Theses (History)

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Reasoning Canada’s rights in immigration matters, 1867-1977: The conceptual labour of state sovereignty
(2025) Lu, Wenjuan; Marks, Lynne Sorrel; Lepp, Annalee E.
This dissertation investigates how parliamentarians reasoned Canada’s rights in immigration matters, including admission, exclusion, and deportation. I look at parliamentary debates over immigration from 1867 to 1977, with an eye to discerning the patterns of lawmakers’ thinking on the “right” question. My finding is that they developed multiple lines of reasoning over the decades. Critics and defenders shared some metalogics, including assumptions about Canada’s territorial ownership and its power over Indigenous peoples, international law, imperial policy and interest, and governing principle. In addition, critics mobilized citizenship right, and defenders reasoned with autonomy, the British North America Act, and sovereignty. Furthermore, to understand the historical significance of the “right” debates, I examine them in relation to Canada’s construction of its state sovereignty. Using an integrated analytical framework, I study how legislators’ modes of thinking intersected with Canada’s sovereignty project vis-à-vis Britain, the international society of sovereign states, and Indigenous nations. The integrated framework illuminates the ripple effects of lawmakers’ lines of reasoning and the cross-pollination of ideas amongst the three strands of Canada’s sovereignty enterprise. My argument is that in reasoning the “right” question, parliamentarians performed sustained conceptual labour that moved forward Canada’s braided sovereignty project.
Julius Evola and mytho-reactionary politics in 20th century Italy
(2025) Calvert, Sean; Biddiscombe, Alexander Perry
Italian esotericist Julius Evola (1898-1974) developed a philosophy centered on the Primordial Tradition, from which he derived a significant social and political philosophy that firmly rejected modernity, liberalism, egalitarianism, democracy, Marxism, and progress. The formation of his philosophy coincided with the rise of Fascism and National Socialism, which he unsuccessfully attempted to steer in a Traditionalist direction. His impact extended into the post-war period with Italian neofascists, who aimed to integrate aspects of Evola’s philosophy into their own. Evola’s connections with fascists, neofascists, and other far-right groups, both historically and currently, often categorize him within the fascist camp. However, a closer examination of his philosophy reveals that it is distinct and aligns with the lesser-known paradigm of political reaction, albeit as a unique strand: mytho-reaction.
Fathoming empire: Marine knowledge and colonial navigation in an Indigenous seascape, 1825-1906
(2025) Robertson, Jesse; Lutz, John S.
Oceans connected populations and markets to an unprecedented degree in the era of sail and steam, but intricate coastlines, dense fogs, powerful tides, and hidden hazards made marine environments potentially devastating spaces for the uninitiated. Seldom considered in recent scholarship, the navigational infrastructure introduced to alleviate such risks was fundamental to imperial efforts to incorporate the vast stretches of North American coastline to which the United States, Britain, and Canada laid claim in the nineteenth century. This dissertation presents a new history of waterborne colonialism in the Northeastern Pacific, including coastal waters from the Columbia River to Haida Gwaii. Where previous scholars have examined naval power and marine harvesting, this study innovates by focusing on the exchange of navigational knowledge and practices between Indigenous and colonial mariners in what became known as the “Graveyard of the Pacific.” The earliest European and American mariners to arrive on this uncharted and treacherous coast understood better than most that “knowledge is power.” The opposite is also true, however. Geographic ignorance shaped and restricted the unfolding of colonialism in coastal spaces that were often illegible to newcomers. This project looks past received narratives of “exploration” to evaluate four stages in imperial efforts to “fathom” the coast: early voyages of reconnaissance, hydrographic charting, the lighthouse service, and marine lifesaving, arguing that Indigenous knowledge, labour, and technologies underpinned the success of colonial navigation at every turn. By revealing how these interventions allowed colonialism to take hold and thrive, “Fathoming Empire” exposes the long-term consequences of maritime imperialism while showing how colonial aspirations were modified according to local circumstances and Indigenous agendas. In doing so, it provides a crucial historical perspective on recent Indigenous assertions of jurisdiction over the management of marine traffic in these still contested waters.
