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Peter Gossage, PhD

  • Professor, History

Contact information

Biography

Education

B.A., M.A. McGill, Ph.D. Université du Québec à Montréal

Peter Gossage arrived at Concordia from a faculty position at the Université de Sherbrooke, which he held from 1993 to 2009. A scholar of 19th-and 20th-century Quebec, his main research areas are family, gender, population, and the law. Along with several other books and many articles, he is co-author, with J.I. Little, of Une Histoire du Québec: Entre tradition et modernité (Hurtubise, 2015) and co-editor, with Robert Rutherdale, of Making Men, Making History: Canadian Masculinities across Time and Place (UBC Press, 2018). Professor Gossage is an active member of the Centre interuniversitaire d’études québécoises (www.cieq.ca) and the Centre d’histoire des régulations sociales (https://chrs.uqam.ca/) and was named a Fellow of Concordia’s School of Irish Studies in 2017. In the course of his career, he has served as co-editor of the Canadian Historical Review (2000-2002) and held visiting fellowships at the University of Victoria (1999-2000) and at the University of California, Berkeley (2007-2008). He is also co-director, with John Lutz and Ruth Sandwell, of the prize-winning educational website Great UnsolvedMysteries in Canadian History (www.canadianmysteries.ca).

Peter Gossage welcomes e-mail inquiries from students interested in Quebec society and culture, especially those wishing to explore topics in family and gender history between 1840 and 1960.

Pour une entrevue récente au sujet de son parcours intellectuel, voir le lien suivant: https://chrs.uqam.ca/index.php/2019/10/28/entrevue-avec-peter-gossage/

 

Teaching activities

Courses offered regularly

HIST 205 - History of Canada: Post Confederation   
HIST 210 - Quebec since Confederation   
HIST 307 - History of Montreal   
HIST 313 - Quebec in the Nineteenth Century 
HIST 314 - Quebec in the Twentieth Century  
HIST 412/620/820 - Selected Topics in Canadian History: Quebec Society and Culture
HIST 412/620/820 - Selected Topics in Canadian History: Family, Gender, and Community

Recent graduate and honours supervision

Doctoral Dissertations

Lisa Moore. Girls on Trial: Female Juvenile Delinquency in Montreal, 1950-1977. PhD Dissertation in history, Concordia University, in progress since September 2017.

Jonathan Fortin. Femmes libres, marginales ou vieilles filles? Le célibat féminin à Montréal de 1880 à 1939. PhD Dissertation inh istory, Université du Québec à Montréal, co-supervision with Magda Fahrni, in progress since September 2016

Catherine Tremblay. Entre punition et protection. Les jeunes et leur famille devant les tribunaux de la région du Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean de 1950 à 1977. PhD Dissertation in history, Université de Sherbrooke, co-supervision with Louise Bienvenue, in progress since September 2015.

Paul D’Amboise. A History of Policing in the Eastern Townships, 1900-1950. PhD Dissertation in history, Concordia University, in progress since September 2015.

Michael Krohn. Ready Aye Ready! The Imperial Munitions Board and Canada's Home Front: 1915-1919. PhD Dissertation in history,Concordia University, in progress since September 2015.

Marie-Hélène Vanier. Child-Welfare Exhibits in North America,1910-1920: The Rise and Fall of a Public Education Project in the Progressive Era.  PhD Dissertation in history, Concordia University, in progress since September 2011.

Jérémy Tétrault-Farber. Une ville – plusieurs reels: Montreal’sMulticultural Irish Soundscape. PhD Dissertation in the HUMA (Humanities)program, School of Graduate Studies, Concordia University, co-supervision withGearóid Ó hAllmhuráin (Irish Studies, primary supervisor) and Jane McGaughey(Iish Studies). Defended in the School of Irish Studies, 28 May 2019.

Masters Theses

Ryan Mercado, Jewish Montreal and the Sovereignty Movement. Thesis in history, co-supervised with Ira Robinson (Department of Religions and Cultures); in progress since September 2017; supervision since May 2018.

Isobel Plowright. Repentance could weep unseen: MaisonSainte-Madeleine 1850-1975. Thesis in the INDI (Individualized) Masters program, School of Graduate Studies, co-supervision with Emer O’Toole (Canadian Irish Studies – primary advisor) and Rhona Richman Kenneally (Design and Computation Arts), completed August 2017.

