paintings ordered can be seen in in the Appendix).43 Item two stipulated that before these paintings were delivered they must be “approved and accepted by these same professors as being truly artistic works.”44 Sentenne added that Larose and three other young Montreal painters were expected to leave for Paris sometime after 6 December 1890. Furthermore, when Larose returned to Canada, he was careful to bring with him what could be called a “certificate of merit.” In Paris, Larose attended the studio of the well-known Symbolist painter Gustave Moreau, where he studied from the nude and made copies of “Old Master” works in Rome. The requisite testimonial, signed by Moreau, states that Larose worked in his studio for nearly two years, was an excellent worker, already drew in a remarkable way, and painted studio

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figures with ease.45 Moreau extended his praise with the observation that Larose was absolutely capable of teaching art, which further suggests that this brief letter was meant to legitimize Larose not only as having attained the status of an École-trained artist but also as one who could teach that same studio manner to young Canadian artists. Shortly after returning to Montreal in 1894, Larose exhibited three paintings in his first appearance in the annual exhibition of the Art Association of Montreal (1895) and chose to display paintings of European subjects.46 The appendix to this chapter lists paintings exhibited by Larose at the Art Association of Montreal. The listing is incomplete but provides a sense of the range of subjects that interested Larose, and which must have been qualitatively similar to the work of his peers such as Clarence Gagnon, Marc-Aurèle Suzor-Coté, and Franklin Brownwell. In 1894, Larose obtained a position as a teacher of drawing at L’Academie commercial du plateau (also known as École du Plateau), where he remained until 1910.47 In 1891, the academy had been involved in a confrontation with the Catholic School Board over the way in which art was taught. As described in Le Canada artistique, L’Académie commercial du plateau was accused of teaching “in the manner of Professeur Templé,” that is, using la méthode Nationale de Dessin which was not approved by the board of education since it went against traditional methodology.48 This méthode Nationale de Dessin reflected a modern pedagogical strategy that is quite remarkable, if only for its brief legitimacy at the École du Plateau. E.M. Templé had published the details of his methodology in 1886 while a professor at the school.49 The introduction to his book on the subject describes his method as a break from traditional art instruction – which, ironically, may have provided the proof the school board needed to challenge him. He argued that art students should be able to focus on local scenery, ruins, and sites, as opposed to European examples. Instead of drawing figures from antique examples, Templé advocated that canadien students should study the profiles of “nos grands hommes” (“our great men” or “heroes”) such as Jacques Cartier, Ludger Duvernay, and other figures significant in canadien history. His method was evidently an application of object lesson teaching to art instruction. His instructions include a focus on training the eye, drawing from common objects, and the use of the question-and-answer system of object lessons. These questions functioned in exactly the same way as the directed questions that were used in teaching from objects at the Toronto Normal School. Questions directed students to see angles and lines in common objects, such as the curved lines visible in the handle

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of a basket.50 Further questions required students to answer aloud or in written form, so students would be asked, for example, “How many angles can be seen? Name them.”51 The article describing the educational furor adds that the Académie ended up losing in court, and the school returned to the traditional method of teaching art – a method that was exactly the training Larose had received in Paris. Thus the momentary fling with modern pedagogy appears to have lasted only five or six years. The hiring of Larose in 1894, three years after the dispute, confirms a return to traditional methods.52 Trained to copy the masters of European art, draw from antique plaster casts, and paint traditional genres such as still life, Larose was seemingly the perfect art teacher. Yet he and Fréchette had more in common than the Catholic school commissioners realized. Larose’s Livre de dépenses reveals a surprising twist in his likely career trajectory. In 1898 he had another lucky break, which would change his life. His journal includes a note that he bought a lottery ticket in Montreal from the Paris Exposition. Almost a year later, he records that he won 100,000 French francs, a massive $18,400 dollars.53 Various inflation price indexes suggest that amount would be approximately equivalent to winning $500,000 today. He invested the money in real estate, and obviously did well, as by 1906 he was able to purchase a large home on Laval Avenue right in the middle of one of the best neighbourhoods, occupied by well-to-do canadiens. At this point in his career Larose was well regarded – he was widely known for his contributions to the religious paintings hung in the Sacré-Coeur chapel of Notre-Dame Cathedral in Montreal, his teaching, and as a friend of the “eccentric mayor, Médéric Martin.”54 The extent of Larose’s public profile is indicated by a full-column article that appeared a few years later in La Presse on 11 April 1910. Including a head-and-shoulders image of Larose, the article describes a late-evening attack on Larose by four muggers, who identified him by name. The article identified Larose as “the painter, Ludger Larose,” not “a painter.”55 The unfortunate incident appears unprovoked yet newsworthy. As we shall see, it was more complicated than that. Equally, Larose was identified as “a prominent painter shortly after the turn of the century” in a much later article in the Montreal Gazette, 15 October 1965.56 The same article comments that the mayor of Montreal, Médéric Martin, also had his portrait painted by Larose, and was so impressed that he later named a Montreal street after the artist. So the lottery win, his affiliations with some liberal canadiens, and getting the right artistic training all led to Larose’s relative success and his family’s

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comfortable lifestyle. Maybe not rich and famous, but nearly so. Yet the history of Canadian art barely mentions him as a footnote, and very few of his works are on public display. What happened to the promising young artist? To address this question, I look at the state of art and politics in Montreal around the time that Larose painted his family piece.

Montreal circa 1907 Three phenomena have been identified as significant elements in the socio-economic structure of Quebec during Larose’s lifetime: economic liberalism, agriculturalism, and egalitarianism.57 Economic liberalism focuses on the importance of personal effort and perseverance. Romanticized in personal histories, the individual becomes responsible for “his” (this history does not admit women yet) own success. As a philosophic stance, economic liberalism was also underwritten by liberal ideologies valuing individual effort, work, and education. We see this particularly expressed in the radicalism of Fréchette’s writing, and in Larose’s later struggles with the education system. The French-speaking bourgeoisie also shared this position and added to it the notion of rattrapage – the idea that French-Canadian businessmen could catch up to the level of economic success enjoyed by their English-speaking peers. In their seminal 1988 study on Quebec (during the years 1867–1929), social historians Paul-André Linteau, René Durocher, and Jean-Claude Robert identified two concurrent, yet unequally weighted, economic stances present in Montreal at the time, those of agriculturalism and egalitarianism. Agriculturalism promoted the farming lifestyle as an ideal way of life and thus advocated a retour à la terre (a return to the earth/to agriculture). The Roman Catholic clergy primarily espoused this philosophy. Despite the clerical sanction of agriculturalism, the Quebec bourgeoisie forged ahead with industrialization and appeared to show little interest in philosophic tenets that negated economic liberalism. Even when the Quebec legislature supported agriculture, it was as an economic policy, not as an agriculturalist ideology.58 Thus the retour à la terre can be seen as expressing bourgeois values of hard work, stability, and endurance rather than an adherence to the tenets of agriculturalism. Egalitarianism was the ideology of labour, primarily developed by the Knights of Labor in the 1880s and ’90s. Mainly present in Montreal, this school of thought posed little threat to the dominant ideologies since its ideas had limited opportunities to circulate outside trade

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union circles.59 They could be seen in minor ways in public through, for example, the inclusion of union-financed floats in the St-JeanBaptiste Day parade. However, some of the societies could not even participate there; the Knights of Labor were banned by the Catholic church as a secret society, and rarely advertised themselves in public. The urban economy of Montreal during the years 1900 to 1915 was one of growing industrialization. Rapid expansion for manufacturing in Montreal was possible due to the support of a well-established and diversified infrastructure. The significant rise in the commercial, financial, and service industries was in turn accompanied by an increase in specialized services such as hospitals, universities, and cultural services.60 The industrialization of Quebec was inevitable. In the press, the canadiens were explicitly encouraged to “seize control of industry” and to increase French-Canadian participation in industry through the systematic exploitation of natural resources and agriculture.61 The result was a society fully entrenched in bourgeois modes of production, civic responsibility, and family life, which were made possible by higher incomes and appropriate ideologies. This burgeoning bourgeoisie likely formed the bulk of Larose’s patrons. The business recession of 1907–08 makes it even more likely that the father represented in the painting is meant to be understood as a securely employed or self-employed businessman, or a professional, someone who has disposable income available for the consumption of the items depicted in the painting.62 The family’s possessions indicate that they experience a degree of comfort and wealth, which is not opulent but is certainly substantial. So if we return to the family portrait, we can see the evidence of this success, and its complex social meanings.

The family piece The parlour was the place to speak or de parler, the place of conversation. The house on Laval Avenue had a grand parlour, a room specifically intended to be the most public in the house. As such, the furnishings in the room revealed both the owners’ taste and a public character on display. In proposing the family portrait as a domestic landscape, I am drawing attention to the type, cost, and modernity or antiquity of the furniture pieces, which serve as props in the domestic drama. The details of furniture and lighting may seem uninteresting in themselves, but bits of information culled from advertisements and brochures help to create a picture of what the family bought and when.

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Looking into their pocketbooks – examining Larose’s livre de dépenses – we get a sense of which purchases required either significant outlay or some effort to obtain. For example, the piano is similar to a Bell piano advertised for sale in Guelph, Ontario, in the 1890s.63 Other pianos available to the Montreal purchaser would have included some made in the Montreal area by the Foisy firm, and some that would have been imported from the United States and from Ontario. Prices ranged from $50 for a utilitarian, second-hand model destined for convent schools to more than $5,000 for Knabe pianos imported from Baltimore. According to an advertisement in Le Canada artistique, a Foisy piano could be bought for “a reasonable price” – about $425 – with easy financing conditions.64 This was a substantial investment, as the annual wage for a teacher could be around $300. Fréchette, again in his series of articles on the art of home decorating, particularly deplored the “dressing up of pianos” and recommended (in a tongue-in-cheek manner?) that brica-brac should not be placed on them.65 As if in aesthetic response, the piano in Larose’s painting has a tastefully restrained fringed silk piano scarf and only two small vases. The decoration is relatively sparse when compared to the Victorian clutter that was typically found on piano tops.66 Likewise, relatively little bric-a-brac adorns the room as a whole. The jardinière on the occasional table in the bay window holds a tropical fern – an indoor plant frequently found in photographs of interiors of the early twentieth century.67 The two vases on the piano appear to be opaline, a dead-white ceramic with a glossy surface, often painted with gold flowers. If these are indeed opaline, they would date to the 1850s or ’60s. The point of this minute analysis of the objects in the painting is that I believe Larose was demonstrating to his audience that he could afford a piano, and that while he had the good taste to decorate with modern botanical flair, he also had some sort of older, valuable objets d’art (the vases), possibly inherited – or likely bought from an antique dealer. Their inclusion gestures towards inherited wealth, or at least his new ability to buy valuable objects of another generation. The chairs and tables are also of varying quality and age. The chair on which the youngest boy sits, reading alone, is probably the oldest in the room and does not match any other piece. The chair is likely a Canadian or American version of a “Louis-style” chair.68 It may date to sometime around 1850 since it appears to have white-china castors, which go back to the mid-nineteenth century.69 The stuffed chair tucked in next to the piano is a velvet parlour stool with two thick-

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nesses of plush in red and green with gold fringing. This type of chair, likely constructed with wire framing for the back, dates from around 1890. The father’s chair appears to be a golden oak occasional chair, which is a decorative and more fragile chair so it would not have been used daily. The occasional chair and the table beside it are among the most recently acquired pieces in the room. This type of fancy table and chair are found in the Eaton’s catalogue from 1900 to 1907. They were relatively inexpensive ($2.65 for a similar table in 1905). This plethora of detail about price, dating, and type of furniture buttresses my suggestion that the room was put together with a range of items recently acquired, and others that may have been inherited or purchased as “old.” The new pieces suggest new needs or desires; the family made choices among many possibilities. This room does not reflect furnishings of necessity but rather an ability to acquire items reflecting personal preferences. Carpeting, lighting, and pictures likewise reveal what was specific about this home, thereby adding to the object detail of the domestic landscape. Pushing the metaphor further, the carpeting provides the ground that links the child in the foreground to the father figure in the background. The carpeting is deep-cut wool with a repeating design. Known as a “Turkey carpet,” it was typically sold by the running yard in 27-inch widths, which were then sewn together to fit wall to wall. The bright reds and golds found in the design are also typical of the period from 1880 onwards. The small rugs placed below the piano stool and before the father’s chair protect the carpet. The light fixture is a very up-to-date combined gasolier-electrolier, easily identified by the two upturned lampshades over the gaslights and the two smaller, downwardly directed shades over the electric bulbs.70 Fixtures like these were marketed for a brief period in which the gap between universal gas lighting and electrification was bridged.71 The home catalogue merchandiser Eaton’s only sold the combination lights from 1900 to 1902.72 Matching fancy globes at sixty-five cents were also available for a couple of years.73 Montreal began to convert to electricity from gas in the late 1880s or early 1890s (about the time that the Laval Avenue mansions were being built).74 As of 1901, electricity was still not a primary lighting source in Montreal homes.75 The availability of electricity was unreliable, and even when the bulbs did illuminate, they were only equivalent to a fifteen-watt bulb, the kind that we would use today to light the inside of a stove. So the installation of the ultra-modern gasolier-electrolier combination would not have resulted in significantly more lighting; rather, it seems to have been

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more indicative of economic privilege and taste – at least in the first decade of domestic use. Eight framed images are hanging on the wall. The details of brush stroke and vivid colours visible in two of these images suggest that they are oil paintings, and not reproductions, as seen in many middle-class homes. Most of the interiors photographed by Notman and other local photographers during this period did show works of art, particularly paintings, on display. However, unless it was in an opulent interior belonging to an art collector, rarely would eight paintings be found on one wall.76 This excess might sometimes be due to a desire to present all the paintings that the family possessed, even if they did not happen to hang in one room all the time. The rearrangement of pictures in rooms was fairly common in family portraiture. But given that we know the artist was depicting his own house, it is much more likely that these are his own works. Also, the fact that the paintings are hanging from a permanent picture rail, and two paintings are stacked one above the other, suggests a permanent arrangement that conforms to contemporaneous standards. The frames on these paintings are Rococo revival, dating from the period between 1850 and 1900, and purchased by the yard. These heavily ornamented frames show the influence of French and Italian designs.77 The images themselves are less easily identified. At least one is a seascape with the surf crashing against a rocky outcrop. The largest one, centred above the piano, depicts a woman dressed in blue centred in the top portion of the image who is flanked by a smaller figure in white. This may be a scene of the Transfiguration of the Virgin, as the virgin is conventionally dressed in blue in Christian art. The number of paintings suggests that perhaps the viewer is meant to have the impression that the family were adherents to Fréchette’s snobbish insistence, in another article for Le Canada artistique, that, “Les gens qui ont du goût préfèrent les peintures” (“People who have taste prefer paintings,” as opposed to prints).78 Certainly the entire room gives the impression that the family agreed with the decorating premise that “le grand art d’orner sa maison, c’est de faire harmonieux et mélodieux à la fois” (“the great art of home decoration lies in making it harmonious and melodious at the same moment”). The journal Le Canada artistique was clearly directed at a rising class of canadien consumers. Written in French, it flourished in the 1890s, at the same time that the mansions for the new bourgeoisie were being built in Montreal. These years saw the growth of a material desire among moderately successful professionals to demonstrate their achievements through the visual culture of the city.

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These then are the material elements of discourse in this painting: a range of furniture dating from 1850 to 1907 and arranged chronologically from foreground to background, in sequence from dark to light, unified across a modern fitted carpet, implying a recent, and willed, rearrangement with a view to warmth and comfort. Taste, even “good” taste, is represented in the picture. The combined gasolier-electrolier with its narrow date range indicates that the parlour in our painting was furnished between 1899 and 1903, the dates when combined fixtures were marketed. While there appear to be some “antiques” or family treasures, such as the opaline vases and the “Louis-style” chair, the other furnishings are up to date. The artist had obviously gained a certain stature in the city, and the family portrait served to preserve and present a visual record of that socially and culturally expansive lifestyle. There is a restraint to the furnishings that also suggests this family does not follow the established anglophone decorating tradition of collecting extensive bric-a-brac. Most of the photographs of contemporaneous interior scenes in the Photographic Archives at the McCord Museum depict the homes of anglophone Montrealers. They consistently demonstrate the tendency to crowd all available surfaces with sundry objects. The only specifically canadien family whose home is depicted, the Massons, have markedly simpler interiors.79 In the Larose painting, the use of small rugs, placed strategically on the carpets themselves to prevent wear, also suggest that the high cost of the carpeting meant efforts were taken to protect it. The visual indications are that this household was recently established, likely has some traditional family possessions, and is financially comfortable. The space of the painting is comfortable and well ordered. Sociocultural divisions of the domestic space are as clearly articulated as if they too had a price tag identifying their relative cost. The apparent diversity of the politico-economic positions Linteau outlined does not appear as evident in the socio-cultural realm of turn-of-the-century Montreal. Political diversity was often subsumed under a general conservatism with respect to daily life. Whether a proponent of economic liberalism, agriculturalism, or egalitarianism, a French-Canadian nationalist or Canadian nationalist, many Québécois demonstrated a conservatism, which emphasized the sanctity of the family and the subordinate position of women.80 The head of the family was responsible for the education and welfare of its members. Henri Bourassa, a conservative with liberal leanings, attempted to rationalize canadien nationalism alongside clerical entrenchment in the form of

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Ultramontism, which is reflected in his assertion that church and family were the foundation of society. Yet he was also quite adamant in his contention that “the state is an incompetent schoolmaster.”81 This seeming contradiction points to the difficulties that liberal thinkers had with church control of social institutions. As with the struggle between Templé, who tried to introduce new ways of teaching to L’Académie commercial du Plateau, the tension between modernity and respect for canadien tradition was not easily resolved by the growing canadien petite bourgeoisie. Revealing a similar paradox, the anti-clerical journal Le Canada revue advocated education for the Québécoise so that she would be better trained in family maintenance. Seemingly positioned at the opposite political pole to Bourassa, the journal insisted that women could be free-thinkers. Yet, when examined closely, their notion of advancement remains as entrenched in subservience as the contradictory conservatism of Bourassa. Using the curious pseudonym Lupus,82 one author wrote a supposedly sympathetic defence of the education of women: “Que doit être le rôle de la femme dans la famille? La femme doit être active, propre, économe, et fidèle; vaillante dans l’adversité; instruite sans être savante, dévouée aux intérêts de son époux et subordonnée à son pouvoir; tendre mais sévère pour ses enfants; et apte a leur inculquer leurs devoirs écoliers et a leur donner le gout de l’étude” (“What should the role of women be in the family? The wife should be active, tidy, economical, and loyal; strong in adversity; a teacher but not an intellect, devoted to the interests of her husband and subordinate to his authority; tender but strict with her children; and able to teach them their school work and to give them a taste for studying”).83 There is not much vacillation or doubt about the subordination of women in that statement. In her study of late-eighteenth-century British family portraits, Retford describes the rise in the portrayal of the devoted, caring father who tends his children’s emotional, as well as material, well-being. She argues for the coexistence of new and traditional forms, since the portraits frequently convey the fathers’ supervisory role by placing them at the summit of a triangular composition, as well as symbolizing the importance of lineage by the fathers’ close proximity to their male heir. These images of fatherhood are not “private” or “domestic” as we are inclined to understand it. Demonstrating the fluidity of “private” and “public” yet again, Retford shows that men used such tender devotion to advertise their civilized qualities, a factor that needs to be more fully explored by historians of masculinity in this period. In many ways, Larose takes on this kind of fluid paternal role. Even though the

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likeness of the father is of his brother Alfred, the father role in the family portrait conforms to Retford’s characterization – almost as if Larose was following orders. The father figure is arguably at the apex of a triangular construction. As the most authoritative figure, he is in the centre of the images and works with the other males. The girls and mother “play” at lesser arts. The elder son and heir is practically glued to his father’s side. The depiction of the father, positioned in the background, is central to understanding the fluidity of masculine paternity along with the gender- and age-related restrictions on education of the day. While women may have been promoted as the educators in the home – strong but not intellectuals – this role was limited by their statutory position. During this period, Quebec women did not legally have the right to supervise the education of their children. According to the Civil Code 1866–1915, a woman could not “exercise alone the right to tutorship of her minor children.”84 However, it was considered appropriate for women to learn and teach music. Girls had access to rudimentary musical training in convent schools, which many young Québécoises attended by 1880. Thus it is not unusual for the young woman in the painting to be instructing a young girl in the basics of piano.85 The vehemence that counteracted nascent feminism in Quebec is symptomatic of the secondary position of women in the province. While women won the right to vote in federal elections in 1918, they would not have the same right in Quebec until 1940. Indeed, Monseigneur Louis-Adolphe Paquet’s vitriolic article on “Le Féminisme” in the inaugural volume of Le Canada français (1918) indicates the strength of patriarchal hysteria among the Quebec clergy.86 This subservient role for women was extended to the type of education received by each sex, with girls being sent to convents or écoles ménagères (schools teaching home economics) while boys went to seminaries and universities. It was quite clear that boys were meant to learn intellectual and practical skills at their father’s knee – which is literally evident in the scène familiale. Girls were apprenticed in contemporaneous norms of domesticity and culture – daughter Jeanne dutifully sits at the piano, with her little legs awkwardly sticking over the piano stool. The mother figure leans over her, directing her to fulfill the role of the woman, a role defined by law and slightly enlarged in the sympathetic writing of such writers as “Lupus.” In her lengthy dissertation, Longstaff presents compelling evidence of Larose’s free-thinking and anti-clerical practices. By 1907, he began

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withdrawing from participation in the more traditional canadien societies. For example, Larose reduced his attendance, and then altogether stopped attending Les Forestiers, a fraternal society that pooled resources to support members in need.87 He studied Esperanto to the point at which he could write letters in the idealistic and universalist “new language” of the millennium. In 1907, he joined the Esperance (Hope) chapter of the Masonic Lodge that was formed to promote the interests of the canadiens. As his journal affirms, Larose suffered personal attacks and professional challenges as a result of his progressivist ideologies. Yet nevertheless, I would argue that Larose is not a man apart. He participates in the conversation with his peers that sees the canadien, albeit only males, as having a strong economic future. Agriculturalism is considered an economic trajectory, not an inherited liability of idealism and clerical servitude. Liberal thought allows him to engage in a diversity of intellectual conversazione that are stimulating, socially desirable, and supported by a strong cultural network that does not need to have a relationship with the English. Larose’s Intérieur: scène familiale perpetuates and normalizes this set of relations. Each individual is in his or her proper place. They are not lounging or meditative. The mother figure is teaching music; the father is teaching something that requires writing. The image portrays a family properly engaged in learning. In particular, the emphasis on the education of the young children in the home reaffirms the sanctity of the family and its active role in the development of a child’s character. The father oversees the welfare of his family, thus assuring their future success. The boys are being trained to read and write, skills that were essential in the business world. The girl is being educated too, but solely in a gender-appropriate way. The reinforcement of gendered relations in the image is further advanced by the nature of the physical relations between them. The girl fits tangentially into the woman’s body; her smock dress echoes the outline of the mother’s skirt. On the other hand, the elder boy is adjacent to his father. Similarly, gesture is used to delineate difference. The containing and enclosing position of the father’s arm around his son contrasts to the pose of the woman. She reaches out to point to the music and her lack of physical contact with the girl seems positively constrained. In addition to the gender specificity of activity and stance, the portrayal of the children at different levels of literacy further defines the particularity of their interrelations. In the foreground of the painting,

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the younger child examines a picture book. The daughter, the middle child located between the two brothers both in age and in physical location in the image, is being taught how to read music. The elder brother, placed in the background of the painting, is the most distant from both the picture plane and metaphorically from his younger siblings in terms of his literacy. He is reading or writing, an advanced skill. This sequence suggests that the disposition of mother and father is genderspecific not only in regard to what girls and boys learn but also in the level of development that each sex is likely to achieve. The younger boy will presumably progress in time to the position now occupied by his elder brother. We are not given any other future for the girl, who will not progress further than her mother. The females are pinned within the expanse of the piano. They are equally expensive, decorative, and carefully exhibited elements of the domestic landscape. She who is learning will grow into she who is teaching. Thus I am arguing that the family scene is a platform upon which the artist and father demonstrates his ability and desire to educate his family. The photograph of Larose painting a self-portrait is a multiply self-conscious image that depicts a confident, well-dressed professional at work. His work as teacher and artist places him firmly within his canadien milieu. While Larose follows the dictates of custom and the church in the specificity of women’s inequity, he also promotes education as rooted in the family. I see this as the oscillation of someone like Bourassa, a socially aware canadien who placed the betterment of his race above and beyond the disagreements among his peers. There is no doubt that liberal politics excited a generation of canadien and anglophone industrialists. Larose was able to participate in the economic opportunities that moderate wealth afforded. By a remarkable stroke of luck, he won the lottery. As a consequence, he was able to follow his conscience to challenge clerical involvement in education, yet also promote a contradictory conservatism in his family relations, art practice, and teaching.

Les fondements de la famille pictoral The identification of Intérieur: scène familiale as a domestic landscape provides a means of mapping contemporaneous ideas and practices about the domestic and the intimate relations of canadien life. As a case study, the painting affords an opportunity to investigate the nature of the represented space in order to recover some of the potential meanings hidden below the apparently benign surface of this family portrait.

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As I did not know much about the artist, or that the family depicted was his, when I began the research, I started with the evidence inside the image and considered how its discursive frame served to limit the potential meanings. The image opens up specific gender hierarchies, i.e., the division of tasks between mother/daughter and father/son. Additionally, family history is intimated through the presentation of furnishings of different ages and value. Likewise, social status is revealed as having been naturalized and reified by the domestic attributes of the depicted space. However, these histories of gender, class, and family can be read only by placing them within the larger text of their specific time and place – 1907 Montreal. Montreal was the undisputed industrial centre of Canada. It was the home of a privileged bourgeoisie, both English- and French-speaking, who could afford to consume images, including family portraiture, which re-presented their family and possessions as comfortable, educated, and independent. Thus, their intimate space could become itself an object for public contemplation, ultimately taking its place among the significant family holdings when it, too, was hung in the salon (and, many decades later, in the Musée de Québec). It is probably not accidental that Larose’s interior scene is set in the parlour. As the most public room, it is the site of interaction between the family and the public. Friends, relations, and acquaintances would share evenings of conversation and entertainment with the family in this room. It is this public stage that would provide the setting for the consumption of the family image. The re-presentation of the family’s intimate relations in conversation with their viewers provides tangible evidence of the success of this domestic landscape. Just as landscape painting is controlled and limited by perspective, frames, and stance, so, too, the domestic landscape is a controlled re-presentation of the family. Confined by physical space and furnishings, and defined by enacted relations, the family piece offers a prospect to the visitor that naturalizes and serves to confirm the rhetoric of the canadien family as the foundation of French-Canadian bourgeois society.

Archival notes In this set of archival notes, I talk about the triumph and disappointment of archival work. Even though I teach, write about, and theorize the archive, I still thrill to moments of archival discovery. I am surprised that I am not jaded by over-thinking the process. When I find

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“the” letter, or “the” explanation, I am self-satisfied. Despite knowing full well that there is no single truth of any archival find, I nevertheless love it when it happens. This confession is a means to illustrate the tension between knowing that the archive must be trawled and knowing that you must acknowledge what you catch. Just as I was finishing one of the final edits of this chapter, I went hunting again for any further information that might have surfaced about Larose. And that’s when I found the dissertation by Longstaff. Frankly, I was horrified by the discovery of this massive tome, in French, which I needed to read. While I am bilingual, I still take a significantly longer period of time to read French than English! I wished (briefly) that I had never found the dissertation. And I had thought I was the only one working on Larose, so I felt threatened and disappointed by Longstaff’s achievement. But, how could I not read it? Thus a very recently produced study became a primary source in my research archive. As I discussed in the chapter, the information that Longstaff culled from Larose’s diary was fantastic. She must have spent many months carefully tabulating material about his spending patterns that ultimately led to her insights about his social practices. I am grateful that I found her work, and even more grateful that the thesis was done in the social studies format favoured in FrenchCanadian universities. Thorough and accounting for everything, the thesis provided a wealth of data that I just knew was reliable. So sometimes an accidental find in the archive might appear daunting or potentially in conflict with the research subject one develops. However, I believe that academics must engage ethically with whatever we find. I could have ignored it and likely no one would have noticed. But not only would I have ignored Longstaff’s accomplishment, I also would have missed the texture of Larose’s social affiliations. I am convinced that these truly mattered to his representation of himself and family. Plus, pleading ignorance would have been unethical, and serves to remind us of the ethical stance that I have argued underlies any formulation of a research subject. The other archival moment in which I could have been diverted or tempted to change direction occurred when I returned to the Larose painting, which I had first investigated as a graduate student. In revisiting the original research, I discovered that I had been working from the assumption that the children and adults depicted were a nuclear family. However, the apparent obviousness of the painted scene did not echo the reality of the sitters. As I later discovered, Marcelle Dufour established that Jeanne’s aunt, rather than her mother, was

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giving the piano lesson. Certainly it would be easier to discuss the family piece as though everyone was part of the nuclear family. However, the fact that Larose chose his sister and brother-in-law to stand in for himself and his wife is intriguing. Marcelle suggested that her grandfather used her great-aunt and great-uncle as models simply because they were available. In reality, she wasn’t sure, nor am I. Yet, I believe that they are meant to be representative of the family. And as such, they present the relations of mother with daughter, and father with sons, as effectively as would a portrait of the biological parents. So, in the end, I arrive at the paradox that the represented may not be a mimetic reflection of a lived relation but nevertheless a true one.

Appendix A Paintings Displayed by Ludger Larose at the Art Association of Montreal (AAM ), based on AAM Annual Exhibition Catalogues88

1892 Musée du Louvre (Musée Louis Hémon de Peribonka, Quebec) 1895 La Leçon maternelle (AAM , 72, $150) A Tunisian (AAM , 73, $100) Funerailles dans une gondole (Boudrias et Cormier Funeral Salon, Ville St-Laurent, Photo Journal, 1967) 1896 Montreal from the Park (probably from Westmount Park, 12" × 16" [30 cm × 40 cm]) Corbeil Collection Christmas Eve (RCA exhibition) 1898 Nature morte (AAM , 74, $50) Canadian Loom (AAM , 75, $80) 1899 St. Faustin (at Dominion Gallery, Gazette, June 1949) Village of St. Faustin (Musée du Quebec, may be same as above) 1900 Plants in a City Green House (AAM , 59, $100) In the Conservatory (AAM , $150 – now Montreal Museum of Fine Arts) 1902 Mountain in Winter (RCA Exhibition – held that year in Montreal) 1905 Portrait of a Child (AAM , 93, not sold) 1907 Intérieur: scène familiale (now Musée du Quebec) 1908 Laval Avenue, winter (AAM , 93A , $120)

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1910 La serre (Musée du Quebec, 1983) 125 × 86.9 cm 1912 My Three Jewels (AAM , 235, not sold) 1913 Westmount Heights (AAM , 238, $30) 1914/15 Mayor Médéric Martin (City of Montreal) The prices seem to be in the same range as those for Larose’s contemporaries: Clarence Gagnon, Marc-Aurèle de Foy Suzor-Coté, and Franklin Brownwell. James Wilson Morrice’s prices are five to seven times higher (canvases also tend to be a little larger). Paintings in Sacré-Coeur Chapel, Notre-Dame de Montréal: paintings begun 1890

Nave Upper left side of chapel At the end of the chapel

Jésus ordonnant à St. Pierre de faire paître ses brebis Le paradis perdu La Sibylle de Tibur L’annonciation Le racher de L’Horeb La dispute du St. Sacrement (the largest of the three, and apparently copied from Raphael’s Stanza della Segnatura)

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9.1  William Pars’ Portrait of Three Friends, oil on canvas, c. 1773.

Z  Chapter nine  Y

Visual Rhetoric: Storytelling, History, and Identity in a Portrait of Three Friends Simcoe started the university system in Ontario, you know. – John Robert Prichard, c. 2004

There are probably hundreds of paintings in stately homes, small galleries, and large museums that are more or less similar to a Portrait of Three Friends (1773), by British artist William Pars (figure 9.1). Depicting three young Englishmen identified as “Archdeacon Andrew, John Cholwich, and John Graves Simcoe,” the group portrait of three friends can be found in the art collection of the University of Toronto. The first time I saw the painting, in 1996, it was hanging above the fireplace in the meeting room of the president of the university. The portrait dominated the informal seating arranged in the alcove at the west end of the large room. I thought, if these young men could actually have listened, they would have heard the hum of conversation about the business of academic life. On occasion, they would have heard references to them – especially John Graves Simcoe – arising from the president’s explanation of the portrait and the artist. Perhaps drawing upon an implied relation between two advocates of university education, President Robert Prichard had noted, “Simcoe started the university system in Ontario.”1 Displayed with pride, the painting was the object of conversation, as well as a conversation piece. According to office staff, President Prichard (president 1990–2000) was quite keen to have the painting installed in that location. What was behind this desire? Not, surely, a great admiration for what is, after all, little more than a typical group portrait in eighteenth-century British style. So I asked. In a jovial mood, the secretary told me about the president’s request for the painting to be hung in his office shortly after he took up his position.

