History Commons^™

The Purpose Of The Electoral College: A Seemingly Endless Controversy, Marvin L. Simner

History Publications

Use of the Electoral College as the sole means for determining the outcome of a presidential election in the United States has come under repeated attack in recent years. The purpose of this article is to review the nature of the attack, the reason for the College as discussed by the Framers of the Constitution, its questionable early significance, and finally, a current proposal for altering its importance that appears to be gaining momentum.

In The Shadow Of The Atomic Cloud: Masculinity, Modernity, And The ‘Bomb’ In The Electoral Politics Of Canada And The United States, 1949-1963, Allen G. Priest

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This dissertation explores the impact of hegemonic masculinity, in the early Cold War era, on the electoral politics of Canada and the United States. It situates itself in the years between 1949 and 1963, arguably the height of nuclear fear, at a time when masculine ideals were adjusting to an uncertain postwar reality. Previous scholarship has established that the Cold War brought with it a retreat into domesticity, followed by an emergent “crisis” of masculinity. This monograph contributes to the historiography by demonstrating that the masculine architypes of the early Cold War are frequently reflected in electoral discourse. It also …

Quebec’S Uninhabitable Community: Identity And Community Among Anglo-Quebecer Out-Migrants, Evan A. Mardell

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

How do Anglo-Quebecers who have migrated to Ontario in the past 45 years perceive and negotiate their identity in relation to Quebec? Since 1971, 600 000 anglophones have left Quebec for other parts of Canada. This out-migration coincided with political tensions that influenced a complete economic and linguistic shift in power from English to French. The symbolic and literal reclamation of Quebec as a French province set the conditions for the partial erasure of the Quebec anglophone (Anglo-Quebecer) community and sense of identity. From a series of semi-structured interviews with anglophones who left Quebec within the past 45 years, I …

The 1980 Moscow Olympic Boycott As A Tool Of American Foreign Policy, Andrew Rice

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This thesis explores the United States’ boycott of the 1980 Moscow Olympics as a tool of American foreign policy. The Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan in 1979 which prompted US President Jimmy Carter to impose sanctions on the Soviets, including a boycott of the Moscow Games. The purpose of the paper is to explore why the boycott failed to achieve Carter’s objectives and evaluate what the President may have considered to substantially increase its success. Carter’s dealings with essential groups within the Olympic movement, such as the United States Olympic Committee (USOC), International Olympic Committee (IOC), and the Olympic athletes, as …

The Urban-Rural Divide In Canadian Federal Elections, 1896–2019 (Preprint), Dave Armstrong, Jack Lucas, Zack Taylor

Western Urban and Local Governance Working Papers

Using a new measure of urbanity for every federal electoral district in Canada from 1896 to the present, this article describes the long-term development of the urban-rural in Canadian federal electoral politics. We focus on three questions: (1) when the urban-rural divide has existed in Canada, identifying three main periods – the 1920s, the 1960s, and 1993–present – in which the urban-rural cleavage has been especially important in federal elections (2) where the urban-rural divide has existed, finding that in the postwar period the urban-rural cleavage is a pan-Canadian phenomenon; and (3) how well urbanity predicts district-level election outcomes. We …

The Vine That Ate The North? Northern Reactions To Kudzu, 1876-2009, Kenneth Reilly

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Kudzu, Pueraria montana, is a perennial climbing vine native to Japan that was introduced in North America in 1876. With little awareness of where the plant could thrive, people across the United States grew the vine wherever they could. As a result, kudzu was not considered northern or southern. New Deal era policies centered around soil conservation encouraged the widespread usage of kudzu vine and discovered that kudzu grew best in southeastern states. This led to an increased association of the vine with the South. During the Great Migration and with the vine’s growing reputation as an invasive species, …

‘Phantom Limb’: Russian Settler Colonialism In The Post-Soviet Crimea (1991-1997), Maksym Dmytrovych Sviezhentsev

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Where does the myth that ‘Crimea has always been Russia’ come from? How did the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union ‘make’ Crimea Russian? This dissertation shows how the they applied settler colonial practices to Crimea, displacing the indigenous population and repopulating the peninsula with loyal settlers and how Crimean settler colonial structures survived the fall of the Soviet Union. It argues that this process defines post-Soviet history of the peninsula.

