Rogues and Heroes of the Island of Newfoundland

Melvin Baker is an archivist and historian at Memorial University of
Newfoundland, and the co-editor of Dictionary of Newfoundland and
Labrador Biography.

This is the first of a planned series of popular, well-written, brief
biographies of the men and women prominent in the pre-1949 history of
Newfoundland and Labrador. The stated aim is “to restore gender
parity” by giving equal consideration to both men and women to
illustrate how “Newfoundland’s national identity” has been
moulded.

The biographies run from John Cabot, who discovered Newfoundland in
1497, to Joseph Smallwood, who brought Newfoundland into the Canadian
Confederation in 1949. Featured women include two Beothuks (Demasduit
and Shanawdithit), one of Canada’s first female entrepreneurs (Lady
Sara Kirke of Ferryland), a 20th-century nurse and midwife (Myra
Bennett), and four suffragists of the early 20th century. A little-known
labour leader from the 1930s, Pearce Power, is given his due with a
sympathetic profile. The authors also give the conservators of
Newfoundland’s musical and oral heritage their proper recognition in
the persons of Rufus Guinchard, Emile Benoit, Minnie White, and Ted
Russell.

The strength of this collection is the authors’ willingness to make
use of the most recent scholarship available on these men and women. The
entries on Captain Abram Kean of the 1914 Newfoundland sealing disaster
and of Smallwood’s life before 1946, however, show that much more
needs to be known about them.