In this example, a young couple of the Thornton / Jolley family have been photographed in the J.H. Lemaitre & Company on Yonge Street in Toronto. Lemaitre began using “& Company” in his trade name in about 1877. The subjects are dressed in winter clothing which would have been high fashion from 1885 to 1887, and but less stylish in 1888 and 1889.  The woman is wearing a stiff, shelf-like bustle as part of a floating walking dress ensemble (a shorter dress which did not trail on the dirty sidewalks).  Her husband is wearing the up-to-date taller derby hat favoured at the time by the urban middle-class and a good quality melton jacket.  Wonderful, deep colours were in fashion at the time, and the lady’s winter coat may have been deep red, blue, purple or green. The dark Canadian winter streets were considerably brightened by these brilliant costumes. It is not easy to see, but she is also wearing a fur scarf or “tippet” and carrying an expensive fur muff. Her hat was sometimes called a “Rembrandt” because it was supposed to ressemble the plumed hats from the days of the cavaliers. It would have been anchored to her hair by long pins.

In the 21st century, we are sadly accustomed to Victorian photographs which have deteriorated over time or been damaged by inappropriate storing and/or handling. So often otherwise lovely “cabinets” are pock-marked by leaching of salts or topical contact with chemicals.  At a glance, snowy photographs can look like they have been damaged too.   If we are not careful, we may overlook these delightful Victorian studio products.

This carte-de-visite is a portrait of a young woman taken in Kingston, Ontario in about 1863.  Verso, in a spikey female hand

    If there be anything in life
               That does afford me pleasure
Twill be the very happy time
                When you [became] my treasure.

The expression “affords me pleasure” was a very common one in the 19th century.  The verse is signed only “A.P.”   Alas, we do not know who she is.

I am grateful to Mike Dufresne for sharing this photograph.

Real Photo Postcard. Moscow School. Lennox and Addington County Museum.

There is considerable confusion about what is meant by a “real photo postcard”.

Unless they are made from artwork or cartoons, all postcards begin life as photographs. -But they should not all be labelled as “RP”.

The change in postal regulations which permitted cards with a picture on one side and the address on the other provided an opportunity for small town photographers. For years they had sold so-called “album fillers”. Now, when work was slow, they could produce photographic prints of the right size for mailing. Photographic supply houses were quick to offer print-out papers of the regulation postcard size (3 1/2 by 5 1/2 inches). These stock photographic papers had the usual light-sensitive emulsions on one side and a handy template for the address and postage stamp on the other. At first, no message was permitted on the address side. Soon, the regulations were altered to permit a message on the left half of the address side — the so-called “divided back”.

The negatives of the day (which still included glass negatives) were not 3 1/2 x 5 1/2 in dimension, but this was not always a problem as photographers simply cropped the image to fit the card.

Photographic historians and collectors have appropriated the term “Real Photo Postcard” (or RP Postcard or RPPC) to apply to this specific type of card.

The Kodak Company was ever alert to opportunities. In 1903, Kodak came out with a film proportioned to print out onto the postcard papers with a camera to fit, the Kodak 3A Folding Pocket Camera. The appearance of this camera tells us how quickly the interest in postcard prints had grown.

Kodak used the term “Real Photo Postcard” when promoting the new film and camera, but they were not the only company to use the phrase.

Commercially produced card made for bookseller, A.E. Paul of Napanee from a negative which was not 3 1/2 x 5 1/2" and not easy to crop to fit the card. Lennox and Addington County Museum.

Amateur photographers, who did not have a shop on main street, also liked the idea of making postcards to show off their work to family and friends. They ordered postcard photographic stock for use in their home darkroom, typically set up in the tool shed or the pantry. Not everyone wanted to invest in a special camera like the Kodak 3A, but like the professionals, amateur photographers could produce postcards by cropping the negatives from the camera they already owned. If they lacked skill or judgment, the resulting image might not properly fill the card.  The church interior (above) is not a Real Photo Postcard but it shows the challenges of cropping images to fit.

Whether the product of the shop on the main street, or an amateur photographer, RPPC’s were produced in very, very limited edition. The shop on main street might print out thirty or forty, perhaps one hundred if the view proved popular. The amateur might make as few as one or two.

The photographic postcard paper has a major disadvantage. The address side (back) was generic and there was no way to identify the subject. Some professionals got around this by scratching a caption in reverse on the negative. This would show as a legible title when the negative was printed.  (See Moscow School above.)  Amateurs relied on the written (holograph) message on the back.

Because of the lack of a printed title, RPPC’s are difficult to date and identify. If the card has been postally used, the postmark can be a help. Also, the stamp provides evidence. For example, in the United States, postcards required a one cent stamp from 1898 until 1917, when the price went up to two cents. It came back down to one cent in 1919.

