The Dawn of Canada's Century

Book excerpt: Sir Wilfrid Laurier famously claimed that the twentieth century would be Canada's century and, indeed, its opening decade witnessed remarkable territorial, demographic, and social transformations. Yet the lives of those who lived and laboured to fashion these changes remain largely hidden from historical view. The Dawn of Canada's Century presents close and systematic interpretations of everyday lives based on the first national sample of the 1911 census. Written by many of Canada's leading historical researchers, The Dawn of Canada's Century demonstrates the wide-ranging and revealing social histories made possible by the new Canadian Century Research Infrastructure, an innovative database of national samples of decennial census microdata, from 1911 through 1951. This revealing collection sheds new light on topics including identity and language, the socio-demography of aboriginal populations, national labour market dynamics, earnings distributions, social mobility, gender and immigration experiences, and the technologies of census taking. Situating early twentieth-century Canada within international historical population studies, these essays provide new ways to understand individuals' lives and connect them to larger structural changes. Contributors include Peter Baskerville (Alberta), Claude Bellevance (Université du Quebéc à Trois Rivière), Sean T. Cadigan (Memorial), Gordon Darroch (York), Lisa Dillon (UdeM), Chad Gaffield (SSHRC), Danielle Gauvreau (Concordia), Gustave Goldmann (Ottawa), Adam J. Green (Ottawa), Kris Inwood (Guelph), Charles Jones (Toronto), Richard Marcoux (Laval), Mary MacKinnon (McGill), Chris Minns (London School of Economics), Byron Moldofsky (Toronto), France Normand (Université du Quebéc à Trois Rivière), Stella Park (Toronto), Terry Quinlan (Newfoundland and Labrador Statistics Agency), Laurent Richard (Laval), Katharine Rollwagen (Ottawa), Evelyn Ruppert (Goldsmiths, University of London), Eric W. Sager (Victoria), Marc St-Hilaire (Laval), and Patricia Thornton (Concordia).