Waifs: The Fairbridge Society in British Columbia, 1931-1951

The Fairbridge Farm School on Vancouver Island represents the last gasp of the trans-Atlantic child migration movement. Between 1934 and 1951, the farm school received nearly 350 underprivileged British children. The scheme, which combined philanthropy and empire-settlement, was supported by influential politicians who allowed the Fairbridge Society to contravene federal immigration regulations and flaunt provincial child welfare laws. Child welfare groups, however, denounced the farm school as an anachronism and repeatedly tried to close it. The history of the farm school was characterized by conflict between an imperially-minded generation of child savers and a new breed of professional child care workers. La dernière vague migratoire d'enfants en provenance d'outre-Atlantique était reliée à la Fairbridge Farm School, située sur l'Île de Vancouver. Entre 1935 et 1951, cet établissement a accueilli près de 350 enfants britanniques défavorisés. À la fois philantropes et désireux de bâtir l'Empire, des dirigeants avaient l'appui d'hommes politiques influents qui permettaient à la Fairbridge Society de violer les règlements fédéraux en matière l'immigration et de faire fi des lois provinciales touchant la protection de l'enfance. Ils soulevèrent cependant l'ire de groupes œuvrant à la protection des enfants, lesquels dénoncèrent l'école parce qu'ils la considéraient comme un anachronisme, et tentèrent à maintes reprises de la faire fermer. L'histoire de cet établissement illustre le conflit entre deux générations de protecteurs de l'enfance, l'une d'abord préoccupée de l'Empire, l'autre formée de professionnels, qui se souciaient principalement du bien des enfants

Making the 1891 Census in British Columbia

Nineteenth-century census records, particularly nominal census schedules containing detailed information about individuals, have provided the foundation for many important historical studies. Little attention has been paid, however, to the enumeration process and to the construction of these schedules on which so much recent historical scholarship depends. The 1891 census of British Columbia offers a useful case study to explain how the Dominion census worked during the late nineteenth century and the early part of the twentieth century. As well, it reveals themes distinct to British Columbia’s history: the tyranny of terrain and the challenge of distance, regionalism and sectional rivalry, alienation from Eastern Canada, anti-Asian sentiment, and ambivalent attitudes towards Aboriginal peoples.Les documents de recensement du XIXe siècle, surtout les bulletins de recensement nominatif contenant des renseignements détaillés sur les individus, ont servi de fondement à bon nombre d’études historiques importantes. Mais on s’est peu intéressé au processus de dénombrement et à la construction de ces bulletins sur lesquels repose une si grande partie du savoir historique récent. Le recensement de 1891 de la Colombie-Britannique est une étude de cas utile pour expliquer les rouages du recensement fédéral à la fin du XIXe siècle et au début du XXe siècle. Il permet également de dégager des thèmes propres à l’histoire de la Colombie- Britannique : la tyrannie du terrain et le défi de la distance, le régionalisme et la rivalité sectorielle, l’aliénation de l’Est du Canada, l’intolérance envers les Asiatiques et l’ambivalence à l’égard des peuples autochtones

Geographies of sexual commerce and the production of prostitutional space: Victoria, British Columbia, 1860–1914

The essay considers the geography and economic significance of the sex trade in Victoria, British Columbia, a city that has historically associated itself with notions of gentility and images of English country gardens. The essay problematizes that image. Influenced by the spatial turn in the Humanities and informed by Henri Lefebvre’s ideas on the production of space, the production of prostitutional space is the focus of this piece. The essay discusses how and why space was demarked by local authorities for what Foucault called “illegitimate sexualities.” It delineates geographies of sexual commerce in Victoria and invites questions about sexuality in other Canadian and American cities, as well as other British colonial cities. This piece is a tentative step towards mapping moral geographies in nineteenth century cities and placing them within a broader temporal, societal, spatial, and theoretical framework.La présente étude explore la géographie et l’importance économique du commerce sexuel à Victoria (Colombie-Britannique), ville qui s’est traditionnellement proclamée bourgeoise, à l’image de ses parfaits jardins anglais. Cette étude remet en question cette image. Influencé par le « tournant spatial » en sciences humaines, et inspiré par les idées d’Henri Lefebvre sur la production de l’espace, nous nous intéressons à la production de l’espace « prostitutionnel ». En particulier, nous nous demandons comment et pourquoi un espace a été démarqué par les autorités locales pour ce que Foucault a qualifié de « sexualités illégitimes ». Nous délimitons les aires du commerce sexuel à Victoria et nous nous questionnons sur la sexualité dans d’autres villes canadiennes et américaines, ainsi que d’autres villes coloniales britanniques. Cette étude se veut une tentative de cartographie des géographies morales dans les villes du XIXe siècle pour les replacer dans un cadre temporel, sociétal, spatial et théorique plus vaste

Sex, Charades, and Census Records: Locating Female Sex Trade Workers in a Victorian City

