Canadian History Comprehensive Exam
I passed my comprehensive exams with distinction in November 2020. I wrote three essays from 20 question options. The transcript you see below is what I wrote under time pressure, during the pandemic, at home. I did not edit my answers to post here. This is important for non-historians to read because education is complicit in the erasure of Indigenous Peoples at all levels. I argue that the curriculum I memorized and regurgitated for comprehensive exams is complicit in the erasure of Indigenous Peoples in Canadian history. Don’t believe me? Keep reading to find out more!
GRADUATE PROGRAM IN HISTORY
PhD Qualifying Examination
November 2020
Field: Canadian History
Examiners: Jennifer Bonnell, Colin Coates, Sean Kheraj, Marcel Martel, Carolyn Podruchny, Marlene Shore, and Jennifer Stephen
To what extent did the goals of Canadian Confederation reflect nineteenth-century concepts of imperialism?
The goals of Confederation solidified nineteenth-century concepts of imperialism to the point that it is difficult to unravel historiography and reality. The way Canadian confederation is written reflects the ideals of an imperialist mindsight as determined by wealthy, Anglo-Saxon men. This essay will focus less on the goals of Confederation and how to define imperialism. I will argue that the way Canadian history is taught and written about continues to reflect the goals of Confederation and imperialism by: erasing Indigenous people and other minority stakeholders, taking for granted the worldviews of Anglo-Saxon male elites and by oversimplifying or complicating the narrative for effect rather than as a reflection of what Canada is in reality. This essay will review how Canadian history is periodized with an emphasis on state formation. E.A. Heaman and Ian McKay discuss frameworks and phases in a way that reflect imperialism. Donald Fyson, Bruce Curtis and Michele Dagenais present challenges to the dominant narrative of a cohesive understanding of Confederation. The ideas in this paper do not reflect the extent of my opinions. Women and Indigenous people are not represented in the historiography presented here.
In E.A. Heaman’s history of the state in Canada, there are four phases of the Canadian state. Each phase of this framework is problematic. The first phase listed is an assumption of Indigenous statelessness which makes little sense in the context of Treaties which are not accurately represented in the book. Indigenous people were not stateless and imperialists did not historically understand Indigenous people to be stateless because ceremony was adhered to and bargaining was completed on a nation-to-nation basis. I understand that Heaman’s history of the state is not about Indigenous people but apologies in this area are not enough. Erasure of Indigenous people was and is a continued goal of imperialism. Indigenous people did not participate through subjugation at the time of Confederation and then disappear. Oversimplification of Confederation also reflects nineteenth century concepts of imperialism. The second phase of Heaman’s framework refers to French statism until the 18th century in which they participated in commerce and nothing else. I think this erases the very important role that French Canadians participated in nation building across the country, not just in Quebec. In particular, the role that French culture shaped the lives of prairie people is significant including but not limited to the Metis people. In the third phase, Heaman states that eighteenth and nineteenth century transitioned into British liberalization practices, protection of agency and that Confederation was built on the ideas of agency and property. In this regard, I do not disagree with the premise but I disagree with the logic. It was not British conceptions that made land important. Indigenous people who lived and stewarded the land who were in the way of British imperialism made land and property important. Indigenous people, rather than the idea of property, are what made classic liberal solutions useless. The way that this phase is worded takes for granted that British superiority defined the turn of the century. Another construction of Heaman’s understanding of the Canadian state is revealed in their focus on a metropole and control which does accurately characterize the imperialist nature of settlers who came to this land and never left. There is a distinct change in the metropole and periphery that is not accurately represented. The contribution of Heaman’s book is a general periodization of Canadian history that is difficult for marginalized students to memorize because it takes for granted overlapping and continued resistance to the entire concept of a state. Periodization and memorization for the purpose of a test in school is an important way that historians continue to extend the goals of Confederation and imperialism.
