45 Vintage Photographs of the Dionne Quintuplets, the First Quintuplets Known to Have Survived Infancy

The Dionne quintuplets—Yvonne, Annette, Cécile, Émilie, and Marie—were born on May 28, 1934, near Callander, Ontario, Canada. They were the first known set of quintuplets to survive infancy, and their story became a global phenomenon during the Great Depression, filled with both fame and exploitation.

The quintuplets were born to Elzire and Oliva Dionne, a poor French-Canadian farming couple. Their premature birth (two months early) and survival stunned the world. At birth, the five girls weighed a combined total of just over 13 pounds (6 kg). They were delivered in a modest farmhouse without electricity or running water.

In the midst of the Great Depression, their survival captured worldwide attention, offering a beacon of hope. News outlets, photographers, and even movie studios flocked to the remote farm.

Fearing exploitation by private promoters (including an offer to display them at the Chicago World’s Fair), the Ontario government intervened. In 1935, they were made wards of the Crown until age 18, effectively removing them from their parents’ care.

A specially built hospital and nursery, dubbed “Quintland,” was constructed across the road from their family home. Here, under the care of the attending physician, Dr. Allan Roy Dafoe, the girls were put on daily public display. Millions of tourists from around the globe visited to watch them play behind a one-way screen.

Their images were used to endorse numerous products, from corn syrup to typewriters, and dolls resembling them outsold Shirley Temple dolls. They even starred in three Hollywood films. While the province profited immensely, the girls' own trust fund grew, though they had no control over it.

In 1943, after a lengthy legal battle, their father regained custody, and the quintuplets moved back with their family. However, this transition was far from ideal. The surviving sisters later alleged physical and sexual abuse at the hands of their parents, and described being treated as a “five-part unit” rather than individuals.

Upon turning 18 in 1952, the sisters largely distanced themselves from their parents. Émilie entered a convent and tragically died at age 20 in 1954 from an epileptic seizure; Marie died in 1970 from a blood clot in her brain at age 35; Yvonne passed away from cancer in 2001 at age 67; Annette and Cécile married and had children.

In the late 1990s, the three surviving sisters (Annette, Cécile, and Yvonne) revealed their struggles and launched a campaign for the Ontario government to address the mismanagement of their trust fund and their exploitation. In 1998, they received a $4 million compensation settlement from the Ontario government, along with an apology.

As of 2025, Annette and Cécile Dionne are still living and celebrated their 91st birthday on May 28th. Their birth home in North Bay, Ontario, has been preserved as a museum, serving as a reminder of their unique and often tragic story, and highlighting important issues related to children’s rights.

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Ontario in the 1950s Through Amazing Color Photos

Ontario is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada. Located in Central Canada, it is Canada’s most populous province, with 38.3 percent of the country’s population, and is the second-largest province by total area (after Quebec). Ontario is Canada’s fourth-largest jurisdiction in total area when the territories of the Northwest Territories and Nunavut are included. It is home to the nation’s capital city, Ottawa, and the nation's most populous city, Toronto, which is Ontario’s provincial capital.

Ontario is bordered by the province of Manitoba to the west, Hudson Bay and James Bay to the north, and Quebec to the east and northeast, and to the south by the U.S. states of (from west to east) Minnesota, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and New York. Almost all of Ontario’s 2,700 km (1,678 mi) border with the United States follows inland waterways: from the westerly Lake of the Woods, eastward along the major rivers and lakes of the Great Lakes/Saint Lawrence River drainage system. There is only about 1 km (0.6 mi) of actual land border, made up of portages including Height of Land Portage on the Minnesota border.

The great majority of Ontario’s population and arable land is in Southern Ontario. In contrast, Northern Ontario is sparsely populated with cold winters and heavy forestation. These amazing photos from Archives Of Ontario captured life of Ontario in the 1950s.

Mrs. George Baxter lacing a beaver pelt into a drying frame. Overhead hangs half of a tanned moosehide, Washi Lake, Ontario, 1951

51 St. Cyril's and St. Methodius' Ukrainian Catholic Church, on the Queen Elizabeth Way, near St. Catharines, Ontario, 1951

Canoe lessons, Ontario, 1952

Garden in front of Queen's Park, Toronto, Ontario, 1952

Picnickers at Aubrey Falls, Ontario, 1952

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Here’s the Earliest Known Image of Women’s Hockey, ca. 1890

This 1890 photograph is the oldest-known picture of women playing hockey, taken at Rideau Hall in Ottawa. Isobel Stanley, daughter of Lord Stanley, is seen wearing white.

