Robert Sweeny | Université du Québec à Montréal (original) (raw)

Articles by Robert Sweeny

Une communication que j'ai faite au colloque portant sur la Grande Transition, à Montréal en mai ... more Une communication que j'ai faite au colloque portant sur la Grande Transition, à Montréal en mai 2018. Il s'agit d'une reflexion stimulée par un compte-rendu critique de mon livre Why did we choose to industrialize? par Martin Petitclerc dans la Revue d'histoire de l'Amèrique française.

Montreal's Square Mile: The Making and Transformation of a Colonial MetropoleMontreal’s Square Mile . University of Toronto Press, forthcoming., 2024

This is my pre-publication submission to this collection edited by Elizabeth Kirkland, Don Nerbas... more This is my pre-publication submission to this collection edited by Elizabeth Kirkland, Don Nerbas & Dimitry Anastakis.

Dictionary of Canadian Biography

This draft biography of Herbert Molson was submitted to the DCB in 2015, a shortened version was ... more This draft biography of Herbert Molson was submitted to the DCB in 2015, a shortened version was accepted later that year. We are in 2022 and it has yet to appear in print.

London Journal of Canadian Studies., 2006

In all large cities of the advanced capitalist world, property ownership and urban space are high... more In all large cities of the advanced capitalist world, property ownership and urban space are highly gendered. If real estate has long been gendered masculine, the same cannot be said for urban space. This paper explores the processes whereby the town centre of Montréal, the largest city in 19th century Canada, became a space that was gendered masculine. This is the original paper presented for publication in the London Journal of Canadian Studies, in 2007. The published edition had absolutely appalling graphics, this version shows what was submitted to the editors.

Labour Le Travail, Jun 6, 1984

This is the introduction to the University of Ottawa Press feitshrift for Sherry Olson that I edi... more This is the introduction to the University of Ottawa Press feitshrift for Sherry Olson that I edited. It uses the career of Olson to frame the selection of essays offered in her honour.

Histoire Sociale/Social History, 2021

This assessment of the social origins of Montréal's rentier families in 1903 proposes a methodolo... more This assessment of the social origins of Montréal's rentier families in 1903 proposes a methodology for identifying and selecting rentier families based on common surnames, demonstrates the social and historical coherence of the selected families over time, and reflects on the importance of family for urban history. The majority of Montréal's rentier families in 1903 were of popular class origins; they were not primarily the descendants of mercantile, seigneurial, or industrial wealth. Their social ascension to controlling a third of all rents accruing to people in this overwhelmingly tenant city was the product of strategies of accumulation that operated over generations. Marriage was a crucial building block of these fortunes.

A critical assessment of the new wealth distribution figures for Canada released by the Parliamen... more A critical assessment of the new wealth distribution figures for Canada released by the Parliamentary Budget Office, an abridged version of this ran as a blog on rabble.ca

Revue d'histoire de l'Amerique francaise, 2018

A clarification of my analysis of the nature of the state in Lower Canada/Québec in response to M... more A clarification of my analysis of the nature of the state in Lower Canada/Québec in response to Martin Petitclerc's critique.

Canadian Historical Review, 2019

This is the initial draft of a commissioned review essay for the Canadian Historical Review of Da... more This is the initial draft of a commissioned review essay for the Canadian Historical Review of Dany Fougères and Roderick Macleod (eds.) Montreal: The History of a North American City. Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2018 p. 1,504. Upon completion, the Review editors decided against publishing such a lengthy discussion, opting for a shorter book review.

This analysis of the redistribution of wealth in 21st century Newfoundland is a draft chapter sub... more This analysis of the redistribution of wealth in 21st century Newfoundland is a draft chapter submitted to a collection on taxes and fairness being edited by Elsbeth Heaman for MQUP. It argues that provincial government fiscal policies during the recent oil and royalty booms have made it more difficult than ever to envisage the eradication of poverty in Newfoundland.

