Vintage sepia photos of a lost industrial Newfoundland

The United Church archives has recently scanned about 850 photos from the Max Dawe collection. Max Dawe was a United Church minister who travelled around Newfoundland in a small boat in the 1930s and 1940s.

"He took some great photos," says volunteer Linda White. "Most are identified. Many not."

The photos will eventually be posted on Memorial University's Digital Archives Initiative, but you get a sneak peak here, and can help in the identification process.

If you know anything about either of the two photographs posted here, send me an email at ich@heritagefoundation.ca.

Help unmask these accordion-playing Newfoundland Mummers

These two pictures were snapped by artist/photographer Dominique Hurley at the Mummers Parade, and I'm hoping some of you can help. She is looking for permission to use these images, and needs consent from the mummers themselves.

She writes:

"Do you, by any chance, know who these two accordion-playing mummers are? And if not, do you have a way of getting word out that I need help identifying uncovering their identity? If so, please ask people to contact me via my website at www.DominiqueHurley.com."

In which a folklorist spends his day off researching the history of spoons

Admire if you will, in their fitted red case, these 1912/13 silver Walker & Hall soup spoons. I love them. I appreciate a proper soup spoon, with a deep, rounded bowl. When I'm dining out, and someone serves me soup and then presents me with a tablespoon with which to eat it, I always feel slightly cheated. That happened to me earlier this week, at a higher-end restaurant in St. John's. The soup was lovely. The spoon left me cold.

Most people would just go home and forget about it, but material culture geek that I am, I realized that I had no idea why people insist on tablespoons over soup spoons, or why we even have something called a tablespoon at all. And that I truly needed to know.

So, I spent my holiday Friday drooling over websites like the California Academy of Sciences collection on the history of eating utensils and this silver collector's website on the history of spoons.  I read the Wikipedia articles on soup spoons, tablespoons, dessert spoons, and teaspoons. And I came to the realization that while I love spoons, and although I am a proud owner of all of the above (plus a couple of lovely serrated grapefruit spoons), that I am nowhere near as obsessed as this guy.

To save you the work of reading all of these sites, here it is, cutlery lovers, in a nutshell. 

Before about 1700, people generally brought their own spoons to the table. From about 1700 the place setting became popular, and along with it came new words: "table-spoon," "table-fork," and "table-knife." 

Tea drinking had been introduced to England around 1660. Because tea was rare and expensive, tea cups (and spoons) were small. Around 1710, the East India Company started importing tea from China, and as tea prices declined, the size of teacups and tea-spoons increased.

The 1700s saw the development of all kinds of spoons, including the coffee-spoon, and dessert-spoon (roughly equal to two tea-spoons, or half a table-spoon). By the time of the publication of the first Oxford English Dictionary in the mid 1800s,  the hyphen had been dropped, and "tablespoon" became the common spelling. Presumably the use of "table-forks" fell off the table at some point, so to speak.

By the end of the 19th century, the soup spoon had developed. The tablespoon, which had been used for eating soups and suchlike, was elongated and was thereafter primarily used for serving, rather than eating. In the UK, the dessert-spoon and soup-spoon began to displace the tablespoon as the primary implement for eating from a bowl, at which point the name "tablespoon" took on a secondary meaning as a much larger serving spoon.

At some point in history, the meaning of "tablespoon" diverged, depending on which side of the Atlantic you were on. By the end of the 20th century, in much of English-speaking North America, a tablespoon was the largest type of spoon used for eating from a bowl. In the UK and most Commonwealth countries, a tablespoon was still the type of large spoon usually used for serving. With the spread of American cooking books, and the typical use of tablespoon and teaspoon as a measurement system, the older meaning of tablespoon as an eating spoon is apparently enjoying a revival in the UK.

So why has the use of the soup spoon fallen out of favour in North America? I still don't know. But here, halfway down the page,  is a nice picture of an old teaspoon from a Beothuk site on the Exploits River to keep you busy, while I continue to investigate.

As for the spork? There I dare not go.

Video of Nova Scotia Mi'kmaw basketmaker Rita Smith

This past March, as part of our Rooted In History basketmaking forum, we were lucky enough to have Nova Scotia Mi'kmaw basket maker Della Maguire as a participant, who was in Corner Brook teaching an ash basket workshop along with Margaret Pelletier.

