North American histories of homelessness have focused upon the specific image of the “tramp.” Exemplified by Charlie Chaplin, Jack London, and various other popular representations in a variety of media formats, the tramp, hobo or bindlestiff is a classic North American symbol. This “tramp” is often represented as a young, white, heteronormative man, and many histories of homelessness focus upon subjects like him. However, newly accessible police, charity and census materials suggest the early twentieth century homeless population in the Pacific Northwest was more racially and sexually diverse than previously thought. Using a Gramscian liberal order framework theory, I argue that the tramp became a North American liberal ideological icon in response to a growing tension between the needs of capital for a free moving body of labourers and the growing panoptic state. By breaking down the tramp mythos and offering a more accurate image of turn of the century homeless people, we can see the ways liberal ideology has been twisted to justify incarceration, harassment, and exclusion. / Graduate / 2019-08-24

This thesis locates John G. Diefenbaker’s electoral triumphs in the general elections of 1957 and 1958 and his subsequent world tour within the context of the revival of Conservative nationalism in the postwar period. To make his case against a Liberal government that had been in power for twenty-two years, Diefenbaker had to engage the public in a response to political events based on an appreciation of an abstract and not quite palpable threat to democracy and a national way of life. He did so by harnessing the persuasive techniques of public relations and the new medium of television—a powerful combination that Diefenbaker knew could most effectively tell and sell a national narrative. The signature he settled on was the “New National Policy.” The choice harkened back to a discourse of Conservative nationalism that spoke of the antiquity of his party ideology and rediscovered the heroes who founded the nation. The “New National Policy” was a therapeutic ethos designed to assuage voters’ fears about mass consumption, continentalism, communism, and the end of empire: it ensured that the greatness of events and men of the past could guarantee the ideas and values of the present; it was gendered in its construction of patriotic manhood, exalted motherhood, and icons of nationalist ideology; it was transnational in scope; it told of a relation of cause-and-effect that resembled a theory of history more than a blueprint for public policy; it was fashioned to disarm critical analysis because it conformed to the structures and traditions of storytelling and the clichés of historical memory. This thesis makes three interrelated arguments. First, it argues that the systems of values and meanings on which Diefenbaker drew cannot be understood by analyzing his personal foibles or tracing his rise and fall through a series of events. Partisan narratives are built out of the dialectical interchange between warring political ideologies and are stories fitted to character, circumstance, and experience. Second, it suggests that Diefenbaker was a transitional figure whose vision, message, leadership style, and public relations campaign seemed to best fit the barely discernable dimensions of the political and cultural change of the immediate postwar decades. Finally, by examining resurgence of Conservative nationalism in the context of imperial decline, it seeks to show that partisan narratives in English Canada in the 1960s cannot be understood outside of the larger transnational contexts in which they emerged.

The intriguing parallels between musical and literary forms have long been a focus of musicological inquiry, particularly in recent debates concerning music’s narrative properties. However, parallels between musical and historical forms and processes remain under-examined. Indeed, while historically-based operas continue to be prominent in the repertoire, there has been little if any attempt to interrogate how the unique structural, temporal, and narrative dimensions of the operatic form might render a representation of the past that is unique in comparison to those in other modes. This dissertation takes up this issue, and probes it on musical and aesthetic levels, asking the following questions: Given recent inquiries into history’s creative nature in historiography, what kind of historical account does opera represent? What elements of historical experience, knowledge, or memory are accessed in these works? How do music’s temporal, dramatic, and narrative dimensions interact with what we presume to be the objective realm of history? And most importantly: Can these works be seriously considered historiographical in any sense? In this dissertation, I investigate these questions with a focus on Canadian historically-based opera specifically. Applying a hermeneutical approach that connects current threads in musicology, narrative theory, theory of the sublime, film theory, and philosophy of history, I define and theorize the powerful discourse that music contributes to Canadian historiography in six of Canada’s most prominent historically-based operas: Harry Somers and Mavor Moore’s Louis Riel (1967); Harry Somers and James Reaney’s Serinette (1991); John Estacio and John Murrell’s Filumena (2005) and Frobisher (2007); and Istvan Anhalt’s Winthrop (1986) and La Tourangelle (1975). The conclusions of this study are, however, not limited to this repertoire. Rather they are applicable to the canon of historically-based works as a whole, and speak directly to some of the most critical and current aesthetic issues in musicology and historiography. As an art form that reopens the space between past and present by reaffirming history’s subjective and temporal nature, and by exploring the ephemerality it shares with living memory, opera validates itself as a truly distinct historiographical mode.

