Conference – 2019

Crossing Boundaries and Constructing Linkages

The History of Montreal's Golden Square Mile in National and International Context

Date: June 19th – June 20th, 2019

Location: McGill University, Montreal, Quebec

Convenors:
Professor Donald Nerbas – CBHA/ACHA, McGill University
Elizabeth Kirkland, Dawson College

Sponsors/Partners:
Montreal History Group
Macdonald-Stewart Foundation
Dawson College
McGill Institute for the Study of Canada
Chair in Canadian-Scottish Studies, McGill University
Rare Books and Special Collections, McGill University

Synopsis: A conference of academics and social studies experts which will present on the impact of the activities of the Golden Square Mile on Montreal’s and Canada’s social and financial history.

Agenda

Day 1: 19 June 2019 @ McGill University, Macdonald Engineering Building, Room 279

Registration: 8:30 am - 9:00 am
9:00-9:15 Welcome  
9:15-10:15 Keynote Roderick MacLeod, The High Ground: A Historical Overview of the Golden Square Mile
10:15-10:30 Nutrition Break  
10:30-12:00 Session 1 – Institutions of a Metropole Laurence Mussio (York), The Role of Canada’s First Bank in the 19th Century Rise of Montreal   Kurt Korneski (MUN), “Not a very orderly population”: George Simpson, Donald Smith, and the Making of a de facto State in Labrador, 1830-1855   Jean-Philip Mathieu (McGill), Square Mile Capital and the Formation of Montreal Rolling Mills, 1867-68
12:00-1:00 Lunch  
1:00-2:30 Session 2 – Family and Gender, Connections and Boundaries      Peter Gossage (Concordia) and Lisa Moore (Concordia), Marriage, Property, and the Law in a Square-Mile Family: The Case of Annie Stevenson Anderson vs David Morrice, 1884   Max Hamon (McGill), “A Very Fair profit”: Commissioner Donald Smith and Investment Networks in the Northwest   Elizabeth Kirkland (Dawson College) and Mary Anne Poutanen (Concordia), Searching for Intimacies Beyond the Notman Photographs: A Case Study of Amy Redpath
2:30-2:45 Nutrition Break  
2:45-3:45 Keynote Annmarie Adams (McGill), Unravelling Scottish Architecture in Canada: Percy Nobbs, Ramsay Traquair and their Montreal Networks
4:00-5:00 Walking Tour Roderick MacLeod
 
Day 2: 20 June 2019 @ McGill University, Macdonald Engineering Building, Room 279
9:00-10:00 Session 3 – Architecture and Place Julia Gersovitz (McGill), Architects of the Square Mile 1860-1914   William Fong, Where Exactly was the Golden Square Mile and When?  
10:00-10:15 Nutrition Break  
10:15-11:45 Session 4 – Property, Credit, and Networks Robert Sweeny (MUN), Landed Ladies: Gender and property ownership in turn-of-the-century Golden Square Mile   Sherry Olson (McGill), Applying the Tools of Visualization to Kinship, Credit, and Governance   Mark Sholdice (University of Guelph), Towards a Taxonomy of Financial-Industrial Networks in Canada, 1867-1914
11:45-12:30 Lunch  
12:30-2:00 Session 5 – Crisis and Transformation: the Square Mile in the Early Twentieth Century Stephen Salmon, The Changing of the Guard: Bartlett McLennan, Roy Wolvin and the Leveraged Buyout of the Montreal Transportation Company, 1903-1920    Greg Marchildon (UofT), Max Aitken in Montreal: Financial Innovation and Creative Destruction in the Laurier Boom   Nicolas Kenny (SFU), Imperial Boundaries and Intimate Linkages: Reading Soldiers' First World War Letters
2:00-2:15 Nutrition Break  
2:15-3:45 Session 6 - Private Fortunes, Globalization and Decline Alexander Reford, Dwindling Fortunes – The Montreal Business Elite and the Great Depression   Andrew Ross (Library and Archives Canada), From the Golden Square Mile to the Las Vegas Golden Knights: The Globalization of the Montreal Game   Joe Martin (Rotman), The Shift of the Financial Centre of Canada from Montreal to Toronto; 1929 to 1936
4:00 -4:30


4:45-6:00

@ School of Architecture
Cynthia Hammond (Concordia), The Home, The Hospital, and the Healing Garden: Notman House


@ Rare Books and Special Collections: McLennan Library

Keynote Harold Bérubé (Sherbrooke), The death of the “Golden Square Mile”? Understanding the mutation of an urban district, 1945-1980

6:00-7:00


7:00-9:00

@ Rare Books and Special Collections: McLennan Library Reception






@ Faculty Club: Banquet and Closing Remarks