Abstracts/ les résumés
Friday / Vendredi, November 6
Public Lecture / Conférence publique
John Krige (john.krige@hsoc.gatech.edu) – Georgia Tech
Regulating the transnational flow of knowledge in research universities today: The
role of the U.S. national security state after 9/11
The free circulation of knowledge across borders in academia has been progressively
eroded since the 1980s by new opportunities to commercialize research and, since 9/11,
by the demand for tighter control on foreign nationals by the national security state. The
production of knowledge that is increasingly both dual use and close to the market, and
the insertion of research universities in the global knowledge economy, has transformed
the research encounter between the U.S. researchers and their colleagues and students
from abroad. Two concepts of security — security by achievement and security by
secrecy — pit traditional academic values of openness and the free exchange of
ideas against an increasingly intrusive state apparatus that shackles scientific
collaboration and undermines trust.
Saturday / Samedi, November 7
Texts, Contexts and the Movement of Knowledge (8:30-10:30)
Bill Leeming (bleeming@faculty.ocadu.ca) - OCADU
Towards Resolving the Paradox of Centre-Periphery Debates concerning the
Dissemination of Scientific Knowledge in Medical Systems
This paper opens with a story about the mobility of medico-scientific knowledge and
varied spatial contexts of regional genetic health centres in the United States, Canada,
and the UK, and uses it to reflect on debates in a number of disciplines concerning what
Warwick Anderson has described as “the localness of technoscientific networks, the
situated production of ‘globality,’ the transnational process of displacement and
reconfiguration, the fragmentation and hybridity of technoscience.” It especially reflects
on difficult questions that have been raised about the dynamics of flow and how spatial
context influences not only the generation of knowledge but also the justification,
legitimation, acceptance, and application of knowledge. These generally underscore the
spatial concentration of knowledge and power at certain points in time. The paper then
concludes with future considerations for thinking about the means by which scientific
knowledge in medical systems exercises the power that it does in the world.
Matthew Wiseman (wise5300@mylaurier.ca) – Wilfrid Laurier University
Tripartite Defence in the Cold War: Canada and the Technical Cooperation Program
This paper situates post-1945 Canadian defence research in the context of the early Cold
War security environment. Canada’s scientific and technological activity in this era was
influenced by alliances, most importantly its tripartite defence relationship with Britain
and the United States. Yet the history of the Canadian Defence Research Board, a
division of the wider defence establishment, contradicts a school of thought deeply rooted
in historical scholarship on Canada’s postwar foreign relations that suggests the North
American bilateral defence partnership gradually diminished Canada’s defence reliance
on the Commonwealth. In fact, Canadian scientists participated in tripartite defence
initiatives throughout the early decades of the Cold War. By destabilizing the
continentalist school of thought, or what Robert Teigrob has called Canada’s
“reorientation of national allegiances,” this paper explores transnational information
exchange between tripartite nations and the creation of the Technical Cooperation
Program. Ultimately, this paper argues that Canada’s postwar science and technology
policy reinforced rather than impaired relations with the Commonwealth during the early
Cold War.
Beth A. Robertson (bethrobertson@cmail.carleton.ca) – Carleton University
Digital Phantoms: Re-envisioning Gender and Marginal Science Across Borders, 19181939
Digital humanities are reshaping the historian’s craft in radical ways. This paper explores
how one tool of the digital humanities—social network analysis—can help problematize
how scientific authority is historically constructed and sometimes disassembled across
national borders. Focusing on a case study of what might be considered a failed science,
this paper uses social network analysis to map out the distinctly gendered relationships
that existed between interwar psychical researchers and their unusual subjects of study.
Canadian, American and British researchers argued for the scientific importance of their
work while conducting transnational experiments on individuals they conceived of as
particularly gifted in bridging material and metaphysical worlds. Illustrating where and
when centres of power are located at different historical moments, this paper
demonstrates how social network analysis in conjunction with the theories of feminist
technoscience can provide important clues as to why some empirical endeavours succeed
and others do not.
Mahdi Khelfaoui (khelfaoui.mahdi@courrier.uqam.ca) - UQAM
Pauline Huet (Pauline_huet@hotmail.fr) - UQAM
Operational Research at École Polytechnique de Montréal: At the Crossroads between
Applied Mathematics and Industrial Engineering
Operational Research (OR) emerged as a field of research at the École Polytechnique de
Montréal in the mid-1970s. Initially, it belonged to the industrial engineering department,
before moving to the applied mathematics department in 1984, until the two departments
merged ten years later. In this paper, we will see how OR constituted initially a border
dividing tenants of qualitative and quantitative approaches in industrial engineering, how
it quickly grew in the department of applied mathematics and later became the only field
of common interest between the researchers in applied mathematics and industrial
engineering. The evolution of OR is to be understood by analyzing the different modes of
emergence and evolution of two specialties at the EPM: applied mathematics developed
more as a scientific discipline, while industrial engineering was anchored in the
engineering profession.
Beth A. Robertson (bethrobertson@cmail.carleton.ca) – Carleton University
Digital Phantoms: Re-envisioning Gender and Marginal Science Across Borders, 19181939
Digital humanities are reshaping the historian’s craft in radical ways. This paper explores
how one tool of the digital humanities—social network analysis—can help problematize
how scientific authority is historically constructed and sometimes disassembled across
national borders. Focusing on a case study of what might be considered a failed science,
this paper uses social network analysis to map out the distinctly gendered relationships
that existed between interwar psychical researchers and their unusual subjects of study.
Canadian, American and British researchers argued for the scientific importance of their
work while conducting transnational experiments on individuals they conceived of as
particularly gifted in bridging material and metaphysical worlds. Illustrating where and
when centres of power are located at different historical moments, this paper
demonstrates how social network analysis in conjunction with the theories of feminist
technoscience can provide important clues as to why some empirical endeavours succeed
and others do not.
Bertrum H. MacDonald and James D. Ross (bertrum.macdonald@dal.ca) –
Dalhousie University
Crossing Borders in Scientific Literature: The Case of Environmental Assessment
Reports
Scientific publications have often highlighted discoveries without regard to national
borders. Today, a new scientific journal article is published every twenty seconds, in
addition to other forms of scientific information. Many initiatives to synthesize and
reduce this literature have been pursued. Since the 1970s, major environmental
assessment reports have become one method. The reports of the Intergovernmental Panel
on Climate Change, which encompass thousands of scientific publications, are wellknown. Numerous other state of the environment reports populate the publication
landscape. To illustrate the history of this form of literature, we will discuss three recent
marine environmental assessment reports related to the north eastern Atlantic coast: The
State of Nova Scotia’s Coasts Report, the State of the Gulf of Maine Report, and the State
of the Scotian Shelf Report. Involving many authors, editors, and illustrators, the
preparation of these comprehensive reports occurred as digital technologies significantly
affected publication practices. Drawing on documentary evidence and interviews with
authors and editors, we will show how international models for environmental
assessments were adopted and adapted to produce these reports for diverse audiences and
we will also outline evidence of their use in decision making contexts.