Landscape with kitchen: Women and foodways of the Gàidhealtachd in the Western Highlands and Islands of Scotland, 1770–1840
(2025) Mackay, Theresa; Vibert, Elizabeth
This project brings to light a new way of understanding “the kitchen.” Examining the complex foodways of Gaelic-speaking non-gentry women of Scotland’s western Highlands and Islands in the period 1770 to 1840, the analysis presented here takes us far beyond the walls of the Gàidhealtachd family home. It positions the interior kitchen as but one component in an environment of spaces and activities that spanned the landscape from home to sea in an interconnected kitchen meshwork linking house-based kitchen spaces to diverse exterior “kitchen” environments. Through a meticulous analysis of foodways within this spatially expansive kitchen of the Gàidhealtachd, this project explores in detail how the kitchen meshwork that women developed demanded responsiveness and flexibility in the ways they gathered, produced, and prepared foods. Women laboured in the meshwork to create recipes and meals that both sustained families and in the process, expressed and propagated culture. The meshwork provided a dynamic ecology from which women could innovate and seek to mitigate food security risks when circumstances changed, such as during the major historical shifts of the long nineteenth century. Faced with sociopolitical and socioeconomic pressures resulting in land loss and loss of “kitchen,” and historical fractures including famines and evictions, diets changed dramatically and the capacity of the kitchen meshwork to provide food for people could no longer be fully realized. Women navigated these waves of change as their foodways taskscapes and seasonal rhythms were destabilized and they had to uncover new kitchen meshworks in their land “without kitchen.” This project demonstrates that historical events of the long nineteenth-century Gàidhealtachd were, in profound ways, centred on the kitchen meshwork and foodways, positioning women as prominent players in some of the most significant historical transformations in the history of the western Highlands and Islands.
"This delightful country:" Lansford W. Hastings' The Emigrants ' Guide to Oregon and California and the tradition of the California prospect in pre-Gold Rush travel literature
(2002) Peddle, Kirsty Joanne; Dippie, Brian W.
The pre-Gold Rush literature on California is marked by little variation in either content or form. From the earliest account, published in 1808, American visitors saw California as an earthly paradise in the hands of an undeserving Other. While historians have often attributed the repetitive nature of pre-Gold Rush travel literature to California itself, I argue that the forces that shaped early American responses to California are not found in California. hut outside of it. When Americans came to write about the California landscape in the years before the Gold Rush, they fell back on conventional ways of ordering the landscape that have their roots in the earliest moments of American colonization. By the time Americans began visiting California in the early years of the nineteenth century, a primary American landscape had been articulated in the pages of American travel literature generally. Rather than develop new aesthetic strategies for responding to California. these early travelers employed these traditional aesthetic responses to create a California landscape that was a variation of a larger American landscape. In California. American visitors fell back on to deeply rooted topoi to shape their prospects - the Paradise tradition and anticipation. Lansford Warren Hastings' The Emigrants' Guide to Oregon and California, published in 1845. included a seductive vision of California's present condition and future prospects. In placing Hastings within the context of the more than twenty works published in the United States on California before the Gold Rush, and within the larger context of the literature of American discovery and exploration, it is clear to see not only an awareness of earlier California accounts, but of a national tradition of landscape description. Using Hastings' work as the guide, this paper examines the creation of these topoi in the national literature generally and their specific application in the pre-Gold Rush literature of California.
