Tag Archives: documents

Expect the Unexpected!

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By Forrest Pass

What do Inuit mapmakers, German composer Ludwig van Beethoven, a notorious Italian stamp forger and Soviet spies have in common? Their works are all represented in the collections at Library and Archives Canada. These artifacts are also showcased in Unexpected! Surprising Treasures From Library and Archives Canada, which opens at the Canadian Museum of History on Thursday, December 8, 2022. This new exhibition gives curious visitors a chance to see, first-hand, many intriguing items that they might not expect to find at Canada’s national library and archives.

The exhibition features some 40 original documents, maps, photographs, rare books and works of art. Regular readers of this blog will know that researchers and staff are always coming across surprises in the collection. A few of the items displayed in Unexpected! are perennial favourites. Others are new finds, the never-before-exhibited results of research into the unusual stories that library and archival collections can reveal.

A handwritten document on lined paper, with some words in black ink scratched out in red ink.

A secret agent receives instructions from his handlers. The delivery of this and other Soviet espionage documents to Canadian authorities in 1945 helped to start the Cold War. (e011316511_s1)

These stories are clustered around three themes. The first, Wonders, presents artifacts that delighted or intrigued their audiences when they were created, and they continue to do so today. Visitors will discover how a manuscript composition by Beethoven ended up in Canada. They can experience an 18th-century version of virtual reality. They may also contemplate two contrasting visions of the Arctic: one, the product of an imaginative European cartographer who had never visited the region, and the other, the work of two Inuit mapmakers with deep connections to the land.

A street with pink, green and beige buildings, soldiers, a dog, and a horse and carriage.

Perspective views, like this imaginary street scene in the city of Québec, appear to be three-dimensional when viewed through a device called a zograscope. The exhibition features a reconstructed zograscope, enabling visitors to experience virtual reality, 1770s-style. (e011309357)

In the second theme, Secrets, Unexpected! explores how and why people keep secrets, and how they share secrets with those who need to know. Visitors can crack a coded love letter, ponder the rich symbolism of a centuries-old masonic ritual painting, and find out why the Dominion Archivist once mused (or “mew-sed”?) about putting cats on the government payroll.

The final theme, Mysteries, presents some unresolved puzzles. Here, visitors can pore over the contents of a UFO investigation file, or come face to face with the rare “Fool’s Cap Map,” printed in the 1500s and perhaps the most mysterious map ever created.

Two yellow stamps placed diagonally on a page. They both have a blue ink stamp.

One of these 1851 New Brunswick postage stamps is a forgery. Can you spot the fake? (e011309360 and e011309361)

The stories that these artifacts tell can be funny, thought-provoking or simply curious. What links them all is that each artifact, when you scratch beneath its surprising surface, reveals something important about the past. There are good reasons why they have found their way into the collections at Library and Archives Canada.

This is the latest in a series of exhibitions developed in partnership between Library and Archives Canada and the Canadian Museum of History. As the curator for Unexpected!, I have had the privilege and pleasure of collaborating on this project with a multidisciplinary team of exhibition and collections professionals from both institutions. In addition to providing the venue, the museum has contributed creative development expertise and a scenographic approach that recalls the look and feel of mid-century mysteries and spy thrillers. The museum’s technicians also took up the challenge of constructing several interactive elements that will enhance visitors’ understanding and appreciation of the original artifacts.

Unexpected! Surprising Treasures From Library and Archives Canada is at the Canadian Museum of History until November 26, 2023. Watch this blog as well as Library and Archives Canada’s social media channels in the coming weeks and months to learn more about the astonishing treasures on display.

Forrest Pass is a curator in the Exhibitions team at Library and Archives Canada.

A Little History: the Hidden Stories of Children—an exhibition at the Canadian Museum of History

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Too often the experiences, stories and contributions of children are romanticized, overlooked, or entirely absent from our history books. As is often the case, the least powerful in society leave little trace of their lives. Those childhoods that were documented and preserved can be quite telling.

The exhibition, A Little History: the Hidden Stories of Children, at the Canadian Museum of History presents rarely seen archival documents, photographs, works of art and artifacts from the collections of both the Canadian Museum of History and Library and Archives Canada. The exhibition recounts the unique experiences of children found in archival documents.

Children are rarely the authors of their own histories. Fragments of their stories lie within the materials that adults produce—from formal portraits found in family collections to documents in government and institutional records. These traces of their experiences help reveal the attitudes of adults toward them and the impact of laws and policies on them throughout history.