Lord Stanley of Preston’s daughter, Lady Isobel Stanley, was a pioneer in the women’s game and was one of the first females to be photographed using puck and stick (around 1890) on the natural ice rink at Rideau Hall in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada.

Stanley, Canada’s sixth Governor General, provided the ice for women’s hockey games, transforming a large lawn on the grounds of Rideau Hall into a rink. Better known for his contribution of the challenge trophy later referred to as the Stanley Cup, Lord Stanley played a significant role in the development and growth of Canadian women’s hockey.

Portrait of Lady Isobel Stanley.

There have been disputes over where the first women’s ice hockey game was played in Canada. The Women’s Hockey Association claims that the city of Ottawa, Ontario hosted the first game in 1891. On February 11, 1891, one of the earliest newspaper accounts of a seven-a-side game between women appeared in the Ottawa Citizen.

In the 1890s, women’s ice hockey was introduced at the university level. McGill University's women’s hockey team debuted in 1894. The University of Toronto and Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario were also some of the earliest Canadian universities to field women's ice hockey teams. Queen’s would later discontinue its women’s teams.

A Series of Photographs of Downtown Belleville, Ontario in 1975

Belleville is a city in Ontario, Canada situated on the eastern end of Lake Ontario, located at the mouth of the Moira River and on the Bay of Quinte.

Belleville is between Ottawa and Toronto, along the Quebec City-Windsor Corridor. It is the seat of Hastings County, but politically independent of it, and is the centre of the Bay of Quinte Region.

A series of photographs from the Community Archives of Belleville and Hastings County that show downtown Belleville, Ontario in 1975, commissioned by Heritage Belleville.

Building on Bridge Street East in Belleville west of the TD Bank. The Wonder Shoppe was at 6, H & R Block at 8 and McKnight's Variety at 10 Bridge St. East, between Front Street and the Moira River

160 and 162 Front Street, Belleville, Ontario, with Cablevue office at 160

160, 162 and 166 Front Street, Belleville, Ontario. The Corbin Lock building on Coleman Street is visible through the passage way 

166 and 168 Front Street, Belleville, Ontario

186, 188, 190 and 192 Front Street, Belleville, Ontario (the Lister Block). Businesses included Lots o'Leather, Davison & Davison Travel and the Modern Café

194, 196 and 200 Front Street, Belleville. Businesses included McKinney Insurance and Central Taxi which was located on the southwest corner of Bridge and Front Streets

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The Bloor Viaduct During Construction Through Amazing Photos

The Prince Edward Viaduct System, commonly referred to as the Bloor Viaduct, is the name of a truss arch bridge system in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, connecting Bloor Street East, on the west side of the system, with Danforth Avenue on the east.

The Bloor Viaduct during construction

The system includes the Rosedale Valley phase (a smaller structure, referred to as the Rosedale Valley Bridge, carrying Bloor Street over the Rosedale Ravine) and the Sherbourne Phase, an embankment built to extend Bloor Street East to the Rosedale Ravine from Sherbourne Street. The Don Valley phase of the system, the most recognizable, spans the Don River Valley, crossing over (from west to east) the Bayview Avenue Extension, the Don River, and the Don Valley Parkway.

The roadway has five lanes (three eastbound and two westbound) with a bicycle lane in each direction. The subway level connects Broadview Station in the east with Castle Frank and Sherbourne Stations to the west.

This selection of pictures, taken during the construction of the Bloor Street East viaduct (1915-1917), comprises some of the images in the Canadian Historical Picture Collection, housed in the Special Collections department at Toronto Reference Library.

Pier D. Training... First Construction...

Break in Sheeting. East End N2. Pier D

Don in Flood

Don Sec. East Approach

Don Sec. Pier B. Forms

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Pictures of Veronica Foster – Ronnie the Bren Gun Girl and the Beautiful Woman War Worker of Canada in World War II

Veronica Foster (January 2, 1922 – May 4, 2000), popularly known as “Ronnie the Bren Gun Girl”, was a Canadian icon representing nearly one million Canadian women who worked in the manufacturing plants that produced munitions and matériel during World War II. Her natural beauty made her the perfect model for a national propaganda poster campaign.

Foster worked for John Inglis Co. Ltd producing Bren light machine guns on a production line on Strachan Avenue in Toronto, Ontario. She can be seen as the Canadian precursor to the American cultural icon Rosie the Riveter.

