Ontario History

A peer-reviewed scholarly journal published bi-annually.

About Ontario History

Ontario History Autumn 2020 Cover

Ontario History is a peer-reviewed scholarly journal that is published bi-annually by the Ontario Historical Society. Ontario’s premier history journal, it discusses a wide variety of topics relating to our province’s past.

In 1899, the Ontario Historical Society (OHS) published the first issue of Ontario History, then titled Papers and Records. What began primarily as an effort to preserve important documentary sources has evolved over the past century to become today’s scholarly peer journal, publishing new research and scholarship on topics related to all aspects of Ontario’s diverse heritage. To read more about that evolution, click here.

Ontario History is indexed in the Canadian Periodical Index, Historical Abstracts and America: History and Life.


To order print copies for $25 plus 5% HST and postage, please email us at ohs@ontariohistoricalsociety.ca. Makes a great gift!

ISSN | Print: 0030-2953, Online: 2371-4654
Printer | Hignell Book Printing

Editor, Ontario History
Dr. Cynthia Comacchio editor@ontariohistoricalsociety.ca

Book Review Editor, Ontario History
Dr. Alison Norman

Editorial Advisory Committee
Jan Noel, Toronto
Carmela Patrias, St. Catharines
Ian Radforth, Toronto
Laurie Leclair, Toronto

Mark Kuhlberg, Sudbury
Debra Nash-Chambers, Guelph
Brad E.S. Rudachyk, Barrie
Randall White, Toronto

The OHS acknowledges the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada and the Government of Ontario through the Ministry of Citizenship and Multiculturalism.

Subscribe to Ontario History

Individual Digital Subscriptions to the Journal on Érudit

Individual and Life Ontario History journal subscriptions now include online access to the digital version of the journal on Érudit.

  • Subscribers may opt out of receiving the print version if they prefer online access only, though there is no price difference.
  • New subscribers will receive an email from Érudit with login information within approximately three business days (may be up to a week during Érudit’s busy periods).
  • Subscribers will be notified by email from the OHS when a new issue of Ontario History has been published online.
  • Subscribers’ online access will remain active as long as as the Ontario History subscription is renewed.

Note: on the Érudit website, you may choose between French and English at any time using the dropdown menu on the top right.

For institutional digital subscriptions, please see below.

Gift memberships and / or subscriptions are available. Journal prices (excluding USA & Int’l) include 5% HST (HST Number: 108091000).

Subscription CostsCanadaUSA / Int'l.
Member Individuals (print + online access to digital version)$36.75 (incl. $1.75 HST)$50
Non-Member Individuals (print + online access to digital version)$47.25 (incl. $2.25 HST)$55
Affiliated Societies, Member Institutions and Organizations (print only)$47.25 (incl. $2.25 HST)$60
Non-Member Institutions and Organizations (print only)$57.75 (incl. $2.75 HST)$60

Find us on Érudit

Ontario History is available online through digital publisher and scholarly disseminator Érudit.

Issues from 2005 Autumn onwards are available open access, excepting the most recent 12 months’ (two issues) which are under subscription (for individuals through the OHS, for institutions directly through Érudit).

Institutional Digital Subscriptions to the Journal on Érudit

Institutions (e.g. academic libraries) may click here to fill out a digital subscription form, or contact Érudit directly at client@erudit.org. Access to restricted content is monitored through recognition of the institution’s IP address. No online access is available to institutions without IP addresses at this time.

Recent Issue Previews

Ontario History 2024 Autumn Cover

The Autumn 2024 issue includes four new peer-reviewed articles, one peer-reviewed commentary, and seven book reviews:

  • Boisterous Mobs and Violated Borders: American Pugilistic Excursions to Ontario – 1855 -1881 by Richard Manning (pp. 131-149)
  • Lords of the Lakes, Akwesasne Mohawks, and Turbulent Scots by Alexander V. Campbell (pp. 150-177)
  • The Power of Petition in Altering the Postal Routes of Rural Ontario: A Case Study from Haliburton by Christopher S. Martinello (pp. 178-199)
  • Preparing for ‘intelligent and thoughtful practice’: Occupational Therapy Education in Kingston, 1953‑1970 by Peter L. Twohig (pp. 200-219)
  • Commentary: The Myth of Bill Guppy by David Sedlock (pp. 220-243)

Ontario History 2024 Spring cover

The Spring 2024 issue includes five new peer-reviewed articles and nine book reviews:

  • The 1988 “Niagara Accord” in Perspective: The Ontario Wine Industry in Six Historical Phases by Patrice Dutil (pp. 3-21)
  • The Peripatetic Life of a Remittance Man: The Extraordinary W.E. Hamilton by Donna E. Williams (pp. 22-42)
  • The Ku Klux Klan and Ontario’s Evolving Britishness: A Case Study of Belleville and Hastings County by Trevor Parsons (pp. 43-64)
  • Clarifying an Image: The “Misrepresentation” of Major John Richardson by Alan Finlayson (pp. 65-82)
  • Defenders of the Faith: Ottawa’s Anglican Churches and the First World War by Heather McIntyre (pp. 83-104)

