Nineteenth Century Postcards with Canadian Symbols
Auguste Vachon, Outaouais Herald Emeritus
“On June 1st 1871, Canada became the first country outside Europe to issue postcards.” [1] The first one was printed by the British American Bank Note Co. of Montreal and included a printed one-cent stamp with the head of Queen Victoria but no Canadian symbols. Determining when the first postcard with a symbol of Canada appeared seems almost impossible. Some of the first postcards with symbols related to a special event or a business. After over 120 years, it is likely that a number nineteenth century cards of this type have not survived. Postcards are not always easy to date even when they include postmarks, stamps and a date inscribed by the sender. These three clues are helpful, but do not tell us exactly when the card was printed. When there are no such indications or only the publishers name, estimating the time span can become a rough approximation.
The earliest postcard in our sampling announces the 3rd International Convention of the Epworth League held in Toronto, from July 15th through 18th, 1897 (fig. 1a-b). The league was created in 1889, in Cleveland, Ohio, to promote piety among the young people of the Methodist Episcopal church. In the upper left corner, above a shield displaying the Union Jack, a wreath of maple leaves with the royal crown at the top encloses a beaver on a maple log. Two badge-like devices on the card consist of a version of a cross paty as it is called in heraldry with a Latin cross at the centre within an annulus. The one in the upper right corner, which is repeated on the back of the card, is inscribed with the motto LOOK UP LIFT UP of the Methodist Episcopal Church and the Methodist Church of Canada (fig. 1c). The other in the lower left corner, bears the motto ALL FOR CHRIST of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South (fig. 1d). [2] The card was used by members of the league to send various messages not necessarily related to the convention. [3]
Figs. 1a-b. Private postcard announcing the 3rd International Convention of the Epworth League held in Toronto, from July 15th through 18th, 1897. The card has been attributed to Semple and Luke of Toronto.
Fig. 1c. Cross inscribed with the motto LOOK UP LIFT UP of the Methodist Episcopal Church and the EL acronym of the Epworth League, seen on figs. 1a and 1b.
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Fig. 1d. Cross as in fig. 1c inscribed with the motto ALL FOR CHRIST of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South and the EL acronym of the Epworth League, from fig. 1a.
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Formed independently in 1873, the Dominion Express Company was bought by Canadian Pacific Railway in 1882 to become its delivery division. It provided rapid transportation for small shipments much like courier services do today. Money orders were an important part of its business. The recto of the postcard (fig. 2) advertises the company’s money order service with an illustration of the arms of the Dominion of Canada within an annulus inscribed “Dominion Express Co.” The verso informs a Mr. W.C. Breckenridge of Hamilton, Ontario, that the company has received a parcel for him for which he must pay all the charges at the office of the company or have the parcel delivered and pay the charges when received. The inscription in the top left corner “Form 161 ― Jan. ‘98” indicates that the printing of the postcard occurred in January 1898.
Figs. 2a-b. Postcard of the Dominion Express Company, 1898: (recto) advertisement for the company’s money order service; (verso) “Form 161 ― Jan. ‘98” giving instructions for retrieving a shipment and modes of payment.
Fig. 2c. Arms of the Dominion of Canada topped by the royal crown, within an annulus with a train car on top and a beaver with a maple branch below as seen in fig. 2a.
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Fig. 2d. Displays the content and colours of the shield of arms in figure 2c. The provinces are: (top row) Ontario, Quebec; (lower row) New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Manitoba. This shield began appearing around 1873.
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The Standard Mercantile Agency of Toronto was incorporated on 22 April 1896. It sought to promote sound business practices, among other things, by rating enterprises, managing estates and properties, acting as assignees for insolvent debtors and collecting debts from defaulters. [4] The note on figure 3b assesses the possibility of collecting a debt as being nil for the time being.
Figs. 3a-b. Private postcard accessing the chances of collecting an unpaid debt, stamped February 23, 1899. The card could have been printed several years earlier since the company was incorporated in April 1896. It includes both a maple leaf and a beaver on a branch or log as was frequent at the time.
James Crocket Wilson (1841-1899), an immigrant born in Northern Ireland, was among the first to print postcards with Canadian emblems. In Canada he worked as a carpenter, a teacher and a clerk. In 1863 a New York publisher hired him as a clerk, but he returned to Canada four years later and, in 1870, established a factory in Montreal to make paper products. In 1881 he opened a paper mill in Lachute and, in 1893, bought the pulp factory in Saint-Jérôme, both in the province of Quebec. [5] The company stayed in the hands of the family until the 1950s.
