Culture
The Photographer Who Watched Toronto Become a City
Arthur Goss found work as an office boy at the age of 11 in one of the few local government offices where a camera could be found. By his death, he had taken 35,000 photographs—vital documents of the metropolis’s formative years.
It’s not clear how Arthur Goss acquired his first camera.
It was the 1890s and photography was a technical and expensive hobby for a teen recently sent into the workplace to help support his family following the death of his father. However he came to take his first pictures, Goss's talent was immediately clear. Aged 15, he won an amateur contest. Over the course of his prolific career he would see Toronto become a city through the lens of his camera.