The Canadian Historical Review Vol. 96 Issue 1, March 2015
Canadian Historical Review Vol. 96 Issue 1, March 2015
“I ask you, Mr. Mitchell, is the emergency over?”: Debating Day Nurseries in the Second World War"
Lisa Pasolli
Analyses of the Dominion-Provincial Wartime Day Nurseries Agreement (wdna), most notably that by Ruth Roach Pierson, have been embedded mainly in histories of the mobilization and demobilization of women workers. Viewing the wdna entirely within this framework, however, does not capture the full complexity of the wartime child care story. The wdna sparked wide-ranging debates around the country about which mothers deserved day nursery services and what purposes these day nurseries were meant to serve. Social workers, welfare agencies, private day care providers, child welfare experts, and local politicians sought to define public child care as welfare policy for poor mothers, as a fixer of social ills, as educational innovation, and as a woman's right. This article suggests that the wdna was not just an anomaly in the history of twentieth-century child care but also a program that served to magnify the currents of child care politics that existed long before the war and that reverberated long after the war ended.
"Politics and the Federal Principle in Canada: Newfoundland Offshore Oil Development and the Quest for Political Stability and Economic Justice"
Raymond Blake
The maintenance of Canadian federalism, and Canada itself, depends on workable relationships between its constituent parts that are able to secure political agreement through accommodation. This argument is developed by examining the dispute between Newfoundland and Ottawa over the control of offshore oil and gas from the late 1950s to 1985, which also became a subtext for the pursuit of economic security, justice, and equality for the province. Energy policy, including the offshore, was often a key issue in the fractious intergovernmental relations in Canada in this period, and this article argues for the inclusion of political actors as an important force in shaping politics and political decisions. While it does not ignore partisan divisions and issues of constitutionalism, the article makes the case that political stability in Canada also depends on relationships. As such, the article offers a unique opportunity to reframe our understanding of interstate federalism and redirect the discussion of politics and federalism away from constitutionalism and judicial review to the role of politicians and personal relations in federal-provincial governance.
“Come Watch This Spider”: Animals, Mennonites, and Indices of Modernity"
Royden Loewen
Historians have increasingly written the animal into the narratives of social history. Broad studies document how humans managed animals, related to them, and were affected by them. Many of these studies critique the separation of humans from animals during the rise of an urban, commercialized society. Collectively, however, these works also present inter-species relations as an index of modernization – the rise of the classically “liberal” society with its focus on individualism, technology, and unfettered capitalism. An investigation into the way Mennonites in Canada related to the animal kingdom can illuminate this social development by focusing narrowly and interpreting broadly. As an identifiable ethno-religious community, with a strong literary tradition and a historic, religiously informed, predisposition to rural life, a study of Canadian Mennonites reveals the evolving nature of inter-species relationships. This change is evident in an interrogation of their texts that pay special attention to such encounters. In particular, nineteenth- and early twentieth-century rural diaries reflect a traditional agrarian concern and respect for animals. Then, twentieth- and early twenty-first-century memoirs speak of individual ascendancy and an alienation from animals. Most recently, novels and works of poetry give voice to a nascent culture of resistance to animal subjugation. By happenstance, this series of texts reflects the sequence of pre-modern, modern, and postmodern societies, and thus it serves to illuminate those particular societies and the inter-species relationships commensurate with each. By writing the animal into the history of one ethno-religious community, a fuller understanding of how modernization was experienced at the local level is achieved, and in the process both this community and the wider society are interpreted. To study animal-human relations is also to study social history more generally.
Essai d'égo-histoire
Andrée Lévesque
Cet essai d'égo-histoire suit une trajectoire qui débute avec un goût précoce pour l'histoire, et se poursuit avec l'étude de la géographie, puis de l'histoire : histoire du socialisme et du mouvement ouvrier puis histoire des femmes, en Europe, au Québec et au Canada. Andrée Lévesque a eu la chance de pouvoir concilier son engagement politique et social avec son intérêt pour l'histoire, de lier l'action à la recherche. Ses propres travaux privilégient les sujets à la marge de la politique et de la société, pour révéler les rapports de pouvoir à différents moments du xxe siècle.
This essay recounts the path of Andrée Lévesque's scholarship, which began with an early taste for history followed by geography and then history: first the history of socialism and of labour movements, and then the history of women in Europe, Quebec, and Canada. In so doing, she succeeded in combining her political and social commitments with her love of history, and in integrating action and research. Her scholarly work privileges subjects on the margins of politics and society in order to highlight power relationships at different moments during the twentieth century.
Reviews
Recent Publications Relating to Canada
Brian Gettler
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The Canadian Historical Review offers an analysis of the ideas, people, and events that have molded Canadian society and its institutions into their present state. Canada's past is examined from a vast and multicultural perspective to provide a thorough assessment of all influences. As a source for authoritative scholarship, giving the sort of in-depth background necessary for understanding the course of daily events - both for Canadians themselves and for others with an interest in the nation's affairs - the CHR is without rival. The Canadian Historical Review provides comprehensive reviews of books to interest all levels of Canadian historians. Each issue also offers an extensive bibliography of recently published historical writings (including CD and video media) in all areas of Canadian history, conveniently arranged by subject.
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