The National Album: Collective Biography and the Formation of the Canadian Middle Class

John D. Blackwell is co-ordinator of information services, Arthur A.
Wishart Library, Algoma University College, Sault Ste. Marie.

The National Album is an innovative interdisciplinary study of
late–19th-century Canadian biographical dictionaries, considering them
as a reflection of the evolving middle class during a period of nation
building and cultural consolidation.

A sociologist by training, Lanning argues that “biographical
dictionaries ... inevitably form a picture of social groups.” He
begins by discussing the art of biography and its role in historical and
social studies; he then deftly surveys the state of cultural and social
values in mid- to late-Victorian Canada, including such diverse themes
as character, success and phrenology.

Having established the context for his study, Lanning next considers
the practitioners and techniques of collective biography. The last four
decades of the Victorian era saw a proliferation of biographical
dictionaries in Canada. The most notable compilers were Rev. William
Cochrane (1831–98), Henry James Morgan (1842–1913), and George
Maclean Rose (1829–98). Lanning examines their lives and values as
“representative men” of their class, and explores how these
experiences and views shaped their work as collective biographers.

Lanning convincingly demonstrates that “the reading of multiple
biography [can] reveal a feeling for the conventions and contingencies
of the normative life-course that are forged within that culture.” By
undertaking a detailed statistical analysis of the dictionaries’
contents, Lanning is able to identify the middle-class values they
portrayed and promulgated in Victorian Canada. Especially useful is his
chapter on how these collective biographies represented women. He also
addresses such important issues as the myth of classlessness in Canada.

The volume’s only serious shortcoming is its lack of an index, an
omission that substantially hinders quick access to the richly crafted
text. Nevertheless, as the product of extensive research, wide reading,
careful analysis, and refined prose, The National Album will delight and
inform Canadian historians, sociologists, and general readers alike.