Suspended Conversations : The afterlife of memory in photographic Albums

by Langford, Martha

• ISBN13: 9780773521742
• ISBN10: 0773521747
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2001-08-01
• Publisher: McGill Queens Univ Pr

Summary

Albums are treasured by families, collected as lively illustrations of the past by museums of social history, and examined by scholars in sociology, folklore, art history, and cultural studies for what they can reveal about attitudes and sensibilities. Most agree that albums are stories that come to life in the retelling but when no one is left to tell the tale, the intrigue of the album becomes a frustrating puzzle, a suspended conversation. Langford argues that oral consciousness provides the missing key. By correlating photography and orality she shows how albums were designed to work as performances and how we can unlock their mysteries.Suspended Conversationsbrings to light a rich collection of photographic travelogues, memoirs, thematic collections, and family sagas compiled between 1860 and 1960 and held by the McCord Museum of Canadian History. Martha Langford not only provides a fascinating glimpse of a previous century's preoccupations and mores but brings photography into the great conversation about how we remember and how we send our stories into the future.

Author Biography

Martha Langford was the founding director and chief curator of the Canadian Museum of Contemporary Photography.

Table of Contents

Preface: Hellohellohello	vii
Acknowledgments	ix
Introduction: Show and Tell	3	(19)
The Idea of Album	22	(18)
The Album as Collection	40	(24)
Memoirs and Travelogues	64	(25)
The Idea of Family	89	(33)
Orality and Photography	122	(36)
``Photographs'' 1916--1945	158	(40)
Conclusion: Remembering to Tell	198	(4)
Appendix 1: A Note on the Photographic Collections at the McCord Museum of Canadian History	202	(4)
Appendix 2: The Photographic Albums Illustrated in the Text	206	(9)
Notes	215	(12)
Bibliography	227	(10)
Index	237