Old Canadian Photographs

*Dr. McDonald's Forward* International Grain Elevators, Sask. Indian Head	*Man's Best friend* 1910	Summer Day Ontario August, 1911
*Hunting* May 24, 1912	*Hupmobile Touring Car* *Eating Corn*	Chemong Bridge Chemong School Chemong Delivery
*CPR Marmora* Crowe Lake Heeley Falls	*The Spider* Grand's at Simcoe & Nelson St. $150.00	*Children Playing*
*My Baby*

The Canadian copyright law was hotly debated in the House of Commons in 1842. They had to comply with the laws where one copy of all Canadian books, Canadian photographs, maps were to be deposited to the British Museum, now the British Library in London. The other two copies were sent to the Copyright Office and the Library of Parliament.

The British supported a new copyright act that would legally allow Canadian publishers to pirate U.S. material, that is, to use copyright material without paying any fees. Ontario publishers were very highly organized in pirating in the nineteenth century. In the 1880s, when visiting Montreal, Mark Twain was outraged with the Canadian publishers bypassing U.S. copyright regulations.

Many of the early twentieth century collection of rare books, Canadian photographs, maps were either destroyed in the two fires at the Library of Parliament in Ottawa or thrown out by the Copyright Office. The first fire in 1916 actually started in the Library itself, contained a large and valuable collection of rare books, Canadian photograph, maps, as well as the current newspapers. The second fire in 1953 started in the dome of the Library of Parliament with water flooding on the collection caused most of the damage, as was the case in the 1916 fire.

What really ticked off Canadian historians was the fact that Governor-General Lord Tweedsmuir and Prime Minister Mackenzie King signed a order-in-council in 1937, which decreed that some of the material be offered to the Secretary of State Library and the rest to the Copyright Office to be dispose of what remained. The record shows that one hundred and fifty rare books of prominent Canadian statesmen and the history of Canada were obtained from the Copyright Office, together with some sixty volumes of Canadian fiction and deposited in the Secretary of State Library. Whatever happened to the remaining 37,000 rare books, photograph, maps and sheet music were either destroyed or given away.

The British Library claims that most of the Canadian rare books, Canadian photographs, and so on were pulped in 1914 or 1915 for the war effort. Perhaps most of Canada's treasure disappeared on 10 May 1941 when dozens of war bombs fell on the British Museum.

Canada's early twentieth century was an exciting, and critical period of history when George Eastman's Kodak camera in 1890 came out with the roll film that took 100 exposures, was simple to operate, brought Canadian photography within the reach of the masses at a cost of $25.

On the political scene Sir John A. Macdonald, the first Prime Minister struggled to securely establish the new country had won the march 1891 election, but soon was dead. Then there was the Liberalism of Sir Wilfred Laurier years between 1893 -1911 brought economic boom to Canada. The Canadian Pacific Railway commissioned a number of Canadian photographers to record spectacular sights and development in Canada and then were sent to Britain and Europe to provide stimulus for the massive wave of immigration which soon followed the opening of the railway.

In Saskatchewan alone received 450,000 newcomers between 1885 and 1910, many Canadian photographs were taken of distinct settlements of French, Polish, Jewish, Dutch, British, Ukrainian, Mennonites, Germans and Chinese. The government was making an irresistible offer of 65 hectares (160 acres) per man, free after developed it over three years and become a British subject. A further 160 acres was available to each man over eighteen.

Motor cars driven by gasoline engines did not appear on the streets until about 1900. The automobile was slowly beginning to make an impact on Canada. By 1914 there were 75,000 cars in Canada, almost half of them in Ontario. The car enabled people to visit families, meet friends and to sightsee - and they took their cameras with them.

Many invention and inventors were recorded and photographed. The most famous being Sir Alexander Graham Bell. He worked as a teacher of the deaf had led to his invention of the telephone. He built the hydrofoil craft, HD-4, and the Silver Dart that was the first manned flight in Canada across Baddock Bay in 1909.

The camera during this period may have been primitive to our digital technology of today, but it did a great job of recording Canada's people and those fleeting moments of real historic importance, and the simple everyday chronicling of events which are all on this website.
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