"[A]n account of our capture and the most remarkable occurrences": The textual and cultural construction of John Jewitt in his Journal and Narrative
(1997) Eustace, Sarah Jane; Vibert, Elizabeth
The discourse surrounding John Jewitt's captivity at Nootka Sound by the Nuu-chah-nulth (1803 to 1805) is examined in this thesis. Particular attention is focused on the construction of John Jewitt in his Journal, purported written while he was a captive, and his Narrative, ghostwritten several later in 18I5. Drawing on the work of Stephen Greenblatt and other literary theorists, this thesis seeks to challenge the hegemonic status of Jewitr's Narrative as a window into Nuu-chah-nulth early contact life. By presenting other disparate stories of the capture of the Boston, the Narrative's authority as a historical document is challenged. It is argued that scholars must recognize the shifting and evolutionary nature of all historical texts. This thesis further asserts that Jewitt's Journal observations must be recognized a refracted through a masculine, English middle-class lens. Similarly, Jewitt's ghostwritten Narrative must be placed within the literary genre of the captivity narrative, and it must be recognized that its author's own conceptions of appropriate American masculinity substantially shaped the Narrative.
The British Columbia Cabinet's role in the Agricultural Land Reserve, 1973-1993
(2024) Dippel, Benjamin; Bryden, Penny
This thesis is about British Columbia’s government, the workings and evolution of the Environment and Land Use Committee (ELUC), a cabinet committee, and cabinet appeals regarding Agricultural Land Reserve (ALR) land, a provincial land use policy intended to protect agricultural land from development. From 1973 to 1993, the cabinet and the ELUC had the final call on whether land was excluded from the ALR through cabinet appeals from individuals, local governments, and the Agricultural Land Commission. This thesis looks at some of the decisions by the cabinet and the ELUC in this role. I argue here that the Social Credit government of Bill Bennett used cabinet appeals to make it easier for landowners to appeal to an elected body and to build. It is argued that Bill Vander Zalm’s Social Credit government used cabinet appeals to ensure that the development of ALR-zoned land enriched his constituents, the premier’s friends, and the premier. I also argue that the NDP governments of Dave Barrett and Mike Harcourt sparingly dealt with ALR appeals. The thesis is structured into five main chapters, beginning with the creation of the cabinet committee during W.A.C. Bennett’s last government in 1969 and ending in 1993 with the abolition of most cabinet appeals. Specific appeals are explained from Vancouver Island, the lower mainland, and the Okanagan valley. This thesis contributes to scholarship about British Columbia’s government and political culture, cabinet and cabinet committees, and the ALR; it does so in an innovative way by examining specific ALR appeals.
Pre-war factory relations in Stalin’s Soviet Union (1924–1941)
(2024) Russell, Christopher; Yekelchyk, Serhy
This thesis analyzes the rapidly changing labour relations in the Soviet Union from the period of 1924 to 1941. While the Soviet Union proclaimed itself to be a workers’ state, the legislative changes introduced by Stalin created continuously harsher conditions for Soviet workers. The worker-director relationship in factories is examined in this thesis, along with how important legislative changes impacted this relationship. Accounts provided by former Soviet workers, including a set of interviews from the Harvard Project on the Soviet Social System, are used to determine how the workers viewed their role in the Soviet factory and their relationship with their directors. Collaborative efforts between workers and directors were necessary, even when legislation forbade it, so the factories could meet their constantly increasing quotas. Despite the Soviet state at times mandating factory directors to be ruthless and distant from their workers, the workers often understood that the directors had no choice in how they acted, as they were forced by the Soviet state to enforce strict laws or face harsh repercussions.
Just Letting Her Rip and Hoping for the Best Didn’t Work Out: Raw Log Export Controls in British Columbia, 1871 to 1947
(2024) Lang, Dave; Lutz, John S.
Raw log exports from British Columbia have been a popular political football for more than 120 years. Governments of all stripes have denounced them while in opposition, but continued to allow them when in office. Whether and to what extent raw logs are exported is determined by the balance of power between government, capital, and public opinion. Government, motivated perhaps by public opinion, perhaps by concern for the long-term benefit of British Columbians, has introduced some modest raw log export controls, found a politically and economically acceptable balance between allowing and restricting raw log exports, and worked diligently to keep the issue quiet. Capital has fought for the right to export logs as it sees fit. The public, guided by a sense that exporting natural resources in their raw state is no way to build an economy, has consistently opposed the practice. The result has been more than a century of a three-way tug of war which has left none of the stakeholders particularly pleased.
