“The ghostly shadow” in the archives An archival case study of the creation and recreation of the Hamilton Family fonds at the University of Manitoba Archives & Special Collections

The Hamilton Family fonds is one of the most frequently consulted fonds at the University of Manitoba Archives & Special Collections (UMASC). It is composed of records of the investigations of Dr. T. G. Hamilton, a Winnipeg physician, and his family, as they explored the paranormal within a Spiritualist context from the end of the First World War and beyond Dr. Hamilton’s death in the early 1930s. Among these records are over 700 photographs of séances, which often include photographs of “spirits” and “ectoplasms.” The Hamilton Family fonds is examined here in relationship to archival writing that interprets the postmodernist movement of the late 20^th and early 21^st centuries. This includes examining the history of the T. G. Hamilton records, Spiritualism, and spirit photography from an archival perspective. The existence of the fonds provides us with an excellent vehicle with which to examine two questions that are important to postmodern thinking and writing on archival matters: 1) how does archival practice enable changes in perceptions of records, and how thereby do archivists actively shape, create and recreate records?; and 2) how do users of archives, thus enabled to interpret records in archives, co-create new interpretations with archivists, thus contributing to the ongoing construction of the archive? A case study approach was used to examine how archival practice becomes an integral part of the record, how archivists actively shape the record and how archivists recognize this phenomenon. In the past 30 years the actions of archivists have added meaning to the Hamilton Family fonds as scholarly perceptions of these photographs have changed. This was documented in the administrative records and publicity of the University of Manitoba Archives & Special Collections. These sources also show how the presence of this fonds has led to major decisions concerning other fonds and has changed the direction of the Archives’ acquisition policies in general. The thesis also analyzes how users of archives have communicated their own meanings through the archival materials found in the Hamilton Family fonds, moving outside accepted uses and meta-narratives. How the use of this fonds has changed, diversified, and increased over time is demonstrated and it was found that digitization of the fonds for dissemination over the Internet was a powerful agent in this process. Using the case study approach, this thesis has added an archival perspective to the study of Spiritualism and shows how archivists and those who use archival material contribute to the knowledge about this phenomenon. This approach might then also be brought to the study of other archival records and areas of research and human activity.