Suspended Conversations: The Afterlife of Memory in Photographic Albums, Volume 10

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McGill-Queen's Press - MQUP, 2001 - History - 241 pages
In Suspended Conversations Martha Langford shows how photographic albums tell intimate and revealing stories about individuals and families. Contrary to those who isolate the individual photograph, treat albums as texts, or argue that photography has supplanted memory, she shows that the photographic album must be taken as a whole and interpreted as a visual and verbal performance that extends oral consciousness.

Suspended Conversations brings to light a rich collection of photographic travelogues, memoirs, thematic collections, and family sagas compiled between 1860 and 1960 and held by the McCord Museum of Canadian History. Martha Langford not only provides a fascinating glimpse of a previous century's preoccupations and mores but brings photography into the great conversation about how we remember and how we send our stories into the future.

 

Contents

Show and Tell
3
The Idea of Album
22
The Album as Collection
40
Memoirs and Travelogues
64
The Idea of Family
89
Orality and Photography
122
Photographs 19161945
158
Remembering to Tell
198
The Photographic Albums Illustrated
206
Notes
215
Bibliography
227
Index
237
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About the author (2001)

Martha Langford was the founding director and chief curator of the Canadian Museum of Contemporary Photography.

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