The curator’s first response was no. Apparently, the president’s unsuccessful attempt to start a fire in the elegant fireplace had already reached the ears of the curator. Needless to say, when the president persisted, the curator made the president swear never to try to light a fire again. More than mere gossip, this account of potential tension between representational desire and museum standards speaks to the storytelling capacity of the group portrait. As the storyteller, the president explains the image in a way that positions Simcoe as the president’s forerunner. The British painting becomes a “Canadian painting,” in which the other two sitters are “friends” whose story is not noteworthy. However, it is noteworthy that the painting was hung not in the president’s private office but above the fireplace in the meeting room, which is located in Simcoe Hall – the building that houses the executive offices of the university. President Prichard chose to display it in the space he shared with those who visited him in his role as chief administrator of the university. He asked the university curator for two accounts of the painting, one describing the artist, the other describing Simcoe’s life.2 Simcoe, the first lieutenant-governor of Upper Canada, is considered to have planned the establishment of the University of Toronto, and is thus seen as the father of higher education in Ontario.3 When Prichard repeated this account to his visitors, he tied himself to Simcoe’s mythic success story through the office of the president. While there are obvious differences between Simcoe’s restricted notion of a university and Prichard’s investment in the actual workings of a cosmopolitan institution, the president would undoubtedly have agreed with Simcoe that education is “an Object of very great and momentous Policy” and a “national Concern.”4 Of course, I would not want to imply that the president would support Simcoe’s elitism, which stressed the importance of this education for “the superior classes.” On the contrary, in acknowledging that Simcoe’s comments are being taken out of context, I am drawing attention to the superficial or surface links between Simcoe, Simcoe Hall, and the president, which became the constituent elements of the 1990s narrative about the portrait. The group portrait had been removed from a lofty position in the stairway of Simcoe Hall in 1990. According to the notes in the University of Toronto art archives, an inquiry from an unidentified scholar to see the back of the painting had led to the revelation of some deterioration of the canvas, and so it had been sent off for conservation. The significance of this move lies in the fact that the painting did not go back to the stairwell. Rather, that was when President Prichard re-

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quested it for his meeting room. When my research assistant and I went to view the painting, we were dismayed to find it nearly inaccessible in its niche above the fireplace. The bottom of the frame was at least five feet above the ground. I could see the picture but no detail. Since the room was empty, we pushed the smaller lounge chair over and clambered up to see. Yes, it was possible to see the signature of the artist! The “P” was illegible, but “ARS Pinx” was clearly visible about two thirds of the way down the left-hand side of the painting. Pinx is Latin for “he painted.” Now, sure that Pars had indeed painted the scene, we looked for further detail. We could see that the friends portrayed were definitely on a rise of ground overlooking a river. This is when the details of the sepulchral monument became legible, although we did have to turn various lights on and off, and push the lounge chair around a bit in order to get a close view. The point of this little bit of anecdotal recall is to illustrate the distance and yet the intimacy that resulted from the migration of the painting from a highly visible space to a more exclusive zone. In this third case study about group portraiture, I examine the way in which the visual and rhetorical conventions of eighteenth-century conversation pieces contribute to their storytelling potential. I place this chapter after the chapter on the composite photograph of the girls at Bute House (chapter 7), and the family portrait by Larose (chapter 8) because the painting by William Pars has a two-hundred-year history of changing ownership, which allows me to consider more fully how the viewer/owner participates in the narrative strategies essential to storytelling. I argue that Portrait of Three Friends is an explicit use of visual culture that intends to represent a meeting of minds. A group portrait of male sitters, the image displays a significant social and political conversation deeply embedded in its moment and site of production. As the painting changes hands, it acquires other meanings, which are situated in the conversations around that moment of exchange. I contend that group portraits solicit and participate in a series of narrative moments whose meanings and intentions can be realized only if we accept visual storytelling as dialogic, that is, intentionally presented in the form of a situated conversation. An understanding of narrative as storytelling provides a means to trace the movement and changing meanings invested in the group portrait, because, over time, the different owners participate in multiple, sometime contradictory conversations about themselves, their attachments, and their socio-political identities. The story of the young men portrayed, the artist, and the city of Exeter in the 1770s is one of the stories that I

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recount in this chapter. Another story arises from the way in which this painting changed hands in the 1830s. This chapter follows the movement of the canvas from Exeter to Toronto in the 1920s, and tracks its re-emergence in 2001. Thus, like any good story, the chapter unfolds across time as well as place. It is concerned with how meaning attaches and detaches from visual objects over time, and how when we ask what a group portrait means we should really be asking: What did it mean when? And where? And to whom?5

The eighteenth-century conversation piece as social intercourse A product of a near frenzy of portrait painting that swept Great Britain in the eighteenth century, the conversation piece provided an opportunity for newly wealthy families to represent themselves as landowners – a status that was crucial to British identity.6 The families of gentry – gentlemen who owned land in the form of country estates – did not need to work, except on the management of their own estates, and in connected public services. A gentleman could live entirely off rental income from his tenanted farms. By the mid-eighteenth century, many gentry commissioned family portraits as a means of visually encoding their social status and their significant relationships in conversation pieces.7 The term “conversation” referred not merely to spoken words but to the ability to understand a shared vocabulary of verbal and visual signs, namely, a form of visual rhetoric. Social conversation ­– referred to as “social intercourse” – was understood as a complex set of rules governing social interactions, including words, behaviours, and rhetorical gestures and tropes. So in eighteenth-century conversation pieces, the painter employs contemporaneous forms of social rhetoric that need to be understood within a local and specific visual vocabulary. Gestures, composition, textual references, and even physical stance are used to tell a story about the assembled individuals, their environment, power relations, and issues arising from similarities and differences among the participants.

The 1770s Portrait of Three Friends depicts three young men, two standing, one seated. One leans against what appears to be a sepulchral monument. The group is portrayed in a tightly contained foreground, bordered by a small stone wall. The wall serves to mark the spatial distance be-

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tween the men and the larger setting. Behind them unfolds a detailed landscape view of meadows, trees, and mountains. The seated figure gestures outward, while the two standing men appear to be caught in contemplation, adopting an attitude of listening while still facing forward. Thus the artist establishes a narrative moment, in which one sitter speaks and others listen. The device allows the artist to portray a three-quarter view of each face. This view allows contemporaneous viewers to clearly identify the three sitters. The central seated figure, John Burridge Cholwich, holds out his hand in a rhetorical gesture that, according to the artistic conventions of the genre and time, meant, “I have something important to tell you.” Education for the landed gentry largely consisted of learning the two-part liberal arts curriculum of the trivium (grammar, rhetoric, dialectic) and the quadrivium (arithmetic, music, geometry, astronomy).8 The gentlemen who sat for the painting, and their peers, were all well schooled and would have recognized this relaxed version of classical oratorical form.9 Portraits of the early eighteenth century tend to represent people in imaginary or exaggerated surroundings. Most group portraits of the period depict groups in locations that in some way authenticate their social relationship – a family in their home or gardens, or a group of men in a coffee club or pub – yet these locations are not necessarily an accurate likeness of the actual venue.10 However, by the mid- to late eighteenth century, group portraits tended to portray actual locations. Generally depicting a husband and wife, sometimes with children, in front of or near a stately home, the multitude of such portraits revealed status, title, and possessions.11 Group portraits of non-related sitters also placed them in significant locales that served to extend and define the particularity of their relationship.12 Although some locations depicted in eighteenth-century portraits may have been imagined, the setting of Portrait of Three Friends provides clues to a specific location and the attachment of the sitters to that socially significant space. Despite the relatively limited foreground space, Pars manages to depict a complex scene. The figures and immediate surroundings occupy most of the canvas, measuring .91 metres by 1.21 metres (3 feet by 4 feet). The landscape is closely observed. Difficult to see in reproduction, the middle ground reveals clear landscape cues that situate the conversational group. Behind the low stone wall, the ground drops to a meadow bordered by trees. Behind these there is a glimpse of water, then an expansive meadow bordered by mountains. In this small area of the canvas, the artist provides a view of what is likely to be a specific countryside. The significance of the landscape is in part underscored

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by the reputation of the artist; Pars was well known for accuracy in the representation of both landscape and antiquities. The presence of the funerary monument may be read either generically or as a specific memorial. An ancient monument, sometimes sepulchral, was frequently used as a narrative device in contemporary portraiture. The strategic inclusion of classical or antique objects participated in the culture of antiquity or antiquarianism that was enthusiastically pursued by wealthy and educated men of the era. Vases, gems, statuettes, and other contemporaneous artifacts, ranging from urns to busts and books, were often included in the society portraits of the day. Pompeo Battoni, one of the most popular of the Grand Tour13 portraitists in Rome in the 1760s, constantly employed antiquities and views of Rome in the depiction of his English sitters as “learned, cultivated yet leisured aristocrats.”14 Battoni’s use of such antique elements permeated the Grand Tour portraits. These paintings would have been familiar to Pars and his peers, and they undoubtedly informed the notions of proper portraiture as understood by Cholwich and his friends. Thomas Jones, a friend of Pars, reported in his memoirs that Pars was appointed by the Dilettanti Society of London “to accompany a Dr Chandler and a Mr Revett” on their journey to Greece” (1764–66).15 Richard Chandler had already published two works on Greek artifacts; Nicholas Revett was an amateur architect who, with James Stuart, had published The Antiquities of Athens in 1762. The five-folio volume included 368 etched and engraved plates, plans, and maps. The folio was the first of its kind in antiquarian studies of Greece. As his friend Jones noted, antiquarians appreciated Pars’ expertise with detailed drawings. While not much is known about Pars’ earlier years, he must have achieved a high profile very quickly, as he would have only been twenty-two years old when the group left for Asia Minor. The Dilettanti Society, whose aims were to promote the study of Rome and Greece, sponsored the men in their lengthy three-year travels. Pars also travelled with Lord Palmerston through parts of Switzerland, Germany, and Ireland, in the capacity of draughtsman for the tour group. Drawing the local landscape, details of ruins, and other objects of interest, Pars literally provided a visual record of the archaeological findings of the tour.16 As Jones noted about Pars: though brought up to Portrait – he executed his tinted Drawings after nature, with a taste peculiar to himself – And though, in a fit of the Spleen, he would sometimes curse his fate, in being

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obliged to follow such trifling an Employment; as he called it – it was with the greatest difficulty his Friends could detach him from this favourite Study, and persuade him to apply to Portrait painting – in which line there now a fair Opening – He took Our Advice at last, and the Success he met with justified our Opinion.17 Although Pars was “brought up to Portrait,” meaning that he was trained in this genre, he seemingly preferred landscape. His “tinted Drawings after nature” (mainly the watercolour landscapes Pars produced as the official tour illustrator) positioned the artist as one of the founders of the English school of watercolourists. W.S. Lewis, the editor of Horace Walpole’s correspondence, noted that in the 1870s Pars was regarded as “excellent at washed drawings.”18 Pars also produced numerous detailed drawings of antiquities while accompanying his employers on their European tour. While he apparently “cursed his fate” in having to accept the job of draughtsman to wealthy men doing a Grand Tour of Europe, Pars nevertheless appears to have been recognized for his ability to produce detailed images for study and observation. Jones and friends attempted to persuade Pars to “apply to portrait painting,” presumably so he could profit from the huge demand for skilled portraitists. Thousands of artists were finding work as portrait painters in London and regional centres.19 The “taking of likeness”20 became so popular that by the 1770s, protests about the degradation of portraiture from an elite practice to a common exercise were often heard.21 The resident painter would often participate in the domestic and local social life of the family, and take sittings.22 In return for room, board, and often not a great deal of money, the painter would leave the family with a few portraits for their heirs. Portraiture provided such a significant income for painters that highly regarded and accomplished European artists, such as Johann Zoffany and Angelica Kauffman, were attracted to Britain to make their livings in portraiture and large painting commissions. Somewhat younger than Zoffany, Pars seems to have followed in his footsteps. Both artists did group portraits or conversation pieces alongside their portrait practice.23 High-profile, accomplished artists such as Zoffany readily found employment depicting the complex social relationships of the landed gentry.24 While not as well known today as Zoffany, at the time Pars was respected and considered a highly skilled artist. Clearly portraiture promised more

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remuneration than did watercolours of antiquities, and families of the landed gentry and elite wanted more paintings of themselves rather than the few they purchased of antiquities! The lack of a historiography for Pars required me to turn to the comments of his peers for some sense of his achievements. Both Zoffany and Pars employed a contemporary neoclassical style that emphasized clarity of line and legibility over atmospheric interpretation. As Jones’ testimony asserts, Pars met with justified success in his turn to portraiture. Judging by the class of clients who commissioned Pars, he was one of the better-trained artists available. The painting of fulllength portraits was expensive, and in the 1770s only the upper ranks of artists would receive expensive commissions such as Portrait of Three Friends. Furthermore, Zoffany had chosen that moment to travel through Europe and India, and his departure from England in 1872 left Pars as one of the top portraitists available for the job. So while Pars may have preferred landscape drawing, his acknowledged skills not only in landscape but also in portraiture and the drawing of antiquities all contributed to his skilled and accurate representation in Portrait of Three Friends. So, who are these young men, and what story does the painting tell? Based on provenance records held at the University of Toronto, the figures in the group portrait have been identified from left to right as “Archdeacon Andrew, John Cholwich, and John Graves Simcoe.”25 Although the most recent perception of the painting casts Simcoe as the principal figure, John Cholwich is the probable protagonist of the eighteenth-century conversation. Certainly in rhetorical terms, Cholwich holds centre stage. For Cholwich, the early to mid-1770s were a particularly significant time in his life. As Robert Newton argues in his exhaustive study of eighteenth-century Exeter, Cholwich was deeply embroiled in local politics. Exeter’s by-election of 1776 was a battle of prestige between two leading families of the city: the Barings and the Cholwiches.26 Cholwich, a member of the local landed gentry, was born into a family accustomed to the public eye, if not the full glare of aristocratic visibility. Cholwich’s father had been the city recorder for Exeter from 1751 to 1764; his grandfather was elected to Parliament in 1701. Cholwich was also aligned through marriage with the powerful Duntze family of Exeter. His father-in-law, Sir John Duntze, was a wealthy member of the local cloth trade. Cholwich’s competitor for the seat was John Baring, who was also a wealthy cloth merchant with a long and impressive family history.

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Arguably, such a contest of lineage also lies at the root of the group portrait’s significance at the time. Likely commissioned shortly before Cholwich stood for election as the Member of Parliament for Exeter in 1776, the group portrait can be dated to sometime between 1773 and 1776, based on Simcoe’s known movements. Simcoe received his officer’s commission in 1773 (thus the uniform he wears in the painting), and he left England in 1776 to serve with the British in the American Revolution.27 The portrait provides a visual marker of Cholwich’s status and affirms his ability to assume the mantle of a “disinterested” public servant. In his declaration of intent to stand for election, Cholwich stated that he would never “either under the present, or any future administration, accept of any Pension, Contract or Emolument whatsoever.”28 The principle that likely prompted this refusal of salary was the civic humanist notion prevalent in the eighteenth century that true civic representation could be maintained only by a “disinterested” landowner, that is, someone who did not need to pursue business interests, so did not need to rely on income from the public purse in order to be a politician.29 This notion of civic virtue had evolved in practice since Lord Shaftesbury’s ideals prompted extensive discussion of public service in the first half of the eighteenth century. Furthermore, the refusal of payment from the public purse was understood as an ethical position that had been particularly well consolidated in the imaginations of the country gentry, which included Cholwich’s family. Cholwich’s stance on remuneration deliberately evokes the moral implications of working for the common weal or public good, rather than for the sustenance of any one individual. However, as we shall see, Cholwich’s status was somewhat more fragile than that of his competitors. Although Cholwich did not ultimately win the seat, this did not diminish the desire to win that is represented in this portrait. The apparently simple statement of friendship portrayed actually reveals the anxiety about landed status as the primary qualifier for public office, and the necessity of continuously reiterating it – in this case, representing it through visual culture. Flanked by an archdeacon and a captain of the local militia, Cholwich is represented in the painting as able to occupy centre stage in the company of equally learned and disinterested friends. In order to understand the significance of the social status of this entourage, I look at the role of “learnedness” in the social construction of the eighteenth-century British gentleman. While the middling classes were able to apprentice in the gentlemanly art of conversation

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through the widespread dissemination of rules of social intercourse in such journals as Gentleman’s Magazine (launched in 1731), or in the plethora of mid-century etiquette books, the landed gentry and aristocracy resisted this democratization of the public sphere through their claims to learnedness. The ability to be a connoisseur, to know details outside of one’s occupation, to debate points of philosophy, was dependent on having leisure time and being financially independent, so that one could study for the sake of learning.30 Knowledge of the classics was typical not only for the landed gentry; this kind of schooling was required for those admitted to the higher ranks of the militia, law, medicine, and church. This education entailed not merely a facility with Greek and Latin but also an understanding of the civilizing discourse of antiquity. The sepulchral monument pictured in Pars’ group portrait imitates the Roman models that were appearing in the publications of Pars’ sponsors, the Dilettanti Society, and in the works of such artists as Joshua Reynolds and Pompeo Battoni. Reynolds’ portraits of the members of the Dilettanti Society not only illustrate the ongoing study by these dedicated sponsors of Italian opera, archaeology, and contemporary art, but also draw attention to the role of visual artifacts like the sepulchral monument in the articulation of connoisseurship (figure 9.2).31 For example, in Reynolds’ painting of Sir William Hamilton and other members of the Dilettanti Society, Hamilton is depicted celebrating the publication of the fourth folio of his collection of Greek vases. In Portrait of Three Friends, the monument, with its overgrown ivy and moss-impregnated surfaces, may mark the grave of a particular family member, but it seems more likely to be limited to an indication of location and of learnedness. An inscription in Latin on the side of the monument includes the initials “M.H.S.,” followed by “HIS SALTEM ANUMULEM … [letters missing and unclear] DONIS.” This partially visible lettering employs letter combinations that have no logical sequence in contemporaneous Latin usage.32 However, some of the inscription is comprehensible because the roots of certain words have generally understood meanings, for example, “donis” means gift. The inscription could be understood as referring to the gift of at least a few years of life for “M.H.S.” The initials do not seem to relate to anyone traceable in the families of the sitters. Even though “S” could indicate Simcoe, there is no M.H. in the family. The lettering on the end face, under the cherub with a horn, reads “EXTINETHUS AMARITUR .” Again, the use of “TH ” does not conform to standard Latin; however, loosely interpreted, this phrase may mean

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9.2  Sir William Hamilton and the Society of the Dilettanti, Joshua Reynolds. Society of the Dilettanti, London.

“bitter loss.” I have been unable to confirm whether the inscriptions refer to someone specific, or serve as a metaphor for loss, or simply appear as part of the setting. Indeed, the lettering may reflect nothing more than Pars’ artistic licence, or the lack of Latin actually understood by the sitters, or it may have been a purposeful changing of letters so as to render the monument less specific. As we shall see, a deeper understanding of the sitters suggests that the Latin can actually be used to signify differently, depending on whose story is told.

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9.3  Portrait of John Graves Simcoe as a Young Man, William Pars, Weir Collection, RiverBrink Art Gallery, Queenston, Ontario.

Variation in Latin lettering is seen in the related painting by Pars, John Graves Simcoe as a Young Man (figure 9.3). Pars must have painted the portrait of Simcoe at the same time as the Portrait of Three Friends, as the likeness of Simcoe is identical; even the height of the figure is the same. Simcoe, regally turned out in his military costume, became an ensign in the 35th Regiment of Foot in 1770, and captain in 1773.

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Educated in Exeter, he was a local boy moving in his father’s footsteps to a career in the military.33 Unlike the group portrait, in which the lettering on the monument does not conclusively refer to any of the sitters, in the portrait of Simcoe the engraved date of 1759, along with the depiction of a man-of-war, probably does refer to Simcoe’s father, a captain in the Royal Navy.34 The senior John Simcoe had died at sea off the Anticosti Islands, at the mouth of the St Lawrence River, in 1759. Commander of HMS Pembroke, he was on his way to take part in the siege of Quebec under General Wolfe,35 but suddenly died of pneumonia shortly before the siege began. In another family tragedy, John Graves Simcoe’s younger brother drowned in the Exe River in 1764. The Latin inscription on the urn in the single portrait translates as “taken too soon,” which echoes but is not identical to the Latin inscription on the side of monument in the group portrait. This phrase, along with the date on the monument, signals a meaningful reorientation of the portrait narrative to focus on Simcoe’s biography. The loss of his father at sea, and the loss of his younger brother to a drowning in the River Exe, both explain Simcoe’s pensive and contemplative pose in the single portrait. No record exists to indicate who commissioned this single portrait, but I am quite sure that Pars cleverly turned the group portrait commission into a multiple order. Not unlike Notman, Pars would have marketed the same and/or similar portraits to various family members. The details of the landscape are also slightly different in the two paintings. While the background composition on the right of the portrait of Simcoe has a similar shape to that of the group portrait, the vague landscape with water of the group portrait is more clearly defined as a significant body of water in the single portrait. A sizeable ship looms large in the expanded body of water. The sepulchral monument appears at first glance to be identical in both paintings, yet the urn has a different outline. Both the differences in landscape and monument in the single portrait are attributable to Simcoe, who is now the primary sitter. Thus we can see how elements of the landscape identify the social and political affiliations of the sitter. Even if we didn’t know through provenance records that the painting depicted Simcoe, we could have determined this through analysis of the differences in the background and the specificity of particular elements. The setting of portraiture – whether outdoors or indoors – unfolds a specific and sometimes personal landscape of identification. When the painting of Simcoe as a Young Man was announced in the 1968 Christie’s auction catalogue, the text indicated that the portrait

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had always been in the Simcoe family’s possession. This provenance further suggests that the painting likely functioned as a pseudogenealogical document, probably commissioned by Simcoe’s mother before he left for North America. With her husband already dead at sea, she may well have chosen to have a portrait done at the same time as the Cholwich’s commission. Simcoe was promoted to captain in 1775 and left for America in 1776. In June 1778, he was granted the provisional rank of lieutenant colonel, and on the 19th of December 1781, his rank was made permanent. Two decades after first leaving for America, he returned to Canada to assume his most prestigious position, lieutenant-governor of Upper Canada. This historical connection to Canada drove Samuel Weir to acquire the painting for his collection, which was later donated to the government of Ontario. In a paradoxical collapse of narrative time, Simcoe’s reputation continues on in Canada, while his branch of the Simcoe family has died out in England. The middle and far background of the single portrait, the smaller painting, are of further interest insofar as they cast light on the use of antique motifs in the Portrait of Three Friends. The physical geography of the site on a hill above a river, along with the fact that both Cholwich and Simcoe were known to have resided in Exeter, suggests that the men are represented in a site overlooking the river Exe, which runs through the middle of Exeter. Given the layout of the town, it is most likely that the men are meant to be standing in the yard of the parish church of Allhallows on the Walls (demolished in 1770), which was also the site of the city cemetery (opened in 1637).36 While Pars might have referred to a specific monument for the single portrait, the misspelling of the Latin inscriptions and the lack of such a monument in the city cemetery suggest that the reference was not literal. Indeed, the specific references to significant dates may have been inserted in the single portrait in order to clarify Simcoe’s contemplative stance. In any event, the depiction of the sepulchral monument affirms the ease with which these men converse in the presence of antiquity. A closer look at the other sitters helps to consolidate the narrative of learnedness, disinterest, and civic virtue that informs this theme of contemplation. Archdeacon Andrew, ostensibly the third man pictured in the group portrait, remains somewhat of an enigma. None of the extant records consulted reveal a trace of his presence. A search of Gentleman’s Magazine and The Annual Register does not reveal any record of an Archdeacon Andrew. There are several Reverend Andrews but none who seem the right age for this portrait, or who were definitely present in or near Exeter during the 1770s. Newton mentions that Charles Roger Saun-

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ders, the son of Joseph Sanders (sic), married the daughter of an archdeacon. Given the extremely small social circle in Exeter, and since Sanders was a partner in the Exeter bank, along with Sir John Duntze, who was Cholwich’s father-in-law, it is possible that this archdeacon is Andrew, but we cannot know for sure.37 Nevertheless, by virtue of their implied status alone, the two companions help to establish the credentials of the aspiring politician Cholwich. Furthermore, Simcoe had become a member of the Union Lodge of Modern Masons, Exeter, in 1773. Such an association would have affirmed Simcoe’s elite status; moreover, Simcoe’s status would likewise have heightened Cholwich’s prestige, given the proximate nature of their relationship. The Modern Masons maintained an exclusivity and distance from the so-called Ancients, a newer Masonic branch (despite the name) that was more welcoming of the middle classes. Simcoe’s Union Lodge was limited to twenty-four gentlemen, primarily consisting of clergymen, army officers, a large proportion of country gentlemen, and students at the university and the Inns of Court.38 Significantly, it was a “Brother Cholwich” who proposed Simcoe as a member of the Union Lodge in Exeter.39 It is possible that Archdeacon Andrew was also a mason, as many a clergyman had been before. This union of Masonic brothers is symptomatic of the unity of that class of gentlemen who saw themselves as the natural leaders of the people. Although Cholwich was to complain in later years about the financial obligations arising from his propertied status, he readily drew on those same distinctions as the grounds for his ability to represent Exeter in the political sphere.40 Thus Cholwich obviously aspired to the political opportunities available to those in his social rank. In the end, Cholwich was not elected as the representative for Exeter, although he did try several times. He was not able to unseat his rival, John Baring, who not only won the seat when Cholwich first announced his candidacy, but continued to retain it for the next twenty-six years. Despite having the support of the city Chamber, Cholwich lost to Baring by seventy-one votes in 1776. Not coincidentally, the group portrait was commissioned just prior to the election of 1776. Although the Chamber again supported Cholwich in 1780, it also supported Baring. Cholwich withdrew at the last moment, presumably unable to tolerate his likely defeat. In the end, Cholwich couldn’t quite compete with the longer and deeper history of wealth associated with the Baring family. I believe that the portrait is not simply a record of three friends, but an attempt to visually codify their privileged relations. Visitors to Cholwich’s house would see the portrait; the visual culture of the

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period assisted in the construction of a social identity embedded in civic virtue, worthy of political support. His marriage into money and status, along with his inheritance of land by birth, made him an obvious candidate. But he lost. Ironically, Simcoe was also proposed as a candidate for Exeter in 1784, but he withdrew when John Baring announced that he would stand again (his third term).41 So in 1773, the group portrait is telling the story of Cholwich – a young man seeking to consolidate his public standing through visual culture, marriage, friendship, Masonic ties, and other social affiliations. Meaning is located at, or at least tied to, a particular locale; viewers who knew the significance of what lay beyond the boundaries of the site would know how to engage with the storytelling capacity of both portraits. The small stone wall demarcates a generalized landscape in the group portrait, and a specific landscape in the single portrait of Simcoe. As the painting moves from the confines of the Cholwich family to the Simcoe family and onwards, its potential meanings are refocused around another sitter, John Graves Simcoe. However, this time the story is told through the body of another protagonist, Eliza Simcoe, who would shift the perceptions of subsequent generations – so, much so that the portrait became know as Simcoe and Friends, a viewpoint that the Simcoe family held dear for nearly two hundred years.

The 1830s In 1835, approximately sixty-two years after the painting was executed, a Mrs Cholwich and a Mrs Wells jointly presented the Portrait of Three Friends to Miss Simcoe “as a token of sincere respect and regard.”42 In the handwritten explanation that was attached to the back of the painting, Mrs Cholwich is described as the sister of a “J.B. Cholwich.” As Cholwich did not have a sister alive at the time, she would have to have been John Cholwich’s sister-in-law. At that time, a sister- or brotherin-law was often referred to simply as a sister or brother. The Mrs Wells named in the note is likely the Miss Cholwich who married the Reverend Joseph Wells in July 1807.43 Thus it seems likely that two of Cholwich’s descendants, his sister-in-law and his daughter, jointly gave the painting to a Miss Simcoe, the other woman named in the note. While I believe the note accurately describes who gave the painting to whom, I can only speculate as to how these women came to be in possession of the painting. Presumably, the Cholwich women had inherited John Cholwich’s estate, and thus were able to give the painting away.

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While Simcoe’s wife, Mrs J.G. Simcoe, was still alive in 1835, the recipient was described as a “Miss Simcoe.” Since the Simcoes had eleven children, any one of the several daughters could have received the gift. However, the eldest, Eliza (born January 1784), inherited the family property in Devon, which was known as Wolford estate.44 Presumably, Eliza may well be the Miss Simcoe concerned. Although exactly what she did to deserve the respect of Mrs Cholwich and Mrs Wells is not known, I like to imagine that the story of the gift can be reconstructed from the apparent relationships of the women. In order to put these possible identifications and relationships into a plausible historical narrative, I looked closely at the likely protagonists of the 1835 exchange. By 1835, Mrs J.G. Simcoe would have been sixty-nine years old. Mrs Simcoe had the reputation of establishing strong friendship bonds with women of her class in the surrounding neighbourhood.45 In 1798, Mrs Simcoe wrote to another friend of her high opinion of a Mrs Wells (possibly Joseph Wells’ mother?), “I look upon Mrs Wells to have attained as high a degree of goodness as Mrs Gwillim.”46 In other words, she is saying that Mrs Wells is as good as her own mother, namely Mrs Elizabeth Spinkes Gwillim. It is quite plausible that the gift of the painting marked the respect the mother’s old friends had for the daughter who had taken care of their dear friend. Or, perhaps, it is Eliza’s generation of friends who are engaging in the symbolic exchange of possessions. Or, the painting no longer carried traces of the original conversation – no one was listening, in the Cholwich household, to the story of John Cholwich. In any event, we have a new protagonist in the story of the painting. Eliza, as recipient of the gift, directs our attention to the comradeship that was shared by her father and John Cholwich – a friendship that seems to continue in her friendship with Mrs Cholwich and Mrs Wells. The shift in provenance from the Cholwich family to the Simcoe family constitutes a significant reworking of the potential meanings invested in the portrait. Now, it can be about Eliza’s father. Now Simcoe’s standing pose seems to suggest that he is the principal sitter. No longer merely flanking Cholwich, Simcoe seems to address the viewer differently. With unsheathed sword tucked under his arm (quite an unusual depiction, and potentially uncomfortable), the soldier stands with legs firmly planted shoulder-width apart. His arms are folded across his chest, his head dropping slightly downwards. Simcoe’s contemplative pose now makes more sense in relation to the single portrait, which was also in Eliza’s possession (figure 9.3). Together the

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two paintings complement and extend Simcoe’s story. Here is Eliza’s father, a virile young man, known by her contemporaries as the local hero of the American revolutionary war, the lieutenant-governor of Upper Canada, and the ill-fated governor of British India (Simcoe died just prior to his departure for India in 1806). In Eliza’s possession the portrait came to signify family valour while also functioning as a “token” – a symbol or reminder of something else. It stood in for, and re-presented the intimate relationship of the women and their affection for each other. The primary object in the painting was now her father, but the subject of the painting’s story was Eliza’s territory. Not unlike the girls who made the Bute House album, the owners of the photographs constructed and retold the story of their personal relationships with each other, through material culture. The exchange of paintings or photographs signals relations that exceed the object itself. We see exchange once again affect the narrative potential of the image when Eliza’s descendants were forced to abandon Wolford, the Simcoe estate in Devon.

The 1920s Who gets the painting now? In 1920, the death of Mrs John Kennaway Simcoe, the widow of John Graves Simcoe’s grandson, led to the estate being inherited by a distant relative, Mr Linton Simcoe, who did not want to retain the property.47 The painting was by all accounts sold at auction on 28 July 1922.48 Sir R. Leicester Harmsworth, Baronet of Moray Lodge Kensington, presumably bought it, because he donated it to the University of Toronto sometime before February 1928. A Member of Parliament for twenty-two years, and a director of Amalgamated Press Ltd, Harmsworth had a substantial social and political presence in England in his day.49 Harmsworth was also a cousin of the Simcoe family, and it appears that he bought the painting to complement his purchase of Wolford estate. The painting was reproduced in that year’s February edition of the University of Toronto Monthly.50 The painting was once again a gift, but no longer a token conveying intimacy, as it was in the Cholwich-Simcoe exchange. Although it is unclear from the extant records exactly why Harmsworth made the donation, there are a number of surrounding circumstances that suggest a plausible motive. The university had only recently built Simcoe Hall (opened in 1923). According to the plaque outside the building, it was named after Simcoe because he was the first person to forecast the establishment of a university for the province. The plaque states, “This building,

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known as Simcoe Hall, erected in the year 1923 – bears the name of Lieutenant-General John Graves Simcoe, 1st Lieutenant-Governor of Upper Canada, who planned the establishment of this University, which was founded as King’s College by a Charter of King George IV, Anno Domini, 1827.” Ironically, Simcoe undoubtedly would not have been in favour of the non-denominational status of the university, for he was adamant, in his deliberations on the subject, that the university be envisioned as an elite college for future administrators of the British colony, who must be followers of the Church of England. In his request to Henry Dundas, the secretary of state, for public funding for higher education, Simcoe had been insistent that the “Head and professors … should be of the Church of England and … Clergymen.”51 Whatever Simcoe’s feelings on the matter of higher education (and we will return to that below), the group painting took pride of place in the stairwell of Simcoe Hall shortly after it was donated to the university. The question of why the group portrait was donated by Leicester Harmsworth is somewhat of a mystery. He seems to have actively sought ties to Canada. In addition to the University of Toronto connection, he developed another university link more or less simultaneously; Harmsworth was awarded an honorary doctorate of law by Queen’s University in 1927. Furthermore, he donated a substantial collection of papers concerning early Canadian history to the Government of Canada in 1926 in the name of his brother, Alfred Charles William Harmsworth, Viscount Northcliffe. This was the brother who founded the Daily Mail, an enormously successful daily newspaper in London, England.52 Leicester Harmsworth had a renowned library that took many years to disperse after his death in 1937.53 He also attempted on several occasions to donate the chapel and grounds Simcoe built at Wolford in between 1800 and 1802 to the Ontario government.54 Apparently, at that time, the Ontario government was not prepared to accept the financial responsibility for its maintenance. However, in June 1966, Harmsworth’s son, Geoffrey, presented the deed to Wolford Chapel to John Robarts, then premier of Ontario. Harmsworth’s record of donations to Canada, and his active fostering of links, is somewhat unusual. Perhaps the excitement surrounding the British Empire Exhibition at Wembley in 1924–25, or the British Commonwealth Conference of 1926, had prompted Harmsworth’s display of largesse towards the former colony. Although I have not been able to discover the exact motivations prompting Harmsworth’s generosity, the portrait was undoubtedly part of a larger web of relations between the donor, Simcoe, and Canada. My impression of Harmsworth is that

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by tying his donation to the Simcoe name, he meant to ensure enduring public interest in the maintenance of his family’s cultural heritage. Thus, it may be that the university benefited from the timely conjunction of events that witnessed the building and naming of Simcoe Hall, the dissolution of Wolford estate, Harmsworth’s tendency to collect work at auction, and Canada’s profile in the British press in the 1920s. Thus we see a personal attachment to the potential of visual culture to make manifest the desires of Harmsworth to be seen as attentive to the Canadian, Simcoe heritage.

1996: New protagonists In 1996, the painting was included in a public exhibition entitled Selections from the University of Toronto Art Collections, which took place in spring 1996. Earlier that year, the curator of the collection, Elizabeth Legge, asked me if I’d be interested in writing an essay on the portrait. Having a long-standing interest in group portraiture, I readily agreed. This request is what led me to my visit to see the portrait in President Prichard’s office.55 Essays by various artists, academics, and historians accompanied each of the paintings in the exhibition. The essay for the Portrait of Three Friends was a short paper, which strongly influenced the narrative stance that I have adopted in this chapter. Apparently, the gallery copy of that essay was frequently stolen during the exhibition. The curator made a point of telling me how many photocopies she had to keep putting out. I really have no idea why this was the case, unless visitors enjoyed their potential attachments to the sitters or owners discussed. Perhaps somewhere out there is a story in which I become the protagonist …

Inconclusive storytellings By way of conclusion, I would like to offer a few thoughts on the lack of conclusion or singular narrative possible for this portrait. That the above stories are irrevocably situated in particular moments, and that they seem to have a real base in archival evidence, is reassuring to traditional historians who are puzzled by history as storytelling. The histories of the owners or those who transfer ownership of the portrait appear to confirm that my storytelling is not fictive. Yet, there is an element in this chapter of what Michael McGuire has termed the “rhetoric of narrative,” or “the theory of how narrative can be used to persuade and to inform.”56 For me, the importance of considering

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narrative as both verbal and epistemic structure lies in how narrative helps to demystify discourse theory. A consideration of rhetoric, especially the role of persuasion as social and structural, along with the moral and social premises of narrative, provides a way for historians of visual culture to speculate on the narrative potential of images.57 If we can situate our discussion of an image’s meaning(s) in the moments of production, exchange, and re-contextualization of the image, then we can begin to find ways of acknowledging artistic intention along with authorial desire. The opportunity to explore differences in the two portraits allows me to raise questions about the involvement of the artist, Pars, in the construction of the setting. I suggest that his antiquarianism was deeply important in choices made about the representation of the setting for both the group portrait and the single portrait. However, Cholwich’s demand for a portrait commemorating his significant social relations also puts Pars’ contributions into dialogue with Cholwich’s story. Furthermore, if “authorship” of the primary meaning of an image can reside alternately in Cholwich, Mrs Wells, Sir Leicester Harmsworth, the president of the university, or, indeed, in myself, then the turn to narratives, authorized as “part of a social transaction,”58 offers an exciting and complex means of reimagining the interpretation of pictures. Narrative theory complicates and nuances any search for “meaning” in an image.

