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Anthony Musgrave, 1875.
CA-K986History

Sir Anthony Musgrave and British Columbia’s entry into Confederation

Anthony Musgrave, a career imperial civil servant, was governor of Newfoundland (1864–69) and British Columbia (1869–71). In both colonies he worked hard to encourage union with the new Canadian confederation, and under his direction British Columbia entered the Dominion on July 20, 1871. Knighted in 1875, he later governed Natal, South Australia, Jamaica and Queensland.

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Photo: Unknown photographer; State Library of South Australia · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context
Monument to Paul de Chomedey de Maisonneuve, Place d’Armes, Montréal.
CA-K985History

Maisonneuve, founder of Montréal

Paul de Chomedey de Maisonneuve, a military officer born in Champagne, France, was the first Governor of the Island of Montréal. Inspired by the spiritual climate of his time and the Jesuits’ writings, he answered a call from the Société Notre-Dame de Montréal to found a missionary colony, and in May 1642, he and about fifty people founded Ville-Marie. Despite years of hardship, he laid the foundations of the city of Montréal.

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Photo: Wilfredor · Photo licence: CC0 · Credit & context
David Milne, New York, 1909.
CA-K983Culture & sport

David Milne, modernist painter

David Milne was one of the first Canadian artists to explore modernist styles and subjects, in paintings, watercolours and prints built on subtle arrangements of colour, space and line. He left Paisley, Ontario, for New York in 1903 and showed at the Armory Show in 1913, then became a Canadian war artist in the First World War. Returning to Ontario in 1929, he painted at Temagami, Palgrave, Six Mile Lake, Toronto, Uxbridge and Bancroft.

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Photo: Unknown author · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context
Monument to Archibald Fraser, Edmundston.
CA-K982Economy & trade

Archibald Fraser, pulp pioneer of New Brunswick

Archibald Fraser started in his family’s small sawmill in the 1880s and became a leading pioneer of New Brunswick’s pulp industry. As the lumber trade declined he looked for new uses of the province’s forests, and in 1918 opened a modern pulp mill at Edmundston. He soon became an industry giant, and by his death pulp and paper had replaced lumber as the province’s most important manufacturing industry.

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Photo: Bouchecl · Photo licence: CC BY-SA 3.0 · Credit & context
James Cockburn, 1873 (William James Topley).
CA-K980History

James Cockburn, first Speaker of the House of Commons

James Cockburn came to Montréal from England in 1832, was educated in Toronto and set up a law practice in Cobourg. Elected for Northumberland West in 1861, he attended the Quebec Conference of 1864 as a cabinet minister and is one of the Fathers of Confederation. When the first Parliament of Canada met in November 1867, he was elected Speaker of the House of Commons, serving until 1874.

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Photo: William James Topley · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context
Statue of Jonathan McCully by Peter Bustin, Founders Square, Halifax.
CA-K979History

Jonathan McCully, editor and Father of Confederation

Jonathan McCully, born in Cumberland County, Nova Scotia, practised law in Amherst and from 1848 sat in the Legislative Council, serving as Solicitor General and government leader there. As editor of the Halifax Morning Chronicle, the Novascotian and later the Unionist, he championed Confederation and attended the Charlottetown, Quebec and London conferences. Named to the Senate in 1867, he became a judge of the Nova Scotia Supreme Court in 1870.

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Photo: Hantsheroes · Photo licence: CC BY-SA 3.0 · Credit & context
Joseph-Israël Tarte, about 1890 (Jules-Isaïe Benoît).
CA-K977History

Israël Tarte, architect of Laurier’s 1896 victory

Joseph-Israël Tarte, a brilliant polemicist, journalist and politician, took part in every major political battle of his time, working under various banners to protect French and Catholic minorities and strengthen Canada’s place in the Empire. Elected in 1891, he engineered Laurier’s 1896 triumph in Quebec. As Minister of Public Works (1896–1902) he improved St. Lawrence navigation and made Montréal the country’s leading port.

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Photo: Jules-Isaïe Benoît · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context
Marie Lacoste with Henri Gérin-Lajoie, January 1887.
CA-K976History

Marie Lacoste-Gérin-Lajoie, Quebec feminist

For more than 40 years Marie Lacoste-Gérin-Lajoie worked to improve the lives of women in Quebec. In 1907 she co-founded the Fédération nationale Saint-Jean-Baptiste, an important French-Canadian feminist association, which she led from 1913 to 1933 while writing for its review La Bonne Parole. She campaigned for women’s suffrage, access to higher education and, through the 1931 Civil Code reform, the rights of married women.

