Creating Colonial Pasts: History, Memory, and Commemoration in Southern Ontario, 1860–1980 by Cecilia Morgan (review)

Abstract

Eamon suggests the print community played an important role in the evolution of British North American society. Newspapers were relatively expensive in this period and so it not surprising that he finds that their readership was a small segment of the population disproportionately made up of members of the colonial elite. Newspaper publishing was not especially profitable, so in each of the two colonies appointment as the King’s printer would have been a financially desirable sinecure even if there was a cost in terms of editorial latitude. As well as disseminating news during the late eighteenth century, newspapers in Halifax and Quebec City evolved as print forums which served to mould social discourse and public taste. Eamon shows that members of the print community used the press to promote the coffeehouse as the preferred milieu for the colonial elite to socialise. He also shows that newspapers helped legitimise acceptance of the theatre in polite society. Newspapers and magazines also diffused useful knowledge for the benefit of their readers, in particular agricultural science. Eamon also situates the print community of Halifax and Quebec City in the wider context of the British Empire. Newspapers circulated widely across the empire and editors in Halifax and Quebec City drew upon their content to promote British values. Celebration of the monarchy was considered to be particularly important. Eamon cites for example a report from July 1789 in the Quebec Herald of prayers offered for the speedy restoration of the health of King George III by the numerous congregation of the Jewish synagogue in an unnamed Jamaican town, presumably Kingston. He also notes that such news often did not reach Halifax and Quebec City in a timely fashion. Furthermore when ships carrying print cargo were delayed, and in Quebec City where the harbour closed during the winter months, apologetic editors had to fill their pages with alternative content such as anecdotes and general essays. This is an important addition to the literature on the historical development of Canadian newspapers. Eamon shows that notwithstanding the logistical challenges in disseminating news across the world in this period, the British North American newspapers were an integral part of a British imperial print community. Perhaps he might have explored further the role the Halifax and Quebec City newspapers played in ensuring that both Nova Scotia and Quebec remained loyal to the British Crown during the American Revolution. Richard A. Hawkins, University of Wolverhampton