McCord Stewart Museum

The McCord Stewart Museum is at 690 Rue Sherbrooke Ouest in downtown Montreal, Quebec, across from McGill University's lower campus. It was founded in 1921 around the collection of David Ross McCord, a lawyer and collector who assembled Canadian historical material, and in 2013 it merged with the Stewart Museum, adding collections about the early European exploration and settlement of North America. The museum focuses on the social history of Canada and Montreal, and its holdings include the Notman Photographic Archives, a vast collection of images by the Montreal photographer William Notman and his studio documenting the 19th and early 20th centuries; the Indigenous collections; costume and textile collections; decorative arts; and prints, drawings, and paintings. The building was constructed in the 1900s as the McGill Students' Union building and has been renovated and expanded over the years, with galleries arranged around a central atrium. The curatorial approach is thematic and object-led, combining a long-term exhibition on Montreal's history with changing shows on fashion, photography, and social life. Collections are conserved in climate-controlled storage, and the museum maintains an extensive digital archive of its photographs. A visit typically takes about two hours, and the museum is a short walk from the Musée des beaux-arts de Montréal, the Peel Metro station, and Mount Royal. It is regarded as one of the main places to see how everyday life, dress, and communities in Montreal changed over several centuries.