Arthur Reginald Marsden Lower (12 August 1889 – 7 January 1988) was a Canadian
historian
A historian is a person who studies and writes about the past and is regarded as an authority on it. Historians are concerned with the continuous, methodical narrative and research of past events as relating to the human race; as well as the st ...
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
Harold Adams Innis (November 5, 1894 – November 9, 1952) was a Canadian professor of political economy at the University of Toronto and the author of seminal works on media, communication theory, and Canadian economic history. He helped deve ...
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
Frederick Jackson Turner (November 14, 1861 – March 14, 1932) was an American historian during the early 20th century, based at the University of Wisconsin until 1910, and then Harvard University. He was known primarily for his frontier thes ...
regarding the influence of the
frontier
A frontier is the political and geographical area near or beyond a boundary. A frontier can also be referred to as a "front". The term came from French in the 15th century, with the meaning "borderland"—the region of a country that fronts ...
– 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.
Biography
Lower was born in
Barrie
Barrie is a city in Southern Ontario, Canada, about north of Toronto. The city is within Simcoe County and located along the shores of Kempenfelt Bay, the western arm of Lake Simcoe. Although physically in Simcoe County, Barrie is politicall ...
,
Ontario
Ontario ( ; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada.Ontario is located in the geographic eastern half of Canada, but it has historically and politically been considered to be part of Central Canada. Located in Central Ca ...
. He studied history at the
University of Toronto
The University of Toronto (UToronto or U of T) is a public research university in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, located on the grounds that surround Queen's Park. It was founded by royal charter in 1827 as King's College, the first institution ...
and
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of highe ...
, where he obtained his doctorate. During World War I he served as an officer in the
Royal Navy
The Royal Navy (RN) is the United Kingdom's naval warfare force. Although warships were used by English and Scottish kings from the early medieval period, the first major maritime engagements were fought in the Hundred Years' War against Fr ...
.
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
Queen's University at Kingston, commonly known as Queen's University or simply Queen's, is a public research university in Kingston, Ontario, Canada. Queen's holds more than of land throughout Ontario and owns Herstmonceux Castle in East Sus ...
, 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
John Hugh MacLennan (March 20, 1907 – November 9, 1990) was a Canadian writer and professor of English at McGill University. He won five Governor General's Awards and a Royal Bank Award.
Family and childhood
MacLennan was born in Glace B ...
, 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."
[Berger, p 122]
In terms of Canadian origins, Lower argues:
Lower in 1958 provided the long-standard historical interpretation that for English Canada the results were counter-revolutionary:
nglish Canadainherited, 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.
Governor General
Adrienne Clarkson
Adrienne Louise Clarkson (; ; born February 10, 1939) is a Hong Kong-born Canadian journalist who served from 1999 to 2005 as Governor General of Canada, the 26th since Canadian Confederation.
Clarkson arrived in Canada with her family in 19 ...
quoted Lower at
Rideau Hall
Rideau Hall (officially Government House) is the official residence in Ottawa of both the Canadian monarch and their representative, the governor general of Canada. It stands in Canada's capital on a estate at 1 Sussex Drive, with the main bu ...
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
The Royal Society of Canada (RSC; french: Société royale du Canada, SRC), also known as the Academies of Arts, Humanities and Sciences of Canada (French: ''Académies des arts, des lettres et des sciences du Canada''), is the senior national, bil ...
in 1941 and served as its president from 1962 to 1963. In 1968, he was made a Companion of the
Order of Canada
The Order of Canada (french: Ordre du Canada; abbreviated as OC) is a Canadian state order and the second-highest honour for merit in the system of orders, decorations, and medals of Canada, after the Order of Merit.
To coincide with the cen ...
.
Lower's service medals and academic medals were sold at public auction on 18 March 2012 in Napanee Ontari
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
Harold Adams Innis (November 5, 1894 – November 9, 1952) was a Canadian professor of political economy at the University of Toronto and the author of seminal works on media, communication theory, and Canadian economic history. He helped deve ...
* ''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
*
Governor General's Awards
The Governor General's Awards are a collection of annual awards presented by the Governor General of Canada, recognizing distinction in numerous academic, artistic, and social fields.
The first award was conceived and inaugurated in 1937 by the ...
References
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 FiguresArthur Reginald Marsden Lowerat ''
The Canadian Encyclopedia
''The Canadian Encyclopedia'' (TCE; french: L'Encyclopédie canadienne) is the national encyclopedia of Canada, published online by the Toronto-based historical organization Historica Canada, with the support of Canadian Heritage.
Available f ...
''
Arthur Reginald Marsden Lower fondsa
Queen’s University Archives
{{DEFAULTSORT:Lower, Arthur R. M.
1889 births
1988 deaths
Canadian male non-fiction writers
Companions of the Order of Canada
University of Toronto alumni
Harvard University alumni
Fellows of the Royal Society of Canada
Harvard University faculty
Tufts University faculty
Governor General's Award-winning non-fiction writers
Queen's University at Kingston faculty
University of Winnipeg faculty
People from Barrie
Writers from Ontario
20th-century Canadian historians
Presidents of the Canadian Historical Association