When Rowing Was All the Rage

Row, row, row your boat...let's take a look at the historical popularity of rowing.

By Megan Lockhart, Archives Technician

Have you ever wondered what people did in their spare time for fun a hundred years ago without cell phones, video games, computers, televisions, and the rest of the technology we have nowadays? This is a question that can be answered by taking a look through our photograph collection at the archives. Photographs can provide fantastic information about the lives of people during a certain time period; what clothes people were wearing, what their homes, school, and businesses looked like, the types of activities they took part in, etc. Taking a look through the photograph at the Oxford County Archives, I’ve noticed a large number of images from the late 1800s to early 1900s that feature people rowing in canoes. Canoeing in parks, local ponds, on the Thames River, even while on holiday outside of the county. It seems to have been all the rage.

The indigenous peoples of the Americas built and used canoes as a means of transportation. Canoes were important tools for trade and the exploration of North America, including for early settlers. After conducting some research into the use of canoes and rowing by people living in the Victorian and Edwardian eras, I discovered that it was quite popular for recreational reasons, and as a means of improving physical fitness. People during these eras considered rowing to be a gentler form of exercise, and as such, a form of exercise that would be considered acceptable for women during a time when women were typically not allowed to partake in sports designated for men. In earlier years, rowing was a popular competitive sport for men, but that changed over the years and the activity came to be enjoyed by everyone.

Looking through our postcard and photograph collection, most of the people sitting in canoes and rowing on the river are in fact women. Wearing hats to protect their skin from the damaging rays of the sun, women seemed to enjoy spending time outside and getting the chance to move their bodies rowing across the water. The photographs and postcards below provide a sample of some of the images we have found in the archives features Oxford County residents spending time on the water.

Rose Patteson and an unidentified woman canoeing on a lake, September 1894 (1107ph, COA126 1.38)

Canoeing at Fairmont Park in Beachville (Oxford County Archives photograph collection)

Young men canoeing on the Thames River near Woodstock, Ontario, early 1900s. (PC 122)

People canoeing at Riverside Park in Woodstock, Ontario, 1915. (PC 42)

Women and a girl rowing a boat on the Van Norman Rollway near Tillsonburg, Ontario, circa the 1910s. (PC 43)