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2024 First Edition Photobook Award

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Group of four individuals holding books
Award recipients and their books at the opening reception and awards celebration. Image courtesy of Artspace TMU gallery.

We are thrilled to announce the 2024 winners for the First Edition Photobook Award!

The TMU Libraries First Edition Photobook Award was instituted in 2015 by Special Collections Librarian Alison Skyrme and Image Arts Instructor Christopher Manson. As part of MPS507 – The Photographic Book, 3rd year Image Arts students conceive of, and produce photobooks during the course, based on their photography. The course concludes with a group show of the books at TMU Artspace gallery.

Each year, TMU Libraries purchases the First Edition Award winning books from the students, catalogues them, and houses them in Special Collections. The winning books are selected by a jury panel using design, sequencing, and integration of images and text as the main evaluation criteria.

The First Edition Photobook Award is generously sponsored by the Photographic Historical Society of Canada.

First Edition Photobook Award Recipients

Pink book cover with the title FRISSON!

Sai Bagni, Frisson! A universe built from my observations of my online youth. It is a coming-of-age that exists in pixels and code. Frisson: a word of French origin that describes a feeling of fear or excitement that precedes the anticipation of something that’s about to happen. It denotes the act of waiting and anticipating for something that stands out amongst the banality of everyday life.

Madison Chow, Works of the Flesh. A collection of Polaroids and long exposure imagery that explores the body, created with the intention to speak to experiences of sexualization in the church. Paired with handwritten text, the images create a biblical narrative, using its symbolism to confront and heal from religious trauma.

Dark red book cover with the title Works of the Flesh
Newsprint with an image of a metal paper airplane and the text HAUTE COUTURE

Max Grueninger, HAUTE COUTURE. By reimagining the purpose of each image and subtly weaving fashion elements into the narrative, the visuals aim to inspire a new generation to see the term haute couture as not merely clothing but as a dynamic, evolving concept that can transform and elevate the ordinary into the extraordinary.

Alejandra Harrison, Murder at Monochrome Manor. Inspired by the classic board game Clue and visual styling of film noir Murder at Monochrome Manor explores the limitations of photography in data collection and the power of individual understanding. Offering minimal context to enhance the interactive element, this work invites viewers to take on the role of investigator by examining the images for clues and piece the mystery together to find a solution they interpret.

Black book cover with the outline of a file folder
Grey marble book cover with stains from cups

Sophia Markelj, Generational Flavours. Explores the intimate connection between food, family traditions, and cultural heritage. Using passed-down dishware, tablecloths and cutlery, I explore a gift my grandmother gave me before she passed. Motivated by the notes she left me, these images become not merely representations of dishes, but visual tributes to the love and stories passed down through generations.

Joon-Young Lee, Nicotine, Glass & Fabrics. A photographic love letter to 3 friends who have been apart of my entire career as a photographer. The book recontextualizes each image to reflect on the memories and relationship built from them, paried with transcripts from my conversations with each friend.

Book cover with hands making the shape of a heart over cigarettes
Book cover with an image taken inside the front of an airplane

Christie Xu, A Place On Earth. In the summer of 2023 my partner and I plotted out our longest cross-country flight after a failed attempt last winter break. “A Place On Earth“ documented our trip from Albany, New York to visit Purdue University in Lafayette, Indiana where he started his flight training, just in time for our friend’s graduation. After that, we head South to Huston, Texas before turning back to New York via Louisiana, Tennessee and Ohio. This book includes polaroids and 35mm film during flying.

2024 Jury Panel

This year we were fortunate to have a judges panel that included Kristen Adlhoch, Holly Forsythe Paul, Jennifer Park and Rahim Perez-Anderson.

Kristen Adlhoch holds a BFA in Photography from Toronto Metropolitan University, and an MLit and PhD in the History of Photography from the University of St Andrews, Scotland. She is currently a Part-Time Lecturer and the Student and Partner Outreach Coordinator for the Film and Photography Preservation and Collections Management MA program at TMU.

Holly Forsythe Paul is a rare book librarian who received her M.I. from the University of Toronto in 2021. Prior to her studies in librarianship, Holly taught English literature and writing at University of Toronto for over a decade. She is currently the Special Collections Librarian at TMU Libraries and teaches Conservation & Preservation of Recorded Information at the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Information.

