Last Day of School, Calgary

The children of various ages shown bursting through the doorway of the stone school building in Calgary, Alberta, have just been released for their summer vacation. These elementary school children photographed in 1956 represent the post-World War II baby boom generation at its height, at a time when Calgary, Alberta, was also undergoing rapid growth from an oil production boom in the province. By 1961, almost forty percent of Calgary’s population was under the age of nineteen. During that period, almost sixty schools were built to handle the influx, and raising children was a major public concern that was documented in newspapers and public health and service projects. Jack de Lorne (1930- ) is a local Calgary photographer who worked for the Calgary Herald and Albertan newspapers from 1949 to 1962, and maintained a studio thereafter. His photography, held in the Glenbow Archive, documents the rise of Calgary, Alberta, as a boom town after the discovery of oil nearby in 1947.