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Amor De Cosmos, September 1874 (Library and Archives Canada).
CA-K719History

Amor De Cosmos, “lover of the universe”

Amor De Cosmos, born William Smith in Windsor, Nova Scotia, took his name in the California goldfields and in 1858 founded the opposition newspaper the Colonist in Victoria. For two decades his pen and oratory championed responsible government and Confederation; he sat in the colonial and federal legislatures and was premier of British Columbia from 1872 to 1874.

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Photo: Unknown author · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context
Max Aitken, Lord Beaverbrook, around 1918.
CA-K714Economy & trade

Max Aitken, Lord Beaverbrook

Max Aitken, Lord Beaverbrook, was an important and controversial Canadian financier and the outspoken owner of a British newspaper empire. In the First World War he shaped how Canada’s effort was seen and remembered through the war art program; as Britain’s Minister of Aircraft Production in the Second World War he drove Spitfire production, and he was a leading benefactor of the University of New Brunswick and founder of the Beaverbrook Art Gallery.

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Photo: M. S. Kay, Bolton · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context
Charles G. D. Roberts, 1904 (Library of Congress).
CA-K656Culture & sport

Sir Charles G. D. Roberts, father of English-Canadian poetry

Charles G. D. Roberts, born in Douglas, New Brunswick, grew up near the Tantramar Marshes that shaped much of his writing. His early poetry inspired the generation of writers known as the Confederation Poets and laid the foundations of a Canadian poetic tradition, earning him the title of father of English-Canadian poetry.

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Photo: Unknown author · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context
Margaret Duley, 1941.
CA-K637Culture & sport

Margaret Duley, Newfoundland novelist

Margaret Iris Duley of St. John’s, who wrote mainly in the 1930s and 1940s, was the first Newfoundland novelist to gain international recognition, with readers in Canada and England as well as at home. Novels such as Cold Pastoral and Highway to Valour vividly portray the beauty and harshness of early 20th-century Newfoundland and Labrador.

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Photo: Anonymous (photographer unidentified) · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context
John George Bourinot, 1888 (Topley Studio).
CA-K613Institutions

Sir John Bourinot, Clerk of the House of Commons

John George Bourinot of Sydney, Nova Scotia, a journalist and legislative reporter, joined Parliament’s staff in Ottawa in 1868 and was Clerk of the House of Commons from 1880 to 1902, a recognized authority on parliamentary procedure. A founding member of the Royal Society of Canada, he wrote widely on history and the constitution.

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Photo: William James Topley · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context
Bliss Carman, 1903 (Pirie MacDonald, Library of Congress).
CA-K605Culture & sport

Bliss Carman, poet of the Confederation group

Bliss Carman, born in Fredericton, wrote lyrical, mystical poetry reflecting his love of nature and the Maritimes. As a literary editor in New York and Boston he promoted many Canadian authors, and as a member of the Confederation group of poets he was one of Canada’s most recognized poets at home and abroad.

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Photo: Pirie MacDonald · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context
Gustave Francq, portrait published in 1924.
CA-K601Economy & trade

Gustave Francq, labour leader

Gustave Francq, a typographer and journalist, was a key figure of international unionism in Quebec and Canada, campaigning for a minimum wage for women, better workers’ compensation and free compulsory education. In 1916 he founded Le Monde ouvrier/The Labor World, which became the official newspaper of the Quebec Federation of Labour.

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Photo: Unknown author · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context
Stephan G. Stephansson, before 1909.
CA-K583Culture & sport

Stephan G. Stephansson, Icelandic poet of Alberta

Stephan G. Stephansson, born in Iceland, settled near Markerville, Alberta, in 1889 after living in the United States. A pioneer farmer and self-taught scholar of Scandinavian literature, he published seven volumes of poetry from 1900 to 1920 and was ranked among the greatest Icelandic poets since the Middle Ages.