People who believe that Ian McKay’s framework for the Liberal Order is the correct way to analyze Canadian history may also see Heaman’s work in a similar way. Ian McKay’s Liberal Order Framework is a way of analyzing state formation based on general patterns. I do not think that McKay’s work is an oversimplification. If anything, McKay’s point is hard to nail down and this argument makes the conversation much more difficult to understand. McKay argues that state formation is based on liberal projects. There are projects which abide or reject. The result is a center and periphery. According to this author, individuals are the center of state formation but they have little or no agency. He problematizes what “individual” means because the liberal order only gives meaning to those who conform. Individuals only resist until they realize the superiority of the liberal order. Marginalized groups are not important to the liberal order which means that the mistreatment of Indigenous people is excusable in the name of order and it was just a matter of time before Indigenous people accepted liberalism. The way that I understand McKay’s work is that it is meant to be confusing and frustrating in order to stir debate about what Canadian history is or should be. McKay’s work coincided with an identity crisis in the history profession which tends to suffer from an inferiority complex on a good day. This is a young nation in comparison to the rest of the world and the foundation myths that surround Confederation are and will continue to be under attack. I understand McKay’s work to be one way to convince students to prove him wrong. For example, I think that McKay takes “liberal” for granted. I do not think that marginalized people operate in the same worldview. I also do not believe that Indigenous people “accepted” liberalism. That is an inflammatory statement that is not couched in an understanding of Indigenous people. However, I do see McKay’s work as a way to force people to admit that there are other considerations for us to look at such as class and resistance. The academics that I know who conform to McKay’s framework are doing work in resistance movements which is the most important contribution. In terms of how this work reflects the goals of Canadian confederation and imperialism, this work is another idea that makes it difficult to be an Indigenous person in this profession. I am expected to learn this framework even as my people are oversimplified and further marginalized. This is why I discuss McKay’s work in this section Canadian history does not need a framework as a guiding principle. If anything, Canadian historians should lean into our regional, religious, ethnic, and gendered divisions. As McKay’s work shows us, complicated can be a source of strength rather than weakness.
Donald Fyson rejects what he called the rupture model of state formation in which the British won and took control immediately. Instead, Confederation and imperialism was a slow, gradual process in which the local population was included. In contrast to Heaman, Fyson says that the French system was not diametrically opposed to British. His point is that in some cases, British officials simply replaced French administrators. He also goes so far as to say that we should not use modern conceptions of the state to describe how things were done in the past. I would say that Fyson’s work would support McKay’s because they both describe projects which reject the dominate narrative. However, they may diverge on the idea of what an individual or a marginalized group can do to resist. Bruce Curtis would go one step further in critiquing McKay’s work by saying that the Liberal Order framework replaced the imperialist top-down narrative with a center-periphery. In other words, a state and civil dichotomy does not account for the construction of or the differences in each factor. Curtis would support my position that we should accept the variation of our history in a more abstract sense. Michele Dagenais might agree with Curtis because McKay’s framework does not problematize the manner in which power can be exercised. Dagenais’ work focuses on how municipal government developed. The example of municipal government is used to show that the level of government closest to the daily lives of people was less concerned with formation of the state. I agree with Dagenais that liberalism was not a fixed set of ideas. There were and continue to be tensions in any group of people therefore it is not accurate to create a dichotomy which does not represent the role of society.
In conclusion, historians run the risk of supporting the goals of Confederation and imperialism by erasing minorities and oversimplifying or confusing studies with complicated frameworks for effect. Canadian history as it is taught today is complicit in extending and building on the goals of Confederation and imperialism. Too much focus on what came before and what happened after misses the point that periodization itself can be a useful tool of analysis.
What is "the Welfare State" in Canada and when did it emerge?
