This thesis analyses the making of the landscape and community of Westmount, Quebec from 1871 to 1929, when it grew from a quiet rural area into Montreal's foremost anglophone elite inner-city residential suburb. A cultural materialist approach to landscapes is adopted, viewing them analytically as a means to organize and assign existential meaning to human action towards the environment at a given time and place. The making of Westmount is placed within the context of Montreal's society in the 19th century, when rapid industrialization created massive wealth for the city's English-speaking business elite, but threatened its political domination. Westmount became the 'suburban solution' to this problem, providing a sanctuary where, by careful and pioneering use of municipal bylaws governing both land use and social conduct, a 'model' elite community and landscape was created and maintained. The degree of control obtained through the maintenance of Westmount's suburban autonomy allowed a strong expression in the landscape of a shared ideology of difference and privilege.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:QMM.60442 |
| Date | January 1990 |
| Creators | Bryce, John Stephen |
| Publisher | McGill University |
| Source Sets | Library and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Coverage | Master of Arts (Department of Geography.) |
| Rights | All items in eScholarship@McGill are protected by copyright with all rights reserved unless otherwise indicated. |
| Relation | alephsysno: 001234638, proquestno: AAIMM67584, Theses scanned by UMI/ProQuest. |
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