Janet Kitz
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Janet F. Kitz (January 12, 1930 – May 10, 2019) was a Scottish-born Canadian educator, author and historian based in
Halifax, Nova Scotia Halifax is the capital and most populous municipality of the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of Nova Scotia, and the most populous municipality in Atlantic Canada. As of 2024, it is estimated that the population of the H ...
. She played a key role in the recognition of the 1917
Halifax Explosion On the morning of 6 December 1917, the French cargo ship collided with the Norwegian vessel in the harbour of Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. ''Mont-Blanc'', laden with Explosive material, high explosives, caught fire and exploded, devastat ...
, the largest man-made explosion prior to the atomic bomb and the worst man-made disaster in Canadian history.


Early life

Janet Frame Kitz, (née Brownlee) was born in
Carnwath Carnwath (Gaelic: ''A' Chathair Nuadh''; English: "New Fort") is a moorland village on the southern edge of the Pentland Hills of South Lanarkshire, Scotland. The village lies about south of both Edinburgh and Glasgow. It is bounded by the N ...
,
South Lanarkshire South Lanarkshire (; ) is one of 32 unitary authorities of Scotland. It borders the south-east of the Glasgow City council area and contains some of Greater Glasgow's suburban towns, as well as many rural towns and villages. It also shares bor ...
,
Scotland Scotland is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It contains nearly one-third of the United Kingdom's land area, consisting of the northern part of the island of Great Britain and more than 790 adjac ...
in 1930, daughter of Elizabeth (née Rankin) and Thomas Brownlee, a noted horticulturalist. She attended school at
Lanark Grammar School Lanark Grammar School is a secondary school in Lanark, Scotland. It was founded in 1183, and celebrated its octocentenary in 1983, including a visit by Anne, Princess Royal, The Princess Anne. The school draws its pupils from the town of Lanark a ...
and earned a Teaching Certificate from
Jordanhill College Jordanhill College of Education was a higher education college in Jordanhill, Glasgow, Scotland. It opened as a teacher training college in 1921. The college merged with the University of Strathclyde in 1993, becoming its Faculty of Educati ...
in
Glasgow Glasgow is the Cities of Scotland, most populous city in Scotland, located on the banks of the River Clyde in Strathclyde, west central Scotland. It is the List of cities in the United Kingdom, third-most-populous city in the United Kingdom ...
.


Educational career

Kitz worked in education for 20 years, teaching first in
London London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...
, then
Davos, Switzerland Davos (, ; or ; ; Old ) is an Alpine resort town and municipality in the Prättigau/Davos Region in the canton of Graubünden, Switzerland. It has a permanent population of (). Davos is located on the river Landwasser, in the Rhaetian Al ...
, and then in Maryland, United States. She also worked as a
British Red Cross The British Red Cross Society () is the United Kingdom body of the worldwide neutral and impartial humanitarian network the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement. The society was formed in 1870, and is a registered charity with 1 ...
Welfare Officer in Davos. Kitz was teaching in
Edinburgh Edinburgh is the capital city of Scotland and one of its 32 Council areas of Scotland, council areas. The city is located in southeast Scotland and is bounded to the north by the Firth of Forth and to the south by the Pentland Hills. Edinburgh ...
, Scotland when she attended an event at the
Edinburgh International Festival The Edinburgh International Festival is an annual arts festival in Edinburgh, Scotland, spread over the final three weeks in August. Notable figures from the international world of music (especially european classical music, classical music) and ...
where she met Leonard Arthur Kitz a lawyer and former mayor from
Halifax, Nova Scotia Halifax is the capital and most populous municipality of the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of Nova Scotia, and the most populous municipality in Atlantic Canada. As of 2024, it is estimated that the population of the H ...
. They married in 1971 and Kitz emigrated to Nova Scotia.