I am working backwards on this question. I made it to this exam process because I have always known that my intersecting identities make me a target of “the state.” When I started my PhD, I did not know that it is possible to make a career on a singular definition of what the welfare state is and when it emerged. My own interactions conform to Phillip Abrams’ point that the state is an abstract concept that we take for granted. I take the state for granted. The idea that I take away from this exercise is that people who are affected by the welfare state should be allowed to live in a world where they are not actively being oppressed by the agendas, policies, and actions of agents. It is the role and the privilege of an academic to sit down and discuss what the welfare state is and what it means. Academics created this job and academics perpetuate the state. This essay will examine what the welfare state is according to Douglas Orwam, Nancy Christie, Dominique Marshall, and Jennifer Stephen. Indigenous people are not represented in this historiography although they play a very important role in the development of the welfare state. My biggest challenge is that I see the welfare state in a very different way than the academics I write about here. However, I also acknowledge that a working definition of the welfare state and when it emerged is how we begin to imagine something different. If not for this historiography, I would not be able to begin to articulate a different narrative therefore it is important that I outline the current field knowledge. The Canadian welfare state is more than government. The state is made up of individuals, bureaucrats, academics, market forces, labour forces, discourse, special interest organizations and agents. The welfare state developed over time and is process rather than a specific event.
When I first read Douglas Orwam’s work, I thought that it was outdated and not as helpful as I wanted it to be. However, as I struggle to understand the contradictions I feel as an Indigenous person studying concepts outside of my culture, I came to see Orwam’s work more clearly. I think his point about the role intellectuals play in assessing, and supporting development remains relevant. Just as people take the state for granted, I believe academics take for granted our privilege to worry about definitions. People who rely on the resources that the state deigns to provide are not worried about definitions. Academics are proponents and participants in change. Students and professors in history understand their role as educators, policy writers, and elites. However, we remain individuals and capable of controlling our own actions. It is important to address the fact that academics are responsible for defining the welfare state and its emergence. In many cases, the rise of professions coincided with the rise of the welfare state. For example, Orwam describes three overlapping divisions. The first division refers to the period between the turn of the century and the end of the Great War. In this period, there are a series of definitions created by academics such as moral reformism, social gospel, and social uplift. In this period, university communities saw themselves as reformers. The term urban progressives is used to describe this group of people. In the 1920s, the second division matured. Professional social science experts began to build their careers and the future careers of other academics. Young, wealthy, homogenous elites labelled themselves as reformers and nationalists. In the third stage, the ideas developed in the post war period became policy. A second generation of elite social science experts entered politics and civil service at the federal level. I think that the emergence of the welfare state aligns with this vague division. The time periods that Orwam presented are not specific and I think that the work that came after benefited from vagueness. This book was published in 1986 and is dated. Orwam does not define the new intelligentsia or speak to how membership is regulated. However, there is a lot of room to break down the divisions with succeeding literature. The main point I take away is that even as we break down what the welfare state is, academics need to actively reflect about their own role in the process. Academics can simultaneously uphold and criticize the welfare state.
One of the most complicated books on the list is written by Nancy Christie. Her work is both very helpful and problematic. I will continue to return to her book as my studies progress. Christie does not define the welfare state upfront. She often confuses government and state. However, she adds to the discussion with case file evidence. She also adds to the conversation about the breadwinner ideal and change over time. Her strongest point is that national interest dictated policy and protection of the male wage earner. Christie periodizes the welfare state along the same lines as Orwam. The period from 1900-1945 was before major insurance schemes were implemented but the social and cultural underpinnings of the welfare state emerged in this time period. Gender was increasingly a matter of concern to the state and state agents. The first two decades prioritized family reproduction for population growth. State agents saw a correlation between stable families and national growth. For example, needy mothers and soldiers’ relatives were supported throughout the Great War and Great Depression. During and following the Great Depression, unemployed men were the obsession of state agents and the breadwinner ideal. The example Christie uses to support this point is that Family Allowances in WWII bolstered the government in power, created jobs for men, and solidified the role of women as dependents. After 1930, citizenship was based on the right of men to work for pay in order to create a national interest based in the economy over social issues such as poverty. The breadwinner ideal was never static but was a building block of the welfare state. The breadwinner ideal reinforced family, increased government policing and intervention but there was no revolution in government. The way that Christie uses evidence is not perfect but she uses important source bases and her conclusions generally line up with the historiography. Race, labour, church, and social agencies are not entirely incorporated. However, it is a strength of this book that characters are complex. This book taught me that it is possible to write a contribution to the field without necessarily defining all the terms.