Terror and the new man: Belief, performance, and atomization in Stalin's Soviet Union
(2024) Goldstein, Abby; Yekelchyk, Serhy
When the Bolshevik Party of the Soviet Union came to power following the 1917 October Revolution, the revolutionaries aimed not only to reinvent the political and economic systems of what had been the Russian Empire, but also to reshape the people into ideologically committed “New Men”; a reshaping which took place against a backdrop of extreme violence. In this thesis, I examine the popular reaction to three instances of terror during the Stalinist period— the 1928–1932 Dekulakization campaign; the 1936–1938 Great Terror, and the 1953 Doctors’ Plot— to determine whether or to what extent such a transformation occurred and, more broadly, analyze the nature of the Soviet experience under Stalin. Using letters, diaries, newspaper articles, and government and police reports from the era, as well as memoirs and oral histories produced after the fact, I will argue that the reaction to each instance of terror was defined by the interaction between three interconnected factors: belief, atomization, and performance. While the Bolsheviks never succeeded in transforming the whole of Soviet society into New Men and many citizens accepted the official discourse only in part — most often because its elements contradicted either their existing beliefs and prejudices or their lived experiences — these periods of intense and often arbitrary repression had an atomizing effect as expressing one’s true opinions carried a significant risk of denunciation, arrest, and imprisonment or execution. Under these circumstances, the Soviet people learned to perform as New Men for their own protection, a practice which in turn produced further atomization and prevented concerted resistance.
Doll tomorrow parties: The origin of transsexual glamour in balls and fashion and the adoption of the doll
(2024) Romano, Abigail; Sitara, Georgia; Cleves, Rachel Hope
Black and Latine femme queens and transsexual women have had a vital role in forming contemporary transsexual culture across race and class. One example of this vital role they have had can be observed through the concept of the “doll.” The doll is a type of transsexual woman interested in high fashion, nightlife, and glamour that emerged out of the predominantly Black and Latine ball culture. The doll, through its creation in ball culture and initial popularization by trans women involved in the fashion industry in the late 1980s, has become a concept of feminine empowerment among transsexual women. The continuing popularization of the doll has been mediated by the involvement of transsexual women involved in the twenty-first century fashion press. Specifically, the Spanish trans-focused niche fashion magazine of Candy and the New York style magazines of Paper and Interview have been significant in introducing the doll to the next generation of transsexuals interested in high fashion, nightlife, and glamour. The importance of the doll for transsexuals is demonstrative of the continuing influence that Black and Latine LGBT life has on the linguistics and culture of the wider LGBT community and the importance of ball culture to contemporary transsexual culture.
The great chain of being : racism and imperialism in colonial Victoria, 1858-1871
(1987) Zaffaroni, Irene Geneviève Marie
During the nineteenth century scientific communities in Great Britain and Europe vigorously began to posit theories about the biological origins of humanity. By the middle of the century, scientific racism was a powerful intellectual force which placed humankind in a graded scale of achievement and potential. Popular interpretations of these theories very often had little basis in fact, yet were asserted as being founded upon scientific truth. This thesis will argue that ideas of scientific racism were brought by colonists from abroad to Victoria and formed the basis of race relations during the colonial era (1858 - 1871). This study will show that in the social, political and economic spheres of colonial life in Victoria, non-white residents, specifically Indians, Blacks and Chinese, were subjected to intense and persistent racial prejudice that had its roots in the scientific speculation of the day. Furthermore, the institutionalization of racism was so powerful and pervasive as to withstand all attempts by racial minorities to achieve equality. Indians, Blacks and Chinese differed in their challenges to this illiberality, but, ultimately, they all were unsuccessful. Finally, it will be made evident that there was a direct , if not explicit J ink between scientific racism and imperialism. Racism justified British territorial expansion and the attendant subjugation of "inferior" races. In Victoria, this pattern of colonialism precipitated hostility towards the Indians, Blacks and Chinese. These non-white colonists challenged the hegemony of the Anglo-Saxon race and were thus seen as and impediment to Progress, a euphemism for territorial expansion in general and racism in particular.
