Sticky situation: The George and Norma Pocaterra photo albums

The historical photo album is an unsung hero of the research world. Each photo, layout and caption creates a narrative, offering a window into the brain of whoever compiled it. 

There are many historical photo albums in the Glenbow Collection, with pictures and stories that show the province’s history through an intensely personal lens. 

The ones that currently sit in the conservation workshop at TFDL once belonged to the family of George and Norma Piper Pocaterra. Albertans from around 100 years ago, George and Norma's albums were donated to the Glenbow between 1963-1983 as part of a gift.

George was born in 1882 to an intensely aristocratic family in Italy and moved to Alberta in 1903 to become a cowboy. He flourished in his new life and the albums he put together of his time are a snapshot into the joy he felt towards his new surroundings, and the adventures he had on the ranch. 

There is a noticeable shift in album content in 1933 when George returned to Italy to settle family affairs after his father died. That next year he met Norma Piper (a Calgarian) in Milan.

Norma was a successful Canadian opera soprano, who had moved to Italy to further establish her career. The point where she and George met and travelled around Italy together is lovingly captured in photographic print within this collection, each photo managing to showcase the couple’s delight with each other amidst the sweeping backdrop of the Italian countryside. These albums are worth a look through just for the shots of pre-WW2 Italy (including a surprise candid of Mussolini himself, bone-chilling in hindsight).

The couple eventually moved back to Alberta due to the Second World War. They went on to become an established part of the music community in Calgary in the following years. 

These albums, much like their subjects, showcase a well-lived life. They were obviously valued, given that the damage they display today shows they were used frequently in their lifetime. This life of use is part of their history, with all the “ugly bits” and old repair relevant to the story they tell.

Part of their conservation treatment is examining these past repairs and making decisions about whether to keep or remove them. The question isn’t about aesthetics (or making the object “prettier”), but about object stability.

Some of the old repairs (like a taped-up border on one of the albums) serve to keep the album intact. The removal of this tape and the subsequent treatment to the cover might make the album LOOK better, but is it worth deleting part of the album’s history for purely aesthetic reasons?

Other past repairs, such as old plastic photo corners, serve to highlight a far more serious condition issue that affects the albums. The original adhesive used on the backs of these photos is fading, resulting in the photos becoming detached from the page. Loose photos in an album mean a loss of information, since the original placement order is important to the historical context. That, and loose photos tend to get lost.

Logically, the solution would be to paste them back into the book. But even that is a tricky issue when caring for these items. 

Adhesives work the way they do due to the bonds between molecules. The stronger the adhesive, the stronger the bond between the adhesive molecules and the molecules that make up the paper surface. If this bond is “too strong”, the photo is fused to the paper forever, which can damage the fragile structures of the photo and the paper as it ages. Too weak of an adhesive bond and the link between the paper and the adhesive will fade over time, resulting in loose photos. 

The primary conservation goal is to maintain the original photo order, without causing damage to the photos or the page. Therefore, new photo corners (made of special paper and not plastic) are used to re-adhere the photos back to their original spot on the page. By using photo corners, the adhesive is not on the photos, mitigating the above risks.

The old plastic photo corners will be left in the album, seeing as how they are not damaging the photographs and highlight the repair history. However, the broken ones (caused by the thin plastic breaking along the corner lines) are carefully removed from the page using a mini-heated spatula and replaced with the new paper ones. 

More conservation treatment will follow, depending on the individual repair needs of each album. These albums are valuable objects, serving as gathering places for special moments in Albertans' lives. Their photos preserve memories, and a point of view, from this province's history, and they deserve the time and effort it takes to properly maintain and upkeep them for future generations.

If you’re interested in learning more about George and Norma, please explore the following link:

https://searcharchives.ucalgary.ca/george-and-norma-piper-pocaterra-fonds