Okay folks, so it’s week one of the blog, but it is not week one of the project. To catch us up a bit, this article takes us all the way back to November during my first week at the Museum. Read on and join me on this first journey of discovery!
So it’s my second day on the job and I pull the very first thing off the rack and take a look at it. Immediately, I knew it was from World War I not only because that’s what it was written down as in PastPerfect (our museum database program), but also because of its style. It had the four square, pleated front pockets, the big brass buttons with “Canada” printed on them, and most interestingly, a patch on both shoulders of a white rectangle and a blue semi-circle on top. I figured that this was significant but it wasn’t sparking my brain to do more research just yet so I just kind of moved on for a moment.
But this first artefact gave me a bit of a glimpse into some of the curatorial practices from days gone by (long, long by). Typically, when a donor brings in a collection, even if it is just one piece, they get their own accession numbers associated with their collection. For example, let's say Judy Brown brings in two different clocks on January 1, 2020. Judy is the very first donor of the year and so her objects will be accessioned (added to the collection) first. Therefore, the accession numbers associated with those objects would be 2020.1.1 and 2020.1.2. “2020” refers to the year, “1” refers to the donor, and “1” and “2” refer to the item numbers within that donor’s ‘collection’. So, if Bill Blue brought in two maps on January 2 and he was the second donor of 2020, his objects would be accessioned as 2020.2.1 and 2020.2.2. Makes sense, yes? What is most important about this is that the person accessioning the collection is paying attention to who the donor is and not splitting the collection up or mixing it with other collections. The reason for this is that sure, usually the piece itself is neat to look at, but what is really important about artefacts is the story that comes with them. It would be a pretty boring exhibit if we just laid 10 clocks out for you to look at with no information around them. If we put out 10 clocks and told you that this one was used by Jim Johns who was the CPR timekeeper, and this one was from the Westfort Post Office c. 1884, and etc. etc. then we’d have an interesting exhibit. These stories that go along with the artefacts are called “provenance” and they are really what museum collections are all about. Therefore, to retain that provenance, artefacts should be collected with as much information attached as possible and cataloged so as to retain that information. If you were to suddenly just move artefacts around into new collections and throw out their provenance we’d just have a pile of stuff with no story and what is the point of that?
With all that said, no matter what, you should not have more than one donor for the same accession number on Past Perfect. So, with all that said, I found that the very first jacket I was cataloging was in this huge group of clothing. Strange, I thought, because the donation form from 1972 that I found for that jacket only had 2 items on it. I kept looking and as I thumbed through all of those old gift forms, I found that someone had created a giant “collection” of all clothing and pulled each item from a different donor! If I haven’t been clear already, this is a huge no-no! I found that all 100 plus artefacts under the 972.183 collection were in fact all from different people and had not been accessioned correctly. Unfortunately, because fixing that would be a huge job just on its own I had to just do what I could with what I had and move on. Part of what I will be doing during this project is restoring some of the provenance to those items. This leads us into the next part of the story.
I moved on from this first jacket and about 20 jackets later, I found myself looking at the uniform of the 16th Battalion (Canadian Scottish) from World War I. I was wondering what the local provenance of this particular piece was so I gave it a bit of a Google and clicked on the Wikipedia page. It pulled up this page. Immediately, on the right, I saw their “patch” and I thought, “AHA!” Remember I mentioned that blue and white patch on that first jacket I was looking at? Well back I went to that jacket and back I went to the Google, and I pulled up a web page (this web page) of all the patches of the Canadian Expeditionary Force (C.E.F.) from World War I and I found out that that blue and white patch was from the 52nd Battalion (New Ontario). WOW. I was shocked and exhilarated. If you are not familiar with local military history, the 52nd was THE North Western Ontario battalion during the First World War. It was formed in and deployed from Port Arthur and recruited from Fort Frances, Kenora, and Dryden! (See the Museum's virtual exhibit here). This jacket, the very first jacket I took a look at, turned out to have a huge connection to the area. An actual soldier from this area wore this jacket at some point in their experience with the C.E.F. during World War I. Given that the lower part of the patch is white, I believe it is from 1914 or early 1915 before they changed to a light blue-grey for the square. Unfortunately, we don’t know exactly who wore it as the gift form doesn’t give us those details but even so, it’s a pretty significant part of our military history. I’ve included a few photos of members of the 52nd departing or arriving in Port Arthur from our huge photo collection for your enjoyment. If you want some more details about the 52nd you can click here for a copy of From Thunder Bay through Ypres with The Fighting 52nd by William C. Millar or here for Thunder Bay & The First World War, 1914-1919 by Michel Beaulieu, David Ratz, Tory Tronrud and Jenna Kirker, both of which are available at the museum’s bookstore.
I hope you found that story as interesting as I did and appreciated the discovery of provenance where previously there had been none. Week one also included some super cool, (hand stitched!) pre-WWI pieces, and some Kriegsmarine (German Navy) jackets brought back by members of the Lake Superior Regiment from World War II. If you’re interested, I can definitely do a little write up about some of those articles as well!
Photos:
972.183.85 - The 52nd battalion tunic
980.100.8 - 52nd Battalion leaving Port Arthur, 1915
979.1.625 - Lawrence and Ambrose Martin, Nipigon. 52nd battalion, 1915. Lawrence and Ambrose where two of the many local Indigenous soldiers who fought with the 52nd in the First World War.World War.
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