Dress In Upper Canada 1790-1840

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.

Dress In Upper Canada 1790-1840

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.

Upper Canada Preserved

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.

Major John Richardson

Major John Richardson has been recognized as “the father” of Canadian literature as well an early historian of the War of 1812 but his writings, rich in detail and highly autobiographical, have not been sufficiently appreciated by historians as valuable historical source materials. Yet they provide accurate portrayals of contemporary Upper Canadian perceptions and attitudes similar to those found in the writings of the more popular Brock, Strachan, Mackenzie, Robinson, Baldwin, and Ryerson. Richardson also deserves greater recognition for his role as a Canadian patriot and nationalist. Despite living abroad, he consistently proclaimed himself “a Canadian”, and hoped, through his works, to “infuse” into the Canadian community “a spirit of National literature.” His writings reflect the pride and emerging Canadian national spirit and as such merit greater attention by historians.

Women, Marriage and Property in Upper Canada

This article explores how one illiterate woman in Upper Canada, Elizabeth Sanders, used the few legal tools that were at her disposal to deal with a bad marriage and to protect her property for her daughters. Her social standing, her property and, even more importantly, the support of her family, allowed her to have access to and use the very deficient Upper Canadian justice system to deal successfully with a bad marriage. This study shows that even illiterate women could and did use the law to their advantage.

Upper Canadian Thermidor

This article challenges the notion that the Family Compact was a self-interested clique who stunted Upper Canada’s political, social, and economic development. It argues, instead, that members of the group articulated a dynamic vision for the colony premised on the “balanced” British constitution, state-aided Anglicanism, and a vibrant agrarian economy led by a paternalistic elite. Of central importance to the Compact’s vision for Upper Canada was a longstanding conservative tradition that had its roots in late-seventeenth-century England, and was reinforced a century later by a multifaceted counter-revolutionary phenomenon that manifested on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean.

Contesting the Protestant Consensus

This article challenges the premise that a Protestant consensus emerged in Upper Canada by the mid-nineteenth century by examining the persistence of politically influential, dissenting evangelical voluntarists who advocated the secularization of the clergy reserves. State- Chruch efforts were strongly contested by evangelicals who had come to believe that the purity of their faith was marked by its independence from the state as well as its revivalism. Using the Toronto-based Christian Guardian, this article traces a clash between the British Wesleyans and the generally voluntarist Upper Canadian Methodists as they sought to claim the legacy of Methodism in the colony. Overall, this article seeks to highlight the persistence of an early dissenting evangelical culture, not as an exception to the rule of consensus, but as a significant influence in colonial public policy and a vital force in Upper Canadian Protestantism that calls into question the consensus model.