being a compendium of useful practical hints to emigrants selected from an unpublished narrative of the adventures of a large family from the north of England, which emigrated to America in 1818, and settled in various parts of the Canadas, and the Western States, as farmern, &c.

Most emigration from England was voluntary, self-financed, and pursued by people who, while expecting to improve their economic prospects, were also critical of the areas in which they first settled. The exodus from England that gathered pace during the 19th century accounted for the greatest part of the total emigration from Britain to Canada. And yet, while copious emigration studies have been undertaken on the Scots and the Irish, very little has been written about the English in Canada. Drawing on wide-ranging data collected from English record offices and Canadian archives, Lucille Campey considers why people left England and traces their destinations in Ontario and Quebec. A mass of detailed information relating to pioneer settlements and ship crossings has been distilled to provide new insights on how, why, and when Ontario and Quebec acquired their English settlers. Challenging the widely held assumption that emigration was primarily a flight from poverty, Campey reveals how the ambitious and resourceful English were strongly attracted by the greater freedoms and better livelihoods that could be achieved by relocating to Canada’s central provinces.

Includes titles on all subjects, some in foreign languages, later incorporated into Memorial Library.

General stores are essential to the image of a colonial village. Many historians, however, still base their stories of settlement on the notion of rural self-sufficiency, begging the question: if general stores were so common, who were their customers? To answer this, Consumers in the Bush draws on the account books of country stores, rich evidence that has rarely been used. Douglas McCalla considers more than 30,000 transactions on the accounts of 750 families at seven Upper Canadian stores between 1808 and 1861. These customers were typical of rural society - farmers, artisans, labourers, and often women. At village stores they found a wide variety of products, most imported from Britain, a few from the United States, and a surprising number that were produced locally. Three chapters focus on the major product categories of dry goods, groceries, and hardware; a fourth considers local products, and a fifth addresses a variety of items - from household goods to footwear to school books. In telling us about the goods colonists bought, this book explores what they were used for and the stories they allow us to tell about rural lives and experience. By seeing rural Upper Canadians as consumers, Consumers in the Bush reveals them as full participants in the rapidly changing nineteenth-century global world of goods.