Interviewing Esyllt, part one

As the Lost Foote Photos blog winds down, we thought we'd share author Esyllt W. Jones' thoughts and impressions around working on a project like Imagining Winnipeg:

1) In the last two years, you’ve co-edited three texts:

Epidemic Encounters: Influenza, Society, and Culture in Canada, 1918-1920 (with Magda Fahrni),

People's Citizenship Guide: a response to conservative Canada (w/Adele Perry), and 

Place and Replace: Essays on Western Canada (w/Adele Perry & Leah Morton). 

And now Imagining Winnipeg.

Is this breakneck pace normal for you? What has it taught you, in terms of managing your workload as a prof, parent, and community member?

I like to be busy! Editorial work is different from writing. Editing is collaborative work, and the collections you mention are things I’ve done with others. This book, too, belongs as much to the press as it does to me. It’s a cliché to say that academic work is solitary, but there is truth to it. I need projects that bring me into connection with other people, and sometimes this means I work on several at once. Finding time to write is more difficult. I’ve never really mastered that Alice Munro ability to write in between everything else going on in life.

I don’t know about managing workload. Our family always has a lot on the go, and it usually works out. A lot of opportunities come your way when you are a university professor, and there are obligations, too – to your students, to your community. Ultimately, I appreciate commitment more than its absence.

2) How did you come to working on social history and the history of health and disease? Did you have a particular mentor who piqued your interest?

I was a labour historian first, and for that I owe Doug Smith, who sent me to the archives, and also my employers at the union where I worked, for letting me help to write its official history.

I became interested in disease when reading documents from the Brandon and Selkirk mental hospitals. I had no idea how compelling these fragments of evidence from people’s past lives would be for me. I wanted to know how ordinary people lived with and through illness, and how it shaped their lives. I once read an interview with the novelist Ian McEwan, in which he talks about the influence on his writing of listening to the women in his working class family talk endlessly, without boredom or irony, about every gruesome detail of their own illnesses and those of their friends, neighbours, or mere acquaintances. I laughed when I read that, it was so deliciously familiar to me. That is my mother’s family. I grew up hearing stories of diphtheria, tuberculosis, pleurisy…it was sad, but also carried a certain meaning. It was a vocabulary for shared experience.

I had many good teachers when I did graduate work; Manitoba is fortunate to have such talented historians in our universities. I was inspired by gender historians like Ellen Ross, whose book Love and Toil about working class motherhood in England is still a model of humane scholarship to me.

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Stay tuned for the next two sections from UMP's interview with Esyllt W. Jones, which will be posted December 17 and 24th.

Favourite Foote Photos: Mary Horodyski

I first came across Foote about twenty-five years ago in the basement of the Manitoba Archives.

I was an undergraduate history student searching for evidence of women’s role in the Winnipeg General Strike.

It seemed strange to me that women had made up one-quarter of the workforce in 1919 yet had never made it into any of the history books about the strike.

Foote’s photographs helped me prove that women attended public meetings and were on the street alongside the male strikers.

After this first Foote encounter, and over the next quarter century, Foote became intertwined with the city in my mind. Iconic, like the Golden Boy or the Arlington Bridge. So I felt surprised this summer to come across a letter from Foote – I had practically forgotten he was human, so mixed into the cement and metal of the city had he become.

I found the letter at the City of Winnipeg Archives where I had been working on the records surrounding the building of the aqueduct from Shoal Lake (how we still get our water, by the way, almost a hundred years later).

The letter is dated July 23, 1935 and in it Foote offers his photography services to the Greater Winnipeg Sanitary District. He needs the work, he says, because a “fire cleaned me out” and “my taxes are long overdue.” In fact, he says, “I am finding it very difficult to get along.” At the time of his letter, Foote would have been 62 years old—a pretty cruddy time, if you ask me, to be stuck hustling for money.

Esyllt Jones, in her Imagining Winnipeg essay, tells us that in 1948, when Foote was 75, both his legs were broken in a car accident.

So, my favourite Foote photo, now that I’ve learned a bit more about his life, and gotten a bit older myself, is the very last photo in Imagining Winnipeg: tough Mr. Foote, standing upright on the corner of Portage and Main, 77 years old, cane dangling from his overcoat pocket, and with his camera raised.

