This book's title and cover image suggest that the photographs found within conform to the conventions of the picturesque—though the photographs that follow do not all fit easily within this aesthetic category. The photographer who took these…
Children’s cookbooks tend to emphasize desserts, as is especially clear in the Kids Cookbook produced by the Calgary Public Library. Children submitted their favourite recipes in this juvenile community cookbook: the results include brownies,…
Medicine Hat had a vibrant Jewish community: although it numbered only about forty families, their impact on city life was substantial. As S.M. Selchen wrote in the Canadian Jewish Chronicle in 1954, “This tiny Jewish island among a non-Jewish…
This elegantly designed menu from approximately 1928 features a delightful poem about the joys of riding on the Canadian National Railway. Much of it concerns food:
If you follow the magic carpet‘Twill lead to a fairy car,Where all things good…
The Canadian Northern Railway grew swiftly from its creation in 1899 to its nationalization in 1918. In the same vein as the Grand Trunk’s Bread: Terse Stories of Success, the company published The Key to Prosperity in the Bread Basket of the…
This item was produced for the fiftieth anniversary of Canada’s first transcontinental passenger train journey. Though the last spike was driven on 7 November 1885, the winter and ongoing repairs to the track delayed the first cross-Canada trip.…
This attractive brochure emphasized the CPR’s three-million–acre irrigation block, located east of Calgary. Begun in the 1890s during a period of dry years, the scheme involved a series of canals that brought water to farms in the region,…
The cover illustration for this brochure depicts a masculine cowboy surveying his domain, lush with crops, new farming equipment, and domestic bliss. Noting that as of 1913, only about 10 million of the 170 million acres of potential wheat land in…
Home Canning and Freezing followed multiple editions of Home Canning, distributed by Canadian Western Gas Company (Calgary) and Northwestern Utilities (Edmonton) in the 1930s and 40s. Although this book is not dated, the “freezing”…
Although this is an American cookbook, originating as a semi-literary series for Good Housekeeping, this particular copy belonged to Albertan Lilian Leversedge (1913–2001), perhaps the daughter of Anglican minister Walter Leversedge and his…