Dominique Marshall wrote about Quebec families and their relationship to education between 1940-1955. She focuses on two important pieces of legislation that regulated school attendance (provincial) and the Family Allowance Act (federal). The convergence of these pieces of legislation is important because both levels of government guaranteed the rights of children. Marshall’s conclusion is that compulsory education evolved over time. More importantly, establishing the rights of children focused on securing parents economic security so that they could afford to send a family member to school. A minimum was guaranteed to secure a father’s income, a mother’s role in the house and a child’s standard of living. Interdependence of the family was taken for granted. The example that Marshall provides is that there was a certain amount of allowance for housewives and their chores. Poor mothers made statements attesting to the importance of the allowances for family survival. Compulsory school made a new “normal” and new agents to maintain the system. Early in this process, agents of the state responded to the needs of families in order to bend the rules. For example, Marshall cites exemptions that were made for families who needed to prioritize farming over school. Over time, these agents became professionalized and their own form of administration. The first universal social program created a minimum of welfare for all children under 16 and a family allowance to mothers as a foundation of the welfare state. Marshall is more specific about her definition of the emergence of the welfare state as two pieces of legislation at different levels of government came together to protect children. I tend to lean towards this time period as the emergence of the welfare state but I also recognize that the process of policy took time to gain traction on the ground. Marshall’s use of evidence to show that there were ways to get around compulsory expectations reinforces the idea that welfare state development was a process rather than a definitive moment in time.
Jennifer Stephen’s book, Pick One Intelligent Girl, focuses on the labour market as a key constituent of the welfare state which further expands the definition and timeframe of emergence. Stephen makes the point that markets are not distinct from government or governance. The focus of the book is federal government policy and programs aimed at recruiting women for labour during WWII. The government never intended to allow women in production after the war so they created a system that could bring women and move them out when men returned. This book challenges the narrative that war time was a dramatic change towards women’s economic and social equality. I agree with the fact that educational psychologists, “mental hygenists” and industrial psychologists focused on personal attributes of women rather than the work skills relevant to the job. This strategy kept paid labour and home separate. Women were directed towards jobs that tied them to the work of mothers and wives. Skilled male breadwinners of British descent defined “normal” and was not questioned. Men gained citizenship from the family wage system while women were dependent. Women were blamed for their inability to remain in labour based on intelligence or because they chose the wrong industry. In terms of how this work contributes to the history of the welfare state, Stephen proves that the breadwinner ideal continued even after Family Allowances, children’s rights and the end of WWII. The welfare state includes labour and market forces. We cannot study the state just as binary women and men but we have to complicate the issue by bringing in agents from many directions.
The point that I take away from my current level of knowledge is that the welfare state was a process of incremental change that is neither straightforward or binary. In the lives of human beings, the welfare state is an abstract concept that made its way from idea to policy over a number of generations. The best we can do as academics is to acknowledge that our research builds on but is not limited by what came before. It is my opinion that the state as we know it today is a result of the decisions made by state agents and historians in the post war period. However, as Douglas Orwam speaks to, the divisions overlap and coincide with the context in which a history was written. I prefer to take the wide lens that the welfare state first came into being in the form of ideas and theory. The welfare state is more than just government. Agents enforce and bend rules set by other agents. Federal and provincial legislation are important as are labour and market forces. I look forward to the next stage of this process where I can begin to imagine something different. For me, the something different is that Indigenous people impact the welfare state because of Treaty obligations that stipulated the federal responsibility for education, health, and land.
In what ways, and how extensively, has feminist historiography changed the writing of twentieth-century Canadian history?