Science without Borders or Borderless Science? Issues and Approaches in
Fisheries and Ocean Science (8:30-10:30)
Eric Mills (e.mills@dal.ca) – Dalhousie University
"Too late for action." M.L. Fernald, A.G. Huntsman and the Belle Isle Strait Expedition
of 1923
A. G. Huntsman’s Belle Isle Strait Expedition of 1923, the first oceanographic expedition
organized by a Canadian, can be envisioned as modeled on the Canadian Fisheries
Expedition of 1915, in which Huntsman had been a junior partner to the Norwegian
fishery biologist Johan Hjort. Examination of Huntsman’s documents shows that this is
too facile a view. For example, Huntsman hoped that one of the participants would be
M.L. Fernald, a botanist from the Gray Herbarium at Harvard University. Huntsman’s
unpublished manuscripts on the expedition, purportedly to give information about the
oceanic conditions leading to cod production, show that its results ranged from
archaeology to botany. Although Fernald did not take part, his reasons for being
interested in the expedition were to document his hypothesis that the flora of northeastern
North America had spread there along an emergent borderland after the last glaciation.
Huntsman’s aims were less transparent, but it is clear that this Canadian / United States
research partnership was intended to be about more than cod. In this, it had more in
common with early 19th century natural history expeditions than with the marine science
expeditions that followed it a few decades later.
Jennifer Hubbard (jhubbard@ryerson.ca) – Ryerson University
Reason, Evidence, and Mid-Century Fisheries Science: the Symposium on Fish
Populations, Toronto, 1947
Carmel Finley has recently shown how American politics formed international fisheries
management policies based on loosely constructed ideals in fisheries biology. She argues
that at the 1955 UN International Technical Conference on the Conservation of the
Living Resources of the Sea the US diplomatic agenda, not science, became the
foundation of the dominant post-war ‘paradigm’ of fisheries management. This paradigm
upheld exploiting international fisheries at the highest possible – and yet supposedly
sustainable–levels, to generate a Maximum Sustainable Yield (MSY). American fisheries
biologists apparently shared a conviction that MSY was scientific and achievable, and
swayed other nations’ scientists to their views. Yet a few years earlier key US fisheries
biologists had shared concerns about safeguarding exploited fish stocks. What influenced
their shift in favour of highly exploitive industrialized fishing practices and against
enlarged protective national coastal zones? This paper will argue that a little-noticed
gathering of marine and aquatic fisheries biologists from across North America in 1947
was instrumental in effecting this change in attitude. Canadian fisheries biologist A.G.
Huntsman convened ‘A Symposium on Fish Populations,’ at the Royal Ontario Museum
in Toronto. This paper will explore this meeting’s genesis, disputed ideas, and long-term
influences on fisheries science and policy.
Carmel Finley (Carmel.Finley@oregonstate.edu)
Redfish and the Construction of Pacific Fisheries Biology
During the 1940s, fishermen along the West coast of Canada and the United States began
to trawl for bottomfish. With military contracts creating a demand for fish, the
burgeoning trawl fleet has its first steady markets. After 1945, boats began to fish in
deeper water, beyond 90 fathoms, and found large numbers of a medium-sized, bright red
fish, Sebastes alutus. The fish was filleted and marketing as Pacific ocean perch. Markets
grew steadily until 1966, when a fleet of Soviet factory processing ships and catcher
boats descended from the Bering Sea, targeting perch stocks. The American and
Canadian governments both built research ships to study Pacific fisheries. The Americans
launched the John N. Cobb in 1949, and the Canadians built the G.B Reed in 1962; the
science and international consensus that emerged, based on preconceptions about fish
biology, was inadequate to protect this species.
Will Knight (wknight@technomuses.ca) - Canada Agriculture and Food
Museum
A Landscape of Science and Dispossession: the Go Home Bay Biological Station
This paper examines freshwater fisheries science—and its relation to native
dispossession—at Canada’s first freshwater research laboratory, the Go Home Bay
Biological Station on Georgian Bay. Established in 1901, the station was part of the
Madawaska Club, a private summer resort operated by and for members of the University
of Toronto. The club was established on shoreline territory previously ceded by the
Chippewa of central Ontario, who continued to use the area for food provisioning.
Situating the station as an example of “resort science” described by Phillip Pauly and
Helen Rozwadowski, this paper explores how the station, as a “landscape of science,”
may have also contributed to further native dispossession through its research program.
In particular, this paper considers how Go Home Bay research into game fish, which both
anglers and native fishers pursued, may have also reinforced the cultural boundaries
established around fish that excluded subsistence use.
Knowledge within and across Disciplines (10:45-12:15)
Jordan Schoenherr (jordan.schoenherr@carleton.ca) – Carleton University
A Brief History of the Canadian Society for Brain Behaviour and
Cognitive Science (CSBBCS) and Historical Parallels with the Psychonomics Society
Formal organization is a prerequisite for modern science. The history of psychology is
punctuated by the establishment of professional organization to meet the needs of
practitioners in experimental and applied settings. In Canada, the Canadian Psychological
Association formed to meet the needs to Canadian psychologists in a comparable manner
to that of the American Psychological Association. A historical study of the formation of
two experimental psychological societies, the Psychonomics Society in the United States
and the CSBBCS in Canada, suggests important parallels that reflect a tension within
North American psychology. The themes of historical stability and continued disciplinary
fragmentation are discussed in an evolutionary framework.
Ernie Hamm (ehamm@yorku.ca) – York University
Disappointment on the Great Divide: Geology, Its History and A. P. Coleman
A. P. Coleman was an outstanding figure in the late nineteenth and early twentiethcentury Canadian science and an important actor in the international geological
community. Remembered today largely for his contributions to glaciology, I argue that
Coleman’s work is of considerable interest for the questions it raises about that hoary
category known as disciplinary history. Coleman established his international reputation
when geology was a discipline at the height of its prestige, thanks in large part to the
ways it was deeply intertwined with ideas of nation building, economic prosperity, and
even social progress. Yet it was also a discipline that ranged freely across borders, be
they borders between states, technology and science, or between the knowledge of
experts and indigenous knowledge, or the divides of art and science. Coleman’s work
shows that geology’s great public success played not on it being an “interdisciplinary”
science avant la lettre, but by giving little heed to borders of all sorts.
