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As explained in our Mission, Citizen.ca focuses on knowledge closely connected to Canadian identity and Canadian spirit, rather than every fact about Canada. Some topics will therefore be absent. If you believe a missing topic belongs within this focus, please contact us.

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482 recordsStructured records (JSON) ↗
Sir William Price, about 1924 (Fonds Dubuc).
CA-K853Economy & trade

Sir William Price, from lumber to pulp and paper

William Price joined his family’s lumber business in 1885 and took control in 1899, when it was close to failing. To diversify, he bought a pulp mill at Jonquière and helped lead the shift from lumber to pulp and paper, a sector in which Canada became a world leader by the 1920s. His mill at Kénogami was for years Canada’s top newsprint producer.

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Photo: Fonds Dubuc · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context
Charles Sherwood Noble, 1918.
CA-K845Economy & trade

Charles Noble and the Noble Blade

Charles Sherwood Noble, farmer, inventor and entrepreneur, showed the farming potential of the drought-prone Palliser Triangle. During the Great Depression he worked with the Dominion Experimental Farm to promote dry-land farming methods, and in 1936 invented the Noble Blade, a cultivator that cut weeds at the roots without disturbing the soil, greatly reducing erosion. His company became Alberta’s largest maker of such implements.

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Photo: unknown (Life time: 1910s) · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context
William Aberhart, 1920 (Curlette Studio).
CA-K840History

William Aberhart, Social Credit premier of Alberta

William “Bible Bill” Aberhart, a Calgary high school principal and evangelical preacher, led the founding of Alberta’s Social Credit party and became premier in 1935, winning re-election in 1940. He used radio to reach audiences first as an evangelist and then as a politician.

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Photo: Curlette Studio · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context
Adam Shortt, about 1920.
CA-K837Institutions

Adam Shortt, economist and historian

Adam Shortt, born near London, Ontario, founded the department of political economy at Queen’s University and advised governments. In 1908 he joined the first Canadian Civil Service Commission. In Ottawa he worked with Dominion Archivist Arthur Doughty to build the national archives’ collections, and from 1913 to 1917 the two co-edited the historical series Canada and Its Provinces.

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Photo: Bain News Service, publisher · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context
Robert Harris, C.M.G., R.C.A. (Archives of Ontario).
CA-K835Culture & sport

Robert Harris, painter of the Fathers of Confederation

Robert Harris, born in Wales, came to Prince Edward Island in 1856 and studied art in Charlottetown, Boston, London, Paris and Rome. One of Canada’s leading portrait painters and a long-time teacher, he was an original member of the Royal Canadian Academy and its president from 1890 to 1903. He is best known for his painting of the Fathers of Confederation.

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Photo: Unknown photographer; Archives of Ontario · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context
Louis St. Laurent, 1948 (George Nakash).
CA-K820History

Louis St. Laurent, prime minister

Louis St. Laurent, born in Compton, Quebec, was a leading corporate lawyer before entering politics as Minister of Justice in 1941. He served as Secretary of State for External Affairs and then as Prime Minister from 1948 to 1957. A strong advocate of national unity, he helped shape the new Commonwealth, signed the United Nations Charter and promoted NATO.

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Photo: George Nakash · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context
Joseph E. Atkinson, 1910s (City of Toronto Archives).
CA-K818Culture & sport

Joseph Atkinson of the Toronto Star

Joseph E. Atkinson became managing editor of the Toronto Star in 1899 and its majority owner by 1913. He sought to make the paper a tool of social reform, and his innovations changed Canadian journalism and made the Star the country’s largest-circulation newspaper by the 1930s. He left his fortune to the Atkinson Charitable Foundation, which supports cultural, medical and educational institutions in Ontario.

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Photo: Unknown photographer; City of Toronto Archives · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context
Ernest Lapointe, portrait (J. Russell & Sons).
CA-K817History

Ernest Lapointe, statesman

Ernest Lapointe, born at Saint-Éloi, Quebec, was a federal Cabinet minister from 1921 to 1930 and from 1935 to 1941. He played an important part in governing the country and in its move toward autonomy, and represented Canadians in national, imperial and international affairs. He died in Montréal and is buried in Rivière-du-Loup.