An oil painting of two young girls dressed in identical red dresses with lace around the neckline and red necklaces. One of them holds a small dog.

Céline and Rosalvina Pelletier, attributed to James Bowman, ca. 1838, oil on canvas (MIKAN 2837219)

Before the advent of photography, painted portraits were the only visual records of individuals. The absence of portraits of poor children demonstrates how this type of art was exclusive to the affluent. This portrait of the Pelletier sisters reflects their wealth and status. Depicted as little adults, the girls are dressed stiffly, holding a miniature dachshund (a symbol of fidelity), and wearing coral necklaces, which were believed to ward off childhood diseases.

A black-and-white studio photograph of three children. One is sitting in a chair and the two others stand beside.

The Children We Seek to Help, photographer unknown, ca. 1900, silver gelatin print. (MIKAN 3351178)

Institutional records are a key source of information about children. The “child-saving” era of the late 19th century saw the creation of a number of child welfare organizations, such as the Children’s Aid Society. These charities sought to help poor, abandoned and neglected children by operating orphanages and training schools, and providing adoption services. Child-rescue workers used photography to both document and promote their work, often invoking contradictory images to draw attention to their cause by portraying children as both innocent victims and criminals in training.

When viewing the past through adult eyes, the role and presence of children is sometimes obscured. But children were also involved in or felt the impact of significant events in Canadian history.

A black-and-white studio photograph of two children leaning against a side table, each with a hand on a cheek.

Jean-Louis and Marie-Angélique Riel, ca. 1888, by Steele & Wing, albumen print (MIKAN 3195233)

Jean-Louis and Marie-Angélique were born in Montana during the political exile of their father and Métis leader, Louis Riel for his role in the 1870 Red River Resistance. After their father’s execution in 1885, Marie-Angélique went to live with an uncle in Winnipeg, where she died of tuberculosis in 1896. Jean-Louis took his mother’s family name, moved to Montréal, and later died at the age of 25 in a horse-and-cart accident.

A handwritten letter from Louis Riel to his wife and children.

Letter from Louis Riel to his wife and children, dated November 16, 1885, ink on paper (MIKAN 126629)

This last letter from Louis Riel to his wife and children offers a private view of the Métis leader. Written on November 16, 1885, the day of his hanging in Regina, Riel speaks of his children, asks his wife to “have them pray for me” [translation] and ends his letter with “Take courage. Bless you. Your father, Louis ‘David’ Riel.” [translation].

Items created by children are often ephemeral and seldom preserved in collections. Those that have been preserved can be challenging to find as they are frequently subsumed within the broader histories and heritage of their families and communities and are rarely catalogued as being child-made. For these reasons, it is easiest to find material created by children who grew up to be important adults or were related to a famous adult.

The handwritten diary of Sandford Fleming, open and showing his writings.

Diary of Sandford Fleming, 1843, pencil and paper (MIKAN 4938908)

This diary, kept by 16-year-old Sandford Fleming, seems to foretell his later success as an engineer and inventor. Filled with architectural plans, scientific formulas, and inventions, the diary exemplifies Fleming’s industriousness.

Children’s letters and diaries provide a rare glimpse into their private worlds, revealing their unique ways of speaking, thinking and interpreting the world around them. Intimate, candid, and sometimes whimsical, the diaries, letters and drawings created by children invite us to see history with fresh eyes.

A black-and-white studio portrait of a young man in uniform, with arms crossed.

Portrait of Arthur Wendell Phillips Lawson, photographer unknown, 1918, matt collodion print (MIKAN 187937)

A handwritten diary with boxes on each date that includes the scores of the World Series games.

Diary of Arthur Wendell Phillips Lawson, 1914, ink, paper, and leather (MIKAN 129683)

This diary of 16-year-old Arthur Lawson invites us to understand his childhood sense of self and the world around him. Written at the beginning of the First World War, Lawson’s headlines about the battles raging overseas seem casually inserted alongside mundane notes about the weather, family events (like his brother’s birthday) and the scores of the 1914 World Series between the Boston Braves and the Philadelphia Athletics. Before the war was over, Lawson enlisted.

For more examples of these intriguing stories, visit A Little History: the Hidden Stories of Children on display in the Treasures from Library and Archives Canada gallery at the Canadian Museum of History from March 30, 2018 to January 27, 2019.