Archival notes In this last chapter, I tell another little story about searching for “truth.” Even though I know full well that a singular truth is not likely to emerge about the elements represented in Portrait of Three Friends, I still sought evidence. In 1995, I had a conference paper to give in London, England, and I decided that I would use the trip as justification for a side trip to Exeter. During my visit to the office of the president, I had been quite pleased to closely examine the painting’s details, to note the inscription on the sepulchral monument, and record elements of the landscape. As I noted in the introduction to this section, Susan Friedman’s notions on borders in landscape intrigue me. I wondered whether a graveyard such as the one Pars depicted actually existed and whether the view was possible. So, I decided to check it out. I bought an expensive day-return ticket for the London to Exeter train, which would leave me four hours to find the monument. I found the cemetery that

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Pevsner had described in his book on Devon. The “old burial ground within the walls” of Allhallows on the Walls aligned with the timing of Pars painting. As luck had it, I asked someone who looked like a gardener if he knew of any large sepulchral monuments on the grounds. He said no, and he continued with his mowing. However, he called back: if I would wait an hour or so, then maybe Jack could tell me. Jack was a lover of local history who offered free tours of the cemetery to visitors. In the end, Jack didn’t know of such a monument, but he insisted that he knew the view. He took me along a few paths and stood looking out over the Exe. “There” he said, “it must have been there. Look at how the details of the riverbed match your painting.” He was quite pleased with himself, with me, and with the cemetery. As I raced to the train, I knew I had only filled in a footnote, and it had cost too much, but I was pleased too. A second little story emerges from my archival sources with respect to the portrait of Simcoe as a Young Man. I found that painting by accident. Sometime in 1999, I believe, I went to the RiverBrink Museum in Queenston, Ontario. I was wondering whether some of the small museums around southern Ontario might support potential internship opportunities for our graduate students in art history at York University, where I teach. I saw the painting, which at the time was attributed to Zoffany (on the website). I took one look and forgot about the interns. The painting was clearly done by Pars, as it was virtually identical. I wasn’t sure whether to say anything to the curator or not. I wasn’t sure that they would want to know that it was not a Zoffany! In any event, my short visit didn’t allow for me to really investigate the painting, so I made an appointment to return. When I went back, I did confess that I was totally certain the painting was by Pars, and that I hadn’t said so earlier. The lovely curator took it all in stride and asked me to send my paper on the group portrait. I spent six hours that day in their study room going through the records of Samuel Weir, the original owner of the painting and most of the RiverBrink holdings. Weir himself deserves more attention as a remarkably determined collector of Canadiana. He was clearly somewhat irascible and opinionated, but his collection fever could still be felt in his letters, receipts, and papers. I remember one letter in which he was quite annoyed with the Smithsonian Institute because they wouldn’t sell him a document that he thought should be in Canada. In the end, this note is about how Simcoe becomes the primary character in a history of Canada as seen through the lens of Sam Weir’s collection.

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Z Postscript  Y

Who am I now that I am here? – Isabel Nema Patim, 2009

Sounds of a tuba, trumpet, and a distant drumbeat precede voices straining to sing heartily. Flags on hand-held poles come into view moments before the parade reaches the crossroad. Colour – lots of red – impresses the senses. Sixty thousand spectators crowd every inch of space between the street and buildings. The crowd cheers and sings along. Held about one hundred years after the queen’s jubilee parade that I describe in Montreal in 1897, the Portugal Day parade wound its way to Trinity Bellwoods Park in downtown Toronto. The press reports described the costumed cavalcade, floats, and marching bands of the local Portuguese community. In recalling that parade on a June day, possibly in 1997, I remember the ways in which a specific social identity was produced and consumed through visual culture. “Everyone” was there, all ages, in clothing specific to his or her family’s little piece of Portugal. The parade celebrates the cultural heritage of the large community of men and women from the Azores and Madeira who gradually settled in Toronto after the first eighty-five Portuguese immigrants arrived in 1953.1 Each year the parade draws on inherited traditions, specific clubs and societies, religious groups, and school bands. Allegorical floats complement traditional dress and historical pageantry. Instead of St-Jean-Baptiste, Our Lady of Fatima and other saints are honoured almost every weekend in June. To commemorate the sixtieth anniversary of their arrival, the Portuguese community planned a large photography exhibition in 2013.2 The organizers specifically sought archival documents and photographs to visually document the histories of one of the most segregated communities in Canada. They seemed to know that they could begin to answer Isabel Nema Patim’s question – “Who am I now that I am here?”3 – if only they could find enough visual proof.

I use the example of a parade that I witnessed fifteen years ago when I was living on the edge of Little Portugal in Toronto because my daughter’s best friend was the child of Portuguese immigrants. I never met Maria’s parents; indeed, my daughter was not allowed to visit her home. Neither were they allowed to go to the nearby park without a male relative in tow. Yet Maria had connections to us, the local school, and the neighbourhood, all of which seemed to exceed her parents’ control. Oddly, she was allowed to visit our home after school. She stayed for dinner, played games in our basement, and chatted on the phone with our daughter almost every night about all the other girls at school. Thinking about one of the central themes of this book, the public exhibition of the self in relation to society, I was reminded of this unfamiliar assertion of cultural identity. Maria could not be seen in public unless performing a sociality – a specific Portuguese visual relationship to her parents – that maintained her social self. Complex, contradictory, and intersecting across gender, age, location, and conflicting desires, communities use visual culture to consolidate social identities. As we have seen, this is achieved through a variety of visual and other socio-cultural practices. In my case studies, I explore how this works in group portraiture, museum practices (collection, display), civic parades, and historical spectacles. I consider the ways in which groups attempt to make manifest their ambitions, desires, and identities in relation to each other, the city, and the country. While we know that what constitutes “the city” may be a local part of it, and what matters about “the country” may be a singular identity for the participants, these are identities that shift over time and place. Patim offers a way of thinking about themes of identity and survival in Portuguese-Canadian communities. In her examination of the literature of the Portuguese diaspora, she defines as the primary question of identity for this community, “Who am I now that I am here?”4 In this question we see the “I” who recognizes how time and place impact upon their narrative of self. This expresses succinctly the paradox of having history with a resultant sense of identity, yet the contradiction of having to perform a new self-identity. This performing self is seen to be something, and visual culture holds a sustaining and productive role in the conveyance and legibility of these identities. Throughout this book, I have argued that an understanding of the dependence of identities on place is critical to any study of their development and expression. The 1820s in Quebec was a significantly different era for English-French relations than the 1890s. The micro needs to be examined in relationship to the macro. It is difficult to work across

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disciplines – what is an art historian doing here? Yet, I think this is an important project with significant outcomes. I see disbelief or irritation when I argue that the first publicly funded museum was probably an outcome of the political manipulation of the Society for the Encouragement of Sciences and the Arts by the Literary and Historical Society of Quebec. I don’t really have an investment in finding the “first”; rather, I am drawn to the politics that informed the perceived need to perform the records of the Canadas through visual culture. Similarly, I am astonished by the kinds of collaboration between French and English Canadians that emerged in Quebec in 1897. This unexpected co-operation defies current experience and expectation. When I tell friends or colleagues about the offer by the St-Jean-Baptiste Society to relinquish their saint’s day parade to a celebration of the jubilee of the queen, I find they are often skeptical. However, the sometimes tedious, close examination of the archival record provides evidence that this did indeed happen. Québécois friends are sometimes downright offended, as if I am making it up, or have wildly misinterpreted the written record. Others dismiss the gesture of the St-Jean-Baptiste Society as merely political or driven by business interests (and therefore not really representative of the majority of people). Yet the use of allegorical chars or floats attests to a specific instance of visual culture being used to draw people to the present through their past. Whether meant to celebrate or “teach young minds,” the pedagogical use of allegory relies on prior knowledge. The crowd easily recognized the traditional themes – Duvernay and la famille canadienne – and was shown beforehand how to “see” the Anglo themes of Progress and Confederation. Their ability to accept notions of progress and shout Vive la reine depended on a perception that French Canada was progressing alongside and with English Canada. Perhaps only with the election of a canadien mayor, premier, and prime minister could Levasseur’s futuristic suggestions of a French Toronto be imagined as more than fantasy. My audience is astonished when I talk about the enormity of the historical spectacles held at the Dominion and Industrial Fair, the forerunner of the CNE . Four hundred soldiers from Kingston come to Toronto for ten days to act out the parts of British and Egyptian forces? How could a scenic backdrop over three metres high be built? Pyrotechnics tell a story? In order to get them to believe me, I remind them that we need to remember that these were exceptional events, held once a year for ten or twelve days, and as such they attracted an audience almost the equivalent of the entire population of Toronto. I think these outcomes of the working of visual culture (and its embeddedness

Postscript  357

in the socio-political structure of the Canadas) are important to our understanding of how citizens find ways of being “here.” I found traces of these stories somewhat by chance, with a degree of happenstance that I try to reveal in my archival notes. There are many more stories of socio-cultural practices semi-hidden in archives, formal and informal, that grapple explicitly with sociality, visuality, and a politics of time and place. Of particular significance is that spectacular expressions of imperial history are specific to this period. Sandwiched between early British colonial institutions of the 1820s and ’30s and the popular culture of the early twentieth century, historical spectacle – whether grand parades or really big shows – provided an astounding number of spectators with sensory stimulation that confirmed and expanded knowledge of inherited histories. Much of this visual culture was augmented with sound and text; the experience enveloped participants in unforgettable, embodied performances of the local and the imperial. Small groups used portraiture to document and consolidate relations of power, intimacy, and social status. These social identities were constructed relationally and needed to be seen in order to be realized. In looking at group portraiture, we see the literal representation of family, friendship, and politics, which may shift over time or hold steady despite time. I argue throughout the book that a close and detailed analysis of pictorial imagery can shed light on a number of issues in Canadian socio-cultural history. Thus we learn more about the private education of girls in Montreal in the 1860s and ’70s, and the significance of their contacts and friendship networks outside the home. A family portrait by a Québécois artist who just happens to have won a lottery provides unexpected insight into the rising bourgeoisie in Montreal in the early twentieth century. And a group portrait adopted by the president of the largest university in Canada allows me to narrate multiple accounts that clearly demonstrate the ways in which visual culture can participate in the articulation of belonging and difference. And finally, I would like to speak about the triadic methodology that I propose in the Introduction. I hope that the use of archival notes allows students and other readers to see how academic writing is also dependent on time and place. Persistence in research, suffering the dust of the archive, travelling unreasonable distances for a footnote, discovering the unexpected – these are experiences that keep historians, whether discipline-based or frankly undisciplined, at the implausible task of writing history.

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Z  illustration credits  Y

0.1  Mapping the Research Triad, illustration by Jamie Q., pen on paper, 2013, for K. Stanworth. 1.1  “Wolfe Montcalm Monument, Quebec City,” vignette on title page, Bourne, Picture of Quebec, 1831 ed. Courtesy of the Thomas Fisher Rare Books Library, University of Toronto. 1.2  The View of Quebec, “drawn as engraved by James Smillie,” Bourne, Picture of Quebec, 1831 ed., 2. Courtesy of the Thomas Fisher Rare Books Library, University of Toronto. 1.3  Quebec Driving Club “a view taken by Mr. Wallace of the 71st Regiment,” probably engraved by James Smillie, in Bourne, Picture of Quebec, 1831 ed., 9. Courtesy of the Thomas Fisher Rare Books Library, University of Toronto. 1.4  Map of Quebec City, fold-out insertion in back of Bourne’s Picture of Quebec, 1829 ed. 1.5  View of the Place D’Armes, Quebec, 1832. Robert Sproule, watercolour, 105/16" × 1413/16", courtesy of the McCord Museum, 0684. 2.1  “Front Perspective of the Educational Building, Erected 1854,” Journal of Education for Upper Canada, 1855. 2.2  Plan of Canada West, Detail of City of Toronto, 1857. Courtesy of York University, Map Library, s0088_it0013. 2.3  Design for Normal School Toronto, Plan of Upper Floor, Cumberland & Ridout Architects. Competition drawing, Toronto Normal School. Rear elevation, upper-floor plan and secondary school, 1850–52. Archives of Ontario, Horwood 79(4). 2.4  “Plan of the Educational Museum Upper Floor Normal School Buildings, Fig. 4, in J. George Hodgins The School House, p. 10. Also in “Educational Department,” in Ryerson, Annual Report 1856, Toronto: John Lovell, 1857, 246. 2.5  “On Ivory,” first lesson, Lessons on Objects, Frost, 1831 ed., 11. 2.6  “School Apparatus in The People’s Depository,” advertisement for the Book Depository at Toronto Normal School, Courtesy of the Toronto Public Reference Library.

2.7  “Cabinets for Object Teaching and School Museums.” In J. George Hodgins, The School House, 1876 ed. 2.8  “Cotton,” Oliver & Boyd’s Object Lesson Cards. – Vegetable Kingdom, No. 13, 1880. State Library of Victoria, Accession no. H 37224/2. 3.1  “Conversation at the Normal School, Under the Auspices of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (Toronto),” F.M. Bell-Smith, Canadian Illustrated News 12 (June 1875), 1. 3.2  Toronto Normal and Model School – Egyptian Artists’ room, [ca. 1890] stereograph, Ralph Greenhill collection, reference code: F 4425, ST 266, Archives of Ontario, I 0021689. 3.3  “Annual Convention for the Association at Morrin College, Quebec,” Canadian Illustrated News, 1 November 1879. 3.4  “The University of Toronto Museum, West Hall, with Museum before 1890,” Architects Cumberland and Storm. Photograph courtesy of the Royal Ontario Museum. 3.5  “Model of the ‘Royal William,’” engraving, Transactions of the LHSQ, from the paper “The ‘Royal William,’ the pioneer of steam navigation,” 1891. 4.1  “Grande Finale of Fire-works in Honor of the Prince of Wales and the Successful Completion of Victoria Bridge, Montreal, Canada.” G.A. Lilliendahl, Esq., of New York, August, 1860. Ink on newsprint, wood engraving, 27.5 × 40.5 cm, M 975.62.263.3 © McCord Museum. 4.2  “Pain’s Fireworks,” advertisement, Fireworks 32, 1997. 4.3  Ironclads on the Suez Canal, Canadian Illustrated News, 9 September 1882, 1. Bibliothèque et Archives nationales du Quebec, http://collections.banq.qc.ca/ ark:/52327/1777403# 4.4  “‘A Typical Night Scene.’ (Pain’s Fireworks and Spectacles have been given over One thousand Nights at this Famous Resort, commencing in 1879),” Pain’s Fireworks at Manhattan Beach, New York. Harper & Brothers, 1885. Courtesy of Hampshire Topographical and Printed Collections Hampshire County Museums Service. 4.5  “The Last Days of Pompeii,” Toronto Industrial Fair Program, detail of back cover, 1886. 4.6  “Grand Firework Display and the Brilliant Spectacle, The Siege of Sebastopol every evening.” Dominion and Industrial Fair Program, back cover, 1888. 4.7  “Not a World’s Fair but Nearly So,” Industrial Fair, Toronto, program cover, 1893. 4.8  Cairo Street, World’s Columbian Exposition, 1893. Image from The Dream City, The Book of the Fair, Paul V. Galvin Library. 4.9  Bedouin Exposition Company, Chicago World Fair, 1893. Image from The Dream City, The Book of the Fair. Courtesy of Special Collections, York University.

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4.10  “Grand Military Tournament & Fireworks Spectacle ‘Battle of Tel-elKebir,’” Industrial Fair program, Toronto, back cover, 1893. 4.11  The Battle of Tel-el-Kebir, script, on Hand & Teale’s Spectacular Co. letterhead, sketch by Seymour Penson, c. 1893. Courtesy of Hands Fireworks Company, Prescott, Ontario, Canada. 4.12  “The Battle of Tel el Kebir,” detail, designed by Seymour Penson, 1893. Property of Hand & Teale, Hamilton, Ont. Courtesy of Hands Fireworks Company, Prescott, Ontario, Canada. 5.1  “Quebec Jubilee … Souvenir Number,” cover. Quebec: The Telegraph Job Printing Office, 1897. Courtesy of the University of Regina Archives and Special Collections. 5.2  “Hon. S.N. Parent, Mayor of Quebec. – Hon. S.N. Parent, Maire de Quebec.” Quebec Jubilee Souvenir Number 3. Quebec: The Telegraph Job Printing Office, 1897. Courtesy of the University of Regina Archives and Special Collections. 5.3  “The Town Hall – Hôtel de Ville.” Quebec Jubilee Souvenir Number 2. Quebec: The Telegraph Job Printing Office, 1897. Courtesy of the University of Regina Archives and Special Collections. 5.4  “Queen Victoria’s Jubilee: Sa Majesté la Reine Victoria,” Quebec Jubilee Souvenir Number 5. Quebec: The Telegraph Job Printing Office, 1897. Courtesy of the University of Regina Archives and Special Collections. 5.5  “Basilica. – Basilique.” “English Cathedral. – Cathédrale Anglaise,” Quebec Jubilee Souvenir Number 4. Quebec: The Telegraph Job Printing Office, 1897. Courtesy of the University of Regina Archives and Special Collections. 5.6  “Edward, Duke of Kent, Father of the Queen. – Edouard, Duc de Kent, Père de la Reine,” “Victoria, Duchess of Kent, Mother of the Queen. – Victoria, Duchesse de Kent, Mère de la Reine.” Above “The Queen at the Age of Seventeen Years. La Reine à l’Age de Dix-sept Ans.” Quebec Jubilee Souvenir Number 5. Quebec: The Telegraph Job Printing Office, 1897. Courtesy of the University of Regina Archives and Special Collections. 6.1  “Le Défile de la procession civique sur la rue Ste. Catherine,” La Presse, 23 June 1897, 1. 6.2  “Les Fêtes Jubilaires,” La Presse, 19 June 1897, 1. 6.3  “Le char de la Confédération,” La Presse, 5 June 1897, 1. 6.4  “Reception of Canadian Volunteers on the Champ de Mars at Montreal,” London Illustrated News, 1887. 6.5  “La Procession Passant dans la rue St. Jacques,” Canadian Illustrated News, Henry Sandham, 1874, Ink on paper – Photolithography, 40" × 27.7" M979.87.15A © McCord Museum. 6.6  “La province de Québec – Section St. Jacques,” La Presse, 19 June 1897, 1. 6.7  “Duvernay,” detail, La Presse, 19 June 1897, 8.

illustr ation credits   361

6.8  “Le ‘March Pass’ du 65ième à la parade d’hier à la ferme Logan,” La Presse, 23 June 1897, 1. 7.1  “Bute House. The Skating Party,” Montreal, 1873. William Notman, silver salts on paper mounted on card, albumen process, 20 × 25 cm. Notman Collection, I -81800.1 © McCord Museum. 7.2  Front Cover, Victorian tooled leather photograph album, inscribed “I.G.M.” (Isabella Glass McIntosh). Creator: Unknown, 1873. IGM Bute House Album, McCord Museum, Notman Archives. 7.3  “The Link Between the Old and the New Régime,” wet-collodian photograph, 1874. Photographer: William Notman. IGM Bute House Album, McCord Museum, Notman Archives. 7.4  “Group of 1865, 1866, and 1867,” IGM Bute House Album, McCord Museum, Notman Collection, 14. 7.5  “Mr. Barnjum’s gymnastics group,” Montreal, QC , 1872. Notman Collection, I -45615 © McCord Museum. 7.6 Museum “Bute House,” IGM Bute House Album, McCord Museum, Notman Archives. 7.7  “Miss M. Gibb,” Montreal, QC , 16 and 17 June 1882. Notman & Sandham, silver salts on paper mounted on paper – albumen process, 15 × 10 cm, purchase from Associated Screen News Ltd., II -65537.1 and II -655549.1 © McCord Museum. 8.1  Scène Familiale (now known as Jeanne at the Piano), 1908, oil on canvas, Ludger Larose. Musée du Québec. 8.2  Larose in his Studio, photograph, artists’ files, National Gallery of Canada. 9.1  William Pars, Portrait of Three Friends, oil on canvas, University of Toronto Art Collection, c. 1773. 9.2  Sir William Hamilton and the Society of the Dilettanti, Joshua Reynolds. Society of the Dilettanti, London. 9.3  Portrait of John Graves Simcoe as a Young Man, William Pars, Weir Collection, RiverBrink Art Gallery, Queenston, Ontario.

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Z  notes  Y

Introduction 1 The Iroquoians of what is now the St Lawrence Valley used the word “Canada” to describe a small village. Cartier, Relation originale de Jacques Cartier, 48. 2 At the end of the seventeenth century, canadien became an ethnonym (a term to describe ethnicity or people who identify with each other as a distinct people) distinguishing inhabitants of colonial France from those of France. The shift from descriptions of aboriginals as Canadians to using the term to describe the sons or daughters of French settlers in Canada is detailed in Gervais Carpin’s Histoire d’un Mot, in which he establishes the etymology of canadien between 1535 and 1691. 3 Gregor, “The New Canadian Patriotism,” 84. Gregor’s speech is discussed more extensively in chapter 3. 4 “I am Canadian” was a slogan of the Molson Brewery company from 1995 to 2005. The television commercials, structured as a series of rants, ran in 2000, and were the subject of extensive critique in the popular press. 5 For early versions of this tendency, see Michel Bibaud’s rather pro-English Bibliotèque canadienne (1827); and François-Xavier Garneau’s Histoire du Canada, 1845–52, whose writings focused on the idea that Conquest was a tragedy for the canadiens. 6 Numerous works on the Group of Seven examine their stated intention to create a “Canadian” art, see R. King’s Defiant Spirits, 2011. Frye, literary theorist in the 1960s and ’70s, wrote numerous essays such as those collected in The Bush Garden (1995). Atwood, novelist and literary critic, wrote classic novels such as Surfacing (1972) and non-fiction such as Survival (1972). 7 I use the term “visual culture” to refer to the complexity and contradictions presented by visual practices and products, with the understanding that meaningfulness is constructed and produced in time and place. I expand on this throughout this chapter and the rest of the book. 8 In the nineteenth century, “the Canadas” or “the two Canadas” was commonly used to describe the provinces of Quebec and Ontario as they underwent several political reformulations as Lower and Upper Canada (1791–1839/40), then Canada East and Canada West (1839/40–1867), then Quebec and Ontario (1867–). At each moment of change, the complex relation between the two entities is worked out in social and cultural texts, as well as in political realities. 9 The notion of a “long” century is a way of thinking outside the temporal parameters that dominated historical research in the nineteenth and twentieth

10

11

12

13

14 15

16

17

centuries. See Eric Hobsbawm’s Age of Revolution, Capital, and Empire – three of his books that cover the period under consideration, a trilogy that consolidated the idea of a long nineteenth century (1789–1914) in the imagination of many late-twentieth-century historians. Although the Conquest is often dated from the 1759 defeat of the French colonizing forces in the battle of the Plains of Abraham in Quebec, the Treaty of Paris in 1763 officially marked the end of the conflict and the expansion of British territorial holdings in North America. As we shall see, the idea of conquest is contested at various times in Canadian historiography. See: Buckner and Reid, Revisiting 1759, 2012. “Discipline” is being used here in a Foucauldian manner, in that the two entities relied on each other as a way of defining self. The interlocking disciplinary mechanisms that Foucault discusses in Discipline and Punish provide a way to think through social and political actions, e.g., union or separation, and how these are used to fix the other in relation to self. I return to examples of these interlocking socio-cultural shifts throughout the case studies. Foucault, Discipline and Punish. There is a significant literature here, such as Ouellet, Lower Canada 1791–1840; Paquet and Wallot, Lower Canada at the Turn of the Nineteenth Century; Linteau, Durocher, and Robert, Histoire du Québec contemporain; Bouchard, Genèse des nations et culture du nouveau monde. See also Buckner and Reid, Revisiting 1759. I have been particularly interested in Canadian work on the writing of national histories as seen in Seixas, Theorizing Historical Consciousness; Simon, “The Pedagogical Insistence of Public Memory,” and Letourneau, “Young People’s Assimilation of a Collective Historical Memory”; histories of empire and race as in Bannerjii, The Dark Side of the Nation, Knowles, “The Symbolic Empire and the History of Racial Inequality,” and Perry, On the Edge of Empire; histories of visual culture, spectacle, and other forms of cultural/social performance including Poulter, Becoming Native in a Foreign Land; Rudin, The Celebrations of Champlain and Laval in the Streets of Quebec, 1878–1908, and Payne and Kunard, The Cultural Work of Photography in Canada. Jameson and Mouat, “Telling Differences.” Dealing with realities of virtuality, Nicholas Long and Henrietta Moore discuss the malleability of sociality in their introduction to Sociality, 1–14. Audrey Chapman and Robert Sussman consider the role of religion on moral behaviour that enables communual living. Chapman and Sussman, The Origins and Nature of Sociality. This is not to say that non-visual narratives (namely verbal, textual, aural, and oral) do not participate in the construction and production of identity; of course, they do. Reading and writing, singing and storytelling are all invoked in identity formation. However, visual culture is one of the least understood modes, and due to its extensive saturation of daily life, its immediacy, and its potential to hold multiple and contradictory meanings, visual culture needs to be seen as a primary mechanism of social interaction. I discuss this throughout the case studies. There is an extensive literature on how visual signs work (from the semiotics of Charles Sanders Peirce and Ferdinand de Saussure, to post-structural analyses by Roland Barthes, to work on pictures and iconology by W.J.T. Mitchell, to recent research on visual culture and disability, feminisms, black women, etc.).

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18 A version of the Death of Wolfe is reproduced on the National Gallery of Canada website Cybermuse: http://cybermuse.gallery.ca/cybermuse/search/ artwork_e.jsp?mkey=5363. 19 While few departments are named visual culture studies, there are numerous cases in which a department adds visual culture to its title, e.g., Art History and Visual Culture, or Art and Visual Culture; Goldsmiths, University of London, renamed their department to Visual Cultures. 20 For more on the evolution of the term, see M. Smith, “Visual Culture, Everyday Life, Difference, and Visual Literacy,” 17–33, and Moxey, “Visual Studies and the Iconic Turn,” 131–46. 21 In some instances, academics within disciplinary boundaries have made a profession of declaring the death of visual studies. There needs to be a discrimination made between visual studies, which addresses the ubiquity of visual material, and visual culture studies, which addresses visual artifacts within a framework of culture (itself a complex and unsettled term); however, the extensive publication of texts on visual culture in the last decade would seem sufficient evidence of a burgeoning interest in visual culture. 22 See, for example, Heller, “Visual Images Replace Text as Focal Point for Many Scholars,” A 8; Mitchell, “What Is Visual Culture,” 210; Mirzoeff, The Visual Culture Reader; Evans and Hall, Visual Culture. 23 Bryson, et. al. Visual Theory: Painting and Interpretation; Bryson, et. al Visual Culture: Images and Interpretations. 24 Jenks, Visual Culture, 16. 25 No author of the questionnaire is named, October 77, 25–70. 26 Rees and Borzello, The New Art History. 27 See, for example, the examination of visual culture and religion: Morgan and Promey, The Visual Culture of American Religions; for specific regionalisms see Bresheeth and Hammami, The Conflict and Contemporary Visual Culture in Palestine and Israel; on visual culture and intersections with gender, Humm, Modernist Women and Visual Cultures; and visual culture as deeply embedded in fine arts, Walker and Chaplin, Visual Culture; Bryson, Holly, and Moxey, Visual Culture. 28 Mirzoeff, An Introduction to Visual Culture; Jenks, Visual Culture; Carson, Feminist Visual Culture; also see Jones’ particularly useful The Feminism and Visual Culture Reader. 29 Nead, The Haunted Gallery; Schwartz and Przyblyski, The Nineteenth-Century Visual Culture Reader; Stafford, Good Looking; Bonehill and Quilley, Conflicting Visions; Levy, Widowhood and Visual Culture. 30 Bloom, With Other Eyes; Cherry, Beyond the Frame; Smith, American Archives and Photography on the Colour Line. 31 Belton, Sights of Resistance; Cronin and Robertson, Imagining Resistance; Sturken, Douglas, and Cartwright, Practices of Looking (Canadian edition); Stanworth, “The Politics of Display.” 32 Carter, Capturing Women; Close, Framing Identity; Langford, Suspended Conversations; Skidmore, “All that is interesting in the Canadas”; Schwartz, “Felix Man’s ‘Canada’.” 33 Osborne, “Trading on a Frontier”; Nelles, The Art of Nation-Building.

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34 Jasen, Wild Things; Poulter, Visual Representations of Native Peoples in Quebec 1760– 1840. For earlier work on images of First Nations peoples, see Deborah Doxtator, Fluffs and Feathers; Sheffield, The Red Man’s on the Warpath. 35 Mitchell, Picture Theory. 36 As in Elkins’ “Farewell to Visual Studies.” 37 Mitchell, “Interdisciplinarity and Visual Culture,” 540–4. 38 Another way is in the removal of “interdisciplinary studies” from the major humanities funding agency in Canada, the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council in 2000. There is no place for research that falls between specific disciplinary gateways. Susan Heald refers to the impact of this kind of categorization with respect to women’s studies and interdisciplinarity, “Who is She?” 87–91. 39 Haraway, “Situated Knowledges.” 40 Throughout the book, the term canadiens is used to denote Canadians of French descent. This reflects contemporaneous usage. 41 See chapters 5 and 6. 42 On positionality, see Milner, “Race, Culture and Researcher Positionality.” 43 Todd, Learning Desire. 44 Stanworth, “Rhetoric, Ritual and the Fashioning of Public Memory in Washington’s America.” 45 For example, when Washington insisted on using homespun fabric, his rhetoric gave the impression that he would rather be uncomfortable in rough, local produce than wear the fine fabrics of the oppressive British regime. However, the homespun fabric he actually wore was as fine as imported silk. When he insisted on no remuneration for his service to the people, he used a form of rhetoric known as humilitas. His humility was seen as a sacrifice, yet by charging instead for only his expenses, he actually made more money. When he rode his white horse under a triumphal arch placed across the bridge into a town, he enacted a simple and apparently self-effacing strategy that emphasized his accessibility and ability to represent the people (as opposed to the remote, extravagant, and arrogant stance perceived in King George III). See also Prelli, Rhetorics of Display. 46 Levinas proposes that we understand ethics as the subject’s responsibility for the other/neighbour, a practice of doing no harm to the other. This is virtually impossible, yet the awareness of the struggle to consider the impact of our actions underpins the practice of ethics. See any writing about Levinas, or his Otherwise Than Being, Or Beyond Essence. 47 Literature on the nature of the archive has come from archivists, historians, philosophers, artists, and political scientists, among others. Ben Highmore gave an insightful paper entitled “Archivologies” at The Archive and Everyday Life conference. His paper traced the theoretical impetuses for a reconsideration of the archive. For other significant contributions, see Joyce, “The Politics of the Liberal Archive”; Bradley, “The Seductions of the Archive”; Steedman, Dust; Burton, Archive Stories; Derrida, Archive Fever; Benjamin, Theses on History; Stoler, Along the Grain.

Part one  Introduction 1 Bennett; Greenberg, Ferguson, and Nairne; Bal; Elsner and Cardinal; Karp and Levine; Sherman and Rogoff. For three edited collections published in 2004

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alone, see: Anderson, Reinventing the Museum; Carbonell, Museum Studies; Preziosi and Farago, Grasping the World. 2 Jordanova, “Museums: Representing the Real?” 256. 3 Daston and Park, Wonders and the Order of Nature, 331. 4 Annie Coombes discusses the debate around the use of “curio” and “curiosity” as generic terms for ethnographic material, which was thought to hinder effective educational use of ethnographic material in early twentieth-century England, in “Museums and the Formation of National and Cultural Identities,” 59. 5 Bennett, “Pedagogic Objects, Clean Eyes, and Popular Instruction,” 345–71. 6 Ibid., 350; here he quotes Stafford, Good Looking, 248. 7 Bennett describes, as example, the efforts of Louis-Jean-Marie Daubenton, appointed chief curator at the Cabinet d’histoire naturelle at the Jardin du Roi in 1749 to ensure systematic labelling. Ibid., 351. 8 Duncan, Civilizing Rituals, 6. 9 The focus on class informs each section of the book; they draw particular attention to the role of a “Cultivated disposition” that limits participation by working-class citizens who are not taught to “love art.” Bourdieu and Darbel, The Love of Art, 63. 10 Sherman and Rogoff, Museum Culture, xix. 11 Wallis, “Selling Nations,” 266. 12 Texts of the 1990s, such as The New Museology edited by Peter Vergo, were followed by publications focusing on issues related to the power of museums to shape collective values, such as Greg Dickenson, Carole Blair, and Brian Ott’s edited collection, Places of Public Memory: The Rhetoric of Museums and Memorials. 13 Hobsbawm, Nations and Nationalism, 80. 14 The canadiens expressed “unshakable devotion to the British Constitution,” at least until the 1820s. See Ouellet, Lower Canada, 70–1 for full citation, and 74–5 on admiration of British institutions. For discussions of Indians as “other” see Poulter, Visual Representations of Native Peoples, and Ryan, “Picturing Canada’s Native Landscape.” Note Ryan focuses on the period after 1870. 15 Colley, Britons, 5. 16 Barringer, Quilley, and Fordham, eds, Art and the British Empire. 17 Luke, Museum Politics. 18 Coombes cites Lieutenant General Pitt Rivers, “Typological Museums as Exemplified by the Pitt Rivers Museum at Oxford, and His Provincial Museum at Farnham, Dorset,” Journal of the Society of Arts, vol. 40 (18 December 1891): 115–22. 19 Stanworth, “The Politics of Display”; Gidney, “Egerton Ryerson”; Sissons, Egerton Ryerson; Bayer, The Ontario Collection; Hodgins, Documentary History of Education in Upper Canada; Gerald Killan, David Boyle; F. Henry Johnson, “The Fate of Canada’s First Art Museum.” 20 For example, the literature on Egerton Ryerson, who founded the Educational Museum, has centred primarily on his role in the policies and implementation of schooling (see chapters 2 and 3 for extensive bibliographic references). In the case of Richard Boyle, who was a key player in the founding of the Royal Ontario Museum (ROM ), the little research to date has outlined aspects of Boyle’s union activities and later assimilation into the government-sponsored position as archaeologist for the ROM . See Killan, David Boyle.

