Nineteenth-Century Nova Scotia LibrariesMain MenuThe Colonial BookshelfWelcome to the libraries of colonial Nova ScotiansThe Colonial Bookshelf: A Mock-upTracking the reading of colonial Nova ScotiansThe Colonial Bookshelf: ProposalRichard John UniackeTheHants County Attorney-General and improverJames BarryA Pictou County miller and diaristDr. Keith Grant: CV
Department of History Phone: 905-688-5550 ext.3503 Brock University email: dsamson@brocku.ca St. Catharines ON Twitter: @ruralcolonialNS L2S 3A1 danieljosephsamson.com
Associate Professor of History, Brock University Chair, Department of History, Brock University
Education:
PhD (Queen’s University, 1997)
MA (UNB, 1988)
BScFor (UNB, 1984)
Publications:
BOOKS:
The Spirit of Industry and Improvement: Liberal Government and Rural-Industrial Society, Nova Scotia, 1790-1862 (Kingston and Montréal, McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2008).
Editor, Contested Countryside: Rural Workers and Modern Society in Atlantic Canada, 1800-1950 (Fredericton, Acadiensis Press, 1994).
(co-editor) Visions: Canadian History Modules Project, volume 1, Pre-Confederation (Toronto, Nelson, 2010). Second edition, 2015.
(co-editor) Visions: Canadian History Modules Project, volume 2, Post-Confederation (Toronto, Nelson, 2010). Second edition, 2014.
CURRENT PROJECTS:
James Burns Barry: A 19th-Century Colonial Life (in process – targeted for 2019) – solicited and proposed for University of Toronto Press series “Thinking Historically”
Refashioning Nature: Aesthetics, Culture, Politics (collection of essays co-edited with Ingrid Makus, Political Science, Brock University – under review at McGill-Queen’s University Press)
ESSAYS:
“’Damn TORYISM, say I’: Dissent, Print Culture, and Anti-Confederation in James Barry’s Diary”, Acadiensis XXXII, 2 (Spring 2017), 177-90.
“The Correcting Hand of Man: Aesthetics of Agricultural Improvement in British North America, 1785-1860” in Ingrid Makus and Daniel Samson, eds., Refashioning Nature: Aesthetics, Culture, Politics (under review, McGill-Queen’s University Press).
“’The Measure of Our Progress’: The Commission on Agriculture, Ontario, 1881”, in Nadine Vivier, ed., The Golden Age of State Enquiries: Rural enquiries in the nineteenth century (Turnhout BE, Brepols, 2014), 255-72.
“A Colony of Miners: Northern Nova Scotia, 1827-1862”, in James Opp and John C. Walsh., eds., Home, Work, and Play: Situating Canadian Social History (Toronto, Oxford University Press, 2014).
“Les élites britanniques d’Amérique du Nord et les améliorations agricoles, 1789- 1860”, in Nadine Vivier, ed., Élites et progress dans l’agriculture, 16ème-20ème siècles (Le Mans, presses universitaires de Rennes, 2009), 133-62.
"Visions du libéralisme et de « l'amélioration » dans la Nouvelle-Écosse rurale, 1820-1848", Bulletin d'histoire politique 13, 3 (automne 2005), 35-50.
“’The Yoke of Improvement’: Sir John Sinclair, John Young and the Improvement of the Scotlands, New and Old, 1790-1825”, James C. Scott and Thomas Summerhill, eds., Transatlantic Rebels: Agrarianism in Comparative Context (Lansing, Michigan State University Press, 2004), 87-116.
“Industrial Colonization: The Colonial Context of the General Mining Association, Nova Scotia, 1825-1842”, Acadiensis XXIX, 1 (Autumn 1999), 1-26.
“Dependency and Rural Industry: Inverness, N.S., 1899-1915”, in Contested Countryside, pp.105-49.
“Introduction: Situating the Rural in Atlantic Canada”, in Contested Countryside, pp.1-33.
“Afterword: Capitalism and Modernisation”, in Contested Countryside, pp.257-72.
“George Elliott Clarke’s Songs of Love and Pain from Africadia: An Introduction to ‘The Apochrypha of Whylah Falls’“, left history, 2, 1 (Spring 1994), pp.67-70.
