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Maritime Business History: A Reconnaissance of Records, Sources, and Prospects
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 June 2012
Abstract
Professor Wilson surveys existing materials for the historical study of business in Canada's Maritime provinces and considers the outlook for future studies of that region.
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- Copyright © The President and Fellows of Harvard College 1973
References
1 I have not included Newfoundland or the fairly recent idea of the “Atlantic Provinces” (which includes Newfoundland), for Newfoundland's history is peculiar unto itself — especially in economic and business history.
2 “An Introduction to the Economic History of the Maritimes, including Newfoundland and New England,” in Innis, Harold A., Essays in Canadian Economic History, ed. by Innis, Mary Q. (Toronto, 1956), 27–42Google Scholar.
3 K. C. Irving and his sons dominate New Brunswick's petroleum refining and marketing, shipbuilding, transport, and newspaper industries; Roy Jodrey, President of Minas Basin Pulp & Paper Co. Ltd., Chairman of the Board of Canadian Keyes Fibre Co. Ltd., and Vice-President of the Canadian Permanent Trust Co., is director and a large-scale investor in numerous regional and national enterprises; Frank Sobey, Chairman of the Board of Sobeys Stores Ltd., a major regional grocery chain, is prominent on many company boards and past Chairman of Nova Scotia's entrepreneurial crown corporation, Industrial Estates Ltd.; Charles MacCulloch, President of Nova Scotia's leading lumber and hardware chain, MacCullochs Ltd., is also an outstanding figure in Halifax real estate and construction enterprises, and currently is Chairman of Industrial Estates Ltd.
4 In the 1930s my father, a Halifax wholesale grocer, considered that the Maritimes faced three equally-matched evils — Hitler, the C.C.F., and Dominion Stores.
5 George, Roy E., A Leader or a Laggard: Manufacturing Industry in Nova Scotia, Quebec and Ontario (Toronto, 1970)Google Scholar.
6 See, for example, Johnson, F. W., Report on the Agricultural Capabilities of … New Brunswick (Fredericton, 1850)Google Scholar; MacLean, S. J., The Tariff History of Canada (Toronto, 1895)Google Scholar; Robinson, Chalfant, Two Reciprocity Treaties (New Haven, 1903)Google Scholar; Raymond, W. O., History of the St. John River (Saint John, 1905)Google Scholar; Hannay, J., History of New Brunswick, 2 vols. (Saint John, 1909)Google Scholar; MacDonald, C. O., The Coal and Iron Industries of Nova Scotia (n.d.); Fernow, B. E., Forest Conditions in Nova Scotia (Ottawa, 1912)Google Scholar; Donald, W. J. A., The Canadian Iron and Steel Industry (Boston, 1915)Google Scholar; Michell, H., The Cooperative Store in Canada (Kingston, 1916)Google Scholar; Drummond, R., Minerals and Mining in Nova Scotia (Stellarton, 1918)Google Scholar; Lubbock, Basil, The Colonial Clippers (London, 1921)Google Scholar; Benns, F. L., The American Struggle for the British West Indies Carrying Trade, 1815–30 (Bloomington, Ind., 1923)Google Scholar; Albion, R. G., Forests and Sea Power (Cambridge, Mass., 1926)Google Scholar; Grant, R. F., The Canadian Atlantic Fishery (Toronto, 1934)Google Scholar; The Maritime Provinces, 1867–1934 (Dominion Bureau of Statistics, 1934)Google Scholar; Masters, D. C., The Reciprocity Treaty of 1854 (Toronto, 1936)Google Scholar; Brebner, J. B., The Neutral Yankees of Nova Scotia (N.Y., 1937)Google Scholar; Lower, A. R. M., The North American Assault on the Canadian Forest (Toronto, 1938)Google Scholar; Macdonald, Norman, Canada, 1763–1841, Immigration and Settlement (London, 1939)Google Scholar; Graham, G. S., Sea Power and British North America, 1783–1820 (Cambridge, 1941)Google Scholar and his Empire of the North Atlantic (Toronto, 1946)Google Scholar; Innis, H. A., ed., The Diary of Simeon Perkins, 1776–1780 (Toronto, 1948)Google Scholar, and succeeding volumes edited by D. C. Harvey and C. B. Fergusson; Clark, A. H., Three Centuries and the Island [P.E.I] (Toronto, 1959)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Stevens, G. R., Canadian National Railways, I (Toronto, 1960)Google Scholar; and Manny, L., Ships of the Miramichi (Saint John, 1960)Google Scholar. Articles are too numerous for useful reduction here, but they appear in a wide range of journals including the Dalhousie Review, New England Quarterly, Canadian Historical Review, Acadiensis [new and old versions], and the Collections of various regional historical societies. I am preparing a check list of articles that will be available to interested students.
