Canadian History Commons^™

Performing Masculinity: Calgary Men In The Great War, Andrew J. Hawkes

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This thesis explores the masculinity of soldiers from Calgary during the Great War using a theoretical framework of hegemonic masculinity. The first chapter establishes a normative masculine standard in Calgary using local newspaper coverage of battalion departure parades. These events were rituals that celebrated militarized masculinity and reinforced the hegemonic ideal that existed across the British Empire in the early 20^th century. The second chapter assesses how masculinity was performed in letters during the war. Although men strove to embody the masculine ideal, their letters were not uniform endorsements of martial masculinity. The third chapter analyzes how hegemonic masculinity …

Matthew Bullock, Blackface And Belonging: Anti-Black Racism In Eary 20th Century Ontario Press, Rachael Edwards

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In 1922 Matthew Bullock, a young Black North Carolinian was arrested in Hamilton, Ontario having fled the United States following the lynching of his teenage brother. His deportation and subsequent extradition cases received significant attention from the Canadian and American press. Historians Sarah-Jane Mathieu and John C. Weaver have discussed the case in the context of Black community formation and the development of the Canadians courts respectively. However, neither place significant focus on how the Ontario press covered the case. In this thesis, I argue that press and legal responses to Matthew Bullock were informed by a Canadian whiteness shaped …

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

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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 …

Canada's Evergreen Playground: A History Of Snow In Vancouver, M Blake Butler

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The City of Vancouver is not as snowy as the rest of Canada; rain, not snow, is its defining weather feature. But snow is a common seasonal occurrence, having fallen there nearly every winter since the 1850s. This dissertation places snow at the centre of the City of Vancouver’s history. It demonstrates how cultural and natural factors influenced human experiences and relationships with snow on the coast between the 1850s and 2000s. Following Vancouver’s incorporation, commercial and civic boosters constructed – and settlers adopted – what I call an evergreen mentality. Snow was reconceptualized as a rare and infrequent phenomenon. …

'Gave His Life For The Empire': Memory, Memorials, And Identity In The British Empire After The First World War, Bryan Mcclure

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This dissertation examines the construction of personal memorials after the First World War across the British Empire nations of the United Kingdom, Ireland, Australia, Canada, and New Zealand, to understand how individuals sought to make their own memorial to remember their loved one killed in the conflict. In comparison to other studies on the construction of national or other community memorials, this dissertation explores how individuals accepted or rejected dominant discourses in creating their own memorials that spoke to how they remembered the war. It is based on a large database of more than 2,000 private memorials to individuals that …

Canadian Prisoners Of The First World War: The Struggle For Resilience, Grace Peeters-Rosien

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In the First World War, 3,500 Canadian soldiers were taken prisoner. Throughout their captivity, they endured intense humiliation, dehumanization, and abuse. Despite this, the men were able to remain resilient and even found ways to fight back. By using memoirs and letters written by the prisoners, this paper will analyze how these Canadians were determined to keep fighting. This paper will be using an analogy of a bank account to explain how close the prisoners came to breakdown, and how they continuously struggled to endure. Society and war had taught these men that prisoners were weak and cowardly, but they …

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

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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 …

War And Wilderness: Intersections With Patriotism And Masculinity In Canadian Second World War Alternative Service Work, Rosemary Giles

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This thesis shows how ASW work in Canadian wilderness during the Second World War offered conscientious objectors the opportunity to prove themselves good citizens to the nation, and good men to themselves. Conscientious objectors’ work in Alternative Service Camps is used to demonstrate how masculinity and patriotism were constructed within the camps. This thesis addresses the interactions that conscientious objectors had with wilderness, primarily through their work with forestry and fire fighting. It also addresses the construction of masculinity and national identity in the context of the Canadian wilderness. Furthermore, this work seeks to expand understanding of the conscientious objector …

Moral Subjects: The Girls' Friendly Society, Empire, And Modern Girlhood In Canada, C.1920s, Marshall Cosens

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In 1875, Mary Townsend founded the Girls’ Friendly Society (GFS) to reinforce in young girls the qualities of self-control, purity, and their responsibility to become dutiful mothers and wives. By the 1920s, the Society had established itself across the British Empire and promoted imperial unity through emigration, social service, and missionary work. In white, self-governing dominions like Canada, the organization played a pivotal role in shaping young girls through social purity campaigns and educating members about their imperial responsibilities. In the face of rapid social change, the GFS represented a conservative counterattack to shifting definitions of morality, femininity, and womanhood …

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

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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

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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

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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 …

