Visualizations Matter: A Review of “An Online Exhibition of Canadian Dress”

Hello again, 396. Here’s another review, this time for an online museum exhibit, found here.

What is it?

“An Online Exhibition of Canadian Dress: The Confederation Era (1840-1890)” is an online museum exhibit/learning module created for the Canadian Museum of History (which has a surprising number of online exhibits, check the rest out here). It focuses on the dress of Confederation era Canadians, with sections dedicated each to women’s, men’s, children’s, and working wear. This is an exhibit designed for the general public. The exhibit starts you on the Intro page, with links to the next page of information located at the end of the writing. Images of the clothing are primarily at the top of each section, with some specific pieces hyperlinked into the text. At the end of the module (which takes about an hour to go through at a leisurely pace) are a few games, followed by teacher’s resources for bringing this exhibit into the classroom.

Here’s one of the puzzles from the Play section. There are three levels of difficulty, I have mastered level 1.

Let’s get to the juicy details.

Spilling the Tea: What I Didn’t Like

I’ll be honest, I didn’t really enjoy this exhibit. I clicked on “Canadian Dress” because the topic interested me. I genuinely enjoy and am curious about dress history, which may be why I think this topic could have been handled much better.

Clothing is inherently a visual medium, meaning exploring and studying clothing requires visualization, whether through in-person examination, photographs, or drawings. The Canadian Dress exhibit relies heavily on text and doesn’t do a good job of showcasing its images of extant garments. The most prominent parts of each page are filled with text, and relevant images are found in a boring and too-small horizontal bar at the top. Every so often there’s a single image of a fashion plate on the right hand side, but those are the only images incorporated into the text.

A section of the Women’s Wear section. Note how the majority of the page is text and the images of clothing are in a bar at the top.

The text is primarily used to provide textual descriptions of clothing and the social context of the Confederation period. What life was like for various genders, classes, and ages are all discussed in brief detail, which in itself is good, but an exhibition that focuses on dress in the title should utilize visual mediums to their fullest extent. I would have loved to experience images first, textual context second. A catalogue of images perhaps, with side by side comparisons of fashion plates and extant garments. High resolution images of clothing details that take up most of your screen, with small bubbles of text that explore manufacturing techniques, social context, and myth busting. A “dress up” game where you interact with the orders of different layers of dress. Almost anything other than a wall of text with images that are entirely optional to engage with.

It’s Time to Talk About Colonialism.

There were a few things I noticed in the Intro section specifically that I thought could be done better.

The overall tone of the Intro tends towards celebrating Confederation as a success and part of building a nation. There was no Land Acknowledgement or even more than one mention of Indigenous peoples. The term “Canadian” used in the text evidently means white individuals of British or European descent/origin. There was a heading titled “Peopling the Country,” which implies that it was empty to begin with, waiting to be filled with people.

To some, these may seem like small things. But when you stand back and look at the fact that reconciliation is very much still in progress (and we have a long way to go) and our country is built on a foundation of colonialism, these small things perpetuate certain narratives. Mainly the falsehoods that Canada has a flawless past, full of nothing but successes like Confederation, and Canada was an empty place, waiting for the right people. (To read a bit more about this idea of “empty” space that was actually Indigenous land, click through the Gossamer Network.)

Discussing British influenced fashion of the mid to late 19th century is not bad. But ignoring aspects of Canada’s history within a section that’s aimed at providing context of that history is problematic. I would have liked to see different phrasing used for that heading title specifically, as well as a disclaimer that the learning module was about British influenced fashion, not Indigenous fashion. If we restrict our definition of “Canadian” to just mean “British in origin,” we actively harm reconciliation efforts and perpetuate Othering.

Let’s Make Some Fresh Tea: What I Did Like

I greatly appreciated the repeated mention of women’s work, specifically the use of words like “skilled.” The Overview section for Women’s Wear notes that it took patience and skill to maintain a household, and I love that the creators acknowledge the (often) invisible labour of women in the domestic sphere of their own homes. Along this same line, I like that they had a section for working wear, as most of what we think of in dress history comes from middle to upper class people. We study what survives after all, which often means clothing that got worn constantly wore down much faster and doesn’t always survive. This is reflected in the images included in the exhibit, notice that there are few examples for the working wear.

The menus are designed well, with pleasing colours and illustrations chosen (example below). Navigating the site is relatively simple and the textual components are easy to read and do provide a good overview of context for the period.

I love the topic in general and think that dress history is fascinating, so I would recommend finding interesting ways of exploring it. If you like YouTube videos and feel like broadening your horizons a bit, I’ve made some suggestions below.