Suspended Conversations: The Afterlife of Memory in Photographic Albums, Second Edition

In Suspended Conversations Martha Langford shows how photographic albums tell intimate and revealing stories about individuals and families.Rather than isolate the individual photograph, treat albums as texts, or argue that photography has supplanted memory, she demonstrates that the photographic album must be taken as a whole and interpreted as a visual and verbal performance that extends oral consciousness. Exhibiting a collection of photographic travelogues, memoirs, thematic collections, and family sagas compiled between 1860 and 1960 and held by the McCord Museum of Canadian History, this second edition includes a revised and expanded preface along with new photographs of the Notman albums.Printed in colour throughout, the enhanced material draws out the distinct nuances and details of each album, giving them new life to tell their stories.Albums are treasured by families, collected as illustrations of the past by museums of social history, and examined by scholars for what they c