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Photographic Albums
Martha Langford, PhD.
Memoirs and Travelogues
Autobiographical albums are like messages in a bottle. The compiler's interesting times are captured photographically and organized into a report that is intended for the future. Two common types of autobiographical albums are the memoir and the travelogue.
A written memoir is a personal account of people, places, and events that have mattered to the author. A photographic memoir is an attempt to narrate and describe these important life-passages in a combination of pictures and captions. Unlike the written memoir, a photographic memoir cannot be conjured up from memory alone: there must be photographs, and this requires some forethought and planning on the part of the compiler. A camera must be part of life's adventure, and even so, we can expect the photographic memoir to have gaps. A travelogue is the edited diary of a journey which, like most published diaries, emphasizes the exciting parts, good and bad, and leaves out the parts that were dull. In a travelogue, points of interest and fascinating encounters are plotted on memory's map for easy recall in the telling. A journey is generally planned; it has a precise beginning and a decisive end – these moments are often recorded. So a travelogue is about leaving home and coming home, and all the places in-between.
As narratives, memoirs and travelogues are quite easy to follow, moving from stage to stage, or place to place – dates and places often helpfully inscribed. The snapshots are full of life which, in the case of the wartime albums, becomes a source of sadness. The album compiled by William Hilliard Snyder (MP-1992.16) , a young soldier from Vancouver who was killed during the First World War in action near Amiens, covers his last months in Canada. Snapshots of family and friends in Edmonton, Lake Louise, and Vancouver are combined with pictures of Camp Hughes in Manitoba and outings around Ottawa where he finished his training in musketry before heading overseas. Letters home and other documents in the Archives of the McCord tell the rest of the story.
An album compiled by Cynthia Jones (MP-1986.79.1-226) is another photographic memoir of the First World War. Miss Jones served as a nurse in England and France; her album extends from the 1917 to 1923, covering her wartime service and the following years which included a return trip to Europe. These years are recorded by her own snapshots as well as purchased postcards and cartoons; as the compiler's nursing duties became harder and perhaps more painful, the snapshots dry up. Her tour of duty in France is mostly represented with picture postcards of Canadian field hospitals, including the ruins of of the hospital at Étaples after it was bombed. Nursing is lampooned as torture inflicted on patients in cartoons such as “The Chamber of Horrors.” At the end of the war, snapshooting resumes. A return to Europe is recorded, as are ski vacations. So, as the dates suggest, this album is not only about the war, but about wartime experience as part of the compiler's life-experience, her coming-of-age and transition into marriage and motherhood.
Beginning in the same post-war period, the albums of a young naval officer are memoirs of service with the Hudson's Bay Company in the Canadian North. An avid amateur photographer, Fred W. Berchem's four albums span seven years, though with overlapping dates: 1920-1921 (MP-1984.126.1-232); 1921-1927 (MP-1984.127.1-151); and 1922-1924 ((MP-1984.128.1-139, MP-1984.129.1-85). In Berchem's orderly and annotated albums, topics of historical interest include seal hunts and shipboard arrangements in a pluralistic floating community – British, Canadian, and Inuit. By contrast, an all-inclusive, somewhat overwhelming survey of the Hudson's Bay Company interests in the North is presented in two large albums compiled by Captain Mack (MP-0000.597.1-527 and MP-0000.598.1-232). Mack focusses on the communities formed around trading posts and hunting grounds. A curious episode is the arrival by ship of a herd of Norwegian reindeer, accompanied by by Laplanders who are supposed to introduce the animals into the Canadian North.
A carte-de-visite album can also constitute a memoir from which a life story can be told. The Birch Album (MP-0000.2160) is inscribed: “Richard J.W. Birch, Oct. 13th 1862. A present from himself.” Its 46 cartes-de-visite are primarily drawn on Birch's military service with the 30th Regiment at Quebec City. The use of pictures as aide-mémoires for storytelling is very clear in this album. While the names of the sitters are inscribed on the back of the cartes, this information is hidden from the casual viewer. Birch held the key to the album – he knew the names of the sitters and how he felt about them. He sends one message into the future: “Lieut Clower 30th Reg. Nuckle headed monster” is inscribed on the back of Clower's portrait.
Cartes-de-visites carry the stamps of their studios which help us to reconstitute the travels of the subjects or collectors. In the album of Montreal industrialist J.T. Molson (MP-0000.2359), cartes-de-visite taken in Scotland and Italy are photographic records of his travels abroad. Commissioned self-portraits, they are the kernels of stories. Albums of cartes-de-visite showing monuments and works of art also function as travelogues. The anonymous Cannon Album (MP-0000.1993.1-1983), so-called for the motif on the cover, contains 198 cartes-de-visite of historic sites, buildings, and works of art, many from the Vatican. For the actual traveller, these images prompted memories and stories. For the armchair traveller, living in a world without illustrated art books or television documentaries, these small black-and-white images sparked dreams of seeing these places and treasures through one's own eyes.
A real share in the tourist's experiences – good and bad – comes with the snapshot. MacDonnell European Travel Album(MP-0000.2151.1-24) is really about touring, as it was in Scotland and England in the early twentieth century. Many photographs feature the MacDonnell's car and the never-ending problems of driving over bumpy roads that are sometimes inconveniently blocked by sheep. Sightseeing is something that happens between mishaps. The compiler revels in automotive adventures with captions such as, “14 Punctures in one tire in one day.”
Modes of transport and signs of progress feature in the itinerary in another carefully compiled travel album: Bloemfontein to London, Via East Coast, Egypt and the Continent / M.C.B and C.J.A. / Feby to May 1910 (MP-0000.2152). This album chronicles a journey from what is now South Africa to England. The travellers, an engineer and his female companion, are going home. Along the way, they are drawn to particular kinds of sites. Those found in guide books of the period include natural wonders and colonial plantations. Our travellers are also attracted to Christian missions, rail lines, government installations, and feats of engineering, with a distinct emphasis on the new. In Egypt, the Suez Canal is found far more fascinating than the pyramids. In fact, European interests in Africa are magnets for these travellers, and it is only when they reach continental Europe that they indulge in a bit of Grand Touring, a passage cut short by the death of Edward VII.
When the travellers reach their ultimate destination, they find themselves at home. Home is where the photographic moments will be transformed into prints, assembled in an album, and put to use as an instrument of show-and-tell. In this way, interesting times and exotic places are absorbed into the collective memory of the family.