This essay is less about what feminism is as a concept and more about how feminist writing continues to change twentieth century Canadian history. To me, the most important aspect of feminism analyzes who is not properly represented. More importantly, feminism is a framework to address inequalities that extends past dichotomies of male/female. Feminism is tricky because the same concept helps and harms. Feminism is built on a narrative of exclusion and inclusion especially as it pertains to people of colour and depends on what a person’s definition of gender is. For example, J.K Rowling uses feminism to erase the experiences of transwomen. Feminism is by no means a perfect concept and I recognize that the origins of this concept was meant for elite Anglo-Saxon women. That being said, the historiography of this paper will show that writers used their research to counter myths that were perpetuated by a patriarchal system in the study of discourse, industry and labour, the Cold War, laws regulating widows, and homesteading. Mariana Valverde, Joy Parr, Franca Iacovetta, Bettina Bradbury and Sara Carter lean on academic definitions of feminism and patriarchy in different ways. Each concept is valid. The work of these authors and their relationship to feminism contributes to my ability to exist within the academy not just as two spirit but as an Indigenous person. Gender is not binary and neither is feminism. In this case, feminism refers to the fight against patriarchy and the fight for equal representation which does not oppress other people on the way.
My understanding of feminism is reflected in Mariana Valverde but not in the way she may have expected. I consider myself a feminist even if the introduction to my future book does not list the academics who made the definition possible. The ability to choose my own definition of feminism comes from writers who changed the writing of twentieth century Canadian history. In The Age of Light, Soap and Water, Valverde studies discourses used in social purity movements of English Canada at the turn of the century. She was unapologetic that her writing was not feminist but that she carefully considered what women thought. I think that she could reject feminism because she was working from a multi-disciplinary lens which is a concept that challenges patriarchy and a dominant narrative of “pure history.” There is no such thing as “pure” history because we borrow from so many disciplines, including feminism. Valverde received intense criticism from feminists as a “traitor” which is extreme. She also received backlash because her book coincided with Bryan Palmer et al’s crusade against studies of discourse. Although I do not entirely understand the argument against discourse, I think it is a waste of time to dismiss study because of a contextual perception of the “state of the field.” I use this work to understand how to use multi-disciplinary tools such as philosophy and literary analysis to understand rhetoric of the past. This is particularly important in the study of Canadian history because of the myths that feminist writers worked against. I will not call Valverde a feminist because academics do not have to conform to a system of thought to bring underrepresented ideas to the table. Her book is important because gender, class and race are listed as competing forces as the practical consequences of discourse shape how people articulate consciousness. I think that it is important that we put care into understanding what all genders thought or did in our reconstructions of the past. I can make this statement because of the work of feminists. Valverde’s traitor status appeals to me because I also believe that race and class are sometimes more important than gender. I rather be called a traitor than conform to a binary that erases someone. From what I can tell, Valverde is criticized for what she did not do rather than what she did do. Her contribution to the field is the chapter on allegories. This is important in unravelling the difference between rhetoric and intent. Valverde makes the point that most people do not read systematic literature or philosophy texts that we later deem representative. Her sources are meant to be popular and geared to the public. I acknowledge that rejecting academic conceptions of feminism is a dangerous position to take. At the same time, I reserve the right to point out that Indigenous matriarchy is not represented in this body of literature. What Valverde does for me is provides a source from which to start my discussion on the merits of feminism in theory and in historical research.
By contrast, the work of Joy Parr is very different from Valverde. Parr is an established historian. She lays out a very specific framework. Her book, the Gender of Breadwinners uses evidence in a way that seems common sense now but disrupted Canadian history and continues to be relevant. Parr begins from a Marxian conception of class and divisions of labour. She points out that Marxism takes for granted the gendered nature of what “skill” is. Her work problematizes the idea of gendered skill. She pinpoints a gendered, patriarchal definition of labour grew from Marxism. Parr’s work is a comparative study of gendered factories in Paris (textile, feminine) and Hanover (furniture, masculine) as a study of industrialization. She interviews both men and women. She changed the narrative of Canadian history with a comparative study of industry, domesticity and community through the lens of two factory towns. She concludes that gender and class, community and religion are not separate analytics, because they are interdependent and constantly changing. Parr critiques gender through markets, Marxian ideas of capital and labour. Marxism does not go far enough in critiquing capitalism because it does not account for the system as run by and to the benefit of some men. Her work goes further than social feminism because Parr demonstrates that we need to think past fixed duality and break free of binaries. This is so important to the study of Canadian history because it makes divisions of labour more responsive to the reality of race and gender. The lay out of Parr’s book is complicated with a chapter about labour followed by ethnic identity followed by gender and policy. This shows a layering of concepts and identities relevant to a specific case study. Parr’s work expands on class through Marxism which also critiques patriarchy and allows a layered, nuanced conception of gender.
