From the Baldwin Collection of Canadiana comes a new exhibit that looks at moral reform in a TORONTO facing rapid growth and industrialization at the turn-of-the-century. ‘Vice & Virtue’ explores changing attitudes and regulation of alcohol, tobacco, drugs, gambling, homosexuality, delinquency and prostitution in the late 19th and early 20th century.
ABOVE – a collection of scandal newspapers published in TORONTO, 1950’s and 60’s. Life could be ruined if you appeared in one of these.
ABOVE – ‘Of TORONTO the Good: A Social Study’ by C.S. Clark, 1898’. Clark includes vivid descriptions and addresses of popular brothels. He makes an argument for the legalization of prostitution in the city.
ABOVE – Temperance Lesson 1-12, ca1912. Temperance organizations produced this set of twelve posters featuring some questionable facts and figures about the effects of alcohol on the body. Meanwhile TORONTO’s breweries were doing a healthy business locally and internationally.
ABOVE – police raid on an ‘erotic’ art show in 1965
ABOVE – pamphlet written by social reformer J. J. KELSO, founder of the TORONTO Humane Society & Children’s Aid Society in 1891. “Most of the juvenile offenders come from the ranks of the street hawkers, the vast majority of whom have nothing before them but a vagabond life.”
The Library’s exhibition has now ended, but it gave us considerable insight into “TORONTO the (not so) Good”.
TORONTO Reference Library, 789 Yonge Street
Sin city to be sure. Great pictures