The manufacturer of the postcard stock usually marked the back of the card, often in the block where the stamp would cover it. In Canada, so-called “AZO” postcards first appeared in 1904. The earliest papers (1904-1918) have four triangles pointed up in the stamp box. AZO papers with diamonds in the corners of the stamp box apparently were produced almost concurrently, and date from 1907-1909.

Understanding of this kind of evidence is increasing all the time. This is the reason that it is so important to collectors to see the back of the card, and why owning the original (and not just a scan of the front) is critical for an archive.

The heyday of RPPC’s is from about 1898 until the the mid 1920′s although amateurs continued to produce them as a hobby through much of the 20th century.

Chromo-lith Postcard, made from a photograph taken by a local photographer. Lennox and Addington County Museum N-00284

RPPC’s are labour-intensive to produce, making the profit small. Professional photographers quickly found that they could make more money selling their rights to publishers or manufacturers to print out their products in large numbers. The resulting commercially produced cards could be purchased very cheaply wholesale and sold for as much as the old RPPC’s. Moreover, RPPC’s were black and white. Postcard publishers could use colour lithograph processes (chromo-lithography) to produce a coloured card, which was very appealing to the customers.

Commercial, black and white photographic postcard made between 1950 and 1970. Not strictly an RPPC. Lennox and Addington County Museum PCN-04275.

Postcards made by printing out on a photographic stock have been produced commercially throughout the twentieth century, in black and white and in colour. After about 1970, they include very glossy colourful photographic views. However, to the collector, the term Real Photo Postcard is assumed to mean a limited-edition, locally produced card, the product of the so-called “golden age” of postcards between 1898 and the late 1920′s. A card mass-produced by a commercial publisher using a photographic process is not an “RPPC”.

Canadians clear snipers from the railway station at Falaise

Each June, many of us still commemorate D-Day, June 6^th, 1944, the attack which altered the course of World War Two. The Allied Offensive which they called “Operation Overlord” began with the beach landings on June 6 and continued with the advance into France. The many actions fought are known collectively as the Battle of Normandy.

One of the most desperate engagements, the battle of the Falaise Pocket also known as Falaise Gap, was fought from 12-21 August 1944, and was the decisive engagement of the Battle of Normandy. Because Hitler would not permit his forces to withdraw and regroup, a large part of the German army and the famous Fifth and Seventh Panzer Divisions were trapped at Falaise. The Germans were trying desperately to keep the route through Falaise open in order to permit the escape of their retreating soldiers. A ferocious battle followed which resulted in the destruction of most of the German forces west of the Seine. The way was then cleared for the Allies to move on to Paris, and ultimately, to Germany.

A tremendous amount of the vigorous fighting was done by the fragments of the Polish Army. They were assisted by the 4^th Canadian Armoured Division, which included many men from Lennox and Addington county, Ontario. The 2^nd and 3^rd Canadian Infantry Divisions and 2^nd Canadian Armoured Brigade were also involved. The 3^rd Canadian Infantry were among the first to approach Falaise and paid with heavy casualties. The 2^nd Canadian Infantry Division were the
first to actually enter the town.

It was my privilege to meet several of the gunners from Lennox and Addington who served in the 4^th or other Armoured Divisions and who remembered the railway station in Falaise very well. Snipers, they said, were everywhere. The tense postures of the advancing Canadians in this press photographs show the danger.

Next year, many Canadian events will focus on the War of 1812-1814. It has occurred to me that the War of 1812 would have had a definite “presence” in the psychology of the new Canada formed in 1867. It would have been both as recent and as distant as Operation Overlord is to us today.

First page, with cabinets removed.

It is heartbreaking to find oneself the custodian of a truly lovely album with little or no identification. However, creators of photograph albums seldom inserted the pictures in random sequence. This is the reason that it is important to keep the album contents in original order. If they are removed to better protect the images, then they should be numbered to perpetuate the sequence.

Pictures in the album are often arranged in family groups: husband opposite wife; brothers and sisters in proximity; a couple and their children close by. If this is suspected, then the place where the photograph was taken (provided mercifully by the byline of the photographer) can confirm relationships. If there are several photographs of the same individual which were not taken on the same day but on different days, wearing different clothing and perhaps aging over time, then it is likely (but of course not absolutely certain) that you are looking at the first owner of the album.

Nearly always, the first photograph or first two photographs in the album are persons of great importance, usually parents (mother often first, then father) or the owner of the album and her spouse, usually at the time of marriage. The identities of these individuals is often the last to fade from family memory, and so these pictures are usually removed before the luckless album is sold off with the rest of its contents.

When I acquire a photograph album in which the contents are still tightly in their sleeves (and thus likely still in original order) but the photographs at the beginning have been pulled away, then I believe that the album was ‘picked’ from the family as they kept the portraits which they could identify. Often, the flyleaf is also missing as it usually carries a presentation message written when it was empty and new and a gift. It is so frustrating to be the custodian of a super piece of Victoriana with the last link to the family torn away.

