Paper Talk

--Description taken from "Paper Talk"-- The pre-1960 history of books and libraries in Canada, as they relate to First Peoples, has gone largely untold. This thesis explores the relationships between the introduction of western print culture among Aboriginal people by missionaries, the development of libraries in the Indian schools in the nineteenth century, and the establishment of community accessible collections in the twentieth century. Missionaries and the Department of Indian Affairs envisioned books and libraries as assimilative and "civilizing" tools. Some Aboriginal people, on the other hand, articulated western ideas of literacy, books and libraries as tools to assist their own cultural and social needs.