Ontario History 2023 Autumn Cover

The Autumn 2023 issue includes an introduction, nine new peer-reviewed articles and six book reviews:

  • Reflections, Records and Remembrances of Rebellion: Chapters in the Patriot War by John C. Carter (pp. 161-163)
  • “It is a Glorious Cause and I Will Die for It” – William Alves by Chris Raible (pp. 164-184)
  • “Remember Me to Friends If I Have Any”: The Patriot War Letters of W.W. Dodge to Dr. Charles Osgood by Robert Beasecker (pp. 185-202)
  • Niagara County, New York: Its Role in the Patriot War by Bruce D. Aikin (pp. 203-226)
  • Rumours, Ruffians, and the U.S.-Upper Canada Border: Patriots, Publishers, and Hunters Respond to the Upper Canadian Rebellion and Patriot War, 1837-1841 by Josh Steedman (227-248)
  • The Patriot Press and their Paper Tiger: Community Formation and Allusions to the Patriot Hunters, 1836-1842 by Stephen R.I. Smith (pp. 249-274)
  • The Family Life That John Berry Had But Never Experienced by Cozy Venable Palmer and Michael W. Kehoe (pp. 275-284)
  • Hiram Sharp: A Life Changed by the Battle of the Windmill by Terrance Patterson (pp. 285-298)
  • The Many Lives of James Milne Aitchison, a Battle of Windsor Raider by Ian Hundey (pp. 299-329)
  • The Long Odyssey of Chauncey Sheldon, a Survivor of the 1838 Patriot War: His Story by John C. Carter (pp. 331-362)

Ontario History 2023 Spring Cover

The Spring 2023 issue includes six new peer-reviewed articles and seven book reviews:

  • “The Legend of Captain Michael Grass”: The Logic of Elimination and Loyalist Myth-making in Upper Canada, 1783-84 by Avery Esford (pp. 1-20)
  • Calories and Culture: Food, Drink, and the British Army in Early Nineteenth Century Upper Canada by Jake Breadman (pp. 21-42)
  • Upper Canada’s Union Debates (1822-23, 1839-40): Facing the ‘French Fact’ by Peter A. Russell (pp. 43-70)
  • From Violence to Veneration: The Life of Guelph’s Samuel Venerable by Elysia DeLaurentis (pp. 71-98)
  • “It’s not personal, it’s strictly business”: Historical Accounts and Archaeological Evidence Concerning an Early-Seventeenth Century Partnership by William Fox (pp. 99-113)
  • Waiting out the War on the Shore of Lake Superior: Camp 100 and Neys Provincial Park by Michael O’Hagan (pp. 114-139)

Ontario History 2022 Autumn Cover

The Autumn 2022 issue includes four new peer-reviewed articles and six book reviews:

  • “Terrific weight of rock above me”: Alan Caswell Collier’s Mining Art by Peter Neary (pp. 143–164)
  • From Port Hope to Thunder Bay: Joseph Goodwin King, the Canadian Pacific Railway and Western Canada’s first grain elevator on the Great Lakes 1883-1910 by F. Brent Scollie (pp. 165–195)
  • The 1826 Ancaster Tar and Feathers Outrage: Three Defendants’ Perspectives by Ross D. Petty (pp. 196–220)
  • “Tinged with gloom and grandeur”: Romanticism, Conservatism & Upper Canadian Political Culture by Denis McKim (pp. 221–250)

Ontario History Spring 2022 Cover

The Spring 2022 issue includes five new peer-reviewed articles and 13 book reviews:

  • The Prince of Wales visits Guelph, 1919: The Debut of Prince Charming, Celebrity Ladies’ Man by Cameron Shelley (pp. 1-17)
  • “In a Satisfactory, Organized, and Scientific Fashion:” Sex Education and Ontario’s Ministry of Education, 1955–1979 by Brent Brenyo (pp. 18-41)
  • “Mr. Stubbs the Entertainer” and His Travelling Motion Picture Show by Robert G. Clarke (pp. 42-63)
  • Toronto’s Nineteenth-Century Exhibition Parks: “…free of admission to all peaceable persons…” by David Bain (pp. 64-87)
  • The Largest Stock of Guns in Canada: Charles Stark and Firearm Retailing in Late-Nineteenth-Century Toronto by R. Blake Brown (pp. 88-108)

*Note cover misprinted as “Vol. CVI.” Inside pages correctly show Vol. CXIV.