Eugenics, insanity and feeblemindedness : British Columbia's sterilization policy from 1933-1943
(1995) Wosilius, Monica
This thesis looks at the people who were sterilized from British Columbia's Provincial Mental Hospital, Essondale, pursuant to British Columbia's 1933 sterilization act. This study examines the early period of sterilization policy from 1933-1943. In particular, this thesis looks at how patients, their families, physicians, and social welfare workers all were involved in the implementation of social policy. Sterilization resulted from the culmination of numerous inter-related issues such as eugenics, morality, medical practices and perceptions of proper motherhood. Issues of race, class, gender and sexuality contributed to the discourses of insanity and feeblemindedness and led to the selection of sterilization candidates. Proponents of the social control model have argued that physicians and middle-class reformers attempted to control the reproduction of those deemed "unfit". These scholars generally have looked at a singular issue such as race or class in the social control of the lower and working-classes. Patients and their families are often portrayed as middle-class reformers. Even though sterilization was a social control policy, implemented in order to preserve racial hygiene through selective breeding, patients and their families, at times, were able to negotiate, redefine and/or reject sterilization policy. Thus a more nuanced approach is taken in the analysis of patient case files that includes issues of race, class, gender and sexuality. Furthermore, generational and gender conflict within and between various social groups is examined in order to show that families did not always share similar interests. Implementation of sterilization policy required compromise and a flexible notion of existing social welfare policies on the part of mental health professionals, patients, and their families.
Thomas Henry Huxley and the problems of the relation between nature, evolution and ethics
(1970) Wiwcharuck, Wayne Allen
The purpose of this paper is to trace the development of the ethical and scientific philosophies of Thomas Henry Huxley (1825-1895). Most studies of Huxley's life have tended to ignore this problem, either because of the authors concerned did not realize that development had occurred, or because they were interested in other aspects of his life. I have relied primarily upon Huxley's essays and personal letters as my main source material. By studying his correspondence in essays in chronological order, I have been able to discover much evidence that his ethical and scientific views underwent several transitions. The first chapter of this study provides a brief sketch of the development of science - mostly in England - in this eighteenth and the first half of the nineteenth centuries. Emphasis is placed on geology and biology, because it was in these fields that the groundwork was laid for the Origin of Species. One can detect a gravitation away from the traditional faith in the Bible as the final authority in science, to one in which the scientists independently form their own hypotheses based on empirical evidence. The popularity of science increases enormously among all strata of society - especially in the first half of the nineteenth century - and there is a corresponding weakening of religious convictions, particularly where traditional Christian beliefs sought to replace the worship of God with the worship of humanity, and to put science in the place of religion. Huxley could not imagine a more pathetic object of worship the positivists could have the man. One conclusion of this study is that Huxley - although he was the most outstanding defender of Darwin's evolutionary hypothesis - was opposed to practically every system that applied the concepts of biological evolution to man as a social being. In effect, he was thoroughly saturated with the Christian ethic, although he rejected all Christian dogma. Even though he was the champion of science and Darwinian evolution, his basic evangelical-style moral code would not permit him to subscribe to Social-Darwinism or the replacement of religion with the worship positivists had for science and man. The main conclusion of this study is that Huxley's ethical and scientific views were not static throughout his life they went through several phases. It seems certain, however, that Huxley never found a philosophy that was deeply satisfying. At the end of his life, he could only recommend what Voltaire's Candide had said; "il faut cultiver notre jardin": the profundities of life are beyond our comprehension; all we can do is work at our respective vocations and accept what life brings our way.