7 See, for example, such important works as Davis, Harold, An International Community on the St. Croix (Orono, Me., 1950)Google Scholar; Malone, Joseph, Pine Trees and Politics: The Naval Stores and Forest Policy in Colonial New England (Seattle, 1964)Google Scholar; Ahlin, John, Maine Rubicon: Downeast Settlers During the American Revolution (Calais, Me., 1966)Google Scholar; Rawlyk, George, Yankees at Louisbourg (Orono, Me., 1967)Google Scholar; and Smith, David, Lumbering and the Maine Woods: A Bibliographical Guide (Portland, Me., 1971)Google Scholar.
8 A few of the most useful M.A. theses are listed below. Acadia University: Guy, R. M., “Industrial Development and Urbanization of Pictou Co., N.S. to 1900” (1962)Google Scholar; Dalhousie University: Butler, F. G., “Commercial Relations of Nova Scotia with the United States, 1783–1830” (1932)Google Scholar; Copp, W. R., “Nova Scotia and the War of 1812” (1935)Google Scholar; Evans, R. D., “Transportation and Communication in Nova Scotia, 1815–1850” (1936)Google Scholar; Lomas, A. A., “The Industrial Development of Nova Scotia, 1830–1854” (1950)Google Scholar; Howell, Colin, “Repeal, Reciprocity and Commercial Union in Nova Scotian Politics” (1967)Google Scholar; Maxwell, J. A., “A Financial History of Nova Scotia”Google Scholar; MacKenzie, A., “The Rise and Fall of the Farm Labour Party in Nova Scotia” (1969)Google Scholar; Mount Allison University: W. M. MacLeod, “The Economic Problems of the New Brunswick Acadia Coal Company” (1938); University of New Brunswick: Bailey, A. W., “Railways in New Brunswick, 1827–1867” (1955)Google Scholar; Campbell, R. C., “Symonds, Hazen and White: A Study of a New Brunswick Firm in the Commercial World of the Eighteenth Century” (1970)Google Scholar; Chapman, J. K., “Relations of Maine and New Brunswick in the Era of Reciprocity, 1849–1867” (1952)Google Scholar; Gallagher, D. W., “The Commercial Fisheries of New Brunswick, 1926–1953” (1955)Google Scholar; Grant, H. M., “Northumberland County; An Estimate of its Wealth and Income” (1941)Google Scholar; Greaves, E. H., “Peter Mitchell, A Father of Confederation” (1958)Google Scholar; Harrison, W. H., “The Maritime Bank of the Dominion of Canada, 1872–1887” (1970)Google Scholar; Hazenberg, G., “An Analysis of the New Brunswick Lumber Industry” (1966)Google Scholar; MacGowan, D. F., “Clifton, New Brunswick: The Rise and Fall of a Shipbuilding Community” (1955)Google Scholar; R. MacLellan, “Income Fluctuations of Potato Producers in New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island, 1926–1958” (1960); F. B. MacMillan, “Trade of New Brunswick with Great Britain, the United States and the Caribbean, 1784–1849” (1955); R. W. Nablo, “Social Structure Related to Business and Finance in a Seaport City [St. John]” (1900); D. L. Poynter, “Economics and Politics of New Brunswick, 1878–1883” (1961); Rice, J. R., “A History of Organized Labour in Saint John, New Brunswick, 1813–1890” (1968)Google Scholar; Smith, D. W., “The Maritime Years of R. B. Bennett, 1870–1897” (1968)Google Scholar; Carl Wallace, “The Life and Times of Sir Albert James Smith” (1960).
9 Stairs, W. J., History of Stairs Morrow (Halifax, 1906)Google Scholar.
10 The Years Between; Halifax 1820-1923 (Halifax, 1923)Google Scholar, which suggests the significance of the naval and military establishments for local suppliers.
11 New Glasgow's Industrial Centre, New Glasgow, Stellarton, Westville, Trenton; Birthplace of Steel in Canada ([New Glasgow?] 1916)Google Scholar.