- Mary Horodyski

* * *

Mary Horodyski is in the middle of her third degree in history – an M.A. in Archival Studies at the University of Manitoba. She also has an M.A. in History from Concordia University and a B.A. in History from the University of Manitoba. In between (and sometimes during) history degrees, she works as a writer and researcher. She recently completed her archival internship at the City of Winnipeg Archives. Her Manitoba History article on women and the Winnipeg General Strike can be found here.

Blogging Foote

Hey all,

As you've probably noticed, Lost Foote Photos has not maintained...much...of a posting schedule since Imagining Winnipeg was launched back in September.

But between now and the end of the holiday season, we've a few humdingers in store.

First up is writer/archivist Mary Horodyski's discovery this summer of a 1935 letter from L.B. Foote to the Greater Winnipeg Sanitary District offices, asking for work.

Next is the story of Jennie (Kaleka) Kubara, who was photographed by Foote for the Winnipeg Free Press in 1938 with a group of students from Aberdeen School. Jennie attended the Imagining Winnipeg launch not knowing that she'd find a picture of herself inside...and it was such a treat to meet her!

After that comes a reaction to Imagining Winnipeg by P.J. Burton of Chocolate Bunnies From Hell fame.

Over the next few weeks, we'll also be serializing an interview the press conducted with author Esyllt W. Jones on the process of working on a book like Imagining Winnipeg.

And then...UMP Director David Carr will write a farewell to the Lost Foote Photos blog. We've greatly enjoyed sharing Foote's photographs and your thoughts on Foote's photographs, but there are five non-Foote books on our spring 2013 list...

* * *

In other, non-blog related news, the University of Manitoba Bookstore is offering what might be the best price in town on Imagining Winnipeg: $24.95. So if you're looking to give this book to family over the holidays, U of M Bookstore might just be THE place to do it...

U of M Press is also selling Imagining Winnipeg via our website. And we've recently created an e-single of author Esyllt Jones' introduction plus a few select photos that's for sale on Kobo and Barnes & Noble for $3.49.

Finally, I thought I'd let you know that there will be two more Imagining Winnipeg events in the new year.

Esyllt Jones will be doing a presentation on Imagining Winnipeg at the Louis Riel Library on Thursday, February 28 at 6:30 pm. A second event will follow at the Henderson Library.

Thanks!


Ariel Gordon
UMP Promotions/Editorial Assistant

SNEAK PEEK #14: Westwood Library!

Kirsten Wurmann, Branch Head of Westwood Library, introduces UMP's Imagining Winnipeg talk/slideshow November 6. 

We had a roomful of people ignoring the U.S. election hubbub and the gloomy weather...including a intent eight-year-old who loved the banquet-in-the-sewer photo.

At the event, we had someone from East Kildonan request that we bring the slideshow to her neighbourhood library.

We've been chatting with WPL organizers...and it looks like we'll be taking our proverbial show on the road in the new  year, with two or three events at libraries around the city.

We'll let you know as soon as the dates are confirmed, but in the meantime, I thought I'd let you know about two upcoming events that author Esyllt Jones is doing.

First, she'll be speaking at the Fort Garry Historical Society's AGM on November 17 at 2:00 pm at the Pembina Trail Library.

Then, she'll be doing  a signing at McNally's in the run-up to Xmas.  On Sunday, December 2 at 1:00 pm, she'll be sitting by the cash desk with a stack of books and a bowl of come-hither candy.

Thanks!

Ariel Gordon
UMP Promotions/Editorial Assistant

Book Signing!

* * *

Want to buy copies of Imagining Winnipeg for friends/family for Xmas? You can get them signed by author Esyllt W. Jones at McNally Robinson!

SNEAK PEEK #13: Esyllt at the Library

Erica Ball, Reader Services Librarian at the Millennium Library, introduces Esyllt W. Jones.

Esyllt W. Jones, author of Imagining Winnipeg, lectures on Foote's photography.

Esyllt W. Jones, author of Imagining Winnipeg, lectures on Foote's photography.

