The Daniel O’Leary special collection (SPECDO) of New Brunswick books, pamphlets, newspapers and magazines was put together in the first instance while working on chapters in the History of the Book in Canada project, work that immersed O’Leary in a variety of print cultural subjects: exploration literature, settlement guides, school readers and texts, academic and religious publishing, and the periodical press in Canada before the First World War. The focus of this work widened into facets of printed matter beyond their contents and publishing context and into the value of such materials as records of quotidian experience, or the hermeneutics of reading and print. He examined annotations and other evidence of the reading of printed materials as a basis for cultural historical analysis of Canadian society both collectively and in its regional and provincial variations.
As a native New Brunswicker and as a Maritimer O’Leary developed a particular interest in the print culture of the Atlantic Provinces and that of New Brunswick specifically. While working on William New’s Encyclopedia of Literature in Canada he amassed a large collection of often heavily-annotated school texts and readers, and the majority of this collection was obtained in New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, making the books ideal for analysis both of the history of New Brunswick school texts, and the reading and attitudes of the students who used them. These materials were invaluable as sources for the otherwise undocumented thought of children and youth in early New Brunswick. In some texts the attitudes and preoccupations of teachers was also evidenced.
O’Leary used the same methods in working on hermeneutic aspects of other print culture, and collected periodicals, religious publications, ephemeral literature, and life writing noting evidence of use and patterns of reading. For example, in the collection is a pamphlet catalogue of the holdings of the St John Public Library in the 1870’s, complete with marked selections, providing a rich source for determining which Victorian books were available and read by New Brunswickers of the period. Copies of periodicals, often marked with signatures or book plates, provided more evidence of New Brunswick reading practices, and even elements like folded pages or of heavy smudging of particular pages revealed the peculiar interests of these readers.
This collection also includes the first five volumes of the important Canadian Magazine. Aside from including much material by early NB authors or about the province, this magazine was the most important Canadian periodical of its day. The collection also includes a selection of examples of the kinds of print that were important in early New Brunswick, including annotated school readers and specimens of print produced by religious bodies. Religious print often had a larger and wider circulation than the productions of the secular press, and the quality of such material was frequently excellent.
So, although the items of O’Leary’s donation may appear somewhat disparate, in every case some element of the reading practices and thought of early New Brunswickers is illuminated. As a body, they create a kind of print cultural biography of the province, and cast light on the otherwise forgotten character of the population. -written by Daniel O’Leary and edited by UNB Archives & Special Collections