Thomas Glendenning Hamilton - Archival Legacy

Archival Legacy

The Hamilton family left a rich legacy. Lillian compiled several scrapbooks of photos and other materials for her children. Margaret, however, was the one who collected all the papers from the family dealing with their paranormal research and deposited these with the University of Manitoba Archives & Special Collections. The family’s fonds, or papers, consist of 2.5 linear metres of textual and other materials, and include scrapbooks, séance attendance records and registers, affidavits, automatic writings, correspondence, speeches and lectures, news clippings, journal articles, photographs, glass plate negatives and positives, prints, slides, audio tapes, manuscripts and promotional materials related to major publications. The materials date from 1919-1986 and since their deposit have been supplemented by other related collections. A companion research grant established by the Hamilton family provides funds for researchers to travel to Winnipeg to study these and other archival collections.

Although these archives have held a strong attraction for those interested in the paranormal, more significantly they have had a very powerful effect in stimulating artistic and cultural expressions. T.G.’s photographs have captured the imagination of many curators. His photos have appeared in art exhibits throughout Canada, from the Dunlop Art Gallery in Regina, Saskatchewan, to the Prefix Institute of Contemporary Art in Toronto, Ontario. Internationally his photos were included in the exhibit "Spiritus" at Magasin3 Stockholm Konsthall in Sweden in 2003. In 2005 they appeared in the exhibition “The Perfect Medium: Photography and the Occult,” held at the Maison européenne de la photographie in Paris and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. Later that year they were featured in the Symposium “Dark Rooms: Photography and Invisibility,” hosted by Princeton University. T.G.’s photographs and the Hamilton family’s archives are a major component of the work of Belfast artist Susan MacWilliam to appear in the 2009 Venice Biennale. They are also featured in the book: Susan MacWilliam: Remote Viewing (2009).

Beyond art exhibitions, the Hamilton archives have stimulated work in a number of other art forms. In 2007, the archives were the focus of the play “The Elmwood Visitation” by Winnipeg playwright Carolyn Gray, which won the playwright the Manitoba Day Award for excellence in archival research from the Association for Manitoba Archives. This play was later published by Scirocco Drama under the same name. The archives of the Hamilton family also provided the historic theme for the novel Widows of Hamilton House by Christina Penner in 2008. T.G.’s photos have appeared in films, including Winnipeg filmmaker Guy Maddin’s My Winnipeg (2008) and the more commercial horror film The Haunting in Connecticut (2009), among others. Numerous television shows have featured T.G. and his photographs. The television series Northern Mysteries included Hamilton in the episode entitled “Spiritualism” in 2005 and Hamilton was the focus of the television documentary “Chasing Hamilton’s Ghost,” as part of the Manitoba Moments series in 2005.