Esyllt W. Jones, author of Imagining Winnipeg, lectures on Foote's photography.

Precarious Foote-ings

"It was really a pleasure to attend the Imagining Winnipeg launch a few weeks ago at McNally's!

One of my surprise takeaways from the book launch was a new appreciation for the variety of perspectives from which Foote's body of work can be viewed, analysed and interpreted – from such overarching quandaries as what Esyllt Jones dubs the "mystery of his intent," to personal connections to memories and histories, through to John Paskievich's unveiling of Foote's evolution to the "fortuitous and dynamic arrangement of triangles" (in the photo of the young Queen Elizabeth).

As a collector of historic images, let me add to this mix – with yet another line of inquiry. Beyond the images themselves, I am often intrigued by attempting to imagine where, in taking a particular photo, the photographer might have positioned themselves. I don't think it readily occurs to many of us, but early photographers were often quite the aerialists. From the photos in Imagining Winnipeg, here are a few examples:

Page 1 – Looking out over a skating rink on the Red River.
Where was Foote when he took this picture? How was he able to take this photo from such a high elevation? My guess is he was atop the large wooden toboggan slide that was constructed every year next to this ice rink. In the image, can you see those smoke stacks in the distance? I have another photo postcard image, by an earlier photographer, that I believe was actually taken from atop one of those chimneys.

Page 2 – Overview of the construction of the new Legislative Buildings.
This picture was most likely taken from the top of the bell tower of the old Broadway Methodist Church (since burned and dismantled) on the South East corner of Broadway & Kennedy.

Page 58 – Peace Day celebration at Portage & Main. This one was likely taken from a second storey window of the building that stood on the SW corner of Portage & Main (current site of the Trizec Building).

Page 70 – Veterans’ march at City Hall.
This one is particularly intriguing. The shot is taken looking up the portion of Market Street that used to exist on the West side of Main Street – land now occupied by the current City Hall. Foote took this shot from the East side of Main. The side of the building that shows on the right of the photo was the south wall of a building that once stood at the North East corner of Main & Market. It was four stories high and, from images I’ve seen of it, there were no balconies or fire escapes evident on that building's south side. My best guess is that Foote took this west-looking shot from a high (4th storey?) south-facing window.

Well, by now you get the picture (no pun intended). I'm just pointing out that L.B. Foote, like other photographers of his day, didn't always keep both feet firmly planted on the ground."

- Rob McInnes, Postcard Accumulator and Purveyor

* * *

Another beautiful little postcard from Rob McInnes! 

FF event #2

Photos courtesy Trevor Hagan.

* * *

Winnipeg Free Press director of photography and multimedia Mike Aporius and photographer Mike Deal, speaking at the Favourite Foote event on October 10.

After urging everyone to take photographs, Mike Aporius stepped back and took a photo of the audience.

FF event #1

Wednesday night was the Favourite Footes event at the Winnipeg Free Press News Cafe.

Photos courtesy Mike Deal

Focusing on photographers and filmmakers, the event featured Erna Buffie, Colin Corneau, Bob Lower, Ian McCausland, and John Paskievich.

The nice thing about the WFP News Cafe was that it had three large TV screens mounted throughout the cafe.

We were able to show the slideshow of images from the book on the screens, which was lovely...and also confusing.

I hosted, and in those intervals when I wasn't on stage, I watched both the audience and the presenters. And I would often catch members of the audience staring intently across the room instead of watching the stage. And I would have to remind myself that they were looking at one of the TV screens, not necessarily the one on stage.

It was very interesting to hear the blog posts out loud, to hear the reverence that these image-makers had for Foote.

Another interesting aspect to the evening was how respectful the photographers were towards John Paskievich. They brought their copies of The North End to be signed - or bought copies at the event - and then posted pictures of his signature to Facebook and Twitter.

Interestingly, of the six images discussed at the event, only two were used in the book.

The first and best explanation is that there were roughly 2,500 photos in the Foote Collection at the Manitoba Archives and the book only had room for 150, so photos had to more than earn their keep to be included.

The second reason was that two of the photos, both of royal visits, ultimately couldn't be verified as being shot by Foote.

