CURATOR'S CORNER

What we know of history is found in the material left behind. Whatever’s left can be studied to establish records and add detail to the lives of people long gone. But the things left behind can be subjective, shaped by the world view of the people who made them and the times in which they were made. 

Information can still be gathered from them, such as the case with a photo album. This is one of the most subjective historical items which you can come across, with all information being controlled entirely by the maker. But it also contains valuable historical information, which can be gathered from the album make, how the photos are arranged, or even the type of photograph used.

Album Interiors; Back is Henrietta Muir Edwards’ photograph album, Middle is Alice Gardiner’s photograph album, Front is Claudia Gardiner’s photograph album.

There are three albums kept within the Glenbow archives that highlight this, as well as showcasing the link between historical record and personal taste. These are the photo albums put together by the matriarchal line of Henrietta Muir Edwards, going from mother to daughter to granddaughter.

Henrietta Muir Edwards was one of the Famous Five of Alberta and was best known for her involvement in the Persons Case of 1929. Before she became part of the Famous Five, Muir Edwards had established herself by championing women’s rights across Canada. The photo album created by her captures the earliest parts of her life, before she had begun to really grow into her advocacy.

The album she put together is dated to between 1860 and 1880, when personal photo albums were just starting to become a societal “thing.” The invention of the carte-de-visite-style photograph led to images that were produced on lighter materials such as paper and cardstock. Compared with their heavier glass or metal-backed forerunners, these new types of photos were more portable and the Victorians loved to collect them.

Special books began to be built to take advantage of this ‘collectability’, constructed of framed pages that could hold these new types of photographs. These unusual books were the first type of photo album, and they almost always depicted people. 

The average Canadian Victorian photo album would have contained photos of family, friends, and social circle. Muir Edwards’ album is no exception. Many of her family members are featured within the pages of her album, with the highlight being a group photo of Muir Edwards herself as a young woman posed with friends. 

Group photo of a young Henrietta Muir Edwards (far left) and her sister Amelia with friends.

Muir Edwards’ group portrait uses those rules, presenting the group of girls as well educated, thoughtful, and elegant by way of posing and props. The hair, the clothes, and the placement of the books was all done to further this image and to feature their social links to each other. 

This album contrasts the posed photos with hand-painted botanical details around the edges. It’s noted in the record that Muir Edwards herself most likely painted these, further highlighting an overlap of personal artistic expression with memory. This was not only an album filled with precious people – this album was also meant as a creative outlet.

Photo of Oliver Ernest Gardiner (Alice’s son) on a motorcycle in the spring of 1933. Caption below reads: “On a road near Montreal.”

Contrast that with the album that her daughter Alice Gardiner put together 50 years later, and you can see just how much the photo album industry evolved. Muir Edwards’ album contains seven photos; her daughter Alice’s contains almost 300. 

By the 1920s-1930s, the photo album industry had shifted to accommodate new types of photographs. The silver gelatin photos were even cheaper to create, and the camera that produced them could be easily taken out of the set studio and into the world. While people in Alice’s album are still posed, they’re now more expressive in the frame and their stances are more often dynamic. 

To contrast the black-and-white images, plain black cardstock was used as album pages. With no set frames, the photos displayed could be in any order, number or angle that the creator desired. Handwritten captions were penned directly next to photos and often added key contextual information or anecdotes about the shot. Alice’s album is more information focused versus artistic, but it’s no less a passionate form of memory.

A group photo of family and friends, found in Alice’s album. Caption below reads: “Carmen Martineau, Oliver, Lorette Martineau, Alice, Bell Scaula; After a Dip in the Ottawa River, Clarence, July 3rd, 1933.”

This passion is continued in the final album of the set, the album put together by Muir Edwards’ granddaughter Claudia Gardiner in the 1920s. Rather than focusing on the family (though those images are included), this album highlights Claudia’s life beyond the household; it captures moments during her education at Bishop Bethune College in Ontario. The album which she put together feels the most youthful of the set. Claudia and her friends fill the pages with photos in which they’re goofing off and hanging out on campus, doing all of the things that young adults capture via photo to this day.

A group photo of Claudia Gardiner’s friends/roommates. 

Photo albums, it seems, are almost always made like any other book: to tell a story. A story about the people within, and a story about the memories captured. Photograph technology and the album industry changed so much and so quickly that this style of storytelling became accessible. Anyone’s life could now have an illustrated record that could be kept on the shelf. 

One of Claudia’s friends doing a handstand.

Personal memory is not an infallible thing. Neither are the remnants of any historical record. But between memory and material record, a more complete timeline can emerge, and people can get that much closer to the ephemeral truth of things.