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21 McTavish, “Learning to See in New Brunswick, 1862–1929,” 553–81; McTavish, Defining the Modern Museum, esp. 3–70.

Chapter One 1 Address to the Public, Quebec, 1824; copy in the “Correspondence of Lord Dalhousie,” LHSQ archives, L 1/G 2, 7. 2 Bourne, The Picture of Quebec and its Vicinity (1831), 30. Bourne published at least three editions of the guidebook between 1829 and 1831, two in Quebec and one in New York. The Picture of Quebec was published in Quebec City twice, initially in 1829 by P & J Smillie (162 pages) and the 2nd edition in 1831 by P & W Ruthven (169 pages). These two publications are virtually identical, with minor additions and corrections in the 2nd edition. The 1830 version was published in New York by the Depository of the Arts, and is labelled “second edition.” At 134 pages, it is a reduced version that omits the detailed descriptions of paintings and other cultural artifacts held by various churches and the Literary and Historical Museum, which is discussed extensively in this chapter. As noted above, I use the 2nd edition throughout unless otherwise stipulated. 3 Ibid., 3. 4 Ibid., 26. Note: habitants is the standard modern French, but habitans was also often used in both English and French at the time. 5 Bourne, “The Rev. George Bourne,” 70. 6 George Bourne returned to New York in 1828, where he published The Protestant, an anti-Papist journal. Among other Protestant reformist writings, he also published The Picture of Slavery in the United States (1834). 7 Bourne, “The Rev. George Bourne,” 78. 8 I use the term “canadien” here to reflect the contemporaneous understanding of the word, which described those people born in British North America of French heritage. The children of English colonists were referred to as being English. The present-day notion of “French-Canadians” or “English-Canadians” was not popularized until the latter half of the nineteenth century. I list aboriginals as “visitors” because the First Nations people who did come to the city were usually coming for a visit from the Lorette reserve. There were no indigenous populations still occupying the city in any way that resembled pre-contact years. 9 See discussion of historiography in the Introduction, which points out key approaches to the political, social, and cultural history of the colonies. 10 Bourne, “The Rev. George Bourne,” 77. 11 The literature on colonization is enormous, but I mention here Jack Greene’s formative work in the 1980s on the different ways in which particular locales worked with and against British colonization. Greene, Pursuits of Happiness. As taken up by Ann Stoler, for example, recent academic work on colonization insists on the need to examine the workings of particular colonial practices and colonial relations. Stoler, “Rethinking colonial categories.” 12 Perkins, “Imagining Eighteenth-Century Quebec,” 151–61. 13 The chart includes sites that are visible and invisible to the “inquisitive observer” travelling by boat up the St Lawrence. Bourne, Picture of Quebec (1831), 20. 14 Bourne, Picture of Quebec (1831). The notice was inserted on the recto page before the title page.

368  n otes to pages 28–34

15 J.M. Davidson in The Traveller’s Guide Through the Middle and Northern States and the Provinces of Canada (1834) points out that developments in rail, canals, and roads increased travel facilities for wealthy Americans who visited the north during the summer (especially the Welland Canal). He lists “the fortifications of Quebec” as one of half a dozen desirable destinations. Travel on the Canada side was done by boat and stagecoach. The author notes that he is dependent on The Picture of Quebec for his description of Quebec City (304). Virtually copying from Bourne, he also describes the LHSQ , but using the temporary title Society for Promoting Literature, Science, Arts, and Historical Research in Canada, so he was using Bourne’s 1831 edition, 333. Note: the long name of the society did not appear in the 1830 edition, but did in the 1831 edition, 103. 16 See Christopher Mulvey, Transatlantic Manners, for more on how rural travellers report being overwhelmed by the onslaught of urban life and how sensibilities were threatened by the unfamiliar. Mulvey, Transatlantic Manners, 4, 183, passim. 17 Paul Smethurst examines the English Picturesque as social order in Travel Writing and the Natural World. See also: Bohls and Young, eds, Travel Writing 1700–1830. 18 Briefly stated, the use of the picturesque style in art as a comfortable and pleasing way to consume nature is often posited as the opposite to the sublime, which aimed to incite a fearful and inspiring awe. See endnote 22 for further bibliography on the picturesque and sublime. 19 The Quebec Gazette published an extensive review of immigration to the Canadas, particularly Quebec City, and the effects of unemployment (said to be minor), 9 December 1830. In 1818, the first major wave of immigrants from England, Ireland, and Scotland started arriving, peaking at 96,000 in 1847. Many established themselves in Quebec City. In 1861, the Irish population of Quebec City was one third of the total population, amounting to 59,990 persons, and 51 per cent of Quebec City’s population was English-speaking. Only ten years later, however, this percentage had dropped by almost a third as English-speakers started leaving Quebec for other parts of Canada and the United States. Office of the Commissioner of Official Languages, Quebec: http://www.ocol-clo.gc.ca/html/ stu_etu_062008_quebec_pg4_e.php#. 20 The Canada Act of 1791, more popularly known as the Constitutional Act, laid out the freedoms and restrictions to which the former French colony was subject, and attempted to institute parliamentary procedure, representative government, and other freedoms due to Englishmen. Nevertheless, the Act included the retention of aspects of the Napoleonic code with respect to legal issues such as land ownership, voter rights, etc. 21 See the Introduction for a discussion of the literature on visual culture. 22 The picturesque is a complex aesthetic ideology that responds to Edmund Burke’s treatise on the beautiful and the sublime. Roughness was proposed as opposite to the property of smoothness, which Burke considered essential to beauty. Extensive literature on these aesthetic ideologies explores the specifics of British picturesque, and its relation to travel, architecture, and the practice of “capturing” landscapes in art. See, for example, Dixon Hunt, Gardens and the Picturesque; Macarthur, The Picturesque. 23 Bourne, The Picture of Quebec (1831), 9. 24 Ibid., 38.

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25 The Hotel Dieu Nunnery was fashioned after a medieval hospital run by nuns. It was founded in Quebec City in 1639, and the General Hospital was the Hôpital Général de Québec established in 1692 by the Augustinians. 26 Annual port traffic in Quebec grew from about 100 ships a year in the 1790s to more than 650 vessels in 1810 and 2,000 in 1830.  27 Saint-Pierre, “Allison Davie.” Another example was the yard of John Goudie (#37), which was Quebec’s first deep-water wharf, built in 1817. Interestingly, land-owning women such as Elizabeth, who could vote, would eventually become the target of English men seeking election in Quebec in the early 1830s. Land-owning women, often widows, were politically enfranchised in Quebec until disqualified in 1834 (the bill of 1834 did not receive royal assent until 1840, but the politicians acted as if it had). Women did not regain the right to vote provincially until 1940. 28 Bourne, The Picture of Quebec (1831), 30. 29 Bourne, The Picture of Quebec (1830), 27. 30 Bourne, The Picture of Quebec (1829), 14. 31 Although park development is associated with the parks and health movement of the late nineteenth century, as early as 1763 public squares were used as common land in Canada. For further discussion of national park development, see Hodgins, Changing Parks, and on parks in Quebec see Coates, The Metamorphoses of Landscape and Community in Early Quebec. 32 Bourne, The Picture of Quebec (1829), 35–6. In the 1831 edition, he drops the mention of the society on this page but leaves the mention of the public offices in the former Union Hotel. He includes the same advice to visit the museum in the section on “literature” and now describes the museum as belonging to the Literary and Historical Society. 33 Bourne, The Picture of Quebec (1829), 51. 34 Bourne, The Picture of Quebec (1831) fig. 5, 34. 35 Ibid., 9. 36 Bourne, The Picture of Quebec (1829), 75. 37 Le Sueur painted twenty-two panels illustrating the life of Saint Bruno to decorate the small cloister of the convent of the Carthusian monks in Paris from 1645–48. These are held in the Louvre, Paris. It is not clear whether the painting Bourne describes was related to these panels. 38 The “disinterested” viewer is one who stands to gain no economic or political benefit from his activities. This eighteenth-century concept often accompanied claims that the economically independent man was most able to hold a “disinterested” view, i.e., he would not put self-interest ahead of others. Hawkins, Hawkins’s Picture of Quebec, 257, 458. Bourne also published this guidebook. 39 Bourne’s Picture was published in 1829 with a 2nd edition in 1831; Hawkins’ was published in 1834. While Hawkins seems to have plagiarized some text from Bourne, his version was not merely a copy; it was a unique publication. 40 Burford, Description of a View of the City of Quebec. 41 As in the Oxford English Dictionary’s sense, T. Carlyle Scott in Critical & Miscellaneous Essays (1869) V : “To picture-forth the life of Scott.” 42 Bourne, The Picture of Quebec, 89. Note: no catalogue of paintings is in this edition. 43 Jordanova, “Museums,” 256–8.

370  notes to pages 39–44

44 The literature on the view of history as non-linear, contradictory, breaking time, narrative, etc., is taken up in numerous publications, and echoes nineteenthcentury arguments by Nietzsche and Bergson. See Nietzsche’s essay, “On the Use and Abuse of History for Life,” 1874. A more recent description of historical consciousness as it relates to the teaching of history can be seen in Peter Seixas’ Theorizing Historical Consciousness, in which he draws out the nuances between historical consciousness and collective memory, and the edited collection explores the ways in which various modes of representation affect histories. 45 Major issues developed around the funding of governmental expenditures that were subject to the Assembly’s control of revenues, the governor’s right to prorogue Parliament, and the proposed Union Act of 1822. The latter bill advocated the political union of Upper and Lower Canada, which would have reduced the representation of canadiens in the Assembly through increased requirements for franchise and an increased percentage of English-speaking members. Unionism remained a divisive issue throughout the 1820s and ’30s. See Ouellet, Lower Canada 1791–1840, especially chapters 5 to 10. 46 The civil list refers to the list of paying positions in the colonial government (e.g., postmaster general and chief justice). This was a way to buy political loyalty – whoever controlled the list controlled significant players in colonial politics. 47 Burroughs, “James Kempt,” 726. George Ramsay, the 9th Earl of Dalhousie, was the Governor-in-chief of British North America from 1820 to 1828. 48 Dalhousie, “Letter to Mr. Buchannan, H.M. Consul at New York,” (L 1/G 2,7, LHSQ archives). 49 Bancroft, The Literary and Historical Society of Quebec, Appendix B . 50 Burton, lieutenant governor of Lower Canada, resided in Canada only between 1822 (the year he was knighted) and 1825. Vallières de St-Réal, speaker of the elected House of Assembly in 1824, quickly fell from Dalhousie’s good graces and assumed a position in the opposition by 1826. 51 Address to the Public, Quebec, 1824; copy in the “Correspondence of Lord Dalhousie,” L 1/G 2, 7, LHSQ archives. 52 As noted in the Introduction, the “Canadas” refers to Canada East and Canada West. In 1824, the two territories were considered separate colonies. Other colonies, such as Nova Scotia, were not considered part of the Canadas until after Confederation, 1867. 53 Address to the Public, Quebec, 1824; copy in the “Correspondence of Lord Dalhousie,” L 1/G 2, 7, LHSQ archives. 54 Benjamin, “On the Concept of History,” Thesis VII . 55 Address to the Public, Quebec, 1824; copy in the “Correspondence of Lord Dalhousie,” L 1/G 2, 7, LHSQ archives 56 Signed “P,” Canadian Magazine 2 (8 February 1824). “P” is responding to the declaration in the LHSQ address that “civilisation transplanted from the old world, supersed[es] the indigenous barbarism of the natives.” 57 Ibid. 58 Le Canadien, 31 March 1824. Although only twenty years old at the time of his appointment as editor in 1822, Parent had already contributed politically challenging articles to Le Canadien. As Jean-Charles Falardeau argues, “He was one of the first to give thought to the destiny of French Canadians.” In vehement articles,

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“Etienne Parent fought and helped to bring about the failure of the plan of union, withdrawal of which Papineau and Neilson were to try to obtain when they went to England in 1823. Parent insisted on complete respect for the constitution of 1791, and demanded recognition of political liberties that had been flouted. Then, in 1823, La Gazette de Québec (which had been started in 1764) became a political paper and an organ of the Parti canadien. In March 1825 Le Canadien, deserted by its supporters, was forced to go out of circulation.” Falardeau, “Etienne Parent.” 59 My translation. 60 Earlier societies such as the Dilettanti in London sought to promote the study of Greece and Rome. Many societies arose in eighteenth-century Europe to promote the study of science. Others focused on art, such as the Society of Artists or the Royal Academy in London. In North America, similar institutions followed. An overview of these and other societies expressing interest in the sciences that developed in nineteenth-century Quebec can be found in Chartrand, Duchesne, and Gingras, Histoire des Sciences au Québec. Earlier studies include Bernatchez, “La Société Littéraire et Historique de Québec,” and Jarrell, “The Rise and Decline of Science at Quebec.” 61 See Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities, for the ways in which cultural institutions and practices helped to build the solidarity of nationhood. 62 At the time, the pound sterling was worth four times the value of one dollar. The relative value of £5 is difficult to judge as there was an enormous spread between the incomes of the wealthy compared to the middling classes. As I discuss below, the annual membership fee for SESA was much lower, and did not include a propriety fee (initial cost to join). 63 Douglas, “Opening Address (on the history of the LHSQ ),” 6. 64 Tessier, Rules and Orders of the Society for the Encouragement of Sciences and Arts in Canada, 4. 65 Andrew Stuart was one of very few English members of the Parti canadien, which became the Parti patriote under Papineau in 1826. Stuart participated in other literary gatherings, such as the salon of Louise-Amélie Panet. He became the president of the LHSQ after its amalgamation with SESA , and moved to the government party shortly before the 1834 elections. For more on Stuart, see Bernatchez, “Andrew Stuart.” 66 Tessier, Rules and orders of the Society for the encouragement of Sciences and Arts in Canada (SESA ), 1827. Article VIII , 4. 67 Bourne, The Picture of Quebec (1831), 103. 68 For example, the Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures, and Commerce founded in London in 1760 also had a library, collected “models and machines,” gave prizes, and published their Transactions. For an American example, see Baatz, “Philadelphia Patronage,” 111–38. 69 Fees cited in Douglas, “Opening Address,” 7. 70 Tessier, Rules and orders of the Society for the encouragement of Sciences and Arts in Canada, 1827. Article VIII , 4. 71 See Whitelaw, The Dalhousie Journals, 101–2, for Dalhousie’s views of the “troubles” in May 1827. Note: the elected Legislative Assembly (lower house of the Lower Canada Parliament) was elected, whereas the Legislative Council (upper house) was appointed.

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72 In the elections of 1827, Vallières de St-Réal and Stuart defeated the Papineau candidates George Vanfelson and Amable Berthelot in Upper Town, but Papineau supporters won almost everywhere else. Lambert, “Vallières de St. Réal.” 73 I explore the contemporaneous idea of the canadiens as a racial group throughout the book, and tie the specificity of the usage to time and place across the nineteenth century. For an overview of the massive nineteenth- and twentiethcentury historiography on French and English nationalism, see Carr, “Imperialism and Nationalism in Revisionalist Historiography,” 91–9. 74 La Bibliothèque Canadienne, vol. V , no. 5, Oct. 1827. 75 The painting was referred to as “représentant le caractère barbare des combat sauvages entres les Hurons et les Iroquois” (representing the barbaric character of the savage battles between the Hurons and the Iroquois [my translation]), La Bibliothèque Canadienne, vol. VI , no. 4, March 1828, 158–9. J. Porter mistakenly argues that Légaré received an honorary medal not because of his work being judged inferior to Smillie’s (as suggested by Trudel) but because of Légaré’s status as a full member of SESA . Porter argues that the first prize was used to “encourage” non-members. However, William Sheppard, a full member, received both an honorary and first prize medal the following year, so Légaré’s lesser honour is not due to policy. The painting is now in the Musée National des Beaux-Arts du Québec. Porter, La Peinture au Québec. 76 I am grateful to Jane Griffith for pointing out the ongoing recurrence of this motif. 77 La Bibliotheque Canadienne, vol. V , no. 5, October 1827. 78 Burroughs, “James Kempt,” 463. Kempt confirmed Papineau in his position as speaker of the Assembly. Vallières de St-Réal was appointed as the provincial judge in Trois-Rivières. Chief Justice Sewell, whose prerogative as speaker of the Legislative Council was the privilege of exercising two votes, assisted Kempt to pass the long overdue money bill. Sewell’s multiple roles as chief justice, speaker of the Legislative Council, and vice-president of the LHSQ placed him in a position of questionable neutrality. 79 Ouellet specifies this loss of cohesion in the English-speaking population in Lower Canada, 257–9. 80 Questions concerning the political union of Upper and Lower Canada were raised politically in 1822 and 1826, and generally in the press throughout the decade. See Ouellet, Economic and Social History of Canada, 325 and passim. The physical union through canals was an issue throughout the 1820s and ’30s. See Ouellet, Economic and Social History of Canada, 370–6 and passim. Dalhousie constantly supported the unionists. 81 “Union with the SESA ,” Report of 26 January 1829, L 1/B , 18 (Union with the SESA : extracts of minutes and letters), LHSQ archives. Signed J. Sewell, Chairman (of Committee for investigating union). 82 By-Laws of the Literary and Historical Society of Quebec to which is prefixed a Copy of the Royal Charter of Incorporation of the Society, Quebec, 1832, 3. The charter was granted 5 October 1831. 83 Article 17, “Report of the Committee (examining several questions including that of public admittance to the Rooms of the Society),” 15 January 1829. 84 By-Laws of the LHSQ , 1832, art. 54. 85 The list of donations to the library, published in Transactions, documents the exchange of materials between the LHSQ and other learned societies.

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86 Transactions typically included a list of members. 87 A Mechanics Institute was founded in Montreal in 1828 to serve the educational needs of adult workers. The Canadian Institute was founded in 1849 in Toronto by a small group of surveyors, architects, and civil engineers. An overview of these and other societies expressing interest in the sciences in nineteenthcentury Quebec can be found in Chartrand and Duschesne, Histoires des Sciences au Quebec. See also Bernatchez, “La Société littéraire et historique de Québec”; Jarrell, “The Rise and Decline of Science at Quebec.” 88 Published in Transactions of the LHSQ 1, 1829, 1–42. 89 Agitation for change occurred during a period of disfranchisement of the Frenchspeaking majority and working-class English-speaking citizens. Thus the rebellion is not an English versus French conflict, but one of class. It focused on the unfairness of the colonial government, and many leaders were English-speaking. 90 Hawkins, Hawkins’s Picture of Quebec, 256. 91 Ibid. The rental was a very “convenient” source of extra income for Sewell. 92 Ibid., 257. 93 Address to Dalhousie, signed by F. Burton, chair of the LHSQ , c. 1825. L 1/E , 1 “Correspondence,” LHSQ archives, undated. Note: this letter was consulted before the removal of the archives from the LHSQ building in Quebec City. At the time of writing, I was not able to find this letter in the Archives de Québec. See the Archival Notes at the end of the chapter for further discussion of this removal’s impact. 94 The first volume of the society’s Transactions were published in 1829 and included papers given before the members during the years 1824 to 1829. 95 Transactions of the LHSQ, 11, 433. 96 For example, Dalhousie donated £100 annually while he was governor-in-chief. 97 Future funding included the exceptional legislative grant of £100 on 10 May 1831. M. Douglas comments about not receiving funding in 1835 and 1836. No reason is given. Douglas, “A History of the Literary and Historical Society of Quebec,” 4–15. 98 Extracts of Council’s minutes 1829–39. 1 March 1829, L 1/B ,18, Literary and Historical Society of Quebec. 99 See Tippett, Making Culture, for a history of anglophone cultural institutions in Canada. In The Picture of Quebec, Bourne lists two other museums. He makes a brief notation of a museum in the Seminary which contains “natural curiousities,” 78. He also mentions the Musée Chasseur, a natural history museum, “a valuable collection, consisting chiefly of indigenous specimens, and combines a rich variety of ornithological and zoological subjects,” 11. Featuring birds, reptiles, and mammals, the Musée Chasseur was privately established by Pierre Chasseur in 1824 in Quebec City. The museum did not seem to have any literary or historical pretentions, nor was it tied to a government-sponsored learned society. When it experienced difficulties, the government took over the museum in 1837, and its contents were given to the LHSQ in 1840. For a complete account, see Duchesne, “Magasin de curiosités ou musée scientifique?” 59–79, and Duchesne, “L’Ordre des choses,” 3–30. 100 By-Laws of the LHSQ , 1832, art. 8. 101 Ibid., art. 39. 102 Bourne, The Picture of Quebec (1829), 102.

374  notes to pages 54–7

103 See Lacroix for a discussion of the Desjardins Collection, which may have been the source or inspiration for a number of Légaré’s paintings. Lacroix, “Les envois de tableaux européens de Philippe-Jean-Louis Desjardins à Québec,” 26–41. Also Porter, The Works of Joseph Légaré. 104 Bourne, The Picture of Quebec (1830), 89. 105 Extracts of Council’s minutes 1829–39. 1 March, 1829, L1/B, 18, Literary and Historical Society of Quebec. 106 It is not clear whether loans of paintings from other members occurred. Certainly members such as William Sheppard had extensive personal art collections and may have augmented Légaré’s loan. However, the minutes confirm that the newly united society would be establishing a museum as SESA had planned. See John R. Porter, The Works of Joseph Légaré, 14, for details of Légaré’s collection. 107 While not specifically identified, these were probably Hogarth’s very popular and widely disseminated prints entitled Rake’s Progress (1735), Industry and Idleness (1747), and Beer Street and Gin Lane (1751). Given the availability of the print versions, it seems unlikely that painted copies were on display. 108 Bourne, The Picture of Quebec (1829), 102–7. 109 Description of the rooms found in Bouchette, A Topographical Description of the Province of Lower Canada, 449. Hawkins describes the Union Hotel as being 86 feet wide by 44 feet (26 metres by 13 metres) deep, A Picture of Quebec, 256. If the rooms “at the front” are half the depth of the hotel, and if the central plan implied in a view of the hotel can be trusted, then the room may have been about 20 feet (6 metres) in depth and 42 to 44 feet (12 to 13 metres) in width. 110 Unfortunately, I have found no illustration of the rooms. However, we can speculate as to what the rooms looked like based on a similar arrangement of paintings and artifacts displayed in Peale’s museum some years earlier (Philadelphia Museum, 1790–1820). In Mr. Peale’s Museum, Charles Coleman Sellers describes in detail the arrangement of objects and images for the public’s rational amusement. 111 “Synopsis of the Finances of the LHSQ 1833–1837,” (L 1/B ,16, Reports of the Treasurer, LHSQ archives). £102 was spent on books. 112 Hawkins, Picture of Quebec, 257. 113 Transactions, Vol. I was published in 1830, Vol. II in 1831, and Vol. III in four publications in 1832, 1833, 1835, and 1837. 114 Bayfield, Transactions of the LHSQ, 1 1829: Bayfield, 1–42. Presumably referring to Robert Jameson, Regius Professor of Natural History at the University of Edinburgh, author of System of Mineralogy, 1804–08 (1820). 115 William Sheppard, “Observations on the American Plants, described by Charle­ voix,” 218–30. 116 Probably referring to Mohs, Treatise on Mineralogy, 1816, or possibly his similar 1820 publication. Anonymous, “Catalogue of the Mineralogical Collection belonging to the Literary and Historical Society,” 265–337. 117 Bayfield, “On the Geology of Lake Superior,” 1–42; Mrs (Harriet) Sheppard, 188– 98; William Sheppard, 218–30; Mineralogical collection, 265–88. 118 Mrs Sheppard, “Mrs. Sheppard of Woodfield on recent shells which characterize the shells of Quebec and its environment,” 198. Mrs Sheppard appears to have been using Lamarck’s Animaux sans Vertèbres (1801), which was in the LHSQ ’s

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library at the time. She received a silver medal for the essay from SESA , and it was subsequently published in the LHSQ Transactions. 119 See Creese, Ladies in the Laboratory III, 139–40. 120 Sheppard, “On Songbirds,” 222. 121 Foucault, The Order of Things, 132–44, 226–32. 122 Stuart, “Detached thoughts upon the History of Civilization,” 367. 123 “Donations To The Museum, 1830–1837,” 408–13. 124 The Huron-Wendat of Wendake (formerly known as the Hurons of Lorette) actually lived in and around the province. The point here is that there were a limited number of recently Christianized Hurons living in Lorette, who became known as “the last Hurons.” 125 Stuart, “Detached Thoughts upon the History of Civilization” and “Journey Across the Continent.” Both contain lists of donations and transcriptions of papers read. Each volume contains lists of donations, which inevitably included some sort of aboriginal artifact. 126 As Stuart had claimed, the “savage tribes” had a “stationary character, and there does not appear to be within this form of society, any germ from which civilization can be evolved.” Thus the nearby presence of the Hurons was rendered a matter of curiosity, not fear. Stuart, “Journey Across the Continent of North America by an Indian Chief.” 127 See Gagnon, “Antoine Plamondon, Le dernier des Hurons (1838),” and Trudel, “Joseph Légaré et la bataille de Sainte-Foy.” Both illustrated. 128 Clearly the assimilationist policy worked for neither the Huron-Wendat nor the canadiens, who continue to live in and around the province of Quebec. Other literature about the Last Huron painting points out that Vincent himself was a painter who later depicted himself with his son, which most writers take as evidence that he was not the last Huron. See, for example, Porter, La Peinture au Québec. 129 Four of the seventeen lectures in Vol. II (1831) of the LHSQ ’s Transactions (lectures given after the merger) deal with “Indian” topics, e.g., a “Huron grammar,” a description of the “Tête de Boule” Indians, “On textile substances” used by North American Indians, and on “processes used in Dying” by the Hurons. 130 The Slavery Abolition Act 1833 (citation 3 & 4 Will. IV c. 73) was an 1833 Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom abolishing slavery throughout most of the British empire (with the notable exceptions “of the Territories in the Possession of the East India Company,” the “Island of Ceylon,” and “the Island of Saint Helena”).

Chapter Two 1 Egerton Ryerson, Annual Report for 1859, 11. 2 The Toronto Normal School was the earliest established in Canada (1847). It aimed to prepare teachers by upgrading student knowledge in the subjects they would be teaching, and taught school law, school management, philosophy, practice teaching, etc. For more details on subjects, practice teaching, etc. see Varga, “A History of Early-Childhood-Teacher Education,” 66–95 (especially 68–71). 3 Bayer, The Ontario Collection.

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4 Lynn Teather’s excellent article on the relationship between museums and civic formations looks at similar issues in the narrower context of the University of Toronto, “Universities, Museums, and Civic Formation.” 5 Hodgins, Documentary History of Education, vol. 10, chap. 10, 129. 6 See Tony Bennett, especially The Birth of the Museum; on shift from a complex practice of object-centredness to curators speaking for themselves, “Pedagogic Objects, Clean Eyes, and Popular Instruction.” 7 Ian McKay’s provocative “Liberal Order Framework” examines how historians could attend to the cultural politics of institutional grids of power in nineteenthcentury Canada. While I don’t agree that politics and culture should be seen as separately evolving, his notion of a liberal project of rule does provide an important framework for the consideration of socio-cultural practices – such as the institutionalization of education in Canada West. 8 The historiography of this period is extensive, ranging from deep analyses of Durham’s report to close study of the various factions in both Upper and Lower Canada. See McKay and responses to his proposed Liberal order framework in Liberalism and Hegemony. The revised version of Gerald Craig’s Lord Durham’s Report is particularly compelling, as is Janet Ajzenstat’s analysis of the report in the context of nineteenth-century debates about the relation between culture and political institutions. She makes the point that Durham should be seen as a progressive universalist which is notable in relation to Ryerson, who also saw universalism as a means of strengthening British government in Canada. Ajzenstat and Craig, Lord Durham’s Report. See also: Ouellet, Lower Canada; Buckner, “Introduction: Britain and the British Empire.” 9 The Constitutional Act of 1791 gave land grants to build Protestant churches, but this was interpreted to mean Church of England, i.e. Anglican; this led to protests by the Presbyterian and Methodist settlers (primarily Scottish and American loyalists respectively). 10 The colony’s elite conservative families – such as those of William Osgood, the Reverend John Strachan, and Sir John Beverley Robinson – benefited from sinecures, pensions, high-paying jobs, and titles. Osgood was chairman of the Executive Council and a member of the Legislative Council; Robinson was the attorney general. 11 For example, William Osgood, a member of the Family Compact, also became the first chief justice of Upper Canada (1794–1801). In 1825, James Baby received a stipend of £863 for his government job as inspector general. For a list of other civil servants in 1825, see Kingston Chronicle, 20 May 1825. 12 The Act of Union was sanctioned by the queen in 1840 and came into effect in 1841. The governor general was responsible for the unified province (i.e., both jurisdictions of the former Upper and Lower Canada). They were not provinces in and of themselves until 1867. The act banned the use of French in the now singular legislature. It also suspended some French-Canadian institutions. While neither of the Canadas liked the terms of union, they mainly benefited Upper Canada. The Family Compact resented having to share a single civil list. In Lower Canada the single parliament with equal representation for each Canada meant the canadien representatives were now in the minority; furthermore, the consolidation of the debt saw Lower Canada take on a larger proportion of the total debt. For a liberal,

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French-Canadian view of this history, see the writing of Jacques Monet (e.g., his 1985 Union of the Canadas 1837–1867). 13 Wilton, Popular Politics and Political Culture in Upper Canada. 14 Durham’s Report, 1838. Durham (probably actually written by Charels Buller and/ or Edward Gibbon Wakefield), The Report and Despatches of the Earl of Durham, 79. 15 McAlister refers to Engin F. Isin’s use of “liberal colonialism” in this context. She also looks at the way in which Lord Sydenham, the first governor general after the union, put into place various forms of municipal government, administered new municipalities, and imposed local institutions on a sometimes reluctant people. McAlister, Governing Ourselves, 25. 16 The English, Irish, and Scottish settled Upper Canada. Some came via the United States as loyalists, some as part of an immigration of poverty-stricken peasants from Ireland, and others sought opportunity in colonial government or military. Although virtually entirely of British descent, the different constituencies were often pitted against each other in a real battle over rights and privileges. 17 For more on Ryerson’s life, see the extensive bibliography compiled by Gidney, “Egerton Ryerson.” A contemporaneous view is the anonymous “Egerton Ryerson” in the American Journal of Education. This article includes extensive and occasionally unacknowledged extracts from Ryerson’s reports. 18 Strachan was the rector of St James Church in Toronto, a member of the legislature (1820–41) and Executive Council (1815–36), and by 1823 he was the president of the province’s school board. In July 1825, Strachan had given a sermon that argued Anglicanism should be the only recognized church of the nation, in which he particularly derided the Methodists as ignorant and American in origin. Ryerson responded as “a Methodist preacher.” Ryerson’s 30-page “Review of a Sermon, Preached by the Honourable and Reverend John Strachan” appeared as a separate pamphlet in William Lyon Mackenzie’s paper, The Colonial Advocate, in May 1826. 19 For early teaching practices in Canada, see Prochner, “A History of Early Education and Child Care in Canada, 1820–1966,” which provides a thorough overview of the debates and issues in early teaching in Canada, 11–65. Also, Prentice’s introduction to The School Promoters, esp. 17–18. 20 Prentice, The School Promoters, 17. 21 Like Ryerson, Mann also advocated for the establishment of normal schools to teach teachers. Although he believed in common schools for all, he did not object to segregated or private schools. For more on the educational reformers and the evolution of public schooling in the United States, see Paul E. Peterson, Saving Schools. 22 Baader, “Froebel and the Rise of Educational Theory in the United States.” Bader compares entries in histories of education from 1857 to 1933 on Froebel and kindergarten in Germany to those in the United States. She argues that Froebel appears as the great “hero” of education of the nineteenth century, whereas in German histories, Pestalozzi is the “hero.” The American interest in “making citizens” produced Froebel as the hero; the German interest in leaving the education of young children to mothers and in the family lauded Pestalozzi. 23 Eakin, “Giants of American Education.” 24 Carl Kaestle points out how the compromise between state and local control continues to characterize American schools, and how this compromise has led to a

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lack of standardization across the country. “Introduction to Part One, 1770–1900” in Sarah Mondale, School, 16–17. 25 Rousseau, Pestalozzi, Froebel, Dewey, and other educational theorists from Europe, England, and later America shared the idea that the child should be the centre of educational practice, participating in and not merely receiving the inherited weight of classic education. The specifics of how this child-centred educational thought was realized varied enormously in practice and theory. There is an extensive literature on the history of education, but a useful overview can be seen in Bresler, Cooper, and Palmer, Fifty Modern Thinkers on Education. 26 Curtis, Building the Educational State, 378. 27 Curtis refers to the “choice men without early educational prejudices” who worked in various venues to promote educational reform, particularly school inspectors, in his True Government by Choice Men, 10. 28 Some resistance to government control of education is seen in letters sent to and by Ryerson during this period. See Prentice and Houston, eds, Family, School and Society, in which they reprint a variety of letters to and from Ryerson regarding the systemic changes to education in the provinces. 29 Murphy, “Unmaking and Remaking the ‘One Best System’: London, Ontario, 1852–1860.” 30 Primers are textbooks designed to develop early reading. I discuss these more below. Ryerson, Annual Report for 1854. 31 Simmins, Fred Cumberland, 21. 32 Ibid., 87. 33 Ryerson, Annual Report for 1855, 11. 34 Ryerson, Annual Report for 1856, 80. 35 Robinson in Simmins, Fred Cumberland, 81. 36 Ryerson, Annual Report for 1856, 80. 37 In his comprehensive book on Cumberland (1997), Geoffrey Simmins acknowledges that Ryerson’s attempt to connect his design to other school designs of the period proved fruitless. Simmins, Fred Cumberland, 82. 38 Hodgins, The School House, 5. 39 Hodgins describes the eight-acre site and its gardens as “beautifully laid out, designed no less to cultivate the taste of the teachers in training, than to contribute to the gratification of the public … They contain specimens of Canadian and foreign tree, flowers, and shrubs. The play yards, gymnastic sheds, and cricket grounds are at the east, west, and north of the building.” The City of Toronto, 36–7. 40 By 1844, it became impossible for the small city of Kingston to house all the parliamentary buildings, so Montreal became the capital in 1844. When protesters burned the parliament buildings in Montreal in 1849, the provincial capital moved to Toronto. Montreal again took over from 1852 to 1855, with the capital returning to Toronto from 1855 to 1859. Montreal then took over until the parliament buildings opened in Ottawa in 1865. 41 Lefroy, letter to Ryerson, c. 1852, reprinted in Ryerson, The Educational Museum and School of Art and Design for Upper Canada, 13. 42 One lecture recorded in 1875 was “A Conversation at the Normal School, under the auspices of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals,” 12 June 1875, Canadian Illustrated News 11, no. 24, 381. I discuss a print that illustrates this meeting in chapter 3.