The final reason is that one of the photos was from the Manitoba Archives collection of coroner's photographs owned by the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner. As we've noted elsewhere on this blog, Foote worked photographing crime scenes, but A) UMP would have needed to get special permission to use these photos, unlike the ones in the Foote Collection and B) they depict dead bodies.

These are not cartoonish scenes, sterilized for the viewer. They are photographs of dead people, people that you or I might be related to. Some of them are bloody, but most of them are just sad...

All that said, it was lovely to bring together one of Foote's communities for an evening to celebrate this legacy. (One of his communities, you say? What are the others? Well, historians, for one. Architects, possibly. Writers. Anyone interested in vintage photographs.)

Thanks to everyone that consented to speak at the event. Thanks to the Winnipeg Free Press for sending Director of photography and multimedia Mike Aporius as well as Photographer Mike Deal to tell the audience about the Foote images in their archive.

Finally, thanks to everyone who came out and shared the evening with us!

Ariel Gordon
UMP Promotions/Editorial Assistant

Imagining Winnipeg at the WPL

Footepaths, part 2: Take me home, Mr Foote

To archivists, the lost Foote photos present a paradox. The L.B. Foote fonds – fonds being the term archivists use to denote a collection of archival documents – is held by the Archives of Manitoba. The Foote fonds was acquired from L.B. Foote’s heirs after the death of the man himself. These records were acquired because of the importance of L.B. Foote in the history of the province. But, as I suggested in an earlier post, it is what is missing from the fonds – the lost Foote photos – that demonstrate the importance of the fonds.

In preserving records, archivists are careful to note down their provenance. It is the provenance, or origin, of a record that connects it to a larger group of records. Archivists preserve provenance through archival description, the text that describes the records held by the archives. Traditional archival provenance, however, preserves only one view of provenance: that of the material creator of the records. The provenance of the Foote fonds, for example, might state that the records came to the Archives of Manitoba from Foote's studio via his heirs.

But should Foote be considered the sole creator of these photos? It is true that his eye framed the photographs and his shop produced the prints, that it is his name in his writing that appears in the corners of the photos. But it was the city of Winnipeg that gave Foote the architectural and social subjects for his photos. Foote's photographs of landmark buildings and era-defining historical events, like his photos of the famous, the not-so-famous and candid photos of everyday life, were taken as opportunity afforded. It took the entire city of Winnipeg to create the Foote photographs. In this sense, we are all heirs of Foote, and we are all bequeathing our Foote photographs to the archives.

My friend Tom Nesmith, who also teaches archival studies at the University of Manitoba, pioneered this notion and calls it societal provenance. Archives do not describe the societal provenance of their records. To find that, you must go to Flickr.

The Foote photos found on Flickr have not been posted by archivists, but by Winnipeg citizens concerned with the history of their city. Most of the Foote photos on Flickr are scans of photos held by the Archives of Manitoba. Once posted, some acquire layers of comments and description, as people debate exact locations and compare the city that was with the city that is.

The photo selected for this blogpost is a simple photo of Foote's residence. But follow the link to the Flickr page and read the comments, detailing a conversation spread over eight months that identifies the location and a later, more famous neighbour (Marshall McLuhan!), while disparaging the subsequent development of the site ("the house is gone, now a wading pool next to the school. blah. sucks.").

What is the provenance of this photo? By one light its provenance is the Foote fonds, held by the Archives of Manitoba. But seen “In_The_Right_Light” (which just happens to be the Flickr commenter’s tag) the provenance of the photo is the city itself, the city that provided the material context in which this house, built in this style with these materials, was built on that particular piece of land. And then torn down. And then developed into a park with a wading pool.

It took L.B. Foote's eye to frame this photo, his shop to print it. It took the Archives of Manitoba to preserve this photo for future generations. It took an industrious Flickr user to post it onto the social network. It took other Flickr users to recognize the location and research the history of the site. It took Flickr to provide the virtual space in which all of these forces could come together to express the photo's societal provenance.

- Greg Bak


* * *
Greg Bak is assistant professor of History at University of Manitoba, teaching in the Master’s Program in Archival Studies. Previous to July, 2011 he worked as a digital archivist and manager at Library and Archives Canada. His research interests include Aboriginal archives, digital recordkeeping, digital culture and the use of digital archives as tools for social justice.