Sylvia Nickerson (nickerso@yorku.ca) – York University
Generating the Mathematical Book in Canada: Mathematical Printing at the University
of Toronto Press
The present paper considers how developments in print culture helped enabled a nascent
mathematical practice in early twentieth century Canada. I argue that the development of
mathematical printing at the University of Toronto Press (UTP) in the 1920s helped
facilitate a printed culture of mathematics that in turn helped facilitate a native
mathematical culture. Composing mathematics for print required specialized
compositional skill, and the difficulty of having original science printed in Canada
compelled William Dawson, the first President of the Royal Society of Canada to lament
in 1883 that “much that would be of scientific value” failed to be recorded because the
means of publication in Canada were “altogether inadequate”. When the University of
Toronto Press undertook the printing of the Proceedings of the International
Mathematical Congress (Toronto, 1924) this book was on the cutting edge of scientific
printing in Canada. One of the first publications containing articles of original
mathematics to be printed in Canada, the production of the Proceedings, supervised by
mathematician John Charles Fields, apprenticed the University of Toronto Press in the
composition and preparation of original mathematics. This 1928 publication built the
capacity of the Press’s compositors, enabling them to prepare further work in
mathematics for several Toronto publishers and for the Canadian Mathematical Society
later in the twentieth century.
Infrastructures and Assemblage (10:45-12:15)
Mark Sholdice (msholdic@uoguelph.ca) – University of Guelph
The Influence of the Ontario Hydro Commission on the Idea of the Tennessee Valley
Authority, 1920-1933
During the 1920s, progressives in the US Congress, led by Senator George Norris of
Nebraska, fought plans to privatize the government nitrate works at Muscle Shoals,
Alabama. These progressives wanted the federal government to produce inexpensive
fertilizer and electricity. They drew inspiration from Ontario's Hydro-Commission, from
which they sought ideological and technological support. The campaign successfully
fended-off privatization attempts by the Republican presidents of the era (one involved
Henry Ford), and led to the creation of the Tennessee Valley Authority in 1933 under
Franklin D. Roosevelt. Throughout, these reformers worked to import the Ontario Hydro
model into the American South.
Sean Nicklin (sean.nicklin@gmail.com) – University of Ottawa
By Air and Sea: Transoceanic Aviation and Weather Ships in the North Atlantic
Transatlantic air travel was set to grow rapidly after the Second World War. The North
Atlantic's notoriously bad weather posed a problem for those early flights, as land-based
observatories could not monitor conditions at sea. Canada, the United States, and several
European countries addressed this shortcoming with a network of ship-based weather
stations scattered across the ocean: the North Atlantic Ocean Station (NAOS) program.
Over the decades that followed, these ships worked together to give transatlantic flights
from all countries the most accurate and up-to-date meteorological reports possible.
Despite European support for the program, American funding cuts diminished the utility
of the fleet. The program was abandoned altogether by the 1980s with the advent of
weather buoys and satellite observations. While it ran, the NAOS program was a model
for international cooperation in support for the public good.
Petra Dolata (pdolata@ucalgary.ca) – University of Calgary
Arctic Oil and Gas Exploration in the 1970s: Negotiating the Making and Using of
Technology
When oil and gas exploration began in earnest in the Canadian High Arctic in the 1970s,
companies involved such as Panarctic Oil or Dome Petroleum faced various
technological obstacles. These included drilling and support operations in ice conditions
as well as transportation to consumers in the South. As engineers were looking for
solutions to these challenges they had to cross cultural borders since they had to negotiate
between corporate stakeholders who focused on costs and feasibility of technology and
the national government who had a developmental stake in the Arctic and supported a
‘Buy Canadian’ agenda. What all three groups of actors seemed to share was
technological optimism, which helped establish the Arctic as a site for technological
advances whether with respect to artificial islands, drill ships, caissons or LNG carriers.
Yet, the commercial success of these was often impeded by the different objectives
between making technology and using technology.
Spaces, Architectures, and Boundaries (1:15-2:45)
Jocelyn Wills (jwills@brooklyn.cuny.edu) - CUNY
Surveillance Capitalism and the Continental Integration of Satellite Technologies and the
Military-Industrial-Academic Complex
My paper will explore the ways in which surveillance capitalism incorporated satellitebased technologies, firms, entrepreneurs, and workers in Canada into regional military
alliances, particularly with the United States. I employ research on the 45-year history of
Canada’s MacDonald, Dettwiler and Associates (MDA) as a case study in this
development. Founded in Vancouver, British Columbia during 1969, MDA has evolved
from a four-person software consultancy into a multinational systems integrator and
prime commercial and government procurement contractor for global surveillance and
the interactive use of communications, earth observation, and reconnaissance satellites.
MDA is also a major provider of the ground stations that receive, process, archive, and
exploit satellite data, robots working in outer space, and the navigational systems that
support aircraft (including unmanned aerial vehicles; aka UVAs/drones). The paper will
first provide an overview of satellite-based surveillance technologies, their applications
and users, and the role that interconnected power structures and systems integration play
in daily life. I then turn to Canada-US defence production sharing agreements and the
Cold War developments that provided the context for MDA’s participation in
surveillance capitalism. Finally, I focus on the MDA case, and what lessons we might
draw from the firm’s stages of development, including the ways in which MDA’s
technological enthusiasts adjusted to their roles as participants in a North American
military-industrial-academic complex. Although they did not work on surveillance
technologies for overtly political reasons, MDA’s scientists and engineers played a part
in turning satellites into a multi-billion dollar commodity and outer space into a
competitive, militarized zone. Like other technological enthusiasts, they embraced
satellite technology, the commercialization of space, and a notion of “the end of
ideology.” In practice, their work ultimately led to more efficient data mining systems
and precision surveillance, the enhancement of first-strike targeting capabilities, and the
use of robotics for capitalist expansion and permanent war preparedness. Their
engineering systems also helped to remove the last barriers to routine aerial surveillance
and tracking of everyday life. It would, however, be a mistake to see MDA’s personnel as
principal architects in this change. MDA has operated within a context and framework
girded by powerful forces at the nexus of state, capital, and the polar tug of global
political power games. That nexus has included myths about the power of outer space,
debates over satellites and sovereignty, competitive posturing for the spoils of
surveillance-based commerce, expanding economic crises, the further consolidation of
the global elite, and increased uncertainty (including job insecurity among the technology
workers who helped to construct the architecture for global surveillance). Viewing MDA
within a macro-level, historical context therefore allows us to see a world much less
glamorous than politicians and surveillance capitalists would have us believe.