Jennifer Park is the Art Preparator at The Image Centre at Toronto Metropolitan University. She is also a Co-Coordinator of the IMC’s Art Handing Apprenticeship Program which offers training to BIPOC who are in the early stages of their career in museum work.

Rahim Perez-Anderson is a Black visual storyteller, working out of Tkaronto/Toronto. Intrigued by human experience and the observation of life, Rahim specializes in self-portraiture and documentary photography, exploring his lived experiences within and around topics of identity, race, and selfhood.

Related articles

First Edition Photobook Show (TMU Artspace Gallery)

First Edition Photobook Show highlights TMU image arts students (The Eyeopener)

1890s Little Magazines: Yellow Nineties 2.0

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Black and white print of three women with ornamental wings
Flower of the Grass Headpiece by John Duncan from the Yellow Nineties 2.0 Database of Ornaments

Do you know the Yellow Nineties 2.0 database? It is an open-access resource dedicated to the study of eight late-Victorian “little magazines” produced between 1889 and 1905. The brief period is known as the “Yellow Nineties” after The Yellow Book, a controversial quarterly publication that embodied the “decadent” culture of the fin de siècle.

Toronto Metropolitan University professor Lorraine Janzen Kooistra spearheaded the Yellow Nineties 2.0 website, a digitization project that has evolved into a world-class online database composed of searchable editions of each publication, a database of textual ornaments found in the issues, peer-reviewed essays on the “little magazine” contributors and much more research on the period and the people who produced these works. The scholarly site is dedicated to the study of The Yellow Book, The Dial, The Pagan Review, The Evergreen, The Savoy, The Pageant, The Green Sheaf and The Venture. Many of the physical publications held at Toronto Metropolitan University Libraries Special Collections were digitized to create online versions for the database.

To celebrate the Yellow Nineties 2.0’s completion, TMU’s Special Collections is hosting an exhibition until the end of April 2024 showcasing the Victorian “little magazines” in our holdings.

Black and white print of the spring almanac with images representing the astrological signs
Spring Almanac by Helen Hay from the Yellow Nineties 2.0 Database of Ornaments

Over the years, the “little magazines” held in Special Collections alongside the Yellow Nineties 2.0 database have facilitated interactive student workshops and research creation through TMU’s English department among other partnerships on campus. Explore the Y90s Classroom website to learn more about the research and exhibitions created using these collections.

Student have shared their initial reactions after being introduced to the Yellow Nineties 2.0 and the physical copies held at TMU Special Collections below:

What a treat to hold a piece of art and literary history in your hands! Interacting with the collection online and in person is like night and day – they complement each other. While the online collection is wonderful for facilitating remote research, these magazines truly are art objects and must be appreciated in their proper, corporeal form. Nothing can compare to the opportunity to interact with the item itself. It’s a tremendous privilege to reach into the past and touch the same pages that were lovingly designed, printed, and bound, by literature lovers of the past. While there are no time-machines at TMU, historical literary collections are the next best thing.

Cameron Wheeler, TMU English Department Student
black and white print of three flowers
Spring in Languedoc by Alice Gray from the Yellow Nineties 2.0 Database of Ornaments

History preserved in time—a glimpse at the lives and creative pursuits of those who lived over a century before us.

It was very interesting to me that quite a large amount of the pages in some of the magazines were white, compared to present-day magazines which cover every single empty space with something. This really allows the reader to focus their attention on the sole thing that the page is presenting to them, whether it be a short story, a poem or a piece of art.

Erik Tahiliani, TMU English Department Student
page from The Evergreen with a poem titled Love Shall Stay
Love Shall Stay by Margaret Armour from The Evergreen, Autumn 1895

To view the current exhibition 1890s Little Magazines: Art for Art’s Sake in Print , visit us on the 4th floor of the TMU Libraries Building. The current exhibition, available until April 30th 2024, features several of the “Little Magazines” held at TMU Special Collections, including The Dial, The Yellow Book, The Evergreen, The Savoy, The Pageant and The Venture.

1890s Little Magazines: Art for Art’s Sake in Print

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by Holly Forsythe Paul

After the great success of the Kelmscott Press under the direction of William Morris (1834-1896), artists and bookmakers recognized that there was a niche audience willing to buy expensive books with daring or progressive subject matter as long as they were beautiful. 


This change in the notion of the reading public, its taste and, particularly, its morality, liberated artists to make increasingly exotic books and periodicals. The ‘little magazines’ of the 1890s sprang up in this context. Beautifully designed and illustrated, they embody a different set of values from those we associate with Victorian orthodoxy: celebrating gendered, sexual, regional, or social alternatives.

