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June 22, 1949, was a pleasantly warm day in Ottawa. The peony show was in its second day. A federal election was underway. And Richard Rutherford escaped drowning in the Ottawa River.
Just nine years old, he fell in near the O’Keefe Brewery in LeBreton Flats, and he was in big trouble.
Luckily for him, a man noticed him and fished him out. The rescuer was James Cronier, 47, and he performed artificial respiration and got the boy breathing again.
A police constable named Dean Halliday showed up, too, and young Richard was soon well enough to go home (which was at 401 Sparks St.). They didn’t bother with a doctor.
We know all this because newspapers from that day recently surfaced at Matt Moore’s house on Cooper Street. He ripped up some “hideous” tile in a bedroom and the papers were under it, laid on top of the original 1906 wooden floor.
Flattened and mildewed, they open a window into the city’s past: Not the grand events of history books, but the small pieces of ordinary people’s lives 66 years ago.
The Ottawa Citizen and Ottawa Journal pages also shed light on our own times, on how we have changed, becoming a more sophisticated society but also one that has lost some of the basic character that makes a society work.
.
Even the story of how Richard Rutherford didn’t drown plays its part there.
But first, let’s review the news of the day. And the ads.
George Drew, Ontario’s former Conservative premier, was running against Liberal Louis St. Laurent in a federal election.
Liberal rent controls were a hot election issue. Drew, campaigning while he had laryngitis, said the Liberals have controlled everything except the common cold. He attacked socialism as well, saying socialists always rule by force and ruin the economy by letting political appointees run it.
St. Laurent clobbered him in the voting five days later.
There was a plan to pave Montreal Road in Eastview (today’s Vanier).
The Philadelphia Phillies hit five home runs in the eighth inning that day to beat Cincinnati.
Kids had the run of the city. Around the time Richard Rutherford was falling into the river, a little girl had to be rescued from a pond at the Central Experimental Farm by her 10-year-old friend. There were no adults around. Farm officials pleaded with parents to stop sending kids to play there unsupervised. (They were also upset that thieves stole an entire crop of experimental grape vines, ruining two years of work.)
A small ceremony marked the retirement of Dr. McGregor Easson, the chief school inspector in this city. Later they named a school after him.
Ethel Roosevelt divorced FDR Jr., son of the president, on grounds of extreme mental cruelty.
Hull council voted to pay Mayor Alphonse Moussette’s travel expenses to attend the St. Jean Baptiste parade in Montreal. (Hull cadets were in the parade.)
.
And 12-year-old Claude Bennett, the future MPP, was enrolled at Hopewell Public School. His picture is in one of the papers.
Whole chickens were on sale at 49 cents a pound. Sounds cheap, but the average factory wage for 1949 in Canada was less than $48 a week. A modest three-pound chicken at that price (rounded to $1.50) was more than three per cent of a worker’s weekly salary, before taxes. And that chicken was on sale.
A simpler, happier time? That day’s newspaper also notes that in Hungary, a cardinal warned of rising anti-semitism under communist rule.
We forget these things.
But at Carleton University, journalism professor Randy Boswell can’t get enough of these old newspapers. And he no longer has to ask permission to examine them in archives. They’re increasingly online, through Google’s news archive, Newspapers.com, and Canadiana.org.
“It’s obviously a touchstone to another time. Access to the content of them is exploding. There are two trends at once: They (original papers) are disappearing, and yet they are becoming digitally much more accessible.”
But why read old news?
“What I love about old newspapers is the detailed portrait of life in a community that they provide — and which history books don’t,” he says. “History quite intentionally avoids the detail, often, in order to make grand statements about particular trends and movements.
“But newspapers are chock-full of the minutiae of daily life.”
That includes the want ads, pages of them in each issue show how people bought their cars, found jobs, looked for contractors.
“They are very rich historical research sources.”
And he gives an example from his own work. He has looked into the history of some archeological digging, and of Ottawa’s first pollution issue. “It was the pollution of the river by the sawmill guys at the Chaudière.”
Sawdust coated the bottom of the river, changing the chemistry of the water. “This all stems from my interest in Edward Van Cortlandt, who was an early doctor and scientist in Bytown.
“It was in digging through newspapers … an incredible information resource for historical research,” that he got the information.
“I’m interested in the 19th century, so you can find things that have escaped historical notice.” An example: A lot of people drowned. Drownings filled the newspapers — children falling in at the end of the water, loggers thrown into icy spring rivers and adults falling from boats.
“And the ads are as interesting as the news, which is a little humbling for reporters.”
Ads tell of shifts in society. For instance, a new Oldsmobile in 1949 cost $2,250, while a bungalow in Sandy Hill was $9,300 — only about four times the price of the car.
Ads are happy, a bit silly. The Lipton Soup ad is a poem: “Junior loves to run and play/ Until he starts to droop./ Then let Lipton pep him up/ With Chicken Noodle Soup.” There are four more verses, ending with a happy family.
.