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Photo: Unknown author · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context
Joseph Howe, 1865 (William Notman).
CA-K973History

Joseph Howe, “Tribune of Nova Scotia”

Joseph Howe, born in Halifax and largely self-taught, became publisher of the Novascotian and by 1836 was his province’s leading journalist and orator. Elected that year, he led the struggle that won responsible government in 1848. An eloquent opponent of Confederation in the 1860s, he joined the federal cabinet in 1869 after negotiating “better terms” for Nova Scotia, and shortly before his death in 1873 became its lieutenant governor.

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Photo: William Notman · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context
Theodore August Heintzman, portrait.
CA-K971Economy & trade

Theodore Heintzman, piano maker

Theodore August Heintzman, a German immigrant and experienced craftsman, worked in a piano factory in the United States before his own business there failed. Arriving in Toronto almost penniless in 1860, he built a piano in his daughter’s home and used the proceeds to start a factory. His company grew quickly into one of Canada’s longest-lived piano makers, selling across the country and abroad.

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Photo: Unknown author · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context
Robert B. Dickey (William James Topley).
CA-K966History

Robert Barry Dickey, Father of Confederation

Robert Barry Dickey, born in Amherst, Nova Scotia, practised law there and sat in the province’s Legislative Council from 1858 to 1867. A Father of Confederation, he attended the Charlottetown and Quebec conferences but would not endorse the Quebec Resolutions until better financial terms were granted in 1866. A successful businessman, he was named to the Senate in 1867.

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Photo: William James Topley · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context
Brigadier-General Ernest Alexander Cruikshank.
CA-K965Institutions

E.A. Cruikshank, soldier and historian

Ernest Alexander Cruikshank, born in Bertie Township, Ontario, was a journalist and translator before joining the militia in 1877, rising to brigadier-general in 1915 and directing the general staff’s historical section. He chaired the Historic Sites and Monuments Board of Canada from its creation in 1919 until his death, and wrote many papers and books on Ontario and Canadian history.

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Photo: Unknown author · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context
Thomas Alexander Crerar, official portrait, about 1919.
CA-K964Economy & trade

T.A. Crerar, grain trade leader and Progressive

Thomas Alexander Crerar began as an agrarian reformer at Russell, Manitoba. As head of the Grain Growers’ Grain Company he helped shape Canadian grain marketing, and championing western farmers he led the Progressive movement to great influence in the 1921 election, ending the federal two-party system. He later served in Mackenzie King’s cabinets and was an active Senate leader until 1966.

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Photo: Unknown photographer; Library and Archives Canada · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context
John Skirving Ewart, about 1902.
CA-K962History

J.S. Ewart, lawyer and advocate of Canadian autonomy

John Skirving Ewart, a noted constitutional lawyer born in Toronto, practised in Winnipeg from 1882 to 1904, founding the Manitoba Law Journal and serving on Louis Riel’s appeal defence team. He was counsel for Manitoba’s Roman Catholic minority in the schools dispute of the 1890s, then argued cases before the Supreme Court and Privy Council from Ottawa. He was an early, ardent advocate of Canadian autonomy at home and abroad.

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Photo: Unknown photographer · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context
Captain Sir Leopold McClintock, about 1860.
CA-K960Places & geography

Sir Leopold McClintock and the fate of Franklin

Leopold McClintock sailed as a young lieutenant on the Franklin search expeditions of 1848 and 1850, proving an intrepid sled traveller on Somerset and Melville islands. In 1857 Lady Franklin sent him in the Fox to check the reports of Franklin’s death that Dr. John Rae had received from Inuit. In spring 1859 he found written evidence of Franklin’s fate on the shore of King William Island.

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Photo: John Powles Cheyne · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context
John Robson, portrait (Library and Archives Canada).
CA-K957History

John Robson, newspaperman and premier of British Columbia

John Robson, born in Perth, Ontario, came to British Columbia in 1859. In 1861 he founded the British Columbian at New Westminster, a newspaper on the British Columbia mainland, and used it to demand responsible government. Elected in 1867, he urged the colony to join Confederation, held several cabinet posts and was premier from 1889 until his accidental death in London, working to organize schools and regulate resource development.

