Multiple authorship and polyvalence in the Victorian-Canadian photocollage album: the work of Caroline Walker and Hannah Sarah Howard

This thesis examines three photocollage albums made by women in Belleville, Ontario between 1863 and 1875: C.W. Bell Album (1874), Scrap Album (1863) and H Sarah Howard Album (1874) by Caroline Walker and Sarah Howard. Through a close analysis of these albums, I challenge the notion of single authorship in the album and argue for a polyvalent reading, which is constituted by the various subjectivities and identities that contribute to the objects' production. This analysis presents a new understanding of the Victorian album, not only through examining how women artists from nineteenth-century Ontario created albums as an extension of their artistic practice in the case of Caroline Walker, but also how they were used as a space of learning and artistic collaboration between women. Furthermore, this project illustrates the importance of studying Canadian albums within the larger context of women's art production during the period by emphasizing the collages, paintings and illustrated frames contained in them.