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43 Hodgins, The City of Toronto, 36. As secretary to the minister of education, Hodgins had access to Ryerson’s official papers and letters, many of which he compiled into reports and other publications over the next two decades. 44 Ryerson, Report for 1859, 11. 45 Hodgins, The School House, 9–10. 46 No. 1: 42' × 22' (12.8 m × 6.7 m); No. 2: 39' 5" × 22' (11.8 m × 6.7 m); No. 3: 32' 8" × 28' (9.7 m × 8.5 m), and No. 4: 45' 2" × 28' 0" (13.7 m × 8.5 m). 47 Ryerson, “The Story of my Life: Being Reminiscences of Sixty Years’ Public Service,” 456. 48 Letter of 20 November 1855, reprinted in Hodgins, Documentary History of Education in Upper Canada, vol. 12, chap. 10, 117–22. 49 The addition of art from the Sheepshanks donation, etc., quickly shifted the scope of the collection, but as Robertson points out, the South Kensington remained primarily a school of practical art, not a museum per se, for most of the nineteenth century. Robertson, “The South Kensington Museum in Context.” 50 For recent writing on the South Kensington and its educational intentions, see Barringer, “The South Kensington Museum and the Colonial Project”; Cooper, For the Public Good; Goodwin, “Objects, Belief and Power in Mid-Victorian England”; Purbrick, “South Kensington Museum,” and the related work of Trodd, “Culture, Class, City.” 51 Bruce Robertson argues, “the South Kensington Museum, unlike the British Museum (which was deeply distrustful of the public good for most of the nineteenth century) and the National Gallery (founded on the principle that high art magically transforms its audience into better people), was committed to the notion of purposeful educational activities directed consciously to its audiences. In other words, the South Kensington Museum was a school that had a collection to which the public was also admitted. In reality it was two schools: art and science.” Robertson, “The South Kensington Museum in Context,” 1–2. 52 Buckner, “Introduction: Canada and the British Empire,” 5. 53 Ryerson, The Educational Museum. 54 The report is also reprinted in nearly the same form in The American Journal of Education, 32 (1882), 449–506. 55 Ryerson, The Educational Museum, 12. 56 On 4 September 1857, Cole wrote, “[I went] To Town. Met Mr Wetton … saw Sempter … Dr Ryerson who wanted a master.” 6 October 1857. “Museum. Mr. Best for New Master for Hampshire Union. Dr Ryerson for Master for Canada,” Cole Diaries, National Art Library, Victoria and Albert Museum, Special Collections. 57 Chalmers explores the relations between the South Kensington and art education in Ontario, in “Who Is To Do This Great Work for Canada?” 58 These men are named in Ryerson’s semi-official letters to Hodgins. See Hodgins, Documentary History of Education, vol. 12, chap. 9, 101–17. Hincks, a reformist newspaper owner, had been a co-premier (eventually he became governor in chief of the Windward Islands) and met with Ryerson at the Exposition universelle in Paris; Lefroy was a lieutenant in Canada before being appointed captain, and was attached to the War Office in London at the time of Ryerson’s visit; Robinson was Chief Justice of Upper Canada and was also visiting London at the time of Ryerson’s visit. See the Dictionary of Canadian Biography for more details on these men.

380  notes to pages 76–80

59 Inventory of Purchases for the Educational Museum and Library 1853–1861, Ontario Department of Education Records, R.G. 2, Series L -3, vol. 15, Archives of Ontario. Bayer, The Ontario Collection. 60 The purchase of copies, often in reduced formats, was typical of nineteenthcentury provincial museums and private collections. Bayer, The Ontario Collection. 61 Ryerson also provides a list of every painting, sculpture, and bust with title, artist, point of origin, and date in his exhaustive catalogue of the objects in Annual Report for the Year 1856, 247–75. See also Bayer, The Ontario Collection. 62 Hodgins, Documentary History of Education, vol. 12, chap. 10, 121. 63 Mulvany, Toronto, 86. 64 Hodgins, Documentary History of Education, vol. 12, chap. 10, 111. 65 Ibid., vol. 12, chap. 9, 111. 66 Ibid., letter from Frankfort-on-the-Main (sic), 18 December 1855, vol. 12, chap. 9, 111. 67 Hodgins, Documentary History of Education, vol. 12, chap. 9, 110. 68 See, for instance, Axelrod, The Promise of Schooling, 105. 69 Pestalozzi, How Gertrude Teaches Her Children, 19. “Anschauung” means perspective, outlook, or view (this last being the closest corollary), and German words for observation include “Beachtung,” “Beobachtung,” and “Betrachtung.” In Kant’s philosophical system, “Anschauung” means “intuition,” although by “intuition” Kant means a form of empirical perception. I am grateful to Kathryn Simpson for drawing my attention to the subtlety of the term. 70 Rousseau, Emile, 6. 71 Ibid., 30. 72 Ibid., 76. 73 Ibid., 2. 74 Gilead, “Reconsidering the Roots of Current Perceptions.” 75 For more on perceptions of Pestalozzi’s methods and their transmutations in America, see Anderson, Pestalozzi; Green, The Educational Ideas of Pestalozzi; Walch, Pestalozzi and the Pestalozzian Theory of Education. Earlier commentary includes Wilbur, “Object System of Instruction as Pursued in the Schools of Oswego,” 189–208. Wilbur was quite critical of the Oswego School’s “over zealousness” of the transmutation of Pestalozzi’s ideas, although the author did acknowledge the usefulness of the ideas for use in primary school instruction. 76 E. Mayo, Lessons on Objects, 1837, x. 77 Ibid., First Series, Lesson XIII , 13. 78 Ibid., Fifth Series, Lesson XIII , 129–30. 79 Ibid., 2. 80 Ibid. 81 Sengupta, “An Object Lesson in Colonial Pedagogy,” 98. 82 Frost omitted to credit Mayo as the author in his 1835 edition of On Common Things, in which he says his book is an improved edition “of an English book entitled Lessons on Objects,” x. Frost, On Common Things, 1835. In his 3rd edition of 1857, Frost’s title page acknowledges that his book is based on the publication originally written by “Dr. Mayo.” 83 Frost, On Common Things, 11. 84 Eakin, “Giants of American Education: Horace Mann,” 7.

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85 See McTavish for a discussion of how the use of objects took a different course in New Brunswick, “Learning to See in New Brunswick.” 86 Hodgins, “The Chief Superintendent’s Report for 1857,” Documentary History of Education, Chap. 13, 197. 87 List of Maps, Apparatus, 187- (School Supplies, Item 6, p. 1). Details of the holdings are also described in an article on the Ontario exhibit at the International Exposition in Philadelphia in 1876, Journal of Education, vols. 29 and 30, 137. 88 Hodgins, The School House, 224. 89 Ibid. 90 Ibid., 225. 91 List of Maps, Apparatus, 187– (School Supplies, Item 6, p. 1). 92 Ibid. 93 Sheldon, Autobiography of Edward Austin Sheldon, 110–11. 94 Ibid., 116. 95 Ibid., 117. 96 Calkins, Primary Object lessons For a Graduated Course of Development. 97 Hodgins, Documentary History of Education, vol. 10, chap. 10, 129. 98 This was a standard map, used until very recently in Canadian classrooms, which skews the size of large continents, such as Africa, and centres the United Kingdom – a colonial projection that can easily be seen in the map that represented Britain and its colonies in pink. 99 Wilson, speech given in Glasgow in 1857 on the formation of provincial museums, quoted in Ryerson, The Educational Museum, 14; it can also be found in Ryerson, Annual Report for the year 1858, 22. 100 See Axelrod, The Promise of Schooling, especially chapter 2, “Building the Educational State,” 24–43. Also Prentice, The School Promoters. 101 Prentice, The School Promoters, 68. 102 Ryerson, The Educational Museum, 58. 103 See Humphrey, “The Visual Modality in the Pestalozzian or Inductive Method,” for more on observation as a teaching strategy and the contributions of Pestalozzian thought to American pedagogy. 104 Traces of the Pestalozzian philosophy can be seen in Dewey’s texts, Democracy and Education, 1966 ed.; How We Think, 1933; and Experience and Education, 1968. 105 The Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE ) reference library has copies of what appears to be the Irish original, published in 1850, and the authorized Canadian version, published in 1864. 106 Previously discussed in Stanworth, “Images in Texts: Images in Context – early illustration of school book primers.” 107 Hodgins, Easy Lessons in General Geography, 36–7. 108 The Ontario Readers. Third Reader, 3. 109 Pestalozzi, How Gertrude, 26–7. 110 Royal Canadian Primer, Preface. 111 Ibid. 112 O’Brien, McFaul, and Revell, Canadian Drawing Course, Preface, unpaginated. 113 Botanicus, Massachusetts Teacher, 86–7. 114 On the Oswego method, see Peter Rillero, “The Revolution of Enlightenment,” in which he discusses the Oswego School’s adaptation of Pestalozzian ideas. 115 “Teaching from Real Objects,” 26.

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116 117 118 119

120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128

Robins, “Object Lessons,” 4. Ibid., 5–6. Ibid., 7. Most histories of child-centred or student-centred learning emphasize the contributions of twentieth-century theorists like John Dewey, Jean Piaget, and Lev Vygotsky. The object lesson can be seen as a step towards the decentring of the teacher in the classroom, although it is evident that the teacher remains in control of the learning outcomes. Extract from a paper read by Gatty, “The Educational Value of Museums,” 11. Ryerson in Hodgins, Documentary History of Education, vol. 12, chap. 9, 119. Scadding, “On Museums and Other Classified Collections,” 3. Ibid., 25. Ibid. Ryerson, cited in McDonald and Chaiton, eds, Egerton Ryerson and His Times, 67. For more on liberal humanism, see the Introduction to this book. Such as Pestalozzi’s chief assistant Hermann Krusi, whose son, Johann Heinrich Hermann Krusi, Jr. (1817–1903) worked with Sheldon at the Oswego Normal School. Ontario Government Art Collection: http://www.archives.gov.on.ca/english/ on-line-exhibits/education/museum.aspx.

Chapter Three 1 D’Arcy McGee, as quoted in Carl Berger, The Sense of Power, 93. 2 Editorial, Globe, Toronto, 13 July 1907. Cited in Wilson, “A Noble Dream,” 16. 3 Britain recognized the evolution of self-governing colonies at the Colonial Conference of 1907, which implicitly introduced the idea of the Dominion as a self-governing colony by referring to Canada and Australia as Dominions. It also marked the end of the “Colonial Conference.” The shift in attitude towards the Dominion is seen in the decision that the subsequent conference in 1911 would be called the Imperial Conference. 4 Brymner, Archives Report for 1882, 6 (Wilson, 21). 5 In 1866, representatives of New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and the Canadas met in London for final discussions with the Colonial Office. Newfoundland and Prince Edward Island had withdrawn from the Confederation talks for the time being. The London Conference resulted in the British North America Act of 1867. The BNA Act established the separate jurisdictions of each province, with each province to have a seat of government and a lieutenant governor to represent the Crown. Federally, the act established the elected House of Commons, an appointed Senate, and a governor general. 6 In Upper Canada, mutual benefit and learned societies such as the Mechanics Society, Canadian Institute, Geological Survey, etc., started forming collections as early as the 1840s. See Teather, The Royal Ontario Museum. 7 See chapter 1 for details on the formation of the LHSQ . 8 As early as 1905, Richard Jebb examined the idea of “colonial nationalism.” The ways in which self-governing colonies developed a form of nationalism rooted in imperial relations was further investigated in the later twentieth century as many colonial relations disintegrated throughout the 1960s and ’70s. In recent decades,

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the notion of post-colonial nationalism has been employed as a way of understanding the various forms of resistance, collaboration, and hybrid responses to the presence of colonial power. I take up colonial nationalism here as a process that was always characterized by resistances, collaboration, and hybridity. For further information, see, for example, Jebb, Studies in Colonial Nationalism; Eddy and Schreuder, eds, The Rise of Colonial Nationalism; McKay, “The Liberal Order Framework.” 9 Some schools of thought, mainly modernist mid-twentieth-century, would insist the opposite: that texts are non-discursive and analysis should focus only on the internal evidence of the text. 10 Post-colonial theorist Edward Said draws on French philosopher Michel Foucault in his argument about textuality, which is essentially a response to the critical insularity of modernist criticism. Said, The World, The Text, The Critic, 4. 11 For more on reading Said’s contradictions, see Eid and Ghazal, “Edward Said,” 111–21. 12 Marrouchi considers this dilemma in Edward Said at the Limits, 57. 13 See Butler, Contested Representations. 14 On the idea of radical or revolutionary moments in text, I draw on Kristeva’s theory of irruption explored in Revolution in Poetic Language, 75. I loosely take up her notion of irruption, which asserts that radical or poetic text can function as resistance to the symbolic or discursive meaning. See also Ed Cameron, “Severing Sound from Sense: The Sacrifice of Drive in Butler’s Critique of Kristeva.” 15 Calkins, Primary Object Lessons, title page quote. 16 See further discussion on museum histories in the introduction to Section I. 17 Genoways and Andrei, Museum Origins. See also Knell and Sheets-Pyenson, who both examine colonial museums established in the second half of the nineteenth century and affirm their significant popularity in this period. 18 Anderson, Reinventing the Museum. 19 Bennett, “Civic Seeing,” 263. 20 Ibid., 276. 21 Ibid., 264, et passim. 22 Bennett cites Selleck, The New Education, 203, in Pasts beyond Memory, 1. 23 After the revolts in both Lower and Upper Canada, the Colonial Home Office enforced the Act of Union in 1840, which purposefully “drowned” the resistance of the radicals by combining the two legislatures into one. See chapter 1. 24 Of course the colonies were also British in origin, so they shared many ideologies. However, they experienced social and political life through different local realities. For an overview on the colonial specificities of the Atlantic Provinces, see Buckner and Reid, eds, The Atlantic Region to Confederation. For a recent perspective on the connections between the Maritime Provinces and the United States see Hornsby and Reid, eds, New England and the Maritime Provinces. 25 Canadian Illustrated News (CIN) and L’Opinion publique (OP), Canada’s first illustrated newspapers, have been heavily mined for images of events that precede the regular use of news photography. A sixteen-page weekly with a 10,000 initial print run, CIN was published in Montreal on Saturdays from 1869 to 1883. OP was an eight-page weekly with a 5,200 print run, published on Thursdays from 1870 to 1883. They employed a new process for printing illustrations known as leggotype (patented in 1865 by William Auguste Leggo and George-Édouard Desbarats). For

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more on illustrated newspapers and examples of illustrations, see Vendette, “The Illustrated Press.” 26 For other examples of interior scenes, see the Notman Photographic Archives on the McCord website: http://www.mccord-museum.qc.ca/scripts/explore.php? Lang=1&tableid=4&tablename=department&elementid=00016__true. 27 In Stanworth, “The Colonial Museum in Canada,” I still believed that Bengough had drawn the image, which is what the National Archives reports. However, subsequent examination of the CIN issue of 12 June 1876, revealed that Bell was described as the illustrator in a commentary on the conversazione. 28 The rooms were also referenced in the educational display at the Philadelphia exhibition in 1874. The use of engravings and portraits, etc., is also seen in composite photos of a girls’ school in 1880. See chapter 7. 29 Mulvany, Toronto Past and Present, 212. Mulvany refers to S.P. May as the clerk of the Normal School, yet the OSA documentation refers to him as the superintendent of the educational museum. CCCA website, OSA history, http://www.ccca.ca/ history/osa/english/1875-1899.html. 30 Mulvany, Toronto Past and Present, 212. 31 In 1882, “at the recommendation of Dr. S.P. May, Superintendent of the Educational Museum, the Ontario School of Art (OSA ) moves to first floor of Education Department, Toronto Normal School. [On] 10 October, 1882, the Ontario School of Art re-opens at Toronto Normal School; new program concentrates on drawing, with particular emphasis given to training in industrial arts.” From CCCA website, OSA history, http://www.ccca.ca/history/osa/english/1875-1899.html. 32 Hodgins, Annual Report of the Normal, Model and Public School of Ontario for the Year 1868, 27. 33 Ibid., 28. 34 Details of Dufferin’s visit to the LHSQ are described below. 35 Hodgins, Annual Report of the Normal, Model and Public School of Ontario for the Year 1871, 23. 36 For more on the link between object lessons and empiricism, see chapter 2. 37 Ryerson in Hodgins, Annual Report of the Normal, Model and Public School of Ontario for the Year 1868, 24. 38 Ibid. 39 I refer to Bhabha’s ideas about the narrativity of nation in other chapters; for more on this see chapter 4. 40 Bhabha, The Location of Culture, 144. 41 Anderson, Imaginary Nation. This conceptualization allows Anderson to discuss how the present is not merely on the way to the future, but includes a contradictory sense of stability – that identity needs to be stable in the meantime, and not always in a process of change. See chapter 1 for more about the LHSQ in the visual nexus of power in Quebec City in the 1820s and ’30s. 42 Noted in chapter 1, the LHSQ ’s presumption of civilizing progress was represented by the collection of native artifacts, which were identified generically as “Indian” (no tribal affiliation noted) and, rather, described according to the name of the colonist who found the object. 43 As Inga Scharf points out in her informed and accessible discussion of nation and identity in German film, Bhabha remarks that the pedagogical surmounts the performative (thus pedagogical time is dominant over the performative in the

notes to pages 108–15  385

construction of national identity, but the pedagogical is always supplemented by the performative). Scharf notes, this ensured “a sense of certainty, coherence, continuity and belonging.” Nation and Identity in the New German Cinema, 84–5. 44 Kristeva discusses the emergence of negativity and its suppression in numerous publications and from different positions of interest. I particularly draw on the idea of irruption found in Kristeva, Revolution in Poetic Language. She also discusses suppression in her discussion of the abject, as in Powers of Horror. The idea of gendered doubledness or split is explored further in her essay “Stabat Mater.” 45 Bhabha, “DissemiNation,” 304. Kristeva points out the double temporality of “women’s time” and “nation time,” or linear time versus monumental time, in her discussion of the incompatibilities of young women’s sense of who they are – the contradiction of having identity in a “sedimented past” and loss of identity through connections to memories that escape that past. See Kristeva, “Women’s Time.” 46 Kristeva proposes the instability of the thetic – the point at which taking a position or making a judgment becomes possible for a child. This instability, she argues, is revealed by the potential for poetic language to point to the process of signification. The authority upon which judgment is based is threatened through negation of the unified subject in its reconfiguration as the subject-in-process. In considering the implications of Bhabha’s theory of pedagogical object versus performative subject, it seems to me that the performative subject can be understood as similar to Kristeva’s concept of the subject-in-process. This is the proposition that a citizen as a unified subject is constantly threatened by the irruption of lack that disproves any sense of unity. The lack is perhaps a lack of concrete present time, lack of homogenous significance, or lack of convincing reflexivity. So when the museum visitor sees an arrangement of aboriginal artifacts and images that present “the last Huron,” a narrative of successful suppression of barbarism is sustained. This same narrative is repeated in stories of civilized nations that are documented through artifact collections, such as the one in the Assyrian Room. The instability of these narratives lies in the evidence that is not presented, such as the present-time issues related to the suppression of aboriginals (seen in ongoing legislative attempts to assimilate “Indians” through such mechanisms as the Indian Act, 1876). 47 De Certeau, The Practice of Everyday Life. 48 De Certeau reports that looking at New York through the window of the Twin Towers changed his perception of the local, in The Practice of Everyday Life. These embodied experiences change everyday conceptions of grand narratives. 49 De Certeau explains the everyday practice as what happens when official strategies for knowing about the world “mingle” with the tactics adopted by individuals as they experience those strategies, e.g. the way in which the body may counteract the directives of a map by taking a more convenient route, ibid., 121. 50 The Quebec Library was thus formed in 1779, incorporated in 1845, and sold to the LHSQ in 1866. A second library, known as the Quebec Library Association, was formed in 1843, amalgamated with the Quebec Library in 1845, and was absorbed by the LHSQ in 1865 together with the Quebec Library. As reported in Centenary Volume: 1824–1924. 51 Report of the Council of the Literary and Historical Society of Quebec, for the Year 1845 (Report of the council of the literary and historical society of Quebec, at the general annual meeting held on the 8th January, 1846.) 386  n otes to pages 115–16

52 Report of the Council of the Literary and Historical Society of Quebec, for the Year 1846. (Report of the council of the literary and historical society of Quebec, at the general annual meeting held on the 8th January, 1847.) 53 1849 CAP . CLII . An Act to amend the Charter of the Literary and Historical Society of Quebec, 25 April 1849. 54 Report of the Council of the Literary and Historical Society of Quebec, for the Year 1853, 1854. 55 Ibid. 56 Ibid. 57 Ibid. 58 S.P. May, M.D., was listed as a witness at a marriage in Toronto in February 1868. The practice of calling an English doctor “Mr” could well be why May is listed as Mr. May. 59 Ryerson in Hodgins, Documentary History of Education in Upper Canada, 1906, 160. 60 Centenary Volume: 1824–1924. Published by the Literary and Historical Society of Quebec in Transactions, New Series, no. 30 (1924). 61 See Transactions for 1866 on impact of the transfer of the government from Quebec City to Ottawa, and the loss of thirty members who “removed to Ottawa with the new government.” 62 Report of the Council of the Literary and Historical Society of Quebec, for the Year 1854 (Thomas Cary: Quebec, 1855). 63 De Certeau, Practice of Everyday Life, 178. 64 Principal Donald H. MacVicar (professor at Montreal Presbyterian College) spoke on “The teacher in the study and in the classroom” – an address delivered before the Quebec Teachers’ Association, at Quebec, October 17, 1879 (Montreal, 1880). According to the editor of CIN, the 16th annual convention, Quebec, shows “the importance of the work and the interest taken in it by teachers of all classes are year by year increasing. It would be difficult to over-estimate the good results from such deliberations, where we find the Principals and Professors of the Universities side by side with the teachers of the lowest grade of elementary schools … two of the most important (questions of interest) … school inspection and of the distribution of the school tax.” Talks were also given by Principal Dawson of McGill University (on the history of educational matters in Canada over twenty five years), Rev. E.I. Rexvord, and Canon Norman, Vice-Chancellor of Bishop’s College, Canadian Illustrated News, 1 November 1879. 65 While MacIvor was the president, it is possible that the image illustrates Principal Dawson, Rev. E.I. Rexvord, or Canon Norman. 66 See, for example, the Eclectica virtual exhibit discussed in the “Archival notes” section. 67 The anonymous writer of the History of St. Andrew’s Church in Quebec City notes, “remarkable for its time – that the College also admitted women.” http://www.standrewsquebec.ca/en/morehistory.html. 68 Le Moine, Quebec, Past and Present, 311. 69 http://www.morrin.org/pages/home.php. 70 Report of the Council of the Literary and Historical Society of Quebec, for the Year 1871(1) (Originally published by the Literary and Historical Society of Quebec in Transactions, New Series, No. 9 (1872)).

n otes to pages 116–23  387

71 Report of the Council of the Literary and Historical Society of Quebec, for the Year 1875(1) (Originally published by the Literary and Historical Society of Quebec in Transactions, New Series, no. 12 (1877)). 72 Report of the Council of the Literary and Historical Society of Quebec, for the Year 1877(1) (Originally published by the Literary and Historical Society of Quebec in Transactions, New Series, no. 13 (1879)). 73 Ibid. 74 Report of the Council of the Literary and Historical Society of Quebec, for the Year 1874(1) (Originally published by the Literary and Historical Society of Quebec in Transactions, New Series, no. 11 (1875)). 75 Chapter 1 discusses the receipt of a royal charter for the establishment of the LHSQ. Report of the Council of the Literary and Historical Society of Quebec, for the Year 1873 (Originally published by the Literary and Historical Society of Quebec in Transactions, New Series, no. 11 (1875)). 76 Judging from the treasurer’s report for 1873, the society spent $76 on the museum, likely for this case, as nothing else was purchased for the museum that year. LeMoine mentions the purchase of the case as being approximately three years ago in his curatorial report for 1875 (submitted 1876). Report of the Council of the Literary and Historical Society of Quebec, for the Year 1875 (1) (Originally published by the Literary and Historical Society of Quebec in Transactions, New Series, no. 12 (1877)). 77 Campbell, “The ‘Royal William,’” 9–10. 78 Douglas, “On the Natural History of the ‘Ursus Americanus,’” 56. 79 Clint, “The Aborigines of Canada.” 80 The memoir in French was written by Sir Etienne Taché, former premier, about the Plattsburg campaign. Stevenson, “Opening Address.” 81 Stevenson, “Opening Address.” 82 Miles, “On Canadian Archives.” 83 Ibid. 84 “A complete collection of the Canadian Archives would embrace an enormous quantity of records now scattered in localities very distant from each other, and of which many, perhaps the most valuable, are not the property of the Province. To obtain access to them, it would be necessary to go to the capitals of several of the neighbouring States, especially to Albany, Boston, Philadelphia, and Washington. We should be obliged to go to Halifax, to the British Museum and depositories of Archives at London, and to Paris.” Miles, “On Canadian Archives.” 85 See my discussion of archival encounters in the Introduction. 86 Miles, “On Canadian Archives.” 87 Anderson, “The Archives of Canada.” 88 In 1843 the Council reports that, as there still remained a balance of the £200, so it had applied a portion of it to reprinting the journals of Jacques Cartier. Anderson, “The Archives of Canada.” 89 The society received a specific legislature grant of £300 in 1847. Anderson notes that the increase in annual grant from £50 to £250 after 1847 was understood to be in recognition of the cost of obtaining historical documents. Anderson, “The Archives of Canada.” 90 This referred to the Chasseur collection, for which the government assumed responsibility when Chasseur’s museum failed. For more on the Chasseur

388  n otes to pages 124–8

museum of stuffed birds and animals, see my mention in chapter 1 and also Chartrand, Duschesne, and Gingras. 91 “It is not known, but it is very probable that nothing has been done since it was referred to Mr. Dunkin.” Anderson also remarks that he consulted M. Papineau, who commented ironically that “the learned librarians at Ottawa are the last source of information to obtain the dates and titles of all that had been received.” Anderson, “The Archives of Canada.” 92 The convention celebrated the inauguration of the new Hall of L’Institut Canadien. LeMoine, “Report of Delegates.” 93 Ibid. 94 Stevenson, “Opening Address.” 95 Ibid. 96 Published by the Literary and Historical Society of Quebec in Transactions, New Series, no. 14 (1880). 97 LeMoine included extracts from the House of Commons proceedings, 26 April 1879: “The following petitions were read: ‘Of the Literary and Historical Society of Quebec, praying that such measures may be adopted as will secure – the establishment of a Public Record Office at Ottawa, for the safe-keeping therein of the archives of Canada.’ (10th April, 1879.) And: ‘On the item of expenses and care of public archives, $3,000. Mr. POPE (Compton) said he hoped to be able to spend the money this year in the collecting the interesting records of the early history of Canada.’ The item passed. (26th April, 1879.)” Originally published by the Literary and Historical Society of Quebec in Transactions, New Series, no. 14 (1880). 98 For more detail, see Millar, ”Discharging our debt.” For a succinct overview of the concept of “total archives” and the historical evolution of the positions of Dominion archivist and keeper of public records, see Rebecka Sheffield’s, “Total Archive,” on her website: http://www.archivalobjects.com/TotalArchives.htm. 99 Brymner, Archives Report for 1882, 6. (Wilson, 21.) 100 Report of the Council of the Literary and Historical Society of Quebec, for the Year 1879 (1). 101 Noted as being “from advertisement in Morning Chronicle of Jany., 1879) entitled “Canadian History” in Report of the Council of the Literary and Historical Society of Quebec, for the Year 1878 (1) (Originally published by the Literary and Historical Society of Quebec in Transactions, New Series, No. 13 (1879)). 102 “An effort has been made to increase the usefulness of this historical institution and to carry out more fully the object of its charter by the adoption of measures for the preservation of the valuable maps, plans and journals, relating to the history of Canada, which had been accumulating for the last twenty years in its archives.” Report of the Council of the Literary and Historical Society of Quebec, for the Year 1881 (Originally published by the Literary and Historical Society of Quebec in Transactions, New Series, no. 16 (1882)). 103 Report of the Council of the Literary and Historical Society of Quebec, for the Year 1881 (Originally published by the Literary and Historical Society of Quebec in Transactions, New Series, no. 16 (1882)). 104 The list of improvements was ironically included in the decidedly unenthusiastic Report of the Council of the LHSQ (1893) pub. 1898. 105 Report of the Council of the Literary and Historical Society of Quebec, for the Year 1876 (1) (Originally published by the Literary and Historical Society of Quebec in Transactions, New Series, no. 12 (1877)). notes to pages 128–30  389

106 Report of the Council of the Literary and Historical Society of Quebec, for the Year 1891 (1) (Originally published by the Literary and Historical Society of Quebec in Transactions, New Series, no. 20 (1892)). 107 Report of the Council of the Literary and Historical Society of Quebec, for the Year 1884 (Originally published by the Literary and Historical Society of Quebec in Transactions, New Series, no. 18 (1886)). Annual Meeting of the Literary and Historical Society. 14 January 1885, Quebec, 14 January 1885. 108 Report of the Council of the Literary and Historical Society of Quebec, for the Year 1885. 109 Following a parliamentary crisis over railroad legislation, a minority Liberal government managed to displace the Conservatives in May 1878. Although the Liberals remained in power only until 1879, the LHSQ report of 1885 blames their loss of funding on the “late government,” which refers presumably to the Liberals (since the Conservatives were in power in 1885). There is no evidence to suggest that the LHSQ suffered as a result of the short tenure of the Liberal provincial government in particular, but the society kept repeating its distress about the loss of the small annual grant. 110 Again, no museum curator report (none since 1882). Report of the Council of the Literary and Historical Society of Quebec, for the Year 1885 (1) (Originally published by the Literary and Historical Society of Quebec in Transactions, New Series, no. 18 (1886)). 111 Report of the Council of the Literary and Historical Society of Quebec, for the Year 1887 (Originally published by the Literary and Historical Society of Quebec in Transactions, New Series, no. 19 (1889)) Annual Report. Quebec, 11 January 1888. 112 Report of the Council of the Literary and Historical Society of Quebec, for the Year 1887 (Originally published by the Literary and Historical Society of Quebec in Transactions, New Series, No. 19 (1889)). Annual Meeting, Quebec, January 11th, 1888. 113 Transactions 1890, New Series, no. 20. 114 Report of the Council of the Literary and Historical Society of Quebec, for the Year 1897, 1898 pub. 115 Clint, “Curator’s Report,” Quebec, 7 January 1889. 116 The story of Zacharie Vincent as being the last Huron has been modified in recent years with the realization that the artist was indeed of mixed French and native background, see Louise Vigneault, “Zacharie Vincent,” 239–61. 117 Clint, “The Aborigines of Canada.” 118 Clint, “Curator’s Report.” 119 Report of the Council of the Literary and Historical Society of Quebec, for the Year 1890 (1) (Originally published by the Literary and Historical Society of Quebec in Transactions, New Series, no. 21 (1892)). 120 Report of the Council of the Literary and Historical Society of Quebec, for the Year 1893 (1) (Originally published by the Literary and Historical Society of Quebec in Transactions, New Series, no. 22 (1898)). 121 Report of the Council of the Literary and Historical Society of Quebec, for the Year 1895 (1). 122 Report of the Council of the Literary and Historical Society of Quebec, for the Year 1899. 123 The report also noted the enrichment of the endowment fund by “Archibald Campbell, Esquire, of Thornhill, one of its recent esteemed past Presidents, who presented the Society with an additional cheque for $100.00” and “two life

390  n otes to pages 130–3

124 125 126 127 128 129

subscriptions of $40 each from two life members, Hon. John Sharpies, M.L.C, and Felix Carbray, Esq., M.P.P.” Report of the Council of the Literary and Historical Society of Quebec, for the Year 1899. Report of the Council of the Literary and Historical Society of Quebec, for the Year 1899. Mario Beland discusses the steamship and provides an illustration of the painting, which is now held by the Musée National des Beaux-arts de Québec, in “Le Royal William.” Lapointe, “Inventaire.” Lapointe, “Inventaire,” 30 (my translation). http://www.morrin.org/pages/home.php. See Archival Notes at the end of this chapter for further discussion of the actual storage of the boxes from the LHSQ .