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Photo: Unknown photographer; Library and Archives Canada · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context
Governor General Monck, Montréal, 1864 (William Notman).
CA-K955History

Lord Monck, first Governor General of Canada

Lord Monck, an Irish peer, became Governor General of British North America in 1861. During the American Civil War he worked to keep the fighting from spreading north, and as an early supporter of union he put his energy and prestige behind Confederation. His term was extended so that he could become the first Governor General of the Dominion of Canada in 1867; he retired to Ireland the next year.

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Photo: William Notman · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context
Margaret Charlton, portrait (U.S. National Library of Medicine).
CA-K952Institutions

Margaret Charlton, pioneer medical librarian

Margaret Charlton, librarian at McGill University’s Medical Library (1895–1914) and Toronto’s Academy of Medicine Library (1914–22), advanced modern library methods in the profession’s formative years. In 1898 she co-founded the Medical Library Association, which became an international leader in specialized librarianship. She also wrote on the medical history of New France, and her success in a male-dominated field opened the way for other professional women.

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Photo: Unknown photographer · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context
Lester B. Pearson in a photograph published in a 1957 National Film Board photostory about his Nobel Peace Prize.
CA-K951History

Lester B. Pearson, diplomat and prime minister

Lester B. “Mike” Pearson, Canada’s fourteenth prime minister, was an influential diplomat who became Secretary of State for External Affairs in 1948, helped form NATO and won the 1957 Nobel Peace Prize for his leadership at the United Nations during the Suez crisis. Liberal leader from 1958 and prime minister from 1963 to 1968, he promoted bilingualism, championed the new flag, and brought in universal medicare and the Canada Pension Plan.

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Photo: Capital Press · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context
Violet McNaughton, about 1910 (University of Saskatchewan Archives).
CA-K950Economy & trade

Violet McNaughton, farm women’s leader

Violet McNaughton, a leader in the women’s, peace and co-operative movements, drew on her life as a farm wife to organize the Women Grain Growers and help develop the Wheat Pool. She led the fight in Saskatchewan for women’s right to vote and for publicly funded medical care, and from 1926 to 1960 promoted agrarian feminism, pacifism and co-operation as a journalist with The Western Producer.

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Photo: Unknown author · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context
Augustin-Norbert Morin, about 1865 (Jules-Isaïe Benoît).
CA-K949History

Augustin-Norbert Morin, Patriote and co-premier

Augustin-Norbert Morin, lawyer and journalist, entered Lower Canada’s Assembly for Bellechasse in 1830, helped write the Parti patriote’s 92 Resolutions and took part in the Rebellion of 1837. In the Province of Canada he was co-premier with Francis Hincks and Allan MacNab, and in 1854 his government abolished the seigneurial system in Canada East. As a Superior Court judge from 1855, he helped draft the Civil Code of Lower Canada.

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Photo: Jules-Isaïe Benoît · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context
James Bernard Harkin, 1914.
CA-K947Places & geography

J.B. Harkin, first parks commissioner

James Bernard Harkin, born in Vankleek Hill, Ontario, became commissioner of the new Dominion Parks Branch in 1911 and over 25 years built a nationwide system of parks open to as many Canadians as possible. An ardent conservationist, he made important advances in wildlife protection, and on his advice the Historic Sites and Monuments Board of Canada was created in 1919, with him as an original member.

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Photo: Unknown author · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context
Rev. C.W. Gordon (Ralph Connor), right, with Dr. Francis Landey Patton, 1929.
CA-K946Culture & sport

Ralph Connor, novelist and churchman

Charles William Gordon, born in Glengarry, Ontario, was a Presbyterian minister and pastor of St. Stephen’s Church in Winnipeg from 1894 to 1924. As “Ralph Connor” he entertained and instructed millions with novels, many about the settlement of western Canada. An ardent Canadian nationalist, he worked for causes such as temperance and help for immigrants, and his optimism reflected the views of many Canadians of his time.

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Photo: Wide World Photos · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context
Statue of DesBarres, Sydney, Nova Scotia.
CA-K945Places & geography

J.F.W. DesBarres, chart maker and founder of Sydney

Joseph Frederick Wallet DesBarres, a military engineer of Huguenot descent, took part in the capture of Louisbourg in 1758 and Quebec in 1759. From 1763 to 1773 he surveyed and charted the coasts of Nova Scotia and Cape Breton, contributing to marine surveying. He was the first Lieutenant Governor of Cape Breton and founder of Sydney, and later governed Prince Edward Island; he died in Halifax at 102.

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Photo: Hantsheroes · Photo licence: CC BY-SA 4.0 · Credit & context