Della's parents, Abe and Rita Smith, shown above, were both noted basket makers (you can read more about them here and here) as well as being champions for Mi'kmaw culture. Della gave us a recording about her mother's basket making that was originally filmed for the children's television program Sesame Street, a recording which was then re-aired following her mother's death in 1996. We have Della's permission to post it here, and hope you enjoy!

Top four YouTube resources for oral history and folklore interviews

Over the past couple weeks, I've been doing a number of workshops introducing people to the art and techniques of doing oral history and folklore interviews. Along the way, I've shown a few YouTube videos to illustrate certain points.  For those of you who haven't been able to take in a workshop, I'm presenting my top four favourites below.

1) Why do Oral History?

The first is from the Minnesota Historical Society. Why is oral history important? What is oral history? How is it different than a simple interview? This is the first of a series of video podcasts prepared by the Society that addresses some of these issues.





2) How do you record an oral history interview?

Prepared by the East Midlands Oral History Archive based at the University of Leicester, I've used this video several times. I like how it presents the material in a "Do and Don't" fashion, which is great for a workshop.

3)  How do you get interesting answers?

In this video, Traditional Arts Indiana shares tips and suggestions for folklorists conducting fieldwork. The video discusses how to get complex answers instead of a yes/no response, an important trick for interviewers to know. I love the work that Traditional Arts Indiana is doing, and like the Minnesota Historical Society, they've produced a series of videos for folklore interviews.

4) What can I do with the information I collect?

This is one of my favourite YouTube videos that show what can be done with oral history material. Beautifully shot and edited, Jewish Care's Pearls of Wisdom campaign aims to highlight the value and importance of older people in today's ageing society. According to its YouTube page, it "challenges people, especially younger people, to alter their perceptions of this elder generation, presenting them as wise, funny and worthy of their attention."

In which a folklorist develops a fondness for vinyl siding.

In the heritage community in Newfoundland and Labrador, the general consensus is as follows: Vinyl Bad; Wood Good. We've seen a lot of fabulous heritage buildings in the province covered up with vinyl, resulting in a loss of heritage character and fine wooden detailing. Vinyl, to some architectural historians anyway, is The Enemy.

For every rule, there is an exception.  Today I opened an email from librarian Beverly Warford to find some pictures of vinyl siding that made me squeal with folkloric excitement. Yes. You read that right.

One of the things I love most about intangible cultural heritage is that it is in a constant state of evolution. Culture is not static; it is ever-changing. People adapt to changing times and materials, constantly. This is as true now as it was in the historical period. As a folklorist, it means there is always something new for me to study.

Over the past few months, followers of the ICH blog will know that we've been working on a project to highlight basket making traditions. In a sense, the culture of basket making in Newfoundland and Labrador is one of innovation. Mi'kmaw basket makers in Newfoundland were influenced by mainland Mi'kmaq, who in turn had been influenced by European settlers, as well as Black Loyalist and freed slave basket makers working out of African traditions. Mill workers in Corner Brook, Grand Falls-Windsor and other towns took English and American style baskets and made them their own, utilizing local materials. Inuit grass basket makers in Labrador were possibly influenced by Moravian craft traditions. The list goes on.

Mill lunch baskets were primarily made of woven wood, quite often birch, but Newfoundlanders, being Newfoundlanders, got creative with the materials they used. Once plastic salt-beef buckets were introduced in the later half of the 20th century, craftsmen started to cut strips of plastic for weaving. Others broke down hockey sticks to get the wood they needed.

And in the community of Pleasantview, near Point Leamington, the late Mr. Herbert Brett started using vinyl siding. His son, Rick, also carried on the tradition for a short time.

Mr. Brett's lunch basket is very similar in style to the wooden lunch baskets made by other Central Newfoundland basket makers like Angus Gunn and Alfred Menchenton, with the same curved wooden handles and hinged wooden lid. But instead of the baskets being fully wooden, Brett cut up different coloured vinyl siding into strips to weave the sides of the baskets, making baskets in a variety of styles: lunch baskets, round baskets, picnic baskets, even Easter baskets. We'll be adding all of these to our basket collection on Memorial University's Digital Archives Initiative. But for now, here are a few samples, with thanks to Bev and the Brett/Stuckless family for sharing! Love it or hate it, you'll never look at vinyl siding the same way again.

