Abstract

Albums, defined when new by their barrenness, have long served as welcoming repositories for words, pictures and keepsakes. They are cultural artifacts that leave behind traces of a rhetorical impulse to express oneself in a wide range of topics including family, social, political and economic concerns. It is only recently, however, that scholars have begun to recognize their potential as a source for academic research.
Lady Bucknall Estcourt, a British aristocratic military wife, worked on such an album for nearly forty years (1837-1875), five of which were spent accompanying her husband during two military postings in Canada. Despite the lack of overtly personal content and the initial impression of randomness conveyed by the materials within the album, a detailed analysis reveals the presence of a coherent, vital, and very personal narrative. What is intriguing is that this has been accomplished as much through the absence as through the presence of its creator. Using a variety of coding techniques, she memorialized important events of her life. She engaged with the important discourses of her era by making her husband’s military career and, by extension, Great Britain’s much larger imperial project important subjects of her album. Through my work of decoding, this thesis sheds new light on how one aristocratic Victorian woman used the material and visual culture at her disposal to express her own identity. By understanding the how, it has been possible to gain insight into the what, the impact of the broader concerns of an era on one woman, and thus to provide a uniquely feminine perspective.