Associate Professor
- Ph.D. University of Edinburgh, 2000
M.A. McGill University, 1997
B.A. McGill University, 1996
- University of Guelph, Department of History, 2000-
- Modern Irish and Scottish Economic and Social History
Tourism in Ireland British and Irish Textile History
Women and Work during Industrialization
Areas of Research for Graduate Supervision
Modern Irish and Scottish Economic and Social History
Current Research
Dr. James' current research programme, funded by a SSHRC standard research grant, analyses the historical evolution of tourism in pre-partition Ireland. Examining a broad range of archival sources and contemporary newspapers records between 1885 and 1914, it explores the formulation and reception of specific ‘tourist-development’ initiatives in rural Ireland, and the debates over nationhood, rurality and economic development that informed them. As projects in Ireland were conceived and implemented, local people systematically analysed and compared them with similar tourist economies in Scotland and Europe to produce a variety of evaluations of the tourist sector’s prospects in Ireland. Such negotiations over the meaning of tourism-driven rural ‘improvement’ in turn allowed people to weigh in on broader debates over Ireland’s political status.
Handloom Weavers in Ulster’s Linen Industry, 1815-1914. Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2007.
"In No Degree Inferior": Scotland and 'Tourist Development' in Late-Victorian Ireland". In Ireland and Scotland in the Nineteenth Century, edited by James McConnel and Frank Ferguson. Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2009, 11-22.
“Outwork in Ireland: New Perspectives.” In Essays in Irish Labour History: A Festschrift for Elizabeth and John W. Boyle, edited by Fintan Lane, Francis Devine and Niamh Puirseil. Dublin: Irish Academic Press, 2008, 103-17.
“Wilds of Ireland’: Tourism and Western Terrain in the Late-Nineteenth and Early-Twentieth Centuries.” In Irelands of the Mind: Memory and Identity in Modern Irish Culture, edited by Richard C. Allen & Stephen Regan. Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars, 2008, 12-31.
“A Royal Route through Irish Holiday-Ground: Marking and Marketing the Duke of York Route, 1897.” In Royal Tourism: Excursions around Monarchy, edited by Philip Long and Nicola Palmer. Clevedon: Channel View Publications, 2007, 62-79.
"'A Grand Field for the Tourist': Picturesque Paths and Cycling Journeys in the West of Ireland, 1885-1914." Cycling History17 (2007): 77-83.
“The Ulster Linen Trade in the Post-Famine Era: Structural Considerations.” In Ulster Presbyterianism in the Atlantic World: Religion, Politics and Identity, edited by Mark Spencer and David Wilson. Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2006, 39-49.
“Foreigners, Females and ‘Wasters’: Perspectives on Labour and Sweating in Glasgow, 1887-1909.” Scottish Labour History41 (2006): 18-33.
“Handicraft, Mass Manufacture and Rural Female Labour: Industrial Work in North-West Ireland, 1890-1914.” Rural History17, 1 (2006): 47-63.
with Kris Inwood. “ A Digital Resource for Historical Analysis: The 1891 Canadian Census.” Cahiers québécois de démographie 34, 2 (2005): 315-28.
“‘Unregulated and Suicidal Competition’: Irish Rural Industrial Labour and Scottish Anti-Sweating Campaigns in the Early Twentieth Century.” Labour History Review 70, 2 (August 2005): 215-29.
“The Hand-Loom in Ulster’s Post-Famine Linen Industry: The Limits of Mechanisation in Textiles’ Factory Age,” Textile History35, 2 (2004): 178-91.
