Image caption: Second-year Visual Arts student Madeline Corbier recently helped with the installation of a new Brock University Library exhibit, “Made of the Mist: Life in Niagara During the Long 19th Century,” which will run until Wednesday, March 26.
Tuesday, March 11, 2025 | by Gillian Minaker
In the hustle and bustle of present-day campus life, the Brock community is being invited to pause and explore Niagara’s past.
Presented by Visual Arts students in partnership with the Brock University Library’s Archives and Special Collections team, “Made of the Mist: Life in Niagara During the Long 19th Century” explores life in the region from the late 1700s to the early decades of the 1900s.
“The historical term ‘the long 19th century’ reflects the idea that styles, trends, artistic approaches, technologies and politics don’t abruptly change when the calendars change,” said Keri Cronin, Professor of Art and Visual Culture.
The exhibit’s title, “Made of the Mist,” also highlights the influence of geographical location to culture, social life and economics.
Led by Cronin, VISA 2P90: 19th Century Visual Culture students visited Brock’s archival collections where they learned about how to work with the resources and each selected one item to feature.
A range of materials are on display, including a sketch commemorating an 1880s curling match in Niagara, a tintype studio portrait photograph from the Rick Bell Family Fonds and an advertisement for a Niagara-on-the-Lake hotel.
Second-year Visual Arts student Madeline Corbier chose a glass stereograph —a set of two images can be viewed in 3D using a stereoscope — that shows four Indigenous people looking at the American Falls from Luna Island, N.Y.
“It caught my attention because it was an image of Indigenous people that was not stereotyped. Through my research of photography during that time, photos of Indigenous people were largely staged with sets and props; but this image was a candid image of tourists at the falls — a rare and important image to showcase,” she said.
Second-year Studio Art student Aaron Rose and third-year Concurrent Education student Brooke Nolan both worked on the same object, a friendship album.
Rose and Nolan each took a very different approach. While Rose chose to focus on three pencil drawings of birds found within the album, Nolan selected a floral textile piece and an accompanying letter.
As the album was so delicate, they had to carefully think about how to present their selections and worked with David Sharron, Head of Archives and Special Collections, to determine the best plan.
Nolan said she stumbled upon Ann Eliza Hepburne Rooth’s friendship album in the Brock Archives digital collection before going to see it in person.
“The poems and textiles stood out to me, and I selected pages that included both. I looked into the archives in the St. Catharine’s library to find out more about Anne Eliza Hepburne Rooth and her family who lived in the Niagara region in the 19th century,” she said.
For Nolan, the project provided a hands-on curatorial approach to learning about history that she found very rewarding.
“Many of our students go on to careers in places like museums and galleries, and having this kind of experience working with an archival collection and planning an exhibit is an inspiring — and often eye-opening — opportunity,” Cronin said.
Sharron said the excitement and respect the students brought working with historical records over 100 years old was palpable.
“The care in which they handled the materials was very professional, but they were never intimidated by them, which is how we and Professor Cronin hoped they would approach the project,” he said.
“Made of the Mist: Life in Niagara During the Long 19th Century” is on display at the Brock University Library until Wednesday, March 26.