Michael Édouard Laurentius (melaurentius@gmail.com) – York University
“Opening up new vistas”: Examining Telidon’s ability to (un)successfully transcend and
traverse borders in a time of technological transition
In 1978, the Communications Research Centre (an agency of the Department of
Communications [Industry]) unveiled to Canadians the Telidon project, a secondgeneration videotex system that was touted as “one of the key technologies that are
leading us into the information age”. Telidon transformed televisions into end-user
computer terminals, allowing for graphic-rich two-way communication with other
computer systems. Much of the current literature on the system focuses on either its
technical underpinnings or attempts to trace the causes for its ultimate failure. Instead,
this paper examines the various ‘borders’ this short-lived project traversed, as well as
those ‘failed crossings’. While the root ‘tele-‘ might hint towards geographic distance as
the primary boundary, this is also a story of the demarcations found within institutions,
technology, and commercial markets. The Telidon dwelled in a time of transition, “the
beginning of a beginning”, and as we “[reach] for tomorrow" within our disruptive age, it
is important to look at and learn from how lasting and displaced technologies assessed
and traversed the boundaries of their age.
Matthew Allen (matthewallen@g.harvard.edu) – Harvard University
Bernholtz moves to Toronto: circulation between architecture and computer
programming circa 1970
Because knowledge of early computer techniques was highly individual, when someone
moved, the technology moved with them. Around 1970, architect and professor Allen
Bernholtz moved from Cambridge, MA, to Toronto. Bernholtz had created several
cutting-edge spatial allocation programs at Harvard’s Laboratory for Computer Graphics
and Spatial Analysis (which was among the first centers of experimentation with
computers in an architecture school). Bernholtz worked with other leading architects on
these projects, many of which were sponsored by major American firms. Bernholtz’s last
two projects at the Lab were sponsored by the NRC (a speculative hospital program
layout) and the Canadian Ministry of State for Urban Affairs (a layout for a small town).
Bernholtz opened consultancies in Cambridge and Toronto and published lucid and
insightful articles on spatial allocation and computer-augmented design. Through an
investigation of the projects Bernholtz worked on and the contemporary interests of his
sponsors, this paper tells the history of a small but representative technological transfer;
this will help illuminate the concerns of architects using computers and the hopes
surrounding computation in this era. The transfers were not only across borders, but
back-and-forth between disciplines (computer programming and architecture) and
professional spheres (academia and private practice). This history is important as a
window onto a defining but largely forgotten moment in the professional memory of
architects.
Annmarie Adams (annmarie.adams@mcgill.ca) – McGill University
Architecture is Brain Surgery
In the interwar era, architecture functioned as a powerful tool of neuro-surgery. By
engaging material evidence, this paper looks at Operating Room No. 1, the original OR
designed for the famous neurosurgeon Wilder Penfield (1891-1976) on the fifth floor of
the Montreal Neurological Institute (MNI). Penfield and architects Ross and Macdonald
shaped the MNI space to privilege view and communication, two key aspects to his
surgical method. Constructed in 1934, it featured a spectators’ gallery that was divided
from the surgical space by a dramatically canted plate glass screen. Below this gallery
was a “cellar” designed for a photographer tasked with capturing the brain during the
surgical procedure. Although today the methods of imaging the brain have changed, “OR
1” is still in constant use at MNI. The conference focus on “Science and Technology
Across Borders” offers an opportunity to consider the dissolving boundaries between
viewer and surgeon at this particular moment, as well as the significance of architecture
in Penfield’s vision. The concept of borders also provides inspiration as a methodology to
understand the role of architecture in surgery: architecture is brain surgery.
Science and the State (1:15-2:45)
John Laurence Busch (jlbusch@optonline.net)
Softening Sovereignty: How the First High Technology Forced Governments to Change
Their Modus Operandi
In 1807, the American innovator Robert Fulton ran the first practical, commercially
successful steamboat in history along the Hudson River. With his North River Steam
Boat, Fulton broke through an important psychological barrier: it was, in fact, possible
for humans to use an artificial power to alter where they were faster than by natural
means. As such, steam-powered vessels represent the first “high technology” in history.
This presentation and paper will describe how from its earliest adoption, this “new mode
of transport” served to not only increase the interaction of peoples across international
borders, but also compelled governments to alter the way in which they enforced laws.
As a result, these two phenomena illustrate how this first high technology served to
“soften sovereignty” of the nation-state. Included will be specific examples of how
steam-powered vessels forced the governments of the United States, the United Kingdom
and British Canada to address the unprecedented abilities of these time-and-space altering
machines. These are based upon original archival research in North America and Britain.
Finally, the presentation will show why steam-powered vessels should be considered the
first high technology, and how this new definition of the term can be used to
fundamentally alter the way we view the history of technology, and its impact upon the
modern world. I will happily entertain Q&A for as long as time allows.
Philip Enros (philip.enros@bell.net)
The Science Council’s Origins: A “new relationship between science and government”
At the inaugural meeting of the Science Council, in 1966, Prime Minister Pearson
described its establishment as the beginning of a new relationship between science and
government in Canada. The federal government’s mechanisms for managing science
policy, of which the Council was intended to be a major part, were rapidly changing at
that time. This transformation not only produced the Science Council, it also led to a shift
away from the Council’s original purpose as an advisor to the federal government on
policy for science. The Council soon came to see its task as raising public awareness
about the impact of science and technology on society. This talk will review the
Council’s origins, exploring what was new in its creation, why a new relationship was
thought to be needed, and why its role changed.