Part Two  Introduction 1 Original italics. Gregor was a professor of English and lectured on German Studies at McGill University in Montreal. Gregor, “The New Canadian Patriotism,” 84. 2 Ibid., 72. 3 Ibid., 70. 4 Ibid., 82. 5 Ibid., 83. 6 Ibid., 93. 7 The political goodwill that seems to underline this period is discussed further in chapters 5 and 6. 8 In examining the problematics of the relation between Britain and Ireland, Mac Laughlin critiques nationalism studies for the “ethnic historicism of Anthony Smith (1986), the cultural reductionism of Benedict Anderson (1983) and Homi Bhabha (1990) and the economic reductionism of Hobsbawn (1962, 1988), Wallerstein (1974) and Nairn (1977),” 6. At various times in these chapters, I refer to Mac Laughlin as I find he provides fresh insight into structures of British modernity that similarily impact the development of post-Confederation Canada. Mac Laughlin, Reimagining the Nation State, 6–7. 9 One member of the jubilee planning committee makes very clear the usefulness of this idea of impressing the young with allegory (see chapter 6). 10 Among the many writers of this period, Rydell, Fair America; Ryan, “The American Parade”; and Davis, Parades and Power contributed significant work on American exhibitions and parades. See also Waldstreicher, In the midst of perpetual fetes; McNamara, Day of Jubilee; Newman, Parades and Politics of the Street. 11 Texts that had a significant impact in North American History departments include work such as Linda Colley’s on Britain: Forging the Nation 1707–1838; see also Hunt on France: Politics, Culture, and Class in the French Revolution. 12 Debord, The Society of the Spectacle; see also Darnton, The Great Cat Massacre. 13 Geertz, “Centers, Kings, and Charisma,” in Local Knowledges. 14 See Stallybrass and White on the transgressive potential of carnival: The Politics and Poetics of Transgression; see also Handelman, Models and Mirrors. 15 Rosenzweig, Eight Hours for What We Will; Wilentz, Rites of Power; Ozouf, Festivals and the French Revolution.

notes to pages 134–41  391

16 Hammerton and Cannadine, “Conflict and Consensus on a Ceremonial Occasion”; McNamara, Day of the Jubilee. 17 Heideking, et. al, Celebrating Ethnicity and Nation; Shane White, “It was a Proud Day.” 18 Arguably, Robert Rydell set the stage for the study of the World’s Fair with his 1987 All the World’s a Fair. His World of Fairs followed in 1993; in 2000, he co-authored Fair America with John Findling and Kimberly Pelle. See also Ganz, The 1933 Chicago World’s Fair. Peter Greenhalgh, another dedicated scholar of world fairs, contributed two major works with Ephemeral Vistas and, more recently, Fair World. 19 Gordon, “Inventing Tradition,” and Making Public Pasts; and Rudin, Founding Fathers and “Marching and Memory in Early Twentieth Century Quebec.” See also Nelles, The Art of Nation-Building; Heron and Penfold on Labour Day parades, “The Craftmen’s Spectacle”; Rutherdale, “Canada’s August Festival”; and Abbott, “Cold Cash and Ice Palaces,” 167–202. 20 Morgan, “A Wigwam to Westminster,” 319–41. 21 Rudin, Founding Fathers. 22 Walden, Becoming Modern in Toronto; Heaman, The Inglorious Arts of Peace. 23 Bains, “Painted Scenery and Decorations in Canadian Theatres, 1765–1825.” http://www.lib.unb.ca/Texts/TRIC/bin/getPrint.cgi?directory=vol3_2/& filename=Baines.htm. 24 For a history of the Victorian penchant for lavishness in scenic effect, see Booth, “Spectacle as Production Style on the Victorian Stage.” 25 Betinna Bradbury and Tamara Myers, eds, explore the “fluidity of boundaries between public and private, the dynamics of identity formation, and forms of regulation and resistance” in an eclectic collection of essays, Negotiating Identities in Nineteeth- and Twentieth-Century Montreal. 26 For an account of the long history of black people in Montreal, see Williams, The Road to Now. 27 Chinese workers and their children were present sufficiently to have a Chinese Mission established in one of the Presbyterian churches of Montreal. I make reference to this mission in chapter 7. 28 Kertzer, Ritual, Power and Politics; Handelman, Models and Mirrors. 29 See Smith, “Almost Pathetic … But Also Very Glorious.” 30 Among numerous possibilities, the following are notable: Qureshi, Peoples on Parade; Johnston, Queering Tourism; Bryan, Orange Parades. 31 See especially Herzfeld’s chapter on “Orders of Display” where he carefully teases out the contributions of Don Handelman to the forms and effects of standardized performance on nation-state social formation. Herzfeld, Anthropology, 274.

Chapter Four 1 While the annual peripatetic provincial fair was staged every few years in Toronto, the explicitly Toronto-based Industrial Fair commenced in 1879. See keyed illustration of fairgrounds in Canadian Illustrated News, 13 September 1879, http://collections.banq.qc.ca/ark:/52327/1777966. 2 In 1887, Toronto’s population was nearly 110,000. 3 Census figures as late as 1905 show 94 per cent of Ontarians identified as “British.” Careless, Toronto to 1918, 200–1.

392  notes to pages 141–6

4 Attendance figures were reported regularly in the press and in the reports filed by the association president. 5 MacAloon, “Olympic Games and the Theory of Spectacle in Modern Societies,” 8. 6 MacAloon discusses Bateson and Goffman in “Cultural Performances, Culture Theory,” 1–18. MacAloon defines what he argues are the distinctive features of spectacle in “Olympic Games and the Theory of Spectacle in Modern Societies,” 243–6. He also notes that other requirements are “grandeur” and the “necessity of audience” (as opposed to ritual, which may be small and individualistic). With respect to the primacy of the visual and aural over spoken dialogue, see also Esty, “Amnesia in the Fields,” 248 (cited in Deborah Sugg Ryan, “Pageantitis,” 54). Sugg Ryan’s research on Frank Lascelles, a professional actor, artist, and Oxford graduate who staged a massive pageant on one thousand years of Oxford’s history, explores the way in which the popular pageants of early twentieth-century Oxford relied on community involvement, visual spectacle, and popular memory. 7 MacAloon, “Cultural Performances, Culture Theory,” 247. 8 Ibid., 270. 9 The panorama A View of the City of Quebec, referred to in chapter 1, was exhibited in 1830 in the Panorama, Leicester Square, London, which could hold giant paintings thirty feet (9 metres) high and ninety feet (twenty-seven metres) across. The Cyclorama, which is a panorama fourteen metres high and 110 metres in circumference, has been on exhibit in Ste-Anne-de-Beaupré, Quebec, since 1895, creates an illusion of daily life in Jerusalem, in the days preceding the death of Christ. 10 Oleksijczuk, The First Panoramas. See also her PHD thesis, The Dynamics of Spectatorship in the First Panoramas. 11 For a relatively far-reaching overview, see Burns, ed., Historiography. 12 McCalman, “Cultural History and Cultural Studies.” 13 H. White, “The Value of Narrativity,” 5–27. 14 Ibid., 14. 15 The language of description in Carlyle’s chapter “Sound and Smoke” is not merely extravagant but morally expectant. The French Revolution, 64. He earlier points out that “when eye fails, ear shall serve; and all France properly is but an Amphitheatre … men walk listening; till the muffled thunder sound audible on their horizon, that they too may being swearing and firing!” 63. 16 This would be a “romantic” form of storytelling by historians (as opposed to satire, comedy, or tragedy, which are the other forms of emplotment): “every history, even the most ‘synchronic’ or ‘structural’ of them, will be emplotted in some way.” White, Metahistory, 8. In Metahistory, White examines several key history writers of the nineteenth century, looking at how and why they wrote history, with emphasis on the poetics of style – essentially making a story out of a series of events that happened. 17 White, “The Value of Narrativity,” 5–27, 793–8. This article foregrounds the idea of moral closure as a narrative strategy. In Metahistory, White defines historical works as verbal structures that can be analyzed as a form of narrative prose. 18 White, Metahistory, 14. 19 Ibid., passim. 20 LaCapra, History and Criticism, 25. 21 King, Spectacular Narratives; Brown, “Spectacle/Gender/History,” 157–78; Neale, “Hollywood Blockbusters,” 47–60.

n otes to pages 147–51  393

22 Brown, “Spectacle/Gender/History,” 158. 23 The decor of history “is associated with the domestic sphere,” particularly with an excess of detail, 159–60. He also explores the gendered construction of the decor of history, which tends to feature women or feminized men. 24 Brown, “Spectacle/Gender/History,” 159. He draws a parallel between his notion of spectacular vista with King’s Spectacular Narratives, in which he “ties cinematic spectacle to the American frontier, perhaps the most significant moment/image in that nation’s image of its past,” 162. 25 Brown, “Spectacle/Gender/History,” 160. 26 Griffiths, Shivers Down Your Spine. 27 In his investigation of the narrative, theatrical, and pictorial arts in nineteenthcentury Britain, Martin Meisel compares literary arts to visual arts, as in the comparison of a poem to its realization as a visual image in a painting. While his extensive study tends to over-consolidate categories of representation and rather narrowly confines representation to either “illusion” or “realization,” the points of difference call attention to the ways in which an understanding of “truth” persists despite fictionalizing strategies. Meisel characterizes illusion as “the representation of reality by less substantial means,” as in the example of a panorama, which is seen as reducing an actual geographic location to an illusion of itself. He argues that realization gives “concrete perceptual form to a literary text.” Even though Meisel seems to value realizations over illusions, he does argue that they are “parallel imaginative creations.” Both concepts may be useful in developing an understanding of nineteenth-century spectacles, which seem to incorporate aspects of illusion and realization. Investigating the narrative, theatrical, and pictorial arts in nineteenth-century Britain, Meisel argues there was a contemporaneous preference for sensation over imitation, as well as the evolution of a pictorial dramaturgy that privileged achieved “situations” and deprivileged thematic evolution. The experiential impact of a sequence of affective scene finales or tableaus is subordinated to narrative, which consists of plot development leading to a final dénouement. Meisel, Realizations, 30. 28 For individuals writing about these experiences, see Walden, Becoming Modern in Toronto, 325–7, especially on fatigue. 29 Debord, The Society of the Spectacle. 30 Samuels, The Spectacular Past. 31 R. Mitchell, Picturing the Past. 32 Saint-Martin, Voir, savoir, croire; Andries and Bollème, La bibliothèque bleue. 33 Hodak, “Du théâtre équestre au cirque,” 662. 34 For a thorough discussion of the visit of the Prince of Wales to Canada, see Radforth, Royal Spectacle. 35 Advertisement, “Pains Fireworks,” Fireworks, 32, 1997. 36 James Pain (of Mitcham, England) gave his interest in the North American branch of his business to his son, Henry John Pain, in 1884. Montague, “James Pain and Sons of Mitcham,” 33. 37 Hand also provided fireworks for the Montreal Winter Carnival, Poulter, Becoming Native, esp. chapter 4. 38 CNE Archives, Small Brochures, 1882. 39 For an extensive contemporaneous report on the British campaign see Colston, “The British Campaign,” 125–265.

394  notes to pages 151–8

40 The Globe, 8 September 1882, 2. 41 The Evening Telegram, 4 September 1882, 1. 42 The Evening Telegram, 4 September 1882, 1; The Globe, 4 September 1882, 2. There were numerous headlines even within one edition of the paper. 43 The Globe and The Evening Telegram respectively. 44 The Globe, 12 September 1882, 9. 45 Canadian Illustrated News, 9 September 1882. 46 The Globe reported troop numbers, 8 September 1882, 2. Whether these numbers were entirely accurate is another question. They nevertheless suggest a proportional disparity in that the troop numbers of the British were described as fifty per cent or less than the forces of the Orabi. 47 The Globe, 12 September 1882, 9. 48 The Globe, 16 September 1882, 3. 49 Keith Walden discusses the reactions of spectators, the relative lack of spectacle at the event and the lack of negative response to the unruly crowds in Becoming Modern in Toronto, 93–7. 50 The Globe, 16 September 1882, 13. 51 A few years were to elapse before the economic downturn of the mid-1880s. 52 The governor general of Canada is still technically the head of state. 53 The Globe, 5 September 1883, 5. 54 Ibid. 55 The Beckwith family had been performing on Toronto Island, and brought their water tank (twelve feet long, six feet high, and three feet wide) to the exhibition for daily performances. The Globe, 5 September 1883, 5. 56 There is no mention of the Alexandria piece on the day itself. I believe this may have been another set piece by Prof. Hand. 57 The destruction of Pompeii was also popularized as visual entertainment in painted panoramas such as Donaldson and Burford, Description of a view of the ruins of the city of Pompeii (1824) and Donaldson and Burford, Description of a second view of Pompeii (1824). Pompeii was one of numerous cities of historic importance, such as Rome, Athens, and Constantinople, that were displayed in London in the nineteenth century. For further detail, see, Erle, Hunt, and West, eds, Panoramas 1787–1900. 58 Pain & Sons, “Fireworks – Last Days of Pompeii, Alexandra Palace, Muswell Hill,” 5 November 1878. 59 CNE Archives, Small Brochures, 1886. 60 The Globe, 14 September 1886, 4. 61 Penson, Memoirs, undated MSS in Hands Fireworks Archives, Prescott, Ontario. 62 President of the Fair Association, Withrow, quoted in The Globe, 7 September 1887, 4. 63 The Daily Telegram, 15 September 1887. 64 The Globe, 9 September 1887, 4. 65 Ibid. 66 The Globe, 15 September 1887, 4. 67 Walter and Smith theatrical and masquerade costumers supplied the costumes for the actors employed. The Globe, 14 September 1887, 9. 68 CNE Archives, Small Brochures, 1888. 69 Ibid.

notes to pages 159–67  395

70 The Globe, 12 September 1889, 4. 71 The Globe, 31 August 1889, 20. 72 The Globe, 12 September 1889, 4. 73 Quotes taken from covers of the small brochure for 1893. 74 “The Congress of Nations,” as it was dubbed, included “Esquimaux, natives from Java, Dahomey, Tunis, Algeria, Cabyle, Japan, Turkey, Egypt, Greece, India and Persia, and some Aissaowas, also a representative of a Turkish Harem, sword fencers, musicians and dancers.” 75 The Globe, 1 September 1893, 5. 76 The Globe, 6 September 1893, 10. 77 The Globe, 13 September 1893, 9. 78 Said, Orientalism, passim. 79 However, a painted panorama entitled Tel-el-Kebir was exhibited at the Crystal Palace in London in July 1886. 80 As Mike Gubser argues, nineteenth-century art historian Franz Wickhoff was the first to write about the Impressionists’ use of “continuous narration.” This is a representational strategy developed in Roman Art, in which characters would reappear in different panels of a sculptural relief, so the story/narrative could unfold – not unlike a comic strip. The point here is that the staging of the spectacle created a sense of evolving time, even though the backdrop did not actually change. Gubser, Art’s Visible Surface, 117–19. 81 The Globe, 9 September 1893, 1. 82 The Globe, 7 September 1893, 2. 83 Hands Fireworks, Prescott, Ontario. 84 J.M.B. quoted in The Globe, 9 September 1893, 1. 85 Rigney, The Rhetoric of Historical Representation, 176. 86 J.M.B., The Globe, 9 September 1893, 1. 87 Ibid. 88 The Globe, 8 September 1893, 2. 89 Ibid. 90 Said, Orientalism, passim. 91 J.M.B., The Globe, 9 September 1893, 1. 92 Walden, Becoming Modern, 325–6. 93 The Globe, 21 June 1887, 4. 94 Crawford Taylor, The Queen’s jubilee and Toronto “called back” from 1887, esp. 343–70. 95 The relationship between nationalism, imperialism, and celebration is further explored in my article “God Save the Queen.” 96 The Globe, 21 June 1887, 4. 97 I am grateful for the enthusiasm of Gill Arnott, Senior Keeper of Hampshire Topographical and Printed Collections Hampshire County C Museums Service, Chilcomb House, Chilcomb Lane, Winchester. Hants.

Chapter Five 1 As Dorothy Thompson put it, “the increase of empire and the increase of royal pomp and ritual went naturally together, and the queen went along with both processes willingly.” Thompson, Queen Victoria, 128.

396  notes to pages 167–85

2 See Thompson, Queen Victoria, 134–6, in which she notes that the doubts were few and far between, and seemingly of little public consequence. 3 Here, I remind the reader that in using canadiens, I am following contemporaneous usage in most English- and in some French-language publications of the 1890s. In referring to the native, French-speaking population of Quebec, local practice did not use “Québécois” as is common today. In Quebec City, “canadienFrançais” was beginning to displace “canadien,” which had dominated earlier discussions of French-Canadian nationalism in the 1820s, for example. In Montreal, “canadien” tends to dominate newspaper accounts, etc. 4 Connolly, Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee, 1. 5 There is a huge literature on the history of nationalism in Canada, with classic work done by Carl Berger, The Sense of Power. A few interesting takes on this history can be seen in McRoberts, Misconceiving Canada; Bannerji, The Dark Side of the Nation; and Rudin, “From the Nation to the Citizen.” For a review essay done in 2008, see Chilton, “Canada and the British Empire.” 6 Joseph-Emery Robidoux is recorded as declaring “Vive La Reine” in L’Événement, 23 June 1897. Discussed further below. 7 Bouchard’s paradigm is much more complex than briefly described here. Bouchard, Genèse des nations et culture du nouveau monde. The paradigm of “survivance” and the propositions are defined on pages 107–10. 8 Letourneau, Passer à l’avenir. 9 I discuss below and in chapter 8 the importance of the liberal canadien presence in 1896, when the prime minister, the premier of the Quebec, and the mayors of Montreal and Quebec were all canadiens. 10 For more on the role of republican and imperial rhetoric in Britain during Victoria’s reign, see Thompson, Queen Victoria, especially chapters 5 to 7; Royle, Radicals, Secularists and Republicans; and Mackenzie, Propaganda and Empire. On the forms in which liberal and imperial discourse were present in Canada, especially in Quebec, during the last decades of the nineteenth century, see Bouchard, “Une nation, deux cultures”; Linteau, Durocher and Robert, Histoire du Québec contemporain, vol. 1; and Trofimenkoff, The Dream of Nation. 11 LeVasseur, Quebec Jubilee Souvenir Number. 12 The popular seven-part cycle of life was often worked out visually by medieval artists through the use of devices and clothing, e.g., the child would hold a toy, the man a sword. See Sears, The Ages of Man. I am grateful to Richard Schneider for reminding me of this topos and for providing the reference. 13 Nead, Myths of Sexuality, 14. 14 I expand upon the capacity of serial portraits to construct normative life stories through my discussion of the family portraits of Edward Onslow in “Narrating Personal Histories,” 408–23. 15 This theme has been taken up by other authors, but the most classic account may be Thompson, Queen Victoria, 115. 16 LeVasseur, “Queen Victoria’s Jubilee,” 9. 17 Brassard and Hamelin, “Simon-Napoléon Parent.” 18 See my discussion of Benjamin in the Introduction. 19 The Wickenden portrait still graces the halls of the Quebec Town Hall. A headand-shoulders version of the Wickendon portrait can also be found on page 53 in

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Côté, Les maires de la Vieille capitale, 53–7. It appears that Wickendon painted two official portraits of the mayor. 20 This is not a gratuitous observation, as Mayor Jean Drapeau’s policy of placing Montreal in the international forum, through the visibility of socio-cultural phenomenon such as Expo 67 and “Floralie” of 1980, can be seen as somewhat akin to Parent’s high-profile opening of Victoria Park (discussed further below) and his grand socio-economic development projects such as the building of the Quebec Bridge. Drapeau was famed for his desire to bring Montreal to international attention, as evident in such comments as “Let Toronto become Milan. Montreal will always be Rome.” For more on the bombastic mayor who saw Montreal as his dominion, see McKenna and Purcell, Drapeau. For more on Parent, see Louis-Marie Côté, Les maires de la vieille capitale, 53–7. 21 Anonymous, Queen’s Diamond Jubilee Souvenir. 22 Allen, Souvenir of Diamond Jubilee. 23 See Little, Nationalism, Capitalism, and Colonization in Nineteenth Century Quebec. 24 For more on portraiture and its meanings, see Marcia Pointon, Hanging the Head. 25 LeVasseur, “Carnaval 1996.” 26 The years 1896 and 1897 were particularly favourable for Laurier’s popularity. Two compelling readings of Laurier’s political and social reality are seen in Bélanger, Wilfrid Laurier, and Stewart, Wilfrid Laurier. 27 I have not been able to confirm earlier publication of this story although it is quite plausible that it would have been published when LeVasseur was writing for L’Événement during the 1880s and ’90s. 28 LeVasseur, “Carnaval 1996,” 26–7. My translation. 29 The phrase “I will be good” was and is widely attributed to Victoria. Upon hearing that she would be queen, eleven-year-old Victoria reportedly said to her governess, “I will be good.” This is in essence the idea of a totalizing narrative, in that the subject posits her future as good, before the actual events have occurred. See White, who argues that history can be understood as a totalizing narrative shaped through the moral rhetoric of the storyteller, “The Value of Narrativity,” 5–27 (esp. 26). 30 “God Save the Queen” was regularly employed in French-language texts without translation into French: for example, Le Courrier du Canada, 23 June 1897 (“journal des interests Canadiens [a journal reflecting the interests of Canadiens]”). LeVasseur inserts “God save the Queen!” as a slogan/motto between the penultimate and final paragraphs of the French text in the souvenir number, although he uses the French translation in the body of the paragraph, Quebec Jubilee Souvenir Number, 11. 31 LeVasseur, Quebec Jubilee Souvenir Number, 15. 32 Minutes of the Municipal Council of 1897 published in [ville de Québec], Documents publié par ordre du Conseil de ville en vertu de la résolution du 18 juin, 1898. 33 During the years immediately preceding the 1837 rebellion, the rivalry between the two cities was accelerated by Montreal-based business interests calling for the union of Upper and Lower Canada. The rivalry was further exacerbated over the following decades by ongoing efforts to assert economic and social superiority, and it was maintained by personal polemics. 34 Chapleau had settled into semi-retirement by becoming lieutenant-governor in 1892. His career spanned local, provincial, and national politics. He was a strong

398  notes to pages 199–204

nationaliste, yet believed in Confederation. Even as lieutenant-governor, he continued to write political articles, under a pseudonym, for La Presse. For details of his career, see Désilets, “Joseph-Adolphe Chapleau.” 35 Chapleau’s presence was also noted in other local papers, including the French-language journal Le Courrier du Canada. Quebec Morning Chronicle, 23 June 1897. 36 Célébration à Québec du 60e anniversaire de l’heureux événement de Sa Majesté la reine Victoria, 1. 37 Before the granting of responsible government and the emergence of the position of premier, the provincial secretary was the leading position in the (appointed) Executive Councils of British North America. Frequently, provincial secretaries during these periods were the most powerful elected representatives in their jurisdictions. 38 Duffy’s speech was not even included in the Municipal Council’s publication of 1898. However, the summary of Duffy’s speech (published in L’Événement, 23 June 1897) was included. 39 L’Événement, 23 June 1897. English translations of Duffy’s speech are my own. “La belle bataille” has been translated as “the glorious battle.” 40 L’Événement, 23 June 1897. The full text of Robidoux’s speech was reprinted in several French-language newspapers, including Le Soleil, 23 June 1897. (Le Soleil did not summarize Duffy’s speech, although it did mention his “exceptional oration” and the “lively applause.”) The conservative L’Événement and the liberal Le Soleil were thus both seen to support Robidoux’s vision. 41 Louis-Joseph Papineau was the leader of the Patriotes that led the 1837 rebellion (sixty years earlier). 42 “La patrie” is defined here as “the mother country” – literally, the place to which the exiled wished to return. Their return from the United States was a result of a general amnesty for the rebels granted in 1844. 43 The Americanism “business is booming,” which had only recently appeared in print (in American advertisements from 1879, OED), suggests the desire of the local businessmen to reach a wide audience. The expression specifically referred to the flourishing of business and the advancing on a tide of prosperity, a usage that confirms the notions of Liberal progress through economic, social, and technical advances. 44 While this was the printing plant of the English-language daily the Telegraph, the Telegraph Job Printing Office printed a variety of English- and French-language publications ranging from flyers to booklets. For example, in 1894, the Telegraph Job Printing Office published the carnival souvenir booklet in English and in French: Carnival Number of Quebec and Le Carnaval – both dated 29 January 1894. 45 Of note is that the new Victoria Park incorporated the site of the “Landing of Jacques Cartier” in its grounds. 46 Quebec Jubilee Souvenir Number. 47 As in Le Courrier du Canada, 23 June 1897. 48 An advertisement for the spectacle can be seen on microfiche, CIHM 58713. 49 Quebec Jubilee Souvenir Number, 15. 50 Original emphasis, Quebec Jubilee Souvenir Number, 15. 51 Quebec Jubilee Souvenir Number, 3.

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52 The expressed relationship between Canada and Great Britain similarly echoes this relationship, which was voiced by Laurier during his jubilee visit: “Replying to the saying that the British colonies are to become nations, [Laurier insisted that] Canada was a nation, that Canada was free … [The Canadian people’s] connection with Great Britain is that which they choose to maintain.” Editorial for The Gazette, 21 June 1897, 4. 53 The papers did not establish long-running publication records. Le Jean-Baptiste was published irregularly until 1909 (1902, 1903, 1905, 1909) and then more regularly after 1909. Le Canadien Français was published annually from 1899 to 1905 inclusive and then irregularly after that. 54 Lortie, Album Biographique, unpaginated. The Album Biographique contains both the biographical data of the council members and the entrepreneurs of the new Hôtel de Ville. 55 L’Événement, 23 June 1897. 56 Henri Bourassa, leader of the nationalistes, was based in Montreal. His opposition to Laurier and the Liberal Party only relented somewhat between 1902 and 1908 (Bourassa reconciled with Laurier after the 1902 Colonial Conference given the latter’s anti-imperialist stance on Canadian military involvement in the British armies, but the relationship soured over the Naval Service Bill of 1908).

Chapter Six

1 2 3 4

The Gazette, 21 June 1897. Paraphrased and translated from the report in La Minerve, 23 June 1897, 4. My translation, “Le char de la confédération,” La Presse, 5 June 1896. The things are part of the research object (as per the methodology triad discussed in the introduction). I say “things” here to evoke the idea of particular things. Thing theory borrows from Heidegger’s distinction between objects and things, whereby an object becomes a thing when it is somehow made to stand out against the backdrop of the world in which it exists. Thing theorists look at the role of things within literature – at the fixation on particular objects. The theory was largely created by Bill Brown, who edited a special issue of Critical Inquiry on “Things.” 5 See chapter 5 for more on the jubilee rhetoric. 6 The Gazette, 22 June 1897, 2. 7 For example, see: Egerton, A Short History of British Colonial Policy. Egerton rather grandiosely states, “The proceedings at the Diamond Jubilee of 1897 were an overt proclamation that a new idea of the empire was taking shape, and that, in the future, the Mother Country, as her children attained to manhood, would be content to be prima inter pares” (981); Routhier, too, notes that the joy was universally expressed: “du Bengale, de l’ancienne Golconde, ou de la Nouvelle-Zélande, ceux-là des bords du Gange, du Nil, et du Saint-Laurent, les uns de Madras, de Bombay, de Hong-Kong, et les autres de l’île Maurice, de l’Australie, et du Cap de Bonne-Espérance!” La reine Victoria et son jubilé, 82; Lancefield, Victoria: Sixty Years a Queen. 8 Recent critical responses to colonialism and nationalism point to specifics of imperial practices in particular nations. Jim Mac Laughlin’s Reimagining The Nation-State is particularly pertinent in that his critical examination of “big nation British nationalism and minority Irish nationalism” provides useful

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questions for thinking about English and French-Canadian nationalisms. See also the work of Ann Laura Stoler on gendered and racial practices in colonialism, such as Carnal Knowledge and Imperial Power. 9 This normalizing is seen somewhat in Anderson’s Imagined Communities, in that economic development as progress is taken for granted. See my introduction for more of an overview on nationalism and identity. 10 See Thobani, Exalted Subjects. 11 Elected to the House of Commons in 1896 as an independent Liberal, Henri Bourassa resigned in 1896 in protest of the sending of Canadian troops to the Boer War. He accused then Prime Minister Wilfrid Laurier of selling out to British Liberals. Bourassa quickly broke ranks with Laurier and his pro-imperialist tendencies. Bourassa created the Ligue nationaliste (Nationalist League) in 1903 as a means of encouraging a pan-Canadian nationalism among the canadiens. 12 The Gazette, 21 June 1897, 4. 13 The Gazette, 24 May 1897. 14 Canadian Methodist Magazine, 25 June 1887, 507. 15 Popular song of the day, reprinted in a Methodist magazine for general appreciation and recitation aloud. Canadian Methodist Magazine, 25 June 1887, 511. 16 See introduction for more on the relevance of post-colonial theory to my research triad. 17 The range of anti-English sentiments from Quebec was sometimes broadly supported; other times, the actions of a few were taken to be the sentiments of many: from resistance to conscription during the wars (“it’s not our war”), the Quiet Revolution of the 1950s and ’60s (“the Catholic church does not speak for us”), the FLQ (violent drive for separatism of the 1970s), and the Parti Québécois (a political drive for separation from the 1970s). 18 There is no mention of non-white populations participating, even though both aboriginal and black people lived in Montreal at the time (mostly as servants and menial labourers). My discussion of the parade below provides some details about the representations of women and children, blacks, and “Indians” who populate a few of the allegorical chars. Williams, The Road to Now. 19 Davis, Parades and Power. 20 Hammerton and Cannandine, “Conflict and Consensus on a Ceremonial Occasion,” 146. 21 See the introduction to Part Two for an overview of public spectacle and celebration in other Canadian provinces. 22 The impact of the North-West Rebellion continued to be felt across Canada for decades after 1885. Chapleau, discussed in chapter 5, was deeply torn between canadien loyalties and his participation in the Conservative Party of Prime Minister Macdonald. For an early work on the rebellion, see Mulvany, The History of the North-west Rebellion of 1885. For recent work on the rebellion and its significance, see Flanagan, Riel and the Rebellion; Reid, Long, and Carrasco, Louis Riel and the Creation of Modern Canada; and Stonechild and Waiser, Loyal Till Death. Recently a number of private members’ bills have been introduced to Canadian Parliament in an attempt to exonerate Riel, see http://political-apologies.wlu.ca/ details.php?table=doc_primary&id=427. 23 Unfortunately the transparency is not illustrated, but the paper makes a point of saying that the Mechanics Hall was extensively decorated with transparencies.

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24 For more on civic parades in the Canadas, see the introduction to Part Two. Other major civic gatherings are associated with anniversaries, such as the procession of the Irish Society in June 1898 when they celebrated their centenary. Illustrated in La Presse, 27 June 1898, 1. 25 Duvernay’s first gathering was a dinner of fellow patriotes in 1832 at which they adopted Saint Jean-Baptiste as their patron saint. It has also been noted that the date on the liturgical calendar usually coincides with the summer solstice, thus providing a lit summer evening for the celebrations. 26 In 1894, the vice-consul of France and the president of the St. Patrick’s Society attended mass at St. Jacques Cathedral (St. James). La Presse, 24 June 1887, 1. 27 In 1897, the Montreal branch declined the invitations to participate in the celebrations organized by the St-Jean-Baptiste societies of Lewiston, Maine, and Malone, New York. Rumilly, Histoire de la Société Saint-Jean-Baptiste de Montréal. 28 La Presse, 25 June 1885, reported that societies from Farnham, St-Albans, StHyacinthe, Sherbrooke, Champlain, Malone, NY , and Burlington, Vermont, participated in the parade at St-Jean. 29 A long article on the precedents for the fires took most of the first page of La Presse, 23 June 1894, 1. 30 Gordon, Making Public Pasts, 154. 31 “Montréal, cette année, a voulu laisser à d’autres localités, l’honneur des grandes démonstrations. Ce système de décentralisation sera apprécié comme il doit l’être.” (“Montreal, this year, wished to leave to other locales, the honour of [holding] the large parades. This system of decentralization will be appreciated as it should be.”) La Presse, 21 June 1885. 32 La Presse, 25 June 1885, 3, 4. 33 Ibid. 34 Evening events included a “séance dramatique et musical fort intéressante dans la grande salle du collège, et qu’il y avait foule” (“a dramatic and musical event [that was] very interesting in the large hall belonging to the college, and there was a large crowd [in attendance]”). 35 Whitehall is one of the “little Canadas” or towns where French Canadians migrated in the nineteenth century. Many continued to see themselves as French Canadian and celebrated St-Jean Baptiste Day. On the waning of this nationaliste attachment, see Yves Roby, Franco-Americans of New England, 2004, 207–10. 36 La Minerve, 23 June 1887, 1. 37 La Presse, 24 June 1887, 1. 38 La Minerve, 23 June 1885. 39 This call for union would show up in the Pontifical Mass, where the priest would urge the parishioners to hold to a union of the original French people, resist the efforts of a “despotic tyrant,” yet remain welcoming to the strangers around them. A mixed message for sure. La Presse, 25 June 1885. 40 For more on the accounting of the rebellion as “troubles sanglants,” see chapter 5. 41 Weir, The Metropolitan Jubilee Souvenir, 17. 42 See discussion of Smith in the introduction to Part Two. 43 The Gazette, 5 May 1897, 4. 44 Ibid. 45 This refusal is affirmed in Rumilly, Histoire de la Société Saint-Jean-Baptiste, 172.

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46 The Gazette, 8 May 1897. Rev. J. Edgar Hill was the minister of St Andrew’s Church, Montreal, and the chaplain of the St Andrew’s Society. 47 The original caps were obviously for extra emphasis, The Gazette, 5 May 1897, 4. 48 The Gazette, 22 June 1897, 2. 49 Both the English- and French-language press reported an estimate of 20,000 men from the French societies prior to the event. The Gazette, 5 and 6 June 1897; La Presse, 4 June 1897, 1. 50 See La Presse, 2 June 1894, for a full-page, illustrated description of the society and an account of the activities of its 3,533 members. Secret societies included such organizations as the Masons and the Orangemen (Protestants), but the real target was probably the Knights of Labour, who attempted to aid organized labour (early unionization). 51 A large advertisement for the Alliance Nationale was placed in La Presse on the eve of St-Jean-Baptiste Day on 23 June 1894. It established the four aims of the national organization, which seems to some extent to have been in competition with the St-Jean-Baptiste Society. 52 The electrification of chars was discussed several times over the two months prior to the event. The offer from the electric company to provide platforms, 25 feet by 7 feet, with a conductor, for $35 was noted in several papers, and in slightly more detail in La Presse, 2 June 1897, 1. 53 La Minerve, 23 June 1897, 4; The Gazette, 22 June 1897, 2. 54 The illustration depicts the char occupied by a single female figure with elaborate headdress sitting on an enormous plough. This is listed as the char from the Section St Vincent de Paul, which apparently was supposed to be placed much later in the parade. So from the extant evidence, it is not possible to be sure if there were two plough themes, or if they switched them at the last minute, but we can be sure that there was a plough on the Le Progrès char, as was reported after the event by both French and English press. La Minerve, 23 June 1897, 4; The Gazette, 22 June 1897, 2. 55 The Gazette, 17 June 1897, 3. 56 Map of Montreal available in J. Castell Hopkins, Canada : An Encyclopaedia of the Country, vol. 5, 16–19. 57 Bradbury and Myers, “Introduction: Negotiating Identities in Nineteenth- and Twentieth-Century Montreal,” 1–22. 58 Probably Louis-Philippe Hébert and Octave-Henri Julien, La Presse, 24 May 1897, 8. 59 The Gazette, 17 June 1897, 6. 60 The Metropolitan Jubilee Souvenir. Possibly written in its entirety by Arthur Weir. 61 Twice the celebrations achieved exceptional dimensions. In 1874, Montreal saw 60,000 visitors, half of them Franco-Americans, celebrating in grand style the fortieth anniversary of the founding of the St-Jean-Baptiste Association. A hymn, “Rallions-nous,” was composed by Charles-Marie Panneton to words by Benjamin Sulte. The minutes of the association mention chars for the first time. They were to number fifteen on that occasion, and the procession would also include thirty-one bands. The choir of the Collège de Montréal sang the eucharist in Notre-Dame Church. A banquet in the hall of Bonsecours Market and a musical jubilee on St Helen’s Island were among the memorable events. J.-B. Labelle

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wrote and conducted a cantata for the occasion. The celebration in Quebec City in 1880 coincided with another national convention of French Canadians. Band concerts in the public squares on the evening of 23 June drew enormous crowds. The next day a choir of more than five hundred voices performed Gustave Gagnon’s arrangement of Du Mont’s Messe royale accompanied by the bands of the 9th Battalion and the Union musicale. Calixa Lavallée’s national song “O Canada,” composed for the occasion, was performed that day. Some 20 chars took part in a parade of 112 associations and numerous bands from Canada and the United States. Taken from The Canadian Encyclopedia of Music, on line, “St-Jean-Baptiste celebrations,” http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.com/index.cfm?PgNm =TCE&Params=U1ARTU0003085. 62 “Canadiens, rallions-nous tous autour du nouveau drapeau. Notre constitution assure la paix et l’harmonie. Tous les droits seront respectés; toutes les races seront traitées sur le même pied; et tous, Canadiens-français, Anglais, Écossais, Irlandais, membres unis de la même famille, nous formerons un État puissant, capable de lutter contre les influences indues de voisins forts auxquels nous pourrons dire: “Et ega foederatus recedam a te.” (“Canadians, let us all gather around the new flag. Our constitution ensures peace and harmony. All our rights will be respected; all the races will be treated the same; and everyone, French-Canadians, English, Scottish, Irish, members of the same family, we will create a strong state, capable of fighting the undue influence of strong neighbours to whom we can say: ‘This union refuses you.’”) Lionel Groulx, La Minerve, 2 July 1867. 63 La Presse, 23 June 1897. 64 The Gazette, 16 June 1897, 3. 65 Giroux includes details of the procession and banquet of the 1884 St-JeanBaptiste Day festivities in Grand cinquantenaire de la St.-Jean-Baptiste. 66 Rumilly, Histoire de la Société Saint-Jean-Baptiste de Montréal, 172. 67 Richard Jebb (1874–1953) was an “Empire publicist,” that is, an independently wealthy scholar whose his first major article, “Colonial Nationalism,” was published in Empire Review (August 1902). In the article, he rejects the ideas of free trade and “imperial nationalism” to promote a system of mutual preference in trade and a political arrangement that recognized the colonies’ own sense of nationhood and autonomy. He continued this theme, calling for “alliance” rather than federation in his first and most influential book, Studies in Colonial Nationalism, which aimed to give Britons a true account of opinion in the self-governing colonies. Jebb claimed to have perceived this in Quebec in the 1890s. 68 Debord, The Society of the Spectacle. 69 Geertz, “Centers, Kings, and Charisma,” 122–3. 70 In the 1970s and ’80s, Turner was well known for developing the earlytwentieth-century work of Arnold van Gennep – that rites of passage could be understood as “liminal,” i.e. occurring in the in-between process of disintegration of the old and building of the new. Turner broadened the concept, which is now often applied in social and political sciences, to refer to processes of dissolution and formation in and across space and time. “Liminality and Communitas,” in The Ritual Process. 71 Great inroads towards solving this dilemma have been made by the emergence of the field of digital humanities. In the Chronicle of Higher Education’s special issue “The Digital Campus,” Kathleen Fitzpatrick traced the term’s changeover from

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“humanities computing” to “digital humanities” to the naming of the Blackwell “A Companion to Digital Humanities” (2001). Fitzpatrick attributes the change to a naming attempt by editors John Unsworth and Ray Siemens to prevent the field from being considered “mere digitization.” “The Humanities, Done Digitally,” B26.