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Photo: Unknown photographer · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context
J. E. H. MacDonald (Archives of Ontario).
CA-K579Culture & sport

J. E. H. MacDonald, painter of the Group of Seven

J. E. H. MacDonald, painter, designer and poet, was a founding member of the Group of Seven and a key figure in creating a national style of landscape painting. A talented graphic designer of Canadian motifs, he painted southern Ontario farmland, Algoma’s autumn colours, Nova Scotia shores and the Rockies, and inspired students at the Ontario College of Art.

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Photo: Unknown photographer; Archives of Ontario · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context
Charles William Jefferys, 1930 (M. O. Hammond, Archives of Ontario).
CA-K578Culture & sport

C. W. Jefferys, illustrator of Canadian history

Charles William Jefferys, who came to Canada from England in 1879, was a writer, artist and illustrator of historical novels and textbooks and taught drawing and painting at the University of Toronto from 1912 to 1939. He is best known for his carefully researched historical drawings, such as those in his three-volume Picture Gallery of Canadian History.

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Photo: Melvin Ormond Hammond · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context
A. Y. Jackson, 1930 (Archives of Ontario).
CA-K574Culture & sport

A. Y. Jackson, painter of the Group of Seven

A. Y. Jackson, born in Montréal, studied painting there and in Paris, served overseas in the First World War and was a member of the Group of Seven from 1920 to 1933. His simple, rounded forms in wilderness landscapes gave a powerful image of Canada, and he greatly influenced a generation of Canadian artists.

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Photo: Unknown photographer (1930); Archives of Ontario, I0007815 · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context
Joey Smallwood signing the agreement admitting Newfoundland into Confederation, Ottawa, December 1948 (National Film Board).
CA-K563History

Joey Smallwood, Newfoundland’s Father of Confederation

Joseph “Joey” Smallwood, born at Gambo and a journalist, labour organizer and broadcaster, played a decisive role in bringing Newfoundland into Confederation in 1949. He became a passionate advocate of union from 1946, helped negotiate the terms and dominated the referendum campaigns, then served as premier from 1949 to 1972.

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Photo: NFB · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context
Louis-Philippe Hébert, around 1898 (Wm. Notman & Son).
CA-K538Culture & sport

Louis-Philippe Hébert, sculptor

Louis-Philippe Hébert was a Canadian sculptor known for public monuments. After carving wood figures for churches in Ottawa and Montréal, he made bronze statues such as Cartier on Parliament Hill and won renown for the sculptures on the façade of the Quebec legislature, his Maisonneuve monument in Montréal and the Macdonald monument in Ottawa.

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Photo: William Notman & Son · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context
Wilfrid Pelletier (right) with Claude Champagne at the opening of the Conservatoire, 1943.
CA-K537Culture & sport

Wilfrid Pelletier, conductor and founder of the Conservatoire

Wilfrid Pelletier, an internationally renowned conductor, contributed greatly to Quebec’s musical life, especially in opera and through the Montréal Festivals and the Matinées symphoniques for young people. He was first director of the Conservatoire de musique du Québec and artistic director of the Montréal and Québec symphony orchestras; the Salle Wilfrid-Pelletier at Place des Arts bears his name.

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Photo: Unknown author · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context
E. J. Pratt in Toronto, 1944 (Gordon W. Powley).
CA-K506Culture & sport

E. J. Pratt, poet from Newfoundland

E. J. Pratt, born at Western Bay, Newfoundland, taught and briefly served as a Methodist minister before spending his career at Victoria College in Toronto. By the 1930s he was a prominent Canadian poet, writing on grand themes such as evolution and human struggle against nature, with images of sea and rock that echo his Newfoundland roots.

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Photo: Gordon W. Powley · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context
Robert Falconer, portrait published by the Empire Club of Canada.
CA-K503Institutions

Sir Robert Falconer, president of the University of Toronto

Sir Robert Falconer, born in Charlottetown, was an educator, writer and lecturer. After serving as principal of Pine Hill College in Halifax, he was president of the University of Toronto from 1907 to 1932 and wrote many books and articles on education and public questions.