For centuries Crimean existed within the discourse of Russian imperial control. This dissertation challenges the dominant view by applying settler colonial theory to Crimea’s past and present for the …

A Turbulent Chapter In The Early 20th Century History Of London, Ontario: The Debacle Over The Federal Square Project, The Acrimonious Debate Over The New City Hall, And The Scandal Over The Electrification, Marvin L. Simner

History Publications

Although the stories of the Federal Square Project, the need for a new city hall, and the London/Port Stanley Railway have been summarized on several occasions, the purpose of this article is to examine the largely forgotten evidence behind each story through use of material that appeared between 1911 and 1928 in the archives of the London Free Press and the London Advertiser. While these undertakings were initiated around 1912 and were largely intended to showcase the city and encourage its growth as a manufacturing and commercial business centre, the archival evidence shows that they also led to substantial …

Protecting The Individual: The Origins And Development Of Saskatchewan Conservatism, 1905-1944, Nolan Brown

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

It is commonly accepted that a political divide exists between Saskatchewan and Alberta. Both provinces share similar settlement patterns, histories, and economies, but there exists a perceived division in their political cultures between a “conservative” Alberta and “socially democratic” Saskatchewan. Whereas Alberta emerged from the Great Depression as the champion of “free enterprise” and limited government control, Saskatchewan experimented with state ownership and sought to dramatically expand Canada’s social welfare system. There is a willingness to accept that modern Saskatchewan’s conservatism has moved it closer to its western neighbour, but historians remain wedded to the idea that this conservatism is …

Charting Continuation: Understanding Post-Traditional Six Nations Militarism, 1814-1930, Evan Joseph Habkirk

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Until recently, military historians failed to consider First Nations military participation beyond the settlement of a particular region, including the end War of 1812 in Ontario and Quebec, and the post-Northwest Rebellion era in the Western Provinces. Current historiography of Six Nations military between the end of the War of 1812 and the First World War has also neglected the evolution of First Nations militarism and the voice of First Nations peoples, with most military histories including First Nations participation as contributions to the larger non-First Nations narrative of Canada. By charting the military participation of one First Nation community, …

The Politics Of Wounds, Jonathan Nash

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

What configuration of strategies and discourses enable the white male and settler body politic to render itself as simultaneously wounded and invulnerable? I contextualize this question by reading the discursive continuities between Euro-America’s War on Terror post-9/11 and Algeria’s War for Independence. By interrogating political-philosophical responses to September 11, 2001 beside American rhetoric of a wounded nation, I argue that white nationalism, as a mode of settler colonialism, appropriates the discourses of political wounding to imagine and legitimize a narrative of white hurt and white victimhood; in effect, reproducing and hardening the borders of the nation-state. Additionally, by turning to …

Separating The Sands: Karl Clark And Early Oil Sands Research In Alberta, Shane Roberts

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Karl Clark’s research on the oil sands had a huge impact on the province of Alberta. From the 1920s to the 1950s, Clark was one of few researchers who remained involved throughout the entire developmental period of the oil sands industry. Clark’s persistence and systematic experimentation led to the development of an effective hot water separation process which resulted in viable commercial development of the oil sands. Without his extensive experience and sustained involvement and passion for the project, the oil sands would not have been developed when they were. The sparse earlier historiography of the developmental period has tended …

The Happy Secret: Alexandra Of Denmark And Ireland, 1863-1925, Shawn J. Mccarthy

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

For many years the notion of Princess Alexandra of Denmark’s political sympathy with Ireland has persisted among her biographers, while historians have been much more reserved in their endorsement and aware that the historical basis for Alexandra’s image as a supporter of Ireland is very tenuous. Nevertheless, Alexandra’s supposed feelings toward Ireland have never been discussed in-depth and have rather been taken for granted as having been useful to her husband for a time. The origin of this affinity has never been fully explained, short of suppositions concerning her political sensibilities and similarities between Denmark and Ireland. What follows is …

J.E. Bernier And The Historical Record, Alan Maceachern

History Publications

In the 1920s, Canada developed and promoted a sector claim to the Arctic archipelago based on the 1880 transfer from Great Britain and on subsequent occupation, as expressed in licensing, patrols, and posts. The fact that in July 1909 the government-sponsored explorer J.E. Bernier had claimed the sector by planting a flag, indeed, the fact that Canada had him planting flags at all, complicated if not contradicted this narrative. This research note shows that Canadian government officials of the 1920s misunderstood or, more likely, deliberately mischaracterised Bernier’s earlier sovereignty work, and in doing so have distorted our historical understanding of …

Peace Dividend: The War Assets Corporation And The Disposal Of Canada's Munitions And Supplies, 1943-1948, Alex Souchen

