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The 1900s Southwestern Ontario Sand Sucker Panic, Mary E. Baxter

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

During the early twentieth century, waterbed aggregate mining in the Great Lakes supplied sand and gravel for infrastructure development in the lakes’ shoreline communities. This thesis explores commercial dredging and its impacts at Lake Erie's Pelee Island and Point Pelee, and along the St. Clair River. The mostly transnational activity produced shoreline erosion that threatened agricultural operations, and sand suckers, the dredges that performed the mining, came to symbolize American capitalist exploitation in southwestern Ontario. Disputes arose over the extent of the erosion and affected relations between governments at all levels. Using government and business records, I argue that the …

Unsung Equine Heroes: An Analysis Of Equine Care And Management During The Great War, Emma E. Kuiack

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This thesis explores the use of equines by the British Expeditionary Forces throughout the First World War, particularly examining various aspects of war equine care and management. It addresses the significance behind the use of these animals in the war before delving into the reality of how equines were cared for in terms of farrier work, skin care and management, feeding and watering, as well as psychological understandings of horses, donkeys, and mules. Through the implementation of various primary and secondary source materials, this thesis considers care mistakes that were made and the corrections that were enforced to alleviate injury …

“Born Of A Spirit That Knows No Conquering:” Innovation, Contestation, And Representation In The Pcha, 1911-1924., Taylor Mckee

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

The Pacific Coast Hockey Association (PCHA) was a professional North American hockey league that operated from 1911 to 1924. With markets in Victoria, Vancouver, New Westminster, Seattle, and Portland, the bourgeoning league was a viable competitor to the NHA and offered a distinctive approach to the developing sport. Through innovations and rule changes, the PCHA made significant strides in player safety, in line with the vision of “clean” hockey promoted by the league’s founders, Frank and Lester Patrick. In turn, these innovations were represented through newspaper accounts from the period, which helped promote a modern, scientific, and highly-marketable brand of …

“She Was A Disgrace To Her Sex” : Prostitution And Moral Panic In London, Ontario, 1880-1885, Margaret E. Ross

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This thesis examines the lives and work of prostitutes in London, Ontario, from 1880 to 1885. The city’s sex trade was shaped by class, and women worked in upscale houses of ill-fame, disorderly houses, or on the streets. Prostitutes performed domestic and sexual labour in the same spaces, and their daughters often entered the sex trade, creating a multi-generational profession. In addition to class, a woman’s race and age shaped her experience in sex work and ability to protect her labour interests from local authorities. Sex workers increasingly became the target of repressive reform efforts from the city’s elites. Late-nineteenth …

Home Sweet Home: Domesticity In English And Scottish Insane Asylums, 1890-1914, Vesna Curlic

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This thesis considers the implementation of domestic aesthetics and activities in the insane asylum at the end of the nineteenth century. Doctors sought to bring elements of the Victorian home into the asylum as part of a modern, humane regime of mental healthcare, which I call “institutional domesticity.” I argue that this process was fraught with challenges. While implementation of domesticity was relatively successful in regard to asylum activities, like labour and employment, domesticity reached its limitations in the physical asylum space. Ultimately, this thesis demonstrates the ways in which all asylum actors, including patients, staff, community members, and the …

Welcoming Strangers: Race, Religion, And Ethnicity In German Lutheran Ontario And Missouri, 1939-1970, Elliot Worsfold

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This dissertation examines how German-American and German-Canadian Lutherans in St. Louis, Missouri, and Waterloo County, Ontario, constructed their ethnic identities from the outbreak of the Second World War in 1939 to 1970. Did German Lutherans understand their ethnicity as an identity to overcome, or as an identity worth preserving? What role did religion and race play in how they constructed their ethnic identities? It argues that German Lutherans in the Missouri and Canada Synods constructed a hybrid identity that sought to balance their competing ethnic, religious, racial, and national identities. It charts their experiences negotiating discrimination during the Second World …

Remembering Rebellion, Remembering Resistance: Collective Memory, Identity, And The Veterans Of 1869-70 And 1885, Matthew J. Mcrae

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This dissertation analyses two of the Canadian state’s earliest military operations through the lens of personal and collective memory: The Red River conflict of 1869-70 and the Northwest Campaign of 1885. Both campaigns were directed by the Canadian state against primarily Métis and First Nations opponents. In each case, resistance to Canadian hegemony was centered on, though not exclusively led by, Métis leader Louis Riel.

This project focuses on the various veteran communities that were created in the aftermath of these two events. On one side, there were the Canadian government soldiers who had served in the campaigns and were …

Neither Here Nor There: Northern Ireland, Myth, And The People In Between, Amanda L. Judge

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Northern Ireland is often portrayed in political, journalistic, and academic literature as having two main communities – Catholic/Irish/nationalist/republicans and Protestant/British/unionist/loyalists. This study argues that there is a Third Community in Northern Ireland that consists of political moderates, those who resist categorization into these two communities, and those who consistently defy traditional communal boundaries. Through an examination of primary and secondary sources, including political party literature, the press, web sites, poetry, short stories, music, and important academic studies, this community is depicted in great detail. It has a history and a mythology in addition to its own political ideals, symbolism, and …

Detective Policing And The State In Nineteenth-Century England: The Detective Department Of The London Metropolitan Police, 1842-1878, Rachael Griffin

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This thesis evaluates the development of surveillance-based undercover policing in Victorian England through an examination of the first centralized police detective force in the country, the Detective Department of the London Metropolitan Police (1842-1878). It argues that the Detective Department overcame British fears that detective police were incompatible with individual liberty and parliamentary democracy, making the English detective a familiar and reliable public servant. The Detective Department, which worked from Scotland Yard, was formed in 1842 in response to criticism that the Metropolitan Police was unable to successfully investigate homicide. This was a surprising development in a country where property …