SMALLER PIECES/INTRODUCTIONS (refereed):
"James Barry: Transatlantic Books, Reading, and an Unlikely Proselyte", Acadiensis Blog, June 2019.
“The Presbyterian Communist: J.B. McLachlan’s Library” co-published with Nova Scotia Advocate, June 2019
“Teaching Colonial Canada: Making the Familiar Dis/Comfortingly Strange”, Borealia: A Group Blog on Early Canadian History, November 2018. [reprinted in in Andrea Eidinger and Krista McCracken, eds., Beyond the Lecture: Innovations in Teaching Canadian History (Toronto, eCampusOntario, 2019).]
“Weather, Emotions, and Climate History in James Barry’s Diary, 1849-1906”, NiCHE/Acadiensis blog series with Claire Campbell, Tina Loo, and Mark McLaughlin, April 2018.
“Rural Canada in an Urban Century”, in John Douglas Belshaw, ed. Canadian History: Post-Confederation (Vancouver, BC Opentexts, 2016).
“The 14th Colony: Nova Scotia and the American Revolution”, in P. Bryden, et al Visions: Canadian History Modules Project, volume 1, Pre-Confederation 2nd edition (Toronto, Nelson, 2015 [2010]).
“On the Edge of Empires: Acadia and Acadians”, in in P. Bryden, et al Visions: Canadian History Modules Project, volume 1, Pre-Confederation 2nd edition (Toronto, Nelson, 2015 [2010]).
“The Worlds of Work”, in P. Bryden, et al Visions: Canadian History Modules Project, volume 1, Pre-Confederation 2nd edition (Toronto, Nelson, 2015 [2010]).
“Race, Class, and Gender: The Limits of Victorian Liberalism”, in P. Bryden, et al Visions: Canadian History Modules Project, volume 1, Pre-Confederation (Toronto, Nelson, 2010).
“Immigrants and Immigration: The Case of the Irish”, in P. Bryden, et al Visions: Canadian History Modules Project, volume 1, Pre-Confederation (Toronto, Nelson, 2010).
OPEN ACCESS WEBTEXTS:
Colonial Canada – for eCampusOntario/Brock University HIST2P01
"Mapping Nova Scotia's 'Ancient Boundaries', 1700-1867: An Evaluation of Sources", Prepared for the Provincial Attorney-General's Office, Province of Nova Scotia, 2003 (32 pp.).
"Aboriginal Presence in Southeastern Quebec: During the Pre-historical and Early Historical Periods", Prepared for the Claims and Historical Research Centre, Indian and Northern Affairs Canada, 2002 (35 pp.).
"Mi'kmaq on the Gaspé, 1500-1750: A Review of Evidence and Interpretation", Canada, Department of Indian Affairs, April 2002 (65 pp.).
"Aboriginal Presence in Prince Edward Island: During the Pre-historical and Early Historical Periods", Prepared for the Claims and Historical Research Centre, Indian and Northern Affairs Canada, 2001 (43 pp.).
Grants and Awards:
Humanities Research Council, Conference Grant, $1180, Crossing Borders Conference, January 2018.
eCampus Ontario (co-applicant with Mike Driedger) – $35,000, April 2016.
Centre for Pedagogical Innovation (co-applicant with Mike Driedger) – web course development, “Money and Power in the Atlantic World”, $15,000 - 1 July 2014
Brock University Advancement Fund, $3500 for workshop, ReFashioning Nature, Brock University, June 2015.
SSHRC/ASPP standard grant for Industry and Improvement, 2007
Brock University Advancement Fund Grant, $1500 for Industry and Improvement, April 2006
Humanities Research Institute Grant (Brock) $1700
Brock-SSHRC (BSIG) grant, $2400, for research toward Victorian Countrymen, May 2007
McGill-SSHRC $3900 grant: “A Comparative Analysis of State Formation and Techniques of Government in Rural Newfoundland and Nova Scotia”, May 1998.
