The colonial legacies of the digital archive: The Arnold Lupson photographic collection

Archivaria

Volumn 65, Issue 1, 2008, Pages 3-19

  Opp, James ^a  

^a CARLETON UNIVERSITY   (Canada)

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[No Author keywords available]

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EID: 77956020184     PISSN: 03186954     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: None     Document Type: Article

References (52)

1. Mark J.P. Wolf, Abstracting Reality: Art, Communication, and Cognition in the Digital Age (Boston, 2000), pp. 89-109.
2. Joanna Sassoon, "Photographic Materiality in the Age of Digital Reproduction," in Photographs Objects Histories: On the Materiality of Images (London, 2004), p. 200.
3. Among her other concerns, some of which are outlined below, Sassoon worries that sublimating the material photograph within a "morass of digital mono-media" will lead to a loss of "the trust of researchers that institutions are looking after the best interests of the material above other forms of commodity-based politics" (p. 201).
4. To be clear, my object in this paper is not to condemn or admonish the work of any particular archivists, but rather to use this case study to reflect on a wider history of archival practices. I am indebted to the staff at the Glenbow for their encouragement of this project and for their assistance in accessing unprocessed records on the early years of the Glenbow Foundation.
5. Exact URLs for individual images do not exist, but the online searchable database is available at: http://ww2.glenbow.org/search/archivesPhotosSearch.aspx (accessed 7 May 2007).
6. It should be noted that after the main research for this paper was conducted (May 2007), the Glenbow independently decided to replace the category of "costume" with "dress."
7. Joan M. Schwartz, "Coming to Terms with Photographs: Descriptive Standards, Linguistic 'Othering', and the Margins of Archivy," Archivaria 54 (Fall 2002), p. 157.
8. For a recent exploration of Harvie and the Glenbow, see Frances W. Kay Hiding the Audience: Viewing Arts and Arts Institutions on the Prairies (Edmonton, 2003), Chapter 4.
9. Glenbow Archives, Glenbow Administrative Records, Box 21, file "Equipment (photography)," memo, Hugh A. Dempsey to J.H. re. Photographic Filing System, 9 November 1956.
10. Glenbow Archives, Glenbow Administrative Records, Box 15, file, "Glenbow Foundation: A Summary of Activities to March 15th," p. 3.
11. There are many critiques of the power of description in archival recordkeeping. For one recent contribution, see
12. Wendy M. Duff and Verne Harris, "Stories and Names: Archival Description as Narrating Records and Constructing Meanings," Archival Science 2 (2002), pp. 263-85.
13. On the reality and myth of Aboriginal agriculture on the prairies, see Sarah Carter Lost Harvests: Prairie Indian Reserve Farmers and Government Policy (Montreal and Kingston, 1990).
14. Carter demonstrates that it was "Euro-Canadian observers, not Indians themselves, who have claimed that Indians and agriculture are incompatible," obscuring both First Nations' positive response to agriculture and the role of government policy in undermining it (p. 3).
15. This is a classic example of what Lilly Koltun refers to as "unintended elements," which are scooped up with the intended and suddenly expose a fruitful connection or dissension...
16. Lilly Koltun, "The Promise and Threat of Digital Options in an Archival Age,"Archivaria 47 (Spring 1999), p. 131.
17. Glenbow Archives, Luxton Museum Collection, Box 2/2300-9(5), Norman Luxton, correspondence 14 February 1955.
18. According to the Glenbow finding aid for his collection, Gooderham was the son of an Indian Agent who took up his father's post on the Siksika reserve at Gleichen, Alberta, from 1920 to 1946.
19. From 1946 to 1954, he was the Regional Supervisor of Indian Agencies in Alberta and the Northwest Territories.
20. The Glenbow Foundation hired Gooderham in 1955, and he continued to work for Harvie for more than twenty years.
21. George H. Gooderham, Northern Plains T ribes. Vol. 1 Blackfeeţ ed. Philip H. Godsell (Calgary, 1955), p. 95.
