Farm, Factory and Fortune: New Studies in the Economic History of the Maritime Provinces

Richard Wilbur is supervisor of the Legislative Research Service, New
Brunswick Legislature, and author of The Rise of French New Brunswick.

The 12 articles in this excellent volume are arranged both thematically
and chronologically. Three papers deal with agriculture from the early
Acadian times to the mid-19th century. A fourth paper, discussing the
impact of the British-based General Mining Association on the Nova
Scotia Coal industry from 1826 to 1850, rounds out the natural resource
focus. The most readable article in this group is T.W. Acheson’s
examination of the state of New Brunswick agriculture by 1860. One other
people-centred article deserves special mention; Del Muise’s study of
the inequality endured by women workers from 1871 to 1921 is as
convincing as it is depressing. Two articles by economic historian Kris
Inwood are riddled with abstruse terminology and frequent pleas for more
studies in order to reach more definitive conclusions. The same goes for
Cruikshank’s freight rate study of the Intercolonial Railway, although
it was more readable and more understandable than the banking thesis
examined by Quigley, Drummond, and Evans.

The final article, by Ernie Forbes, shows this author’s usual fine
scholarship. According to Forbes, Maritime governments should not be
condemned out of hand for their penny-pinching and abysmal welfare
payments in the Depression years: they did what they could (although
there is a case to be made for criticizing them on humanitarian
grounds).

This collection is further proof of the exciting scholarship produced
by an ever-widening circle of Maritime specialists.