Rare Merit

Women in Photography in Canada, 1840–1940

By Colleen Skidmore
Categories: Art & Performance Studies, Art History, Gender & Sexuality Studies, Women’s Studies, History, Canadian History, Art
Publisher: UBC Press
Paperback : 9780774867054, 368 pages, June 2022
Ebook (PDF) : 9780774867061, 368 pages, June 2022
Ebook (EPUB) : 9780774867078, 368 pages, June 2022

Table of contents

Introduction

1 The Daguerreans, 1841–61

2 The Livernois Studio, 1854–74

3 Notman’s Printing Room, 1860–80

4 The Maynard Studio, 1862–1912

5 The Moodie Studio, 1895–1905

6 Travel, Photography, and Photojournalism, 1872–1940

7 Commercial Studio Photographers, 1860–1940

8 Artists and Amateurs, 1890–1940

Conclusion

Notes; Selected Bibliography; List of Illustrations; Index

Rare Merit illuminates the impact of women as portraitists, travel documentarians, photojournalists, fine artists, hobbyists, and printers in the early years of photography in Canada.

Description

Rare Merit is a beautifully illustrated and astute examination of women photographers in Canada as it took shape in the nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries. Throughout, the camera was both a witness to the colonialism, capitalism, and gendered and racialized social organization, and a protagonist. And women across the country, whether residents or visitors, captured people and places that were entirely new to the lens. This book shows how they did so, and the meaning their work carries.

Awards

  • Joint winner, AUPresses Book, Jacket, and Journal Show: Scholarly Illustrated 2023