Part Three  Introduction 1 Knudsen, ”Intersectionality,” 61–76. Accessed 26 November 2007. http://www.caen.iufm.fr/colloque_iartem/pdf/knudsen.pdf. 2 Butler, Undoing Gender, Routledge, 2004; Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity, Feminism and the Subversion of Identity, Routledge, 1990. 3 An earlier discussion of Bhabha can be seen in the introduction and in chapter 3. “DissemiNation.” 4 Stanworth, “Historical Relations”; “Narrating Personal Histories.” 5 Soussloff, The Subject in Art, 26. Also see Riegl, The Group Portraiture of Holland. 6 Zygmont, Portraiture and Politics in New York City. 7 Katz and Ward, Hide/Seek. 8 Powell, Cutting a Figure. 9 Major-Marothy and Perry, eds, “The Portrait Issue/La question du portrait.” 0 Bara, “Cody’s Wild West Show in Canada,” 153–5. 1 Schwartz, “Felix Man’s ‘Canada,’” “Un beau souvenir du Canada”; Skidmore, “All that is interesting in the Canadas”; Williams, The Road to Now; Carter, Capturing Women; Bassnett, “Shooting Immigrants,” “From Public Relations to Art”; Close, Framing Identity. 2 Payne and Kunard, eds, The Cultural Work of Photography in Canada. 3 Evans, “Colonizing Images,” 93–105; Bassnett “Shooting Immigrants,” 106–19.

Chapter Seven 1 Reference to the items the girls had to bring, and to their curriculum, can be seen in Educational Circular of the Misses Neil McIntosh, Bute House, 844 Sherbrooke Street, Montreal, c. 1873. McGill University Archives, MG 2020, Acc. No. 077, ref. 1. 2 For an argument that some of Notman’s portraits of wealthy girls may reveal ideas about how girls should be informally educated, see Lerner, “William Notman’s Portrait Photographs of the Wealthy English-speaking Girls of Montreal: Representations of Informal Female Education in Relation to John Ruskin’s ‘Of Queen’s Gardens’ and Writings by and for Canadians from the 1850s to 1890s,” Historical Studies in Education/Revue d’histoire de l’éducation, Fall/automne 2009, 65–87. 3 All archival records referring to Bute House photos refer to Isabella and Anabella, but I believe Annie Moore McIntosh b. 1829, d. 29 December 1874, needs to be included. “Ann Moore McIntosh” is described in the death records of St Andrew’s Presbyterian as having “died of consumption at the residence of her mother, Bute House, Sherbrooke St.” 4 For the purposes of this discussion, I use “girls” to refer to the youngest girls, who range from infancy to 12; “young women” for girls 12 to 21. This usage follows

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more or less contemporary usage, although “young women” could be very broadly applied. I also use their first names, as their family names are not always known. 5 The literature is quite extensive, see some of these key texts: Bradbury and Myers, Negotiating Identities in Nineteenth- and Twentieth-Century Montreal; Baskerville, A Silent Revolution?: Gender and Wealth in English Canada, 1860–1930; for an overview, see: Fahmy-Eid, “History of Education,” 18–36; for more specific case studies, see Perry, “A Concession to Circumstances,” 327–60; Burke, “Women of Newfangle.” 6 Geertz, Local Knowledge. 7 Geertz’s famous essay examined the depth of meaning layered into the seemingly obvious game of the Balinese cockfight. He called this method of observation “thick description,” meaning that through close and detailed examination the observer could try to get at the complex relations implicated in cultural activity. Stuart Clark has argued that historians have picked up on Geertz’s concept yet have failed to address the theoretical implications of Geertz’s work. In his paper at the “Clifford Geertz in the Human Sciences” conference, Clark began with the observation that historians incessantly name Geertz in their footnotes but those same historians have largely misunderstood Geertz’s work. According to Clark, even historians committed to “thick description” often continued to practice “thin history.” The reason for this was a failure to engage with the theoretical implications of Geertzian thick description, taking it instead as a call for “more description.” Thick description is based in Ryle’s contention that accounts of human action always need to be described adverbially. This places the interpretation of meaning at the centre of thick description. Similarly, Clark charged that many historians have failed to recognize the ontological consequences of Geertzianism for their work. Rather than adopting a preference for the most “accurate” observers or sources, Geertzian history would need to be agnostic on truth and falsity, and focus instead on the success or failure of the object in terms of what it purported to be. The papers presented by Reed, Smith, Trondman, and Alexander are forthcoming in Cultural Sociology as part of a colloquium on “Clifford Geertz and the Strong Program.” 8 On other albums, see the introduction to this section, and further discussion below. 9 Christopher graciously provided me with a CD copy of all his research and gave me permission to use it as I saw fit. 10 E. Edwards, Raw Histories. 11 Ibid., 28. 12 Benjamin, Theses on History. 13 Stoler, Along the Archival Grain. 14 Ibid., 51. 15 For more on scrapbooking and the commercial relation to photographic albums, see Elizabeth E. Siegel, “‘Miss Domestic’ and ‘Miss Enterprise,’ Or, How to Keep a Photograph Album,” 251–67, and the edited collection of other essays in Susan Tucker, Katherine Ott, and Patricia Buckler, The Scrapbook in American Life. 16 McCord photographic collection. II -333015, 20 × 25 cm, Archives of McGill. 17 Stanley Triggs seems to have been the first to write specifically about the composite photograph, which was undoubtedly as a result of his work in the Notman Archive. Triggs, William Notman.

406  n otes to pages 269–73

18 On photography as a cultural practice in Canada, see Payne and Kunard, The Cultural Work of Photography in Canada; Poulter, Becoming Native. 19 This description of the different types of wet-collodian plates is taken from Hague, “In the eye of the camera, 1840–1867.” The web article provides an interesting overview of the early photographic processes. 20 The term “composite photograph” was also used by a near contemporary, an Englishman named Francis Galton. Photographs of different subjects were combined, through repeated limited exposure, to produce a single blended image. The intent was to see if a recognizable criminal type could be revealed by such composites. The existence of any such type was ultimately disproven. Links to Galton’s publications of photos from 1878 onward can be found at http://galton.org/composite.htm Accessed 10 May 2011. 21 The Canadian Illustrated News, Montreal, 21 May 1870, taken from Triggs, The Composite Photographs, no pagination. http://www.mccord-museum.qc.ca/en/keys/ virtualexhibits/notmanstudio/themes/composites/page4.html. 22 Batchen, Burning with Desire; Batchen, Forget Me Not. 23 This kind of imaging runs away from Geertz’s notion of the object’s success towards a subject positioning that claims to know more than I feel comfortable claiming. There was a time in the 1990s when artist-scholars such as Jeanne Randall would insert personal response alongside other texts as a way of interrupting an authorized reading. However, that kind of écriture or writing of the self in or on the other has not sustained academic interest, nor has it produced what I would understand as an effective alternative. 24 Poulter, Becoming Native. 25 Carol Payne and Andrea Cunard’s edited anthology considers the ways in which photographs circulate and obtain meaning in that process. The Cultural Work of Photography in Canada. 26 I discuss the ways in which the canadiens see themselves as a race, not a linguistic group, in chapter 3. 27 Langford, Suspended Conversations. 28 See, for example, Dumont-Johnson, L’histoire des femmes au Québec depuis quatre siècles, 180; or Barry, Maitresses de maison, maitresses d’école. 29 For an overview of the issues in early schooling in Canada, see Axelrod, The Promise of Schooling; for a social history of schooling with nuanced understanding of class issues, see Prentice, The School Promoters. 30 Mann argues that characterizations of femininity were used to describe the French Canadians, The Dream of Nation, especially chapter 7, 112–13. 31 Ultramontanism demanded the supremacy of religion over state. This was particularly problematic in Quebec, where strict application of papal policy dominated politics until the 1960s. 32 Mackay’s Montreal Directory, 1860–61, 151; they were also listed in Lovell’s Directory, 1861, under the same name at the same address. 33 Note that the different spellings of MacIntosh and McIntosh are not surprising as the editors would authoritatively decide on spelling. Lovell’s Directory, 1861–62, 139. 34 Anon., “The Men Who Made McGill,” The Canadian Magazine, 419–20. 35 Personal communication with Rod MacLeod, June 2010. Roderick MacLeod is director of the Quebec Protestant Education Research Project at McGill University.

n otes to pages 273–80  407

36 This phrase was used with ad copy in 1863 present in most of the ads in the 1860s in The Presbyterian. 37 The Presbyterian in 1868, 571. 38 Private communication, June 2010. 39 Mackay’s Montreal Directory, 1864 (for 1864–65), 292. 40 Pelton file, McGill University Archives, MG 2020, Acc. No. 077, ref. 1. 41 Mrs Simpson’s Ladies’ School, 1863; Montreal Collegiate School, 1865 advertisement in Lovell’s Directory. 42 The principal was Mr J.M. Reid, Senior Licentiate of the Royal Educational Institute of Scotland, advertisement with outline of “branches of study” in Lovell’s Directory, 1865, 489. 43 This school was conducted by the Reverend J.A. Devine, who was trained at King’s College and Aberdeen University. 44 Select Grammar School, Mackay’s Directory, 1864, 512. 45 Advertisement in The Presbyterian, February 1862, n.p. Hodgins, Lovell’s General Geography for the Use of Schools, 1867. 46 Holiwell, Address to parents on the Education of Girls, 4. 47 Darwin, A Plan for the Conduct of Female Education in Boarding Schools. 48 Advertisement, Mackay’s Montreal directory, 1863, 316. 49 Ibid. 50 For more on early physical education for girls, see Francis and Lathrop, “Children who drill, seldom are ill,” 61–80, and Smith, “Graceful Athleticism or Robust Womanhood,” 120–37. 51 Not much is known of Mr Ducharme except that he was fifty years old in 1891, at the time of the Canadian census. So he would have been teaching at Bute House in his early thirties. 52 Letter, 28 January 1874, MG 2020, McGill University Archives, Pelton Shearer file. 53 McCord, “Canadian Ferns,” 371. 54 The Presbyterian, 1874, July, 153–4. 55 Ibid. 56 Educational Circular of the Misses (Neil) McIntosh, Bute House, Pelton-Shearer File, MG 2020, Acc. No 077, ref. 1, McGill University Archives, 3. 57 Benedict, “Some outlines from the history of education.” 58 See, for example, extensive writing, speeches, and addresses to the National Educational Association of the United States in the1880s: Dickinson, “Froebel’s System of Education”; Kraus-Boelte, Characteristics of Froebel’s Methods; John Kraus, The Kindergarten; Kraus-Boelte, “The Kindergarten and the Mission of Women”; Harris, “Relations of the Kindergarten to the School”; Hailmann, “From Pestalozzi to Froebel.” 59 Froebel, Education of Man, 13. 60 Hailmann, Kindergarten culture in the family and kindergarten, 25. 61 See MacLeod and Poutanen, A Meeting of the People. 62 The Presbyterian, July 1874, 226. 63 Journal of the French Canadian Missionary Society, February 1874, 22. 64 Anon., “High School for Girls under the direction of the Protestant Board of School Commissioners for Montreal.” 65 Jenkins, “Address,” 3. 66 Ibid., 6.

408  n otes to pages 280–9

67 68 69 70

Ibid., 7. Ibid., 9–10. Married 5 January 1874, so the letter is written a few weeks after she was married. Letter, A. McIver, Bute House, to Mrs Shearer (Carrie Pelton Shearer), 28 January 1874. McGill Archives, MG 2020, cont. 3, 977, folder 1. 71 Cross-writing is the nineteenth-century practice of writing vertically and diagonally on both sides of the same page of paper. Paper was expensive to purchase and to mail. Typically a page would be folded into nine squares, the middle space providing the address, and then the page sealed with wax. 72 Mrs Gibb’s Baby, II -5100, a carte de visite dated spring 1874. 73 The less than flattering portrayal of Gibbs is given by Leo Johnson, “Thomas Nicholson Gibbs,” online, no pagination. 74 Miss M. Gibb, Montreal, QC , 1882, Notman & Sandham, 17 June 1882, Silver salts on paper mounted on paper – Albumen process, 15 × 10 cm, II -65549.1 75 Letter of 1861 from her father, Thomas Pelton, about getting her diploma as soon as possible. MG 2020 Pelton Shearer. 76 MG 2020 c.1, 1041D . 77 MG 2020, 9 November 1861, letter to Carrie from Alice Elizabeth Godfrey. 78 Letter from Carrie to her mother, August 1861, MG 2020. 79 Perry, “A Concession to Circumstances,” 327–60; Patterson, “Voices from the Past,” 99–111. 80 A letter from her mother indicates that Carrie was still in Buckinghamshire in 1867. MG 2020. 81 “Plan of Sittings in St. George’s Church, 1870” is a seating plan for the church that is included in the Pelton-Shearer file in McGill University Archives, MG 2020, cont. 3, 977. The Shearers are in pew 24, the Dawsons on the centre aisle in pew 95, and the Peltons in pew 64. 82 Kate started the Chinese Mission with Miss Grace Lyman. Lighthall, Lyman-Corse Family, McGill University Archives, MS 234, 2. 83 Her file in the Lyman archive includes an Associates ticket for the 54th meeting in Montreal; a card for the Numismatic and Antiquarian Society of Montreal, 15 December 1887 [30/1]; a note that she was elected one of the original members of the Society of Canadian Literature, 20 December 1889. 84 Lighthall, 30/2, 1887. 85 1901 UK Census shows her, thirty-eight years old (so born c. 1863) living alone with her three daughters (eldest is fourteen years old; youngest is age eight) in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, and three servants including Minnie Nicholls, twenty-six years old, children’s maid and domestic; Mary Nobes, twenty-nine, Cook; Elizabeth Needs, twenty-one, Housemaid domestic.

Chapter Eight 1 Intérieur: scène familiale was the title used when the painting was published in R.H. Hubbard, Painters of Quebec (Ottawa: 1973), fig. 55. It was renamed Scène familiale: la leçon de piano sometime after its donation in 1977. It was subsequently published in Le Musée du Québec: 500 oeuvres choisies (Quebec: 1983), fig. 160, fonds: A -77.26-P. 2 Thackeray, Vanity Fair, 248.

n otes to pages 289–301  409



3 Ibid., 247. 4 Flint, “The Family Piece,” 128. 5 Ibid. 6 Stanworth, “Narrating Personal Histories.” 7 Pointon, Hanging the Head. 8 Retford, The Art of Domestic Life, 9. 9 Interesting American examples include Piston and Sweeney, Portraits of Conflict; DuBois Shaw, Portraits of a People; Goodyear, Faces of the Frontier. 10 Nelson, Representing the Black Female Subject in Western Art; Close, Framing Identity. 11 Goldberg, Shohamy and Gorter, eds, Linguistic Landscape, 2. 12 Lambert, John Constable and the Theory of Landscape Painting, 17. 13 Ibid., 16. 14 Stanworth, “Historical Relations.” 15 Stanworth, “Picturing a Personal History,” 408–23; Retford, The Art of Domestic Life. 16 Stanworth, “The Washington Family Portrait” in “Historical Relations.” 17 Flint, “The Family Piece,” 128. 18 For examples of early composite photographs, see the Notman Collection at the McCord Museum. The website is particularly helpful, with many images digitized. 19 Le Musée du Québec, 143, 20 For an overview of Gagnon’s work, especially the scenes of rolling hills and rural life in Baie-St Paul, see Anne Newlands, Clarence Gagnon; for examples of Leduc’s meditative, Symbolist still-life paintings, see Lacroix, Ozias Leduc. 21 For examples of these kinds of portraits and related works, see Pyne, Art and the Higher Life. For a general introduction to portraiture, see West, Portraiture. 22 For an extensive catalogue of Vuillard’s work, see Cogeval, Eduard Vuillard. To see many examples of these interior scenes, consult Borzello, At Home. 23 See for example, Rafael Cardoso Denis, Colin Trodd, Art and the Academy in the Nineteenth Century, Manchester, UK : Manchester University Press, 2000. 24 Studio figures refers to the Academy-supported practice of drawing and/or painting of studio models, usually male nudes. Letter, Gustave Moreau, Paris 1 July 1894 (copy of letter in Larose artist file, National Gallery of Canada). 25 National Gallery Artist’s File. 26 I wrote my major research paper for my MA in Art History on Larose’s Scène familiale, in 1989. 27 Personal conversation between myself and Marcelle Dufour, Larose’s granddaughter, May 1999. 28 Dufour, ”Intérieur de salon, Jeanne au piano.” 29 The Saturday section of La Presse included a “woman’s page.” In the edition of 16 July 1907, p. 16, a short article on “La Coiffure” pointed out that women could be eclectic in their choice of hairstyle as long as they employed variations of the chignon. It was expressly stated that hair coiled up just above the neck, perhaps held with a ribbon, was appropriate for an older girl. 30 “La leçon de coiffure,” Album universel, 23 May 1903, 74. 31 Only one of the dozens of women and girls photographed by Notman in 1907 had her hair dressed in this manner, a Miss Crawford, who was posing for her university graduation portrait. Notman Picture Book, McCord Museum, Montreal, 1907, no. 164,658.

410  notes to pages 303–11

32 Creelman Drawing Room, Photographic Archive, McCord Museum, Montreal. No. MP 204/76 (1) is datable by the presence of a combined gasolier-electrolier which dates c. 1895–1905. See footnote 25. The Stephen’s Interior, Notman Photographic Archive, McCord Museum, Montreal, no. 170,713-II . 33 Marcelle Dufour confirmed in conversation with me that the family lived on Laval Avenue, that there was a piano in the house, and that three children lived there, including Jeanne. 34 For more on what is now known as Le Plateau or the Latin Quarter, see http://www.memorablemontreal.com/accessibleQA/en/histoire.php? quartier=11. 35 Longstaff, Un artiste au quotidien au tournant du XXe siècle. 36 Ibid., 411. 37 Stanley Triggs, Curator of Photography, Notman Photographic Archives, traced Larose’s presence at the studio from October 1883 to September 1885. Due to Larose’s low rate of pay, Triggs suggests Larose could have been an apprentice or general worker. Marcelle Dufour suggested to Triggs that Larose was a “retoucheur,” who added colour to portraits. 38 Linteau, Histoire du Québec contemporain, 295. 39 Maurault, La Paroisse, 87–9. 40 Fréchette, “L’Art à la maison,” 180–1. 41 Jacques Blais, “Louis Fréchette”, n.p. 42 A number of prominent canadiens [such as Antoine-Aime Dorion] were antiConferderationist as they felt that they would be better served by annexation with the United States rather than a federation of British colonies [referring to the illfated U.S. Annexation Bill of 1866]. 43 A list of the paintings done by Larose for the Chapel can be seen in the Appendix. 44 Maurault, La Paroisse, 88. 45 G. Moreau, letter of recommendation of Ludger Larose, 1 July 1894. National Gallery of Canada Artist’s File. 46 See appendix for dates and titles of works. For 1895, the European influenced paintings are A Tunisian and Funerailles dans une gondole. 47 Linteau, Histoire du Québec contemporain, 211. This is the school that was meant to serve as a Montreal branch of Laval, which was approved by Rome in 1876. L’Université de Laval refused to establish the school but the combined support of Bishop Bourget, the Jesuits, and the doctors of the Victoria Medical School resulted in the conflict being decided in Rome. 48 Anon., “L’Enseignement de dessin.” 49 Templé, Méthode nationale de dessin. 50 Ibid., 20. 51 Ibid., 21. 52 “L’Enseignement de dessin,” Le Canada artistique, June 1891, vol. 11, no. 6. 53 Larose, Livre de dépenses, 179, 208, in Longstaff, 55. 54 Unidentified clipping, National Gallery of Canada Artist’s File. 55 Clipping file, National Gallery of Canada Artist’s File. 56 Montreal Gazette, 15 October 1965, from National Gallery of Canada Artist’s File. 57 Linteau, Histoire du Québec contemporain, 264–6. 58 Reference to Hamlin in Linteau, Histoire du Québec contemporain, 266. 59 Linteau, Histoire du Québec contemporain, 267.

notes to pages 312–19  411

60 Ibid., 360. 61 For example, under the headline “Emparons-nous de l’industrie,” the editor of La Presse extols the position taken by M. Errol Bouchette, the author of a contemporaneous book that stressed the importance of economic development for the future of French Canadians. Editorial, La Presse, 3 July 1907, 4. 62 See Copp, The Anatomy of Poverty, 34, for discussion of this recession. 63 Montreal Gazette, 2 January 1907, 7. The pianos were for sale from $350.00 and up. They could be purchased for $10.00 down and $7.00 a month. 64 Advertisement in Le Canada artistique 111, no. 12 (December 1891): 188. Foisy Pianos – “un bon piano à un prix raisonnable, et à des conditions faciles.” August 1989, vol. 11, no. 8. Another image of a Foisy piano, which is not identical to Larose’s, is listed in the edition of May 1891, vol. 11, no. 5, p. 75, under the title “Les Pianos canadiens,” and indicates that second-hand pianos can be bought for as little as $50.00 by seminaries. New pianos are sold for $350 to $500. 65 Fréchette, “L’Art à la maison,” 41. 66 An example of the type of “Victorian bric-a-brac” clutter about which Fréchette was presumably complaining can be seen in a photograph of “Mrs. Vaughan’s dining room” in the Photographic Archives, McCord Museum, Montreal, no. 100,243, misc. II . 67 See Photographic Archives, McCord Museum, no. MP 204/76 (1). Note that this interior is remarkably similar to that portrayed in Larose’s Intérieur: scène familiale. The jardinière is also virtually identical. 68 As early as 1885 over 80 per cent of furniture imports were from the United States (less than 10 per cent from the United Kingdom) and Quebec imported less than half of what was imported into Ontario. It seems likely that this chair and the other furnishings were made or assembled in Montreal, the largest industrial centre in Canada between 1880 and 1920. Canada. Parliament. Sessional Papers, Tables of Trade and Navigation 1867–1930. 69 Private communication with Peter Kaelgren, associate curator, European Department, Royal Ontario Museum, December 1990. 70 The gas lights had a 5.5 cm (5.5 inch) base while the electric bulb was 8.25 cm (3.25 in.) wide. This difference in size is unique to the gasoliers, which combined electricity with gas lighting. 71 The Photographic Archives, McCord Museum, Montreal, yielded several photographs of combined lighting fixtures (not conversions, in which electric lighting was added to gas lamps installed earlier). The earliest example is dated 1899 in “Mrs. Morrice’s library,” no. 128,256 II . An undated example is found in “Mrs. Creelman’s drawing room,” no. MP 204/76 (1). 72 These combined fixtures are only illustrated in the Spring and Summer 1900 (p. 210), Fall and Winter 1900–01 (p. 231) and Fall and Winter 1901–02 (p. 197) issues of the Eaton’s catalogue. 73 Eaton’s catalogue, Spring 1900 to Winter 1902, coloured globes “with fancy scalloped top in red, yellow, blue and pink” were available for $0.65 each. 74 The first electric lighting appeared in Montreal in 1878–79 (earlier lights would have been street arc lamps). In 1880, Edison installed the first incandescent lighting in a Montreal factory. It was industry that first responded to the benefits of electricity over gas. See Russell, A Heritage of Light, 162. 75 Linteau, Durocher, and Robert, Histoire du Québec contemporain, 149.

412  n otes to pages 319–21

76 The only exception I found was in photographs of the interiors with art collections, such as that of Lord Strathcona. 77 Adair, The Frame in America, 39. Adair also notes that the continuous designs were mass-produced from casting plaster and usually covered with gesso, bole, and 23-karat gold leaf. These frames were typically used for American Barbizon and Hudson River landscapes. 78 Le Canada artistique 11, no. 3, May 1891, series on “L’Art a la maison,” 41. While this article is dated fifteen years prior to the date of Larose’s painting, it is probably only ten years prior to the date of the room’s decoration. 79 Notman, no. 124, 911-II . 80 This conservatism is evident in the popularity of Wilfrid Laurier as prime minister. The support for Laurier in Quebec was evident in both “opposition” newspapers such as The Montreal Star and in “government” newspapers like La Presse. See the editorial of La Presse, 9 July 1907, 4, that comments on the support for Laurier in “opposition” papers. 8 Monière, Ideologies in Québec, 158. 82 The Bishop of Worcester and then York, England (1002–23) wrote homilies, many in Anglo-Saxon, under the punning pseudonym “Lupus” (Latin for “wolf”). Could this be a conscious appropriation of the “wolf in sheep’s clothing,” i.e., the purposeful use of a pseudonym that some readers would recognize as a Latin reference to the homily, which is a lecture on a moral theme? 83 My translation, “Lupus,” “L’éducation de la femme,” 389. 84 Linteau, Histoire du Québec contemporain, 186–8, for the legal status of married women as defined in the Quebec Civil Code 1866–1915, 188. 85 The Clio Collective, Quebec Women, 142. 86 Le canada français, 1:1, 1, 1918. 87 Longstaff, Un artiste au quotidien. 88 The list of paintings is limited to those shown at the Montreal Art Association but provides a sense of the range of subjects that interested Larose and which must have been qualitatively similar to the work of his peers such as Charles Gagnon, Marc-Aurèle de Foy Suzor-Coté, and Franklin Brownwell.

Chapter Nine 1 Prichard had admired the painting when it hung in the circular staircase of Simcoe Hall, as he walked by on the way to his office. 2 The University of Toronto Art Collection curator prepared two statements for the president’s use concerning the portrait, one regarding Pars, the artist, and the other regarding Simcoe. The latter was obtained from the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica, which mentions Simcoe’s elitist attitudes as being unsuitable for a colonial administrator. 3 For more on the development of the university, see Panayotidis and Stortz, “The Mythic Campus and the Professorial Life,” 9–29. 4 See Cruikshank, letter no. 7, cited above. Additional references to university education are found in Dundas’ response, vol. 1, 178–9; Simcoe to the Bishop of Quebec, vol. 3, 348–53, vol. 4, 264, and vol. 5. 260; Bishop Mountain’s response, vol. 5, 256–8, and 262–3; Simcoe to Duke of Portland, vol. 4, 132–5, 338–41.

notes to pages 322–34  413

5 For further discussion of the subject in portraiture, see Soussloff, The Subject in Art. 6 Pears, “The Rise of the Profession,” 119–32. 7 In Hanging the Head, Marcia Pointon argues that these portraits can be understood as pseudo-genealogical documents. 8 See Howell, Eighteenth-Century British Logic and Rhetoric, passim. 9 On visual rhetoric, see Stanworth, “Historical Relations” and “Rhetoric, Ritual, and the Fashioning of Public Memory in Washington’s America.” See Solkin on rhetorical form in “Great Pictures or Great Men?” 42–9. 10 The literature on the conversation piece ranges from Praz, Conversation Pieces, to work by Retford, The Art of Domestic Life, and Flint, “‘The Family Piece’” (see also chapters 6 and 7). 11 See “The Conversation Piece: Generation, Gender and Genealogy” in Pointon, Hanging the Head, 159–76. Pointon examines the way in which the conversation piece in the mid- to late eighteenth century becomes a means of detailing social status, even functioning as a quasi-legal genealogical statement, 174. 12 Stanworth, “Historical Relations” and “Rhetoric, Ritual, and the Fashioning of Public Memory in Washington’s America.” 13 Known as “the Grand Tour,” the practice of touring Europe, especially Italy, was part of the process of becoming learned for the young and wealthy British. See Black, The British Abroad; Wilton and Bignamini, eds, Grand Tour. 14 Bowron, Pompeo Batoni, 13. 15 Jones, “Memoirs of Thomas Jones,” 73–4. 16 See William Pars, A Sepulchral Monument at Mylasa, c. 1764, a watercolour drawing from the tour of what is now modern Turkey; the painting is illustrated on the British Museum website, http://www.britishmuseum.org/explore/highlights/ highlight_objects/pd/w/william_pars,_a_sepulchral_mon.aspx. 17 Jones, “Memoirs of Thomas Jones,” 116. 18 Walpole wrote a letter of recommendation for Pars to William Hamilton, 23 October 1775; his editor, Lewis, added the note that Pars “is excellent at washed drawings.” Horace Walpole’s Correspondence, 424. 19 For more on portraiture in England in the 1770s and ’80s, see Pears, The Discovery of Painting, 145–8; Pointon, “Portrait Painting as a Business in London in the 1780s,” 188. 20 On the “taking of likeness,” see Abbé Bonamici’s very popular English translation of Easy Rules for Taking a Likeness, 1792. 21 Pears, The Discovery of Painting, 145. 22 Pears, “The Rise of the Profession,” 119–32. 23 See Stanworth, “The Politics of Display” and “Historical Relations,” for case studies of the use of group portraits in eighteenth-century Britain. 24 Stanworth, “Historical Relations,” chapter on Zoffany; Treadwell, Johann Zoffany. 25 Provenance records, University of Toronto Art Collection. 26 Newton, Eighteenth-Century Exeter, 79–80. 27 Ridell, The Life of John Graves Simcoe, 1926. 28 Cholwich, cited in Newton, Eighteenth Century Exeter, 80. 29 There is a large bibliography on the Enlightenment engagement with civic humanism. On the relationship between civic humanism and art production,

414  n otes to pages 336–41

see Barrell, The Political Theory of Painting; Copley, “The Fine Arts in EighteenthCentury Polite Culture,” 13–38; Solkin, Painting for Money. 30 This notion of the learned conversation is illustrated in such pictures as Reynolds’ A Conversation (Richard, second Lord Edgcumbe, George James Williams, George Augustus Selwyn in the Refectory at Walpole’s Strawberry Hill), c. 1762, plate 41 in Penny, ed., Reynolds, 102. Here the men draw, study, and read in Walpole’s library. 31 Kelly, The Society of Dilettanti. 32 Several Latinists, both biblical and secular, well versed in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Latin, have confirmed for me that the Latin is not correct for the period. 33 The most detailed biography of Simcoe is by W.R. Riddell, The Life of John Graves Simcoe. The most recent and accurate account is in S.R. Mealing’s “John Graves Simcoe,” 754–9. 34 His father, a captain in the Royal Navy, commanded the sixty-gun HMS Pembroke, with James Cook as his sailing master, during the 1758 siege of Louisbourg. When his father died of pneumonia a few months prior to the siege of Quebec, the family moved to his mother’s parental home in Exeter. His paternal grandparents were William and Mary (née Hutchinson) Simcoe. 35 Despite the fact that HMS is an anagram of the unknown letters on the sepulchral monument in the group portrait (MHS ), I cannot find any hint that there is a relationship between the letters. 36 Pevsner, Devon, 397, describes the cemetery as “an old burial ground within the walls,” which would place the men in an appropriate situation for overlooking the river Exe. Newton, in Eighteenth Century Exeter, dates the demolishment of Allhallows on the Walls to 1770, 129. 37 Newton, Eighteenth-Century Exeter, 67. 38 Riddell discusses Simcoe’s Masonic activities in “Simcoe as a Freemason,” in Life of Simcoe, 452–69. 39 The record of Cholwich’s nomination of Simcoe is reprinted in Riddell, Life of Simcoe, 458, from records obtained from a photocopy made by John Ross Robertson, author of History of Freemasonry in Canada, of the Lodge records. Riddell does not provide details of its present whereabouts. 40 In a letter to Simcoe in 1797, Cholwich complained about unfair burden of being a taxed country gentleman, especially in light of the (relatively small) level of taxation of the aristocracy. Cholwich, letter to J.G. Simcoe, 27 December 1797. Simcoe Archives, National Archives of Canada. 41 Simcoe did manage to assume a parliamentary seat eventually. He was elected to the House of Commons for the Cornish borough of St. Mawes in 1790. See Mealing, “Simcoe,” 754, and Riddell, Life of Simcoe, 84. 42 A note glued to the back of the painting reads: “To Miss Simcoe. As a token of sincere respect and regard from Mrs. Cholwich and Mrs. Wells. 1835.” 43 Notices, Gentleman’s Magazine 102, 681. 44 It is unclear whether Eliza inherited the property or the right to its income for her lifetime. Her mother, Elizabeth Posthuma Gwillim Simcoe, died in 1850 and left money to Eliza. When Eliza died in 1867, she left money to John Simcoe, the grandson of John Graves Simcoe, who then returned to Wolford to live. Van Steen, Governor Simcoe and his Lady, 156–7.

notes to pages 342–9  415

45 Martin’s account of “The Simcoes and their Friends,” 101–12, makes it clear that Mrs Simcoe developed strong and long-lasting bonds with her female friends. She left her older children with a friend during the Simcoes’ stay in Upper Canada. The family connections underwrote extensive political and social relations over the years. 46 Mrs Simcoe, letter to Miss Hunt, 20 October 1798, Wolford Lodge. Simcoe Archives, NAC A605, folder 9, last item. It is quite likely that “Mrs Gwillim” is reference her own mother, who she only knew by reputation as she died shortly after her birth. She was the wife of Admiral Graves, Simcoe’s godfather. The Graves took Elizabeth in after the death of her mother. 47 Riddell, Life of Simcoe, 316. 48 Benezit, “William Pars,” 140. 49 See “Harmsworth,” Burke’s Peerage, 1970. 50 Illustration, University of Toronto Monthly 38, no. 5 (February 1928): 217. 51 Simcoe to Dundas, (Letter no. 7, 28 April 1792), Cruikshank, Correspondence of Lieut. Governor Simcoe, 143. 52 The collection is entitled The Northcliffe Collection, and bears the substantial subtitle: Presented to the Government of Canada by Sir Leicester Harmsworth as a memorial to his brother, Alfred Charles William Harmsworth, Viscount Northcliffe (a copy is in the University of Toronto library: F 5059 C 3 SCC ). 53 See The Harmsworth Trust Library. Catalogue of the renowned library of the late Sir R. Leicester Harmsworth. 54 Van Steen, Governor Simcoe and His Lady, 157. 55 Stanworth, “Storytelling, History, and Identity in William Pars’s Portrait of Three Friends,” 431–43. The articles were later published in the University of Toronto Art Quarterly 66, no. 2, Spring 1997, edited by Elizabeth Legge. 56 This definition is offered by McGuire, “The Rhetoric of Narrative,” 219–36, esp. 221. 57 White, “The Value of Narrativity in the Representation of Reality,” 26, and Smith, “Narrative Versions, Narrative Theories,” 209–32. 58 Smith, “Narrative Versions, Narrative Theories,” 227.

