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This photo, entitled “Kaloma,” was copyrighted for the Canadian market in 1914, but was actually shot New York City by a company specializing in suggestive photos of young women. Interestingly, for a time many collectors assumed this was a photo of Josephine Earp, the wife of Wyatt Earp, due to its inclusion on the dust jacket for the 1976 memoir I Married Wyatt Earp. In reality, it depicts an unknown model.

Another image from the Canadian Hockey Girl series. Unlike the studio model above, this unidentified skater actually ventured outside onto real ice, where she demurely took the time to hike up her skirt ever so slightly and adjust her stocking. “Out for fun,” reads the caption.

This image, entitled La Favorita (the favourite) was registered by the same photographer as the above photo of Cleo. Note the curiously fake-looking wisps of lace covering the woman’s nipple, begging the question as to whether this photo was doctored to give it a more benign rating.

Eerily entitled “the veiled lady,” this photo dates from 1903 and was registered by Ernest J. Rowley, a Canadian photographer whose typical specialty—at least as far as the British Library collection is concerned—was photos of adorable cats.

“The careful girl, safety first,” reads the description for this 1916 illustration, which presumably graced postcards that were used to guilt teenaged daughters into nailing down a husband.

In a Canada that was positively chuffed to be fighting Germany during WWI, The Soldier’s Sweetheart is a rare example of an anti-war postcard. Notably, it is from 1915, before many of the most devastating horrors of the Great War would become known.

National Post

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