User:JGregoratto

1.Early life Gladys Reeves was a Canadian photographer from Alberta. Youngest daughter of William Paris Reeves and Clara Ellen Gold, Gladys was born in june 1890 in Somerset, England, moving with her family to Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, in 1904 - the year Edmonton officially became a city. She was 14 years old when she arrived in the new country, where she then settled for the rest of her life.

2.Influences Reeves was indirectly influenced by a photographer named Charles Mathers and directly influenced by his apprentice, the photographer that later became her mentor (and some would say her affair) Ernest Brown. William Hanson Boorne and Ernest Gundry May were owners of possibly the first photo studio in Edmonton in 1891, at 9666 Jasper Avenue. They hired a young photographer from Calgary, Charles Mathers, and later on convinced him to settle in Edmonton and stay to keep working for them. Soon he bought the entire business and made his name taking photos of workers. Mathers travelled around the province and photographed a lot of what he saw, which very much interested the public, it would be the first time those people could see photos of the country taken by a professional photographer with all the technique and appliances needed. Charles discovered his great passion: traveling and photographing the world around him. He hired a photographer as his assistant, Ernest Brown. Not long after that, he sold the studio to Brown and went on traveling and continued his work on the road. Ernest Brown, originally from the north of England, moved to Canada, initially to Toronto in 1903, but, unable to find a job, he moved to Edmonton and started working for Mathers. When he took over the studio he quickly became very successful following the path of his mentor.

3.Early Career One year after Gladys arrived in Edmonton, she went to Ernest Brown’s studio, to deliver a message of apology about her sister not being able to work for him anymore. She was not looking for a job herself, but he insisted and when started working for him as a receptionist and later, as his assistant. It was a beginning of a forty-five year long, professional and personal relationship. Initially her salary was $15.00 a month. Brown’s studio was well known in the city, and greatly popular amongst gold miners, mounties, and settlers who wanted their portraits taken in heroic poses so they could send them back home.

4.Work During the photographic sessions, Gladys and Ernest would take notes of the conversations they had with their clients, recording an oral history almost as it happened. Gladys stayed working with Ernest for 11 years and then she opened her own studio, called The Art League, in 1920. Despite commercial photography being her major source of income, Reeves also found a great interest in education and collaborated with Brown on a series of photo cards for educational purposes, believing that they would help children learn about the subjects depicted on the cards. The photos were divided into 31 series of “teaching pictures”, all of them being Ernest Brown’s historical photos, and would come with a short lesson and some questions. Some other photos were cut into small cards and sold in subject groups. The pictures were sold at Gladys Reeves’s studio and also at Brown’s Pioneer Museum, financed in part by Gladys. Business was going well until the World War I. Due to lack of job opportunities, 26.000,00 people moved away from Edmonton and surrounding areas. The shock of financial ruin made Brown stop his photographic practice for seven years, and he helped Gladys with her own studio instead, and later moved to Vegreville. At that time Gladys was reputed to be the first woman west of Winnipeg to operate her own studio. An unfortunate event happened in 1929: her studio caught on fire, destroying 5,000 prints and albums as well as all the other valuable collectives that were stored in the space. When Brown heard about the fire, he sold his studio in Vegreville, returned to Edmonton and helped Gladys to re-establish her business in a studio at the Empress Theatre Building.

5. Involvement with the community Gladys was very active in Edmonton’s community, having being involved deeply and in different fields to serve the city. Although photography was her source on income, city “beautification” was her passion. Gladys became a member of the Edmonton Tree Planting Committee, which was responsible for planting over 5,000 trees on boulevards around the city as well as various gardening projects. In 1924 she accomplished being the first female president of the Edmonton Horticultural Society. Gladys was deeply committed to making the city picturesque and this passion helped her move up to a position of a secretary of the Edmonton Tree Planting Committee where she showed great commitment and faith in the city’s better future. The artist achieved all that and more, she gave lectures about gardening, organized planting contests, with no remuneration other than the belief that her work would help the became world be a better place. During the 1930’s, Brown and Reeves opened a museum called “Pioneer Days Museum”. There could be found dinosaur bones, indigenous artifacts, maps and photographs. Besides the gardening organization, Gladys was a member of the Soroptimist Society and she was the first secretary of the Friendship Club, and also an honorary member of the Old Timers Association.

