Historic Dartmouth

Margaret Conrad is a professor of history at Acadia University. She is
the author of Intimate Relations: Family and Community in Planter Nova
Scotia, 1759–1800, and Making Adjustments: Change and Continuity in
Planter Nova Scotia, 1759–1800 and the co

These volumes in the Images of Our Past series, devoted to providing
illustrated histories of communities during the heyday of
black-and-white photography (roughly 1880 to 1930), profile two
contrasting Nova Scotia towns. While Lunenburg has long been identified
as a picturesque fishing centre (and in 1995 was designated a World
Heritage site by UNESCO), Dartmouth has been so overshadowed by Halifax
that it is rarely recognized as having a distinct existence (and in 1996
was absorbed into the Halifax Regional Municipality). Mike Parker
highlights these differences in photographic images from public and
private archives. Well documented by photographers, Lunenburg is defined
by its seafaring heritage, which is reflected in chapters covering the
waterfront, businesses, life at sea, and the famous Bluenose. In
contrast, Dartmouth became an industrial suburb of Halifax, best known
at the turn of the 20th century for the Acme skates produced by its
Starr Manufacturing Company. Dartmouth’s images reflect the diversity
of its industries, leisure pursuits, and population, which included
Mi’kmaq and African Nova Scotians.

Informed by well-written introductions and detailed captions, these
little books offer a reliable guide to the histories of Dartmouth and
Lunenburg and make delightful browsing. They will appeal both to a local
and tourist market and to those searching out visual representations of
Canada’s past. For the latter, these books would have been more useful
had the author followed the example of Eric Ruff and Laura Bradley, who,
in an earlier volume in this series focusing on Yarmouth, included a
chapter on the professional photographers whose work helped to
immortalize the town. A brief discussion of the sources for “images of
our past,” including studios carrying such names as Notman and
Knickles, famous photographers such as Frederick William Wallace, and
archival collections attributed to such unidentified people as W.L
Bishop and the Bailly family, would be fitting in a book driven by the
camera’s gaze and the collector’s eye.