Dictionary of Canadian Biography, Vol. 15: 1921–1930

Trevor S. Raymond is a teacher and librarian with the Peel Board of Education and editor of Canadian Holmes.

The 619 men and women whose absorbing stories are immortalized in this
great and wonderful book came from every corner of Canada and from 36
other countries. Some, such as Samuel Hughes, Bliss Carman, Alexander
Graham Bell, Marjorie Pickthall, and “Canada’s most decorated war
hero,” Billy Barker, are well remembered, but many are here rescued
from obscurity. Most were born about the middle of the 19th century;
collectively their lives provide much insight into the first decades of
Confederation and the start of the 20th century. Here are Canadians who
participated in the Riel rebellion (on both sides) and fought the Boers
and in Flanders. They built railroads, took the law and Christianity
into the arctic and west, created new provinces, and won the vote for
women (while strenuously keeping it from Asians and Aboriginals). They
wrote, painted, and entertained; they advanced medical science and
established museums, powerful businesses, labour unions (and Labour
Day), the Calgary Stampede, and a Canadian navy. Йmile Barthe,
romantically linked to Wilfrid Laurier, is remembered as “a woman of
the world.” Joseph Fortes, given Vancouver’s greatest public
funeral, was “a shoeblack, bartender, porter, swimming instructor, and
lifeguard.” In this book, live buffalo hunters from one era feature
alongside aviators from another.

What all the subjects have in common is that they died (or were last
seen) between 1921 and 1930. Each volume of this extraordinary work of
Canadian historical scholarship is devised that way because “death
dates are often more easily and accurately established than birth
dates.” These biographies, meticulously researched using contemporary
records and personal papers, are written by 446 historians. Each entry
has notes on sources, and appendixes include a general bibliography. An
“Index of Identification” enables one to find people in 41 groupings
from Accountants to Women, many of which are subdivided into more
specific categories. A geographical index lists people by place of
birth. Names are cross-referenced within this book and to other volumes.