Sharing Spaces, 2019

The revised chapter submitted to the collection Sharing Spaces, essays in honour of Sherry Olson ... more The revised chapter submitted to the collection Sharing Spaces, essays in honour of Sherry Olson to be published by Uciversity of Ottawa Press in the fall of 2019.

Journal of the Canadian Historical Association, 2018

My book, Why Did We Choose to Industrialize?, as a recipient of the CHA's 2016 Macdonald Prize wa... more My book, Why Did We Choose to Industrialize?, as a recipient of the CHA's 2016 Macdonald Prize was the subject of a Round Table at the CHA conference the following year, The critiques here were given to me by the authors at the time of the Round Table, my response is what I submitted to the Journal for publication. Certain changes were made by the authors to their comments prior to publication, but I did not receive either from the Journal or the authors the modified texts.

Asking the Big Questions: Reflections on a post-oil dependent Newfoundland and Labrador., 2016

This paper was written as part of a larger project coordinated by Barb Neis on envisaging a post ... more This paper was written as part of a larger project coordinated by Barb Neis on envisaging a post oil-dependent Newfoundland. It critiques recent fiscal policy through a fairness prism that considers the elimination of poverty should be the cornerstone of public policy in a post oil-dependent Newfoundland and Labrador. We address three questions: How did the provincial government's fiscal policy change during the extraordinary boom we experienced? How has the boom and subsequent bust changed the political environment with regard to fiscal policy and equity? Where are we in the struggle to eradicate poverty? A possible way forward is offered in lieu of a conclusion.

How Deep is the Ocean?, 1997

Based on a computerized analysis of the accounting records of two late 19th century merchant firm... more Based on a computerized analysis of the accounting records of two late 19th century merchant firms in Bonavista Newfoundland, this study explores the ways merchants used credit to capture value created in the informal economy at a time when it was several times larger than the formal economy.

Frontiers in Digital Humanities, 2016

Women owned a quarter of all rental units in Montréal, QC, Canada, in 1903, a city where 85% of t... more Women owned a quarter of all rental units in Montréal, QC, Canada, in 1903, a city where 85% of the population were tenants. In no major city in the world today, do women control an equivalent area of the formal economy. This paper asks did the gender of proprietorship matter? It answers this through a series of tests linking a 30% sample of all immigrant-headed households in the 1901 census with a complete historical GIS of all properties and their owners in the city for 1903. The paper plays special attention to Ashkenazi Jews, Syrians, Chinese, and Italians, as these relatively recent immigrants constituted a major break with the largely British and French ancestry of the majority of the population in this 300-year-old settler colony. It then links the patterns in the sample to an index of all households in the census, to explore how these immigrant families integrated into the larger host communities. The paper shows that landladies and landlords had differing practices with regard to overcrowding and to the enforcement of segregation. The paper makes a sustained argument for rethinking how we should approach the relationship between gender and property.

Digital Scholarship in the Humanities, 2016

Reports on a experiment with marking-up online digital sources for use in the teaching of history... more Reports on a experiment with marking-up online digital sources for use in the teaching of history and then reflects on the philosophical and pedagogical challenges we face in the neo-liberal under-graduate classroom.

The Public Sector in an Age of Austerity, 2018

Between 2005 and 2011, Newfoundland and Labrador was transformed by the greatest boom in Canadian... more Between 2005 and 2011, Newfoundland and Labrador was transformed by the greatest boom in Canadian economic history. In marked contrast to the experience elsewhere, the new forms of inequality characteristic of this period were not created by the market place. Instead, provincial policies generated marked increases in after-tax inequality. The redistributive function of the state was quite literally turned on its head.
This essay is in parts. First, I establish the general parameters by examining the changes in provincial revenue streams and the rapidity and extent of changes to taxable incomes. Second, I evaluate the major provincial policy initiatives and demonstrate how they embodied a neoliberal worldview. Third, I address how a combination of leadership and language was remarkably successful in reframing the basic issues facing this island society and its mainland colony of Labrador. In conclusion, I discuss how recent events illustrate the centrality that a particular political culture is to this type of democratic leadership

Une communication que j'ai faite au colloque portant sur la Grande Transition, à Montréal en mai ... more Une communication que j'ai faite au colloque portant sur la Grande Transition, à Montréal en mai 2018. Il s'agit d'une reflexion stimulée par un compte-rendu critique de mon livre Why did we choose to industrialize? par Martin Petitclerc dans la Revue d'histoire de l'Amèrique française.

