The Halifax that is documented in many of the photos on the Halifax Municipal Archives’ Flickr page no longer exists, but viewers may recognize locations, construction sites, or even people, as the photographs also capture everyday life in the city.
The Halifax Municipal Archives has joined Flickr Commons and posted hundreds of 20th-century photos.
They have chosen samples from a recent mass digitization project funded through Nova Scotia’s Department of Communities, Culture, and Heritage Provincial Archival Development Program.
The photographs were taken by the City of Halifax Works Department during a period of intense urban renewal, from 1958 to 1969. The images speak to the city’s history of commercial development, slum clearances, and social housing as they were taken by building inspectors who were documenting unsightly premises in an effort to implement the city’s plan to clear the central core for redevelopment.
Photo historian Sharon Murray with the Halifax Regional Municipality digitized 4,000 photos taken by the building inspectors and captioned them.
The Halifax that is documented in many of these photos no longer exists, but viewers may recognize locations, construction sites, or even people as the photographs also capture everyday life in the city. Some of these photos portray daily life with children playing in the yard or street, pets, neighborhood shops and restaurants, construction workers, and people who happened to be passing by.
Help needed to identify mystery photos
Ms. Murray, however, was unable to identify the buildings and sites in 200 photos, and she needs the public’s help. Earlier this month, she uploaded 34 photos onto an album, appropriately titled Unidentified photographs, asking Haligonians to help identify the scenes from the 1950s and 1960s.
The city posted a message on social media about the mystery photos, and received many comments. In one of the photos, a man recognized himself as a little boy walking by a building being demolished.
Albums the municipal archives features on Flickr include:
- Africville, 1950s-1960s
- Halifax scenes: children playing, 1950s-1960s
- Halifax scenes: laundry on the line, 1950s-1960s
- Streetscapes and views of Halifax, 1950s-1970s
The Halifax Municipal Archives is a historical research centre for the region of Halifax, which stretches along Nova Scotia’s Atlantic coast from the rural communities of Ecum Secum and Hubbards to the urban core of Dartmouth, Bedford, and Halifax. Focussed on the records of city and county governments from 1841 onward, the Halifax Municipal Archives also has records from families, businesses, and community organizations going back to the 1790s, which complement the municipal government records.
View the Halifax Municipal Archives photos on Flickr.
More about the mystery photos of Halifax is available in this CBC report, Photos of lost Halifax start social media hunt for clues.