She became popular after a series of propaganda posters were produced; most images featured her working for the war effort, but others depicted more casual settings like Foster dancing the jitterbug or attending a dinner party. In her most famous photograph, Ronnie sports curve-hugging overalls while effortlessly exhaling smoke from her cigarette as she admires her recently assembled Bren gun.

As the perfect blend of femininity and female liberation, Ronnie became the subject of public infatuation, so much so that the United States decided to create its own female war icon. And so Ronnie’s head scarf and can-do attitude was transferred to the well-known American propaganda image of “Rosie the Riveter.”

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Women Testing the Guns They Made for World War II at the Inglis Munitions Plant in Ontario, Canada, 1944

Ten pretty girls, all workers at the John Inglis Co. plant, line up with 10 Bren guns built with their own hands, 1944. These little guns are going to Allied forces all over the world-but Brens cost a lot of money, Canadian money. One $100 bond will buy approximately three Bren guns; at their present cost. It takes a lot of bonds to keep the Inglis plant making Brens.

(Photo: Toronto Star Archives)

John Inglis and Company was a Canadian manufacturing firm which made weapons for the United Kingdom and British Commonwealth military forces during the World War II era, then later became a major appliance manufacturer. Whirlpool Corporation acquired control of Inglis in 1987 and changed the company's name to Whirlpool Canada in 2001.

The Inglis name has a proud heritage in Canada. In 1859, armed with metalworking and pattern-making skills learned in England and Scotland, John Inglis moved to Guelph, Ontario and started Mair, Inglis and Evatt which built machinery for grist and flour mills.

In 1881, operating under the name John Inglis and Sons, the company moved to facilities on Strachan Avenue in Toronto. But in 1898, with the enterprise growing madly, John Inglis died. William, one of John’s five sons, assumed leadership of the business. In 1902, he led the company into the manufacture of marine steam engines and waterworks pumping engines, and he discontinued production of its previous product line.

When William Inglis died in 1935, the new Toronto Island Ferry was named after him in appreciation of his significant contribution to the city’s industrial and cultural progress.

Veronica Foster, an employee of John Inglis Co. Ltd. and known as “Ronnie, the Bren Gun Girl” posing with a finished Bren gun in the John Inglis Co. Ltd. Bren gun plant, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, 1941.

Two years later, an American named Major J.E. Hahn, purchased the company and made significant changes to its operations. Under Major Hahn’s leadership, the company assisted in the World War II effort by manufacturing guns for the Canadian and British governments. More than 17,800 people were employed at this time creating the need for expansion at the Strachan Avenue plant.

When the war ended in 1946, the company began to manufacture consumer products for the first time. Fishing tackle, house trailers, oil burner pumps and domestic heaters and stoves were among the diverse products offered.

Canadian Police Officer Guarding the Pharmacy in Waist-High Flood Waters in Galt, Ontario, 1974

Even as the flood waters rose, the sun shone bright on May 17, 1974. Earlier rains and a decision to open reservoirs upstream had sealed downtown Galt’s fate. An already-swollen Grand River could take no more, pouring fast-flowing water over its banks toward an unsuspecting community. Miraculously, no one was killed, but hard lessons were learned in ‘the Great Flood of 1974’.

Const. John Shuttleworth wore waders as he stood waist-deep in Cambridge on May 17, 1974. (Mike Hanley/Canadian Press)

Pots and pans floated out the back door of George’s Chinese restaurant. Shoes of all styles and sizes bobbed around like little leather canoes, riding the rising rapids out of The Right House department store. Const. Jack Shuttleworth stood stoically at the submerged corner of Ainslie and Dickson streets.

He stared straight ahead as the Grand River washed through downtown Galt with surreal ferocity early on a blue-sky afternoon on the 17th of May. He watched the furious flow of the Great Flood of 1974. Power boats, fences and cars spun by in the waist-deep water.

The waders he borrowed from a downtown sporting goods store kept him dry. His presence let the soggy citizens of the newly created City of Cambridge — a melding of Galt, Preston and Hespeler — know the law still existed in the sunshine of the swirling mayhem.

“The whole idea was to be a deterrent,” Shuttleworth once recalled. “So nobody would be picking this stuff off.”

