Description
Like the pieces of a patchwork quilt, Kent County’s ten townships, together with the city of Chatham, make up the richly-varied municipality we know today as Chatham-Kent. Beginning with records preserved from the mid-19th century, A Chatham-Kent Tapestry carefully curates photographs from the Chatham-Kent Museum and other community archive collections, as well as surviving negatives from the Chatham Daily News, to tell the remarkable story of one of the oldest communities in Upper Canada. From early waterway settlements to the arrival of railroads that stitched communities together, to the sugar beet fields and swaths of corn and wheat, the sugar factories and glassworks, to the rise of the oil, gas, and automotive industries, this evocative collection lovingly honours the parts that form the whole, weaving together the varied identities of Chatham-Kent’s communities and the history they share. Meticulously researched and handsomely designed, A Chatham-Kent Tapestry: A Visual History to 1950 is an indispensable book for all who call the municipality home, and for lovers of local history everywhere.
About the authors
Jim Gilbert (1932-2000): For thirty years, Jim Gilbert was an active artist working mainly in the art form of the Pacific Northwest Coast First Nations. He worked in most coastal Aboriginal Art styles with artistic production ranging from original graphic, limited and open edition prints, carvings in wood, ivory, bone and stone, to hand-engraved and sculptured jewelry pieces in silver and gold.