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Photo: Empire Club of Canada · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context
Marshall McLuhan in 1945 (Library and Archives Canada).
CA-K491Culture & sport

Marshall McLuhan, “the medium is the message”

Marshall McLuhan, a University of Toronto professor and pioneer of media studies, became famous in the 1960s for his theories about how print and electronic media shape human perception and behaviour. His ideas of the “global village” and “the medium is the message” made him one of the most celebrated scholars in the Western world.

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Photo: Josephine Smith · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context
Peter McArthur, portrait published in 1916.
CA-K486Culture & sport

Peter McArthur, farmer and essayist

Peter McArthur of Appin, Ontario, edited the New York magazine Truth from 1896, encouraging Canadian and American writers. Returning to his birthplace in 1908, he combined farming with journalism, and his best-known collection of essays is In Pastures Green.

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Photo: Photographer not named. · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context
Frederick Varley, probably in Vancouver, 1927 (John Vanderpant).
CA-K484Culture & sport

Frederick Varley, painter of the Group of Seven

Frederick Varley, a founding member of the Group of Seven, helped establish a national style of painting the Canadian landscape. A masterful portraitist and an official First World War artist, he moved to teach on the West Coast in 1926, and his unconventional use of colour to convey emotion is a singular contribution to Canadian art.

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Photo: John Vanderpant · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context
John Stephen Willison, portrait published in 1913.
CA-K479Culture & sport

Sir John Willison, editor of the Globe

As editor of the Toronto Globe from 1890 to 1902, John Stephen Willison made it the most influential Liberal newspaper in Canada. Disenchanted with Laurier’s government, he took over the independent Toronto News in 1902, later became Canadian correspondent of The Times of London, and wrote a significant study of Laurier and the Liberal Party.

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Photo: Unknown author · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context
Charles Mair, portrait published in 1916.
CA-K468Culture & sport

Charles Mair, poet of Canada First

Charles Mair, born at Lanark, Upper Canada, was a journalist, poet, advocate of western expansion and an original member of the Canada First movement. A controversial figure during the Red River Resistance of 1869–1870, he later worked in business in the West and for the immigration service, and wrote works including Tecumseh and Through the Mackenzie Basin.

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Photo: Photographer not named. · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context
George Monro Grant, principal of Queen’s College (Library and Archives Canada).
CA-K466Institutions

George Monro Grant, principal of Queen’s

George Monro Grant, born at Albion Mines (Stellarton), Nova Scotia, was an educator and writer, author of Ocean to Ocean and minister of St. Matthew’s Church in Halifax. He was principal of Queen’s University from 1877 to 1902 and president of the Royal Society of Canada in 1901.

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Photo: Government of Canada · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context
Guido Nincheri, around 1945.
CA-K462Culture & sport

Guido Nincheri, church artist of Montréal

Guido Nincheri had a major impact on church decoration in Canada in the first half of the 20th century, mastering buon fresco, painting on fresh plaster, which was rarely used in North America, and designing many church interiors and stained-glass windows. Detained during the internment of Italian Canadians in the Second World War, he later worked in the United States while keeping his Montréal studio.

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Photo: Paul Provencher [2] (dead link) [3] (1902-1982) [4] · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context
Joseph Casavant, portrait restored from a 1914 publication.
CA-K458Economy & trade

Joseph Casavant, organ builder of Saint-Hyacinthe

Joseph Casavant left blacksmithing at 27 to study music and became a builder of musical instruments, producing his first church organ in his Saint-Hyacinthe shop in 1840. By his retirement in 1866 Casavant organs were in demand throughout eastern Canada, and under his sons Claver and Samuel, Casavant Frères won an international reputation.

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Photo: Ty's Commons · Photo licence: CC BY-SA 4.0 · Credit & context