An illustrated address I originally gave at the Canadian Library Association library history interest group session at Edmonton in
June 1989. Thanks to Pearl Milne, University of Guelph
Library, for her digital assistance with these
photographs. Additional images of Ontario libraries ranging from the early- to mid-twentieth century are archived at my older University of Guelph original website, Libraries Today.
Photographs can be used in historical accounts for many different
purposes. Often, they serve to illustrate the reality a writer wishes to
capture, an effective and time-honoured technique. But they also may be
used in their own right, not just as adjuncts to the literary record, but
as original sources. Images are part of a broader methodological
trend, one that has historians utilizing many non-traditional sources both
to establish information about people, places, and events, or to develop new
lines of inquiry. Of course, visual history is not new in itself, what has
changed in the past twenty years is that more rigorous use of photographs
as historical sources has evolved.
 |
| Uxbridge Library, c 1887 |
|
Historical photographs are being used now in a variety of critical ways in
research and teaching. (Note 1) In some cases, they may establish or verify
facts, an important consideration when traditional documents are lacking or
present discrepancies. Visual histories depicting social or cultural values
of an era or place are becoming more frequent; in these works, photographs
frequently help to determine the text which may be supplemented by other
resources. Sometimes, photographs can be used to reinforce historical
interpretations shaped with other source materials. In library history all
these photographic dimensions can be employed when different aspects
concerning the history of public libraries are analyzed or narrated. (Note 2)
Many photographs pertaining to library history exist at local libraries,
museums, and archives across Ontario. Although there is no comprehensive
catalogue or index to holdings, they can be as valuable as surviving
textual sources because they can be used to formulate new ideas about
libraries or to reinterpret a period. For instance, historical works
frequently refer to the four decades between 1880 and 1920 as "Victorian"
or "Edwardian" or as a "Progressive Era." This period is normally
characterized as one of growth and progress for Ontario public libraries,
an expansive theme culminating in the revised Public Libraries Act of 1920.
Like most eras, the years between 1880-1920 were ones of transition for
libraries, a view confirmed by many photographs.
By 1914, distinctively modernist trends were emerging in Ontario's
libraries; the Victorian synthesis of ideas and methods common to
mechanics' institutes and their immediate successors, free libraries, was
giving way to modern trends. Simply put, the public library in the first
decade of the twentieth century was modifying its functions and assuming
additional roles in society, a process allowing it to serve more people and
redefine its character as "modern" at a time when Modernism, a conscious
cultural rejection of the past by twentieth-century artists and scientists,
was beginning to sweep western nations. At the same time, Ontario was
becoming an urban province directed by new values. Historical photographs
of libraries help indicate the extent of these fundamental changes.
 |
| 1 - Toronto Mechanics' Institute |
Victorian Heritage
In the Edwardian era there was a mixture of old and new in many Ontario
libraries, particularly in cities. The physical reminder of mechanics'
institutes, a symbol of nineteenth-century ideals, survived in a few
places, notably Toronto where the old institute building, built in the Italian Renaissance style of the 1850s at considerable
cost, lingered on, first as an undersized central library, then, after the
larger reference library opened on College Street in 1909, as a community
branch at the intersection of
Church and Adelaide. It finally closed its doors just before the Great Depression.
 |
| 2 - Toronto Church St. Branch, 1924 |
|
Other pre-Carnegie structures, specially commissioned as free libraries,
existed in larger centres at Hamilton and London. London's library, designed by the local architect Herbert Matthews in 1895, reflected
the popularity of eclectic exteriors, in this case, a Romanesque facade with
conical towers, rounded arches, and smooth-faced red brick cladding. It
was a late-Victorian revival style that imparted a sense of permanence and
strength, solid qualities most communities were anxious to express in the
educational facilities they were striving to build at this time.
 |
| 3 - London Public Library |
 |
| 4 - Hamilton Public Library, c.1905 |
|
Interiors of Victorian free libraries were usually spartan: for
example, in Hamilton, a building
completed at a cost of about $45,000 in 1890, furnishings
in the reference section, general reading room, and ladies' reading room
were basic staples. These rooms flanked a main corridor leading to a large
counter behind which stretched a closed stack room capable of accommodating
50,000 books. The separate reading area for women was a fashionable (and
space consuming)
fin-de-siècle
enhancement that recognized the increasing number of women registering
as borrowers. Children under 16 years were less fortunate; generally, they
were denied borrowing privileges. In this respect Hamilton's library, led
by Richard Lancefield, was relatively liberal; its board began to lower the
age restriction for children before 1900. Children's rooms and
storytelling would be future projects.
