Figure 1: The Telegram. 16 October 1954. p.1. Photo citation: Miscellaneous issues of The Evening Telegram, 1942-1959; Fonds 70, Series 655, File 28; Larry Becker collection, Larry Becker newspapers; The City of Toronto Archives, Toronto, Ontario Canada.
On October 16, 1954, buried between the pages of the Toronto Evening Telegram, reads a seemingly out of place headline, “Beautiful Gowns Worn to Ball Despite Lashing Winds and Rain.”[i] The black and white photo collage framing the banner appears as an odd tribute to Toronto’s who’s who.[ii] Dressed to impress in their splendid and posh attire, the following article lists exactly who wore what right down to the jewels and accessories. In mild contrast to the smiles of a determined pair of guests, one out-turned umbrella hints at the presence of Hurricane Hazel.
Readers will have had to flip past the pages of horrific news stories: “Fear 58 Drowned,” “Damage Estimate is $100 Million,’’ and “I saw a man drown” before arriving at the headline, “Night in Nassau” Ball in support of the National Ballet.[iii] Hurricane Hazel and the cascading Humber River drowned out homes to ultimately render 81 dead and 1900 families homeless. In all, Hazel would cause over $25 million in damages in modern currency.[iv] Meanwhile, amid this calamity and chaos, the attendees of this soiree were making merry.
Why would editors of the “Tely” allot precious print space to this gala event with such an obtuse header? What more does this say about Toronto in 1954? How does this feature speak to the ways disaster is differently felt?
Sifting through the delicate and yellowing pages of the Telegram at the City of Toronto Archives, I admit I was unfamiliar with this particular newspaper. Founded by Canadian media giant John Ross Robertson in 1876, it would eventually cease publication in 1971 due to financial troubles. In the late nineteenth century, the Telegram was the first to cater to the city’s changing demographic and appeal to a broader readership beyond businessmen and professionals. The first to practice “people’s journalism,” according to biographer Ron Poulton, the Telegram narrated events with a popular, sensational, and more superficial flare.[i] It was a family newspaper and the first without any political party affiliation. By 1954, the Telegram had changed ownership twice. In 1948, George McCullagh, owner of the Globe and Mail, purchased the paper for $3.6 million. Later in 1952, publisher John Bassett purchased the “Tely” for $4.2 million with funds from retail mogul John David Eaton.[ii]
Figure 2: The Telegram. 16 October 1954. p.11. Photo citation: Miscellaneous issues of The Evening Telegram, 1942-1959; Fonds 70, Series 655, File 28; Larry Becker collection, Larry Becker newspapers; The City of Toronto Archives, Toronto, Ontario Canada.
The linkages between the Telegram, the Eaton family, and the National Ballet Readers are telling, as they offer a glimpse of what life was like in Toronto in the 1950s. From these relationships, I argue that the allure of post war development, optimism, and progress could not be deterred by Hurricane Hazel and its devastation. It would appear that this headline, albeit tone-deaf, curates a certain social immunity that allows wealth, culture and the high arts to appear safely outside of Hazel’s immediate path.
As the grandson of Timothy Eaton, founder of T. Eaton Company Ltd. in 1869, John David Eaton was born into Canadian retail royalty.[iii] As president of the Eaton’s department store chain from 1942 to 1969, he was responsible for its expansion west while fueling rumors as the richest man in Canada for contributing an unprecedented $50 million to employee medical and retirement plans.[iv] Noted as a private and “shy” man, he is visibly absent from the Telegram feature. Instead, his wife “Mrs. J. D. Eaton” (Signy Steffanson Eaton) is photographed at the gala wearing a dark strapless ball gown alongside other prominent guests.[v] Together, the Eatons were lauded for their philanthropy.[vi]
Through the campaigning of Toronto’s Boris Volkoff Ballet, Canada’s first national ballet was established only years earlier in 1951. Recruiting “half-trained” students from across the country, the company held its inaugural performance at the Eaton Auditorium at the now historic College and Yonge Street location.[i] Listed among the feature’s fashion forward in Telegram’s exposé is the National ballet’s artistic director and founder, Celia Franca, wearing a gown of “Magnolia green satin”.[ii] A newcomer from London, she, like many new Torontonians, had left a Europe devastated by the Second World War.[iii] Life in 1950s Toronto signaled a time of new hope and old world culture as the company’s dance students, choreographers, and professionals asserted their European background and training into the Canadian arts. In an interview for the 2020 book Early Days, Early Dancers, dancer Myrna Aaron describes Toronto in the 1950s as “rather dreary and provincial—not at all like the metropolis it is today.”[iv] The 1951 fundraising campaign that helped inject the city with its current cultural urbanity called for $150,000 in sustainability funds, to which local businesses responded fervently to fundraise, gain board membership, and patronize the early performances of the National Ballet.[v]
The momentum this fundraiser brought to Toronto as the home of the nation’s own ballet company appears unphased by the arrival of Hurricane Hazel. Simply, Hazel was but a blip in the on-going plans towards the city’s metropolitan progress.