Halifax explosion


Museum work

Kitz had not heard of the Halifax explosion before she moved to Halifax. However, while taking anthropology courses at Saint Mary's University, Kitz grew interested in the disaster and its effects on the people of Halifax. The 1917 munitions explosion killed nearly 2,000 people but was little known outside of Halifax. Only two books had been written about the event in the 70 years since the explosion and the only commemoration was a library in the North End of Halifax. After writing a paper about the explosion, Kitz was hired by the
Nova Scotia Museum Nova Scotia Museum (NSM) is the corporate name for the 28 museums across Nova Scotia, Canada, and is part of the province's tourism infrastructure. The organization manages more than 200 historic buildings, living history sites, vessels, and speci ...
to assist the
Maritime Museum of the Atlantic The Maritime Museum of the Atlantic is a maritime museum located in downtown Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. The museum is a member institution of the Nova Scotia Museum and is the oldest and largest maritime museum in Canada with a collection o ...
catalogue thousands of objects in the mortuary collection of objects from victims of the explosion which had been discovered in the basement of the provincial legislature. This led to a temporary exhibit at the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic called "A Moment in Time" in 1987. The exhibit was subsequently expanded in 1994 and became a permanent exhibit, curated by Kitz and called "Halifax Wrecked". Kitz interviewed survivors of the explosion and their families, a process which evolved to become an ongoing
oral history Oral history is the collection and study of historical information from people, families, important events, or everyday life using audiotapes, videotapes, or transcriptions of planned interviews. These interviews are conducted with people who pa ...
project with explosion survivors and their families.


Books

Kitz's work at the museum led her to write the 1989 book '' Shattered City: The Halifax Explosion and the Road to Recovery''. The book combined artifact research, oral history and documentary history to explore the explosion through the families involved. It has remained a definitive account which has influenced numerous works published since. Kitz followed this book with ''Survivors: Children of the Halifax Explosion'' and ''December 1917: Revisiting the Halifax Explosion'' co-written with Dartmouth historian Joan Payzant in 2006.


Public commemorations

Kitz was a founding member of the Halifax Explosion Memorial Bells Committee which created a monument to the disaster in 1985 at Fort Needham Park overlooking the site of disaster. As part of this work, Kitz organized a reunion of survivors at the monument which became an annual event. Kitz chaired the committee that marked the 75th anniversary of the explosion in 1992 with an academic conference and a scholarly book ''Ground Zero''. She worked with the families of sailors from the ship SS ''Curaca'', sunk during the explosion, to have their names inscribed on a monument in Halifax's Fairview Cemetery in 2001. In 2002, she led research with former mayor Edmund Morris and the Halifax Foundation in 2002 to create a definitive list of the victims of the explosion called "The Book of Remembrance of the Halifax Explosion" presented in a detailed online database at the Nova Scotia Archives.


Other works

Kitz served as a board member on the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals in Halifax, the Women's Auxiliary of the Isaac Walton Killam Hospital for Children and as chair of the
Point Pleasant Park Point Pleasant Park is a large, mainly forested municipal park at the southern tip of the Halifax peninsula. It once hosted several artillery batteries, and still contains the Prince of Wales Tower - the oldest Martello tower in North America (1 ...
Commission. In 1999, she wrote the book ''A History of Point Pleasant Park''. Kitz also wrote the biography of the Canadian-American architect Andrew R. Cobb in 2014, ''Andrew Cobb: Architect and Artist''.


References


External links


Obituary, "Janet Frame Kitz ONS MSM", ''Chronicle Herald'' May 14, 2019
{{DEFAULTSORT:Kitz, Janet 1930 births 2019 deaths Members of the Order of Nova Scotia Scottish emigrants to Canada 20th-century Canadian historians 20th-century Canadian women writers 21st-century Canadian women writers Historians of Atlantic Canada Writers from Halifax, Nova Scotia Canadian women non-fiction writers Canadian women historians 21st-century Canadian historians Historians from Nova Scotia