John Boyd Sr. photographs

series1887-1941Fonds 1548 > Series 393

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Held by: City of Toronto Archives via City of Toronto Archives
Dates: 1887-1941 (indexed as 1887–1941)
Level: series
Extent: ca. 1,750 photographs ; 13 x 18 cm or smaller; 4 scrapbooks ; 46 x 35 cm or smaller
Scope & content: Series consists of about 1,750 photographs taken by John Boyd Sr., and four scrapbooks of his published work. The 1,750 photographs in this series were taken between 1887 and 1941, and essentially fall into two groupings: (1) About 1,000 13x18 cm prints, mostly of Toronto scenes, taken between 1887 and 1941; (2) Two dismantled albums containing about 60 7x10 cm prints taken in the 1890s of miscellaneous subjects, including Toronto and Muskoka. In addition to these three groupings, the Boyd material also includes a handful of large prints made from negatives in the other series. These include fine shots of ice boating on Toronto Bay in February 1915; soldiers' eating sandwiches in High Park on January 11, 1916; a farmer and his hefty horses harvesting wheat at Stouffville in July 1919; and a smiling Prince of Wales waving to crowds cheering in High Park on August 25, 1919. The photographs are supplemented by four scrapbooks of newsclippings showing Boyd's published work, and three logbooks which list all Boyd's work taken between 1887 and early 1941, including both material held by the CTA and material found elsewhere. The logbooks also contain some subject indexing, according to both an alphabetical system and 22 general categories devised by Boyd. Such a subject index both improves access to the photographs and reflects Boyd's major interests (e.g., nature, sports, historic buildings, railways, the military, and so on). Only part of Alan Howard's Boyd collection was desposited with the CTA. Nevertheless, this selection provides considerable insight into local history, especially since Boyd annotated many of the prints, giving more information than appears in his index entries. For example, he identified #240 as "Port Credit harbor in 1887" and provided the useful additional information that Port Credit harbor "was a noted resort for stone hookers", the sturdy ships shown in the photograph that were used to transport heavy building stones, such as those scattered around the shore. Sometimes these comments appear to have been written long after the photograph was originally taken. For example, on #240, he wrote, "The Royal Canadian Yacht Club as it stood on the waterfront near York St some 45 years ago". Since the original photograph was taken in 1895, the annotation must have been added around 1940. Similarly, on #256, he wrote, "Old Ontario Parliament Buildings which stood on Front Street west of Simcoe St. where the C.N.R. freights sheds now stand. Photo take in 1895 about 40 years ago." And he identified #370 as Hanlan's Point in 1897, commenting "It's all changed now except the ferries, which survive". Whether these various comments were written for personal reasons, or were captions that could be used if and when the photograph was published is not known. Finally, this series includes four, large scrapbooks containing newspaper clippings of Boyd's published photographs, as well as some nature articles written by him. The material was published between 1907 and 1915, as well as in the 1930s. These scrapbooks provide a rich resource, not only of Boyd's own photography, but also of the evolution of news photography in Canada. Unlike his son, Boyd Sr. was never a staff photographer. No records survive at the CTA of how much the elder Boyd earned from his photography, but a very large number of his photographs, often with no credit line, were published in Canadian and American publications. What photographs were published; where they were published; how well they were published; and how they related to the text and the lay-out of the paper are only some of the questions that might interest researchers. Also of interest are the facts that some of the published pictures are larger than the prints held by the CTA (e.g., the World War I album - Series 1418); and that many of the printed photographs, although documented in Boyd's index books, are not held by the CTA. The scrapbooks, therefore, give researchers a fuller understanding of Boyd Sr.'s photography.
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Subjects: Canadian National Exhibition; Don River (Ont.); Fort York (Toronto, Ont.); Hanlan's Point (Toronto, Ont.); High Park (Toronto, Ont.); Humber River (Ont.); Ontario Legislative Building (Toronto, Ont.); Queen's Park (Toronto, Ont.); Royal Canadian Yacht Club; Scarborough Bluffs (Toronto, Ont.); Sunnyside Amusement Park (Toronto, Ont.); Boyd, John, 1865-1941; Toronto Island (Ont.); University of Toronto; ARMED FORCES PERSONNEL; BOATING; BOTANICAL GARDENS; EXHIBITIONS; FAIRS; GARDENS; NATURAL ENVIRONMENT; RAILWAYS; ROYAL VISITS; SNOW; STREETSCAPE; WATERFRONTS
Harvested: 2026-10-22T05:55:59Z · source datestamp n/a · toronto

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