SNEAK PEEK #12: Launch pictures!

The crowd at the McNally Robinson launch of Imagining Winnipeg, September 26.

UMP Director David Carr introduces Esyllt W. Jones.

Author Esyllt W. Jones.

The crowd at the McNally Robinson launch of Imagining Winnipeg, September 26.

Found Foote #14: Winnipeg Press Club

As I've noted elsewhere on this blog, during the process of putting together this book, we were contacted by many individuals and organizations, all eager to share images/resources.

Of course, during the hubbub, one or two of these communiques were, ahem, missed.

Like this obit marking Foote's death in 1957, sent back in January by Wendy Hart, VP – Admin & Communications for the Winnipeg Press Club.

Here's what Wendy had to say:

"Attached is a short Lewis Foote obit that appeared in the Winnipeg Press Club’s annual Beer and Skits program from 1958 (April 26/58). It appears to be a more or less a condensed version of the obit from the Tribune (which was probably written by a press club member), but perhaps it is useful to have one from a different source.

As mentioned in the piece, Foote was a charter member of the Winnipeg Press Club.

The WPC was established in 1887, while Foote was still living down east. 'Charter member' in this case is in reference to the year 1922, when a group of approximately 25 newspapermen (including Foote) signed on as charter members and for the first time drafted a formal constitution for the Winnipeg Press Club.

His fellow members in 1922 included such colourful figures as John W. Dafoe, George Ham, Hay Stead, A. V. Thomas, Jack Sifton (son of Sir Clifford), A. E. Coo, Frank 'Never Break' Turner and Nate Zimmerman."

Our thanks/apologies (cough) to the Wendy and the Winnipeg Press Club!

Favourite Footes at the WFP News Café

Please join UMP at an event focused on Winnipeg’s photographers and filmmakers!

When: Wednesday, October 10, 7:00 pm
Where: Winnipeg Free Press News Café (237 McDermot Avenue)
Cost: FREE

Favourite Footes features Erna Buffie, Colin Corneau, Bob Lower, Ian McCausland, and John Paskievich talking about their favourite Foote photos, accompanied by a slideshow of images from Imagining Winnipeg: History Through the Photographs of L.B. Foote.

The Winnipeg Free Press is also sending photo editor Mike Aporius and photographer Mike Deal to share photos from the WFP’s archives.

Light refreshments will be served.

* * *

About Imagining Winnipeg
In an expanding and socially fractious early twentieth-century Winnipeg, Lewis Benjamin Foote (1873-1957) rose to become the city’s pre-eminent commercial photographer. Documenting everything from royal visits to deep poverty, from the building of the landmark Fort Garry Hotel to the turmoil of the 1919 General Strike, Foote’s photographs have come to be iconic representations of early Winnipeg life. They have been used to illustrate everything from academic histories to posters for rock concerts; they have influenced the work of visual artists, writers, and musicians; and they have represented Winnipeg to the world.

But in Imagining Winnipeg, historian Esyllt W. Jones takes us beyond the iconic to reveal the complex artist behind the lens and the conflicting ways in which his photographs have been used to give credence to diverse and sometimes irreconcilable views of Winnipeg’s past. Incorporating 150 stunning photographs from the more than 2,000 images in the Archives of Manitoba Foote Collection, Imagining Winnipeg challenges our understanding of visual history and the city we thought we knew.

About L.B. Foote
Born in Newfoundland, Lewis Benjamin Foote arrived in Winnipeg in 1902, where he bought a house on Gertrude Avenue and began a career as a professional photographer. For more than 50 years, Foote’s photographs chronicled the development of the city. He was an active photographer until 1947 and died ten years later.

Reprint: Winnipeg Bestsellers

* * *

From McNally Robinson Booksellers, who hosted our standing-room-only launch on Wednesday.

Thanks to John Toews, the events coordinator at McNally's, for all his help with the event!

And thanks to all of you for coming out, for standing in line to have your book signed, for helping us consume those "light refreshments."

It was such great fun!

