Descripción
147 mounted photographs, from 3 x 3 inches to 7 1/2 x 9 inches, all captioned in manuscript on the album leaves. Plus 4pp. flyer and 12pp. program bound in. Quarto. Original black cloth, front board gilt, glassine jacket. Light shelf wear, glassine jacket peeling. Photos mounted on thick card stock, mostly very crisp and clean. Some foxing to mounting sheets and more rarely to images. Very good. An album of fascinating original photographs recording the life and travels of Gilbert John Murray-Kynynmound Eliot, Governor General of Canada from 1898 to 1904, including photographs of Dawson City during the Klondike Gold Rush, the great Hull-Ottawa Fire, the visit of the future King and Queen, a Blackfoot tribe "pow-wow," Glacier National Park, and more. This album was compiled by William Pitt, a member of Eliot's staff who accompanied him on most of these journeys. Gilbert John Murray-Kynynmound Eliot, also the Viscount Melgund and fourth Earl of Minto, was born to a Scottish parliamentarian in London in 1845 and served in the Second Afghan War and the British occupation of Egypt before beginning his own political career. He married Mary Caroline Grey, the daughter of Queen Victoria's private secretary, in 1883. After becoming Earl of Minto in 1891, he largely attended to personal matters until becoming Governor General of Canada in 1898. As Governor General he stood much on formality and ceremony, but also took a warm personal interest in touring and exploring throughout Canada. Eliot and his wife took an extensive tour of western Canada in 1900, thoroughly documented in this album, where they became the first viceregal couple to visit the Yukon. While there they visited the center of the Gold Rush, Dawson City, which distressed Eliot as much as it impressed him: "The Dominion Govt. seem to have looked upon the Yukon as a source of revenue, as a place to make as much out of as they could, & have used the proceeds largely for political corruption instead of for the development of the country." On his return home, he pushed for increased investment in infrastructure and services in the region. The images of the Yukon in this album include views of Dawson City and its main street, a dogsled team, the barracks of the North-West Mounted Police, convicts at work, and Eliot's party starting out for the gold fields. This photo album also documents the tour taken by Eliot and his wife the following year, when the couple played host to the Duke and Duchess of Cornwall and York (the future King George V and Queen Mary) and travelled with them across Canada. The album includes a large photograph and corresponding labeled diagram of the future King and Queen's entire retinue, and over a dozen photographs of a "pow-wow" staged by the Blackfoot people in honor of their visit. Among these images are photographs of the Blackfoot chief addressing the Governor General, the tribal members listening to Eliot's reply, Blackfoot on horseback, and a tribal graveyard. In addition to these two tours, there are several photographs of landscapes, government buildings and the Governor General's home, trains and railway travel, hockey and curling, boring and blasting ice, and more. Perhaps the most dramatic photographs in the album are several large images of the 1900 Hull-Ottawa fire which leveled more than half of the city of Hull. A series of crisp and bright images show the mountainous plumes of smoke, twisted metal, and forests of burnt- out trees between free-standing facades of buildings that were all that was left of Hull. The final pages of the album include an announcement flyer and official invitation to the memorial service for Queen Victoria, as well as the original twelve-page program for the event. The ticket is made out to William Pitt, a member of Eliot's staff who accompanied him on most of these journeys, and who compiled this album. A fascinating and truly one-of-a-kind vision of Canada at the turn of the 20th century, seen through the eye. N° de ref. del artículo WRCAM57360
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