Kate Barker As news reports come in of scammers trying to leverage a global pandemic into profit at the expense of Canadians, it is an interesting time to examine the equivalent during the 1918-1919 influenza pandemic. Patent medicine companies and others in Canada plugged their products as influenza cure-alls in advertisements that were ubiquitous in… Continue Reading
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Michael J. LaMonica McGill University had the privilege of hosting the conference Before Canada: Northern North America in a Connected World, ca. 1000-1800 AD, this past weekend from October 25-27 in Montréal, Québec. Here, scholars from throughout North America and Europe came together to discuss, share, and collaborate on their research concerning early Canada. As… Continue Reading
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Congress of the Humanities and Social Sciences 2019 kicks off next week in Vancouver at the University of British Columbia. We’ve compiled a preview of the panels and presentations that may be of particular interest to those looking for “early Canada” at Congress 2019. Rather than reproduce the program material here, we’ve highlighted individual “early… Continue Reading
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Wendy Cameron In the 1850s and 1860s parties of assisted British emigrants arrived in Canada to work as servant girls. These young women paved the way for British child migrants now known as Home Children. Taken from situations of dire poverty by child savers in Britain, up to 100,000 Home Children were placed with Canadian… Continue Reading
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David Wilson This article originated as a paper given at the Canadian Association for Irish Studies annual conference at Quebec in June 2018. Think of this as an essay on the three sins of recycling history, reading history backwards, and misusing evidence. It concerns Jim McDermott, a Fenian firebrand from New York who enters Canadian… Continue Reading
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Patrick Mannion On October 4th, 1920, Irish-Canadian nationalist Katherine Hughes arrived in St. John’s, the capital and chief port of the Dominion of Newfoundland. Her objective was to establish a branch of the Self-Determination for Ireland League (SDIL) – a Canadian organization designed to win popular support for Irish independence during the peak of the… Continue Reading
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Michael Borsk When the Irish merchant Richard Popham found that his fortunes in New York had turned sour during the fall of 1826, he penned a letter to his acquaintance living in Upper Canada, John Large. “My mind is in a dreadful state of agitation,” Popham wrote. He confessed: “I have nearly made it up… Continue Reading