Hugh McQueen (hugh.mcqueen@concordia.ca) – Concordia University
Canada 1965-80: Environmental Protection, Energy Strategy, Technology Assessment,
Conserver Society
The decade 1970-89 was startlingly different from the decade just ending 2005-15. The
federal government was confident of its policies and was strongly engaged in pollution
cleanup; moreover it had confidence in the scientists (freedom of publication) and
engineers in the agencies fighting pollution to maintain quality of life. The Science
Council of Canada (SCC) and the Senate’s science policy committee provided extensive
advice that was generally accepted. Startlingly in 1972, the OPEC doubling of oil prices
created public consternation and hostility between Ottawa and provinces like Alberta that
wanted the same price increase, Ottawa set a much lower increase to sustain Ontario and
Quebec manufacturing competitiveness internationally. Furthermore Ottawa developed a
conservation strategy that made citizens and industry aware of the limits of oil and gas
resources and enlisted to reduce energy wastes, develop interest in renewables and accept
about 50% reduction in projected annual growth rate. The development of university
research was entrusted to the Natural Science and Engineering Research Council with
growth in equipment, fundamental and applied research funding. The National Research
Council expanded industrial research as well as satellite and manned space activity.
Having provided advice on every industrial sector, the SCC put forward a holistic
proposal for a Conserver Society that would require all industries to pay for
environmental clean-up and give up any subsidies. These costs would be passed on to
consumers who would prioritize their purchasing but would have much reduced taxes.
While this inspired some citizen groups, the general public and industry did not welcome
it. Today conserver social ethics has been transformed into developing plans for
sustainability.
Yves Tremblay (yves.tremblay@forces.gc.ca) – Ministère de la défense du Canada
L’Armée canadienne, les scientifiques canadiens et les tests sur le DDT aux États-Unis et
au Canada de 1944-1945
En 1942, Geigy offre le DDT aux militaires américains et britanniques. À l’automne
1943, les Américains enrayent une épidémie de typhus à Naples. Dès lors, le DDT a un
intérêt majeur pour les armées alliées, et pour les scientifiques, y compris au Canada.
L’Armée canadienne forme au printemps 1944 un comité conjoint Défense nationale et
Agriculture Canada pour tester le DDT, d’abord pour combattre le typhus et la malaria,
ensuite en vue d’usages civils dans l’après-guerre. Les premières observations
canadiennes se font dans des laboratoires américains, puis des tests sont entrepris sur des
conscrits en Ontario et au Labrador. L’intérêt pour l’épandage aérien contre la tordeuse
des bourgeons de l’épinette se manifeste rapidement, même si ce sont les usages agricoles
qui suscitent le plus d’intérêt. Cette recherche est conduite à partir des dossiers de
recherche opérationnelle du ministère de la Défense du Canada.
History of Computing (3:00-4:30)
Scott Campbell (scott.campbell@uwaterloo.ca) – University of Waterloo
For Want of a Stamp the Canadians Were Lost: Early Professional Computing Networks
in Canada
In this talk I explore how early Canadian computer experts built professional networks
from the 1950s to the 1970s. Modern computing expanded across the country relatively
slowly after the first computer was installed in 1952, so many Canadians sought
professional links through American computer societies such as the Data Processing
Managers Association (DPMA). The Canadian presence within the DPMA was relatively
high with early chapters in Montreal and Toronto and several major "international"
conferences held north of the border. Nonetheless, the DPMA remained remarkably tonedeaf to Canadian concerns, such as when it sent renewal forms to Canadian members
with self-addressed return envelopes with unusable American stamps. Similar events led
to the creation of DPMA Canada, a semi-autonomous organization for Canadians and led
by Canadians. Ultimately, my talk shows how the Canadian computing landscape
differed from in the United States. With fewer total computers and greater distance
between computing centers, professional networks were essential to technological
growth, knowledge diffusion, advocacy, and social camaraderie. While links to the
United States were inevitable, Canadian professionals were also able to establish distinct
identities and autonomy for themselves.
Zbigniew Stachniak (zbigniew@cse.yorku.ca) – York University
Canadian History of Computing through Emulation
Canadian computer heritage is extensive. However, its study, preservation, and
promotion persistently faces the problem of how to conduct research that requires an
access to and experimentation with historically significant hardware and software.
Computing environments of the past have long been dismantled. Hardware and software
of interest may no longer be available or be in a fragile state preventing their use -- those
artifacts that survived in the museums, can be displayed but neither fully demonstrated to
the visitors nor experimented with by scholars. In this paper I will discuss computer
emulators -- software designed to accurately recreate historically significant computing
artifacts and environments, to bridge physical systems with their virtual representations
and interpretations. I will assess the role and value of emulators as research and
preservation tools. I will also discuss major emulation projects done at York University
Computer Museum and illustrate the discussion with emulators' demonstrations.
Greg Bak (zbigniew@cse.yorku.ca) – York University
Initiating a Digital Culture: Winnipeg, 1950-1970
What makes a culture digital? During the 1950s and 1960s digital computers came to
Winnipeg, purchased by private corporations, by the University of Manitoba, by the
municipal and provincial governments. By 1970 Manitobans throughout the province had
been touched in some way by computing, though very few were direct users of
computers. The mundane and routine reality of most computer usage contrasted with
representations of computing in the hyped-up headlines of the news media or in
Hollywood movies, and resulted in discordant perceptions of computing among noncomputer users. I am in the early stages of a history of computing in Manitoba. My paper
will describe the contours of my project and present some preliminary findings. My work
blurs rather than crosses borders, probing ambiguities between research computing at the
University of Manitoba and applied computing in industry and government; between
computing in an R&D hub like Toronto or Ottawa and in Winnipeg; between
representations of computing and actual computing; and between analogue culture and
digital culture.
Jean-Louis Trudel (jltrudel@ncf.ca) – University of Ottawa
Video Game Development: A Very Un-Canadian Success Story
Over the last 40 years, video game development has become a significant industry in
Canada, generating approximately two billion dollars yearly. Electronic gaming has
become such a pervasive form of entertainment that 61% of Canadian households
reported by 2012 that they owned at least one game console. While modern play has
become intertwined with technology, the technological history of the Canadian video
game industry remains to be written, but a database of nearly 1,000 associated
commercial operations has been compiled, going back to the 1970s. Data analysis reveals
the increasing foreign ownership of the largest developers as well as a history of crossborder partnerships. Rarely initiated by Canadian firms, such alliances have transformed
Canada into a games powerhouse (first in the world by employees per capita). The
respective roles of government policy, technological handicaps (the paucity of Canadianmade platforms), and commercial trajectories (lock-in) will be assessed.