Tri-Council Post Doctoral Fellowship, 1996-97, Memorial University
Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, Doctoral Fellowship, 1989-90, 1990-91, 1991-92
R. Samuel McLaughlin Scholarship, Queen’s University, 1988-89
Dean’s Award, Queen’s University, 1988-1989
Gale-Shaw Memorial Prize, University of New Brunswick, 1987 (co-winner) Highest Standing in Graduate History Programme
Conference grants:
Refashioning Nature, Humanities Research Institute (co-applicant with Ingrid Makus), Jan 2015 – 1500$
Refashioning Nature, Council for Research in the Social Sciences (co-applicant with Ingrid Makus), Feb 2015 – 2000$
Refashioning Nature, Brock SSHRC Institutional Grant, (co-applicant with Ingrid Makus), Feb 2015 – 2000$
SSHRC grant, $3200 for Atlantic Canada Workshop, Ottawa, 1991.
Secretary of State grant, $5000 for Atlantic Canada Workshop, Ottawa, 1991.
Book Reviews:
Ruth Sandwell, Canada’s Rural Majority: Households, Environments and Economies, 1870-1940 (Toronto, University of Toronto Press, 2016) in Canadian Historical Review Sept 2017.
Claiborne A. Skinner, The Upper Country: French Enterprise in the Colonial Great Lakes (Baltimore, Johns Hopkins University press, 2008) in Enterprise and Society July 2009.
Ian Ross Robertson, The Tenant League of Prince Edward Island, 1864-1867: Leasehold Tenure in the New World (Toronto, University of Toronto Press, 1996) in Canadian Historical Review March 1998.
Donald Harmon Akenson, ed., Canadian Papers in Rural History, volume X, (Gananoque ONT, 1996) in Canadian Historical Review (June 1998).
Bruce Laurie, Artisans into Workers: Labor in Nineteenth-Century America, (New York, 1989) in Labour/Le Travail, 29 (Spring 1992), pp.271-4.
Bryant Fairley, Colin Leys, and James Sacouman, eds., Restructuring and Resistance: Perspectives from Atlantic Canada (Toronto, 1990) in New Maritimes, IX, 4 (March 1991), pp.28-30.
Builder Levy, Images of Appalachian Coalfields, (Philadelphia, 1989) in Labour/Le Travail, 26 (Fall 1990), pp.203-5.
Invited lectures:
“Radical Evangelicals and Confederation, Nova Scotia, 1864-70”, City of St Catharines, Canada 150 Lecture Series, 14 June 2017.
“Enclosing the Commons: Foreshore Property Rights on the Joggins Shore, 1740-1860”, Invited talk at the Joggins Fossil Cliff Museum, UNESCO World Heritage Site, 16 July 2016.
“Missionaries, the Domestic, and the Improvement of Mi'kmaq Agriculture, 1820-1860”, Rural History Roundtable, Guelph University, 27 March 2014.
“I’m a Cape Breton Barbarian: Class and Civility In Colonial Cape Breton”, J.B. McLachlan Memorial Lecture, Cape Breton University, Sydney, NS, 9 October 2009
“Agricultural Improvers and Progress: British North America”, University of Genoa, Italy, 16 January 2007.
"Rumours and Rebellion: Acadians and 'Others' in Rural Nova Scotia, 1775-1815", North America Colonial History Seminar, University of Toronto, 24 October 2002.
“Improving Nature: Science and Agriculture in Colonial Nova Scotia”, Nova Scotia Agricultural College, Rural Studies Seminar, 9 March 2001.
“Cod and Climate”, Weather and History Seminar, School of Environmental Studies, McGill University, 9 February 2001.
“Trans-Atlantic Agrarian Reform: Civil Society and the State in Pre-Confederation, Rural Nova Scotia”, McGill University Department of History Seminar Series, 12 January 2001.
“Knowledge and Planning: Local Information, Expertise, and the Welfare State in Rural Canada, 1900-1939”, Canadian Political History Seminar, Queen’s University, 17 January 2001.
“State Theory, State Formation, and Political Culture: 19th Century British North America”, British North American Seminar, McGill University, 9 March 1999.
“Africa, Africans, and Africadians: Incorporating Local History, Black History, and Global History in Nova Scotia”, Black History Month Seminar, University College of Cape Breton, February 1996.