Ariel Gordon
UMP Promotions/Editorial Assistant

Favourite Foote Photo: Monique Woroniak

"Winnipeg is hard," is my answer when asked about this place. A difficult place to survive for some and, for most, a place that never quite delivers ease. Its endless contradictions, hits, misses and near-misses, make it a hard place to know. In the end, for many of us, it's also a place we find impossible to let go of.

Not unlike many Winnipeggers, I've lived with the photographs of Foote all my adult life and for many of my minor years too. They found their way to me through textbooks, loudly whispering reminders of my ancestors' immigration; as distractions in coat check lines on walls lining the way to gilded bathrooms at the Fort Garry Hotel; and, of course, they arrived along with any mention - anywhere - of 1919 and its strike.

But there were more, of course; even from only viewing a few sets you knew there had to be. Through the project undertaken by the publication of Imagining Winnipeg we've had our suspicions confirmed about the totality of Foote's work: that it's vast, complicated - even contradictory - and full of stories we've yet to discover. In this way, his work and our discovery of it, runs parallel to Winnipeg and what's been presented to us as the city's story.

It's a narrative we've been told/sold but that we know isn't true (couldn't possibly be true): that of linear progress from a genesis out of near nothing, to growth, boom, then stagnation and some holding of its own. A story with patches constructed and given labels like "Indians," settlers, (some) women's suffrage, Labour, Capital, a story of certain families and certain others. A story of the slow maturing of such a patchwork, each square in its place, only ever interacting at their edges.

As a city community we've let this story lay for some time, but lately it's felt like we're ready to hear more. (Indigenous peoples, for example, are moving more than ever to recover and grow their part in the narrative. ) But where to start? With their depictions of both owning and working classes, of women in many and varied roles, of leisure and work, and even of race beyond white, Foote's photographs must inevitably be one place to set out from. Taken together they fold the patchwork over on itself, and over again, reminding us of connections and interactions long ignored.

There is a photograph included in Imagining Winnipeg captioned "Memorial Boulevard looking south from Portage Avenue at night, 1927." There is no snow on the ground but it looks cold - autumn, maybe - and street car tracks, highlighted by the glowing spheres of lamp posts, intersect and then run parallel to disappear into a dark horizon. The Hudson Bay Company looms at left and pallet platforms rest empty to the right. There is no one in sight.

It's a patchwork of images folded over on itself. The Hudson Bay building calls to mind encounters of Indigenous peoples, fur traders and settlers, the streetcar tracks state progress, and the empty platform suggests a city once, but no longer, on the move. The ground looks unforgiving.

It is hard, but, like Winnipeg, beautiful in a way you can't let go.

- Monique Woroniak


* * *
Monique Woroniak is a life-long Winnipegger and lover of its histories. A public librarian working primarily with urban Indigenous peoples, she is a past member of the Management Committee of the Dalnavert Museum. She is currently working on a collection of poetry inspired by historical Winnipeg postcards and the stories they tell.

Reprint: Point of View #2

L.B. Foote - From the Free Press Archives

Winnipeg Free Press - ON-LINE EDITION
by: Winnipeg Free Press Photo Desk

On Wednesday, September 26, the University of Manitoba Press will release Imagining Winnipeg: History through the Photographs of L.B. Foote.

Here are a selection of Foote images found in the Free Press archives.

Click here to see the WFP slideshow of Foote photographs.

Reprint: Winnipeg Free Press

A Foote in the Past

Winnipeg Free Press - ON-LINE EDITION
by: Staff Writer

Many of us have seen L.B. Foote photographs, whether or not we are aware of their provenance.

For at least 30 years, since the creation of the Foote archive at the Archives of Manitoba, these photographs have been used to tell the story of Winnipeg's past. They have illustrated everything from academic histories to posters for rock concerts.

And this familiarity is not only local - Foote's images have represented Winnipeg history to the nation and have been included in national museum exhibits both real and virtual.

Imagining Winnipeg: History through the Photographs of L.B. Foote, by Esyllt W. Jones, history professor at University of Manitoba, is published by University of Manitoba Press.

A book launch is planned for Wednesday, Sept. 26 at 7 p.m. at McNally Robinson at the Grant Park Shopping Centre.