On its 1870 company envelope, J.C. Wilson & Co. is described as a printer and a manufacturer of paper and flour bags and dealers in paper and twine. [6] On an envelope postmarked 1898, the company is still presented as printers and manufacturers of square paper bags, flour sacks, envelopes, shipping tags, toilet paper and folding paper boxes. [7]
Wilson began printing postcards in 1897 to celebrate Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee. The cards took the form of the British Red Ensign with inscriptions or address panels in the fly. [8] The same type of cards was printed in 1898, some with the inscription: “Entered according to act of the Parliament of Canada in the year 1898 by J.C. Wilson & Co., Montreal, at the Department of Agriculture,” which became a standard formula on its cards. Wilson kept publishing cards until 1900. His cards show a great fondness for the emblems of Britain such as the Red Ensign and Union Jack as well as for the Old Glory of the United States.
In 1898 Wilson decided it was time to publish a postcard with Canadian symbols (fig. 4). The central figure is a young girl wearing a winter overcoat as was worn in the nineteenth century. Similar overcoats with stripes, red or blue, above the hem, on the lower sleeves, on the shoulders and hood are well illustrated in the paintings of Cornelius Krieghoff and in other illustrations (fig. 5). [9] The girl also wears a tuque and a ceinture fléchée (arrow-patterned sash), supports snowshoes in her right hand and holds a Canadian Red Ensign in her left hand. The beaver at her feet, the spray of maple leaves to the left and the title of Alexander Muir’s song The Maple Leaf Forever all add a touch of Canadianism to the decor.
On its 1870 company envelope, J.C. Wilson & Co. is described as a printer and a manufacturer of paper and flour bags and dealers in paper and twine. [6] On an envelope postmarked 1898, the company is still presented as printers and manufacturers of square paper bags, flour sacks, envelopes, shipping tags, toilet paper and folding paper boxes. [7]
Wilson began printing postcards in 1897 to celebrate Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee. The cards took the form of the British Red Ensign with inscriptions or address panels in the fly. [8] The same type of cards was printed in 1898, some with the inscription: “Entered according to act of the Parliament of Canada in the year 1898 by J.C. Wilson & Co., Montreal, at the Department of Agriculture,” which became a standard formula on its cards. Wilson kept publishing cards until 1900. His cards show a great fondness for the emblems of Britain such as the Red Ensign and Union Jack as well as for the Old Glory of the United States.
In 1898 Wilson decided it was time to publish a postcard with Canadian symbols (fig. 4). The central figure is a young girl wearing a winter overcoat as was worn in the nineteenth century. Similar overcoats with stripes, red or blue, above the hem, on the lower sleeves, on the shoulders and hood are well illustrated in the paintings of Cornelius Krieghoff and in other illustrations (fig. 5). [9] The girl also wears a tuque and a ceinture fléchée (arrow-patterned sash), supports snowshoes in her right hand and holds a Canadian Red Ensign in her left hand. The beaver at her feet, the spray of maple leaves to the left and the title of Alexander Muir’s song The Maple Leaf Forever all add a touch of Canadianism to the decor.
Fig. 4. On this 1898 postcard, a young lady, surrounded by Canadian symbols, wears winter clothing as depicted in several works of art by Cornelius Krieghoff. The Latin motto Patria Amamus should be Patriam Amamus (We love our country). The same postcard was issued in 1899 with the motto corrected. Inscribed at the bottom: “Entered according to act of the Parliament of Canada in the year 1898 by J.C. Wilson & Co., Montreal, at the Department of Agriculture.”
Fig. 5. Except that the trimmings on her coat are blue instead of red, the girl in the forefront of the snowshoers is dressed in almost the same attire as the girl in figure 4, while the third girl from the front wears a similar garment along with a tuque. Postcard by W.G. MacFarlane, Publisher, Toronto, postmarked 24 December 1907.
Wilson published a few other postcards with Canadian symbols. One card has a medallion portrait of Queen Victoria with, on the right, a soldier holding the Union Jack, on the left, the inscription “God save the Queen” and, underneath, a beaver on a maple branch. A garland
of maple leaves joined with the rose of England, the thistle of Scotland and shamrocks for Ireland issues from the base of the portrait, below which appears the inscription “Nobilissima Horum Omnium” (The noblest of them all). One card was registered in 1899 and another, with only slight differences in coloration, was registered the next year.[10]
of maple leaves joined with the rose of England, the thistle of Scotland and shamrocks for Ireland issues from the base of the portrait, below which appears the inscription “Nobilissima Horum Omnium” (The noblest of them all). One card was registered in 1899 and another, with only slight differences in coloration, was registered the next year.[10]
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The postcards in this article are what was found for the nineteenth century after ten years of collecting. There are surely other surprising discoveries to be made. Other cards in the collection may well belong to the same century, but a reliable date for them has yet to be found. All the examples in this article point to the very last years of the century as the time when Canadian symbols appeared on postcards. In the twentieth century, this type of postcards became plentiful, particularly in the early years of the century to the end of the First World War.