“Rural History”, Canadian Social History Seminar, Queen’s University, February 1995.
Conference Presentations:
[accepted] “Books, Readers, and Networks: James Barry, Rural Nova Scotia, and the Trans-Atlantic Book Trade”, Atlantic Studies Conference, Acadia University, 4 May 2018.
[accepted] “Searching for Bell: Finding a Woman in a 19th-Century Man’s Diary”, Rural Women’s Studies Association Conference: Gender, Justice, Power, and Place, Ohio University, 17 May 2018.
“’Tirades’ against Confederation: Radical Presbyterian Dissent in James Barry’s Diary”, Conference: The Other 60s, University of Toronto, 21-22 April 2017.
Daniel Samson, Matt Clare, Mike Driedger, Mike Brousseau, and Giulia Forsyth, “Slow Reading and Big History: Transcribing Early Modern Texts and Learning to Map Early Modern Minds”, Historians Teaching History Conference, Mt Royal University, Calgary, 28 May 2016
Versions of this paper were also presented at the Canadian Network for Innovation in Education, Waterloo University (1 June 2016), and the Society for Teaching and Learning in Higher Education Western University (21 June 2016).
“James Barry and Print Culture in Rural Mid-19th-Century Pictou, NS”, Canadian Historical Association Annual Meeting, Carleton University, 6 June 2015.
“Agriculture and the Refashioning of Nature: The Aesthetics of Improvement in Upper Canada and Nova Scotia, 1780-1860”, Conference: Images of Europe: Past, Present, Future, Porto, Portugal 4-8 August 2014.
“Farms, Homes, and Bodies: Metrics of Mi’kmaq Progress and ‘Civilisation’, Nova Scotia, 1815-1860”, Atlantic Canada Studies Conference, Fredericton NB, 2 May 2014.
“The Aesthetics of Improvement: Rural Domestic Art in Colonial Nova Scotia”, Annual Meeting of the Agricultural History Society (US), Banff, Alberta, 10-13 June 2013.
“Improving Farmers, Disciplining Indians: Agriculture and Indian Policy in Colonial Nova Scotia”, Canadian Historical Association Annual Meeting, University of Victoria, 3-5 June 2013.
“Agriculture, Planning and Statistics: Ontario, 1880”, Social Science History Conference, Chicago, 20 November 2010.
“Planning Modern Agriculture: Ontario’s 1880 Royal Commission on Agriculture”, European Social Science History Conference, Ghent, Belgium, 12-15 April 2010.
“Thinking Modern: State Reports on Rural Society, British North America, 1791-1867”, État et sociétés rurales: Les enquêtes sur le monde rural, L’école des hautes études en sciences sociales , Paris, France, 20-21 February 2009.
“The Ploughman Poet and the Plodholes: The Poetics of Agricultural Improvement in Colonial Nova Scotia”, Robert Burns and the Scottish Diaspora: International Conference, University of Ulster, Edinburgh, UK, 10-11 July 2009.
“Organising Rural Society in Upper Canada and Nova Scotia: Comparing the Development of the State and Civil Society”, Atlantic Canada Studies Conference, University of Prince Edward Island, 2 May 2009.
“Elites in Agriculture: A Trans-Atlantic Approach”, European Social Science History Association meetings, Lisbon, Portugal, 27 February 2008.
“Representing the Rural in Colonial Nova Scotia Fiction”, Annual Meeting of the Agricultural History Society (US), Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 15-17 June 2006.
“Atlantic Canada”, Roundtable: “Canada’s Rural History: Classical Traditions and the State of the Art”, Annual Meeting of the Agricultural History Society (US), Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 15-17 June 2006.
“Nature and Culture in Chrestien Le Clercq’s Nouvelle Relations de Gaspesie (1686)”, paper presented to the conference of the British Association for Canadian Studies, Cambridge University (UK), 19 April 2006.
[with Miriam Wright, UBC], “Understandings of State, Society and Environment: Different Models of State Intervention and Planning in the Newfoundland Fishery, 1930-1966”, Atlantic Canada Workshop, StFX University, 25 August 2001.