Printing changed in the 1890s, starting with the Pre Raphaelite concept of total book design, and the Arts & Crafts return to artisanal craftsmanship. High-quality volumes could be sold for very high prices and no longer needed a mass audience in order to become financially viable productions. First-rate artists were drawn from the canvas to the page as technological developments gave them more control and the development of a niche, connoisseur audience gave them more thematic flexibility. The “Little Magazines” of the 1890s are among the most prized results: an outburst of sophisticated, beautiful publications by the most talented, avant-garde artists of the Aesthetic Movement.

The current exhibition, available until April 30th 2024, features several of the “Little Magazines” held at TMU Special Collections, including The Dial, The Yellow Book, The Evergreen, The Savoy, The Pageant and The Venture.

The Dial: An Occasional Publication (5 issues, 1889-1897)

Produced by joint editors Charles Ricketts (1866-1931) and Charles Shannon, The Dial featured art and literature, much of it produced by a core bohemian circle who congregated at Ricketts and Shannon’s home. Unlike most Art Nouveau magazines, The Dial prominently features wood engraving and lithography, illustrative techniques in which the artist controls the means of production. Although only five issues were produced by a small group of artists for a niche audience. the artisanal integrity and harmonious design of The Dial had a major impact, influencing a revival in wood engraving and leading to Ricketts’s founding of The Vale Press (1896-1904).

The Yellow Book: An Illustrated Quarterly (13 issues, 1894-1897)


The Yellow Book embodies the “decadent” culture of the fin de siècle. Aubrey Beardsley (1872-1898) proposed a quarterly that would focus equally on art and literature to the publisher John Lane (1854-1925) with Beardsley as art editor & principal artist while Henry Harland (1861-1905) acted as literary editor. Taking the colour yellow as a nod to risqué Continental literature and producing grotesque and suggestive images designed to shock the uninitiated, Beardsley courted controversy and found it. Fearful of Beardsley’s association with Oscar Wilde (1854-1900) when the latter was arrested for “gross indecency,” Lane fired Beardsley. The change from daring to conservative content that starts with the fifth issue highlights Beardsley’s impact on the early volumes.

The Evergreen (4 issues, 1895-1896/7)

Reflecting the diverse concerns of its polymath sponsor, Patrick Geddes (1854-1932), The Evergreen blends interests in ecology and urban renewal with a celebration of the Scottish Renascence and the Celtic revival. 


These conservationist & post-colonial priorities are manifest in the periodical’s appearance, particularly its type. The Evergreen was printed by Edinburgh’s foremost arts-and-crafts printer, Walter Blaikie (1848-1928), and deliberately revives Celtic art in its ornaments. Copies bearing the coloured leather bindings designed by Charles Mackie (1862-1920), with a stylized tree on the upper cover, are especially prized.

The Savoy (8 volumes, 1896)

When Aubrey Beardsley was fired from his role editing The Yellow Book, Leonard Smithers (1861-1907) seized the opportunity to enlist the talented artist. Like The Yellow Book, The Savoy combined art and literature, and adopted the format of the book, with stiff board covers, high-quality paper, and fine illustrations. In its pages, we can trace Beardsley’s departure from the influence of Japanese woodcuts to the rococo style of 18th-century France, with much more fine detail and texture. After two quarterly issues, Smithers retooled The Savoy as a monthly magazine, changing its format, streamlining the contents, and lowering the price. Although it ultimately failed to find an audience, it is a remarkable attempt to extend avant-garde art to a wider public.

The Pageant (2 volumes, 1896 & 1897)

Edited by Charles Shannon (1863-1937) and Gleeson White (1851-1898), The Pageant connects the little magazines to the earlier genre of the Christmas Annual. Like the Ladies’ Annuals that had been a dominant genre in the book market in the 1830s, The Pageant offered reproductions of famous works of art in print. Unlike its predecessors, this avant-garde journal had a distinctly sophisticated & intellectual array of content, including art history, ancient myth, modern western culture, and decadent cosmopolitanism. In this respect, The Pageant connected the Aesthetic movement to a long tradition of European art.

