Last year, Quebec City’s rue du Petit-Champlain was ranked number one among the top 20 streets to visit in Canada.
If you’ve ever visited Quebec City, you know the street. It’s the one at the bottom of the breakneck steps. It attracts thousands of tourists to its shops, artisan galleries, and restaurants.
It was quite a different view 125 years ago when the Wm. Notman & Son studio took a photo of the street although the steps were still there.
Little Champlain Street, Quebec City, Quebec, about 1890. Wm. Notman & Son. VIEW-2535.0. Source: McCord Museum.
To see the contrast between the street in 1890 and today, the Quebec City newspaper Le Soleil provides an slider to change the photo from the sombre Notman image to a colourful modern-day one.
Compare the Yesterday and Today photos by moving the arrows on the old photo under the article.
Thanks to Joseph Lonergan, president of Irish Heritage Quebec, I was reminded of the list of residents that appears in the 1890-91 Quebec & Levis Directory, published by Boulanger & Marcotte.
In the 1890s and earlier, rue du Petit-Champlain was the home of the working class, mostly Irish.
At the beginning of the street lived a handful of Francophones. Most of the residents on page 172 of the 1890-91 directory, from house #19 to house #106, were immigrants with names such as O’Brien, Gallagher, Hall, Cooper, Savage, McCann, O’Connor and McCauly. They were labourers, shoemakers, and machinists.
If you’re a fan of Then and Now photos, you may enjoy looking at these US Civil War photos.