Meanings of schooling : cultural interpretations of Pictou Academy in the nineteenth century
(1995) Wood, B. Anne (Beatrice Anne)
Cultural interpretations of nineteenth-century schooling, it is argued in this study, provide a more sophisticated analysis of historical evidence than the whig or even sociological interpretations of the distant and more recent past. Using the wealth of historical evidence concerning Pictou Academy, the six chapters guide the reader into this new form of understanding. The thesis argues that this cultural approach to the discipline of history will lead to a clearer understanding of the power of professional rhetoric to order social policy, to discipline society, and to impose professional values within institutional forms, in short, a more complex understanding of the relationship of schooling to power.
The Franco-Ottoman alliance of the 16th century : the European diplomatic context
(1986) Witzel, Morgen L.
This thesis presents an examination of the Franco-Ottoman alliance of 1525 within the context of European diplomacy in the sixteenth century. As such, it deals with an event that has often been misunderstood or ignored, and attempts to assign it a place in modern historical understanding of that period. The thesis explores the development of the alliance and the direct connection between the two principals, France and the Ottoman empire, and then examines the effects of the alliance upon politics and diplomacy elsewhere in Europe at the time. Historical accounts of the alliance to this point are inconsistent. Christian and liberal influences have badly distorted reporting of both the Ottoman empire and the empire's relations with western Europe. Traditional historical accounts of the alliance depict Francis I of France "calling in" the Ottomans to assist him in his struggle with the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, and then attempting to repudiate the Ottomans when he no longer needed their assistance. Many writers are at a loss to understand how the Christian King Francis could have ever seriously undertaken an alliance with the infidel Ottoman. Despite his supposed reluctance to continue t he alliance, Francis is also widely blamed for Ottoman invasions of eastern Europe, particularly the campaign of 1526 and the defeat of Hungary. This false moralizing on Francis I and the nature of his Ottoman alliance has, as has been stated, produced a false picture of the alliance and its consequences. It is the purpose of this thesis to provide a new philosophical approach to the Franco-Ottoman alliance, one which will allow for a more objective approach to the alliance and its position in European diplomacy. The formulation of such an approach, a hypothesis concerning the means and ends of the alliance, is viewed as necessary before any further research on the subject takes place. The thesis provides first a chronology of the alliance from the first contacts of 1525-26 to the temporary decline of diplomatic relations during the French Wars of Religion. During this period, Francis I and Henry II of France pursued an active Ottoman alliance as a key part of their foreign policy. After setting out the course of events, the thesis then examines the effects of the alliance in the areas of Europe most affected by combined Franco-Ottoman actions: eastern Europe, including Hungary, the Mediterranean, Venice and the Papacy, and the Habsburg empire of Charles V and his son Philip II. Particular attention has been paid to timing, the exact dates of treaties, campaigns, and embassies, where earlier oversights and errors have led to many misunderstandings of events. Based on this survey, the thesis then concludes that the alliance was not, as has been suggested, an aberration or a historical event of minor importance. The kings of France and the Ottoman sultans pursued the alliance as a very important part of a general policy of containment against the Habsburg empire. Neither state ever went to war with the Habsburgs after 1525 without first seeking the other's goodwill and support. Through this alliance, other European states were included in what became the first modern European balance of power. The Franco-Ottoman alliance is considered to be of major importance in any study of European diplomatic, political, or military history in the sixteenth century.
