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This reproduction is the best copy available A Thesis submitted to the Cornmittee on Graduate Studies in Partial Fulfiiment of the Reqyirernents for the Degree of Master of Arts in the Faculty of Arts and Science TRENT UNIVERSITY Peterborough, Ontario, Canada Copyright by Dominic Llywelyn Hardy 1997 Canadian Heritage and Deveioprnent Studies M.A. Program May 1998 National Library Bibliothèque nationale l*l of Canada du Canada Acquisitions and Acquisitions et Bibliographie Services services bibliographiques 395 Wellington Street 395. rue Wellington OttawaON K1AW OttawaON K1AON4 Canada Canada The author has granted a non- L'auteur a accordé une licence non exclusive licence dowing the exclusive permettant à la National Library of Canada to Bibliothèque nationale du Canada de reproduce, loan, distribute or sell reproduire, prêter, distribuer ou copies of this thesis in microform, vendre des copies de cette thèse sous paper or electronic formats. la forme de microfiche/^, de reproduction sur papier ou sur format électronique. The author retains ownership of the L'auteur conserve la propriété du copyright in this thesis. Neither the droit d'auteur qui protège cette thèse. thesis nor substantial extracts f?om it Ni la thèse ni des extraits substantiels may be printed or otherwise de celle-ci ne doivent être imprimés reproduced without the author's ou autrement reproduits sans son permission. autorisation. Abstract Drawn to Order: Henri Julien's Political Cartoons of 1899 and his career with Hugh Graham's Montreai Daily Star. 1 888- 1908 Dominic Llywelyn Hardy Extensive original biographical and historiographical research on Henri Julien pennits a new account of his life and of the importance of the single year of political cartoonhg Julien contributed to the Montreal Dai& Star in his two decades with the newspaper. These cartoons are interpreted through interdisciplinary readhgs using histories of art and caricature, of parliamentary and party politics, of technology, and of modeniity. Julien's bilingual identity is adduced as a constant factor in his caricature's unique characteristics. He is seen in codict with the belligerent anti-Liberal and pro-imperidist policies of the Star. These policies rendered the political accomodations exercised by Julien through his distinctive black-and-white style impossible. Contemporary practices of irony, writing through racial difference and literary theory re-establish a living meaning to work previously considered to be Julien's most ephemeral production and seen now to have been actively ignored in Canadian and Québec histories. P reface The hindsight of biography is as elusive and deductive as long-range forecasting. Guesswork, a hunch. Monitoring probabilities. Assessing the influence of dl the information we'lf never have, that has never been recorded. The importance not of what's extant, but of what's disappeared. Even the most reticent subject can be - at least in part - posthumously reconstnicted [...] But the search for facts, for places, names, influential events, important conversations and correspondences. political circumstances - dl this arnounts to nothing if you can't find the assumption your subject lives by. Anne Michaels, Fugitive Pieces (London: Bloomsbury)l997: 222. This thesis has had two Iives. At Concordia University in 198 1-83, studies of the iconography of Wilfrid Laurier had Ied to a focus on Henri Julien's career with the Montreal Daily Star. An inventory of al1 signed cartoons to appear in the Star 1888- 1908 was completed in August 1983. The research was then set aside. The second incarnation came at the Frost Centre. Trent University, in 1994. Remarkably. the subject had remained untouched in the intervening 11 yean. The study of Canadian and Québec politicai cartoons and caricature of the 19th and early 20th centuries remains wide open. I hope to help by combining needed archival work with interdisciplinary histoncd analysis. In-depth studies of Canadian political cartoonists lives are spuse. The present one is offered in conjunction with the detailed analysis of just one set of cartoons. It is impossible to know if this will be a necessary pattern for other studies. but in the present case it has enabled me to break out of a methodological catch-22. This research began in Canadian art history and is cornpleted in Canadian Studies. It is still typicai of Canadian art history which has much first-hand research to undertake. It has also had to adapt the recent thinking which has been formulated about contemporary art and culture and adapt it when possible to works now ninety years old. Above dl, the reader will encounter here a joint biographicd-artistic- political snidy of a group of cartoons emblematic of the vagaries of one extraordinary Canadian life. The cartoons targeted the government of Wilfkid Laurier, and porüayed each one