Montreal's Square Mile: The Making and Transformation of a Colonial MetropoleMontreal’s Square Mile . University of Toronto Press, forthcoming., 2024

This is my pre-publication submission to this collection edited by Elizabeth Kirkland, Don Nerbas... more This is my pre-publication submission to this collection edited by Elizabeth Kirkland, Don Nerbas & Dimitry Anastakis.

Dictionary of Canadian Biography

This draft biography of Herbert Molson was submitted to the DCB in 2015, a shortened version was ... more This draft biography of Herbert Molson was submitted to the DCB in 2015, a shortened version was accepted later that year. We are in 2022 and it has yet to appear in print.

London Journal of Canadian Studies., 2006

In all large cities of the advanced capitalist world, property ownership and urban space are high... more In all large cities of the advanced capitalist world, property ownership and urban space are highly gendered. If real estate has long been gendered masculine, the same cannot be said for urban space. This paper explores the processes whereby the town centre of Montréal, the largest city in 19th century Canada, became a space that was gendered masculine. This is the original paper presented for publication in the London Journal of Canadian Studies, in 2007. The published edition had absolutely appalling graphics, this version shows what was submitted to the editors.

Labour Le Travail, Jun 6, 1984

This is the introduction to the University of Ottawa Press feitshrift for Sherry Olson that I edi... more This is the introduction to the University of Ottawa Press feitshrift for Sherry Olson that I edited. It uses the career of Olson to frame the selection of essays offered in her honour.

Histoire Sociale/Social History, 2021

This assessment of the social origins of Montréal's rentier families in 1903 proposes a methodolo... more This assessment of the social origins of Montréal's rentier families in 1903 proposes a methodology for identifying and selecting rentier families based on common surnames, demonstrates the social and historical coherence of the selected families over time, and reflects on the importance of family for urban history. The majority of Montréal's rentier families in 1903 were of popular class origins; they were not primarily the descendants of mercantile, seigneurial, or industrial wealth. Their social ascension to controlling a third of all rents accruing to people in this overwhelmingly tenant city was the product of strategies of accumulation that operated over generations. Marriage was a crucial building block of these fortunes.

A critical assessment of the new wealth distribution figures for Canada released by the Parliamen... more A critical assessment of the new wealth distribution figures for Canada released by the Parliamentary Budget Office, an abridged version of this ran as a blog on rabble.ca

Revue d'histoire de l'Amerique francaise, 2018

A clarification of my analysis of the nature of the state in Lower Canada/Québec in response to M... more A clarification of my analysis of the nature of the state in Lower Canada/Québec in response to Martin Petitclerc's critique.

Canadian Historical Review, 2019

This is the initial draft of a commissioned review essay for the Canadian Historical Review of Da... more This is the initial draft of a commissioned review essay for the Canadian Historical Review of Dany Fougères and Roderick Macleod (eds.) Montreal: The History of a North American City. Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2018 p. 1,504. Upon completion, the Review editors decided against publishing such a lengthy discussion, opting for a shorter book review.

This analysis of the redistribution of wealth in 21st century Newfoundland is a draft chapter sub... more This analysis of the redistribution of wealth in 21st century Newfoundland is a draft chapter submitted to a collection on taxes and fairness being edited by Elsbeth Heaman for MQUP. It argues that provincial government fiscal policies during the recent oil and royalty booms have made it more difficult than ever to envisage the eradication of poverty in Newfoundland.

