Rural History Roundtable
Photograph: Large group eating meal after raising barn, Stephen Sylvester Main collection, University of Guelph Library, Archives, and Special Collections, Agricultural History (XA1 MS A230 #214)
The Rural History Roundtable is a speaker series that has been in operation since 2002. It hosts scholars of international repute and provides a venue for graduate students to present their latest research. It is vertically intergrated drawing into its fold undergraduates, graduates, post-docs, faculty, archivists, alumni, and other members of the public.
All are welcome to attend!
Our first Rural History Roundtable for 2026-27 will take place Tuesday, September 22 from 3:30-5:00pm EST. This presentation will be in a hybrid format. The in-person presentation will take place at Room 132 of the MacKinnon Building on the University of Guelph campus. If you wish to attend online, please pre-register on the Eventbrite page. Registering for a free ticket will add you to a list of attendees who will receive an email on the afternoon of September 22 containing the Zoom link to the online presentation. Please register before 2:30pm EST on the day of the presentation to ensure you receive the Zoom link in time.
Presenters: Dr. Cody Groat and Rebecca Small (History, Western University)
Title: "Understanding Poverty and Community at the Ingersoll Rural Cemetery Potter's Field"
Description: The unmarked Potter’s Field at the Ingersoll Rural Cemetery was the burial place of nearly 400 people between 1864 and 1976. Many people interred here were societally disenfranchised based on their race or economic circumstance. This presentation will demonstrate the new and diverse interpretations of the lived experiences of poverty and community in nineteenth-century Ontario, focusing on death in particular. Narratives relating to the unhoused, victims of infanticide, the formerly enslaved, transient labourers during the Great Depression, and those impacted by the discriminatory Chinese Head Tax are all considered. This presentation illustrates the ways that previously marginalized rural Ontario histories can be brought into national conversations when considering the nuance and specificity associated with death, burial, and memorialization. It will also discuss recent efforts to memorialize those buried in the Potter's Field and the contemporary community response to these memorialization efforts.
Questions? Please contact:
Dr. Ben Bradley
ben.bradley@uoguelph.ca
Dr. Rebecca Beausaert
rbeausae@uoguelph.ca
For a list of past Rural History Roundtable speakers, see here.