Ontario History Autumn 2021 Cover

The Autumn 2021 issue includes five new peer-reviewed articles and 13 book reviews:

  • A Canadian Distinction of Note: London, Ontario’s Labatt Memorial Park, Baseball History’s Oldest, Continuously-Operating Baseball Precinct by Robert K. Barney and Riley Nowokowski (pp. 127-150)
  • “The Eternal Triangle of Barrie Moviedom”: Reproducing Metropolitan Cinema Competition in the Hinterland by Aaron E. Armstrong (pp. 151-166)
  • The Search for Major John Richardson’s Unknown Writings by David R. Beasley (pp. 167-194)
  • “Uncertain as to future fate”: 1837 Upper Canadian Rebels Incarcerated in “John Montgomery’s Room” in Toronto’s Jail in 1838 by Chris Raible (pp. 195-221)
  • Egerton Ryerson and the Mississauga, 1826 to 1856, an Appeal for Further Study by Donald B. Smith (pp. 222-243)

Ontario History Spring 2021 Cover

The Spring 2021 issue includes five new peer-reviewed articles and eight book reviews:

  • The Penetanguishene Decision: To Be a Naval Yard or Not to Be by Thomas Malcomson (pp. 1-26)
  • “I’d give anything to come home”: The Farmerette Movement in Ontario during the First World War by Margaret Kechnie (pp. 27-40)
  • Turning the Light on: The Ontario Historical Society and Museum Governance by Robin Nelson (pp. 41-53)
  • Enemy Alien Internment in Ontario’s Northland by Bohdan S. Kordan (pp. 54-79)
  • Re-Connecting with a Historical Site: On Narrative and the Huron-Wendat Ancestral Village at York University, Toronto, Canada by L. Anders Sandberg, Jon Johnson, Rene Gualtieri, and Louis Lesage (pp. 80-105)

The Autumn 2020 issue of Ontario History, a special issue on Environmental History, includes six new peer-reviewed articles and eight book reviews:

  • Editors’ Introduction by George Warecki and Thorold J. Tronrud (pp. 135-138)
  • Insecticides, Honey Bee Losses and Beekeeper Advocacy in Nineteenth-Century Ontario by Jennifer L. Bonnell (pp. 139-156)
  • “Who Killed Happy Valley?”: Air Pollution and the Birth of an Ontario Ghost Town, 1969-1974 by Scott Miller (pp. 157-177)
  • Diminished Returns: The Registered Trapline System in Northern Ontario by David M. Finch (pp. 178-190)
  • Naagan ge bezhig emkwaan: A Dish with One Spoon Reconsidered by Dean M. Jacobs and Victor P. Lytwyn (pp. 191-210)
  • The Smell of Air Pollution: Olfactory Senses and the Odour of Canadian Oil, 1858-1885 by Robert G. Armstrong (pp. 211-229)
  • “A Forestry Program that Cannot be Equalled in Canada”: Kimberly-Clark’s Extraordinary Silvicultural Project in Northern Ontario, 1928-1976 by Mark Kuhlberg (pp. 230–254)

Ontario History Spring 2020 Cover

The Spring 2020 issue includes four new peer-reviewed articles and 12 book reviews:

  • In Search of George Scott: Jack of all Trades, Motion Picture Pioneer, World Explorer by Robert G. Clarke (pp. 1-25)
  • David William Smith: Surveyor as State-Builder by Christopher Alexander (pp. 26-56)
  • A Season of Unusual Depression: The Panic of 1857 and the Crisis of City Government in Toronto by Eric Jarvis (pp. 58-81)
  • The Missing and the Missed of Lanark County, Ontario: Great War Sacrifice and the Memorialization of Exclusion in “The Volunteer” Monument by Kelly Morrison (pp. 82-103)

Submissions, Orders, and Reproductions

Those interested in submitting an article to Ontario History should contact the Editor at editor@ontariohistoricalsociety.ca.

View/Download the Ontario History submission guidelines and style sheet.

To order a back-issue or reproduction of an article, please contact ohs@ontariohistoricalsociety.ca or telephone 416-226-9011.

For copying from Ontario History, please contact:

Access Copyright
69 Yonge Street, Suite 1100
Toronto, ON M5E 1K3
Canada
permissions@accesscopyright.ca

Make a donation to help ensure the sustainability of this not-for-profit scholarly journal.

Index to Ontario History

The files are split into three sections:

To view Ontario History’s Index from 1973 to 1992, select a link below.

Introduction and Preface Index of Books Reviewed ’73-’92 Index by Subject L-R
Table of Contents 1973-1992 Index by Subject A-D Index by Subject S-Z
Index by Author Index by Subject E-K

Once the PDF has opened, a search function can be used by pressing CTRL+F.

A full index for Ontario History from 1993 to 2016 Issue 1 (Spring) is now available, including a comprehensive subject index.

View and/or download Ontario History Index from 1993 to 2016 Issue 1 (Spring) (PDF)

Once the PDF has opened, a search function can be used by pressing CTRL+F.

To go back, press ALT + ← (back arrow). (Google Chrome’s PDF reader may not support this feature. Please download the PDF for easiest navigation.)

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