22. Glenbow Archives, Gooderham Fonds, M 4350. Photographs in the albums had their own numbering system, and the three photographs here were numbered 134, 134A, and 134B.
23. Ibid., p. 32.
24. Godsell in particular resented Dempsey' s presence and interference in his various projects. Prior to joining the Glenbow, Dempsey had written a "scathing attack" questioning the accuracy of one of Godsell' s articles.
25. See Hugh A. Dempsey, "Glenbow's Early Days,"Glenbow, vol. 6, no. 4 (September/October 1986), p. 21.
26. The digital database seems to have collated information from both the print cards and other, cross-referencing index cards. For example, the phrase, "was a good farmer" is not included in the index card listed under Many Fires' s name, but "Head and Shoulders view" is, a line absent from the print card.
27. Joanna Sassoon, p. 190.
28. See http://blackfoot-awakening.ca (accessed 10 May 2007).
29. For background on how some of the concepts for the site came about, and on Kainai attempts to develop new educational programs dealing with cultural identity, see
30. Ramona Big Head-Mills, "A Teacher's Perspective on the issue of Identity," http://blackfoot-awakening.ca/toolkit/index.html (accessed 10 January 2008).
31. Michael Gourlie, "Archival Material Digitized for 'Seeing with New Eyes: a Journey into Blackfoot Knowledge'," http://blackfoot-awakening.ca/toolkit/en/media/docs/essays/fonds.pdf, (accessed 10 May 2007).
32. "Instructional Unit - Module 3," http://blackfoot-awakening.ca/toolkit/en/media/docs/units/social_studies/module3.pdf, (accessed 10 May 2007), pp. 1-2.
33. Michael Gourlie, p. 2.
34. Notably, the photographic album of the Tsuu T'ina, which forms the largest part of the Lupson collection, was not digitized because it fell outside of the boundaries of the project, which was viewed as relating only to those First Nations identified as Blackfoot.
35. Paul Frosh, The Image Factory: Consumer Cultur e, Photography and the Visual Content Industry (Oxford, 2003), p. 92.
36. Alan Sekula, "The Body and the Archive," in The Contest of Meaning: Critical Histories of Photography, ed. Richard Bolton (Cambridge, MA, 1989), p. 348.
37. Colin F. Taylor and Hugh Dempsey, With Eagle Tail: Arnold Lupson and 30 Years among the Sarcee, Blackfoot and Stoney Indians on the North American Plains(Toronto, 1999), pp. 8-15
38. George H. Gooderham, Northern Plains Tribes. Vol. 4 Sarcees, No.,ed. Philip H. Godsell (Calgary, 1956), pp. 7-8
39. Glenbow Archives, Gooderham Fonds, M 4350.
40. George H. Gooderham, p. 8
41. Taylor and Dempsey, p. 14. Godsell reported that Coppock purchased it from Maggie Big Belly "allegedly for the sum of $15.00."
42. See Glenbow Archives, Godsell Fonds, M 433, Box 2, file 41, Philip H. Godsell to J.D.H., n.d.
43. Glenbow Archives, Luxton Museum Collection, Box 2/2300-9(5), Norman Luxton, correspondence 14 February 1955.
44. See Elizabeth Edwards, "Talking Visual Histories: Introduction," and John E. Stanton, "Snapshots on the Dreaming: Photographs of the Past and Present," both in Museums and Source Communities: A Routledge Reader, eds. Laura Peers and Alison K. Brown (London, 2003)
45. Carol Payne, "Lessons with Leah: Re-reading the Photographic Archive of Nation in the National Film Board of Canada's Still Photography Division," Visual Studies, vol. 21, no. 2 (April 2006), pp. 4-22.
46. Carol Payne and Jeffrey Thomas, "Aboriginal Interventions into the Photographic Archives: A Dialogue between Carol Payne and Jeffrey Thomas," Visual Resources 18 (2002), pp. 109-25.
47. See also Alison K. Brown and Laura Peers with members of the Kainai Nation, 'Pictures Bring us Messages'/Sinaakssiiksi Aohtsimaahpihkookiyaawa: Photographs and Histories from the Kainai Nation (Toronto, 2006).
48. Arnold Lupson, The Sarcee Indians of Alberta (Calgary, 1923), n.p.
49. See http://peel.library.ualberta.ca/bibliography/4846.html (accessed 14 May 2007).
50. Patrick Joyce, "The Politics of the Liberal Archive," History of the Human Sciences, vol. 12, no. 2 (1999), p. 47.
51. Ann Laura Stoler, "Colonial Archives and the Arts of Governance: On the Content in the Form," Archival Science 2 (2002), p. 100.
52. Schwartz J. M., "Coming to Terms," p. 159.