July / August 2002 Vol. 34, no. 4

Susanna Moodie and Catharine Parr Traill

A Partnership Project of the National Library and National Archives of Canada

Joni Waiser, Research and Information Services

The Susanna Moodie and Catharine Parr Trail Web site, www.nlc-bnc.ca/moodie-traill/index-e.html, contains a wealth of material about these two sisters who are among Canada’s most important 19th century writers. Drawn from the collections of the National Library and National Archives of Canada, the site provides biographical and historical information, book excerpts and transcripts of original letters, as well as resources for further study and teaching. At the SAVOIR FAIRE seminar on April 16, 2002, presenters Michael Peterman of Trent University and Susan Globensky of the National Library’s Digital Library of Canada Task Force described the content and different processes undertaken to bring about this digital project.

Michael Peterman, Co-curator

Michael Peterman teaches in the English Department at Trent University and is currently the principal of Catharine Parr Traill College. He began by extending thanks to the Web site team: Tania Constanzo and Susan Globensky, National Library project leaders, and Eleanor Brown, National Archives project leader. He then acknowledged the great support he received over the years from the National Archives’ Anne Goddard, and from National Library staff: Catherine Hobbs, literary manuscript archivist; Michel Brisebois, rare book curator; Claude LeMoine, former head, Special Collections; and from recently retired Gwynneth Evans, director-general, National and International Programs.

Professor Peterman and his two research colleagues, Carl Ballstadt, professor emeritus, McMaster University, and Beth Hopkins, professor of English, York University, were the co-curators of the Moodie-Traill Web site. The three had met over 20 years ago through their mutual interest in Moodie and Traill and agreed on the appeal of the two English sister writers. They co-edited three volumes of letters by Susanna Moodie and Catharine Parr Traill, which were published by the University of Toronto Press in 1985, 1993 and 1996. ECW Press published Professor Peterman’s biography Susanna Moodie: A Life in 1999.

The Web site material is based on three Moodie-Traill collections, much of which, interestingly, came from attics of the sisters’ descendants. The three collections  -  the Traill Family Collection, the Susanna Moodie Collection, and the Patrick Hamilton Ewing Collection  -  are made up of letters, manuscripts, books and pictures from 1821 to 1949. Finding aids listing individual items in each collection provide easy access.

Built using a mix of National Library and National Archives material, the Moodie-Traill site provides an introduction to the sisters for students at the late primary level (including lesson plans), as well as for high school and university students and the general public. The site contains a partial yet rich set of materials for scholars to begin their study of Moodie and Traill, leading them to the National Library or National Archives for further research.

Commenting on the sisters’ early literary life in England, Professor Peterman said the Strickland family was remarkable in that five of the six siblings were writers. Before coming to Canada, Susanna had written more than seven books and a good number of articles for periodicals. Catharine had more than a dozen books to her credit. Scrolling through the site, Peterman explained that the text was brief but incisive and interspersed with links to original photographs and other illustrations. Each section opens into related supportive information about texts, manuscripts and pictures.

Professor Peterman noted how valuable the site is for those tracing the publishing history of the sisters’ works. One of the items he made specific mention of was Patriotic Songs, which was written by Susanna and her sister Agnes Strickland. He pointed out that the Friends of the National Library recently purchased the only known copy after it was located by the Library’s rare book curator, Michel Brisebois. Patriotic Songs was first published in London by J. Green, ca 1830. [See the article on Patriotic Songs elsewhere in this issue of the Bulletin for more information.]

The curators decided that the letters should be the main focus of the site as they offer an interesting vista of 19th-century life in Canada. The correspondence clearly shows how vivacious the two writers actually were. The more than 220 letters were selected to represent the lives of the sisters from the late 1820s in England to the late 19th century in Canada. They include letters from John Moodie and Thomas Traill, as well as from Susanna and Catharine. The letters are searchable by keyword, date, sender, recipient, collection and ID. Full-text coverage is available through the finding aids, and digital images of several of the original handwritten letters are provided for illustration.

Professor Peterman displayed and deftly interpreted selected letters, noting the richness in their commentary on people’s behaviour. The letter Susanna wrote to Catharine on Christmas Day 1853 is written with sisterly affection in Susanna's self-analytical way. She describes familial intimacies and rituals and divulges current publisher problems.

The letter conveys that Susanna was an accomplished cook and seamstress and that Catharine's daughter, Mary, had come to live with her to gain the benefit of a different role model. Through her excellent descriptions and shrewd observations of events and children, we discover that Susanna Moodie was a woman alive to her family and her times. The letter also reveals her incipient spiritualism and her interest and fascination with difference, which has often been misconstrued as racism. Although Catharine is spelled "Catharine" throughout the Web site, the first note following this letter indicates that Susanna spelled her sister’s name variously, using ‘a’ or ‘e’.

Susan Globensky, Project Leader

Susan Globensky has taught English Literature at Carleton University and is currently a project leader with the Digital Library of Canada Task Force at the National Library of Canada. She introduced herself as the coordinator of all the tasks involved with building Web sites, and outlined some of these during her discussion of the development of this particular site.

Historically, the idea of digitizing Moodie-Traill material had circulated around the National Library and National Archives for a number of years. It was recognized that these were large and important collections that deserved some exposure. The curators' research at both institutions and publications, along with their offer of ready text-letter transcriptions, were the catalyst in undertaking the project in the summer and fall of 2000.

The Web site also provided an opportunity for the National Library to engage in a joint project with the National Archives; at the time, only a few had been undertaken. The letter collection was to be at the heart of the site  -  a unique approach with which to cover both the biographical/historical aspect, as well as the publishing aspect, of the lives of Susanna Moodie and Catharine Parr Traill. The aim was to present a substantial selection of their letters, with accompanying journals and published works.

The initial scope of the project was quite ambitious, so to render it manageable, the site was developed in two phases. Developing a searchable database that would enable the user to determine search requirements was determined to be the most efficient way of mounting the more than 200 letters.

Obtaining copyright permission to mount the letters (along with other unpublished material) on the Web proved to be a lengthy and difficult process, involving the tracing of Susanna and Catharine’s descendants to obtain their permission. In fact, the process led to the inclusion of Moodie and Traill family trees on the site.

Finding images proved just as challenging. There are relatively few images by Susanna Moodie and Catharine Parr Traill. Of these, most have been widely published in several sources. The solution was found in the unpublished fonds and extensive Traill Family Collection at the National Archives. There, the Web site team discovered a wealth of watercolours, manuscripts and family photographs.

Susan Globensky displayed some of the works, revealing how visually stunning they are, especially the images of the watercolours by Susanna Moodie. She also demonstrated sample searches in the Letters section, highlighting the searchable features of the database. Those letters offering images as well as transcriptions, communicate a sense of what correspondence looked like at the time.

The Moodie-Traill Web site was among the first to offer lesson plans, part of the Digital Library of Canada’s commitment to providing educational resources in pertinent digital projects. The site has received an average of about 1000 visits per month since its launch in March 2001, thus confirming the original foresight of the project team that the site would be frequently visited and well-used.

Professor Peterman suggested that the creation of the three Moodie-Traill collections originated as a "story of attics." It has now become a "story of access." The first voyage from attics to archives and libraries meant increased access in the form of finding aids and bibliographic description. The second journey  -  to the Web  -  provides multi-faceted access to these materials: full text and images, contextual essays, searching capability, coherence emanating from the judicious selection of items, and resource guides for teachers.

Visit the National Library of Canada’s (www.nlc-bnc.ca) Web site to find out about these and many other fascinating Canadian writers.