The Venture: An Annual of Art and Literature (2 issues, 1903-1905)

The Venture was published by gallery owner John Baillie (1868-1926) and edited by Laurence Housman (1865-1959) and W. Somerset Maugham (1874-1965). Determined to make The Venture into a “book beautiful”, Baillie enlisted James J. Guthrie (1874-1952) to print the letterpress and wood engravings of the first volume and Bernard Newdigate (1869-1944) to print the letterpress for volume two in collaboration with specialists in etchings, line blocks, lithographs, and photogravures. 
The Venture is beautiful and notable for its high literary quality, but failed to find a large audience. As its title indicates, producing a high-brow annual was always imagined as a risk.

Cover of The Venture with a person using a bow and arrow

Highlights from the Canadian Community Cookbook Collection

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The Canadian Community Cookbook Collection contains over 250 community cookbooks, culinary textbooks, and company publications related to food products dating from 1888 to the early 2000s. It was donated to Special Collections in 2021 by Dr. Ian Mosby, a faculty member from TMU’s Department of History.

We are featuring an assortment of cookbooks in this blog, as well as in the display case on the 4th floor of the Libraries, to highlight the wide range of genres within culinary publications. We hope that these windows into Canadian culinary history, and especially the festive recipes, will inspire you to try making a new dish, or watch the Great Canadian Baking Show during the winter break! 


Holiday Menus from Robin Hood (1955)

A large portion of the collection is made of community cookbooks. These were created by women’s associations, church groups, hospitals, and community groups for fundraising purposes. They compile and publish recipes from community members and include the contributor’s name in the cookbook. These are simple publications, and would often offset printing costs by including advertisements for local businesses.

  • Specialties from Sugar and Spice (1948)
  • Recipes from Specialties from Sugar and Spice (1948)
  • Green book cover
    The Kelowna Hospital Women’s Auxiliary Cook Book : a collection of tried and tested recipes (1936)
  • Recipes and local advertisements
    Local advertisements and recipes from The Kelowna Hospital Women’s Auxiliary Cook Book (1936)
  • Book cover with two young children eating spaghetti
    Kid’s Kosher Cookbook
  • Chanukah Potato Latkes recipe
    Latke recipe from the Kid’s Kosher Cookbook

Another genre is advertising cookbooks. These were published by food companies, such as gelatin, flour and corn starch producers. They often include detailed photographs or illustrations of dishes that can be made using their products. Since these were used for marketing purposes, they can help us understand trends in culinary styles and kitchen technologies.

  • Book cover with a red Jell-O dish with strawberries
    Today …. what salad …. what dessert?: Jell-O brings DOZENS of answers…. (1928)
  • Jell-O snow recipes
    Desert recipes from Jell-O brings DOZENS of answers… (1928)
  • Orange Jell-O salad illustration with recipe
    Salad recipe from Jell-O brings DOZENS of answers… (1928)
  • Book cover with red, blue and white text over a brown cover
    Working People’s Cookbook : The Practical Answer to “What’s For dinner” in Less Than an Hour (1976)
  • Salad recipe from Working People’s Cookbook (1976)

The collection has several educational cookbooks, which provide culinary instructions for people wanting to sharpen their culinary skills. There are also government sponsored cookbooks, which outline recommendations for food preparations, dietary guidelines, and often highlight agricultural products from the region.  

Cookbook cover with a person boiling water over the stove
Book cover with a woman in blue holding a bowl of produce
Book cover with yellow illustrations of cheese

Although these cookbooks reflect the time in which they were published (Jell-O salads!), the recipes are still incredibly fun to make, and turns out they can be quite delicious! To celebrate this new collection, the TMU Libraries staff who catalogued and processed the cookbooks recreated a dish from the collection to share with others (pictured below!) To view more cookbooks from this collection, stop by the Libraries’ 4th floor exhibition case by Archives & Special Collections, or explore the titles through our online finding aid.

A selection of deserts and baked goods
Green Jell-O salad

2022 Alcuin Awards for Book Design

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Since 1984, the Alcuin Society has recognized excellence in book design with a national awards program. The TMU Libraries are happy to showcase the award winners in nine trade book categories for the 2022 publishing period. The books will be on display in the exhibition window outside of the Archives & Special Collections (ASC), 4th Floor of the Library building, from November 7-29, 2023.

Books are judged in the following categories:

  • Children’s picture books
  • Comics (book-length comics with strong visual storytelling and dedication to production values; e.g., graphic novels)
  • Limited editions
  • Pictorial, including exhibition catalogues
  • Poetry
  • Prose: fiction
  • Prose: illustrated
  • Prose: non-fiction
  • Reference, including how-to, DIY, cooking, travel

See The Alcuin Society’s website for a full list of the 35 winners.