12 Nova Scotia Steel and Coal Co. Ltd. Souvenir, 1908 ([New Glasgow?] 1908)Google Scholar.
13 The Book of Saint John (Saint John, 1903)Google Scholar, a Board of Trade commemorative on the visit of Imperial Chambers of Commerce; An Historical Sketch, 1783–1909 (Saint John, 1909)Google Scholar, a tailoring company's commemorative; Steeves, H. H., The Story of Moncton's First Store and Storekeeper (Saint John, 1924)Google Scholar; Historic Moncton (Moncton, 1934)Google Scholar, histories of business firms, institutions, and of Moncton's strategic transport site; Wallace, F. W., The Romance of a Great Port (Saint John, 1935)Google Scholar, a Silver Jubilee commemorative; and Moffatt, Charles, Introducing Sackville (Sackville, 1946)Google Scholar.
14 Notably, T. W. Acheson's Toronto doctoral thesis (1972), “The Social Origins of Canadian Industrialism: A Study in the Structure of Entrepreneurship,” and Guy's, R. M. unpublished M.A. thesis, “Industrial Development and Urbanization of Pictou Co., N.S. to 1900” (Acadia University, 1962)Google Scholar.
15 See, for example, “Canadian National Railways. An Industrial Survey of Lower Gloucester County [N.B.]” (1962); or “Canadian National Railways. An Industrial Survey of Fredericton … with Notes on Marysville and Oromocto” (1961).
16 Professor J. M. S. Careless, of the University of Toronto, one of the country's most outstanding scholars and the inspirer of a new metropolitan school of Canadian history, is the most prominent figure in this connection. Careless's student, T. W. Acheson of the University of New Brunswick, has completed an important doctoral dissertation with valuable material on the post-Confederation Maritimes, “The Social Origins of Canadian Industrialism: A Study in the Structure of Entrepreneurship” (Toronto 1972), and a significant article, “The National Policy and the Industrialization of the Maritimes, 1880–1910,” Acadiensis, I (Spring, 1972), 3–28Google Scholar. Another of Careless's students, now at Dalhousie University, D. A. Sutherland, is completing a promising doctoral study of “The Mercantile Community in Halifax in the 19th Century.” Valuable examinations of business, commercial pressure groups and labour movements in the Maritimes are also under way in Ontario at Queen's and Trent Universities.
17 See the provocative article by Rawlyk, George, “A New Golden Age of Maritime Historiography?”, Queen's Quarterly, 76 (1969), 55–65Google Scholar.
18 The best papers include: Loggie, A. & R. Company (1886–1966), wholesale fish dealers, business correspondence (Chatham); Gilmour & Rankin (1851–93), papers of leading shipbuilders and lumber merchants (Douglastown); Mitchell, Peter (1854–1862), correspondence of a major shipbuilder and political figure (Newcastle).
19 Notably J. R. H. Wilbur, “The Stormy History of the Maritime Bank,” N.B.H.S. Collections, No. 19, 69 (1966).
20 Notably Professors Wilbur and Acheson, and Professor William Spray — all of whom have been associated with U.N.B. In P.E.I, and Nova Scotia, business history can count no academic historians in its ranks at present. Academic economists in each province, however, have participated in examining the general economic and specific agricultural, industrial, and commercial development in the Maritime region, particularly for the twentieth century.
21 I have examined all of these materials, and aside from these general observations would be happy to provide more detailed descriptions and valuations to interested students.
The Museum's Archives Division served de facto as New Brunswick's archives until 1968, when the former library building of the University of New Brunswick was designated the Provincial Archives. Michael Swift, the Provincial Archivist, faces a mountainous task, for in addition to the delicate problem of overlapping jurisdictions and collections in the old Saint John Museum and the new Fredericton Archives, the Public Documents Dispersal Act of 1963 in effect created a government records management and disposal policy. In so doing it forced the early archivists to accept the primacy of governmental collections over private and corporate materials. Business and related private records, however, are constantly disappearing.
Perhaps some temporary alleviation can be provided by interested university faculty members, library staff, and local historical societies in supplementing the Archives' efforts to recover business materials. It may also be sensible for the Museum in Saint John to concentrate its business records retrieval programme upon metropolitan Saint John, transferring present holdings and future responsibilities for other sections of the province to the new Archives in Fredericton. Certainly, the prospect of a common provincial depository for government and corporate records would seem the most attractive. Moreover, recognition of Saint John's special place in the province's business and public life would be well served by a programme of concentrating Saint John's metropolitan records under the Museum's enterprising direction, but with the Archives' advice and cooperation.
22 My thanks for assistance are extended to the Provincial Archivists of the Maritimes and to their staffs, the Archivist and staff of the Archives Division, New Brunswick Provincial Museum, Charles Armour, Douglas Boylan, Harry Fleming, Ian McAllister, Dr. J. C. Medcof, Norman Morse, Robin Neil, Richard Wilbur, Glynis Wilson, and to Trent University for a summer research travel grant.