OLD PHOTOGRAPHS OF SAINT JOHN - TIME TRAVEL WITHOUT A TUTOR

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Modern wonders never cease. FACEBOOK is a prime example. It's the social network which promises to connect folks to interesting strangers or to lost acquaintances. (Friends I'm sure we can find ourselves.) The social utility is user friendly, empowering and, most important, when you join FACEBOOK there is no obligation to do anything more than sit and gawk. A case very much to the point is FACEBOOK - OLD PICTURES OF SAINT JOHN, which as of Oct. 21, 2010 boasts 3,988 "members".
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The record shows that these are 3,988 of the least articulate of any special interest group on the continent. Membership in OPSJ is definitely pointless as these folks have nothing to say. It is sufficient to surf across their bow every few weeks to peruse the photos. The "Discussions" board shows that since May of 2007 there were only eleven attempts at triggering a chat with fellow birds on the wire, with most drawing not a single response. I've scraped a few useful photos from OLD PICTURES, which is public content, but it certainly is not worth my time to join that silent site.
.. The problems of locating and interpreting vintage photography of Saint John are many, and go far beyond the silliness of the FACEBOOK fad. My own search for history in pictures began in the 1970s while I was a student at Saint John High School. Even then I was aware of the visual cliches and the stench of boosterism which permeated much of the visual heritage of my native city. (I could paper a wall of my house with images of the old Public Library building, Market Slip, Trinity Church, the harbour and King Square!) Perhaps you could too.

Those who use old postcards of Saint John as their primary means of understanding city history do themselves a great disservice. (Postcards are, by far, the most common Saint John artifact sold on eBay.) I still have an instructive article on methods which I read in 1976. It was written by an Ottawa archivist who warned that sloppy use of images distorts the historical record, burying the knowable truth beneath layers of idle speculation or shallow history telling. He wrote that it was up to the experts to "moderate the undiscriminating attitude with which many [archival] patrons are approaching photographs." I've seen no evidence that the well paid custodians of the public record in Saint John or Fredericton have ever taken up that 34 year old challenge. That in spite of the huge amount of Federal stimulus dollars which have been showered on UNBSJ and the NBM over the past ten years, in vain attempt to initiate sustainable heritage projects. There are a rash of FACEBOOK sites administered from Saint John homes which deal in local history, and no recipient of federal largess - staff at the NBM, UNBSJ or the SJFPL, seems ever to have been motivated to provide some guidance to these thousands of nostalgia buffs who are practicing time travel without a tutor. So very sad.
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If you check Wikipedia today for the page put up for Saint John, N.B. you will see exactly the sort of neglect I mean. Here is a stereo view of a child sitting at the muzzle of a gun at Martello Tower in Carleton. The photographer was B.L. Singley and it was published by Keystone in 1903. (Singley was a founding partner.) The Wicki page compositor(s) simply copied the original and erroneous caption printed on the stereo card placing the gun in Rockwood Park. Nobody in Saint John has bothered to correct that caption. Sadder still.
.As it happens I have a history of KEYSTONE in my reference library. The Keystone View Company was founded in Meadville, Pennsylvania in 1891. Pennysylvania is known as the "Keystone" state.

Update OCT. 25- It seems I shouldn't pick on the team who have compiled that page on Wikipedia. I just checked the web site of the venerable New Brunswick Museum, and I find the experts also erred on this stereoview by copying the original Keystone information. I believe this photo was taken at Martello tower, but there were similar guns on Fort Howe which were refurbished for a ceremonial Royal Salute in 1901. There was much discussion at the time of updating Saint John's defences. This vintage gun would not have been of use had a German armoured cruiser mounted a sortie against Saint John. The worse error, I think, is NBM's attempt to claim copyright on the image. They can't. Further, the NBM received a fortune in Federal funding to scan and publish these images online, but they actually display them smaller than life size. That's really mean. N.B.M. should share them at 300 dpi so that some of the details of the past emerge from the image. Even eBay dealers who sell Saint John stereoviews are kinder. They regularly provide larger and sharper scans to potential buyers AND don't attempt to claim Copyright.

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2nd Update March 7, 2012: I just discussed this image with Harold Wright. The site is definitely Martello Tower hill in West Saint John, but he was more specific. This gun and platform in the photo are on the spot of "Fort Drummond" a battery position just a little downhill from the stone tower. The site, first fortified in 1812, disappeared in the 1920s when the city erected a water storage tower.

As shallow as Wikipedia articles can be, there are even thinner products offered to those who are a little curious about history. A case in point - I read (looked at!?) a recent copy of the the BBC HISTORY MAGAZINE. This is a publication which sells for $11.25 on Canadian display racks and has a quarter the heft and content of a PLAYBOY magazine. The issue I have at hand doesn't even provide the month or year publication date on the cover -January 2010. Come to think of it, dates are rather scarce in the interior text. Part of the dumbing down process I guess. Like changing "Polling Place" to "Vote here". The lengthiest article is about 1000 words and most of the content is colour photographs and captions... the depth of information you get on most Blog sites. Once upon a time if you wanted to put down a piece of light reading for the masses you would dismiss it as "HiLo," or high interest - low vocabulary. I am at a loss for words when confronted by this BBC product and others like it.

3rd UPDATE March 8, 2012: I'm happy to report that the OLD PICTURES SAINT JOHN Facebook site exploded with activity round about Oct. 2010. It is now active on a daily basis, with some excellent images and many interesting anecdotes shared by members. I was invited in by member (who also lives in B.C.) in Dec. 2010 and I'm still active. Occasionally I take a dart for expressing an unpopular opinion, or even a full broadside for posting an Isaac Erb post-mortem portrait of a dead child, and a few of the touchier Saint Johners have even "blocked" me in FB. Overall it has been a positive experience.