The Canadian Science and Technology Historical Association (CSTHA) has awarded its Jarrell Prize for the period 2022-2024 to Shannon Perry for “Perfect Dry Plates for Canada”: Gelatine Dry-Plate Manufacturing in Canada in the Late Nineteenth Century published in Volume 44, number 1, 2022, the special issue Photography: Science, Technology and Practice, edited by Joan M. Schwartz. It is a available on open access.
The abstract notes that the article seeks to identify the commercial efforts of Canadian photographers to manufacture and distribute gelatin dry-plates in the 19th century. Using archival material and published advertisements, several companies including the Stanley Dry Plate Company of Montreal are identified and positioned within the photographic manufacturing landscape in Canada. In doing so, the commercial efforts of Canadian manufacturers are contrasted with the parallel developments in dry-plate manufacturing in the United States and England, further situating Canada’s photographic manufacturing history within a broader context.
The full issue with other papers of interest can be seen and downloaded here
Shannon Perry teaches history of photography, and archival theory and practice at Carleton University. She has worked at Library and Archives Canada in Ottawa, Ontario, for over a decade as a private and government archivist, specializing in photography. Her research focuses on Kodak, and the photographic industry in Canada more broadly, in the 19th and early 20th centuries, and was the focus of her PhD thesis The Eastman Kodak Co. and the Canadian Kodak Co. Ltd: Re-structuring the Canadian photographic industry, c.1885-1910 (De Montfort University, 2016), and a forthcoming monograph,When Kodak Came to Town (U of T Press).
The Prize was established in 2015 in honour of CSTHA founding member, Dr. Richard Jarrell, who passed away in 2013. The biennial prize recognizes the best article published in Scientia Canadensis over the previous two years and comes with an award of $500.
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