Brian J. Young

Museums and cultural institutions across North America and Europe are being transformed by budget cuts, re-evaluation of their cultural missions, evolving concepts of museology, and changing audiences, making Brian Young's trenchant history of a prestigious university museum, Montreal's McCord Museum of Canadian History, especially pertinent. In The Making and Unmaking of a University Museum Young elucidates the relationship between museums and communities by examining the nineteenth-century social context of the family who bequeathed their collection to McGill University and the collection's fate in an academic institution. Tracing the museum's history from its founding by David Ross McCord, he emphasizes the centrality of elite women to the culture of the museum and its survival in the twentieth century, the museum's importance as the collective memory of Montreal's English-speaking elite, and the difficulty academic historians have had in dealing with material history. He recounts a sorry tale of mismatched institutional and intellectual cultures that culminated in the university's transfer of custodial responsibility to a corporate museum board and the collapse of the museum's central research and conservation mandates. The Making and Unmaking of a University Museum reveals the complex and often conflicting relationships between private collectors, curators, museum and university officials, volunteers, researchers, philanthropic foundations, the state, and the public. It shows how the makeup, interests, and perspectives of these groups have changed over the course of the century, leading to the current crisis in which many museums are forced to function according to a corporate culture in which the dictates of audience size, marketing, and public relations experts dominate the priorities of curators and collections, the needs of scholars and students, and the interests of communities. Young exposes the present-day conflict between cultural institutions operating ahistorically and often without any social vision and a public demanding greater help in understanding the past. It will be of interest to everyone who cares about culture, museums, and public memory.

The McCord, 1921-1996

The Making and Unmaking of a University Museum

Respectable Burial also highlights how important a role Montreal played in Canada's history. The cemetery is the final resting place of politician Alexander Galt, poet F.R. Scott, hockey star Howie Morenz, explorer David Thompson, bank presidents, renegades, hangmen, and victims of the Titanic. This history of a model rural cemetery, an innovator in perpetual care and proprietor of the first crematorium in Canada, illustrates changing attitudes to burial and commemoration - including the relationships between Protestantism, Romanticism, and death. Young also shows how the cemetery, a site of great natural beauty that helped inspire Frederick Law Olmsted's adjacent Mount Royal Park, became a much-loved public urban space and examines how the evolution of its landscaping, architecture, and use reflect changing attitudes to the place of women, recreation, heritage, and the environment. Incorporating a rich collection of archival illustrations, walking maps, and a colour photo essay by photographer Geoffrey James, Respectable Burial will appeal to anyone interested in Canadian history, parks, and cities.

Montreal's Mount Royal Cemetery

Respectable Burial

John A. Dickinson

In a new chapter on contemporary Quebec, the book examines the 1995 referendum, discusses the ideological shifts and societal changes in Quebec under the Bouchard government, and considers Quebec's place in North America in the wake of NAFTA. A Short History of Quebec offers a concise yet comprehensive overview of the province from the pre-contact native period to the death of Pierre Trudeau in 2001. The authors provide an insightful perspective on the history of Quebec, focusing on the social, economic, and political development of the region and its peoples. Engagingly written, this expanded and updated third edition is an ideal starting place to learn about Quebec.

A Short History of Quebec

John Alexander Dickinson

This fully revised edition of A Short History of Quebec includes expanded coverage of Quebec's political history, consideration of recent historiographical interpretations, updated tables and bibliography, a chronology, and new illustrations.In a new chapter on contemporary Quebec, the book examines the 1995 referendum, discusses the ideological shifts and societal changes in Quebec under the Bouchard government, and considers Quebec's place in North America in the wake of NAFTA. A Short History of Quebec offers a concise yet comprehensive overview of the province from the pre-contact native period to the death of Pierre Trudeau in 2001. The authors provide an insightful perspective on the history of Quebec, focusing on the social, economic, and political development of the region and its peoples. Engagingly written, this expanded and updated third edition is an ideal starting place to learn about Quebec.

Brian J. Young

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