(via The Spec)

Vintage Found Photos Show the Architecture of Toronto in the Late 1850s

Toronto is the provincial capital of Ontario and the most populous city in Canada. The city is the anchor of the Golden Horseshoe, an urban agglomeration surrounding the western end of Lake Ontario. Toronto is an international centre of business, finance, arts, and culture, and is recognized as one of the most multicultural and cosmopolitan cities in the world.

Toronto was designated as the capital of the province of Ontario in 1867 during Canadian Confederation. The city proper has since expanded past its original borders through both annexation and amalgamation to its current area of 630.2 km2 (243.3 sq mi).

Toronto is also known for its many skyscrapers and high-rise buildings, in particular the tallest free-standing structure in the Western Hemisphere, the CN Tower.

Here below is a set of 12 cards from John Rochon that shows buildings of Toronto, ON around 1858 or 1859. They were found at a flea-market decades ago complete with cover and booklet.

King Street, Toronto, ON, circa 1858-59

Masonic Hall Buildings, Toronto, ON, circa 1858-59

Mechanics Institute and St. James Parochial School, Toronto, ON, circa 1858-59

Normal School Buildings, Toronto, ON, circa 1858-59

Provincial Exhibition Buildings, Toronto, ON, circa 1858-59

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33 Amazing Photos That Capture Everyday Life of Ontario, Canada in the Late 19th Century

At the turn of the 20th century, when most cameras and photographers operated out of a studio, Ontario-based photographer Reuben R. Sallows (1855-1937) took his heavy, cumbersome equipment outside. He photographed people at work and play in the small towns, farmlands and in the expansive Canadian wilderness of Ontario, the western rovinces and northern Quebec.

A rogue photographer, Sallows did not wait for clients to enter his studio. He took his camera everywhere: in his black Ford Model A truck, in a hired canoe and on the newly installed trains that crisscrossed Canada between 1881 and 1937.
 
He sold his photographs to his studio patrons in Goderich, Ontario, the Canadian, Albertan and Ontario governments, postcard and lithograph companies in the United States, Britain, Scotland and Germany as well as magazines and newspapers in Canada, the United States and abroad. One of his photographs, Patriarch of the Flock, was published in the National Geographic magazine in 1920.
 
His versatility at both setting a scene and capturing a moment made him an excellent freelance photographer in an age when such a concept was barely emerging. To be a photographer between 1881 and 1937 was to be a scientist, savvy businessman and artist. Reuben R. Sallows was all three.

In 1937, Reuben Sallows, on his way to take a photograph at a school camp on the lakeshore highway, was killed when his car overturned just south of Kintail. He was 82 years old.

During his sixty year career, his artistic skill was proudly heralded locally as "Sallowsgraphs" and recognized internationally, securing him a reputation for being a "photographic genius."

These photos that Sallows captured everyday life of Ontario, Canada from between the 1860s and 1890s.

A boy holding a stick contemplates hitting backside of a large man

At home

Bathing in Lake Huron

Becklers Mills Falls, Benmiller

Bend in Maitland River

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Incredible Photos That Capture the Ruins of Sarnia, Ontario After the Tornado in 1953

A powerful tornado struck the city of Sarnia, Ontario, Canada, on the afternoon of May 21, 1953. It made at least 150 homes on the more suburban outskirts of the city were damaged and in some instances reduced to rubble. Financial losses in Canada totaled $15 million; five people were killed, 48 were injured, and 500 were left homeless.

Take a look at these incredible photos from John Rochon to see what Sarnia, Ontario looked like just after the tornado in 1953.

Christina St. looking south from Lochiel St.

Clean-up work on the Vendome Hotel

East side of Christina St. looking south to Cromwell St.

East side of Front St. between Lochiel and Cromwell Sts. showing tornado damage to the Barr building and the Mackenzie-Milne building

East side of Front St. just south of Bank of Commerce

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Ottawa Over 100 Years Ago – 40 Rare Photos Show the Capital City of Canada Before 1900

Ottawa is the capital city of Canada. It stands on the south bank of the Ottawa River in the eastern portion of southern Ontario. Ottawa borders Gatineau, Quebec.

The city is the most educated in Canada, and also has the highest standard of living in the nation and low unemployment.

Here below is what Ottawa looked like before 1900.

Elgin St. from Wellington with the City Hall on the left background, ca. 1890s

Entrance to the Rideau Canal, ca. 1890s

Family at Majors Hill Park, 1894

Home for friendless women, Wellington St. 1891

Horse drawn cab stand in front of the East Block, 1897

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