| Summary: | Despite its relatively small size, the Michael Condon collection will provide insights into the life of a - man who was driven by two obsessive and related ideas. Michael Condon believed in the self-sufficiency - of - Newfoundland through proper management of its resources. To that end he wrote and published The - Fisheries and Resources of Newfoundland (1925), a history cum almanac in which he expounds his - beliefs, while promoting the accomplishments of scores of Newfoundland men, particularly sealing - captains, government and business leaders. The collection contains material relating to the writing and - publication of the book, and to Condon's unsuccessful attempts to publish a second, expanded edition. - - His second obsession was with bled fish. He believed that if a fish was killed and bled soon after it was - caught, it would be of better quality than a fish left to die in the bottom of a trap skiff. To prove his point - he sent samples of dried 'bled fish' to a number of prominent Newfoundlanders, to the Governor, and at - one point to Benito Mussolini, Prime Minister of Italy. The collection contains reactions from these persons - to the fish, and material relating to Condon's attempts to promote his idea. - - The collection also contains biographical notes on a number of families from the northeast coast of - Newfoundland who were involved with the seal hunt including the Barbours, Roberts, Blackmores and - Keans, an article by I.C. Morris entitled The Resources of Newfoundland, a drawing of Condon's Patent - Trap, and miscellaneous correspondence and scrapbooks. The collection is enhanced by a small - number of photographs of Newfoundland men and ships and a number of unused Newfoundland - postcards. - - The Condon collection is mainly centered in the ten-year period between 1922 and 1932. It is illustrative - of a time when the public press was extensively used as a forum for one-sided, often fanatical, - outpourings of people who were prisoners of unfulfilled dreams. - -
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