The O'Reilly Family Photographs

The O’Reilly photograph collection is stored at both Point Ellice House and the British Columbia Provincial Archives. The O’Reilly family kept their home in good standing order throughout the years 1867-1974, and accumulated a large amount of household items. Point Ellice House has been designated the largest collection of Victoriana in Western Canada. This "largest collection of Victoriana" includes artifacts related to the practice of amateur photography by the O’Reilly family.

THE PHOTOGRAPHS IN THE COLLECTION

Over the last one hundred and fifty years the photograph has become the universal language of information. This Website also exhibits a large selection of O’Reilly photographs. Visitors to Point Ellice House can view reproductions of the photographs and read the captions displayed on plaques throughout the Historic Site. The BC Archives also allows researchers to view the digital images on their Website www.bcarchives.gov.bc.ca .

The O’Reilly family photographs provide the historian with original images of Point Ellice House, the original state of the family’s household collection and the condition of the gardens during the Victorian Period. Without any further analysis of the photographs, these methods of delivery allow the viewer to gather a removed historical perspective based on their own personal experiences.

Even without a social or archival context, we can view the photograph and scan the faces of these family members for our own glimpse at the past. In this essay, it will be useful to distinguish the difference between users and readers of photographs. Users bring to the images a wealth of surrounding knowledge. Their personal pictures are part of the complex network of memories and meanings with which they have made sense of their daily lives. For readers, however, a hazy snapshot or a smiling portrait from the 1950s is a mysterious text whose meanings must be teased out in an act of decoding or historical detective work. (Wells, p.107 ) In this essay, I will be deconstructing a selection of O’Reilly family photographs. I have provided evidence that suggests the photographer was an O’Reilly family member and the snapshots were taken with a personal camera. The snapshots discussed in this essay all appear to have been taken between 1903-1905.

The history of personal photography is more than a simple story of technological development. Social and cultural changes are intertwined with the history of photographic techniques and practices, as are the interpretive meanings we bring to the pictures. Photographs are more than just two-dimensional archival documents. When deconstructed, a photograph can reveal many layers of documentation. Social historians approach photographs as more than just visual images; they are visual documentations of a social history.