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Black and white photo on a beige piece of paper depicting two women, one younger and one older, in early 20th-century clothing talking to each other outside. A building and a fence are visible in the background.

Photography Author Toronto Canada

Canada on Camera

Black and white photo on a beige piece of paper depicting two women, one younger and one older, in early 20th-century clothing talking to each other outside. A building and a fence are visible in the background.
Two women talking, by Edith S. Watson, Crow Head, Newfoundland, 1913. Image: Library and Archives Canada

Two women talking, by Edith S. Watson, Crow Head, Newfoundland, 1913. Image: Library and Archives Canada

Sepia-toned photograph on a piece of beige paper of a boy in an apron standing over a table with various jugs and buckets on it. Writing underneath the photo in pencil reads, "A nearer view".
Cooks and their work area, by Edith S. Watson, Stag Harbour, Newfoundland, 1913. Image: Library and Archives Canada

Cooks and their work area, by Edith S. Watson, Stag Harbour, Newfoundland, 1913. Image: Library and Archives Canada

Black and white photograph on a beige piece of paper depicting a harbour with small boats in the water attached to docks. There is a small boating shed visible and in the distance is a very large rocky hill and buildings.
Ferryland, Newfoundland, by Edith S. Watson, 1913. Image: Library and Archives Canada

Ferryland, Newfoundland, by Edith S. Watson, 1913. Image: Library and Archives Canada

Black and white photograph of two women and a young girl in early 20th-century clothing standing beside a wooden building. Behind the women is a body of water with a boat on it. Hills are visible in the distance.
Hopedale, Newfoundland, by Edith S. Watson, August 1913. Image: Library and Archives Canada

Hopedale, Newfoundland, by Edith S. Watson, August 1913. Image: Library and Archives Canada

No. 24 McGill Street

No. 24 – the fourth house from the left, on the north side of McGill street – was briefly the home of photographer Edith S. Watson and writer Victoria Hayward. The couple lived here in the 1920s while working on their book, Romantic Canada. The travelogue documented the diverse communities that the couple encountered in their journeys across Canada.

Edith S. Watson

In the 1890s, American artist Edith S. Watson ventured north of the border to Newfoundland and Labrador. With her camera in hand, Watson documented rural life. Many of Watson’s photographs featured women at work – digging the land, milking cows, carrying water, drying fish. These contrasted against the posed portraits of middle and upper class women. Her ground-breaking shots make Watson a pioneering photojournalist.

Watson and Hayward

Each spring, Watson travelled to Bermuda. There in 1911, she met Victoria ‘Queenie’ Hayward, a math teacher-turned-journalist. The two became partners in work and in life. They travelled across Canada, primarily to rural or remote areas, encountering a diversity of cultures. They were invited to stay with the Doukhobors, who had fled persecution in Russia; with the Haida on the West coast; in fishing villages, tiny mining towns and everywhere in between.

Romantic Canada

In 1922, the publishing company MacMillan commissioned Watson and Hayward to write a travelogue of their journeys. They settled in Toronto, at No. 24 McGill Street to work on the book, Romantic Canada. It featured Watson’s photographs supplemented by Hayward’s text. In the book, Hayward coined the phrase ‘the Canadian mosaic’ to describe the country’s multiculturalism – a term still used today. The book offered readers a glimpse into remote Canadian settlements and different ways of life across the country.

*Sources:

Victoria Hayward and Edith Watson, Romantic Canada, Toronto: Macmillan, 1922.

Frances Rooney, Working Light : the Wandering Life of Photographer Edith S. Watson. Ottawa: Carlton University Press, 1996.

Frances Rooney, Working the Rock : Newfoundland and Labrador in the photographs of Edith S. Watson, 1890-1930. Portugal Cove-St. Philip’s, Newfoundland and Labrador : Boulder Publications, 2017.