Consumers and Markets (3:00-4:30)
Julien Labrosse (jlabr081@uottawa.ca) – University of Ottawa
“Round the Empire by Canadian Pacific”: The Canadian Pacific Railway Company’s
Transport Network, the St. Lawrence Route, and Imperial Tourism in the Early 20th
Century
Starting in the 1880s, the Canadian Pacific Railway Company decided to get involved in
the lucrative steamship business. While the most lucrative routes were those connecting
European and American ports, CPR decided to develop the St. Lawrence River route. By
the 1920s, with its extensive network of hotels and railroads across the Canada, CPR
decided to market itself as an integrated trans-imperial network of tourism. This network
would carry the traveller from England Atlantic steamships, across Canada on CPR
trains, and to East Asia on the company’s Pacific fleet. The company promoted its
imperial transportation network as a convenient, hassle-free, way of travelling the world
on a single system, one that additionally allowed passengers to see the world while
staying within the predictable comforts of British accommodations. Using amongst other
sources promotional pamphlets, posters, and newspaper advertisements, this presentation
explores CPR’s attempt to market the St. Lawrence route and its imperial network as a
transportation solution to travel across the world, while remaining in the reassuring
convenience of the Empire. It also reveals how CPR sought to make Canada the lynchpin
of the Empire’s communication and transport network.
Suzanne Beauvais (sbeauvais@technomuses.ca) - Société des musées de sciences et
technologies du Canada
La revue Châtelaine et les consommatrices canadiennes : son rôle d’influence depuis les
années 1960
D’abord publiée en anglais par Maclean-Hunter Ltd à compter de 1928 , la revue
Chatelaine ajouta une version française à compter de septembre 1960 avec l’achat de La
Revue Moderne. Chatelaine/Châtelaine La Revue Moderne, constituaient alors la seule
revue canadienne qui s’adressait au public féminin. Elle était aussi la plus populaire au
sein de la maison de publication Maclean-Hunter. La revue jouera un rôle d’influence
auprès de son lectorat au niveau des activités domestiques et les achats d’appareils
ménagers. La revue jouera aussi le rôle de pourvoyeur d’échantillonnage de lectrices pour
des études de marché à propos de divers produits et appareils domestiques démontrant
ainsi l’importance accordée par les publicitaires au rôle des femmes en tant que
consommatrices.
Ian Hadlaw (jhadlaw@yorku.ca) – York University
‘Good-bye Central’—Introducing Dial Telephone Service to Bell Canada Subscribers,
1924-29
This paper examines the early years of Bell Canada’s conversion from manual operator
service to dial telephone service as an opportunity to interrogate the taken-forgrantedness of modern technological arrangements, artifacts, and practices. Although dial
service had been invented in the late 1800s, but Bell delayed its introduction until 1924.
Bell’s reluctance was also in keeping with its goal of controlling any technical and human
variables that might affect the quality or profitability of telephone service. Operators
played an important role resolving both system and human errors. While dial service
promised to reduce labour costs, it also made the telephone company reliant on the
telephone user’s ability and willingness to replace established habits, etiquette, and
knowledge with new practices and conceptions of telephony. Subscribers unwilling to
place their own calls or not doing so correctly could significantly compromise efficient
network operation. When Bell Canada finally introduced automated exchanges, first in
Toronto in 1924 and then in Montréal and Québec City in 1925, it paid great attention to
how to best anticipate and manage the human variables that subscribers presented. By the
time dial service was introduced in Hamilton in 1929, Bell had developed a
comprehensive programme to educate both Bell employees and subscribers about dial
service and to promote its proper use. Drawing on documents and images from the Bell
Canada archives as well as media accounts, this paper examines the extensive educational
and promotional strategies implemented by Bell to prepare its employees and subscribers
for the introduction of dial service. It argues that Bell’s programme not only taught its
subscribers how to properly use dial telephones, but also helped to redraw the boundary
between humans and machines, integrating users and non-experts into the operation of
large technological systems.
Rénald Fortier (rfortier@technomuses.ca) - Musée de l'aviation et de l'espace du
Canada
« Napier + Convair + Canadair = Cosmopolitan » - D. Napier & Son, Canadair et
l’avion de ligne moyen courrier Convair Cosmopolitan
Le thème de la conférence biennale de l’AHSTC pour l’année 2015 offre de nombreuses
avenues de recherche à quiconque s’intéresse à l’histoire de l’aviation. En effet, la nature
même de l’industrie fait en sorte que bien des projets débordent les frontières du pays où
ils naissent. Dans le cas présent, c’est en 1957 que Canadair acquiert l’outillage de
production d’un avion de ligne moyen courrier produit jusqu’alors par une compagnie
sœur américaine, Convair. L’avionneur montréalais s’allie avec un fabricant de moteurs
britannique, D. Napier & Son, pour offrir une version plus moderne du Convair
Metropolitan. Le gouvernement fédéral force l’Aviation royale du Canada à accepter dix
aéronefs. Cela dit, la piètre fiabilité du turbopropulseur Napier Eland et le coût élevé du
Canadair Cosmopolitan ne tardent pas à faire fuir les clients potentiels, des lignes
aériennes américaines pour la plupart. Ces mêmes facteurs portent un coup fatal à un
projet d’usine au Brésil.
Sunday / Dimanche, November 8
Botanical Borders (9:00-10:30)
Brendan Cull (7baac@queensu.ca) – Queen’s University
Early Canadian Photographic Botanicals at the Exposition Universelle, Paris 1867
In 1867, Abbé Ovide Brunet, a Catholic priest and botany professor at the Université
Laval, and the noted Québec City photography studio of Livernois and Co. presented a
portfolio of thirty-five albumen print photographs, entitled "Sites et végétaux du
Canada", as part of the Canadian displays at the Exposition Universelle in Paris. This
'photographic herbarium' applied the new technology of photography to the task of
communicating Canada’s botanical, geographic, and historical assets. I argue that these
photographs explore the scientific potential of photography in the service of botany,
while employing Canadian imagery as a tool for asserting Canada’s place as a centre of
cutting-edge scientific investigation. In considering the place of Brunet, Livernois, and
the portfolio itself, within international networks of influential individuals and groups,
which actively sought to collect, categorize, catalogue, and store the world’s botanical
data, this paper presents an analysis of "Sites et végétaux du Canada" across the various
contexts which imbued the images with meaning.