Obviously times have changed, and Richard Rutherford may be the best example. No Canadian newspaper today would get his name or age or address, or the name of his rescuer, or the details (though American media would). Canadian police today would identify only “two males” and a vague reference to the location. Constable Halliday would be anonymous, too, for vague “privacy reasons”.
But the public of 1949 was allowed to know what happened in its community because reporters talked to those in schools, at city hall and even Ottawa’s postmaster. Those doors are mostly closed today (especially schools, where talking to a teacher or principal would naturally endanger children).
The change since then is “a genuine collapse of information,” says David Spencer, who teaches at Western University’s Faculty of Information and Media Studies. “And it’s slow and it’s subtle and deadly effective.”
He recalls a case where police refused to discuss the kidnapping and murder of a Western engineering student until years later, when they found the suspect and he committed suicide. The community, Spencer said, was understandably frightened. What had happened to the woman? No one would say, allegedly because of the dead woman’s privacy rights.
“It was causing a great deal of angst here in the community. Are young women safe?
“We’re getting to the point where Stephen Harper is the one who will have to release all of our information, no matter what it may be,” he said.
“We don’t dialogue, in the largest community concept of dialogue. And it’s very scary.”
If we only have institutions and groups issuing statements “and we don’t dialogue as a community and address our concerns with each other and resolve those things, then your whole social infrastructure dies as a result of it.
“You become more and more isolated.”
The readers of 1949 also bought and sold avidly through many pages of classified ads:
“Rural hardware, south of Ottawa. Real money-maker. Large gross turnover,” and an agent’s name and address.
Or: “A REAL BUY. $2,000 buys an established fruit and vegetable store. A golden opportunity for aggressive party. 1343 Wellington. 8-2762. (That last bit is the phone number.) The address no longer exists, but it’s close to Lauzon Music (at 1345).
Under Boats and Marine, you could get a used 1.5 horsepower Neptune outboard motor for $70.
Articles for Sale covered ladders, a cultivator, stoves, dishes, doll carriages, linen.
Capricorns faced a “tricky period for financial matters”. (Some things never change.)
It was a community wrapped up in one package, Boswell notes — or often two competing papers. It couldn’t represent every facet of the city, he notes. It aimed at the middle ground. But in an age today when we can all pick our own sources of information — all sports for one person, all TMZ for another, even all Beyoncé — it marks a period when everyone in town knew broadly what their local issues were.
“There was a common awareness,” he says. “It’s pretty magical when you can look at this stuff.”
.
.
.
tspears@ottawacitizen.com
twitter.com/TomSpears1
查看原文...
Just nine years old, he fell in near the O’Keefe Brewery in LeBreton Flats, and he was in big trouble.
Luckily for him, a man noticed him and fished him out. The rescuer was James Cronier, 47, and he performed artificial respiration and got the boy breathing again.
A police constable named Dean Halliday showed up, too, and young Richard was soon well enough to go home (which was at 401 Sparks St.). They didn’t bother with a doctor.
We know all this because newspapers from that day recently surfaced at Matt Moore’s house on Cooper Street. He ripped up some “hideous” tile in a bedroom and the papers were under it, laid on top of the original 1906 wooden floor.
Flattened and mildewed, they open a window into the city’s past: Not the grand events of history books, but the small pieces of ordinary people’s lives 66 years ago.
The Ottawa Citizen and Ottawa Journal pages also shed light on our own times, on how we have changed, becoming a more sophisticated society but also one that has lost some of the basic character that makes a society work.
.
Even the story of how Richard Rutherford didn’t drown plays its part there.
But first, let’s review the news of the day. And the ads.
George Drew, Ontario’s former Conservative premier, was running against Liberal Louis St. Laurent in a federal election.
Liberal rent controls were a hot election issue. Drew, campaigning while he had laryngitis, said the Liberals have controlled everything except the common cold. He attacked socialism as well, saying socialists always rule by force and ruin the economy by letting political appointees run it.
St. Laurent clobbered him in the voting five days later.
There was a plan to pave Montreal Road in Eastview (today’s Vanier).
The Philadelphia Phillies hit five home runs in the eighth inning that day to beat Cincinnati.
Kids had the run of the city. Around the time Richard Rutherford was falling into the river, a little girl had to be rescued from a pond at the Central Experimental Farm by her 10-year-old friend. There were no adults around. Farm officials pleaded with parents to stop sending kids to play there unsupervised. (They were also upset that thieves stole an entire crop of experimental grape vines, ruining two years of work.)
A small ceremony marked the retirement of Dr. McGregor Easson, the chief school inspector in this city. Later they named a school after him.
Ethel Roosevelt divorced FDR Jr., son of the president, on grounds of extreme mental cruelty.
Hull council voted to pay Mayor Alphonse Moussette’s travel expenses to attend the St. Jean Baptiste parade in Montreal. (Hull cadets were in the parade.)
.
And 12-year-old Claude Bennett, the future MPP, was enrolled at Hopewell Public School. His picture is in one of the papers.
