Creating Colonial Pasts explores the creation of history and memory in Southern Ontario through the experience of its inhabitants, especially those who took an active role in the preservation and writing of Ontario's colonial past: the founder of the Niagara Historical Society, Janet Carnochan; twentieth-century Six Nations historians Elliott Moses and Milton Martin; and Celia B. File, high-school teacher and historian of Mary Brant.
Examining the grand narratives of colonial Ontario - the Loyalists, the War of 1812, and the creation of settler society - Cecilia Morgan argues that place played an important role in shaping memory and narrative in locations such as Niagara-on-the-Lake, the Six Nations territory at the Grand River, and the Mohawk community at Tyendinaga. Illuminating the pivotal role of women and Indigenous people in historical commemoration and uncovering the existence of a lively and interconnected circle of historians and heritage activists in late nineteenth and twentieth-century Ontario, Creating Colonial Pasts is a virtuoso study of history-making.
By:
Cecilia Morgan
Imprint: University of Toronto Press
Country of Publication: Canada
Dimensions:
Height: 236mm,
Width: 159mm,
Spine: 20mm
Weight: 480g
ISBN: 9781442648371
ISBN 10: 1442648376
Pages: 232
Publication Date: 13 July 2015
Audience:
College/higher education
,
Professional and scholarly
,
Primary
,
Undergraduate
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active
Introduction: Pulling on Threads: Unravelling Histories and Historians Chapter One: Books and Mortar: Janet Carnochan’s Historical Town Chapter Two: “To Turn the Light on the Other Side”: History and the Six Nations Chapter Three: “Among the Six Nations”: Celia B. File and the Politics of Memory, History, and Home Chapter Four: “Where Nature Had Joined Hands with Man”: History, Tourism, and Landscape in Niagara-on-the-Lake Conclusion: Mending the Threads of the Past
Cecilia Morgan is Professor at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, University of Toronto. She is the author of Commemorating Canada: History, Heritage, and Memory, 1850–1990s (2016), as well as Creating Colonial Pasts: History, Memory, and Commemoration in Southern Ontario, 1860–1980 (2015).
Reviews for Creating Colonial Pasts: History, Memory, and Commemoration in Southern Ontario, 1860-1980
‘Morgan’s study provides a roadmap for others to explore underutilized collections stored within the local archives across the province—eastern, western, southern, and northern—and their unexplored webs of connections. -- Ross Fair * Ontario History, Autumn 2016 *