Jason Butters. For Empire or Dominion? Prestige or Adventure? The Men of the Canadian Legation in Tokyo,1929-1933. Thesis in history, completed December 2016.

Alexandra Lantosh. Shifting Boundaries of Inclusion and Exclusion: Montreal’s Female Painters, 1890s-1940s. Original essay in history, completed June 2015.

Lisa Moore. Practices of the Privileged: A Study of Youth Culture at Private Schools for Girls inMontreal, 1915-1980. Thesis in history, completed May 2015.

Troy Cluff. Commemorative Postmortem Photographs in Canada: Nineteenth-Century Origins and Twentieth-Century Developments. Original essay in history, completed June 2014.

Sarah Ring. Uncovering the Hybrid Nature of Montreal's "Lost" Rivers. Original essay in history, completed December2013.

Simon Roy.  La Guerre froide dans son arrière-cour: les impacts et les interactions socioéconomiques engendrés par l’implantation d’une station-radar de la Pinetree Line à Senneterre. April 2013. (Université de Sherbrooke)

Jade Winsor. From Sympathy to Hostility: Public Reactionto Teacher Strikes in Quebec, 1949-1983. Original essay in history, completed October 2012.

Ryan Madden.  Saving Montreal: The Underlying Values of Urban Conservation in 1970s Montreal. Original essay in history, completed August 2012.

Jennifer Doyon.  Le Divorce au Québec, 1964-1972.  Un Débat de société.  July 2011. (Université de Sherbrooke)

GuillaumeParenteau-Saudrais. Maris et pères devantles tribunaux civils québécois, 1900-1920. Co-supervisionwith Thierry Nootens (UQTR) January 2010. (Université de Sherbrooke)


Research activities

Recent Research Grants

2019. SSHRCConnection Grant in support of Family andJustice in the Archives: Histories of Intimacy in Transnational Perspective:an international symposium held at Concordia University from May 5-7, 2019. PI, with co-applicant Eric Reiter. 

2018-2022. Co-applicant, FRQSC,Programme de Soutien aux équipes de recherche. Infrastructure grant renewal forthe Centre d’histoire des régulations sociales (CHRS), submitted under thetitle Régulations sociales et familialesdans l'histoire des problèmes sociaux au Québec by CHRS director MartinPetitclerc, Université du Québec à Montréal. (Co-applicant)

2017-2023. FRQSC, Programme de financement des Regroupements stratégiques, operatinggrant (Subvention de fonctionnement pour un centre en renouvellement) for the Centre interuniversitaire d’étudesquébécoises (CIEQ), submitted by co-director Yvan Rousseau (UQTR). (Co-applicant.)

2013-2017. SSHRC Insight Grants, Familles, droit et justice au Québec, 1840-1920. PI, with co-applicants Eric Reiter (Concordia), Donald Fyson (Laval), and Thierry Nootens (UQTR).

2013-2015. SSHRC Partnership Development Grants, The Enduring Franklin Mystery, co-applicant with John Lutz (University of Victoria, applicant), Steven High (Concordia, co-applicant) and three others.

2011-2017. FQRSC, Programme de financement des Regroupements stratégiques, co-applicant on the operating grant (Subvention de fonctionnement pour un centre en renouvellement) for the Centre interuniversitaire d’études québécoises (CIEQ), submitted by CIEQ co-director Yvan Rousseau (UQTR).

2006-2010. SSHRC Standard Research Grants, Pères et paternité au Québec, 1900-1960.

Publications

Books

Gossage, Peter and Robert Rutherdale, eds. Making Men,Making History: Canadian Masculinities across Time and Place. Vancouver:UBC Press, 2018. https://www.ubcpress.ca/making-men-making-history

Gossage, Peter and J.I. Little. Une Histoire du Québec: Entre tradition et modernité. Trans. Hélène Paré. Montreal: LesÉditions Hurtubise, 2015. 479 pages. http://editionshurtubise.com/livre/une-histoire-du-quebec/


Gossage, Peter and J.I. Little.  An Illustrated History of Quebec: Tradition and Modernity. Don Mills, ON: Oxford University Press Canada, 2012.   http://www.oupcanada.com/catalog/9780199009954.html
 