Music Sounds Better With You, M Gillian Carrabre

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Electronic Dance Music (EDM) is a catalyst for creative expression, from the solo dance form known as shuffling, to “Flow Arts” activities (forms of self-expression inducing a flow state) like poi, hula hooping, orbiting, and gloving. Gloving is a subcultural practice and artform that couples LED lights with dexterous finger movements. It is a method of expression for dance music enthusiasts (also known as ravers) and has become an important component of the EDM scene, particularly over the past decade. Glovers engage in “secondary” performances to live music (DJs) using complex techniques such as symbolism, word painting, and what the …

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

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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 …

The Impact Of The Forest Products And Tourism Industries On The Development Of The Bruce Peninsula, 1850-2019, Paul White

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This thesis demonstrates the role of the forest products and the tourism industries as drivers of the Bruce Peninsula’s economy. This was the last wilderness region of substantial size to be opened for settlement in southern Ontario. The relatively late arrival of settlers to the peninsula and its commercial development is paralleled in the limited attention historians have given to the region. Consequently, this thesis also attempts to fill the historiographical void in academic research of the Bruce Peninsula.

The forest products industry and settlers both arrived on the peninsula in the late 1850s. This relationship was marred by conflict …

Muddying The Lens: Photographs Of The Canadian Expeditionary Force, Sarah Leilani Hart

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Over the course of the First World War 4, 507 photographs were produced by the Canadian War Records Office. These photographs were used as propaganda to promote victory overseas and were popularized in exhibitions, magazines, books, and other wartime ephemera. Produced simultaneously to this official record was private soldiers’ photography which is comprised of albums, scrapbooks, personal snapshots, and soldiers’ portraits and communicate a narrative that is both similar and disparate from the official record. This thesis examines the ways in which private and official photographs were formed and how they were used to communicate soldiers’ wartime experience. It argues …

Shell Shock In The First World War: An Analysis Of Psychological Impairment In Canadian Soldiers., Brigette A. Farrell

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This thesis explores the question of standardization in the First World War Canadian Army Medical Corps ideologies and procedures through a case study of fifty soldiers discharged for being medically unfit. In analyzing their service records, this thesis demonstrates that there was generalized diagnosis, treatment, and common experiences for Canadian soldiers being treated for mental health afflictions in the First World War. However, because of different medical ideologies, scientific-based beliefs in how humanity was hierarchically organized, the influence of class and rank, the impact of the opposing fields of neurology and psychology, and the need for military efficiency over individual …

Beyond The Barbed Wire: Pow Labour Projects In Canada During The Second World War, Michael O'Hagan

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This dissertation examines Canada’s program to employ prisoners of war (POWs) in Canada during the Second World War as a means of understanding how labour projects and the communities and natural environment in which they occurred shaped the POWs’ wartime experiences. The use of POW labourers, including civilian internees, enemy merchant seamen, and combatant prisoners, occurred in response to a nationwide labour shortage. Between May 1943 and November 1946, there were almost 300 small, isolated labour projects across the country employing, at its peak, over 14,000 POWs. Most prisoners were employed in either logging or agriculture, work that not only …

Depot Harbour: The Rise And Fall Of An Ontario Grain Port, Patrick Holland-Stergar

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This thesis considers the creation, commercial success, decline, and abandonment of Depot Harbour, a major grain port in Ontario. I argue that the rapid, early success of the port beginning in 1898 was only possible with the confluence of economic globalization of grain markets, the expansion of the grain trade and transportation routes in Canada, and ownership invested in the port’s success. The transfer of ownership to a national railroad left Depot Harbour exposed to the negative ramifications of consolidation and nationalization of the railroad system of Canada, which led to its neglect and ultimate abandonment by 1945 despite the …

Narratives Of Canadian Identity At The Ultimate Fighting Championship, Jared V. Walters

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The purpose of this dissertation was to examine the use of representations and symbols of Canadian identity within the event coverage produced by the Ultimate Fighting Championship Corporation, in the context of its two key events, Ultimate Fighting Championship, and Fight Night, produced in Canada. To establish the historical context in which the sport developed in Canada, a narrative historiography of the political and legal struggles that led to the legalization and increasing popularity of Mixed Martial Arts, and the UFCC’s version of the sport, in particular. This first major part of the dissertation is contained in Study 1. The …

The Grand Experiment: Jerome Dwight Davis And The Young Men’S Christian Association’S War Prisoner Aid Sports Programing For German Pows In Canadian Camps During World War Two, Courtney Hope Van Waas

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Jerome Davis, head of the Young Men’s Christian Association War Prisoner Aid program, was a devout Congregationalist dedicated to providing for the basic sport and recreation endeavours of German Prisoners of War interned in Canadian POW camps during the Second World War. Having worked with German Prisoners of War in Russia during the First World War, Davis firmly believed that WWII Allies the world over needed to change their generally antagonistic point of view towards German POWs, indeed, a point of view that required “moral revisionism.” Davis believed that the vilification and demeaning status of German POWs was not only …