Interested in reading these fabulous books? The TMU Libraries have several of the award winners in the collection, including the titles highlighted below:

305 lost buildings of Canada NA740.5.L67 B54 2022
Ducks : two years in the oil sands PN6733.B33 B43 2022
Making love with the land PS8645.H5495 M35 2022
Fayne PS8575.D38 F39 2022
Being legendary : at Royal Ontario Museum : confronting colonialism, rethinking history ND249.M575 A4 2023
People Change PS8637.H73 P46 2022

All of the books are on loan from the Alcuin Society and the Toronto Metropolitan University Libraries are pleased to be one of the Toronto stops for this national touring exhibition. Later, the books will be touring Germany. For a full list of venues, see the Alcuin Society website.

LGBT History Month

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Explore the vibrant 2SLGBTQ+  history at TMU! For LGBT History Month we are highlighting key moments and achievements of the 2SLGBTQ+ communities at TMU and more broadly in Toronto.

The Wilde ’82 History Conference was one of the first North American gatherings dedicated to the recovery of LGBT histories. It was held on TMU campus on June 30-July 3 1982. The name of the conference was in commemoration of the 100th anniversary of Oscar Wilde’s famous North American Tour.

RG 114.26 – Conference program
RG 114.26 – Conference program (part 2)
RG 114.26 – Conference poster

In 1986, TMU started offering the first LGBT course called “New Perspectives on Gay and Lesbian Realities.” The course was aimed at members of the LGBT community, allies and families.

Colourful cover of a 1986-87 Continuing Education course calendar
New Perspectives on Gay and Lesbian Realities course description

 During the 1980s and 1990s, the TMU theatre hosted the Lesbian and Gay Community Appeal’s annual fundraiser called Fruit Cocktail. The show included vaudeville-style acts with cast members dressed in fruit costumes!

light green program for the 1989 Fruit Cocktail
Black and white images of the Fruit Cocktail performances
Pink and turquoise program for the 1991 Fruit Cocktail

In 1992, TMU’s campus community radio station CLKN recorded a program at the Pride parade. Listen CKLN’s Queer Radio pride report.

Did you know the TMU Libraries has copies of the Body Politic, a Canadian monthly queer magazine published from 1971 to 1987? It was one of Canada’s first significant gay publications, and played a prominent role in the development of the LGBT community in Canada. In 1973, the newspaper also spurred the creation of the ArQuives in Toronto in 1973, one of the largest independent 2SLGBTQ+ archives in the world and the only archive in Canada with a mandate to collect at a national level.

cover of Body Politic: A magazine for gay liberation

The Body Politic – issues available online and in Special Collections

Throughout the month of October, visit our LGBT History Month display on the 4th floor of the Library building to view more material from Archives & Special Collections related to TMU queer history, or join us for the Pink Libraries Tour on October 24th and 26th.

Kodak Canada Archives at The 2023 Scotiabank CONTACT Photography Festival 

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Photographs from TMU Libraries’ Special Collections are currently on view at Mount Dennis Library as part of Robert Burley’s exhibition The Last Day of Work. The CONTACT Photography Festival exhibit includes historical records from the Kodak Canada Corporate Archives and Heritage Collection, including a 2004 letter announcing the closure of Kodak Heights, the company’s former manufacturing plant in Toronto’s Mount Dennis neighbourhood. The 48-acre lot was the home of Kodak Canada from 1912 until its closure in 2005.

At this time, we are looking to expand our collection of oral history recordings of past employees. If you are a former Kodak Heights employee or family member with ties to Kodak Canada and are interested in participating, please email us at asc@torontomu.ca.

  • 2005.001.06.04.151 – Group photo of Kodak employees
  • A collage of photographs of employees from Kodak's sheet film department
    2005.001.06.04.152 – Sheet Film department closing group photo
  • Hot air balloon with red, yellow and blue stripes with the Kodak logo
    2005.001.06.05.209 – Hot air balloon at Kodak’s open house
  • Group of individuals from Kodak's Business Imaging Systems (B.I.S.) team holding a banner that says "B.I.S. Delivers Quality"
    2005.001.06.05.183 – Business Imaging Systems group photo

The Kodak Canada Archives has extensive photographs, publications, and memorabilia related to employees and corporate life at Kodak. Here are some highlights, including a 16mm film about the history of Kodak Canada, pages from a scrapbook with postcards and photographs taken during employee baby showers and retirement parties, and a souvenir brochure used in tours of the Kodak Heights’ facilities.

