Canadian Papers in Rural History

The Blacksmith in Upper Canada, 1784-1850: A Study of Technology, Culture and Power
by William N.T. Wylie, pp. 17-214.
William Wylie presents a detailed (almost definitive) study of the craft and of the social context of blacksmithing in Upper Canada. The work's real distinction is in the use that is made of things - real, tangible objects - and their analysis in historical context.

"Labouring at the Loom": A Case Study of Rural manufacturing in Leeds County, Ontario, 1870
by Janine Roelens and Kris Inwood, pp. 215-236.
The study by Janine Roelens and Kris Inwood of handloom weaving in eastern Ontario ties into the international literature on proto-industrialization.

"A Motley Crowd": Diversity in the Ontario Countryside in the Early Twentieth-Century
by Charles M. Johnston, pp. 237-256.

Nicol Hugh Baird and the Construction of the Trent-Severn Waterway
by Wendy Cameron, pp. 257-272.

Family-Size Limitation in Canada West, 1851: Some Historical Evidence
by William L. Marr, pp. 273-292.

Social Credit Overreaction to Innovative Business Practices in Eastern Irrigation District: 1835-1940
by Ian Clarke, pp. 293-308.

Creating Stability Amid Degrees of Marginality: Divisions in the Struggle for Orderly Marketing in British Columbia, 1900-1940
by Ian MacPherson, pp. 309-334.

Agricultural and Industrial Teleology in Modern English History: An Essay in Historiographic Provocation and Sociological Revision
by Colin A.M. Duncan, pp.335-362.
Colin Duncan critically reviews the literature available on the English agricultural revolution. With gentle wit, he suggests that historians may have gotten much of the story wrong, largely because of our presentist assumption that agricultural modernization is of a piece with industrialization.

Seasonal Migration Between Ireland and England Prior to the Famine
by Ruth-Ann Harris, pp. 363-386.

Reading the Texts of Rural Emigrants: Letters from the Irish in Australia, New Zealand, and North America
by Donald H. Akenson, pp. 387-406.