Sharing Spaces, 2019

The revised chapter submitted to the collection Sharing Spaces, essays in honour of Sherry Olson ... more The revised chapter submitted to the collection Sharing Spaces, essays in honour of Sherry Olson to be published by Uciversity of Ottawa Press in the fall of 2019.

Journal of the Canadian Historical Association, 2018

My book, Why Did We Choose to Industrialize?, as a recipient of the CHA's 2016 Macdonald Prize wa... more My book, Why Did We Choose to Industrialize?, as a recipient of the CHA's 2016 Macdonald Prize was the subject of a Round Table at the CHA conference the following year, The critiques here were given to me by the authors at the time of the Round Table, my response is what I submitted to the Journal for publication. Certain changes were made by the authors to their comments prior to publication, but I did not receive either from the Journal or the authors the modified texts.

Asking the Big Questions: Reflections on a post-oil dependent Newfoundland and Labrador., 2016

This paper was written as part of a larger project coordinated by Barb Neis on envisaging a post ... more This paper was written as part of a larger project coordinated by Barb Neis on envisaging a post oil-dependent Newfoundland. It critiques recent fiscal policy through a fairness prism that considers the elimination of poverty should be the cornerstone of public policy in a post oil-dependent Newfoundland and Labrador. We address three questions: How did the provincial government's fiscal policy change during the extraordinary boom we experienced? How has the boom and subsequent bust changed the political environment with regard to fiscal policy and equity? Where are we in the struggle to eradicate poverty? A possible way forward is offered in lieu of a conclusion.

How Deep is the Ocean?, 1997

Based on a computerized analysis of the accounting records of two late 19th century merchant firm... more Based on a computerized analysis of the accounting records of two late 19th century merchant firms in Bonavista Newfoundland, this study explores the ways merchants used credit to capture value created in the informal economy at a time when it was several times larger than the formal economy.

Frontiers in Digital Humanities, 2016

Women owned a quarter of all rental units in Montréal, QC, Canada, in 1903, a city where 85% of t... more Women owned a quarter of all rental units in Montréal, QC, Canada, in 1903, a city where 85% of the population were tenants. In no major city in the world today, do women control an equivalent area of the formal economy. This paper asks did the gender of proprietorship matter? It answers this through a series of tests linking a 30% sample of all immigrant-headed households in the 1901 census with a complete historical GIS of all properties and their owners in the city for 1903. The paper plays special attention to Ashkenazi Jews, Syrians, Chinese, and Italians, as these relatively recent immigrants constituted a major break with the largely British and French ancestry of the majority of the population in this 300-year-old settler colony. It then links the patterns in the sample to an index of all households in the census, to explore how these immigrant families integrated into the larger host communities. The paper shows that landladies and landlords had differing practices with regard to overcrowding and to the enforcement of segregation. The paper makes a sustained argument for rethinking how we should approach the relationship between gender and property.

Digital Scholarship in the Humanities, 2016

Reports on a experiment with marking-up online digital sources for use in the teaching of history... more Reports on a experiment with marking-up online digital sources for use in the teaching of history and then reflects on the philosophical and pedagogical challenges we face in the neo-liberal under-graduate classroom.

The Public Sector in an Age of Austerity, 2018

Between 2005 and 2011, Newfoundland and Labrador was transformed by the greatest boom in Canadian... more Between 2005 and 2011, Newfoundland and Labrador was transformed by the greatest boom in Canadian economic history. In marked contrast to the experience elsewhere, the new forms of inequality characteristic of this period were not created by the market place. Instead, provincial policies generated marked increases in after-tax inequality. The redistributive function of the state was quite literally turned on its head.
This essay is in parts. First, I establish the general parameters by examining the changes in provincial revenue streams and the rapidity and extent of changes to taxable incomes. Second, I evaluate the major provincial policy initiatives and demonstrate how they embodied a neoliberal worldview. Third, I address how a combination of leadership and language was remarkably successful in reframing the basic issues facing this island society and its mainland colony of Labrador. In conclusion, I discuss how recent events illustrate the centrality that a particular political culture is to this type of democratic leadership