Excerpt from 2005.001.01.2.003 “The Kodak Album” 16mm promotional film about Kodak Canada.
Woman in a brown jacket with a flower pin cutting a round cake with red and pink frosting.
Anna’s baby shower 1980
A yellow page from a scrapbook with a postcard of Moraine Lake in Alberta. Text on the page says "Hi, Well we made it here. Didn't see the sun until we got to B.C. Seeing all the sights. On our way to Vancouver Island Now. Tell ya all about it when I return. Patty & Bill."
Postcard from Patty & Bill 1980
A slab cake on a table with a white table cloth and a red flower. The text on the cake says "Jack. 40 years, all around clown"
Jack’s retirement 1982
2005.001.06.01.007 -Kodak employee scrapbooks with vacation postcards and celebration photos
The first pages of a promotional brochure. The brochure says "The Home of Kodak in Canada. A Souvenir of your Visit to Kodak Heights, Toronto.
2005.001.07.03.05.04 – The home of Kodak in Canada brochure. A PDF version of the brochure can be found on our database.

To learn more about Kodak’s history in Toronto, visit the online exhibition Kodak Canada: The Early Years (1899-1939) by TMU’s Film + Photography Preservation and Collections Management program .

Celebrating Black History with Photography Books & Catalogues

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Special Collections has a variety of books related to the history, production and exhibition of photography. In honour of Black History Month, we are featuring exhibition catalogues and books centering Black photographers, artists and curators. Although this is a small sample from the collection, all of these works highlight the importance of self-documentation in photography as a way to celebrate communities and counter the historical misrepresentation of Black people.

In the 1948 book “Camera Portraits : the techniques and principles of documentary portraiture” Gordon Parks shares insight into how he photographed 40 individuals with his unique style of photography. He recounts his interactions with the subjects and analyses his overall approach to the portrait. Parks also includes valuable technical elements for each photograph, such as the camera model, exposure, film stock and light source.

Cover of the book Imagining Families: Images and Voices. Two photographs are shown, one depicts a while family with a young Black boy, the other is a similar portrait but heavily scratched out.

“Imagining Families : Images and Voices” is the catalogue for the 1994 inaugural exhibition at the National African American Museum at the Smithsonian Institute. It was shown at the Anacostia Community Museum, years before the Smithsonian established a permanent building for the National Museum of African American History and Culture in 2016. 

Deborah Willis and Claudine Brown curated the works of 15 artists who examine roles played within families and communities. The catalogue recounts how the exhibition was created when the Smithsonian was contemplating the need for a dedicated museum to preserve African American history. They were unsure if they would receive enough donations to build a museum collection and some believed that African American material culture was already preserved in other museum branches.

The exhibition served as an inspiration for underrepresented communities to self-document their stories and validated personal narratives as a key part of history.

Front book cover with the title "A Portland Family album: Self-portrait of African American Community" with a black and white photograph depicting two Black women in front of a house

The 1995 exhibition “A Portland Family Album : self-portrait of an African-American community.” was developed using archival photographs. The images were donated by several local families and new prints were created for exhibition purposes. The works were shown at Blue Sky Gallery in Portland.

Cover of book with the text "Contact Sheet" and "Embracing Eatonville". The cover has a black and white image of a house with a large tree in front.

The 2003-2004 exhibition “Embracing Eatonville : a photographic survey” presented works by Dawoud Bey, Lonnie Graham, Carrie Mae Weems and Deborah Willis. Eatonville, Florida is one of the oldest Black towns to be incorporated in the United States. In 2002, the four artists were tasked to capture the spirit of this historical city through documentary photography. Each photographer brought their unique approach to this exhibition to provide a snapshot of the community and its landscape. The exhibition was shown at Light Work in New York and the Robert B. Menschel Media Center in Eatonville.

Special Collections books can be searched through the Library’s catalogue. The Library also has access to fantastic documentaries on the topic, including Through a Lens Darkly which is based on the book “Reflections in Black : a history of Black photographers, 1840 to the present” by Deborah Willis. The documentary explores the significance of family photo albums and examines the depiction of Black subjects throughout history.