Algonquin Park was established in 1893. In the beginning, it was accessed mostly by rail lines established by lumber companies. A string of short roads, built by various authorities and largely in poor condition led into the south part of the park. Some of these were maintained by the Ontario Department of Northern Development. On April 1st, 1937, when Ontario Northern Development merged with the Ontario Department of Highways, their roads and other small roads stretching from Huntsville in the west to Golden Lake in the east were joined and rationalized as Ontario Highway 60. The Department of Highways later extended the highway to Renfrew, which is the eastern limit of Highway 60 today. Part of Highway 60 follows the old Opeongo Line (a settlement road surveyed in 1854) and so is very interesting to historians.

By 1950 the days of rail lines into Algonquin Park were numbered due to limitations on logging in the area but pressure from tourism was increasing. The return of the Canadian forces from Europe caused a huge increase in the number of marriages. Young couples were eager for holidays, but short on money. It became fashionable to vacation at home, to explore Canada. Outdoor pursuits were extremely popular and most could afford an automobile of some kind. So road access to parks became very important very quickly. In 1937, Highway 60 through the Park was only a narrow, gravel road. Sometime in the very early fifties, Highway 60 was improved and paved.

Sky-rocketing tourism also turned public attention to safety. The Ontario Department of Lands and Forests had established a telephone line for their own purposes to the eastern entrance of Algonquin Park in the late 1930′s. By the 1950′s, Bell Telephone was extending its influence, acquiring tiny private rural telephone lines in eastern Ontario. At the time, Bell was promoting its “dial the number” service to small municipalities. Bell promised that dialing would soon replace local operators. In 1952, Bell was at the boundry of the Park, having opened an office in the village of Whitney, in the home of Ned Cannon, which was also the Post Office. Under pressure from advocates for economic development, and persuaded by the arguments for enhancements for tourism and the importance of communication to public safety, the Ontario Government decided to permit Bell to run a new telephone line through Algonquin Park. This was done in 1953. The new line ran along Highway 60.

Many of us remember 1953. (It is amazing how quickly time passes.) The plaid flannel shirts and old-style baseball caps look dated today, but were part of the costume of every working man in the fifties. This wonderful, crisp photograph was likely taken by a local newspaper.

From left to right, the men are:
C. Steele, Kaladar
H.G. Dodd, Perth
B.D. James, Carleton Place
L.D. Maybee, Sydenham
J.C. Kitchen, Picton
T.F. Blute, Napanee
G.T. Gough, Weston
__________

I am indebted to Wayne Bridge, whose article in The Country Connection Magazine, No. 47, 2004, provided some information.

Folk Art Brooch made from Coins, c1943

Since kings and emperors began stamping coins, people have been making folk jewellry using money.

This little pin has been made by soldering two British farthings together and adding a simple pin behind. For those born in the last forty years, the farthing was one fourth of an old British penny. The last farthings were pressed in 1956, and they ceased to be legal tender in the U.K. in 1960. The rest of the old British currency went down into history on “Decimal Day”, February 15th, 1971.

As a child, I loved these tiny farthings, with “Jenny Wren” on one side. At one time, a farthing would buy one something on the High Street, but by the time I was a child, they were only used to make up the fractions which were a feature of British money. They disappeared with few laments. The British saved most of their emotion for the end of the sixpenny coin in 1971.

I am sure that this brooch once conveyed a story, now forgotten. The coins date from 1942 and 1943, the very darkest days of World War Two. Were they exchanged by sweethearts who eventually married? Did they represent the births of children? Unfortunately, I will never know.

Belleville, Ontario Lady. Collection of the author.

Also note the jewellry. Cassie has pierced ears and modest drop earrings. The brooch is of the “bar” type, extremely popular in the late 19th century. Many examples, costume and fine, are offered by dealers today.

Before the twentieth century, the name “Cassie” was usually a nickname for girls baptized Cassandra. In Greek myths Cassandra was a beautiful woman with the power of prophesy. After she rejected the advances of the god Apollo, she was cursed. Although she could still see the future she was no longer believed. Cassandra foretold the fall of Troy and her own death, but was powerless to prevent it. In literature, the name is synonymous with tragedy and particularly with gifted but doomed women. It was a strange choice for a baby girl. I have often wondered if some forgotten Victorian novel popularized it.

There are two potential Cassies in Belleville in 1881. Cassie Cole was born in 1849 and was living in Belleville with her widowed mother, Elizabeth. This Cassie would have been in her early thirties when the photograph was taken. She is the most likely candidate. However, there was another Cassie, Cassie McGarry, a seamstress born in 1861, daughter of Thomas McGarry, a builder. She would have been in her early twenties.

The photographer, J.H. Ford, is found under Belleville in directories from about 1879 to about 1884, according to Glen C. Phillips.