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Grappling with the GAPE: A Canadian Perspective

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 November 2010

Jack S. Blocker Jr
Affiliation:
Huron University College, University of Western Ontario

Extract

For a variety of reasons, the study and teaching of both United States history in general and the history of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era in particular should be thriving in Canada more than in other nations. Geographic proximity and shared language would advance this probability, even if the pervasive presence of American mass media did not. For students in Canadian colleges and universities, a combination of exposure to American doings through television and little prior academic opportunity to explore the history of the United States often whets an appetite for study at the post-secondary level. Interest in the GAPE arises — if for no other reason — from the fact that during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, both Canadians and Americans witnessed the emergence of corporate capitalism as a, perhaps the, principal shaper of their societies. At the last count in December 2001, Canada contained the largest concentration of H-SHGAPE subscribers outside the United States (25).

Type
Essays
Copyright
Copyright © Society for Historians of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era 2002

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References

1 Other inhabitants of the American continents tend to resist the powerful pull of the phrase “American history” because its excessive generality tends to elide the existence of their own national histories. In the rest of this essay, however, I will use “American” as an adjective to refer to things pertaining to the United States.

2 Cherny, Robert W. to H-SHGAPE, Subject: H-SHGAPE stats, December 16, 2001.Google Scholar

3 “Affiliation” is a peculiarly Canadian, semi-autonomous relationship, whose full elucidation would require more space than its relevance to the purpose of this article justifies.

4 I limited my investigation to survey responses, rather than examining university calendars, because of my suspicion that calendars may not offer an accurate guide to what is actually being taught.

5 Personal communication from Leonard Moore, December 27, 2001. Quoted by permission.

6 Personal communication, January 26, 2002. Quoted by permission.

7 Personal communication, December 12, 2001. Quoted by permission.

8 Personal communication, November 30, 2001. Quoted by permission.

9 Personal communication, November 26, 2001. Quoted by permission.

10 Sugden, John, Tecumseh: A Life (New York, 1998).Google Scholar

11 Kirk, Sylvia Van, “Many Tender Ties”: Women in Fur-Trade Society in Western Canada, 1670–1870 (Winnipeg, 1980).Google Scholar

l2 Cook, Sharon Anne, “Through Sunshine and Shadow”: The Woman's Christian Temperance Union, Evangelicalism, and Reform in Ontario, 1874–1930 (Montréal, 1995).Google Scholar

13 Warsh, Cheryl Krasnick, ed., Drink in Canada: Historical Essays (Montréal, 1993).Google Scholar

l4 Goodwyn, Lawrence, The Populist Moment: A Short History of the Agrarian Revolt in America (New York, 1978)Google Scholar, is the paperback edition normally used in teaching. The full-length treatment is Democratic Promise: The Populist Moment in America (New York, 1976).

l5 Personal communication, January 26, 2002. Quoted by permission.

l6 Leach, William, Land of Desire: Merchants, Power, and the Rise of a New American Culture (New York, 1993)Google Scholar; Benson, Susan Porter, Counter Cultures: Saleswomen, Managers, and Customers in American Department Stores, 1890–1940 (Urbana, 1986).Google Scholar

l7 The Historical Society of Permsylvania, All Aboard for Philadelphia!, 1995 (covers the 1890s through the 1930s); Nebraska, Educational TV, Plowing Up a Storm: A History of Midwestern Farm Activism, 1984Google Scholar; National Women's History Project, Women in American Life, 5 videos, 1988Google Scholar, Films 1 (1861–1880), 2 (1880–1920), and 3 (1917–1945).

l8 Personal communication, January 26, 2002. Quoted by permission.

l9 Personal communication, November 18, 2001. Quoted by permission.

20 Personal communication, December 27, 2001. Quoted by permission.

2l Personal communication, December 12, 2001. Quoted by permission.

22 Personal communication, December 6, 2001. Quoted by permission.

23 Miki, Roy, Justice in Our Time: The Japanese Canadian Redress Settlement (Vancouver, 1991)Google Scholar; Helley, Denise, Les chinois à Montreal (Montreal, 1979).Google Scholar See also Sunahara, Ann Gomer, The Politics of Racism: The Uprooting of Japanese Canadians During the Second World War (Toronto, 1981).Google Scholar

24 Book-length manuscripts based on research funded by SSHRCC grants are: Retreat from Reform: The Prohibition Movement in the United States, 1890–1913 (Westport, CT, 1976)Google Scholar; “Give to the Winds Thy Fears”: The Women's Temperance Crusade, 1873–1874 (Westport, CT, 1985); and a study of African-African migration and urbanization in the Lower Midwest, 1860–1930, now in manuscript.