Our book collection is constantly growing! Keep an eye for the announcement of the winners of this year’s First Edition Book Award.

Back book cover with the title "A Portland Family album: Self-portrait of African American Community" with a black and white photograph of a Black woman wearing a hat
Back cover of “A Portland Family Album : self-portrait of an African-American community”

War Efforts at Kodak Heights

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Kodak is most likely known for its photography related wart efforts, such as their advertisements encouraging citizens to send images to soldiers or the Vest Pocket camera sold as “The Soldier’s Kodak.”1 Nevertheless, they were also supporting wartime demands through employee initiatives and by shifting their manufacturing plants at Kodak Heights in Toronto.

A Kodak advertisement titled "Send Him Snapshots Every Week" with a soldier holding photographs
2005.001.03.2.001.10 1944 Kodak Advertisement

A group of employees organized the Kodak War Efforts Club to send packages overseas with sweets, knitted goods and magazines. In addition, they partnered with the Red Cross to host a weekly Kodak Blood Clinic and rewarded employees with badges for recurring donations.2

Kodak War Efforts Club featured in the May 1945 edition of KODAK magazine

In 1941, Kodak Heights was approached by the Department of Munitions and Supply to manufacture compasses. They had previously built tools and parts for combat airplanes, but this was their first venture in producing instruments for the armed forces.3 As seen in many sectors, women stepped into manufacturing positions during the war, and Kodak was no different in finding new roles for women to support the production of compasses.

  • Black and white image of a women inspecting with a magnifying glass a piece for a compass
  • Black and white image of a group of women in an assembly line building parts for compasses
  • Black and white images of a women using an industrial machine
  • Black and white images of a pile of boxes with compass material

In their internal employee publication, the company celebrated this endeavour and shared positive feedback received from the U.S. War Department as well as their own employees who were redeployed in the war fronts and recognized the C.K.C engraving (Canadian Kodak Company) on a compass.4

Kodak Heights even exhibited images of the compass in the Employee Building cafeteria to promote the initiative among staff. These images may have remained on the walls as a memory of their war efforts, because by fall of 1945 Kodak had already pivoted back to its regular production of cameras and photographic material.

Two Kodak compasses on a white background
2005.001.06.03.327 Kodak Mark III Compass

Kodak had several internal magazines which provide incredible first hand accounts of the day to day life at the company. Running from 1936 to 1955, “KODAK: A Magazine for Kodak Employees” was a bimonthly internal publication designed to communicate the activities of Canadian Kodak and its employees. For more information on war efforts at Kodak Heights, explore the publications in our database or on the Internet Archive for online versions.

  1. Roger, Andrew C. ‘Amateur Photography by Soldiers of the Canadian Expeditionary Force’. Archivaria, vol. 26, no. January, 1988, pp. 163–68.
  2. ‘Kodak Meets the Wartime Challenge (Part 1)’. KODAK: A Magazine for Kodak Employees, vol. 1, no. 3, Apr. 1945, pp. 1–2.
  3. ‘Kodak Meets the Wartime Challenge (Part 2)’. KODAK: A Magazine for Kodak Employees, vol. 1, no. 4, May 1945, pp. 1–3.
  4. Ibid.

COVID-19 Community Archive Contest Winners

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Thank you all for participating in our COVID-19 Community Archive submission contest!

The COVID-19 Community Archive seeks to preserve and make accessible content that was captured and created by students, faculty, staff and alumni about their lived experiences during the pandemic. Our goal in developing this digital portal is to serve as a repository for those of us who may be documenting this historic moment.

We received incredible submissions throughout the summer contest. Here are the three randomly selected winning submissions:

  • Illustration of a person wearing sunglasses, a hat, a hoodie and a face mask on a beach
    Self Portrait #8 During Covid Lockdown by Jerry Waese
  • Two loaves of bread on a navy tablecloth
    Covid Baking Chronicles by Regina Ledesma
  • Black and white self portrait of a man reading a book surrounded by toilet paper rolls
    Passing and Searching For Lost Time During The Pandemic by Gregory Hertel
The 3 winning submissions by Jerry Waese, Regina Ledesma and Gregory Hertel

Although the contest is closed, you can still submit your work to the University’s COVID-19 Digital Community Archive Project by using our online submission form. We accept all types of works: photographs, audiovisual recordings, artworks and written content reflecting your experience of the COVID-19 pandemic. Join us in this collaborative project to document these unprecedent times!