Postscript 1 2 3 4

The Portuguese in Canada, 3. See the Portuguese History Project at http://archives.library.yorku.ca/pchp/ ?p= 375. Isabel Nema Patim, “Literature of Portuguese Background in Canada,” 269–80. Patim, “Literature of Portuguese Background in Canada.”

416  notes to pages 349–56

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Z index  Y

Numbers in italics refer to illustrations.

Artisans Canadiens-Français, Les, 243

aboriginals, 27, 35, 42, 46, 51, 59–62, 107, 115, 126, 132, 136, 142, 373n75, 376n124, 376n126, 376n128, 386n46, 401n18; and assimilation, 47, 52; and colonialism, 48, 51, 60–62, 126, 142; and First Nations, 368n8 Académie commercial du plateau, 316–17, 324; and la méthode Nationale de Dessin, 316–17 Act of Union (1840), 47, 68, 71, 108, 116, 377n12, 384n23 Albert, Prince of Wales, 78, 155, 155, 191, 196 Alliance Nationale, 244, 254, 403n51 Anderson, Benedict, 114 Anderson, William James, 128 archival practices, 18–19, 23, 100, 128, 149, 218, 255; archival events, 271 archives, 4, 8, 16–20, 63–4, 127–9, 135, 137, 149, 176, 182–3, 216, 229–30, 255, 266, 270–1, 274, 292, 294, 296, 298, 323, 328–9, 352, 357; and civic identity, 106–7; colonial archive, 103, 105–7; and digitization, 257–8; historical archive, 101; national archive, 24, 128–9, 132; preservation issues, 127–8; public archive, 101, 106, 128–9, 137; research archive, 17–20, 63, 101, 218–19, 258, 298; “subjects of the archive,” 105; total archive, 129 Archives Publiques de Quebec (APQ ), 108, 134–5, 137

Baring, John, 340, 347–8 Barnjum, Major, 284–5, 284 Batchen, Geoffrey, 275 Battoni, Pompeo, 338, 342 Bayer, Fern, 67 Bell-Smith, Frederic Martlett, 109–11, 109 Bengough, J.W., 109 Benjamin, Walter, 46–7, 198, 271–2 Bennett, Tony, 25, 106; and “civic seeing,” 106 Bhabha, Homi K., 114–15, 260, 386n46 Bibaud, Michel, 53, 64; and La Bibliothèque Canadienne (journal), 53 boarding schools, 266, 281–3 Boisseau, R.P., 216–17 Bouchard, Gerard, 186 Bouchette, Joseph, 49–50 Bourassa, Henri, 207, 216, 226, 323–4, 327, 400n56, 401n11 Bourassa, Robert, 257 Bourdieu, Pierre, 26 Bourne, George, 31–45, 49, 52–3, 55, 57–8, 61, 64–5, 368n2, 368n6, 370n32, 374n99; and antislavery campaign, 32; and the Congregational Church (Quebec City), 32; and The Picture of Quebec, 31–2, 34–43, 36–8, 40–1, 51, 57, 61, 64, 368n2, 369n15, 370n32, 370n39, 374n99 British Colonial Office, 33

British Museum, 110–12; Assyrian Room, 110–12, 386n46; and reproductions from, 112 British Privy Council on Education, 79 British Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures, and Commerce (1760), 48 Brown, Bill, 224, 258, 400n4 Brown, Lori, 182 Brown, Tom, 151–2; and the “spectacular vista,” 151–2 Brownwell, Franklin, 316, 331 Brymner, Douglas, 103, 129 Bryson, Norman, 10 Bulwer-Lytton, Edward, 162–3 Burnside House, 280–1 Bute House (Misses McIntosh seminary for ladies), 7, 18, 263–8, 264, 266-7, 270–98, 276, 291, 335; curriculum, 281–2; IGM Bute House Album, 267–8, 267–8, 270–7, 276, 280, 284–5, 290–4, 291, 297–8; and moral training, 282; and religion, 260, 278–9, 288, 297 Butler, Judith, 260 Calkins, Norman, 91; Primary Object Lessons (1861), 91 Campbell, Archibald, 125 Canada: Canada East, 67–8; Canada West, 67–8; Lower Canada, 24, 32, 33, 67, 104; Upper Canada, 33, 67–8, 104; Victorian Canada, 141. See also two Canadas, the Canada artistique, Le, 315–16, 320, 322 Canada français, Le, 325 Canada revue, Le, 324 Canada West School Act, 79 Canadian Illustrated News (CIN), 108–9, 109, 121, 160, 235, 384n25 Canadian Magazine, 47 Canadien, Le (newspaper), 47, 63 Canadien Français, Le, 216 canadiens, 3, 5, 7, 14, 27, 32–3, 45, 48, 52, 55, 62–3, 131, 134, 142, 199, 226–30, 234, 240–4, 246, 249–54, 256, 312–13, 319, 326, 367n14, 368n8, 376n128, 411n42;

450  i n d e x

and agrandissement, 185–6, 200–3, 205–8, 210, 213, 215–17, 219, 327; and Anglicization, 27, 47, 61, 68; and racial identity, 226, 238–9, 327, 363n2 Carlyle, Thomas, 150; The French Revolution, 150 Cartier, Jacques, 197, 210, 220, 237, 316 de Certeau, Michel, 107, 113, 115–16, 119, 386n49 Chabert, Abbé Joseph, 314 Chandler, Richard, 338 Chapleau, Joseph-Adolphe, 204–5, 398n34, 401n22 Cholwich, John Burridge, 333, 337, 340–1, 346–9, 353, 415n40 citizenry/citizenship, 3, 66, 67; pedagogy of, 67; and schooling, 93 Civic Parade (Montreal, 1897), 221–3, 222–3, 228, 239–49, 251–7; and chars, 221–2, 224, 241–9, 247, 251–3, 256–7, 403n52, 403n54, 403n61; and participation of canadiens, 243, 246, 249, 251, 253, 256. See also Diamond Jubilee; parades Clark, Stuart, 269, 406n7 Clint, William, 126, 132–3, 136 Cole, Henry, 79–80 collecting, 3, 6, 24, 26, 258; and colonialism, 28; and pedagogy, 28 collections, 24, 26, 28, 58, 66, 83, 91, 98, 104–5, 375n106; cabinets of curiosities, 25; and cataloguing, 25; and classification, 25; of objects, 24, 59; and pedagogy, 67, 76, 83, 106–7, 113; wunderkammern, 25. See also Literary and Historical Society of Quebec (LHSQ ) Colley, Linda, 27 colonialism: British, 4–5, 34, 51, 69, 103; colonization, 33; and historical narratives, 6, 104; and “invadersettler” nations, 33–4 composite photographs, 261, 263, 264, 265–6, 269, 271, 273–5, 307, 335, 407n20

Confederation of Canada, 24, 103–4, 108, 128, 188, 222, 230, 239, 242, 278, 315, 383n5 Connolly, James, 185, 225 Conquest of the French, 4–5, 364n10 Constable, John, 305–6 Constitutional Act (1791), 27, 33, 206, 369n20, 377n9 conversazione, 302, 313, 326; and conversation piece, 261, 302, 313, 336, 339 Cumberland, Fred, 71–2, 75, 87, 109, 379n37 Cumberland and Ridout (architectural firm), 71, 75 Dalhousie, Lord, 31–2, 45–6, 47, 49–51, 62, 137 Darwin, Erasmus, 283 Davis, Susan, 141, 229, 254 Dawson, William, 280 Debord, Guy, 153, 255 Dewey, John, 94, 99, 379n25 Diamond Jubilee (Queen Victoria, 1897), 141, 180, 185–8, 190, 193, 202–4, 212–6, 218, 221–3, 225–9, 239–41, 252; Jubilee Parade, 186–8, 213, 215–16; Montreal celebration, 221–3, 223, 225, 228–9; Quebec City celebration, 185–6, 196, 202–4, 214–16, 218; Quebec Jubilee Souvenir Number, 187, 188–202, 191–5, 204, 206–18, 220, 228; Queen’s Diamond Jubilee Souvenir, 199–200; and The Siege of Sebastopol re-enactment, 212–13. See also Victoria, Queen Dilettanti Society, 342, 343 domestic landscape, 304–7, 312–13, 320–3, 327–8. See also portraiture Dominion and Industrial Fair of Toronto (Canadian National Exhibition), 7, 141–2, 145–8, 158, 161–81, 169, 392n1; and Arabi Pasha, 147, 158–62, 174, 177–9, 183; and The Battle of Tel-el-Kebir, 147–8, 173–7, 174, 175, 176, 182–3; and The Burning of Moscow, 147, 167–8; and grandstand spectacle, 145–8,

158–69, 173–4; and The Last Days of Pompeii, 162–5, 163, 164, 184, 395n57; and military displays, 158; and orientalism, 171–3, 179; and pyrotechnics, 163–7, 167, 173; and The Siege of Pekin, 147, 165–6, 183; and The Siege of Sebastopol, 147–8, 166, 167; and the Storming and Capture of Alexandria, 162 Dominion of Canada, 103–4, 140, 146; and civic belonging, 104, 146; and nationalism, 104; and patriotism, 103–4 Douglas, George, 126, 134 Dufferin, Lord, 112, 122 Duffy (commissioner of public works), 205 Dufour, Evelyn, 310 Dufour, Marcelle, 310, 329–30 Duncan, Carol, 26 Durham, Lord, 61, 68, 206–7, 377n8; and the Act of Union (1840), 47; Durham Report (1839), 47, 68–9, 206–7 Durocher, René, 318 Duvernay, Ludger, 233, 250, 253, 316, 402n25 École Nationale des Beaux Arts, 308, 314–16 Educational Museum (Toronto Normal School), 7, 23, 26, 29, 65–72, 76–82, 92–4, 96–8, 101, 104, 108–10, 108, 112–13, 117, 120, 123; architectural design of, 76, 77; and collecting practices, 66, 77, 79–81, 97–8, 113; and colonial intentions, 92; early planning towards, 76; and object lessons, 97–8, 113; and pedagogical function, 67, 81, 92, 97, 113 edutainment, 7, 146, 149, 158, 162 Edward, Duke of Kent, 195, 195, 209, 220 Edwards, Elizabeth, 270 English Party, 45, 52 Family Compact, 68, 74

in de x  451

feminist movement, 260, 325; in Quebec, 325 feminist theory, 11 fireworks (pyrotechniques), 145–8, 152, 154–8, 155, 162–8, 173–6, 182–4, 237, 240, 242, 246 Flint, Christopher, 303, 307 Fort Rouille, 165–6, 168 Foucault, Michel, 59 Fragonard, Jean-Honoré, 306-7 Fréchette, Louis, 314–15, 317–18, 320, 322 French Canadian Missionary Society, 288 Friedman, Susan, 353 Froebel, Friedrich, 82, 101, 287–8, 378n22, 379n25 Front de Libération du Québec (FLQ ), 218–19, 227 Frost, John, 85; Lessons on Objects, 85, 86, 87 Gagnon, Clarence, 308, 316, 331 Gazette, The, 221, 225, 228, 240–2, 245, 252, 317 Geertz, Clifford, 269, 406n7 gender, 260, 269, 272, 278; representation of, 326–8; and separation, 278 genre painting, 306 Gentleman’s Magazine (1731), 342, 346 Gibbs, Minnie, 265–6, 274, 292–5, 294 Gibson, J.J., 305 Gilpin, William, 37 Gordon, Alan, 234 Gorter, Durk, 305 Great Exhibition (1851) (London, England), 78 Gregor, Leigh, 139–40. See also patriotism Griffiths, Alison, 152 Groulx, Lionel, 250, 279 Hailmann, W.N., 287 Hamilton, William, 342, 343 Hampshire County Archive (Winchester, England), 183

452  i n d e x

Hand, William, 157, 162, 175–7, 175, 182, 184 Hands Fireworks, 176, 182–4 Haraway, Donna, 13 Harmsworth, Alfred Charles William, 351 Harmsworth, R. Leicester, 350–3 Hawkins, Alfred; 43–4, 64; Hawkins’s Picture of Quebec (1834), 43–4, 64, 370n39 Henderson, William, 50 Hill, H.J., 165–6, 171 history-writing, 150–1; nineteenthcentury, 150–1 Hobsbawm, Eric, 27 Hodak, Caroline, 154 Hodgins, J. George, 76–7, 82, 87–8, 88, 89, 94, 101, 111–12, 111, 379n39 Holly, Michael Ann, 10 Home and Colonial Training College (HCTC ), 84, 91 Howe, Joseph, 127–8 Huron tribe, 51, 107, 115, 132, 376n126; Huron-Wendat, 60–1, 107, 115, 376n124, 376n128 Huskisson, William, 51 interdisciplinarity, 8, 10, 366n38; and the academy, 13; and visual culture studies, 10, 19 intersectionality, 260, 272 Iroquois tribe, 51, 60 Jameson, Elizabeth, 6 Jean-Baptiste, Le, 216 Jebb, Richard, 254, 404n67 Jenkins, John, 289 Jenks, Chris, 10–11 Jones, Thomas, 338–40 Jordanova, Ludmilla, 25 Kassasin, battle of, 159, 177 Katz, Jonathan D., 262 Kempt, James, 45, 51–3, 56, 373n78 King, Geoff, 151–2 Kiralfy, Bolossy, 180 Knights of Labor, 318–19 Knudsen, Susanne, 260

Kristeva, Julia, 115, 119, 136, 386n45, 386n46 LaCapra, Dominick, 151 Lambert, Ray, 305–6 landscape painting, 305–6, 339–40 Lang, Gavin, 286-7 Langford, Martha, 277 Lansdowne, Lord, 165 Laporte, Pierre, 219 Larose, Ludger, 300–1, 300, 303–4, 307–20, 309, 323–31, 335, 411n37 Laurier, Wilfrid, 140, 199, 201, 206–7, 217, 233, 253–4, 400n56, 401n11 learnedness, 139, 341–2, 346; and learned societies, 48–9, 52, 54, 62, 78, 104, 129, 138, 296, 383n6. See also Literary and Historical Society of Canada (LHSQ ); Society for the Encouragement of Sciences and Arts (SESA ) Lefroy, John, 75–6, 80, 380n58 Légaré, Joseph, 50–1, 54, 57, 61, 373n75 Leicester Square Panorama (1830), 44 LeMoine, James McPherson, 122, 125, 128–30 Le Sueur, Eustache, 43, 370n37 LeVasseur, Nazair, 196, 200–6, 212, 214–7, 219, 357, 398n30 Levinas, Emmanuel, 15, 366n46 Lewis, W.S., 339 Library and Archives Canada, 137 Linteau, Paul-André, 318, 323 Literary and Historical Society of Quebec (LHSQ ), 7, 24–6, 32, 34, 43–64, 74, 104, 106–8, 113–21, 121, 122–39, 385n42; and amalgamation with Society for the Encouragement of Sciences and the Arts (SESA ), 52–4, 107; and colonial attitudes, 46–8, 60–3, 115, 126; and colonial narrative, 56, 113, 115–17, 119, 135–6; establishment of national archive, 128–30, 132; and funding, 56, 131, 133, 390n109; historical narrative around, 114–15, 135–6; and history, 46–8;

and membership, 49, 52–3, 116, 118, 124, 131; and Morrin Cultural Centre, 135, 137–8; and object collection, 56–60, 62, 114–15, 117–20, 122–5, 132–4, 136–7; and object display, 124; and patriotism, 46; and patronage, 133–4; and the Presbyterian Morrin College, 118, 120–1, 121, 122–4, 133–4, 136–7; and preservation of historical documents, 127, 133; and published Transactions, 108, 118, 121, 123, 125, 128, 135, 374n94; relationship of to aboriginal communities, 46–7, 60–3, 115 Longstaff, Alison, 313–14, 325, 329 Loranger, Adolphe-Basile, 240–1, 252, 254 Lorne, Marquis of, 162 Lower Canada rebellion (la guerre des patriotes), 54–5, 202–3, 207, 213, 227, 239, 251, 374n89 Luke, Timothy, 28 MacAloon, John, 148–9, 393n6 MacLeod, Rod, 280–1 Mann, Horace, 70, 85–6, 378n21 Mann, Susan, 278 Martin, Médéric, 309, 317 May, S.P., 109–10, 113, 117 Mayo, Charles, 84 Mayo, Elizabeth, 84–5, 87, 90–1, 102, 381n82; and Lessons on Objects; as Given to Children Between the Ages of Six and Eight in a Pestalozzian School at Cheam, Surrey (1830), 84–5, 90–1 McCalman, Iain, 149 McCord, James, 286 McCord Museum, 270, 272, 323 McGee, Thomas D’Arcy, 103 McGill, James, 280 McGill University, 280–1, 285, 289– 90, 292, 296 McGuire, Michael, 352 McIntosh, Isabella, 266–7, 267, 270, 274, 277–8, 280, 283–93, 297; pedagogical approach of, 283–8, 297

in de x  453

McTavish, Lianne, 28 methodology, 12–13, 20; and Research Triad, 16–19, 63, 218, 258, 298–9, 358. See also situated research Métis, 231 Miles, Henry Hopper, 127–8 Minerve, La, 232, 237–8 Mitchell, W.J.T., 12; and indiscipline, 13, 16; and the pictorial turn, 12–13, 16 Mohs, Frederick, 59 Montcalm, Louis-Joseph de, 36 Montreal High School for Girls, 289–90, 292 Moreau, Gustave, 308, 315–16 Morrice, James Wilson, 331 Mouat, James, 6 Moxey, Keith, 10 Mrs Simpson’s Establishment for the Board & Education of Young Ladies, 281–3 Mulvany, C.P., 81, 110 Mundie, William, 72 Municipal Corporations Act (1848), 69 museology, 12, 27–8, 67 museums, 26–9, 62, 66–7, 100, 104–7, 113; and archives, 106–7; and art, 26; and citizenship, 26, 98, 113; and civic lessons, 107; and “civic seeing,” 106–7; and colonialism, 28, 44, 62, 104, 106–8; and colonial nationalism, 383n8; and culture, 26–7, 67; and historical narratives, 55–6, 105–6, 108, 113; histories of, 24–5, 106; late-nineteenth-century, 162; mid-nineteenth-century, 23, 106; and nationalism, 26, 28, 62, 104; and object collections, 26, 62, 67, 104–6, 108; and object lessons, 98, 112; and “objects of intention,” 67; and pedagogy, 28–9, 66–7, 98, 106–7; and public display, 66, 104 narrative, 6–7, 20–1, 44, 48, 55, 81–5, 105–6, 114–15, 352–3, 386n46; and “cultural narratives,” 114, 150;

454  i n d e x

and double temporality, 115; and historical narrativity, 150, 398n29; and narratives of progress, 107–13, 115, 126, 154, 226, 239, 245; and nineteenth-century narrativity, 150, 393n16, 394n27 nationalism, 28, 114, 225–6, 254, 256; colonial, 254, 384–5n8, 404n67; narratives of, 114 nationalisme (la patrie), 136, 209, 216–17, 228–9, 254, 256, 323; and imperialism, 200, 203, 209, 226 nationhood, 27, 114; and borders, 27; and empire, 27, 116; and nationtime, 114, 136 Nead, Lynda, 11, 190 Newton, Robert, 340, 347–8 North-West Rebellion, 226, 231, 238, 251, 401n22 Notman, William, 262, 265–6, 270, 273–5, 284–5, 292, 294, 294, 312, 322, 345 Notman Photographic Studio, 314 object lessons, 72, 82–8, 90, 92–102, 107–8, 113, 316, 383n119; and citizenship, 98–100, 107–8; colonial applications, 85, 92; and reliance on vision, 85 Oleksijczuk, Denise, 149 Oliver & Boyd’s Object-Lesson Card – Vegetable Kingdom, No. 13, 90, 90, 91 Onslow, Edward, 303 Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE ), 101–2 Ontario Society of Artists (OSA ), 110, 165 Opinion Publique (OP), 108, 384n25 Out of the Heart of Africa (exhibition, Royal Ontario Museum), 105 Pain, Henry John, 157 Pain, James, 147, 156–7, 162–6, 163, 164, 175, 183–4, 246; “Pain’s Fireworks,” 157, 157, 246 panoramas, 149, 152, 393n9, 394n27, 395n57, 396n79; and A View of the

City of Quebec, 44; and historytelling, 152–4, 176; as visual spectacle, 149 Papineau, Louis-Joseph, 50, 206, 373n78, 399n41 Paquet, Louis-Adolphe, 325 parades, 4, 9, 141, 147, 186, 229–30, 233, 254–6; and chars, 230, 233; and nationalism, 233, 254; occurrence of in the Canadas, 230. See also Civic Parade (Montreal); Diamond Jubilee: Jubilee Parade Parent, Etienne, 47–8, 372n58 Parent, Simon-Napoléon, 191, 196, 198–200, 203–5, 208, 214–17, 220 Pars, William, 332, 333, 335, 337–40, 342, 344–5, 344, 353–4, 413n2; Portrait of Three Friends, 332, 333–8, 340–4, 346–8, 351–3 Parti canadien, 49, 50, 372n58. See also Parti patriote Parti patriote (formerly Parti canadien), 49, 50, 52 Parti Québécois, 219, 257 Pasha, Ahmed Orabi (Arabi Pasha), 159, 161, 173, 175, 177, 179 Patim, Isabel, Nema, 355–6 patriotism, 5, 103–4, 139–40, 206, 226–7, 233–4, 253; British, 140; Canadian, 140; Imperial, 140 pedagogy, 82, 114; experience-based educational philosophy, 83; and la méthode Nationale de Dessin, 316–17; the “new education,” 82, 96, 288; pedagogical time, 114; visual pedagogy, 224, 229, 359; women’s education, 279, 324–5. See also Templé, E.M. Penson, Seymour, 164–6, 168, 175, 176–7, 176, 182–3 Pestalozzi, Johann Heinrich, 82–4, 107, 282, 287–8, 378n22, 379n25; and Anschauung, 82–3, 92–6, 99, 101–2, 381n69; and How Gertrude Teaches Her Children: An Attempt to Help Mothers to Teach Their Own Children (1801), 83; and the “object

lesson,” 82–5, 107, 282; and pedagogical philosophy, 83, 87 photography, 262–3, 270–4, 307–8; carte de visite, 274–5, 277; composite photographs, 261, 263, 264, 265–6, 269, 271, 273–5, 307, 335, 407n20; family portraiture, 307; group photography, 272–3, 275, 277; photographic albums, 272–3, 275; and social identity, 272; wet collodian process, 273 Pitt Rivers Museum (Oxford University), 28 Plains of Abraham, battle of the, 213 Plamondon, Antoine, 61 Plamondon, Louis, 49 Pointon, Marcia, 6, 303-4 portraiture, 7, 9, 259–63, 266, 268–9, 272–5, 277, 301–14, 318–19, 324, 328–9, 333–40, 345–6, 353; “conversation pieces,” 261, 302, 336, 339; domestic landscape, 304–7, 312–13, 320–3, 327–8; family, 301–14, 319, 324, 328–9, 335; group, 7, 9, 259–63, 266, 268–9, 272, 274–5, 277, 302, 304–7, 309, 333–7, 352–3; photographic, 262–3; scène familiale, 300, 310, 313, 319, 326; and self-portraits, 308–9; and social belonging, 259–61; and storytelling, 335 post-colonialism, 11, 136, 227, 384n8, 384n10 post-structuralist theory, 11, 14 Poulter, Gillian, 275 Powell, Richard, 262 Presbyterian, The (journal), 279–81, 286, 288, 297 Presbyterian Church of Canada, 279 Presse, La, 221–4, 222, 223, 224, 232, 236–7, 246–51, 247, 249–50, 257–8, 410n29 Prichard, John Robert, 333–5, 352 Quebec, 24, 31–64; and aboriginal population, 35, 42; as British colony, 31–4, 43; and collective

in de x  455

identity, 31; and Conquest of the French, 5, 33; English-speaking population of, 35; and FrenchEnglish relations, 135–6; and French rule, 35; and habitants, 32, 34, 38, 368n4; immigration to, 35, 369n19; Quebec Act, 33; and the Quiet Revolution, 136, 219, 227; and visual culture, 31 Quebec Driving Club, 38; Quebec Driving Club, 38 Retford, Kate, 304, 307, 324–5 Revett, Nicholas, 338; The Antiquities of Athens (1762), 338 Revue d’art canadien/Canadian Art Review (RACAR), 262 Reynolds, Joshua, 342, 343 Riegl, Alois, 261 Riel, Louis, 226–7, 231 Rigney, Ann, 177 RiverBrink Museum, 354 Rivers, Pitt, 28 Robarts, John, 351 Robert, Jean-Claude, 318 Robidoux, J.E., 205–6 Robins, S.P., 96–7 Robinson, John Beverley, 72–3, 80, 380n58 Rousseau, Jean-Jacques, 83, 99, 312, 379n25 Royal Ontario Museum, 28 Royal William, 125, 125, 134, 137 Rudin, Ronald, 142 Ryan, Mary, 141 Rydell, Robert, 141 Ryerson, Egerton, 28, 65–7, 69–71, 73, 75–82, 85, 87, 92–3, 96–102, 109–13, 117, 288, 367n20; and The Educational Museum and School of Art and Design for Upper Canada (1858), 79; and educational projects, 65, 69–71; and educational tours to Europe, 77–8, 81–2; and the Exposition universelle (Paris 1855), 80–1, 92, 100; and Journal of Education for the Province of Ontario, 96; and the Methodist Episcopal

456  i nd e x

Church, 65, 69; and pedagogical philosophy, 70, 86 Said, Edward, 104–5, 173 St Andrew’s Society, 252–3 Saint Jean-Baptiste, 236, 402n25 St-Jean-Baptiste Day, 204, 216–17, 224, 224, 230, 232–8, 240–1, 245, 250, 252, 257, 319; amalgamation of with Diamond Jubilee celebrations, 204, 224, 240–1, 252, 254; and bonfires, 234, 237; and chars, 233–4, 252, 236–8, 241; Le Grand Procession, 232–7, 235, 238, 240, 245, 250–2; and nationalisme, 233 St-Jean-Baptiste Society, 203–5, 214–16, 218, 222, 233, 236, 238–43, 248, 250, 252–4, 257, 357, 402n27, 403n61; Monument Nationale, 253, 312 Savage, H.G., 118 Scadding, Henry, 98 School Acts (1846, 1850), 70 schools and schooling, 65, 67, 69–70, 84, 93, 278–9, 283, 287–8, 298, 342; British influence on nineteenth-century Canadian, 79, 93; as colonial project, 93; and the introduction of textbooks and readers, 94–6, 101–2, 282; in nineteenth-century Canada, 69–71; public, 71 Second Opium War, 165 Sengupta, Parna, 85 Sewell, Jonathan, 46, 48, 51–3, 55, 373n78 Shaftesbury, Lord, 341 Sheldon, Edward Austin, 91; and the Oswego Training School (1861), 91, 96 Sheppard, Harriet, 54, 59, 64, 375n118 Sheppard, William, 48–9, 54, 59 Simcoe, Eliza, 348–50 Simcoe, John, 345, 415n34 Simcoe, John Graves, 333–4, 340–2, 344–51, 344, 354, 413n2, 415n41 situated knowledge, 13–16, 18–19, 21 65th Battalion, 250–1, 250

Smillie, James (Joseph), 37–8, 37–8, 50–1 Smith, William, 48; and History of Canada (1826), 48 sociality, 7, 9, 29, 356; and the performance of a social self, 6, 99, 148, 153, 186, 229, 255, 303 Society for the Encouragement of Sciences and the Arts (SESA ), 49–54, 61, 63, 107, 372n62; amalgamation of with Literary and Historical Society of Quebec (LHSQ ), 52–4, 107; and cultural activism, 50–1; and distancing from politics, 50, 52; and membership, 49, 52, 54 Society for Promoting History, Literature, Arts and Sciences in Canada, 51–2 South Kensington Museum (Victoria and Albert Museum) (London, England), 73, 78–80, 92, 112, 380n49, 380n51 souvenirs, 188–9, 229–30 spectacle, 7, 9, 140–3, 146–9, 151–6, 160–9, 174, 177–80, 213, 255, 394n27; and Britishness, 146, 155; as civic display, 7, 143, 146, 154; and empire, 146, 160–1; grandstand, 7, 141, 145–8, 150–3, 158–69, 173–4, 177–80; historical, 146, 148, 151–4, 162, 173–5, 177–80, 182; and historical narrative, 150–3; and identities formation, 143; as object lesson, 146; and pyrotechnics, 145–8, 152, 154–8, 155, 162–8, 173–6, 182–4, 237, 240, 242, 246; and social identity, 148; and “spectacularization,” 140, 142–3; visuality of, 149 Sproule, Robert, 41–2, 41 Stevenson, Diane, 270 Stevenson, James, 127, 129 Stewart, George, 131–2 Stoler, Ann, 271–2 Strachan, John, 69, 378n18 Stuart, Andrew, 49, 50, 52, 54–5, 60–1, 372n65, 373n72, 376n126

Stuart, James, 338; The Antiquities of Athens (1762), 338 Suzor-Coté, Marc-Aurèle, 316, 331 Teale, Walter, 157, 175–7, 175 Teather, Lynne, 28 Templé, E.M., 316; pedagogical approach of, 316, 324 Tessier, Xavier, 49 textuality, 104–5 Thackeray, William Makepeace, 301–3, 306–7 Tolstoy, Leo, 150–1; The Sebastopol Sketches, 150–1; War and Peace, 150 Toronto Normal School, 65, 66, 71–5, 79, 81, 88, 91, 100, 102, 104, 108, 109, 110, 302, 316, 376n2, 385n31; architectural design of, 72–3, 75; and the “Book Depository” (People’s Depository), 87–8, 90, 94; and cultural politics, 74; and educational goals, 75, 87; landscape design of, 72. See also Educational Museum Turcotte, L.P., 128–9 Turner, Victor, 255–6, 404n70 two Canadas, the, 4–6, 8, 24, 27, 47, 50, 52, 61, 62, 67–8, 363n8; and the proposed Union Act (1822), 47, 51, 371n45; union of, 52, 61, 67–8. See also Act of Union (1840); Canada Union Hotel, 39, 42, 55, 58, 62, 117 Union Lodge of Modern Masons, 347 University of Toronto, 333–4, 340, 350–2 University of Toronto Art Collection (UTAC ), 352, 413n2 University of Toronto Museum, 123 Vallières de St-Réal, Joseph-Rémi, 46, 49, 50, 52, 373n72, 373n78 Verreault, H.A.B., 129 Victoria, Duchess of Kent, 209, 220 Victoria, Queen, 7, 141, 185–6, 188, 190, 193, 195, 196–9, 202–3, 206, 209–14, 217, 220, 225, 227, 232, 241, 398n29; and Golden Jubilee, 180–1,

in de x  457

231–2, 237–9. See also Diamond Jubilee (Queen Victoria, 1897) Victoria Bridge, 155, 155 Victoria Park, 203–5, 214–15 Vincent, Zacharie, 61, 390n116 visual culture, 3–4, 6, 8–9, 140, 143, 149, 154, 198, 224, 226, 228–30, 253, 263, 302, 309, 322, 353, 355–7, 363n7, 364n16, 365n19; definition of, 8, 363n7; and history-writing, 149, 352–3; visual culture studies, 10–13, 19, 254–7, 365n21 visuality, 6, 9–10, 104–5; and visual archaeology, 189, 217; and visual narratives/storytelling, 153, 156, 158, 161, 173, 179, 186, 196, 335, 352–3 Vuillard, Edouard, 308 Wallis, Brian, 26 Walpole, Horace, 339 War Measures Act, 219, 227 Ward, David, 262 Washington, George, 15–16, 307; and simple rhetoric, 16

458  i n d e x

Weir, Arthur, 239, 245 Weir, Samuel, 346, 354 West, Benjamin, 9; The Death of Wolfe (1778), 9 White, Hayden, 150–1, 168–9; and organization of historical texts, 150–1 Wickenden, Robert L., 198–9, 397n19 Wilson, C.H., 92–3 Wilson-Smith, Richard, 204 Withrow, John Jacob, 165 Wolfe, Major General James, 36, 345 Wolseley, Garnet Joseph, 159, 161, 173–4, 177 World’s Columbian Exposition (Chicago World’s Fair), 170–2, 174, 183; Bedouin Exposition Company, 171–2, 171; “The Congress of Nations,” 170–2, 170; relationship to Dominion and Industrial Fair of Toronto, 171–2, 174 Wurtele, Jonathan, 54 Zoffany, Johann, 339–40, 354 Zygmont, Bryan, 262