Arthur R. M. Lower
- Harold Innis
- Frederick Jackson Turner
- Canadian history
- economic history
- Tufts College
- United College
- Queen's University
Arthur Reginald Marsden Lower CC FRSC (12 August 1889 – 7 January 1988) was a Canadian historian and "liberal nationalist" interested in Canadian economic history, particularly the forest trade, and in Canada–US relations. He was the most nationalistic of Canadian historians, and highly distrustful of immigrants, Americans and any others outside of what he considered to be the Canadian family. The staple theory of Harold Innis influenced his research, much of which focused on the Canadian lumber industry. He was also strongly influenced by the ideas of American historian Frederick Jackson Turner regarding the influence of the frontier – The West – on distinctly American characteristics. Lower was an outdoorsman who not only loved nature, but emphasized the role of The North in shaping Canada.[2]
Biography
Lower was born in Barrie, Ontario. He studied history at the University of Toronto and Harvard University, where he obtained his doctorate. During World War I he served as an officer in the Royal Navy.
Lower taught history at Tufts College, Massachusetts, at Harvard and at United College, Winnipeg, where he chaired the Department of History for eighteen years. In 1944 he became professor of History at Queen's University, Kingston, a position he held until his retirement in 1959.
Work
His general history Colony to Nation first published in 1946. In this and other works, Lower influenced many English Canadians with his view of Canada's two nations - notably novelist Hugh MacLennan, the author of Two Solitudes. He also enjoyed poking fun at English Canadian "schooling" which he believed fell well short of "education". although he admired the quality Arianism generated by the frontier, he admitted it encouraged a careless and exploitative attitude toward natural resources, which angered him. The very title of his book on the lumber trade, North American Assault on the Canadian Forest, suggested, a friend told him, an exposé of "conquest, demolition, ravage, plunder, and exploitation."[3]
In terms of Canadian origins, Lower argues:
in its new wilderness home and its new aspect of British North Americanism, colonial Toryism made its second attempt to erect on American soil a copy of the English social edifice. From one point of view this is the most significant thing about the Loyalist movement; it withdrew a class concept of life from the south, moved it up north, and gave it a second chance.[4]
Lower in 1958 provided the long-standard historical interpretation that for English Canada the results were counter-revolutionary:
[English Canada] inherited, not the benefits, but the bitterness of the Revolution. It got no shining scriptures out of it. It got little release of energy and no new horizons of the spirit were opened up. It had been a calamity, pure and simple.... To take the place of the internal fire that was urging Americans westward across the continent, there was only melancholy contemplation of things as they might have been and dingy reflection of that ineffably glorious world across the stormy Atlantic. English Canada started its life with as powerful a nostalgic shove backward into the past as the Conquest had given to French Canada: two little peoples officially devoted to counter-revolution, to lost causes, to the tawdry ideals of a society of men and masters, and not to the self-reliant freedom alongside of them.[5]
Governor General Adrienne Clarkson quoted Lower at Rideau Hall in an October 2002 speech on the occasion of the presentation of the Public Service Outstanding Achievement Awards: "In every generation Canadians have had to rework the miracle of their political existence. Canada has been created because there has existed within the hearts of its people a determination to build for themselves an enduring home. Canada is a supreme act of faith."
He was elected to the Royal Society of Canada in 1941 and served as its president from 1962 to 1963. In 1968, he was made a Companion of the Order of Canada.
Lower's service medals and academic medals were sold at public auction on 18 March 2012 in Napanee Ontario.[1]
Selected bibliography
- Documents relating to Canadian currency, exchange and finance during the French period, (Ottawa, 1925)
- Select documents in Canadian economic history 1783-1885, (Toronto, 1933). Edited with economic historian Harold Innis
- The North American assault on the Canadian forest: a history of the lumber trade between Canada and the United States, (New Haven, 1938)
- "Two nations or two nationalities", in Culture 4 (1943), 470–481.
- Two ways of life: the primary antithesis of Canadian history, (Ottawa, 1943)
- Colony to Nation: a history of Canada, (Toronto, 1946, 2nd ed., 1949; 3rd ed., 1957; 4th ed., 1964; 5th ed., 1977)
- This Most Famous Stream: the liberal democratic way of life, (Toronto, 1954)
- Canadians in the Making: a social history of Canada, (Toronto, 1958)
- My first seventy-five years, (Toronto, 1967)
- Great Britain's Woodyard: British America and the timber trade 1763–1867, (Montreal, 1973)
- A pattern for history, (Toronto, 1978)
See also
References
- ^ Martel, Marcel (2017). "Ramsay Cook : l'historien engagé" [Ramsay Cook: The Militant Historian]. Études Canadiennes (in French) (83): 154. doi:10.4000/eccs.988. ISSN 2429-4667.