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Photo: J. Russell & Sons · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context
Albert Peter Low, 1897 (William James Topley).
CA-K816Places & geography

A.P. Low, explorer of Labrador and the Arctic

Albert Peter Low of Montréal joined the Geological Survey of Canada in 1882. In 1884 he made the first scientific survey and map of Lake Mistassini, and in the 1890s explored much of the interior of Ungava and Labrador, noting its iron deposits. He commanded the first Arctic patrol, aboard the Neptune in 1903–04, and became Director of the Geological Survey in 1906.

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Photo: William James Topley · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context
Col. Sam Hughes, 1905 (William James Topley).
CA-K801History

Sir Sam Hughes, Minister of Militia

Sam Hughes, soldier, journalist and Member of Parliament for Lindsay from 1892 to 1921, helped create a distinctly Canadian army. As Minister of Militia and Defence from 1911 to 1916, he raised the Canadian Expeditionary Force that fought in the First World War and was knighted, but disputes with colleagues and subordinates forced him from Cabinet in 1916.

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Photo: William James Topley · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context
Dr. Wilfred Grenfell, about 1900.
CA-K793Institutions

Sir Wilfred Grenfell, doctor to northern Newfoundland and Labrador

Wilfred Grenfell, an English-born doctor and minister, gave 50 years of service to the people of northern Newfoundland and Labrador. He and those he inspired brought medical, spiritual and material aid to fishers and coastal residents, and he raised funds for projects such as the hospital at St. Anthony. The International Grenfell Association, founded in 1912, carried on his programs.

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Photo: Bain News Service, publisher · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context
Henri Bourassa, 1917.
CA-K785Culture & sport

Henri Bourassa, founder of Le Devoir

Henri Bourassa, a noted orator and writer, sat in the House of Commons and the Quebec Legislative Assembly. He broke with Laurier and the Liberals over the Boer War, founded the Montréal daily Le Devoir in 1910 and edited it until 1932. Throughout his career he championed a nationalism based on Canada’s autonomy and cultural duality.

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Photo: Unknown author · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context
Sir Robert Borden, 1911 (Notman studio).
CA-K784History

Sir Robert Borden, wartime prime minister

Sir Robert Borden, born at Grand-Pré, Nova Scotia, led the Conservative Party from 1901 and was Prime Minister from 1911 to 1920. He guided Canada through the First World War, imposed conscription for overseas service in 1917 and formed a Union government of Liberals and Conservatives. He is remembered above all for insisting that Canada act as an autonomous nation in international diplomacy.

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Photo: Notman, Boston · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context
George A. Cox, portrait published in 1907.
CA-K782Economy & trade

George Cox, banker and insurance magnate

George Cox, after a business career in Peterborough, moved to Toronto as it challenged Montréal as Canada’s banking capital. President of the Canadian Bank of Commerce from 1890 to 1906, he expanded it into Western Canada, and as head of Canada Life he dominated the insurance industry from the mid-1890s until his death in 1914.

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Photo: Unknown author · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context
Henry Marshall Tory, first president of Carleton College.
CA-K775Institutions

Henry Marshall Tory, university builder

Henry Marshall Tory of Port Shoreham, Nova Scotia, taught at McGill and was the first president of the University of Alberta from 1908 to 1928. A distinguished scientist, he led the National Research Council from 1923 to 1935 and founded Carleton College in Ottawa, devoting his life to spreading scientific knowledge.

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Photo: The original uploader was Kristoferb at English Wikipedia. · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context
Charles Fitzpatrick, Chief Justice of Canada (Supreme Court of Canada).
CA-K755Institutions

Sir Charles Fitzpatrick, chief justice of Canada

Charles Fitzpatrick held Université Laval’s chair of criminal law for nearly 30 years and served Laurier as Solicitor General and Minister of Justice. He became Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Canada in 1906 and was lieutenant-governor of Quebec from 1918 to 1923.