This thesis locates John G. Diefenbaker’s electoral triumphs in the general elections of 1957 and 1958 and his subsequent world tour within the context of the revival of Conservative nationalism in the postwar period. To make his case against a Liberal government that had been in power for twenty-two years, Diefenbaker had to engage the public in a response to political events based on an appreciation of an abstract and not quite palpable threat to democracy and a national way of life. He did so by harnessing the persuasive techniques of public relations and the new medium of television—a powerful combination that Diefenbaker knew could most effectively tell and sell a national narrative. The signature he settled on was the “New National Policy.” The choice harkened back to a discourse of Conservative nationalism that spoke of the antiquity of his party ideology and rediscovered the heroes who founded the nation. The “New National Policy” was a therapeutic ethos designed to assuage voters’ fears about mass consumption, continentalism, communism, and the end of empire: it ensured that the greatness of events and men of the past could guarantee the ideas and values of the present; it was gendered in its construction of patriotic manhood, exalted motherhood, and icons of nationalist ideology; it was transnational in scope; it told of a relation of cause-and-effect that resembled a theory of history more than a blueprint for public policy; it was fashioned to disarm critical analysis because it conformed to the structures and traditions of storytelling and the clichés of historical memory. This thesis makes three interrelated arguments. First, it argues that the systems of values and meanings on which Diefenbaker drew cannot be understood by analyzing his personal foibles or tracing his rise and fall through a series of events. Partisan narratives are built out of the dialectical interchange between warring political ideologies and are stories fitted to character, circumstance, and experience. Second, it suggests that Diefenbaker was a transitional figure whose vision, message, leadership style, and public relations campaign seemed to best fit the barely discernable dimensions of the political and cultural change of the immediate postwar decades. Finally, by examining resurgence of Conservative nationalism in the context of imperial decline, it seeks to show that partisan narratives in English Canada in the 1960s cannot be understood outside of the larger transnational contexts in which they emerged.

The intriguing parallels between musical and literary forms have long been a focus of musicological inquiry, particularly in recent debates concerning music’s narrative properties. However, parallels between musical and historical forms and processes remain under-examined. Indeed, while historically-based operas continue to be prominent in the repertoire, there has been little if any attempt to interrogate how the unique structural, temporal, and narrative dimensions of the operatic form might render a representation of the past that is unique in comparison to those in other modes. This dissertation takes up this issue, and probes it on musical and aesthetic levels, asking the following questions: Given recent inquiries into history’s creative nature in historiography, what kind of historical account does opera represent? What elements of historical experience, knowledge, or memory are accessed in these works? How do music’s temporal, dramatic, and narrative dimensions interact with what we presume to be the objective realm of history? And most importantly: Can these works be seriously considered historiographical in any sense? In this dissertation, I investigate these questions with a focus on Canadian historically-based opera specifically. Applying a hermeneutical approach that connects current threads in musicology, narrative theory, theory of the sublime, film theory, and philosophy of history, I define and theorize the powerful discourse that music contributes to Canadian historiography in six of Canada’s most prominent historically-based operas: Harry Somers and Mavor Moore’s Louis Riel (1967); Harry Somers and James Reaney’s Serinette (1991); John Estacio and John Murrell’s Filumena (2005) and Frobisher (2007); and Istvan Anhalt’s Winthrop (1986) and La Tourangelle (1975). The conclusions of this study are, however, not limited to this repertoire. Rather they are applicable to the canon of historically-based works as a whole, and speak directly to some of the most critical and current aesthetic issues in musicology and historiography. As an art form that reopens the space between past and present by reaffirming history’s subjective and temporal nature, and by exploring the ephemerality it shares with living memory, opera validates itself as a truly distinct historiographical mode.

