Ernest Brown’s “Birth of the West”: Early narratives of imagined space and race in Western Canada
Date
2018-05-20
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Abstract
This thesis examines the life and works of settler photographer Ernest Brown, and identifies ways in which Alberta and its Indigenous inhabitants were imagined, perceived and manipulated through his vocation towards history and education. Brown presents a unique case study in the historiography of Western Canadian photography, as he utilized his extensive collection of photographs to establish a museum running from 1933 to 1939 in the heart of Edmonton, as well as a series of teaching pictures called “The Birth of the West.” While many photographers made a living through portrait studios or by selling views as souvenirs, Brown crafted an imagined settler space and history in the West, with specific roles for the Indigenous peoples with whom he was so infatuated.
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Western Canada, Settler Colonialism, Colonialism, Photography, Ernest Brown, Edmonton
Citation
Yaremko, S. (2018). Ernest Brown’s “Birth of the West”: Early narratives of imagined space and race in Western Canada (Master's thesis, University of Calgary, Calgary, Canada). Retrieved from https://prism.ucalgary.ca. doi:10.11575/PRISM/31966