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Photo: Unknown author · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context
James Patrick Howley, portrait published in 1894.
CA-K745History

James P. Howley, geologist and historian of the Beothuk

James Patrick Howley greatly advanced knowledge of Newfoundland’s geology, minerals and geography through fieldwork for the Geological and Topographical Survey of Newfoundland from 1868 to 1909, and is considered founder and first curator of the Newfoundland Museum. His 1915 study of the Beothuk remains a cornerstone of Beothuk scholarship.

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Photo: Unknown author · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context
James Garfield Gardiner (Alexandra Studio, Library and Archives Canada).
CA-K739Institutions

Jimmy Gardiner, voice of the Prairie farmer

James Garfield “Jimmy” Gardiner, first elected to Saskatchewan’s legislature as a Liberal in 1914, was twice premier of the province and federal Minister of Agriculture from 1936 to 1957. A combative, intensely partisan politician, he was for years his party’s bulwark in the West and the voice of the Prairie farmer in Ottawa.

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Photo: Alexandra Studio / Library and Archives Canada · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context
Davidson Black, photogravure (Wellcome Collection).
CA-K738History

Davidson Black and “Peking Man”

Davidson Black, born and educated in Toronto, turned from medicine to the study of fossil humans and took a post at Peking Union Medical College after the First World War. In 1927, from a fossil tooth found at Zhoukoudian, he described fossil material under the name Sinanthropus pekinensis, the “Peking Man”, a find later confirmed by excavations with Chinese and European scientists.

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Photo: Photogravure; Wellcome Collection, V0026054 · Photo licence: CC BY 4.0 · Credit & context
Captain Bob Bartlett, around 1926.
CA-K717Places & geography

Captain Bob Bartlett, Arctic navigator

Robert Abram “Captain Bob” Bartlett of Brigus, Newfoundland, commanded the Roosevelt on Peary’s 1905–1906 expedition, accompanied Peary to the last relay point on the 1908–1909 trek toward the Pole, and commanded the Karluk in the Canadian Arctic Expedition. From 1926 to 1945 his annual Arctic voyages contributed greatly to knowledge of northern waters and wildlife.

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Photo: Unknown photographer · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context
Harold Adams Innis, 1910s.
CA-K711Culture & sport

Harold Innis, historian of staples and communications

Harold Adams Innis, one of Canada’s great scholars, joined the University of Toronto in 1920 and headed its Department of Political Economy from 1937. Through works such as The Fur Trade in Canada, The Cod Fisheries and Empire and Communications, he deeply influenced the study of economics, history, geography, politics and communications.

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Photo: Unknown photographer (1910s) · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context
Dora Dworkin in her nurse’s uniform, around 1909 (Ontario Jewish Archives).
CA-K706History

Dorothy Dworkin, nurse and community builder

Dorothy Dworkin, a nurse, midwife and entrepreneur, managed Toronto’s free Jewish Dispensary and helped found Mount Sinai Hospital in the 1920s, which served Jewish Canadians and employed doctors often shut out of hospitals by antisemitism. During the Holocaust she led relief fundraising and, through her family’s steamship agency, helped hundreds of Eastern European Jews settle in Canada.

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Photo: Unknown author · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context
Archibald MacMechan, 1897 (Dalhousie University Archives).
CA-K705Culture & sport

Archibald MacMechan, man of letters at Dalhousie

Archibald MacMechan, born in Berlin (now Kitchener), Ontario, was professor of English at Dalhousie University from 1889 until his death. A book critic for the Montreal Standard for 20 years, he wrote several books about Nova Scotia and edited works by Tennyson and Carlyle, and received the Lorne Pierce Medal in 1932.

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Photo: Unknown author · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context
Maurice Duplessis, 1936 (Studio Dupras et Colas).
CA-K700Institutions

Maurice Duplessis and the Union nationale

Maurice Duplessis of Trois-Rivières formed the Union nationale in 1935, an alliance of Conservatives and dissident Liberals that governed Quebec from 1936 to 1939 and from 1944 until his death in 1959. Known as “Le Chef”, he was a colourful and influential figure whose years in office brought frequent controversy, the assertion of Quebec autonomy and major public works.

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Photo: Studio Dupras et Colas · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context