Volume 1, Number 3, September-October 2005

In Focus

Jock Carroll Fonds Returns to Canada

A doctor examining a young child, Korea, 1951 Source

In June 2005, the fonds of Canadian photojournalist Jock Carroll was donated to Library and Archives Canada by his son Angus Carroll of Delaware, Ohio. From 1950 to 1968, Jock Carroll worked in the Toronto bureau of the Montréal-based Weekend Magazine, a national weekly newspaper supplement.

Carroll covered a wide variety of topics from Canada's involvement in the Korean War, to the activities of Canadian and American celebrities, as well as everyday Canadian life and concerns, making his fonds a greatly anticipated addition to our photography collection. Also known as a writer of fiction titles such as The Shy Photographer (1964) and of non-fiction, such as the biography of Canadian humorist Gregory Clark, the fonds is unusual because of the large quantity of textual records it contains that are connected with the photographs.

In addition to the drafts of his literary works, Carroll preserved many of the memos and letters he wrote to his colleagues and superiors, providing a unique insight into the working life of a photojournalist. Petitions to head office for better equipment and letters from celebrities specifically requesting Carroll for portrait sittings provide researchers today with an incredible wealth of information on how the business of photojournalism was conducted

Perhaps because of the posthumously published book entitled Falling for Marilyn (1996) Jock Carroll may be best known today for the photos he took of Marilyn Monroe when she was a young starlet on the set of the film Niagara (1953).

The donation of this fonds, representing approximately 12 metres of textual documents, 21,000 photographs, first-edition books and audio visual components, will ensure that Jock Carroll's fascinating career will be better known to Canadians than ever before.

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