“’The Yoke of Improvement’: Sir John Sinclair, John Young and the Improvement of the Scotlands, New and Old, 1790-1825”, for the Jack and Mary Sweet Symposium, Transatlantic Rebels: Agrarian Radicalism in Comparative Context", Michigan State University, East Lansing Michigan, 18 November 2000.
“Fishers, Fabians, and Colonialism: The Social and Environmental Context of State Regulation in Rural Newfoundland, 1934-49”, Newberry Library Seminar in Rural History and the University of Chicago, Chicago Ill., 18 March 2000.
“Pre-Confederation, Post-Confederation, Post-Canadian?: Periodising Canadian History”, McGill University, Department of History Symposium: “Boundaries and Visions of Time in History and the Historical Sciences”, 31 January 2000.
“Of Ploughs, Paradigms, and Political Culture: Why ‘Development Studies’ are Still Relevant in Understanding the Rural 19th Century”, Atlantic Canada After Development, Queen’s University, 15 October 1999.
“Colonial Liberalism: The General Mining Association, the State, and the Attack on Monopoly in Nova Scotia”, Centre for Canadian Studies, Edinburgh UK, 7 May 1999.
“‘Then All Were For the State’: Making a Provincial Welfare State, Nova Scotia, 1925-1939”, Canadian Historical Association, Université de Sherbrooke, Québec, 1 June 1999.
“‘Building the Political Fabric on the Foundation of the Plough’: Liberalism and Improvement in Rural Nova Scotia, 1817-1862”, Montreal History Group Colloquium, Université du Québec à Montréal, 1 May 1998.
[with Miriam Wright, Post-Doctoral Fellow, MUN] “The State and the Newfoundland Fishery: Logics of Society, Economy, and Environment, 1930-1966”, Conference: (Re)Sources for Sustainability: Understanding Cold Ocean Environments, Memorial University of Newfoundland, 15 May 1997.
“‘The New Gospel of Body and Soul’: Logics of Government in Rural Newfoundland”, Canadian Historical Association, Memorial University of Newfoundland, 8 June 1997.
“In the Interests of Discipline”: Scientific Management and the Newfoundland Fishery, 1899-1934”, Eco-Research Programme Fall Seminar, Memorial University, 6 December 1996.
“Modernisation as Theory and Practice in Rural Nova Scotia in the Early 19th Century”, Conference of the Canadian Historical Association, Université du Québec à Montréal, 29 August 1995.
“‘Doing’ Rural History: the Symbolic Marginality of the Rural in Atlantic Canadian History”, part of a “roundtable” session at the CHA with J.I. Little, Ruth Wells Sandwell, Chad Gaffield, Royden Loewen, and René Hardy, Université du Québec à Montréal, 29 August 1995.
“Improvement: A ‘Global’ Agenda in Rural Nova Scotia in the Early 19th Century”, Conference on Global Efficiency, Regional Integrity, and Cultural Identity in Atlantic Canada, St. Mary’s University, Halifax, 4 November 1994.
“Families and Social Reproduction: Mine and Farm Households in Northern Nova Scotia, 1865-1880”, New Perspectives in History, Seminar Series, Department of History, Queen’s University, 3 March 1993.
“Rural Work in Atlantic Canada: An Overview”, Meeting of the Canadian Committee on Labour History, University of Prince Edward Island, 29 May 1992.
“Family Formation in the Industrial Countryside: Mine and Farm Households, Pictou County, Nova Scotia, 1860-1880”, Canadian Historical Association, University of Prince Edward Island, 31 May 1992.
PUBLIC TALKS:
“Evangelicals and State Churches: British North American Religious Politics”, Beaverdams Historical Society, 3 June 2017.
Nova Scotia and Confederation, St. Catharines Library Canada 150 Lecture Series, 14 June 2017.
ACADEMIC SERVICE:
Canadian Historical Association, Sir John A. Macdonald Prize Committee for the Best Book in Canadian History, 2015-18.