Whole chickens were on sale at 49 cents a pound. Sounds cheap, but the average factory wage for 1949 in Canada was less than $48 a week. A modest three-pound chicken at that price (rounded to $1.50) was more than three per cent of a worker’s weekly salary, before taxes. And that chicken was on sale.
A simpler, happier time? That day’s newspaper also notes that in Hungary, a cardinal warned of rising anti-semitism under communist rule.
We forget these things.
But at Carleton University, journalism professor Randy Boswell can’t get enough of these old newspapers. And he no longer has to ask permission to examine them in archives. They’re increasingly online, through Google’s news archive, Newspapers.com, and Canadiana.org.
“It’s obviously a touchstone to another time. Access to the content of them is exploding. There are two trends at once: They (original papers) are disappearing, and yet they are becoming digitally much more accessible.”
But why read old news?
“What I love about old newspapers is the detailed portrait of life in a community that they provide — and which history books don’t,” he says. “History quite intentionally avoids the detail, often, in order to make grand statements about particular trends and movements.
“But newspapers are chock-full of the minutiae of daily life.”
That includes the want ads, pages of them in each issue show how people bought their cars, found jobs, looked for contractors.
“They are very rich historical research sources.”
And he gives an example from his own work. He has looked into the history of some archeological digging, and of Ottawa’s first pollution issue. “It was the pollution of the river by the sawmill guys at the Chaudière.”
Sawdust coated the bottom of the river, changing the chemistry of the water. “This all stems from my interest in Edward Van Cortlandt, who was an early doctor and scientist in Bytown.
“It was in digging through newspapers … an incredible information resource for historical research,” that he got the information.
“I’m interested in the 19th century, so you can find things that have escaped historical notice.” An example: A lot of people drowned. Drownings filled the newspapers — children falling in at the end of the water, loggers thrown into icy spring rivers and adults falling from boats.
“And the ads are as interesting as the news, which is a little humbling for reporters.”
Ads tell of shifts in society. For instance, a new Oldsmobile in 1949 cost $2,250, while a bungalow in Sandy Hill was $9,300 — only about four times the price of the car.
Ads are happy, a bit silly. The Lipton Soup ad is a poem: “Junior loves to run and play/ Until he starts to droop./ Then let Lipton pep him up/ With Chicken Noodle Soup.” There are four more verses, ending with a happy family.
.
Obviously times have changed, and Richard Rutherford may be the best example. No Canadian newspaper today would get his name or age or address, or the name of his rescuer, or the details (though American media would). Canadian police today would identify only “two males” and a vague reference to the location. Constable Halliday would be anonymous, too, for vague “privacy reasons”.
But the public of 1949 was allowed to know what happened in its community because reporters talked to those in schools, at city hall and even Ottawa’s postmaster. Those doors are mostly closed today (especially schools, where talking to a teacher or principal would naturally endanger children).
The change since then is “a genuine collapse of information,” says David Spencer, who teaches at Western University’s Faculty of Information and Media Studies. “And it’s slow and it’s subtle and deadly effective.”
He recalls a case where police refused to discuss the kidnapping and murder of a Western engineering student until years later, when they found the suspect and he committed suicide. The community, Spencer said, was understandably frightened. What had happened to the woman? No one would say, allegedly because of the dead woman’s privacy rights.
“It was causing a great deal of angst here in the community. Are young women safe?
“We’re getting to the point where Stephen Harper is the one who will have to release all of our information, no matter what it may be,” he said.
“We don’t dialogue, in the largest community concept of dialogue. And it’s very scary.”
If we only have institutions and groups issuing statements “and we don’t dialogue as a community and address our concerns with each other and resolve those things, then your whole social infrastructure dies as a result of it.
“You become more and more isolated.”
The readers of 1949 also bought and sold avidly through many pages of classified ads:
“Rural hardware, south of Ottawa. Real money-maker. Large gross turnover,” and an agent’s name and address.
Or: “A REAL BUY. $2,000 buys an established fruit and vegetable store. A golden opportunity for aggressive party. 1343 Wellington. 8-2762. (That last bit is the phone number.) The address no longer exists, but it’s close to Lauzon Music (at 1345).
Under Boats and Marine, you could get a used 1.5 horsepower Neptune outboard motor for $70.
Articles for Sale covered ladders, a cultivator, stoves, dishes, doll carriages, linen.
Capricorns faced a “tricky period for financial matters”. (Some things never change.)
It was a community wrapped up in one package, Boswell notes — or often two competing papers. It couldn’t represent every facet of the city, he notes. It aimed at the middle ground. But in an age today when we can all pick our own sources of information — all sports for one person, all TMZ for another, even all Beyoncé — it marks a period when everyone in town knew broadly what their local issues were.
“There was a common awareness,” he says. “It’s pretty magical when you can look at this stuff.”
.
.
.
tspears@ottawacitizen.com
twitter.com/TomSpears1
查看原文...