Digital Scholarship in the Humanities, 2015

Digital Studies/Le champ numérique, 2009

How and why do disciplinary boundaries impede the development of democratic practices in academic... more How and why do disciplinary boundaries impede the development of democratic practices in academic life? This article explores the lessons learned in the development of a multi-layered, geo-referenced historical database for 19th-century Montreal. The maps we used proved to be important historical sources in their own right, while the historical sources we used to ‘people’ the maps proved to have significant spatial dimensions. Thus, the idea that an inter-disciplinary project of this nature could work if the geographers took care of the maps, while the historians dealt with the sources, proved wrong. The ways of knowing that we developed subvert existing academic boundaries and therefore should be of interest to any progressive scholar in the humanities or social sciences. Comment et pourquoi les frontieres disciplinaires empechent l'epanouissement des pratiques democratiques dans la vie universitaire? Cet article fait le bilan de notre experience avec un systeme georeferencie historique pour Montreal au 19e siecle. Les plans que nous avons exploites s'averaient riches en informations historiques, alors que les sources historiques comprenaient des donnees d'ordre spatial significatives. Ainsi, nous ne pouvions pas developper un tel systeme si on laisse les geographes avec leurs plans d'une part et les historiens et historiennes et leurs sources de l'autre. Il faillait developper un approche epistemologique qui renverse ces frontieres disciplinaires, alors ce bilan devrait s'interesser n'importe chercheur or chercheuse progressiste en sciences humaines.

Left History: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Historical Inquiry and Debate, 1993

Revue d'histoire de l'Amérique française, 2018

Frontiers in Digital Humanities, 2016

Geomatica, 2003

An early overview of a pioneering historical GIS project in Canada by its two co-directors.

The Square Mile was a century one of the wealthiest neighbourhoods in the British Empire, home to... more The Square Mile was a century one of the wealthiest neighbourhoods in the British Empire, home to leading industrialists, financiers and railway tycoons. This paper contextualizes these prominent men, by domesticating them. It establishes the importance of property ownership by women the community.

What I was to present to a session on Women and Property at the 2020 European Social Science Hist... more What I was to present to a session on Women and Property at the 2020 European Social Science History Conference in Leiden, the Netherlands. The conference has been postponed a year. Any comments and or suggestions are most welcome.

This paper was presented to the Spatial Humanities Conference in Lancaster in September 2016. It ... more This paper was presented to the Spatial Humanities Conference in Lancaster in September 2016. It situates the technical and structural choices made by the first large-scale project, Montréal, l’avenir du passé, a pan-Canadian projected hosted at McGill University, within the debates on computing in both history and geography at the millennium. These pre-web choices were to have a lasting effect on the shape of historical GIS in Canada. Considerable attention is paid to the innovative but largely unsuccessful outreach of this project. The paper then traces how the projects for London Ontario, Québec City and Victoria BC modified this pioneering approach. The promise of a large-scale integrated, comparative research infrastructure open to researchers from diverse disciplines has only been partially realized, but these partial successes as well as the problems encountered have a lot to say to researchers in Europe where quite different choices were made. At the heart of all the Canadian projects has been the idea that by starting with the basic urban building block of the lot, we could construct complex, multi-layered, modular, and open-ended representations of past urban environments, wherein a wide variety of sources, going well-beyond routinely generated nominal-series, could be brought into a conversation with each other. The outreach of these projects into epidemiology and environmental studies have ironically been in many ways more successful than the attempts to capitalise on this infrastructure in the either the history or geography classroom. Reflecting on these mixed results, the paper concludes by asking how the distributed architecture chosen at the outset reflected a democratic pedagogy at odds with both the neo-liberal transformation of the academy and current trends in GIS software.

This paper, presented to the SSHA in November 2014, reports on a new research infrastructure crea... more This paper, presented to the SSHA in November 2014, reports on a new research infrastructure created by Montréal, l'Avenir du Passé. It links all the proprietors in the city in 1903, at the lot level to their holdings. A preliminary analysis of this historical GIS reveals that housing, particularly in the new industrial wards, was controlled by local landlords and more than a quarter of all rental units were owned by women.

