Vancouver's First Century: A City Album/1860-1985

David Mattison is a librarian with the B.C. Provincial Archives and
Records Services Library.

One of the many books published in conjunction with Vancouver’s centennial in 1986, this title was originally issued in 1977 and covered the period 1860 to 1960. The “revised” edition adds another quarter century, with a well-balanced selection of photographs and quotations primarily from the city’s two daily newspapers. The new edition features a new cover with a hand-tinted photograph on the front and four color postcards on the back. Some glaring errors in the first edition have been corrected, while other obvious errors were allowed to stand.

As the subtitle states, this book is an album and therefore shaped by the editors’ perceptions and reactions to the various historical sources and photographs they examined. What saves the book from being an aimless compilation are the period reviews leading each chapter, which highlight important milestones in the city’s life. The most critical problem with the book is the lack of proper acknowledgment of the photographers within the context of the album itself. There are neither newspaper ads nor textual references to any of those men and women whose images, it must be admitted, are what make this book so appealing.

Since this book is by far the best pictorial survey of Vancouver, despite several uncorrected errors concerning nineteenth century photographs, those who missed purchasing a copy of the first volume should seek out this revised version.