At the inauguration of John G. Diefenbaker’s 1958 election campaign, the Prime Minister announced his ‘Northern Vision,’ a bold strategy to extend Canadian nationhood to the Arctic and develop its natural resources for the benefit of all Canadians. In some ways, the ‘Northern Vision’ was a political platform, an economic platform as well as an ideological platform. Invigorated by Diefenbaker’s electoral victory in 1958, the Department of Northern Affairs and National Development (DNANR) implementing the ‘National Development Policy’ in 1958 and announced the ‘Road to Resources’ program as a major effort to unlock the natural resource potential of the Canadian north. From 1958 to 1962, DNANR implemented additional northern development programs that planned to incorporate the northern territories along with Canada’s provinces, redevelop several key northern townsites, and stimulate mining activity across Northern Canada. As a result of serious government oversight and unforeseen developments, Diefenbaker abandoned his ‘Northern Vision’ and direction of northern development in 1962. Within the broader context of northern development over the past half century, the ‘Northern Vision’ produced several positive outcome which advanced the regional development of the Arctic. This thesis will examine the ‘Northern Vision’ by evaluating Diefenbaker’s political platform, the development of the ‘National Development Policy,’ and the regional outcomes of key northern development projects initiated by the Diefenbaker administration. The ‘Vision’ was never anticipated to bring about immediate results for Canadians and many objectives were eventually completed by consecutive Liberal governments. Moreover, the socioeconomic and military conditions of the Canadian north, at the time, appears to be significant factor in the implementation of this policy. This thesis also evaluates how natural resource operations propelled developments in territorial administration, housing, transportation, and fostered a wider participation of private enterprise across northern Canada. The ‘Northern Vision’ represents an overlooked period in the federal government’s administration of the Arctic and a critical event in the region’s development over the past fifty years.

In the cultural upheaval of the 1920s, Canadians became particularly invested in looking at and debating women’s images in public. This dissertation looks at how English-Canadians debated, accepted, and challenged modernity through public images of women. In analysing the debates over cultural rituals of looking it seeks to show how the discussions about images reveal the power of vision in ordering and understanding modernity as well as social and cultural changes. Through five case studies on the flapper, the Diamond Jubilee of Confederation, two beauty contests, an art exhibition including nudes, and the relationship between film and automobiles this study reveals how important images of the body were to the cultural developments and debates on the post-World War One modern world. By the 1920s urban visual culture was dominated by various images of women and an analysis of those images and the debates around them reveal underlying tensions related to gender, class, age, social order, and race. Anxieties over changes in these areas were absorbed into the broader concerns over the pleasures and perils associated with being modern. This dissertation looks at Canadian visual culture in terms of what it can reveal about modernity and the problems, perils, and pleasures associated with it.

At the inauguration of John G. Diefenbaker’s 1958 election campaign, the Prime Minister announced his ‘Northern Vision,’ a bold strategy to extend Canadian nationhood to the Arctic and develop its natural resources for the benefit of all Canadians. In some ways, the ‘Northern Vision’ was a political platform, an economic platform as well as an ideological platform. Invigorated by Diefenbaker’s electoral victory in 1958, the Department of Northern Affairs and National Development (DNANR) implementing the ‘National Development Policy’ in 1958 and announced the ‘Road to Resources’ program as a major effort to unlock the natural resource potential of the Canadian north. From 1958 to 1962, DNANR implemented additional northern development programs that planned to incorporate the northern territories along with Canada’s provinces, redevelop several key northern townsites, and stimulate mining activity across Northern Canada. As a result of serious government oversight and unforeseen developments, Diefenbaker abandoned his ‘Northern Vision’ and direction of northern development in 1962. Within the broader context of northern development over the past half century, the ‘Northern Vision’ produced several positive outcome which advanced the regional development of the Arctic. This thesis will examine the ‘Northern Vision’ by evaluating Diefenbaker’s political platform, the development of the ‘National Development Policy,’ and the regional outcomes of key northern development projects initiated by the Diefenbaker administration. The ‘Vision’ was never anticipated to bring about immediate results for Canadians and many objectives were eventually completed by consecutive Liberal governments. Moreover, the socioeconomic and military conditions of the Canadian north, at the time, appears to be significant factor in the implementation of this policy. This thesis also evaluates how natural resource operations propelled developments in territorial administration, housing, transportation, and fostered a wider participation of private enterprise across northern Canada. The ‘Northern Vision’ represents an overlooked period in the federal government’s administration of the Arctic and a critical event in the region’s development over the past fifty years.

Between the years 1840 and 1860, white prejudice played an important role in shaping blacks’ experiences in Upper Canada. This thesis explores and analyzes the history of black anti-slavery, whites’ attitudes toward blacks and the development of mandatory and free public schooling in Upper Canada during the nineteenth century, in order to demonstrate that race-relations between blacks and whites were worst both after 1850 in general, and over issues of schooling in particular.

Between the years 1840 and 1860, white prejudice played an important role in shaping blacks’ experiences in Upper Canada. This thesis explores and analyzes the history of black anti-slavery, whites’ attitudes toward blacks and the development of mandatory and free public schooling in Upper Canada during the nineteenth century, in order to demonstrate that race-relations between blacks and whites were worst both after 1850 in general, and over issues of schooling in particular.