Toronto's Sporting Past
About the Exhibit
Toronto Public Library is pleased to announce a new exhibition, Toronto's Sporting Past, a nostalgic look back at sport in a simpler time, as seen through the library's Special Collections.
The spirit of sport and competition has long been a part of Toronto's story. As the city gears up to celebrate the 2015 Pan Am and Parapan Am Games, Toronto's Sporting Past offers a look back at the lively history of field, water and winter sports in the city. The exhibition highlights a broad spectrum of historical documents and images from the Toronto Public Library's special collections, including rare publications that first set out the modern Canadian rules and regulations of sports.
The exhibition draws on materials from several of the library's Special Collections, including the Baldwin Collection of Canadiana and the Canadian Documentary Art Collection, both housed in the Marilyn & Charles Baillie Special Collections Centre on the 5th floor of the Toronto Reference Library.
The 2015 TD Gallery season is generously sponsored by TD Bank Group.
Exhibition Highlights:
- A stunning portrait of world champion sculler Ned Hanlan – Toronto's first sporting hero – on convex glass (known as a crystoleum photograph)
- Rare publications that first set out the modern Canadian rules and regulations of sports including lacrosse, baseball and croquet.
- Ephemera, trade catalogues and broadsides advertising early made-in-Toronto bicycles and illustrating the changing fashions of Toronto wheelmen and wheelwomen in the 1890s.
- Composite photographs of Toronto's early sporting clubs – including the Wanderer's Bicycle Club, the Toronto Hunt Club and the Toronto Curling Club.
Related programming
Sports on Film – Free afternoon film screenings followed by a guided tour of Toronto's Sporting Past.
- Thursday, July 9: The Boy in Blue
- Thursday, July 23: Chariots of Fire
- Monday, August 17: The Rocket: The Maurice Richard Story
- Wednesday, August 26: 42
All films begin at 2pm in the Elizabeth Beeton Auditorium at the Toronto Reference Library .