Gauvreau, Danielle, Diane Gervais and Peter Gossage. La Fécondité des Québécoises, 1870-1970. D’une exception à l’autre. Montreal: Les Éditions du Boréal, 2007.   http://www.editionsboreal.qc.ca/catalogue/livres/fecondite-des-quebecoises-1542.html

Gossage, Peter. Families in Transition: Industry and Population in Nineteenth-Century Saint-Hyacinthe. Montreal & Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1999. 299 pages. http://www.mqup.ca/families-in-transition-products-9780773518476.php?page_id=106239

Website

Lutz, John, Ruth Sandwell and Peter Gossage, directors. Great Unsolved Mysteries in Canadian History/Les Grands Mystères de l’histoire canadienne. Prize-winning collection of twelve educational websites in Canadian history, prepared from 1997 to 2008 by a team led by Lutz, Sandwell, and Gossage with major funding from the Department of Canadian Heritage. A thirteenth site, devoted to the ill-fated Franklin expedition of 1845, is currently in preparation (2013-2015), with funding from the Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada.  www.canadianmysteries.ca

Articles and chapers

Gossage, Peter. “Celebratingthe Family Man: From Father’s Day to LaFête des Pères, 1910-1960.”  In MakingMen, Making History: Canadian Masculinities across Time and Place,eds.   Peter Gossage and Robert Rutherdale, Vancouver:UBC Press, 2018: 385-408.

Gossage, Peter. “On Dadsand Damages: Looking for the ‘Priceless Child’ and the ‘Manly Modern’ inQuebec’s Civil Courts, 1921-1960.” Histoiresociale/Social History 49, 100 (November 2016): 603-623.

Gossage, Peter. “Visages de la paternité auQuébec, 1900-1960.” Revue d’histoire del’Amérique française  70, 1-2(Summer-Fall 2016) : 53-82. 

Gossage, Peter. "Au nom du père? Rethinking the History of Fatherhood in Quebec," American Review of Canadian Studies 44, 1 (Spring 2014): 49-67. 

Gossage, Peter.Les Anglophones dans l’histoire collective du Québec. Réflexions sur des travaux en cours.” Enjeux de l’univers social 8, 1 (Spring 2012): 11-15.

Gossage, Peter. “Femmes, remariages et familles recomposées au Québec, 1866-1920.”  In Une démographie au feminine: Risques et opportunités dans le parcours de vie/A Female Demography: Risks and Chances in the Life Course, ed. Oris, Michel, Guy Brunet, Virginie De Luca Barrusse, and Danielle Gauvreau (Bern: Peter Lang, 2009): 321-355. 

Adams, Annmarie and Peter Gossage. “Private Matters: Sick Children at Home in the 1890s.”  In Designing Modern Childhoods: History, Space, and the Material Culture of Children, ed. Ning de Conick-Smith and Marta Gutman (New Brunswick, New Jersey: Rutgers University Press, 2008): 61-81.

Gossage, Peter. “Marginal by Definition?  Stepchildren in Quebec, 1866-1920.” In Mapping the Margins: The Family and Social Discipline in Canada, 1700-1960, ed. Nancy Christie and Michael Gauvreau (Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2004): 141-70.

Gossage, Peter. “La marâtre: Marie-Anne Houde and the Myth of the Wicked Stepmother in Quebec.”  In Histories of Canadian Children and Youth, ed. Nancy Janovicek and Joy Parr (Don Mills: Oxford University Press, 2003): 147-66.

Gauvreau, Danielle and Peter Gossage. “Canadian Fertility Transitions: Quebec and Ontario at the Turn of the Twentieth Century.” Journal of Family History 26, 2 (April 2001): 162-88.

Gossage, Peter and Danielle Gauvreau. “Demography and Discourse in Transition: Quebec Fertility at the Turn of the Twentieth Century.” The History of the Family: An International Quarterly 4, 4 (December 1999): 375-95.

Gossage, Peter. “Tangled Webs: Remarriage and Family Conflict in 19th-Century Quebec.” In Family Matters: Papers in Post-Confederation Canadian Family History, ed. Edgar-André Montigny and Lori Chambers (Toronto: Canadian Scholars Press, 1998): 355-76.

Gauvreau, Danielle and Peter Gossage. “’Empêcher la famille’: Fécondité et contraception au Québec, 1920-1960.” Canadian Historical Review 78, 3 (September 1997): 478-510.

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