Another feminist historian is Franca Iacovetta who writes about immigrant experiences in the Cold War era. Her most impactful contribution to the narrative of Canadian history is her broad use of the term “gatekeeper.” As a self-proclaimed left feminist, anti-racist, immigrant, Iacovtta is unequivocal: gatekeepers shaped the lives of immigrants in the cold war period in a way that propped up systems of patriarchy at every level. A gatekeeper is anyone who willingly intrudes in the life or who regulate or punish those who transgress norms. A gatekeeper in Iacovetta’s Cold War history was someone who made it their mission to Canadianize immigrants in the image of middle-class Anglo ideals. The list of gatekeepers is eye opening and incredibly useful to the study of Canadian history. I find this framework incredibly empowering in a way that is less constrictive than feminism. This concept can be used more broadly than just immigration and the Cold War. This work is feminist because she writes about people who were not represented in the literature before and she does this work to center immigrant experiences. More importantly, Iacovetta studies the experiences of men and women. Iacovetta uses case files to prove her points about citizenship, gender, Cold War ideologies and gatekeeping tendencies. Although she does not explicitly state a historiography outside of Cold War context, her work builds on Parr by layering complex class, gender and ethnic dynamics.
Even more than Iacovetta and Parr, Bettina Bradbury is unapologetically feminist in her writing. Bradbury writes about patriarchy as it affected the lives of widows in Montreal in the mid nineteenth century. She defines patriarchy as a family, social, ideology, political system in which men determine systems of tradition, law, education and the division of labour in order to define the role women can or cannot play in society. She used collective genealogy to center widows which is much more difficult than it seems. The system of patriarchy that Bradbury describes made it extremely difficult for women to leave records. Bettina Bradbury’s feminist history ties political and personal to understand colonial control and power. The journey from wife to widow was one way that state, church and community allowed patriarchy to dominate women and women’s roles. Bradbury changed the narrative of Canadian history by redefining structures based on patriarchy. Her book lists how patriarchy changed. Customary, collaborative and liberal patriarchy affected the lives of women. Bradbury looked at evidence to see who was missing and centered those experiences. She also provides a framework for future studies.
A similar method to Bradbury is demonstrated by Sarah Carter in her book Imperial Plots. Carter focuses on homestead plots that had previously been considered the domain of men. She focuses on adding dimension to women on the prairies as farmers and ranchers. A homestead was a particular form of colonialism as state gatekeepers gave 160 acres of land for low prices as long as the land was cultivated to a certain standard and timeframe. This process dispossessed Indigenous people and populated the prairies with British settlers who wanted to re-establish patriarchy transplanted from Europe. Once the system of homesteading was established, single and married women were actively excluded. Although Carter centers the experiences of female homesteaders, she is very clear that the women who advocated for the right to homestead were British, middle-class, educated elites who were dedicated to the empire. They used the language of imperialism to make the case that they were superior to foreigners. Carter’s feminist history restored women to a narrative that largely took female absence for granted. At the same time that these women were excluded, they are still responsible for colonization. This is another layered approach. Carter elevates women who were previously missing from the narrative but she does not elevate them to the point that their complicity is forgotten. She even goes so far to say that whiteness did not mean that women enjoyed the same right to power as white men. These white, British homesteaders used people of colour to bolster their own positions and entitlements. I am partial to this contribution because Indigenous people are included even as they are not the focus which proves that it is possible. Also, this book shows that historical versions of feminism are difficult for Indigenous students. Even as feminism seeks to remedy a lack of representation, the concept can also be used to oppress other groups of people.
Feminist historiography fundamentally changed the narrative of Canadian history. The changed narrative of Canadian history affects all aspects of study including discourse, industry and labour, the Cold War, laws regulating widows, and homesteading. The writers discussed in this essay chose their own frameworks but each uses evidence and research to include women where they were previously overlooked. These authors made it possible for me to choose to align myself with their work or not. The point is, I can choose.