‘Scroll’ through memory lane
Image
City’s online gallery now
includes photos, documents and more from the Vaughan Archives
In recognition of
Archives Awareness Week, which takes place every year during the first full
week of April, the City of Vaughan is releasing historical content from the
Vaughan Archives, Office of the City Clerk. Seven new photo exhibits are now on
display in the City’s online gallery on Flickr. Citizens are
encouraged to scroll through memory lane, learn about the city’s past and view
Vaughan’s transformation from a farmland community into a bustling city.
Established in 1988,
the City of Vaughan Archives is home to more than 600 collections, consisting
of both City records and historical community records pertaining to Vaughan
from 1860 to present day. Records include, but are not limited to, the
following:
- City business records with long-term legal and administrative value, such as Council meeting minutes, by-laws, assessment rolls, financial records, reports and official correspondence
- church, community and school records
- census records
- historical photographs
- land records
- historical maps, plans and aerial photographs
- newspapers
- personal papers of past residents and founding families, such as diaries, family histories, journals and letters
- records of local organizations both past and present
As part of the City's
COVID-19 response, Vaughan City Hall remains closed to the public – but Vaughan
Archives is on digital display for all to explore! Here is more information
about the seven archival galleries now available online:
Featured Artists of Vaughan
This exhibit is a recent addition to the Vaughan Archives collection and showcases the work of talented artists from all around Vaughan, including Thoreau MacDonald, Stan Sellen and Judith Thompson. Images include everyday objects, local buildings, landscapes and more.
Historical Families of Vaughan
This virtual exhibit provides a brief overview of the founding families who settled in Vaughan Township from as early as 1799. It depicts images of the Bowes family tree, a diploma received by Robert Raikes, personal income tax records, the Mackenzie family and more.
Historical Photography
This virtual exhibit provides an overview of the development of photography and showcases some of the earliest types of photographs, such as the daguerreotype and the cabinet card. Although photography began centuries ago, it did not accelerate until the latter half of the 19th century. It began with the camera obscura, invented more than 2,000 years ago, which was composed of a dark chamber with a hole in one side through which images were projected onto a wall. Artists experimented with the phenomenon over the years, leading to the development of the lens. However, it was not until the 19th century that inventors developed the ability to fix the image permanently to a surface, resulting in several new processes and formats. Fixed images were either negative or positive, with bright spaces appearing dark and dark spaces appearing light in negatives and the reverse being true of positives.
Recollections of Rural Vaughan
This gallery showcases the Recollections of Rural Vaughan by Stan Sellen, an accomplished artist with a love for the Canadian landscape who has been documenting the evolution of rural vistas through paint for decades. His work, painted en plein air (in the open air), incorporates vibrant and soulful motifs which capture Vaughan’s landscape through stylized patterns of natural light, movement and colour. Painted during the 1960s and 1970s, these rustic and rural scenes immortalize an earlier time and illustrate the evolution of Vaughan from a township to a city. His works help to provide an effective historical narrative of Vaughan’s past and agrarian heritage.
The Mary Wood Collection
The Mary Wood Collection is one of the City’s premier collections and provides a large amount of visual evidence of life in Vaughan from 1837 to 1983. Born Mary Isabel Hollingshead in 1908, Mary Wood was best known as Woodbridge’s unofficial historian as she dedicated herself to preserving her community’s past. In fact, Ms. Wood’s contributions to her community were so significant that in 1986, she received the provincial award of Senior Citizen of the Year from Lt.-Gov. Lincoln Alexander. Many of the images in this collection were taken by Ms. Wood herself, which document changes to the landscape and the community from rural to urban over time.
The Way We Were: Representations of Vaughan’s Past
This virtual exhibit is the Vaughan Archives’ biggest exhibit with almost 200 photographs. It showcases the rich and diverse archival collection, including government and non-government records. Images in this gallery depict a wide variety of subjects relating to the Vaughan community from 1860 to the present. Each month, this album is updated to feature two more historical collections, documents, photographs, postcards, posters and other graphic material.
Vaughan Working Environments
This exhibit documents early working environments in Vaughan Township. Images shown are of factories, farms, train tracks, horse and buggies, men in work attire, tools and more.
A personal Flickr account is not required to access the City’s online gallery, which only contains a small selection of the full archives collection. If you are looking for a certain image, original file, primary source record and more, contact the Vaughan Archives, by calling 905-832-2281 or emailing archives@vaughan.ca.
By managing and preserving both City and community records, the City’s archives team ensures that Vaughan’s rich and varied history will continue to be available for future generations. Learn more at vaughan.ca/archives.
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