There will be light refreshments, as well as a slide show of images from the book and a short talk by Jones.

The book is available for $39.95 at McNally Robinson and will be available at other major booksellers soon.

Reprint: Paperchase

From the Paperchase column in the Books section of Saturday's Winnipeg Free Press, written by Bob Armstrong:

"The University of Manitoba is unveiling a time machine this week, but that doesn't mean their physics geniuses are in line for a Nobel Prize.

This time machine is the product of the University of Manitoba Press, author Esyllt Jones and photographer L.B. Foote.

Jones' book on the photographer, whose images of early Winnipeg captured the Winnipeg General Strike, the building of the Hotel Fort Garry and the essence of an early-20th-century Canadian city, is illustrated with 150 of Foote's photographs.

In addition to publishing the book, University of Manitoba Press has also put out a call for lost Foote photos and documented the effort to rediscover this piece of our past on a blog at lostfootephotos.blogspot.ca.

The book launch, at McNally Robinson, Wednesday at 7 p.m., includes a slide presentation and lecture on Foote and his work."

Footepaths, part 1: The promiscuous dissemination of L.B. Foote

L.B. Foote was promiscuous. Book his services, pay his fee, and he would shoot your wedding, funeral, board meeting, honourary banquet or any other event. Foote’s photographs are part of the stories of countless families. People may not recognize his name but nonetheless treasure photographs that were framed by his eye and produced by his shop.

My favourite Foote photo comes with a story. Shortly after I moved to Winnipeg in the summer of 2011, Ian Park approached me and showed me a photograph that had come to him through his family’s papers. This photo is featured elsewhere on this blog, and shows the retirement party of Ian's great-grandfather.

Ian showed me the photo because he knew that I was the new professor of archival studies, just arrived from the national archives in Ottawa. Ian hoped that I would be able to advise him of where the photo might find an appropriate home.

I came up blank. Archivists are used to dealing with records by the boxful, not individual photos. As I looked at the photo, I cast about for a way for Ian to find a collection to which his photo could be added.

Ian’s request started me thinking about the nature of commercial photography and its representation in archives. After the death of L.B. Foote, the Archives of Manitoba received from his heirs the L.B. Foote fonds – fonds being the archival term for a collection of records. But what photographs would a commercial photographer have in his possession at his death? Of the thousands of photos taken by L.B. Foote many, like the photo from Ian’s family records, would have been permanently dispersed from the Foote studio.

To say that the term “fonds” means “a collection of records” obscures a key nuance. To archivists, a fonds is not simply any random collection of documents handed over to an archives. It is, rather, all of the records created or accumulated during the life of a person or organization. The Archives of Manitoba holds many Foote photos, but the existence of many, many “lost Foote photos” is evidence that it does not, in the strictest archival sense, hold the Foote fonds.

But then, no institution could. Surely it would be a sign of the failure of a commercial photographer, not to mention his irrelevance, if an archives upon his death could take possession of all the photographs he had ever taken. An admired, successful and in-demand photographer like Foote could not possibly bequeath to an archive the full count of photographs that he had taken and sold in his lifetime.

Foote's studio was like an orphanage, each photo a child who might be adopted. The photos that came to the Archives of Manitoba at the end of Foote's career were the sad ones, never adopted. The "lost" photos, like Ian's, were the lucky ones that made it out. They never were lost. They went home.

Foote’s importance as a photographer, then, is not measured by the known Foote photos. It is measured by the lost Foote photos. It is measured by all of the photos identified in this blog, and by the countless photos that remain in attics and cellars, jumbled in among family papers and business papers. It is measured by the countless more photos that have been or will be destroyed through accidents and neglect or with full deliberation. Paradoxically, it is the dispersal of the Foote fonds that makes the Foote fonds worth preserving.

- Greg Bak

* * *
Greg Bak is assistant professor of History at University of Manitoba, teaching in the Master’s Program in Archival Studies. Previous to July, 2011 he worked as a digital archivist and manager at Library and Archives Canada. His research interests include Aboriginal archives, digital recordkeeping, digital culture and the use of digital archives as tools for social justice.