Master Henry Archibald, Montreal, QC, 1865
Via Retronaut comes a very nice selection of photos of mid-19th century Canadian children posing grimly with toys, from the digitized collections of the Musee McCord Museum in Quebec. The images were published in connection to a 2011 exhibition, Toys, which looked at the emergence of the perception of childhood as a distinct phase of life.
As this photo of a shifty-looking kid smoking and hanging out with a chicken, part of Retronaut's "Historic WTF?" collection, is uncredited, his Canadianness is uncertain at this time.
More like 1860-1900: Children with Toys, c. 1860 [retronaut via dt reader sara]
Toys | Jouets - McCord Museum flickr stream [flickr]
Which came first? The chicken or the sneer? I desperately want this photo for our living room.