Anyone who attended the University or who is interested in the growth of Canada's intellectual heritage will enjoy this compelling and magisterial history.
Born in Toronto to a Methodist family and raised in Wingham, Ontario, William Henry Jackson attended the University of Toronto before moving to Prince Albert, where he began to sympathize with the Métis and their struggle against the Canadian government. Jackson became personal secretary to Louis Riel, was captured by the Canadian militia during the 1885 Resistance, and was convicted of treason and sentenced to an insane asylum near Winnipeg. When he escaped to the United States, joining the labour union movement, he told everyone that he was Métis and modified his name to the Métis-sounding Honoré Jaxon. After a lively career as a politically radical public figure in Chicago - where he befriended, among others, the revolutionary architect Frank Lloyd Wright - Jaxon eventually moved to New York City to attempt life as a real estate developer. His ongoing project was to collect as many books, newspapers and pamphlets relating to the Métis people as possible, in an attempt to establish a library for their use. However, he was evicted from his basement apartment at the age of ninety. His entire collection was dispersed, most of it to the New York City garbage dump, the remainder sold. He died a month later, in early 1952. Honoré Jaxon: Prairie Visionary completes Donald Smith's "Prairie Imposters" popular history trilogy concerning three prominent figures who all pretended a native ancestry they did not, in fact, possess - Honoré Jaxon, Grey Owl, and Long Lance.
The discovery in 1987 of a supernova brought to world attention the excellence of Canadian astronomers. As Richard Jarrell explains in this book, the path to excellence has been a long one. Although astronomy has been practised in this country from the earliest days of exploration, its professional status has slowly evolved in much the same way as has the nation itself. In the period of exploration and early settlement, the practical needs of navigators and surveyors were foremost. Astronomical practitioners – for many used astronomy but few were professional or even amateur astronomers – came from elsewhere. Only when Canada was a settled colony, halfway through the nineteenth century, did its own scientific needs emerge. By the century's end Canadian astronomy, socially and institutionally unique and independent, had been established: astronomers born and trained in Canada worked in their own organized and funded institutions. In the twentieth century the story is dominated by the Dominion Observatory, and, in higher education, the University of Toronto. The federal government remained the biggest actor, in employment and funding, first through the observatories, then the National Research Council. The expansion of universities greatly broadened the scope of Canadian astronomy, while the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada, local clubs, literature, planetariums, and museums kept the public informed. By the 1960s Canadian astronomy, though small in size, was as sophisticated as any in the world.
In 1873, Henry Scadding, former rector of Toronto's Church of the Holy Trinity, wrote the definitive history of early Toronto. His detailed portrait of the streets, customs and prominent citizens is a goldmine of sights and insights into a Toronto long-since disappeared. Toronto of Old was first reprinted in 1966 and has been out of print since 1973. The later version, edited by Frederick H. Armstrong is shorter than the original, with Scadding's references to outside cities and characters shortened or omitted to give the book a sharper focus on Toronto. This second edition is an updated and corected version of the 1966 edition. The best history of Toronto ever written, "Toronto of Old" by Henry Scadding, has just been edited by Professor F.H. Armstrong of the University of Western Ontario ... Armstrong's editing, with his written reasons for a series of cuts, has made it a tighter and more informative book than the original. - Gordon Sinclair in Let's Be Personal
This first scholarly account of the Church of England in Upper Canada makes a substantial contribution to an understanding of the religious, political and intellectual development of British North America. The author examines the church's role as the colony's officially "established" church, the Anglican clergy's response to political reverses, and the eventual theological divisions among the clergy.
Few political leaders in Ontario's history have had as lasting an impact on the province, and perhaps on the nation, as Oliver Mowat, premier from 1872 to 1896. Under his leadership Ontario flourished economically, socially, and politically. Among the many political skills that Mowat brought to office, one of the most useful was pragmatism. He was able to establish a rock-solid style that appealed to a wide spectrum of the electorate: rural and urban, Catholic and Protestant. He was also adept at redrawing constituency boundaries and extending the franchise at opportune times. Margaret Evans's biography of Mowat is in some ways the story of a golden age in the province's history. During this period Ontario modernized agriculture and industry, opened the north, developed natural resources, addressed social problems, and accepted trade unions. Above all, it established itself as the dominant province in Confederation. This last was accomplished through a stubborn struggle with Ottawa. John A. Macdonald fought hard against Mowat's provincial-rights moves, and referred to the premier as 'the little tyrant.' But Mowat prevailed. The Canada that emerged was a less centralized state than Macdonald had ever wanted; the provinces had substantially more power. A century later, that legacy of diffused power has been at the centre of much of Canada's constitutional debate.
2016 Ontario Historical Society Joseph Brant Award — Winner • 2017 Speaker's Book Award — Shortlisted A man of two cultures in an era where his only choices were to be a trailblazer or get left by the wayside Dr. Oronhyatekha (“Burning Sky”), born in the Mohawk nation on the Six Nations of the Grand River territory in 1841, led an extraordinary life, rising to prominence in medicine, sports, politics, fraternalism, and business. He was one of the first Indigenous physicians in Canada, the first to attend Oxford University, a Grand River representative to the Prince of Wales during the 1860 royal tour, a Wimbledon rifle champion, the chairman of the Grand General Indian Council of Ontario, and Grand Templar of the International Order of Good Templars. He counted among his friends some of the most powerful people of the day, including John A. Macdonald and Theodore Roosevelt. He successfully challenged the racial criteria of the Independent Order of Foresters to become its first non-white member and ultimately its supreme chief ranger. At a time when First Nations peoples struggled under assimilative government policy and society’s racial assumptions, his achievements were remarkable. Oronhyatekha was raised among a people who espoused security, justice, and equality as their creed. He was also raised in a Victorian society guided by God, honour, and duty. He successfully interwove these messages throughout his life, and lived as a man of significant accomplishments in both worlds.
Dr. McNally critically examines well over 150 years of Oblate and general Catholic history in Canada's western-most province with special emphasis on the Native people and Euro-Canadian settlers. It is the first survey history of the Catholic Church in British Columbia.
These journals comprise one of the principal sources of information on early European settlement in BC and provide a remarkable and unique record of the establishment of Fort Langley. Although the journals record such day-to-day details as weather, trade, and visitors, they also contain a wealth of information about social and administrative life at the fort.