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Picturing TorontoPhotography and the Making of a Modern City |
An innovative study on photography’s role in the liberal reform of early twentieth-century Toronto.
In 1911, when Arthur Goss was hired as Toronto’s first official photographer, the city was at a critical juncture. Industry expansion and population growth produced pressing concerns about housing shortages, sanitation, and the health and welfare of citizens. Dispelling popular misconceptions, Picturing Toronto demonstrates that Goss and other photographers did not simply document the changing conditions of urban life - their photography contributed to the development of modern Toronto and shaped its inhabitants.
Drawing on archival sources from the early twentieth century, Sarah Bassnett investigates how a range of groups, including the municipal government, social reformers, and the press, used photography to reconfigure the urban environment and constitute liberal subjects. Through a series of case studies, including the construction of the Bloor Viaduct, civic beautification plans, urban reform in “the Ward,” immigration and citizenship, and Goss’s portrait photography, Bassnett exposes how photographs were at the heart of debates over what the city should look like, how it should operate, and under what conditions it was appropriate for people to live.
This lavishly illustrated book is the first study to treat images as vital elements that shaped Toronto’s social and political history. Interdisciplinary in its approach, Picturing Toronto displays the complex entanglements between photography and urban modernity.
Drawing on archival sources from the early twentieth century, Sarah Bassnett investigates how a range of groups, including the municipal government, social reformers, and the press, used photography to reconfigure the urban environment and constitute liberal subjects. Through a series of case studies, including the construction of the Bloor Viaduct, civic beautification plans, urban reform in “the Ward,” immigration and citizenship, and Goss’s portrait photography, Bassnett exposes how photographs were at the heart of debates over what the city should look like, how it should operate, and under what conditions it was appropriate for people to live.
This lavishly illustrated book is the first study to treat images as vital elements that shaped Toronto’s social and political history. Interdisciplinary in its approach, Picturing Toronto displays the complex entanglements between photography and urban modernity.
Details
Part of the McGill-Queen's/Beaverbrook Canadian Foundation Studies in Art History Series (number 18 in series)
228 Pages, 9 x 10
84 photos
ISBN 9780773546714
April 2016
Formats: Cloth
"Picturing Toronto offers a visually compelling look at the history of Toronto in its quest for modernity, and offers a glimpse into how a new form of technology could be a transformative force in a rapidly evolving city." Spacing
"This significant work offers a cogent, well-argued, and thoroughly-documented presentation of the author's ideas on photography and its role in shaping twentieth-century Toronto. Picturing Toronto would be an important addition to collections focusing on photography (particularly history and theory), city planning and architecture, and on the history of the city of Toronto. It extends current studies of Canadian art and material culture, and is a welcome addition to the growing number of studies of Canadian photography. In addition, the author's skillfully-realized connections to broader topics, including governmentality, modernity, and cultural anthropology, make this appropriate for a wide range of academic audiences, and for students as well as scholars. Highly-recommended." Art Libraries Society of North America
"The author makes a strong case not just about the role of photography in shaping a modern Toronto, but in shaping its modern citizens as well. And she has bigger ambitions which she begins to fulfill with this book: to convince the reader that photography, the modern city, and modern subjectivity are entwined in ways that need to be carefully examined not only across a variety of photographic genres by photographic historians, but also by historians who are trying to better understand modernity itself." RACAR
"This significant work offers a cogent, well-argued, and thoroughly-documented presentation of the author's ideas on photography and its role in shaping twentieth-century Toronto. Picturing Toronto would be an important addition to collections focusing on photography (particularly history and theory), city planning and architecture, and on the history of the city of Toronto. It extends current studies of Canadian art and material culture, and is a welcome addition to the growing number of studies of Canadian photography. In addition, the author's skillfully-realized connections to broader topics, including governmentality, modernity, and cultural anthropology, make this appropriate for a wide range of academic audiences, and for students as well as scholars. Highly-recommended." Art Libraries Society of North America
"The author makes a strong case not just about the role of photography in shaping a modern Toronto, but in shaping its modern citizens as well. And she has bigger ambitions which she begins to fulfill with this book: to convince the reader that photography, the modern city, and modern subjectivity are entwined in ways that need to be carefully examined not only across a variety of photographic genres by photographic historians, but also by historians who are trying to better understand modernity itself." RACAR
Sarah Bassnett is associate professor of art history at Western University.
Acknowledgments | xi
Introduction | 3
Section I The City
1 Making a Modern City | 21
2 Visuality and City Planning | 50
Section II Liberal Subjects
3 Instruments of Reform | 75
4 Framing Citizenship | 100
5 Arthur Goss and the Portraiture of Modern Subjectivity | 128
Conclusion | 151
Illustrations Credits | 157
Notes | 163
Bibliography | 187
Introduction | 3
Section I The City
1 Making a Modern City | 21
2 Visuality and City Planning | 50
Section II Liberal Subjects
3 Instruments of Reform | 75
4 Framing Citizenship | 100
5 Arthur Goss and the Portraiture of Modern Subjectivity | 128
Conclusion | 151
Illustrations Credits | 157
Notes | 163
Bibliography | 187
Winner
Ontario Historical Association J.J. Talman Award
(2017)
Winner
Historical Writing: Book Award
Heritage Toronto
(2017)
Ontario Historical Association J.J. Talman Award
(2017)
Winner
Historical Writing: Book Award
Heritage Toronto
(2017)
