Friday, April 24, 2020

Basketry Summer School in the 1930s - Musgravetown and Bonavista

I recently came across the following photographs in Memorial University's Digital Archives Initiative (DAI).  The first two are from Musgravetown, presumably in 1937. The photos are from the H.M. Dawe Photograph Collection of the United Church of Canada - Newfoundland Conference Archives.




The third photo is from Bonavista, taken two years previously. The photo is from the Maritime History Archive - Forbes Family Photograph Collection.




I'm not certain, but I suspect the Summer School in question was a training program for Newfoundland teachers, where they could acquire skills to take back to their classrooms in September.  Support for this comes from a clipping from the Western Star, 1936-05-06:



If you have information on this program or similar schemes to teach basketry skills in Newfoundland and Labrador, or photos of any baskets that might have been produced in this way, email dale@heritagenl.ca 

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