 |
| 6 - Claremont Library, c.1895 |
|
 |
| 5 - Dundas Library, c.1896 |
|
In the smaller communities throughout rural Ontario, libraries
had to make do with more modest resources: rented offices, donated property
or rooms, or combined business quarters. The small, one-room, subscription
library managed by volunteers and part-time staff was commonplace. For
instance, at Dundas the library occupied part of the old Elgin House block on busy King
Street. In the police village of Claremont, the library operated from a
commercial storefront for several years
under the guidance of the incumbent shoemaker-librarian, Mr. James
Jobbitt, who resigned in 1903.
 |
| 7 - Streetsville Library |
|
At Streetsville, affairs were more upscale. In 1901 the board of management received a gift comprising part of a small frame commercial building. It converted the space into a serviceable one-room library housed with a jewelry shop. Streetsville was considered advanced by small-town Ontario standards: it operated on a free basis without an age limitation for children, possessed a card catalogue, and used the decimal classification system at a time when
the Education Department still clung to an outdated class system adapted from mechanics' institutes.
Edwardian Progress
 |
| Sarnia Library, c. 1903 | |
When Carnegie grants became readily available, architects,
trustees, and workers began transforming the organization of interior space
and the interrelationships between staff and patrons. Improved functions,
programs, and arrangements for access were under active development between
1900-10: there were larger branch libraries, children's services, improved
reference service, better classification and cataloging schemes, and open
access to collections. The familiar Victorian free library
conventions--the emphasis on physical custody of books, on printed
catalogues for holdings, and on public reading rooms; the use of indicators
(a British practice) for circulation status in lending departments; and a
desire to offer lectures or evening classes for the technical education of
working classes--was ebbing. Libraries were changing their methods,
expanding the scope of their public services, and re-evaluating their
connections with another developing field, adult education. The modern
public library as we know it today was emerging.
 |
| 8 - Laying Toronto Reference Cornerstone |
Carnegie gifts to local communities for library buildings not
only attracted public attention at openings and the laying of cornerstones
but also stimulated rhetoric about the merit of libraries. The
Globe
covered one Toronto ceremony,
presided over by Ontario's Lieutenant-Governor and Chief Justice
William G. Falconbridge, the board chairman, on 27 November 1906:
His Lordship stated that there was no question in this day of
the value of free libraries to communities. The objection that a
preponderating number of works of fiction circulated through a free
library, instead of more solid reading, was not a serious objection in the
mind of the Chief Justice, who admitted that he was no enemy to novel
reading. . . .
 |
| 10 - Free Public Library, Belleville, 1911 |
The box deposited in the corner-stone contained, among other
things, a catalogue of the central circulating library, copies of the
Toronto daily papers, Canadian coins, and a scroll containing names of
those directly interested in its construction. This type of ceremony was
re-enacted on many occasions during the Carnegie years. Sometimes a
benefaction other than Carnegie's was invoked, for example at Belleville, Henry Corby, a Conservative
member of Parliament, donated money for a library that opened January 1908 in
the remodelled Merchants' Bank building.
 |
| 9 - Berlin Library, c.1905 |
|
 |
| 11 - St. Thomas Library, c.1905 |
|
After 1900, the interior organization and services of libraries
began to change dramatically. At Berlin (now Kitchener), the traditional plan of
housing a stack room behind a barrier
surmounted by grillwork and railing originally was followed, but later the
board decided to permit open access to the collection except for fiction.
A special area set off for children and use of the decimal classification
were enterprising steps here. The same rationale about safeguarded free
access to all books except works of fiction also applied at St. Thomas. The interior here was more
ornate: classical busts and handsome
wood columns graced the main corridor leading to the circulation desk, the
reading room directly across from it, and the reference section at the end
of the hall.
 |
| 12 - Sarnia interior, c.1905 | |
|
Sarnia's library was
constructed along similar lines, but here the board adopted
unrestricted access to all books, a bold move in 1903, although the
building design easily allowed this measure. The board was fortunate to
employ Patricia Spereman, who developed children's services and conducted
story hours. She had trained at the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn
and became a pioneer in children's work in Ontario and Canada.
 |
| 13 - Sarnia Story Hour, 1907 |
|
 |
| 14 - Guelph Public Library, c.1905 |
|
Carnegie exteriors were celebrated (or detested) for their Beaux-Arts style featuring classical columns, steps, porticos, and domes. It was
an exuberant style with classical lines and elements that promoted civic
grandeur even in smaller cities which served as markets for the surrounding
rural populace. Guelph's library
was an Ontario leader in these regards and noted for its lack of
functional interior space. However, some architects were influenced by
local factors. In Cornwall, where a
significant French-speaking community existed, a French
chateau appearance was conveyed by the entrance, roof, and small corner
tower.
 |
| 15 - Cornwall Public Library, 1906 |
Some architects were able to use Beaux-Arts features in a
restrained fashion; perhaps the most capable was Alfred H. Chapman, who in
association with Wickson and Gregg, designed Toronto's reference library on the
corner of
College and St. George streets at a cost of more than
$250,000. This two-storey structure featured large windows flanked by
Corinthian pilasters, soft yellow brick, and main entrance set off to one
side. By the standards of the day and even during the bleakness of the
Great War, it was an approachable "people place."
 |
| 16 - Toronto Reference Library, 1915 |
* * * * *
In the years immediately preceding the First World War,
therefore, Ontario's public libraries went through unprecedented change.
