{"id":19522,"date":"2011-04-28T14:00:47","date_gmt":"2011-04-28T18:00:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spacingtoronto.ca\/?p=19522"},"modified":"2011-04-27T22:52:57","modified_gmt":"2011-04-28T02:52:57","slug":"keep-toronto-reading-the-tannery","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2011\/04\/28\/keep-toronto-reading-the-tannery\/","title":{"rendered":"Keep Toronto Reading: The Tannery"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Once again Spacing is pleased to be a part of Toronto Public Library\u2019s\u00a0Keep Toronto Reading<\/a> program. This April the library hopes the whole city will join in reading Judy Fong Bates’s Midnight at the Dragon Cafe, the story of a young Chinese-Canadian growing up in small-town Ontario in the late 50s and early 60s.<\/em> Throughout the month, Spacing Toronto will present a series of posts exploring the book and its relationship to our city.<\/em><\/p>\n

Where is<\/em> Irvine, Ontario? Su-Jen\u2019s descriptions of the quiet small town, with its hardware store, bakery, and five and dime along main street make it sound like it could be anywhere: \u201cthe streets were never busy, not even on Saturdays\u2026.even though most of the buildings were made of red brick, the feeling was grey.\u201d<\/p>\n

What distinguishes Irvine is its tanning factory, a place that employees much of the town, and that leaves a heavy scent in the air. Pock Mark Lee, delivery man and family friend, jokes that he knows he\u2019s getting to Irvine from the smell, \u201cso thick it seemed almost to coat the inside of your mouth.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Su-Jen\u2019s associations with the tannery are vague: tannery workerss come to the Dragon Caf\u00e9 for dinner, its smell bothers her when it\u2019s hot, and the owner\u2019s granddaughter, Hilary Beeston, is the richest girl in her class. Still, the factory is a constant presence in Midnight at the Dragon Caf\u00e9<\/em>. It is responsible \u201cfor almost every job in town,\u201d and its scent seems to expand on the harsh, sour mood of the novel\u2019s protagonists.<\/p>\n

Tanneries in Canada have a long history, going back to the 16th<\/sup> century in and around Montreal and Quebec City. But Ontario was quicker to adopt new aging methods in the 19th<\/sup> century, and its tanneries flourished while Quebec\u2019s went into decline. By the 1950s there were about 30 tanneries in Ontario, almost all of them larger than any in Quebec.<\/p>\n

While it would be silly to insist that Irvine is any town in particular, it does bear a resemblance to Acton, still sometimes called Leathertown, today a section of Halton Hills. Acton\u2019s Beardmore Tannery, which operated until 1986, was billed as the largest tanning operation in the British Empire in 1900, and employed hundreds of workers. Despite three major fires in the twentieth century, Beardmore remained the largest tannery in Canada into the 1970s. Perhaps you remember the Olde Hide House ads: \u201cIt\u2019s worth the drive to Acton?\u201d While the Beardmore factory is long demolished, it is still celebrated as an integral part of the town history: it was the focal point of Halton Region Museum\u2019s heritage day in 2009, and its gates are still a stop on the Acton Nature Trail along Black Creek.<\/p>\n

Pick up Spacing<\/em>\u2019s winter issue to see Peter MacCallum\u2019s photo essay on Toronto tannery workers.
\nBeardmore Tanneries drawing from TPL’s Special Collections<\/a> used under Creative Commons.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Once again Spacing is pleased to be a part of Toronto Public Library\u2019s\u00a0Keep Toronto Reading program. This April the library hopes the whole city will join in reading Judy Fong Bates’s Midnight at the Dragon Cafe, the story of a young Chinese-Canadian growing up in small-town Ontario in the late 50s and early 60s. ThroughoutContinue reading “Keep Toronto Reading: The Tannery”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4065,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19522","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-spacing"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nKeep Toronto Reading: The Tannery - Spacing Toronto<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2011\/04\/28\/keep-toronto-reading-the-tannery\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Keep Toronto Reading: The Tannery - Spacing Toronto\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Once again Spacing is pleased to be a part of Toronto Public Library\u2019s\u00a0Keep Toronto Reading program. 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