Some aspects of the downfall of Huronia 1646-1650
(1974) Windsor, John
This work is an attempt toe lain the military collapse of the Huron people between 1646 and 1650. It commences with the description of a border skirmish between Algonquins and Mohawks which had some significance in leading to the peace of 1645. Following this and in the preliminary chapters, there is a brief survey of French, Huron, Iroquois relations and the economic factors that led to this long and savage war. The conflict actually began in 1642 and in the following three years the Iroquois had, in large measure, succeeded in blockading the rivers, thus preventing the Huron fur flotillas from reaching the warehouses of New France. In 1645, the French governor, Montmagny, managed to arrange a peace that held until September of the following year, when the war flared up anew. The strategy of the French and the Hurons, which was to encircle the Iroquois by alliances with the New Englanders to the east and with the Andastis to the south is discussed, as is the Huron attempt to divide the Five Nations of the Iroquois by a treaty with the Onondagas. Unfortunately for the Hurons these endeavours, though bold and imaginative, failed and in its final years Huronia had to depend largely upon its own resources. The country of the Hurons is described, as is their way of life and the type of villages in which they dwelt. Particular attention is paid to the fortifications of the larger of these villages, as well as to those of the Jesuit stronghold of Ste. Marie. There is evidence of French influence in the defence layout of the palisades and bastions in some, though not in all, of these fortified communities. The influence of the French priests is-also discussed and note is made of the fact that in its later years, Huronia was a country divided against itself, with the Christian and non-Christian elements of the population viewing each other with suspicion and hostility. In July of 1648, the Hurons suffered a grievous blow when the populous frontier village of St. Joseph was surprised and captured. This capture is examined in detail, as is also the capture of the defended villages of St. Ignace II and St. Louis in the following March. These blows spread panic and despair throughout Huronia and by the spring of 1649 the great dispersion of the Hurons had begun. There was to be one more military disaster inflicted by the Iroquois in December of the same year when St. Jean, a village of the Tobacco people, who were neighbours and close allies of the Hurons, was surprised and destroyed. The terrible winter spent by many of the panic-stricken refugees on Christian Island is described, as is the final flight of the few hundred survivors down the Ottawa and St. Lawrence Rivers .to the comparative safety of Quebec. Throughout this work the reports of the Jesuits from the fortress of Ste. Marie among the Hurons has been the principal source of information. In conclusion, the writer attributes the military downfall of the Hurons to a number of factors, the principal among these being a lack of discipline and leadership among the people, a sense of defeatism that seemed to permeate the whole nation and, finally, the deep divisions brought about by the introduction of the Christian faith into Huronia.
A chronicle of failure : gender, professionalization and the Graduate Nurses' Association of British Columbia, 1912-1935
(1990) Whittaker, JoAnn Magda
The Graduate Nurses' Association of British Columbia (GNAOC), following the professionalization agenda set by North American nursing leaders in the nineteenth century, worked. to establish control of nursing education and nursing practice. This control, granted by the provincial Nurses' Act in 1918, legislated only minimal standards of "approved" schools of nursing. Although the Association licensed graduates as registered nurses, registration was voluntary, not mandatory. Throughout the 1920s and the 1930s, the nursing leaders in the GNABC adopted strategies to standardize and in,prove the intellectual content of the nursing schools' curricula and to encourage graduates to register with the Association. In 1935, the Nurses' Act was revised and incorporated the improved standards nursing leaders had sought and legislated mandatory registration but limited it to graduate nurses working in the hospitals with schools of nursing. Nursing was an occupation dominated by women. Gerner, society's perception of the proper role of women, impeded the progress of the GNAOC. Nursing leaders had to compromise to the needs of others in order to have the legislation passed. Improvements were implemented, reflecting the changes in women's lives rather than the efforts of the nursing leaders. Progress in professionalization remained illusory.
The issue of preparedness in the Canadian army, 1919 to 1939 as reflected in the career of Major-General George R. Pearkes, V.C.
