Features
Postcards From the College
Vintage campus postcards capture views, words from another era
BY ANDREW VOWLES
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| Prof. Al Sullivan, Plant Agriculture, with part of his campus postcard collection. Photo by Martin Schwalbe |
“Wish you were here” wasn't good enough for May. All the long-ago student had to send from Guelph was a postcard depicting two hand-coloured photos — Macdonald Hall on top, Macdonald Institute on the bottom. But on that April day in 1907, she had a lot to tell her correspondent, a Mrs. M.H. Johnson of Little Rock, Ark.
May started writing in the front margin beside a hand-drawn line pointing to a second-storey window in the top photo.
Dear Julia: This is my room facing SE and overlooking main road and streetcar line, Agri. College (where men students live), Massey Hall Library, Biological Building, campus and fields in distance. There are 71 Domestic Science and 10 Nature students in the Hall now. I am a Nature S. Classrooms of both are in the Institute, but our class goes to other buildings for manual training, drawing, literature, horticulture, agriculture, etc. The whole property consists of 550 acres, some of it for experimental purposes, some divided into plots for the students to learn on, while some is used to grow supplies for the College and Hall, 6 acres given up to vegetables for this purpose alone, so you see we have good appetites. We are a mile from the city of Guelph and have our own water plant and electric light. Water comes from two artesian wells, 1,010 and 550 ft. deep. The Nature students have to work hard but enjoy it. Yours with love, May.
A century later, Prof. Al Sullivan, Plant Agriculture, has added May's epistle to his growing collection of old-time campus postcards. After reading aloud the mini-essay covering front and back of the postcard, he glances up and smiles.
“That's endearing,” he says, pointing out the line marking her room and another line inked on the card to indicate the main-floor dining room in Macdonald Hall.
And it's remarkable, he adds. Imagine a student taking the time to convey that much detailed information on a postcard. And imagine that postcard surviving for more than a century — and returning somehow from the southern United States to an antique sale near Guelph, where Sullivan picked it up for $9.
He's got about 25 vintage cards with views of the Guelph campus and buildings from the early 20th century. Many of the buildings are still recognizable nearly a century later. Mac Institute and Hall. Johnston Hall's predecessor, known simply as the Main Building. The Bullring, formerly a livestock judging pavilion. Massey Hall when it was a library.
Other photos call for a bit of mental adjustment by today's viewer.
The former Consolidated School? That's now home to the Macdonald Stewart Art Centre. The Biological Building — ah, that's now called J.D. MacLachlan. But this imposing limestone edifice called the Gymnasium Building? Gone, along with its limestone neighbour called the Chemistry Building, and both ultimately supplanted by today's MacKinnon Building.
Sullivan bought his first card almost 20 years ago while flipping through a batch at an antique show. “Out of curiosity I looked to see if there was something from Guelph.”
Indeed there was. It turned out that “Guelph” really meant the campus of the Ontario Agricultural College and Macdonald Institute. Most of his cards were written between 1907 and the First World War. The Ontario Veterinary College — Guelph's third founding college — shows up on postcards after its construction in 1922, although Sullivan has none of those.
He's still adding to his collection by poking through bins while checking out furniture and other items at area antique sales.
Why collect campus postcards? “Because of the connection I have with the institution, especially OAC,” says Sullivan, who completed three degrees here. “I like antiques in general.”
His favourite card depicts the circular flower beds that once graced Johnston Green in front of the OAC administrative building. Another one shows the former reflecting pool nearby, with Old Jeremiah mounted on its former home on the green.
A visit to the U of G Library Archives turns up a larger collection containing duplicates of Sullivan's cards and many more views of the campus. Most of the black-and-white or hand-painted scenes depict buildings from decades before the 1960s concrete boom on campus. But there are also slices of life here.
One series of four cards depicts an OAC initiation “game” of Capture the Flag. Another card shows students conducting a field survey somewhere on campus. And yet another shows six men and women playing tennis on Johnston Green — straw hats for the gents, ankle-length skirts for the women.
Besides the pictures, the cards speak through the writers' words, scrawled on the reverse next to postmarked one-cent stamps mostly depicting King Edward VII or King George V.
“I like the personal history on the back of the view,” says Sullivan. “It provides a little snapshot of what life was like here.”
Like this one, written in 1916:
Dear Vera: I got here all right and have a pretty good place to board, I think. A fellow by the name of Robinson of Port Credit is in with me.
Or this one, penned in Macdonald Hall in 1911:
Dear Mrs. Zamstein: I am sending you a picture of the building where we get most of our lectures. We are having a pretty hard month. They keep us going almost from daylight till dark tramping over the farm.
On a card depicting the Main Building, sent to Tom White in Hamilton in 1906:
How would you like to learn farming and come up here to study? The grounds and buildings are lovely and chickens and ducks. The finest I ever have seen.
One writer in 1911 had a lot to tell Harold Reid in Belleville:
I saw a pretty good match today between Macdonald girls and the college. The fellows from the college had to wear skirts and play with their left hand. They got beaten 4-1. I was driving a horse this morning for a while for the poultry department. I had to drive downtown and get some buttermilk, 575 lbs. of it, and some chickens.
And then this, mailed in 1906 to Miss Edith Boyd in Creemore, Ont.:
Please don't forget, FHW.