Despite The Telegram’s allegiance to both the Eaton family and the National ballet, the remaining headlines tell of the immediate and urgent realities of Hazel’s destruction. The frontpage headline in its bold type face reads, “Fear 58 drowned. 300 Missing in this area. City blocked off.” [vi] Immediately below is a black and white image of the “heroism” and rescue of civilian, Richard Stock, whose head is seen barely surfacing from the raging current of the Humber River. Metro Chairman Fred Gardiner, to whom Toronto’s main traffic artery, the Gardiner Expressway, is named after, issues an emergency decree under the headline “Damage estimate is $100 million” to cease all non-essential travel. Traffic over the bursting Humber River was thereby limited to two bridges for volunteers, fire fighters, and police to access on their rescue missions as the death toll rose in neighboring Etobicoke, Weston, Holland Marsh, Woodbridge and Unionville.[vii] Terrifyingly, another frontpage headline, “I saw a man drown,” details the futile screams of one victim, “Help me. Save me.”[viii] The storm that killed and displaced thousands along Toronto’s outskirts stood in stark contrast to the rain and wind that dampened a few ball gowns and tuxedos at the gala ball in the city’s downtown.
There is no sense of disaster, but a little bit of “rain and high water” when it comes to being seen within Toronto’s socialite circles as proprietors of high culture.[i] The Telegram was one such venue that showcased and celebrated this commitment. It did, of course, also owe its financial existence to Eaton funds. Perhaps, the show still goes on so to speak when much meaning is still being made for post-war Canada to stand culturally on its own with its nascent National Ballet. Though the victims of Hurricane Hazel will have felt an entirely different sense of urgency to their own lives and livelihoods through years of loss, recovery, and reconstruction, the legacy of metropolitan Toronto remains. As the immediacy of Hazel’s ruinous path unfolded, the headline,“Beautiful Gowns Worn to Ball Despite Lashing Winds and Rain,” assured readers that the Telegram was still moving forward alongside the individuals and institutions that saw a version of the city’s modernity, come what may.
– Darlyne Bautista
Notes
[i] Foster. “Beautiful Gowns Worn to Ball,” p.11.
[i] Jocelyn Terell Allen. Early Days, Early Dancers: Early Years of the National Ballet of Canada. Toronto, Ontario: Inanna Publications and Education Inc. 2020. p. 5.; See also Heritage Toronto. “Eaton Auditorium.” Sounds Like Toronto. https://soundsliketoronto.ca/en/stories/venues/eaton-auditorium 27 September 2022 (cited 26 December 2024).
[ii] Foster. “Beautiful Gowns Worn to Ball,” p.11.
[iii] Allen. Early Days, Early Dancers. pp. 18-19.
[iv] Allen. Early Days, Early Dancers. p. 2.
[v] Allen. Early Days, Early Dancers. pp. 8-9.
[vi] “Fear 58 drowned. 300 Missing in this area. City blocked off,” The Evening Telegram. 16 October 1954, p.1.
[vii] “Damage estimate is $100 million,” The Evening Telegram. 16 October 1954, p.1.
[viii] Val Sears. “I saw a man drown,” The Evening Telegram. 16 October 1954, p.1.
[i] P. Rutherford. “The Paper Tyrant: John Ross Robertson of the Toronto Telegram by Ron Poulton (Review).” The Canadian Historical Review 55, no. 1 (1974): 91–92; Ron Poulton. The Paper Tyrant: John Ross Robertson of the Toronto Telegram. Toronto: Clarke, Irwin, 1971.
[ii] Denise Marie. “Toronto Telegram – The Newspaper’s Explosive Force in Toronto’s History.” Toronto History. Toronto Journey 416. https://www.torontojourney416.com/toronto-telegram/ (cited 20 December 2024); York University Digital Library. “Toronto Telegram” Home. York University. https://digital.library.yorku.ca/corporate-body/toronto-telegram (cited 20 December 2024).
[iii] Donica Belisle. Retail Nation : Department Stores and the Making of Modern Canada. Vancouver, B.C: UBC Press, 2011. Pp.82-83.
[iv] Historica / The Canadian Encyclopedia. “John David Eaton.” The Canadian Encyclopedia. 7 March 2014 (cited 26 December 2024).
[v] Foster. “Beautiful Gowns Worn to Ball,” p.11.
[vi] Royal Ontario Museum. “The Eaton Family.” Bio. Royal Ontario Museum. https://www.rom.on.ca/people/eaton-family (cited 26 December 2024); Bruce Allen Kopytek. Eaton’s: The Trans-Canada Store. Charleston: The History Press. 2014.
[vii] Jocelyn Terell Allen. Early Days, Early Dancers: Early Years of the National Ballet of Canada. Toronto, Ontario: Inanna Publications and Education Inc. 2020. p. 5.; See also Heritage Toronto. “Eaton Auditorium.” Sounds Like Toronto. https://soundsliketoronto.ca/en/stories/venues/eaton-auditorium 27 September 2022 (cited 26 December 2024).
[viii] Foster. “Beautiful Gowns Worn to Ball,” p.11.
[ix] Allen. Early Days, Early Dancers. pp. 18-19.
[x] Allen. Early Days, Early Dancers. p. 2.
[xi] Allen. Early Days, Early Dancers. pp. 8-9.
[i] Lillian Foster. “Beautiful Gowns Worn to Ball Despite Lashing Winds and Rain,” The Evening Telegram. 16 October 1954, p.11.
[ii] “Hurricane Provides True ‘Night in Nassau’ Weather for National Ballet Guild Ball,” The Evening Telegram. 16 October 1954, p.11.
[iii] The Evening Telegram. 16 October 1954
[iv] James H. Marsh. “Toronto Feature: Hurricane Hazel.” Article. The Canadian Encyclopedia. 2 July 2015. https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/toronto-feature-hurricane-hazel (Cited 20 December 2024)