The Gauci Brothers’ Holy Land and the Value(s) of Ephemera

There is a longstanding Catholic history of materializing scriptural stories in experiential environments, from the Sacred Mount of Varallo in the late 1400s to Connecticut’s Holy Land, USA started in 1958. An untold story in this history of Catholic material culture is a traveling Holy Land miniature created by two Maltese immigrants, Joseph and Salvatore Gauci. Built by the brothers between 1914-25 in Edmonton, the model toured throughout the U.S. and Canada for nearly 40 years before being destroyed by fire in 1962. This touring performance included Catholic destinations and hosts, such as the 1926 Eucharistic Congress in Chicago, but it was also hosted and toured by diverse Christian actors, including dozens of exhibitions in predominantly Protestant cities. The circulation of the model and its creators raises questions about how religious materiality served as a site of Protestant-Catholic encounter amid broader social contexts of pervasive anti-Catholic sentiment. This analysis is grounded in over 100 local newspaper stories, as well as ephemera from the model’s exhibition that continue to circulate through eBay (e.g., postcards, guidebooks). Ultimately, the Gauci Holy Land illuminates several benefits of using eBay collecting as a methodological resource. First, an open-ended eBay search is how I first discovered the model, revealing it as an object of inquiry. Second, ephemera details are instrumental for contextualizing and filling in gaps from newspaper sources. Finally, these ephemera items are the model’s only remnants, which means their archival value far outstrips their commodified price.