Notes
[1] Michael J. Smith, The Canadian Postcard Checklist 1898-1928 “Thirty Years of Glory” (self-pub., 2003), p. 3.
[2] Souvenir Programme of the convention: https://archive.org/details/cihm_06048/page/n5/mode/2up.
[3] https://www.vintagepostcards.ca/Epworth.html.
[4] Commercial-Rating Reference Book and Mercantile, Law, and Bank Directory … issued by the Standard Mercantile Agency of Toronto, 1899, pp. 5-6: https://www.canadiana.ca/view/oocihm.25580/10?r=0&s=1.
[5] Dictionary of Canadian Biography, vol. 12: http://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/wilson_james_crocket_12E.html.
[6] The envelope is inscribed 1870 with a stamp issued on 15 March 1870: Larry R. Paige, Canadian Patriotics - J.C. Wilson & Company (BNAPS, 2012), p. 6.
[7] Ibid., p. 8.
[8] https://www.jcwilson.ca/Postcards/PreBoerWarEra/P01v2/.
[9] An almost identical garment, as worn by the young lady, is worn by a man in the painting Bilking the Toll (1859) held in The Thomson Collection of the Art Gallery of Ontario: https://ago.ca/collection/object/agoid.68800. These types of coats were also documented by the artist Alfred Sandham and by the photographer William Notman of Montreal. They were developed from Hudson’s Bay Company blankets: https://wi101.wisc.edu/2018/06/07/point-blanket-coat/.
[10] Larry R. Paige, op. cit., p. 74. Another postcard published by Wilson in 1900 honours Canadian participation in the South African war. An allegorical feminine figure accompanied by the Union Jack is seen crowning with laurel a kneeling soldier to her right. With her right hand, she holds a shield inscribed with the names of battles and other names related to the war. Below the names appears a maple leaf. A garland of maple leaves issues from the base of the shield on the left, and a beaver crouches below the shield. Underneath this scene is the inscription “Well done! A page in history!” Ibid; pp. 75-76.
[1] Michael J. Smith, The Canadian Postcard Checklist 1898-1928 “Thirty Years of Glory” (self-pub., 2003), p. 3.
[2] Souvenir Programme of the convention: https://archive.org/details/cihm_06048/page/n5/mode/2up.
[3] https://www.vintagepostcards.ca/Epworth.html.
[4] Commercial-Rating Reference Book and Mercantile, Law, and Bank Directory … issued by the Standard Mercantile Agency of Toronto, 1899, pp. 5-6: https://www.canadiana.ca/view/oocihm.25580/10?r=0&s=1.
[5] Dictionary of Canadian Biography, vol. 12: http://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/wilson_james_crocket_12E.html.
[6] The envelope is inscribed 1870 with a stamp issued on 15 March 1870: Larry R. Paige, Canadian Patriotics - J.C. Wilson & Company (BNAPS, 2012), p. 6.
[7] Ibid., p. 8.
[8] https://www.jcwilson.ca/Postcards/PreBoerWarEra/P01v2/.
[9] An almost identical garment, as worn by the young lady, is worn by a man in the painting Bilking the Toll (1859) held in The Thomson Collection of the Art Gallery of Ontario: https://ago.ca/collection/object/agoid.68800. These types of coats were also documented by the artist Alfred Sandham and by the photographer William Notman of Montreal. They were developed from Hudson’s Bay Company blankets: https://wi101.wisc.edu/2018/06/07/point-blanket-coat/.
[10] Larry R. Paige, op. cit., p. 74. Another postcard published by Wilson in 1900 honours Canadian participation in the South African war. An allegorical feminine figure accompanied by the Union Jack is seen crowning with laurel a kneeling soldier to her right. With her right hand, she holds a shield inscribed with the names of battles and other names related to the war. Below the names appears a maple leaf. A garland of maple leaves issues from the base of the shield on the left, and a beaver crouches below the shield. Underneath this scene is the inscription “Well done! A page in history!” Ibid; pp. 75-76.