David Gagan – författare

In this exploration of the nature of social reality in a mid-nineteenth-century Upper Canadian farming community, Professor Gagan employs the techniques of historical demography to reconstruct the population of mid-Victorian Peel County – specifically the histories of those families who occupied the county between 1845 and 1875. The evidence will be familiar to anyone who has tried to trace nineteenth-century Canadian family roots, but in this analysis the material is used to answer a broad range of questions related to the central problems of land availability and social change.

The author argues that in Peel County, as in the rest of Upper Canada, immigration, settlement, and population growth rapidly changed the previously agrarian frontiers of cheap and abundant farm land into mature agricultural communities. Patterns of inheritance, the timing of family formation, the size and structure of families, the life-cycle experiences of men, women, and children, chances for social betterment, and patterns of vocational and geographical mobility were all linked to the problem of land availability and all underwent subtle changes as rural society attempted to adjust to the new realities of life in the clearings.

This book is both s significant contribution to the social history of Ontario and to the growing corpus of comparative, international scholarship on the history of the family.

The Denisons were an unusual and colourful family. For over a century – from the War of 1812 to the eve of the Depression – they were in the forefront of political, military, social, and intellectual life in Toronto. They took their duties to king and country seriously, serving in public and military office, and established family colonies on their estates in Toronto. As the story of the family unfolds, it reveals the story of Toronto – the spirit of the times, the turbulence of politics, and the exciting growth of a new city.

The Denison Family of Toronto focuses on George Denison III (1839-1925), military historian, senior police magistrate, and supporter of the Canada First and Imperial Federation movements. His story proves that Canada has produced some memorable individuals whose activities have for too long been obscured by historians'' preoccupation with grander themes. But more than that, the history of the Denisons'' quarrel with the United States and their flamboyant nationalism challenges the reader to examine his own assumptions about the Canadian identity.

In this exploration of the nature of social reality in a mid-nineteenth-century Upper Canadian farming community, Professor Gagan employs the techniques of historical demography to reconstruct the population of mid-Victorian Peel County – specifically the histories of those families who occupied the county between 1845 and 1875. The evidence will be familiar to anyone who has tried to trace nineteenth-century Canadian family roots, but in this analysis the material is used to answer a broad range of questions related to the central problems of land availability and social change.

The author argues that in Peel County, as in the rest of Upper Canada, immigration, settlement, and population growth rapidly changed the previously agrarian frontiers of cheap and abundant farm land into mature agricultural communities. Patterns of inheritance, the timing of family formation, the size and structure of families, the life-cycle experiences of men, women, and children, chances for social betterment, and patterns of vocational and geographical mobility were all linked to the problem of land availability and all underwent subtle changes as rural society attempted to adjust to the new realities of life in the clearings.

This book is both s significant contribution to the social history of Ontario and to the growing corpus of comparative, international scholarship on the history of the family.

The Denisons were an unusual and colourful family. For over a century – from the War of 1812 to the eve of the Depression – they were in the forefront of political, military, social, and intellectual life in Toronto. They took their duties to king and country seriously, serving in public and military office, and established family colonies on their estates in Toronto. As the story of the family unfolds, it reveals the story of Toronto – the spirit of the times, the turbulence of politics, and the exciting growth of a new city.

The Denison Family of Toronto focuses on George Denison III (1839-1925), military historian, senior police magistrate, and supporter of the Canada First and Imperial Federation movements. His story proves that Canada has produced some memorable individuals whose activities have for too long been obscured by historians'' preoccupation with grander themes. But more than that, the history of the Denisons'' quarrel with the United States and their flamboyant nationalism challenges the reader to examine his own assumptions about the Canadian identity.