(1968) Whitfield, Philip Rodney
The issue of preparedness in the Canadian army between the First and Second World Wars has received relatively little historical attention outside the field of regimental histories. This paper endeavours to present a somewhat different aspect of the picture by approaching the subject on three interrelated levels. At what might be termed the governmental or policy level it traces the underlying reasons for Canadian neglect of the army from 1919 to 1939. At the second level, it examines the effects of the policies of the period upon military preparedness generally. Finally, it reveals how these conditions were regarded by an individual officer, the then Brevet Lieutenant-Colonel George R. Pearkes, V.C. As a Permanent Force staff officer between the wars, George Pearkes experienced at first hand the problems involved in creating and maintaining an effective peacetime army in the face of government and public indifference and even hostility. This paper shows that Pearkes' experiences and attitudes were not unique but were reflected throughout the army as a whole. The paper also attempts to make it clear that the causes of the inter-war military unpreparedness were beyond the control of any individual or government. Among these causes were the isolationist attitude of French Canada, the strength of pacifism after the Great War and the sense of security afforded Canadians by their country's geographical position. It is not intended that this thesis should draw any new or radical conclusions about the subject of Canadian military preparedness from 1919 to 1939. Rather, it is intended to present new, and it is hoped, useful material on the subject in the context of information already available from other sources.
Missionaries and Indians in Cariboo : a history of St. Joseph's Mission, Williams Lake, British Columbia
(1979) Whitehead, Margaret
In August 1866, a French Roman Catholic Order, the Oblates of Mary Immaculate, established St. Joseph's Mission, Williams Lake, to cater to the spiritual needs of the Shuswap, Carrier, and Chilcotin Indians. The development of St. Joseph's was governed by numerous factors, including the Oblates' earlier work in Oregon, which set the priorities of their leader s, the response of the Indians , the financial needs of the Church in the newly created Vicariate of British Columbia, and the impact of individual missionaries. Founded by Eugene de Mazenod as an élite order following almost contemplative rules, the Oblates met little success as missionaries in the turbulent Oregon Territory. Problems of interdenominational competition, conflict with the area's French Canadian ecclesiastical Church leaders, and the nomadic life-style of the Indians (compounded by two Indian wars) caused the Oblates undue pressure and frustration and se t the priorities of Bishops Louis D'herbomez and Paul Durieu, both of whom governed the direction of St. Joseph's Mission. The Mission opened under propitious conditions. Many Indians held pre-contact religious beliefs compatible with Catholicism; many were familiar with Church precepts through the teachings of native prophets, the fur trade personnel, and circuit missionary priests. Indian isolation from white 'civilization ' and the absence of denominational challenge were added advantages. The Indians welcomed the priests, agreed to Church intervention in Indian society and sought education for their children. In spite of these favourable conditions, Indian missionary work was long neglected. Two factors diverted the Mission from its intended course. In the face of a provincial, thus Protestant, educational thrust in the Cariboo, Bishop D'herbomez decided to provide parochial schools at the Mission for whites and Métis children. To help support his developing Vicariate, the Bishop also sanctioned Father James Maria McGuckin's vision to create a farm/ranch at the Mission to be a constant source of income. Both the school and the ranch succeeded but drained manpower to the detriment of missionary activity. Under the influence of Paul Durieu, St. Joseph's again became totally an Indian mission in the 1890's. Durieu's controversial "Durieu System"--which called for the creation of a totally Church controlled Indian society--was successfully implemented among the Indians by Father François Marie Thomas a man who appealed to the Indians and who was a devoted disciple of Durieu's methods. Cariboo Indian Chiefs welcomed Durieu's Indian Total Abstinence Society which supplemented their attempts to fight the influence of alcohol . A novitiate for Indian girls and an Indian school helped to fulfill the original purpose of the Mission. Bishop Durieu opened an Indian Residential School in 1891 to provide a Catholic educational environment. From its inception the Mission School was beset by problems. While the initial difficulty of inadequate staff was resolved by the use of members of religious orders, the problems of insufficient government support, white settler hostility and Indian reluctance remained constant. Nevertheless, the School persevered for seventy years in its goal of providing Catholic education for the Indians. In spite of almost perfect missionary conditions, the need to provide an education for white and Métis Catholic children and to supply a financial base for ecclesiastical projects throughout the Vicariate changed the direction of St. Joseph's Mission for over twenty years. From 1890, with the advent of a religious revival and the beginning of Indian education, St. Joseph's Mission returned to its task of Catholicizing the Indians of Cariboo and at last began to fulfill the original objectives of its founders.

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