Patricia Bowley (pbowley@rogers.com) – University of Guelph
Sarah Potter’s Wax Fruit at the Ontario Agricultural College
This story of wax fruit, spanning two continents and six decades, highlights an intricate
web of knowledge exchange among artists and artisans, scientists, innovators,
manufacturers and suppliers of various specialty products and techniques. It begins
during the Crimean War with the development of plaster casts to set broken bones. This
technology lent itself to the manufacture of realistic reproductions of native fruits and
flowers, initially as home decor, but later as teaching tools by horticulturalists in North
America. During a visit to the Chicago Exhibition in 1893, H.L. Hutt, Professor of
Horticulture at the Ontario Agricultural College, persuaded Sarah Potter to create a set of
wax fruits, root vegetables and mushrooms for the College, for the new and popular
program in economic horticulture. As well as being a part of the global history of science
and technology, this story is a fine example of natural and mutually beneficial
collaboration among the arts and the sciences.
Eda Kranakis (kranakis@uottawa.ca) – University of Ottawa
The Mysterious History of Canadian Patent #1,313,830
Globalization is partly a process of creating a homogenized, worldwide terrain of
operation for multinational corporations. Yet everywhere this homogenized terrain has
had to be painstakingly constructed by way of differing national or regional laws. I will
present a case study of this process in the terrain of biotechnology patents, specifically
probing the history of Monsanto’s 1993 Canadian patent for “Glyphosate Resistant
Plants” (#1,313,830), which was in turn linked to other American patents. The Canadian
patent stood at the heart of Monsanto’s lawsuit against Saskatchewan farmer Percy
Schmeiser, which ended in a decision by the Canadian Supreme Court asserting that
Schmeiser had infringed the patent because “Roundup Ready Canola” was found
growing in his fields. Yet despite the tremendous social, economic, legal, and scientific
importance of this patent, there exists little historical analysis of its development or its
relationship to its American cousin(s). There are a number of mysteries to be explained
about this patent. Canadian patent #1,313,830 was issued in February 1993, based on an
application made initially in 1986. The first mystery concerns the seven-year delay and
what role, if any, politics may have played in the patent approval process. In between the
1986 application and the 1993 issuance, three major developments occurred. First, as a
result of a 1987 U.S. court case, the U.S. Patent Office began allowing utility patents on
plants. Second, in 1989, the Canadian Supreme Court rejected the legality of plant
patents, just as the U.S. was allowing them. Third, Canada signed NAFTA on December
17, 1992, which required the country to implement intellectual property rights for plants.
Canadian Monsanto patent #1,313,830, titled “Glyphosate-resistant plants” was issued in
Canada less than three months after NAFTA was signed. A further mystery concerns the
nature of the invention covered by Canadian patent #1,313,830, the claims of which are
nearly identical with an American Monsanto patent of the same name that was issued
three years earlier, in February 1990 (US Patent #4,940,835). Legally, a patent must
provide full details on how to make the invention it covers, how the invention functions,
and how it is to be used. The problem is, only months before the U.S. patent was issued,
in June, 1989, Agriculture Canada Research Station scientist R. K. Downey reported that
field trials of Monsanto’s Roundup Ready Canola showed that “the level of resistance” of
these plants to glyphosate (i.e. to the herbicide “Roundup”) “was not sufficient for
commercialization” and that “modifications to the gene” had to be made by Monsanto “to
provide an increased level of tolerance.” Given that the invention had to be to be
reworked in order to function, the second mystery concerns how and to what extent the
modified invention differed from the original described in the 1986 Canadian patent
application, and whether and how the U.S. and Canadian patents applications were
altered between 1989 and their issuance, respectively, in 1990 and 1993? To complicate
matters further, Monsanto was not the only company that patented Roundup-tolerant
plants. The American startup company Calgene also had a U.S. patent for glyphosatetolerant plants, pre-dating Monsanto’s, and the company had a research program and
additional patents (American and Canadian) related to rapeseed/canola. Calgene claimed
that Monsanto’s patent infringed its own (earlier) patent, and in fact Monsanto bought out
Calgene when it began commercializing its own Roundup Ready crops. So the question
arises: how was Monsanto’s Canadian patent related to Calgene’s patents? Ultimately,
this case study will demonstrate the necessity of taking a transnational approach in order
to disentangle the history of Canadian plant patents.
Bridging Gender, Generations, and Scientific Cultures: Research on
Canadian Mining, Metallurgy, and Materials
Anne Millar (7baac@queensu.ca) – Queen’s University
Bridging Gender, Generations, and Scientific Cultures: Research on Canadian Mining,
Metallurgy, and Materials.
This session will present two interlinked projects aimed at historical research in mining
and metallurgy and preserving contributions of individuals who had significant impact on
Canadian mining, metallurgy, and material sciences: University of Waterloo’s Women of
Impact, and CSTMC’s Mining and Metallurgy Legacy Project. Women of Impact,
conducted by Dr. Mary Wells, from the Mechanical and Mechatronics Engineering
Department of the University of Waterloo and Anne Millard, PhD Candidate at the
Department of History, University of Ottawa, aims to preserve the impact of female
leaders in mining, metallurgy, and materials, which is still largely unrecorded, to help
inform current policy making and advance knowledge in engineering by understanding
the different approaches used by women to excel in their careers. Mining and Metallurgy
Legacy Project, underway at the Canada Science and Technology Museums Corporation
in cooperation with MetSoc, consists of a historical and exhibition research, and a series
of oral history interviews with a generation of individuals who have advanced and
asserted Canadian mining and metallurgy globally. The goal of the project is to build a
body of interpretive material and primary research sources on technologies and sociopolitics of these sectors, and to create documentation fundamental to the development
and management of the national metallurgy and mining collection and complementary
educational activities. Understanding, preserving and interpreting the history of
technology in mining and metallurgy is challenging. Available information is often
exoteric and the impact of technologies difficult to assess without strong scientific
background. It is even harder to interpret mining, metallurgy, and material sciences to the
general public that rarely understands relation of these fields to everyday lives. In this
session the presenter will discuss the goals, challenges, approaches, and results of their
projects.
William McRae (WMcRae@technomuses.ca) - Canada Science and
Technology Museum
Where Genius Borders... Flatuses: Oral History of Mining and Metallurgy in Canada.
William McRae, Oral Historian, will be talking about his experience working on the
Mining and Metallurgy Legacy Project. For the past year, William has interviewed many
important figures in the mining, metallurgy and petroleum industries across Canada. His
practice in oral history has shined light on many inventions, changes and advancements
in these fields that would otherwise be exoteric to outsiders of these industries. The
project helps highlight, in laymen’s terms, technical and scientific accomplishments
through a personal scope. William will share some of his interviews and elaborate on key
questions along with trending answers throughout the project.
