scholarly journals Dress In Upper Canada 1790-1840

Author(s):  
Hannah Milliken

This MRP aims to uncover unknown details of Canada’s early dress history in the lives of early colonial settlers in Niagara and surrounding Upper Canadian settlements between 1790 and 1840. This study explores the access they had to goods and services, their loyalty to the imperial parent nation of Great Britain, and their adaptability to the conditions of a rudimentary frontier. The central conclusion is that relationships to fashion and dress were remarkably sophisticated in early Upper Canadian societies.

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hannah Milliken

This MRP aims to uncover unknown details of Canada’s early dress history in the lives of early colonial settlers in Niagara and surrounding Upper Canadian settlements between 1790 and 1840. This study explores the access they had to goods and services, their loyalty to the imperial parent nation of Great Britain, and their adaptability to the conditions of a rudimentary frontier. The central conclusion is that relationships to fashion and dress were remarkably sophisticated in early Upper Canadian societies.


Author(s):  
Peter Holdsworth

Scholars have often assumed that the Upper Canadian social class system was shaped by a hierarchical and landed patronage system known as the Family Compact. Based on the views of Bishop John Strachan and Lieutenant Governor John Graves Simcoe, this Family Compact is viewed as a post-War of 1812 development and is said to replace the oligarchy that was in place in 1791. An examination of the Loyalist settlement townships, in particular Ernestown Township and the Cataraqui Townships, suggests instead that a mercantile aristocracy of patronage and wealth existed by 1791, including Richard Cartwright Jr. of Kingston, along with rural leaders such as the Fairfields and Parrotts of Ernestown. This study of a key and complex time and place challenges prevailing views on class and class consciousness in Upper Canada and refines our understanding of this society. Such an investigation is timely given both the seeming unwillingness of historians to fully challenge existing depictions of the Upper Canadian class system, despite their noticeable flaws, and the impending commemorations of the War of 1812. Using archival documents ( accounts and letters) relating to two Loyalist/merchant families (the Parrotts and the Fairfields) along with a re-interpretation of secondary sources, a new view of a “Merchant Compact” is explored. This approach encompasses the changing relations of the settlements in question (Ernestown/Bath and Kingston) and shows the importance of previously neglected figures such as James Parrott. More broadly, it contributes new layers of analysis to the discussion of class consciousness in Upper Canada.


2014 ◽  
Vol 24 (2) ◽  
pp. 114-155 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elsbeth Heaman

This essay explores the way in which rape was represented in Upper Canada circa 1812. It draws upon a broadly defined Upper Canadian print culture that drew upon and reacted against wider trends, especially those prevalent in the United States. Whereas American newspapers spoke openly of sexual violence against American women during the War of 1812, Upper Canadian sources tended to suppress any such discussion, for reasons that reflect profound cultural and political differences. Americans stoked a rowdy, popular patriotism that Canadians distrusted and sought to avert. The analysis of national differences is contextualized within broader changes in the ways that rape was constructed in the press and the courts over the first half of the nineteenth century, in ways that worked to muffle women’s public voice. But the War of 1812’s most famous heroine, Laura Secord, was not silenced. Writing almost half a century later, Secord challenged discursive conventions of gender when she had her say and made herself a hero. The final section examines how Secord and her early commentators interwove literary signals of danger and respectability in their published accounts.


Author(s):  
Nathan Ewen

Following the end of the War of 1812, there was a conscious effort on the part of prominent Upper Canadians to immortalize the deeds and contributions of the Canadian Militia. Hugely overstating their meagre efforts,  these figures claimed the lions share of victory for the citizen soldiers, ignoring the far more meaningful and significant effect that British redcoats and Indigenous warriors had in defeating the Americans. By creating this myth these prominent men, many of whom served in the militia, sought to enrich and entrench their positions in Upper Canadian society. Additionally, this Militia Myth helped form a new sense of Canadian identity (a specifically British version of it), that would be crucial in fostering a new nationalism that would emerge in mid-19th century Upper Canada.


1915 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 165
Author(s):  
William Renwick Riddell
Keyword(s):  

2019 ◽  
Vol 60 (1) ◽  
pp. 30-47
Author(s):  
Warren Swain

Abstract Some nineteenth century writers like the Scottish born poet William Golder, used the term ‘the Great Britain of the south’ as a description of his new home. He was not alone in this characterisation. There were of course other possible perspectives, not least from the Māori point of view, which these British writers inevitably fail to capture. A third reality was more specific to lawyers or at least to those caught up in the legal system. The phrase ‘the Great Britain of the south’ fails to capture the complexity of the way that English law was applied in the early colony. The law administered throughout the British Empire reflected the common law origins of colonial legal systems but did not mean that the law was identical to that in England. Scholars have emphasised the adaptability of English law in various colonial settings. New Zealand contract law of this time did draw on some English precedents. The early lawyers were steeped in the English legal tradition. At the same time, English authorities were used with a light touch. The legal and social framework within which contract law operated was also quite different. This meant, for example, that mercantile juries were important in adapting the law to local conditions. Early New Zealand contract law provides a good example of both the importance of English law in a colonial setting and its adaptability.


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