- ^ Carl Berger, 1986, pp 112-19
- ^ Berger, p 122
- ^ A.R.M. Lower, From Colony to Nation (1946), p 114.
- ^ Arthur Reginald Marsden Lower (1958). Canadians in the making: a social history of Canada. Longmans, Green. pp. 135–36.
Further reading
- Berger, Carl. The Writing of Canadian History: Aspects of English-Canadian Historical Writing Since 1900 (2nd ed. 1987), pp 112–37
External links
- Biographies of Prominent Quebec and Canadian Historical Figures
- Arthur Reginald Marsden Lower at The Canadian Encyclopedia
- Arthur Reginald Marsden Lower fonds at Queen’s University Archives
Professional and academic associations | ||
---|---|---|
Preceded by | President of the Royal Society of Canada 1961–1962 | Succeeded by |
Awards | ||
Preceded by A. LeRoy Burt | J. B. Tyrrell Historical Medal 1947 | Succeeded by |
- v
- t
- e
- Thomas Beattie Roberton, TBR: Newspaper Pieces (1936)
- Stephen Leacock, My Discovery of the West (1937)
- John Murray Gibbon, Canadian Mosaic (1938)
- Laura Salverson, Confessions of an Immigrant's Daughter (1939)
- J. F. C. Wright, Slava Bohu (1940)
- Emily Carr, Klee Wyck (1941)
- Bruce Hutchison, The Unknown Country (1942)
- Edgar McInnis, The Unguarded Frontier (1942)
- E. K. Brown, On Canadian Poetry (1943)
- John Robins, The Incomplete Anglers (1943)
- Dorothy Duncan, Partner in Three Worlds (1944)
- Edgar McInnis, The War: Fourth Year (1944)
- Ross Munro, Gauntlet to Overlord (1945)
- Evelyn M. Richardson, We Keep a Light (1945)
- Frederick Phillip Grove, In Search of Myself (1946)
- Arthur R. M. Lower, Colony to Nation (1946)
- William Sclater, Haida (1947)
- Robert MacGregor Dawson, The Government of Canada (1947)
- Thomas Head Raddall, Halifax, Warden of the North (1948)
- C. P. Stacey, The Canadian Army, 1939-1945 (1948)
- Hugh MacLennan, Cross-country (1949)
- Robert MacGregor Dawson, Democratic Government in Canada (1949)
- Marjorie Wilkins Campbell, The Saskatchewan (1950)
- W. L. Morton, The Progressive Party in Canada (1950)
- Frank MacKinnon, The Progressive Party in Canada (1951)
- Josephine Phelan, The Ardent Exile (1951)
- Donald G. Creighton, John A. Macdonald, The Young Politician (1952)
- Bruce Hutchison, The Incredible Canadian (1952)
- J. M. S. Careless, Canada, A Story of Challenge (1953)
- N. J. Berrill, Sex and the Nature of Things (1953)
- Hugh MacLennan, Thirty and Three (1954)
- Arthur R. M. Lower, This Most Famous Stream (1954)
- N. J. Berrill, Man's Emerging Mind (1955)
- Donald G. Creighton, John A. Macdonald, The Old Chieftain (1955)
- Pierre Berton, The Mysterious North (1956)
- Joseph Lister Rutledge, Century of Conflict (1956)
- Thomas H. Raddall, The Path of Destiny (1957)
- Bruce Hutchison, Canada: Tomorrow's Giant (1957)
- Pierre Berton, Klondike (1958)
- Joyce Hemlow, The History of Fanny Burney (1958)
- [No award] (1959)
- Frank Underhill, In Search of Canadian Liberalism (1960)
- T. A. Goudge, The Ascent of Life (1961)
- Marshall McLuhan, The Gutenberg Galaxy (1962)
- J.M.S. Careless, Brown of the Globe (1963)
- Phyllis Grosskurth, John Addington Symonds (1964)
- James Eayrs, In Defence of Canada (1965)
- George Woodcock, The Crystal Spirit: A Study of George Orwell (1966)
- Norah Story, The Oxford Companion to Canadian History and Literature (1967)
- Mordecai Richler, Hunting Tigers Under Glass (1968)
- [No award] (1969)
- [No award] (1970)
- Pierre Berton, The Last Spike (1971)
- [No award] (1972)
- Michael Bell, Painters in a New Land (1973)
- Charles Ritchie, The Siren Years (1974)