Erich Weidenhammer (eweidenh@gmail.com) – University of Toronto
Historians, researchers, technicians, and makers: Approaching the material culture of
science through the making process.
Collections of scientific objects offer a unique view into the production of scientific
knowledge. They permit us to explore the technical skills of the workers (notably
glassworkers, engineers, and machinists) who create the tools of scientific research. They
also provide a basis for exploring those skills (notably model making and conservation
techniques) employed by academics in fields such as museology and STS/ HPS who
interpret and represent scientific tools and practices. Of particular interest are those
practices that cross borders between science, trades, arts, and humanities. These include
the use of locally made models in scientific education, the recreation of scientific effects
by historians, and the increasing use of art to explore and disseminate scientific ideas.
This paper will draw on examples from the University of Toronto Scientific Instruments
Collection (UTSIC).
Constructing and Deconstructing Boundaries: The Airplane in the Northern
Contex (10:45-12:15)
Janet Martin-Nielsen (janet@css.au.dk) - Aarhus University
“The Endless Possibilities of the Aeroplanes Above”: Aviation in Greenland, 1928-1969.
This talk traces the history of aviation in Greenland from the first snow landing on
Greenland's ice sheet in 1928 to the 'opening' of the ice sheet in 1969. In doing so, it
presents Greenland as a transnational space: one that caught the attention and interest of a
resurgent Germany in the interwar period; a bold France in the immediate post-World
War II years; an assertive and militarily powerful USA during the Cold War; a hesitant
European cooperation during the International Polar Year; and a quiet, concerned
Denmark throughout the period in question. By telling these stories through the lens of
aviation and flying, I examine the airplane in the contexts of the taming of nature, the
assertion of epistemic authority, and the performance of sovereignty in the Arctic world.
The talk is based on new archival research in five countries.
Sean Seyer (seanseyer@ku.edu) – University of Kansas
The Tension between Imperial Unity and Technological Practicality: Canada and
the 1919 Convention Relating to the Regulation of Aerial Navigation
This paper analyzes how Canadian aeronautical policy influenced the development of an
American regulatory ideology for aviation that culminated in the 1926 Air Commerce
Act. In response to the airplane’s use in World War I, Allied governments drafted the
Convention Relating to the Regulation of Aerial Navigation as part of the Versailles
Conference. The convention’s ties to the League of Nations precluded U.S. ratification
and constitutional uncertainty resulted in legislative inaction. Meanwhile, the Canadian
Air Regulations of 1920 drew directly from the convention and Canadian officials—
under British pressure—ratified the convention in 1923. The need to ensure regulatory
compatibility between the two nations profoundly shaped the debate within the United
States and consequent legislation. The border thus served as a conduit through which
international regulatory standards permeated southward, even in the absence of
convention ratification.
Blair Stein (blair.stein@ou.edu) - University of Oklahoma
Climate, Identity, and Canadian Aviation Mythmaking: Silver Darts to Snowbirds
How does Canada’s imaginary status as a cold-weather nation change the way we tell
stories about our technologies? The Canadian cultural association with northern-ness and
coldness is rooted in Early Modern biological racism and climatic determinism, but it is
largely imagined in its modern iteration. Confederation-era Canadian politicians saw
Euro-Canadians as superior to the temperate British and “tropical” Americans, and EuroCanadians have continued to reach towards their imagined northernness whenever their
national identity must necessarily be compared to those southern and overseas
neighbours. My paper will use Canada’s aviation history to show that technological
mythmaking has reflected the ways Canadians talk about their climate-based national
identities. From Canada’s first flight, which, fittingly, took place in winter, to modern
concerns with “snowbirding” to warm destinations, Canadians have used their aviation
technological creation narratives to both bolster and subvert what I call cultural nordicity:
climatic identity increasingly divorced from actual climate.
Material Cultures (10:45-12:15)
Larry McNally (larrymcnally@xplornet.com)
Diverse Trajectories: Three Significant Nineteenth Century Millwrights from Southwest
Quebec.
Southwest Quebec, the area between the Richelieu and St. Lawrence rivers and north of
the border with New York State, was only settled after the War of 1812. From this fairly
obscure part of Quebec came three important millwrights. David Craik was a traditional
frontier millwright who built saw and grist mills in both Quebec and New York State.
After the publication of his millwrighting book, he left for Minnesota. Charles Proper
started out as a millwright on the sawmills of the Ottawa Valley and eventually became a
specialist in the design of large-scale sawmill complexes. Thomas Pringle worked
extensively with water power on Lachine Canal and became a professional engineer and
established one of the first consulting engineering firms in Canada. The paper will look at
what they did as well as the evolving world of mills, water power and manufacturing.
David Pantalony (dpantalony@gmail.com) - Canada Science and Technology
Museum
Canadian Landmarks Unearthed: Historic survey markers, instruments, and their
collectors.
There is a vast geometric network of lines and markers that make up the surveyed
landscape of Canada. These markers are deeply embedded in our heritage and way of life.
The Canada Science and Technology Museum houses 137 historic survey markers known
as the Canadian Landmarks Collection. Some are monuments, some are common
markers. They come from across Canada, and from different periods in Canada's history
from 1762 to 1973. They are made of several varieties of stone, wood and metal, and
carry revealing markings and inscriptions. In this paper, I describe three periods of
history related to these historic markers and associated survey instruments – when and
how Dominion surveyors originally posted them, when and why surveyors collected
them, and how university students used them in a collection-based digital history
seminar.
Michel Labrecque (mlabrecque@technomuses.ca) - Canada Science and
Technology Museum
The Story of a Century Cirkut Camera from Across the Border.
Recently, the Canada Science and Technology Museum acquired a Cirkut Panoramic
Outfit by the Century Camera Division of Eastman Kodak. In researching the camera’s
provenance, we happily discovered an interesting backstory into the camera and its likely
original owner. This journey of discovery into the history of the artifact led the Museum
to a town named Berlin and a photographer named Ernest Denton (1883-1957) and
interesting collaboration with the Grace Schmidt Room of Local History at the Kitchener
Public Library. The 19th century camera, brought to Berlin Ontario from Rochester is a
well preserved Cirkut camera that has connections to two Canadians who contributed to
the development of panoramic photography. The camera was also a witness to the
evolution of a community, producing panoramic photographs of the 118th Battalion,
CEF, in the turbulent days of pre-World War I Berlin through to its industrial and
economic heyday of the first half of the 20th century.