The Great Fire of Toronto of 1904 destroyed a large section of Downtown Toronto, Ontario, Canada on April 19, 1904. It was the second such fire for the city in its history.
Frederick William Wallace was a journalist, photographer, historian and novelist. He is best known as the author of Wooden Ships and Iron Men, a now-classic 1924 book about the last days of the Age of Sail in Maritime Canada.
This is a bibliography of major works on the History of Canada.
James Simmons Freer was a Canadian filmmaking pioneer.
Back to God's Country is a 1919 Canadian drama film directed by David Hartford. It is one of the earliest Canadian feature films. The film starred and was co-written by Canadian actress Nell Shipman. With an estimated budget of over $67,000, it was the most successful silent film in Canadian history.
Challenge for Change was a participatory film and video project created by the National Film Board of Canada in 1967, the Canadian Centennial. Active until 1980, Challenge for Change used film and video production to illuminate the social concerns of various communities within Canada, with funding from eight different departments of the Canadian government. The impetus for the program was the belief that film and video were useful tools for initiating social change and eliminating poverty. As Druik says, "The new program, which was developed in tandem with the new social policies, was based on the argument that participation in media projects could empower disenfranchised groups and that media representation might effectively bring about improved political representation." Stewart, quoting Jones (1981) states "the Challenge for Change films would convey messages from 'the people' to the government, directly or through the Canadian public."
The Canadian Government Motion Picture Bureau, founded as the Exhibits and Publicity Bureau, was the film production agency of the Government of Canada administered by the Department of Trade and Commerce, and intended to promote trade and industry. Created in 1918, it was the first government film production organization in the world.
The Ontario Motion Picture Bureau was established by the Government of Ontario in 1917 and was the first state-founded film organization in the world, preceding the Canadian Government Motion Picture Bureau by a year. Its mandate was to carry out "educational work for farmers, school children, factory workers and other classes", to promote the province and its resources and "to encourage the building of highways and other public works". An extension of a growing movement to regulate theatres and films being shown in them, it was also established in an attempt to "counter the growing tide of un-British pictures being shown in theatres" throughout the province.
Blue Water is a lost 1924 Canadian silent film directed by David Hartford and starring Pierre Gendron, Jane Thomas, and Norma Shearer. It is the last feature produced by Ernest Shipman, and is the Montreal-born, future MGM star Shearer's only Canadian film. It had a commercial release in Saint John, New Brunswick, where it was shot, but no print is known to exist. The film failed to succeed commercially, marking Shipman's decline in success until his death in 1931. Without being distributed, the film was stored in a New York vault.
Hiawatha, the Messiah of the Ojibway is a 1903 dramatic short film shot in Canada directed by the American pioneering cinematographer and director Joe Rosenthal, based on the Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's famous poem, The Song of Hiawatha, made in Desbarats, Ontario, with a cast of Ojibway First Nations people. According to the Canadian Journal of Film Studies, it was the first dramatic narrative film to be shot in Canada.
Ernest G. Shipman was Canada's most successful film producer during the silent period. Shipman, whose nickname was "Ten Percent Ernie," made seven features from 1919 to 1923.
Jay Allen (1890–1942) and Jules Allen (1888–1964) were pioneering film exhibitors in Canada. They were born in Bradford, Pennsylvania, and they both died in Toronto, Ontario.
May Gowen Watkis served as a projectionist, clerk, and tax inspector at various agencies of the British Columbia government during the years 1913-40. In 1920-21, she was briefly employed as a clerk in the Vancouver office of the British Columbia Patriotic and Educational Picture Service (PEPS), under the service's director, Dr. Albert Richard Baker. In May 1921, she was the subject of an article written by Edith Cuppage for Maclean's Magazine. Cuppage described Watkis as the head or "directress" of the Picture Service. This erroneous information about May Watkis has been repeated in a number of books and articles on Canadian film history, which describe her as the director of the Patriotic and Educational Picture Service and the producer of its films.
Lucky Fugitives is a 1936 Canadian drama film directed by Nick Grinde and starring David Manners, Maxine Doyle and Reginald Hincks.
God's Crucible is a lost 1921 Canadian silent religious melodrama directed by Henry MacRae and written by Faith Green, based on a Ralph Connor novel called The Foreigner. The film was narrated by Ernest Shipman.
Philip Hatkin was a Latvia-born cinematographer who worked in Hollywood during the early silent era. He shot dozens of films between 1915 and 1921. He frequently collaborated with directors like George Archainbaud and Harley Knoles.
Harlan Knight (1875–1940) was an American stage and film actor. During the early 1920s he featured in several Canadian silent films including Blue Water alongside the future star Norma Shearer.
Secrets of Chinatown is a 1935 Canadian-American mystery thriller film directed by Fred C. Newmeyer and starring Nick Stuart, Lucile Browne and James Flavin.