of his rninisters. But Wilfid Laurier and his right-hand man Israel Tarte eventually took centre stage. Ultimately, the role of H~MJulien, bilingual newpaper artia, in an Eng lish-Canadian newspaper 's attack on French-Canadian politicians. becomes the broad issue to be investigated here. The cartoons are part of the history of speaking about identity in Canada, with the position of the cartoonist much different in Juiien's time than in our own. He was no independent editorial thinker. His own political influences were tacitly expressed. It is this very quietude that has interested me. I have tried to descnbe it alongside the shaping of mighty political forces in concert with the technological innovations of the late 19th-Century popular press in Canada. It was necessary to give as much information as possible about the political influences on Julien's life. looking at whatever circurnstances might shed light on his aliegiances. The ovenvhelming problem here was the almoa complete absence of documents fiom the hands of Julien and his employer Hugh Graham. In "reconsmicting these reticent subjects." the objective has been without doubt to find the "assumptions they lived by." The cartoons' meanings tmly begin there. Thus. one possible approach to these cartoons has been sacrificed: their detailed reading in terms of the day-to-day politics of Laurier's ministers. The references in the daily newspapers do exin and in fact I have supplied as much context as possible while retaining the idea of providing a the continuum in which the cartoons are set. 1 wanted to describe them as political events for which there was a longer historical context, because 1 believe they have a resonance for today, and are founded in a past filled with questions still not settled. The very presence of images such as these in the way we descnbe ouhistory to ourselves and others is one of the most important among these questions. So while a cataiogue raisonné approach to the cartoons is absolutely desirable, it must wait until Merstudies like these are complete. Peterborough, Jul y 3 1, 1997 Acknowledgements 1 wish to thank Ellen James, Sandra Paikowsky and Catherine MacKenzie of Concordia University for their initial encouragement when 1 crossed nom Mesin visd arts to the MFA Programme in Canadian Art History in 1980. At Trent, 1 am especially grateful for the support and direction of John Wadland in numuing this project io completion and for his warm confidence. Thesis cornmittee members Keith Walden and Michèle Lacombe set high standards which 1 hope they will find confïrmed in the attention paid to the faftual record and to the interdisciplinary readings in this thesis. The core of the thesis and the interdisciplinary challenges were developed in a one-on-one course with Michèle Lacombe in 1995-96. Laurier Lacroix, now at the Art History department of the Université du Québec à Montréal, has ken a patient and generous mentor, directing the thesis in its f~stincarnation and kindly acting as extemal advisor in the the last three years. 1 would like to thank many helpful people: Paulette Nichols and Pat Strode at the Graduate Studies Office, Winnie Janzen at the Frost Centre. the dfof the excellent Bata Library of Trent University; Rosemar) Tavell. Curator and Cyndie Campbell, Archivist at the National Gallery of Canada; the staff of the reading room. National Archives of Canada; Nathalie Thibault at the Musée du Québec; Christian Vachon and Suzanne Morin of the McCord Museum in Montréal, with warrn thanks to the McCord's former Archivist, Parnela Miller. This research owes everything to the love and kindness of Lori Beavis Hardy, our children Caitlin and Iris, and our extended family in Peterborough. The encouragement of The Art Gallery of Peterborough, particularly Illi-Maria Tamplin and Vera Novacek, is gratefully acknowledged. This work is, I hope, a contribution to a tradition bestowed by my mother, Elizabeth Richards, historian and editor, whose courage and numinng 1 hope to always honou., and by my father Robin Hardy, film- maker, black-and-white artist and lover of history. To my family and to my close fiend Dale Thomson of Montréal, who taught me that language (and languages), dong with communication among political fiends and opponents, often provide a basis for hope, 1 respectNly dedicate this work. Preface Acknowledgements Table of Contents Table of iIlustrations Chapter 1. Introduction 1 1. In the Wrong Hands? 1 2. Henri Julien's Wilfrid Lauriers 5 3. Pa& to Henri Julien and the 1899 Cartoons: sources and problems 10 Biography 4. Julien and the Histories of art. phototechnologies and modernity 13 5. Julien's Caricature in Québec's "Collective Memory" 22 6. Envoi 27 Chapter 2. A Cartoonist's Progress: The Career of Henri Julien 29 1. Education: Family, Tradition and Ambition 29 2. Artistic Education 38 3. Education at Desbarats's: Technological Conditions 43 4.