Toronto Reference Library Blog

Everywhere we look today, images surround us. Photos, drawings, graphics—all used to inform us, to distract us, to persuade us. Our time could be called the Age of the Image, and many people lament the rise of the quick graphic at the expense of the thoughtful text.

But images, right back to the caves of Lascaux, have the power to draw us in and to teach us. One of the great functions of libraries, and a major function of the Toronto Reference Library, is to preserve all kinds of information, including images, so that we can actually look back into the past as it was. Or at least, at the way people of the past wanted to be seen.

The majority of books, magazines and photographs we hold here were not bought from antique collectors or storage warehouses. They are the original items—the real McCoys—purchased with library funds when they were new and current; preserved here ever since.

One such gem is Canadian Pictorial, bought new in the early twentieth century for 10 cents an issue. This beautiful large format magazine, published from 1906 to 1916, was created specifically to take advantage of the recent advances in photographic printing. According to the History of the Book in Canada, the aim of its Montreal publishers “was to crowd as many pictures in as possible. Throughout its ten years the Pictorial covered wars, royalty, the movies, and scenery at home and abroad in high-quality photographic spreads printed in tints of brown, blue, and red as well as grey.”

Today, those pictures give us a vision of a past reality. Not just the way things looked, but the way people in the past wanted to present themselves and their world. As with all human endeavors, the message sent may not be exactly the message received, and pictures from the past tell us things that may not be very flattering. (Keep that in mind next time you post a selfie.)  What’s more, many of the preoccupations of the past weren’t so very different from the present. (Cute animal pictures anyone?)

Here’s a sampling from Canadian Pictorial.  What’s your interpretation of the world it shows us of the “innocent” times leading up to the conflagration of World War One?

(Click on any image to enlarge)

“Where Canada and the United States Meet”, August 1908   British bulldog “Elsimore Mally”, April 1913

 “All Hands Help the Cook” and “wealthy businessmen… fraternize with their Indian guides…Around the Camp Fire,” June 1909

Mob Law in Old Dublin, October 1913, and Assassination attempt on the King of Spain, June 1913

Similar preoccupations to 2015, from June 1909 and March 1913

Come to the Toronto Reference Library to see more. And, for an example of how photos can link us to the past, and what we can read into them, see Photographs of the Child in Canadian Pictorial from 1906 to 1916: A Reflection of the Ideas and Values of English Canadians about Themselves and “Other” Canadians by Loren Lerner, courtesy Project Muse.

Everywhere we look today, images surround us. Photos, drawings, graphics—all used to inform us, to distract us, to persuade us. Our time could be called the Age of the Image, and many people lament the rise of the quick graphic at the expense of the thoughtful text.

But images, right back to the caves of Lascaux, have the power to draw us in and to teach us. One of the great functions of libraries, and a major function of the Toronto Reference Library, is to preserve all kinds of information, including images, so that we can actually look back into the past as it was. Or at least, at the way people of the past wanted to be seen.

The majority of books, magazines and photographs we hold here were not bought from antique collectors or storage warehouses. They are the original items—the real McCoys—purchased with library funds when they were new and current; preserved here ever since.

One such gem is Canadian Pictorial, bought new in the early twentieth century for 10 cents an issue. This beautiful large format magazine, published from 1906 to 1916, was created specifically to take advantage of the recent advances in photographic printing. According to the History of the Book in Canada, the aim of its Montreal publishers “was to crowd as many pictures in as possible. Throughout its ten years the Pictorial covered wars, royalty, the movies, and scenery at home and abroad in high-quality photographic spreads printed in tints of brown, blue, and red as well as grey.”

Today, those pictures give us a vision of a past reality. Not just the way things looked, but the way people in the past wanted to present themselves and their world. As with all human endeavors, the message sent may not be exactly the message received, and pictures from the past tell us things that may not be very flattering. (Keep that in mind next time you post a selfie.)  What’s more, many of the preoccupations of the past weren’t so very different from the present. (Cute animal pictures anyone?)

Here’s a sampling from Canadian Pictorial.  What’s your interpretation of the world it shows us of the “innocent” times leading up to the conflagration of World War One?

(Click on any image to enlarge)

“Where Canada and the United States Meet”, August 1908   British bulldog “Elsimore Mally”, April 1913

 “All Hands Help the Cook” and “wealthy businessmen… fraternize with their Indian guides…Around the Camp Fire,” June 1909

Mob Law in Old Dublin, October 1913, and Assassination attempt on the King of Spain, June 1913

Similar preoccupations to 2015, from June 1909 and March 1913

Come to the Toronto Reference Library to see more. And, for an example of how photos can link us to the past, and what we can read into them, see Photographs of the Child in Canadian Pictorial from 1906 to 1916: A Reflection of the Ideas and Values of English Canadians about Themselves and “Other” Canadians by Loren Lerner, courtesy Project Muse.