This paper explains how I created a geo-referenced map of Montréal to accompany the database we c... more This paper explains how I created a geo-referenced map of Montréal to accompany the database we created from a list of all the owners of assessed properties published by the city in 1903. It was presented to the Social Science History Association, meeting in Vancouver in 2012.

Presented to the Canadian Historical Association meeting in 2005 at the University of Western Ont... more Presented to the Canadian Historical Association meeting in 2005 at the University of Western Ontario, this paper argues that we seriously underestimated the complexity of the class structure in what we mistakenly describe as "working class" neighbourhoods in Montréal, the first colonial city to industrialise.

Presented to the XV International Conference of the Association for History and Computing, Adam ... more Presented to the XV International Conference of the Association for History and Computing, Adam Mickiewicz University, in Poznan, Poland in 2001, this paper explores the ways in which computers, as the quintessential technology of advanced capitalism, impede the development of the necessary critical historical perspectives to challenge the dominant order.

Presented to a student sponsored round table on the state of the historical profession in Québec,... more Presented to a student sponsored round table on the state of the historical profession in Québec, at the Institut d'histoire de l'Amérique française in 2000, this polemic links the sorry state of historical practice to the development of a dependency on precarious sessional (adjunct) lecturers in history departments throughout the province.

Revue d'histoire de l'Amérique française, 2022

The Canadian Historical Review, 2010

Urban History Review, 2020

Historical Studies in Education / Revue d'histoire de l'éducation

Revue d'histoire de l'Amérique française, 1995

Globe: Revue internationale d’études québécoises, 2000

Enterprise and Society, 2010

Globe Revue Internationale D Etudes Quebecoises, 2000

Revue d'histoire de l'Amérique française, 2015

Histoire sociale/Social history, 2017

Histoire sociale/Social history, 2018

Bulletin of Latin American Research, 2019

Revue d'histoire de l'Amérique française

The Canadian Historical Review, 1997

Histoire Sociale / Social History, 2018

A review of Ruth Bleasdale's book on labourers working on mid-19th century public works in Canada.

Histoire Sociale / Social History, 2019

Text submitted to Histoire Sociale/Social History

Revue d'histoire de l'Amérique française, 2019

Revue d'histoire de l'Amèrique française, 1999

A controversial denunciation of a racist book that I argued should never have been accepted as a ... more A controversial denunciation of a racist book that I argued should never have been accepted as a thesis by Laval, let alone published by Septentrion.

Social Science History Association, 2021

Starting from the observation that gender is not a concept that is frequently used to understand ... more Starting from the observation that gender is not a concept that is frequently used to understand the history of landlord-tenant relations, this paper shows why it should be, by using the case of turn-of-the-century 20th century Montreal, where 98% of all households were caught in the landlord/tenant relationship.

Canadian Historical Association, 2021

This presents an overview of the results of Montréal, l'avenir du passé's linkage of the 1901 cen... more This presents an overview of the results of Montréal, l'avenir du passé's linkage of the 1901 census with our mapping of Who owned Montréal in 1903. Gender of both proprietors and heads of household are presented, as well as the frequency of owner-occupiers. The majority of owners were themselves tenants. Density is found to be highest in those areas of the city with lowest presence of owner-occupiers.

Institut d'histoire de l'Amérique française, 2022

Cette communication examine les comportements des propriétaires de trois groupes éthniques: Anglo... more Cette communication examine les comportements des propriétaires de trois groupes éthniques: Anglo- protestant, Irlandais catholique et Canadien-français. Elle compare les types d'investissements et, pour certain quartiers de la ville, explore le niveau de discrimination envers des locataires selon leur appartenance éthnique. Elle conclue que seul les propriétaires Canadien-français ont un comportement qu'on peut décrire comme étant national.