- Marion MacRae and Anthony Adamson, Hallowed Walls (1975)
- Carl Berger, The Writing of Canadian History (1976)
- F. R. Scott, Essays on the Constitution (1977)
- Roger Caron, Go-Boy! Memories of a Life Behind Bars (1978)
- Maria Tippett, Emily Carr (1979)
- Robert Bothwell and William Kilbourn, C.D. Howe (1979)
- Larry Pratt and John Richards, Prairie Capitalism (1979)
- Jeffrey Simpson, Discipline of Power: The Conservative Interlude and the Liberal Restoration (1980)
- George Calef, Caribou and the Barren-Land (1981)
- Christopher Moore, Louisbourg Portraits: Life in an Eighteenth- Century Garrison Town (1982)
- Jeffery Williams, Byng of Vimy: General and Governor General (1983)
- Sandra Gwyn, The Private Capital: Ambition and Love in the Age of Macdonald and Laurier (1984)
- Ramsay Cook, The Regenerators: Social Criticism in Late Victorian English Canada (1985)
- Northrop Frye, Northrop Frye on Shakespeare (1986)
- Michael Ignatieff, The Russian Album (1987)
- Anne Collins, In the Sleep Room (1988)
- Robert Calder, Willie: The Life of W. Somerset Maugham (1989)
- Stephen Clarkson and Christina McCall, Trudeau and Our Times (1990)
- Robert Hunter and Robert Calihoo, Occupied Canada: A Young White Man Discovers His Unsuspected Past (1991)
- Maggie Siggins, Revenge of the Land: A Century of Greed, Tragedy and Murder on a Saskatchewan Farm (1992)
- Karen Connelly, Touch the Dragon (1993)
- John Livingston, Rogue Primate: An Exploration of Human Domestication (1994)
- Rosemary Sullivan, Shadow Maker: The Life of Gwendolyn MacEwen (1995)
- John Ralston Saul, The Unconscious Civilization (1996)
- Rachel Manley, Drumblair: Memories of a Jamaican Childhood (1997)
- David Adams Richards, Lines on the Water: A Fisherman's Life on the Miramichi (1998)
- Marq de Villiers, Water (1999)
- Nega Mezlekia, Notes from the Hyena's Belly (2000)
- Thomas Homer-Dixon, The Ingenuity Gap (2001)
- Andrew Nikiforuk, Saboteurs: Wiebo Ludwig's War Against Big Oil (2002)
- Margaret MacMillan, Paris 1919: Six Months That Changed the World (2003)
- Roméo Dallaire, Shake Hands With the Devil: The Failure of Humanity in Rwanda (2004)
- John Vaillant, The Golden Spruce: A True Story of Myth, Madness and Greed (2005)
- Ross King, The Judgment of Paris: The Revolutionary Decade That Gave the World Impressionism (2006)
- Karolyn Smardz Frost, I've Got a Home in Glory Land: A Lost Tale of the Underground Railroad (2007)
- Christie Blatchford, Fifteen Days: Stories of Bravery, Friendship, Life and Death from Inside the New Canadian Army (2008)
- M. G. Vassanji, A Place Within: Rediscovering India (2009)
- Allan Casey, Lakeland: Journeys into the Soul of Canada (2010)
- Charles Foran, Mordecai: The Life and Times (2011)
- Ross King, Leonardo and the Last Supper (2012)
- Sandra Djwa, Journey with No Maps: A Life of P.K. Page (2013)
- Michael John Harris, The End of Absence: Reclaiming What We’ve Lost in a World of Constant Connection (2014)
- Mark L. Winston, Bee Time: Lessons from the Hive (2015)
- Bill Waiser, A World We Have Lost: Saskatchewan Before 1905 (2016)
- Graeme Wood, The Way of the Strangers: Encounters with the Islamic State (2017)
- Darrel J. McLeod, Mamaskatch: A Cree Coming of Age' (2018)
- Don Gillmor, To the River: Losing My Brother (2019)
- Madhur Anand, This Red Line Goes Straight to Your Heart (2020)
- Sadiqa de Meijer, alfabet/alphabet: a memoir of a first language (2021)
- Eli Baxter, Aki-wayn-zih: A Person as Worthy as the Earth (2022)
- Kyo Maclear, Unearthing (2023)