The assumptions and characteristics common to Victorian free libraries--an
adult clientele, priority on the safekeeping of books, limited services
for users, systems of retrieval based on printed catalogues and
indicators, classification and cataloguing systems that applied subject
categories and accessioning practice developed in mechanics' institutes,
and revival architectural styles--were being challenged and supplanted.
The pace of change obviously had quickened in Edwardian Ontario, but faith
in the library's contribution to societal progress, a belief that eventual
improvements in society would ensue by assisting personal initiatives and
stimulating their success, was unshaken. The service ethic became the
most important constant in this era, a powerful rationale that spurred new
library developments in a society that prized individual effort and public
duty.
It is difficult to convey the spirit of any era or activity,
but a review of pictures in this brief photo study reveals that it was
time for libraries and librarians to look ahead, to question old views and
methods, and to adopt fresh ideas.
PICTURE CAPTIONS AND CREDITS
Assistance with digitizing these photographs was kindly rendered by
Pearl Milne of the University of Guelph Library.
Fig.1 The Toronto Mechanics' Institute before 1884 [AO, S-1178].
Fig. 2 An old Toronto library: the Church street branch, 8 Feb. 1924
[NAC, PA-86436].
Fig. 3 London Public Library, n.d. [NAC,
PA-32789].
Fig. 4 View of Hamilton Public Library interior,
c.1905 [AO, S-2042].
Fig. 5 Public library at Dundas, c.1896
[AO, S-6934].
Fig. 6 Palmer & Jobbitt store-library at
Claremont, c.1895/1903 [AO, S-13475].
Fig. 7 Streetsville's new
library, n.d. [AO, S-16035].
Fig. 8 Chief Justice Falconbridge
laying the cornerstone of the public reference library in Toronto [AO,
S-1252].
Fig. 9 Free Public Library, Belleville, 1911 [NAC,
C-21464].
Fig. 10 Berlin Public Library interior, c.1905 [AO,
S-2044].
Fig. 11 Central corridor of St. Thomas Public Library,
c.1905 [AO, S-2055].
Fig. 12 Lending desk and stack room at
Sarnia, c.1905 [AO, S-2057].
Fig. 13 After the Story Hour, 2
March 1907 [AO, S-2058].
Fig. 14 Sham pillars: Guelph Public
Library, c.1905 [AO, S-2035].
Fig. 15 Cornwall Public
Library, 20 Oct. 1906 [AO, S-2032].
Fig. 16 Toronto Reference
Library at 214 College Street, 13 March 1915 [NAC, PA-61384].
AO: Archives of Ontario
NAC: National Archives of Canada
NOTES
-
1. For discussions on the use of photographs see:
- Carol E. Hoffecker, "The Emergence of a Genre: the Urban Pictorial
History,"
Public Historian,
5 (4) 1983: 37-48;
Walter Rundell, Jr, "Photographs as
Historical Evidence: Early Texas Oil,"
American Archivist
41 (4) 1978: 373-398;
Stuart T. Miller, "The Value of
Photographs as Historical Evidence,"
Local Historian
15 (8) 1983: 468-473;
Timothy J. Crimmins, "Is a Picture
Worth a Thousand Words? Illustrated Urban Histories,"
Journal of Urban History
13 (1) 1986: 82-91; and
W. Gillies Ross, "The Use and
Misuse of
Historical Photographs: A Case Study from Hudson Bay, Canada,"
Arctic Anthropology
27 (2) 1990: 93-112.
For library applications see Boyd
Childress, "Library History, University History, and Photographic
History: Some Considerations for Research,"
Journal of Library History
22 (1) 1987: 70-84.
-
2. Recent Canadian works include:
- Margaret Beckman, John Black and Stephen Langmead, "Carnegie
Libraries in Canada,"
Canadian Library Journal
38(6) 1981: 386-390 and
The Best Gift; a Record of Carnegie Libraries in Ontario
(Toronto: Dundurn Press, 1983);
David R. Conn and Barry
McCallum, "Heritage to Hi-Tech; Evolution of Image and Function in
Canadian Public Library Buildings," in Peter F. McNally (ed.),
Readings in Canadian Library History
(Ottawa: Canadian Library Association, 1986), pp. 123-149;
Margaret Penman,
A Century of Service; Toronto Public Library
1883-1983 (Toronto: Toronto Public Library, 1983); and
Barbara
Myrvold, "The First Hundred Years: Toronto Public Library 1883-1983," in
McNally,
Readings
, pp. 65-79.
