Historiography of Canada


The historiography of Canada deals with the manner in which historians have depicted, analyzed, and debated the history of Canada. It also covers the popular memory of critical historical events, ideas and leaders, as well as the depiction of those events in museums, monuments, reenactments, pageants and historic sites.
Amateur historians dominated publications in the 19th century, and are still very widely read, and pull many tourists to museums and historic sites. They favored such themes as the colonial history, exploration, and the great contest for control between the British and the French. Professional historians emerged from the academic institutions, and typically were trained in British universities. Major themes in recent generations continue to be exploration and settlement, the British conquest of 1760, the independent emergence of a Quebec culture separate from both France and Britain, involvement in wars with the United States, and Canadian roles in the two world wars of the 20th century. In political history, Confederation remains a major theme, as do the political conflicts between ethnic, racial and religious coalitions. Nationalism has replaced the earlier emphasis on the very close links to British culture. Diplomatic history starts in the early 20th century, and for the post 1945 era emphasizes Canada's role as a middle power in world affairs. Economic historians emphasize the role of the St. Lawrence transportation system, and the export of staple commodities. Social historians have taken new perspectives on Indigenous peoples, women and gender, and multiculturalism. Cultural historians have paid special attention to the dominance of American influences, and efforts to sustain an independent Canadian perspective. Most recently environmentalism has become a topic both for specialist, and for generalists who use the Canadian experience as a model.

Amateur historians

Amateur historians, self-taught in the knowledge of the sources but with limited attention to historiography, dominated publications until the early 20th century.
The most influential of the amateur historians was François-Xavier Garneau, a self-educated poor boy who defined the essence of Quebec nationalistic history for a century with his Histoire du Canada depuis sa découverte jusqu’ à nos jours. The first edition came under attack from Catholic Church officials for its touch of liberalism; after he revised the work the Church gave its blessing. He taught the profound linkage of language, laws, and customs, and how the Catholic faith was essential to the French Canadian nationality. His ideas became dogma across Québec, and were continued deep into the 20th century by Abbe Lionel Groulx, the first full-time university professor of Québec history.
In Anglophone Canada the most prominent amateur of his day was William Kingsford, whose History of Canada was widely read by the upper middle class, as well as Anglophone teachers, despite its poor organization and pedestrian writing style. Kingsford believed that the Conquest guaranteed victory for British constitutional liberty and that it ensured material progress. He assumed the assimilation of French Canadians into a superior British culture was inevitable and desirable, for he envisioned Canada as one nation with one anglophone population.
Lovers of the past set up local historical societies and museums preserve the documents and artifacts. Amateurs are still quite important, especially as journalists write biographies of politicians and studies of major political developments.
By far the most popular of the amateurs was the Harvard-based American Francis Parkman, whose nine volumes on France and England in North America are still widely read as literary masterpieces.

Organizations of professional historians

Professionalism emerged after 1890 with the founding of academic history departments at universities, and the practice of sending graduate students to Britain for advanced training in preparation for a university professorship. In 1896, George McKinnon Wrong, an Anglican clergyman, introduced modern Canadian history to the University of Toronto. He launched the Review of Historical Publications Relating to Canada, which was the forerunner of the Canadian Historical Review. Professionalization climaxed with the 1922 founding of the Canadian Historical Association. The language became technical, and scientific, with an emphasis on gathering facts from primary sources, and avoiding grandiose patriotic claims. Women, who had been quite active in historical societies and museums, were largely excluded from professional history.
The CHA has a journal and an annual convention, and gives out numerous awards For the best publications. Much of the work is done by specialized committees. For example, the Canadian Committee on Labour History, publishes its own journal Labour/Le Travail and holds an annual conference as part of the Congress of the Canadian Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences.
Other topical interest committees include:
Much of the teaching and writing of the first generation of professional historians dealt with Canadian political history, or more exactly constitutional history. Donald Wright says:

The Conquest

has always been a central and contested theme of Canadian memory—as exemplified by an episode in 2009 when re-enactors were prevented from restaging the decisive 1759 battles in Québec. Cornelius Jaenen argues:
Historians of the 1950s tried to explain the economic inferiority of the French-Canadians by arguing that the Conquest:
At the other pole, are those Francophone historians who see the positive benefit of enabling the preservation of language, and religion and traditional customs under British rule. Scholars such as Donald Fyson have pointed to the legal system as a success, with the continuation of French civil law and the introduction of liberal modernity. French Canadian debates have escalated since the 1960s, as the Conquest is seen as a pivotal moment in the history of Québec's nationalism. Historian Jocelyn Létourneau suggested in the 21st century, "1759 does not belong primarily to a past that we might wish to study and understand, but, rather, to a present and a future that we might wish to shape and control."
"The Monument des Braves," begun in Québec in 1863, commemorated the Battle of Sainte-Foy the last victory won by the French in Canada during the Seven Years' War. It began a wave of commemorations that took place across Canada between 1850 and 1930. They were designed to create memories and left out the harshness of the British conquest and bring Anglophones and Francophones closer together.
Anglophone historians, in sharp contrast, typically celebrated the Conquest as a victory for British military, political, and economic superiority that was a permanent benefit to the French.

Loyalists

The Loyalists paid attention to their history, developing an image of themselves that they took great pride in. In 1898, Henry Coyne provided a glowing depiction:
According to Margaret Conrad and Alvin Finkel, Coyne's memorial expresses essential themes that have often been incorporated into patriotic celebrations. The Loyalist tradition, as explicated by Murray Barkley and Norman Knowles, includes:
Conrad and Finkel point up some exaggerations. They note that a few Loyalists were part of the colonial elite, and most were loyal to all things British. A few suffered violence and hardship. However about 20 percent returned to the United States, and other Loyalists supported the United States in the War of 1812. Conrad and Finkel conclude:

War of 1812

Canadian historian C.P. Stacey famously remarked that memories of the War of 1812 makes everybody happy. The Americans think they whipped the British.
Since the bicentennial in 2012, a steady stream of American and Canadian studies have appeared, and even a few from Britain. Old themes are covered in more depth. There is much more concern with French, Spanish, Native American, and African American sides of the story. New approaches centred on gender and race have appeared.
In a 2012 poll, 25% of all Canadians ranked their victory in the War of 1812 as the second most important part of their identity after free health care.
The Canadian government spent $28 million on three years of bicentennial events, exhibits, historic sites, re-enactments, and a new national monument. The official goal was to make Canadians aware that 1) Canada would not exist had the American invasion of 1812–15 been successful; 2) the end of the war laid the foundation for Confederation and the emergence of Canada as a free and independent nation; and 3) under the Canadian Crown, Canada's society retained its linguistic and ethnic diversity, in contrast to the greater conformity demanded by the American Republic.
In Toronto the "1812 Great Canadian Victory Party will bring the War of 1812...to life," promised the sponsors of a festival in November 2009. More specifically, Ontario celebrates the war, and Québec largely ignores it. Nationwide in 2009, 37% of Canadians thought Canada won the war, 15% thought it was a tie. But 39% know too little about it to say, including 63% in Québec.
The memory of the war of 1812 was not especially important in the decades that followed it. A powerful oligarchy closely tied to Britain controlled Upper Canada, and their criteria for legitimacy was loyalty to London, rather than heroic episodes in the war of 1812. As result they did not promote the memory of the war.