The Past Speaks

HIST 1407 (Introduction to Canadian History Course)

1891 Election Poster

My lecture on Monday was called “Macdonald’s Legacy”. It dealt with Macdonald’s last election campaign and the problems faced by his successors between 1891 and 1896. The lecture ended in 1896 with Charles Tupper returning from London and assume the mantle of Prime Minister. The lecture on Wednesday was called “Laurier’s Canada” and covered the period from 1896 to 1911.

Laurier Speaking to Some Non-Voters

Next week, I shall be teaching about Canada in the Great War. I have asked the students to print out and read this document before class.  It’s the enlistment paper of a Canadian soldier who was pretty statistically representative of the army as a whole. He was unmarried, urban, working class, British-born, and he survived the war.

HIST 4165 (Canada in the Confederation Period Honours Seminar)

Our seminar this week dealt with the Province of Canada in the late 1850s and early 1860s. We read and discussed: W.L. Morton, The Critical Years : the Union of British North America, 1857-1873 (Toronto : McClelland and Stewart, 1964), 1-2; Bruce W. Hodgins, “John Sandfield Macdonald and the Crisis of 1863”  Canadian Historical Association Annual Report (1965): 30-45; Bruce Curtis, “On the Local Construction of Statistical Knowledge: Making Up the Census of Canada, 1861”, in Journal of Historical Sociology, vol. 7, no. 4,(1994). A student presentation on the life and time of George Brown was scheduled for but not actually delivered in this seminar.

HIST 5157 (Graduate Course)

In this week’s seminar, we talked about: Tomas Nonnenmacher, “History of the U.S. Electric Telegraph Industry”, EH.Net Encyclopedia; Daniel Walker Howe, “Texas, Tyler, and the Telegraph,” in What Hath God Wrought: the Transformation of America, 658-700; Richard DuBoff, “Business Demand and the Development of the Telegraph in the United States, 1844-1860” Business History Review 54 (1980): 461-477.