Capturing Craft Photo Contest deadline is March 30th. #nlcraft

The Craft Council of Newfoundland and Labrador invites people across the province to participate in a special craft event as part of their 40th Anniversary celebrations. The Capturing Craft Photo Contest is a province-wide event encouraging the public to take a photo of their favourite craft item, local craft shop or a craft they're making themselves and share it with the Craft Council.

Deadline for entries is 4pm, March 30th, 2012.

Says spokesperson Jennifer Barnable, "Craft is everywhere in Newfoundland and Labrador. Every household has it, whether it's the coffee mug you use in the morning, the scarf you wear on a wintry day, the art on your walls, or the mat you put your boots on. We encourage people across the province to share their love of craft with us as we celebrate craft."

Photos with brief descriptive captions can be e-mailed, Facebooked or Tweeted to the Craft Council until March 30th. Four fine craft prizes will be announced on April 2nd. For full contest details and rules are outlined at http://www.craftcouncil.nl.ca/news/capturing-craft-photo-contest/

Take a peek inside a Newfoundland mill worker's lunch basket.

"You would never go into another man's lunch basket."

It was a refrain we've heard more than a few times over the past few weeks from current and retired mill workers from Corner Brook to Grand Falls-Windsor. Lunch baskets were not something you would poke around inside, certainly not without the owner's permission. Doing so wasn't just considered rude; it could lead to blows if you were not careful.

This afternoon we hosted the second of our Tea 'n' Baskets events, with today's workshop taking place at the Mount Peyton Hotel in Grand Falls-Windsor. It was a great success, with lots of baskets, and lots of public sharing of memories and stories.

On this occasion, we were allowed to take a look inside the baskets, and indeed, people were delighted to let us do so. A couple folks went to the trouble of packing a lunch, wrapped up in what were known as "samples" - the ends of paper that men would take home from the mill.  I was even lucky enough to be given a bottle of moose by Mr Dave Peddle.

So have a peek below at what's inside a mill worker's lunch basket. Some are full, some are empty, but they each tell a story. Keep your hands off the moose, though, unless you are looking for a scrap. That's mine.

Meeting Mr. Menchenton, Norris Arm basket maker

One of the interesting parts of the research we've been doing on baskets and basket makers is getting to know more about the real men and women behind the baskets.  Here in Grand Falls-Windsor, we've learned about basket makers like Angus Gunn and Everett Janes, and this week, we met the daughter of Mr. Alfred Menchenton.

Alfred Menchenton was a name we'd come across before, and we even have one of his baskets already documented on Memorial University's Digital Archive Initiative (DAI). He was a jack-of-all trades: a woodsman, a carpenter, a builder of logging camps, model-maker, and a prolific crafter of lunch baskets for workers at the mill in Grand Falls.

In the September/October edition of "The Rounder" for 1981, reporter Glen Fiztpatrick wrote, "Over the past couple of years, Mr. Menchenton has become an expert. He made 250 baskets last year and sold them all and could have sold more if the time was available to make them."

The same reporter had found Mr. Menchenton's baskets in the Grand Falls tourist chalet, and had gone looking for the creator. He tracked him down at his shed in Norris Arm North.

"He was in the process of preparing the long narrow strips of birch and pine which were hung along the walls, in readiness to be made into baskets later this winter," wrote Fitzpatrick. "His equipment included an electric table saw and an electric planer, necessities, he said, to produce the smooth strips used to construct the sides. He assembled the saw himself, building the table in which it was placed, and bought the planer second hand."

Over thirty years later, Mr Menchenton is no longer with us. But his daughter and her husband drove us out to that same shed, and there, untouched, was the scene as the reporter had described it. All his tools were still in place, and pieces cut out, ready to make a new basket. Strips of wood were fixed into a form to provide the curve needed for basket ends and handles.  The table saw he built was still sitting inside the door, and the walls were festooned with tools, jigs, pieces of wood, and the snowshoes he had also apparently been adept at creating. One expected Mr. Menchenton himself to walk in, and pick up his work where he had left off.

Mr. Menchenton won't be about our Tea 'n' Baskets event tomorrow at the Mount Peyton Hotel in Grand Falls-Windsor, where we are inviting owners of baskets to come, show, and tell about their histories. Even though he won't be there, we are hoping some of his baskets will be.