English-language Book Review Editor, Journal of Canadian Studies/Revue d'études canadiennes (2006 to 2010)
Editorial Board: Canadian History Modules Project (2007 to present)
Board member, Journal of Canadian Studies/Revue d'études canadiennes (2006-10)
CHA Clio Prize Committee, 2004-07
Occasional publications referee, Journal of Canadian Studies
Dictionary of Canadian Biography, University of Toronto Press, 2004-05
Occasional Publications Referee, Aid to Scholarly Publications Programme, Humanities and Social Sciences Federation of Canada.
Occasional Publications Referee, Acadiensis: Journal of the History of the Atlantic Region.
Occasional Publications Referee, Histoire sociale/Social History.
Occasional Publications Referee, Journal of the Canadian Historical Association.
Occasional Publications Referee, Oxford University Press.
Occasional Publications Referee, McGill-Queen’s University Press.
Occasional Publications Referee, Wilfrid Laurier University Press.
Editorial Board, left history: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Historical Inquiry and Debate. (1994-2000)
External tenure and promotion assessments:
University of Alberta (2012)
University of Nippissing (2010)
Programme reviews
Department of History, Bishop’s University (Fall 2017)
Department of Sociology, Brock University (Winter 2016)
Arts and Contemporary Culture, Ryerson University (Fall 2013)
Consulting and Media (Non-Academic)
CBC: “Canada: The Story of Us”, (talking head on 3 episodes), Winter 2017.
CBC (Halifax) – Rural Nova Scotia, August 2005
Province of Nova Scotia, Attorney-General's Office, on-going work, 2002-04
Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development, 2001-02
Canadian Press (Granatstein and High School Curriculum, December 1999)
Prentice-Hall (prospectus evaluation, November 1998).
L’actualité (Newfoundland-Québec relations, October 1998).
Black History Month Committee, UCCB, Sydney NS (February 1996).
other Professional Experience:
Curriculum and development:
Online course redevelopment, HIST 2P01
Centre for Pedagogical Innovation Funding, $7500
Scalar webtext development, winter/summer 2017.
With Prof Michael Driedger, online course development, HIST 2F90 (full-year course, developed winter/spring 2015, delivered 2015-16)
Centre for Pedagogical Innovation Funding, $15,000, 2015
Ontario Online Initiative Funding, $28,800, 2016
Scalar-webtext development, summer 2016
Graduate Programme Director, 2008-2012
Curriculum Committee (chair), 2003-04, 2004-05, and 2005-06
Curriculum Committee, 2002-03
McGill School of the Environment, Bay of Fundy, Field-Study Semester, 2000-2001
I was one of three principals in the development of a multidisciplinary field-study programme in environmental studies. Led by Dr. Gail Chmura (Geography), with Prof. Joan Marshall (Agricultural Economics).
Designed and implemented a new undergraduate course for the McGill School of Environment and the McGill Institute for the Study of Canada “Topics in Canadian Studies IV: Understanding Atlantic Canada”.
Academic Advisory Committee, McGill Institute for the Study of Canada, 1997-98; 1998-99, 1999-2000
Majors and Minors Committee, Department of History, McGill University, 1998-99, 1999-2000.
Ethics Review Committee (ad hoc), Department of History, McGill University, 1998-99.
Designed and implemented a new undergraduate course 101-370, “Canada: 20th-Century Politics”, which I will teach in the Winter term 2000 (McGill University).
Designed, implemented, and taught a new graduate course 101-613D, “Toward A Social History of the Welfare State in Canada” (McGill University, 1998-99).
Conferences organised:
Programme Committee, Canadian Historical Association Meetings, Brock University, May 2014
Programme Committee, Canadian Association of Food Studies, Brock University, May 2014.
(Re)Sources for Sustainability: Understanding Cold Ocean Environments, Memorial University of Newfoundland, 15-16 May 1997.
Rural Workers in Atlantic Canada, Gorsebrook Research Institute, St. Mary’s University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, 7-8 October 1990. (Funded by SSHRC and the Gorsebrook Research Institute)
Atlantic Canada Workshop, “The Political Economy of Region”, Carleton University, 15-17 August 1991 (co-organised with Jim Kenny, Department of History, Carleton University). (Funded by SSHRC, Carleton University, and the Secretary of State)