| The roots of the Museum’s current archaeology program date back
to the Geological Survey of Canada (GSC) in the mid-nineteenth century. In 1856, the GSC obtained
a legislative mandate to develop a museum. Shortly afterward, its geologists began collecting
archaeological specimens while doing their regular fieldwork. By the early 1860s, the GSC had sufficient
Canadian archaeological material to mount its first exhibition, which occupied a single
display case. In 1877, with
a mandate expanded to include natural history, the GSC increased its archaeological collecting during geological expeditions. By 1881, the GSC
was able to devote one room of its Sussex Street museum to archaeological and ethnological exhibits
pertaining to Canada’s Aboriginal peoples.
In 1884, Canadian, British and American scientific associations began lobbying the
Canadian government to establish an anthropology division within the GSC. The government
acceded to this request in 1910, just as the GSC was moving into the new Victoria
Memorial Museum Building. During the next two years, the GSC hired its first
archaeologist, Harlan I. Smith, and an archaeological assistant, William Wintemberg.
Smith and Wintemberg immediately undertook a nationwide program of archaeological
explorations coupled to publications, exhibitions and public programming. The outbreak
of the First World War resulted in a severe curtailment of archaeological activities,
which lasted until after the end of the Second World War. During the post-Second
World War boom, however, the reconfigured National Museum of Canada was able to rebuild
its archaeological program under the direction of Douglas Leechman, R.S. MacNeish
and William E. Taylor, Jr.
By 1964, the program had become a separate division
within the National Museum, and by 1969 it had hired regional archaeologists responsible
for all parts of the country. In 1971, in
accordance with its increased responsibilities, the Division changed its name to the
Archaeological Survey of Canada under the leadership of George F. MacDonald. For the
rest of that decade, the ASC continued to grow. Then, during the 1980s and 1990s,
funds for fieldwork began to decline. Eventually, as the new Canadian Museum of
Civilization took form.
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In 1951, the Royal Commission on National Development in the Arts, Letters and Sciences,
widely known as “the Massey Commission” recommended
among other things, the creation of a national history museum. The proposal for the new museum was only
partially realized. Instead, the federal government added history to the mandate of
the existing National Museum of Canada and also transferred to that institution
responsibility for the tiny Canadian War Museum. For all practical purposes, the bulk
of Canadian history was left to the fledgling History Division.
Development of the History Collection began in 1960, and by 1963 substantial progress
had been made by pioneers such as Harold P. Pfeifer, D.C. MacKenzie and Dr. Loris
Russell, a paleontologist who had been acting director of Human History since 1958.
In 1963, Russell was
replaced by Richard Glover, an academic historian from the University of Manitoba.
Specific responsibility for history was entrusted to a new division head, F.J. Thorpe, appointed
in 1964. Thorpe was well attuned to new trends in socio-economic history and the relevance of
artifacts to scholarship in a museum setting. Under his leadership, the History
Division focussed on the ‘new’ histories, and by 1980 had confirmed material history
as the core of its mandate.
Research in the History Division was organized on a regional basis, with some
provision for thematic appointments, such as ethno-cultural and, most recently,
political history.
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