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Preface

Stefanie R. Slaunwhite

Life and Work on Sable Island: The Early Federal Record of Island Operations

Anne Marie Lane Jonah
Sable Island, Nova Scotia, approximately 300 kilometres east-southeast of Halifax on the edge of the North American continental shelf, has been known throughout the Atlantic world as a hazard to ships—its shores and surrounding shoals studded with the bones of approximately 350 wrecks. In 1801, a lifesaving service, the Humane Establishment, was put in place there under the responsibility of the British colony of Nova Scotia to aid ships in distress and those stranded on the island. With the British North America Act, the new government of Canada took responsibility for Sable Island and its small resident population of workers and their families scattered along the roughly forty-five-kilometre-long and one-kilometre-wide sand spit. This change would affect both life and work on the island as federal politicians and departments took over the operations, and more change would come as technology was introduced. This research report, drawn from a study of the federal record of Sable Island held at Library and Archives Canada, dating from the time of Confederation to the 1960s, provides insight into the evolution of services on the island, the changing public perceptions of the place and its importance, and how these two things shaped people’s lives and work. These records, found in a range of departmental fonds based on what service had administrative responsibility for the island at a given time, document administrative struggles, labour disputes, and moments of tragedy; they illuminate complex relationships—with families and the community, co-workers and bosses all intertwined. The records of individuals who lived and worked on the island and who managed the staff there reflect how the social, political, and technological world around the island changed both the context of work and the experiences and expectations of the people working there. Whereas each subject evoked in these records warrants a more in-depth study, the narrative created by this record merits sharing.

The Painter, His Muse and Their Marriage: George Harvey and Priscilla Wells in Late Victorian Halifax

Lois K. Yorke
George Harvey lingers in our cultural history today only as a footnote, faintly remembered as the first headmaster of Halifax’s new Victoria School of Art and Design in 1887. His wife Priscilla is not remembered at all. Their early lives were lived in bohemian London. Once settled in Halifax, they were well liked and respected, but their local roots ran neither deep nor strong. After the events of 2–3 June 1889 and George Harvey’s subsequent departure from the city six years later, they were briefly subjects of interest, then gradually forgotten. This article revisits their world, reclaims their lives, and gives them the voices they so richly deserve.

Robert Borden: Leadership in Crisis

Samuel Taylor
Robert Borden, the political leader who led Canada through the Great War, has been largely overlooked. This paper attempts to answer two questions: what was Sir Robert Borden’s leadership style and how effective was it?The first portion of the paper provides a brief overview of Borden’s early life and political career. This is followed by an examination of his early tenure as prime minister prior to the outbreak of war, starting with his appointment in 1911 and covering topics such as the naval debate and the associated stonewalling of Borden’s policies by the Liberals. The paper continues by describing Borden’s leadership style and its effectiveness during the First World War by examining notable issues, such as the conscription crisis, the 1917 election, and issues caused by members of his cabinet, including Samuel Hughes. The paper concludes by stating that while Borden’s leadership was ill suited to peacetime and largely overshadowed by more charismatic politicians, he was a capable, methodical, calculating, and determined leader who successfully led Canada through the crucible of the Great War.

“An Unspeakable Crime”: Divisions in Halifax Press Opinion Toward the July Crisis and Outbreak of the First World War

Liam Caswell
More than a century after the outbreak of the First World War, the perception of a monolithically enthusiastic public response to the war’s commencement has endured in the popular imagination. While scholars have produced a large corpus of works dissecting and refuting the myth of unchallenged war enthusiasm among European populations during the summer of 1914, there have been relatively few comparable challenges to the narrative in a Canadian context. By comparing the attitudes expressed by Halifax’s two most widely circulated daily newspapers—the Liberal-leaning Morning Chronicle and the Conservative-affiliated Halifax Morning Herald—between the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand and the British Empire’s first bloodletting at Mons, this article explores how initially divisive the popular press reaction was toward the possibility, and eventual reality, of Halifax’s participation in a major European War. Considering these divisions within the Halifax press as symptomatic of wider popular dissention of opinion, it is demonstrated how the Maritimes’ largest urban population was far from unanimous in their reaction to the July Crisis and the outbreak of the First World War.

A “Second Captain Dreyfus affair”: Joseph Bernstein’s Halifax Experience

Judith Fingard
In 1892 Joseph Bernstein arrived in Halifax, where he shared with other members of the small Jewish community a typical pattern of commercial/trades employment until 1899 when he became an immigration interpreter at the deepwater terminus. His stable work life came to an abrupt halt in 1908 when he was dismissed from the federal government service. At first, he blamed this turn of events on the vindictiveness of five Jewish families involved in a dispute over the suitability of a marriage partner for his third daughter. But when Bernstein delved deeper and realized that his fate was worse than that of two Gentile immigration physicians in Halifax who misbehaved in the same season, he decided that antisemitism had determined his fate. His identification with Alfred Dreyfus may have been inspired by cinematic depictions of the injustice endured by that Jewish French soldier.

What’s Law Got To Do With It? The Role of the Law in Creating and Exacerbating Racial Disparities in Colonial Land Grants after the War of 1812

Melisa Marsman
While the reciprocal relationship between law and race is complex and multifaceted, it has deep historical roots in colonial legal systems that played a crucial role in producing and perpetuating racial inequalities. The effects of these historical injustices persist today, evident in the numerous examples of racial disparities across various aspects of life, including land ownership. This article aims to uncover the role of settler-colonial land laws in creating and exacerbating land-based racial inequalities in colonial land grants, with a specific focus on those affecting the Black Refugees of the War of 1812.

Hilary Doda. Fashioning Acadians: Clothing in the Atlantic World, 1650-1750. Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2023, 320 pp.; Hardcover: ISBN 978-0-2280-1892-6; $65.00

Annette White

George and Darril Frosty. Black Ice: The Lost History of the Colored Hockey League of the Maritimes. Halifax, NS: Nimbus Publishing, 2025. 308 pp.; Paperback: ISBN 978-1774713788; $27.95

Paul W. Bennett

Sharon H. M. MacDonald. Disruptive Women: The Untold Story of Nova Scotia’s Pioneers of Peace and Suffrage. Halifax: Nimbus Publishing, 2025. 264 pp.; Paperback: ISBN 978-1774714331; $23.95

Katherine Crooks

Bruce Scott. The Last Farm on McNabs: A Family History of Twentieth-Century Life on the Island. Halifax: Nimbus Publishing, 2025. 128 pp.; Paperback: ISBN 978-1774714454; $19.95

Luke Togni