Historic Eastern Passage.

Janet Arnett is the former campus manager of adult education at Ontario’s Georgian College. She is the author of Antiques and Collectibles: Starting Small, The Grange at Knock, and 673 Ways to Save Money.

These three additions to the substantial Images of Our Past series focus on Halifax, Canada’s oldest city. Bedford, once a rural suburb, was known as the “back entrance” to the city. The Eastern Passage, which includes three islands in Halifax harbour, has been crucial to the city’s defences for over two centuries, and the South End dates back to the city’s founding in 1749.

The South End was traditionally an upscale area, home to civic leaders and well-to-do business families. Today this image persists, plus the area encompasses the posh shopping district along Spring Garden Road, the huge Point Pleasant Park, hospitals, and universities.

Bedford, located on the main inland route into the city, was a mill town. Its industrial complex boasted, at various times, paper, lumber, flour, wool, grain, and shook mills, and factories for manufacturing boxes, carriages, spools, and chocolate. Shipbuilding was also part of local industry from c. 1850 to 1880.

The Eastern Passage, in contrast, was focused on using the stone and sand provided by the harbour and became noted for construction projects, brickyards, fortifications, and military installations. Following the Halifax explosion, the area manufactured the innovative Hydrostone concrete blocks which played a major role in rebuilding the city.

The books follow a similar format, telling the area’s history through photos and lengthy, detailed captions that constitute the text. Each book has approximately 160 photos and illustrations from the earliest days of European contact to c. 1950. The emphasis is on the 1800s to the end of the Second World War. Topics include individuals, homes, institutions, businesses, transportation, schools, churches, and military activity. All three have a short bibliography. South End and Eastern Passage are indexed.

While the broad-stroke history of Halifax is readily available in other publications, these approachable works do much to make specific details of local history and great photo collections available to the general reader.