An Environmental History Of Oil Development In Southwestern Ontario, 1858-1885, Robert Armstrong

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This thesis explores how the local population of Enniskillen, (including the towns of Oil Springs and Petrolia) Southwestern Ontario, reacted to the environmental consequences of oil development between 1858 and 1885. The inception of Canadian’s oil industry in 1858 subsequently resulted in the contamination of the river systems, the pollution of the air, and the creation of new hazards in the region. The pollution led to water scarcity, the odour of oil permeating the air, and the threat of oil fires. In order to continue living in the oil region, the local population adapted, either by normalizing the new conditions …

La Recepción Literaria Y Artística De Don Quijote En Toronto A Través De The Globe (1844-1936), Ivan B. Vazquez Clavellina

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La siguiente investigación responde a las preguntas: ¿Existió la presencia de Don Quijote en Toronto, Canadá? Y si sucedió ¿Cómo fue? Para poder develar las interrogantes se utilizó como fuente primaria la publicación periódica The Globe, impresa en la provincia canadiense de Ontario desde 1844 hasta 1936. El método de aproximación consistió en buscar en el acervo digital ProQuest Historical Newspapers información sobre la obra de Miguel de Cervantes. Las notas localizadas muestran aspectos sobre la presencia del texto entre los lectores desde mediados de siglo XIX, hasta las primeras tres décadas del siglo XX. Durante la búsqueda inicial, …

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

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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 …

'To Waffle To The Left:' The Waffle, The New Democratic Party, And Canada's New Left During The Long Sixties, David G. Blocker

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The Sixties were time of conflict and change in Canada and beyond. Radical social movements and countercultures challenged the conservatism of the preceding decade, rejected traditional forms of politics, and demanded an alternative based on the principles of social justice, individual freedom and an end to oppression on all fronts. Yet in Canada a unique political movement emerged which embraced these principles but proposed that New Left social movements – the student and anti-war movements, the women’s liberation movement and Canadian nationalists – could bring about radical political change not only through street protests and sit-ins, but also through participation …

The Myths That Make Us: An Examination Of Canadian National Identity, Shannon Lodoen

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This thesis uses Barthes’ Mythologies as a framework to examine the ways in which the Canadian nation has been mythologized, exploring how this mythologization affects our sense of national identity. Because, as Barthes says, the ultimate goal of myth is to transform history into nature, it is necessary to delve into Canada’s past in order to understand when, why, and how it has become the nation it is today. This will involve tracing some key aspects of Canadian history, society, and pop culture from Canada’s earliest days to current times to uncover the “true origins” of the naturalized, taken-for-granted elements …

Arrival Of The Fittest: German Pows In Ontario During The Second World War, Jordyn Bailey

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Over 35,000,000 soldiers, sailors and aviators, statistically one in three combatants, were taken prisoner during the Second World War. Some 35,000 of these prisoners were members of the German army, navy and air force, imprisoned in twenty-five internment compounds and 300 small, isolated labour camps across Canada. Once on Canadian soil, German POWs were treated with remarkable hospitality in lieu of their status as the “Nazi” enemy. Canada’s excellent treatment of German POWs was a product of many things: a desire to adhere to the Geneva Convention; concern for the well-being of Canadian and other Allied POWs in German hands; …

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

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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 …

The Pearl Of The Prairies: The History Of The Winnipeg Filipino Community, Jon G. Malek

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Canadian historical and national narratives often prize the creation of “White Canada” through immigration from European nations. Significant movements of people from the Asia-Pacific region often get left out of these narratives, even though Asian populations have been in Canada as long as white settlers. Furthermore, the growing body of Asian Canadian literature itself has developed a tunnel vision for East and South Asian immigrants, neglecting myriad other groups from regions such as Southeast Asia. While Chinese, Japanese, and South Asian immigrants have dominated immigration from Asia until recently, other groups such as Filipinos have long been living and working …

"For Weariness Cannot But Fill Our Men After So Long A Period Of Hardship And Endurance:" War Weariness In The Canadian Corps In The First World War, Jordan Chase

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My project explores war weariness in the First World War, especially regarding the Canadian Corps. The first section (legal, disciplinary, and medical systems) looks at the army policies, structures, and personnel in place to deal with morale, discipline, endurance, motivation, and medical problems. These structures served to 'measure' the problems facing individual soldiers and units, and attempted to address these issues before they became more widespread and intractable. Policies were also designed to mitigate emerging problems and to ensure that sufficient troops were in the line and able to perform their duties adequately. Unfortunately, these systems were often insufficient to …