Prostitution was a prominent issue in Canada during the late nineteenth century. In many Canadian cities, female sex-trade workers resided in brothels located in so-called red-light districts. Although they were enumerated in every decennial census, sex-trade workers have been overlooked by historical demographers, urban geographers, and census historians because they used euphemisms such as dressmaker to disguise their occupation. Using Victoria (British Columbia) as a case study, this essay shows how female brothel keepers and brothel prostitutes can be identified on manuscript census schedules from 1891 and 1901 and how the records can delineate the geography of sexual commerce in a Victorian city. In the process, questions arise about the prima facie value of aggregate census data. La question de la prostitution était importante au Canada à la fin du XIXe siècle. Dans beaucoup de villes canadiennes, les travailleuses du sexe habitaient des maisons de prostitution situées dans les quartiers communément appelés de débauche. Bien que les travailleuses du sexe aient été dénombrées à chaque recensement décennal, les démographes, les géographes urbains et les historiens du recensement s’en sont désintéressés parce qu’elles se disaient couturières pour dissimuler leur profession. Cet essai, qui s’intéresse au cas de Victoria (en Colombie-Britannique), montre comment faire pour identifier les tenancières et les prostituées des maisons de passe sur les tableaux manuscrits du recensement de 1891 à 1901 et comment utiliser les documents pour délimiter le territoire du commerce sexuel dans une ville de l’époque victorienne. Durant le processus, des questions surgissent quant à la valeur, à prime abord, des données agrégées du recensement

Making the Inscrutable, Scrutable: Race and Space in Victoria\u27s Chinatown, 1891

This article analyzes the racial and social structure of Victoria, British Columbia\u27s capital city, in particular its Chinatown neighbourhood. The authors\u27 methodology combines the use of geographical information systems (gis) with discourse analysis, and devise a theoretical framework derived from the ideas of Henri Lefebvre. The authors come to the view that the community was extensively but not exclusively Chinese and a Chinese population that was not confined to Chinatown ; and further that the boundaries of race were not as fixed as they have often been assumed to be. . [IBSSRU - Quotes from original] Reprinted by permission of BC Studie

Dwelling places and social spaces: Revealing the environments of urban workers in Victoria using historical GIS

The Pacific Northwest underwent rapid economic growth in the late 19th century and cities on both sides of the Canada/US border burgeoned. The building boom was sustained by a large cohort of tradesmen and skilled labourers who lived in modest cabins, tenement blocks, boarding houses, and residential hotels. Most of these urban wageworkers were unmarried. They left few records of their experiences outside the job site or union hall. In this case study of Victoria, British Columbia circa 1891, we deployed a historical geographical information system (HGIS) to reconstitute the urban residential and social space of about 2,000 otherwise elusive working men. Our research framework combines qualitative methods that are familiar to historians and quantitative methods favoured by geospatial researchers. By integrating both qualitative and quantitative data, we are able to represent the multiple spatial conditions experienced by Victoria’s wageworkers in the early 1890s. In the process, we repopulated the city and reconstructed a largely vanished urban landscape. A primary objective of the essay is to demonstrate how gis can be used as a research tool and new epistemology in the field of labour history

“Tales and Adventures”: G.A. Henty’s Union Jack and the Competitive World of Publishing for Boys in the 1880s’

In the competitive publishing environment of the late nineteenth century, writers and magazines had to distinguish themselves carefully from potential rivals. This article examines how G.A. Henty’s quality boys’ weekly, Union Jack (1880-83), attempted to secure a niche in the juvenile publishing market by deliberately distinguishing itself from other papers as a literary, imperialist and “healthy” publication. The article explores the design and marketing techniques of the magazine, its status as a fiction paper, the high calibre of its contributors, and its aggressive rhetoric in targeting an exclusively masculine audience. It argues that while Union Jack was marketed as a niche publication, it eventually failed to distinguish itself sufficiently to survive in an extremely competitive environment

Review of \u3ci\u3eCowboys, Gentlemen and Cattle Thieves\u3c/i\u3e By Warren M. Elofson

This book focuses on the golden age of the ranching industry in western Canada from the early 1880s to the early 1900s. During that period large ranches were established in what is now southwestern Saskatchewan and southern Alberta, many of them owned by wealthy investors in England and eastern Canada; some of the spreads were managed by graduates of prestigious agricultural colleges. The owners, the managers and their families, and the cowboys they employed comprised a community that was cultured, conservative, and generally law-abiding. Warren Elofson doesn\u27t see it that way. He argues that the ranching frontier in the Canadian West was a rough, tough, lawless place. Ranching society in western Canada, he says, was like its counterpart to the south, deeply affected by its environment. The term environment is never clearly defined, but the author claims it accounted for the thievery, prostitution, the whiskey trade, gunplay, and other forms of disorder that characterized the ranching industry north of the 49th parallel. The Canadian frontier, he insists, does not deserve the title, The \u27Tame\u27 West. In asserting this view, the author runs counter to the scholarship of Lewis G. Thomas, the dean of Alberta history, of David Breen, and of other historians who have shown convincingly that the Canadian ranching frontier was comparatively orderly because of the influence of middle-class settlers from England and eastern Canada and the presence of the North West Mounted Police. This study suffers from what might kindly be called frontier envy. Elofson is clearly thrilled with accounts of range wars and hired guns in the American West and has gone to great lengths to find evidence of disorder in western Canada. In constructing his revisionist history he has drawn heavily and uncritically on The Range Men, a collection of anecdotes compiled by journalist Leroy Kelly. The Range Men was published in 1912, the same year as Zane Grey\u27s Riders of the Purple Sage. Still, this study is not without value. A rancher and an academic, the author provides good descriptions of cowboy skills and activities, such as riding, roping, branding, and cattle dipping. A chapter, co-authored with Joel W. Bulger, on the devastating effects of winter storms and prairie fires on early ranches is also instructive. The book is liberally illustrated with photographs from the Glenbow Archives