“Toronto was all bustle and excitement”: The 1852 Agricultural Exhibition and the Agricultural Association of Upper Canada

Another year’s Canadian National Exhibition has come and gone. But when did exhibitions become an annual tradition and who first organized them? To answer these questions, the talk will centre on the Agricultural Association of Upper Canada (founded 1846) and its 1852 Provincial Agricultural Exhibition, hosted in Toronto. Susanna Moodie was so impressed by the show that she wrote a chapter about it. But a successful exhibition was just one of the association’s ambitions that year and, at the event, the provincial government made a major announcement that has shaped government support of agriculture in Ontario ever since.

Dr. Ross Fair teaches in the Department of History at Toronto Metropolitan University (formerly Ryerson University). His study of agricultural societies, Improving Upper Canada: Agricultural Leadership and State Formation, 1791-1853, will be published soon. He is currently writing a book on the failed attempts to encourage hemp cultivation in Upper and Lower Canada.

Tuesday, October 25, 2022
At 6:30 p.m.

https://us06web.zoom.us/j/83409291542
Meeting ID: 834 0929 1542

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