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This dissertation is the first full-length study to explore how the Canadian government and military disposed of surplus munitions and supplies after the Second World War. By investigating how the state planned and implemented its disposal program from 1943 to 1948, this thesis places objects at the centre of attention and demonstrates their profound political, social, and economic significance. By examining the extended social lives of munitions and supplies in relationship to their postwar impact on civilian life, this study offers a new and innovative perspective that links material culture with postwar reconstruction, rehabilitation, and demobilization. What follows is a …

Building Canadian National Identity Within The State And Through Ice Hockey: A Political Analysis Of The Donation Of The Stanley Cup, 1888-1893, Jordan Goldstein

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

The Stanley Cup elicits strong emotions related to Canadian national identity despite its association as a professional ice hockey trophy. This strong link between the Cup and Canadian national identity emerged in its creation and donation. Lord Stanley, in addition to his love of ice hockey, donated the Cup partly as a political action. The cup stood as a physical symbol to unite the disparate Canadian population around a new national sport. Given Lord Stanley’s position as Governor General (1888-1893) this donation carried political authority. The purpose of this study is to investigate the donation of the Stanley Cup as …

‘First Among Equals:’ The Development Of Preponderant Federalisms In Upper Canada And Ontario To 1896, Daniel H. Heidt

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This dissertation explores how the Upper Canadian and Ontarian belief that their province could preponderate within Confederation impacted the dominion of Canada’s political development. It reveals that federalism in Upper Canada remained weak until Reformers recognized that their province could exercise preponderant influence in a federation where representation in the national legislature was based upon population. After this realization, Reformers increasingly believed that they could best serve their province and country by using their potential parliamentary preponderance to quash policy demands from the rest of Canada that did not align with their national vision. This was not, however, the only …

When To “Open It” Only Meant Untying The Pyjama Strings: Partition And Narrativity Gone Astray, Sarbani Banerjee

Modern Languages and Literatures Annual Graduate Conference

My paper studies how brevity manifested itself through a complete breakdown of language system in reaction to the animosity circumscribing the Partition of India. I look into Sadaat Hasan Manto’s selected Urdu short stories to demonstrate how the pared off pattern of writing coupled with creation of specific information lapses helps to project hostility in its denuded form. The dark side of language emerges through minimum clarification, where the unedited picture of gruesome carnage becomes the lone guarantor of informal accounts, generating perspectives that had hitherto been rebuffed by the selective versions of mainstream history.

Through his economization of words, …

"Ça Devient Une Question D’Être Maîtres Chez Nous”: The Canadiens, Nordiques, And The Politics Of Québécois Nationalism, 1979-1984, Terry Gitersos

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This dissertation analyzes the discourses produced by the selected newspaper coverage of the Montréal Canadiens and Québec Nordiques, two professional hockey clubs based in the province of Québec, from 1979 to 1984. Sport has long provided a medium for national identification, and constitutes one the most effective institutions through which the nation is imagined. This is especially true of Canada, where ice hockey has been celebrated as the country’s national game and a window into the Canadian soul. However, sport is a malleable institution; in Québec, hockey has long served as a symbol, speaking to French Canadian national identity, imbued …

He Is Depending On You: Militarism, Martyrdom, And The Appeal To Manliness In The Case Of France’S ‘Croix De Feu’, 1931-1940., Geoff Read

Faculty Publications

This article examines the masculine discourse of the Croix de Feu, France’s largest political formation in the late 1930s, against the examples of the republican conservative parties – the Fédération Républicaine, the Alliance Démocratique, and the Parti Démocrate Populaire – as well the Socialist and Communist left. The author argues, based on the François de La Rocque papers, the movement’s newspaper, Le Flambeau, the archives of key political figures, as well as the other parties’ presses, that while the Croix de Feu’s preferred masculinity was similar to that found on the republican right in many regards, the …

Botany Bay: Voyagers, Aborigines And History, Maria Nugent

Aboriginal Policy Research Consortium International (APRCi)

No abstract provided.

Federalising The Aborigines? Constitutional Reform In The Late 1920s, Fiona Paisley

Aboriginal Policy Research Consortium International (APRCi)

This paper considers arguments in favour of federal responsibility for indigenous affairs provided to the 1927-29 Royal Commission on the Constitution. Various humanitarian organisations, including women's groups, argued that the future of the Aborigines in Australia was a matter of national importance and was above state and federal politics. Constitutional acknowledgement of Aboriginal Australians as the original owners of the land would mark Australia's progress as a modern nation