6. Later life Reeves continued photographing until the year of 1949. When she closed her studio in 1950, she helped Ernest Brown with his historical records and when he died in 1951 and willed his photographic collection to Provincial Archives, she worked for the government to catalogue his enormous collection and held the copyright of his work for the rest of her lifetime. Her photographs are now held together with Ernest Brown’s at the Provincial Archives, summing up an amount of 62,000 negatives (15,000 of which are Reeves’s work). Gladys Reeves died in 1974, at the age of 84 leaving a great amount of photos and being part of a group of women who dared to have a profession in a patriarchal society, back in the days where women working and making profit was not commonplace.

Gladys’s Works

Portrait of Ernest Brown.

Works cited

Close, Susan. “Women as Professional Photographers.” Framing Identity: Social Practices of Photography in Canada (1880-1920). Winnipeg: Arbeiter Ring, 2007. 180. Print.

Huneault, Kristina. Rethinking Professionalism: Women and Art in Canada, 1850-1970. Montreal: McGill-Queen’s U, 2012. Print.

Jones, Laura. “Gladys Reeves”. Rediscovery Canadian Women Photographers: 1841-1941. London, Ont.: London Regional Art Gallery, 1983. 20-21. Print.

Nicholls, Liz. Love on Early 1900s Jasper Avenue. Edmonton Journal; Edmonton, Alta. [Edmonton, Alta] 15 Aug 2009: D.2.

Herzog, Lawrence. “Edmonton’s Pioneer Photographers.” Edmonton City As Museum Project ECAMP. Hermis.n.d.Web. 03 Mar.2017

Canadian Women Artists History Initiative.” Canadian Women Artists History Initiative: Artist Database: Artists: REEVES, Gladys. N.p..n.d.Web. 05 Mar. 2017.

“Gladys Reeves.” (n.d.): n.pag. Herstorycalendar. 1989. Web. 07 Mar. 2017.

“HeRMIS – PAA.” HeRMIS – PAA. Hermis. n.d. Web. 05 Mar. 2017.

“Gladys Reeves.” Alberta Gardener Home Page. N.p.,Oct-Nov.2016. Web. 07 Mar. 2017.

Reeves, Gladys. Ernest Brown. Heritage Resources Management Information System. HeRMIS. Web. 04 Mar. 2017.

Reeves, Gladys. “Silent Partner”. Heritage Resources Management Information System. HeRMIS. Web. 04 Mar. 2017.

Reeves, Gladys. “ECD truck filled with 125 trees ready for planting in Edmonton by the Edmonton Tree Planting Society. George Buchanan in the foreground”. Heritage Resources Management Information System. HeRMIS. Web. 04 Mar. 2017.

Reeves, Gladys. “Unidentified people picknicking at the Sons of England Fair”. Heritage Resources Management Information System. HeRMIS. Web. 04 Mar. 2017.

Reeves, Gladys. “Unidentified priest at prayer in a log church, locations undentified but likely the Yukon Territory”. Heritage Resources Management Information System. HeRMIS. Web. 04 Mar. 2017.

Reeves, Gladys. “White Pass Hotel Sign, [Whitehorse, Yukon Territory]”. Heritage Resources Management Information System. HeRMIS. Web. 04 Mar. 2017.

Reeves, Gladys. “View of the paddle steamer the City of Edmonton approaching the Low Level Bridge in Edmonton, Alberta”. Heritage Resources Management Information System. HeRMIS. Web. 04 Mar. 2017.

Reeves, Gladys. “Playing Hockey” Heritage Resources Management Information System. HeRMIS. Web. 04 Mar. 2017.