Bonnie Huskins
Dr. Bonnie Huskins (Loyalists of the American Revolution; Early Modern British Atlantic World; History of Atlantic Canada) received her PhD at Dalhousie University in 1992. She currently teaches history at St Thomas University and the University of New Brunswick, where she is also Adjunct Professor and Loyalist Studies Coordinator.
Her research and publications focus on 18th-century sociability; Loyalist Freemasonry in the Maritimes; celebrations and commemorations; the evolution of loyalist and Acadian collective identities; the life and times of 18th-century British military engineer William Booth; and using diaries as historical sources.
She has published articles in Atlantic Studies (forthcoming in 2019), Labour/Le Travail (2016), Early American Studies (2015), Journal for Research into Freemasonry and Fraternalism (2014), Journal of New Brunswick Studies (2013), the Journal of the Royal Nova Scotia Historical Society (2010), Acadiensis (2005), and Urban History Review (1999). She has also published chapters in Loyalty & Revolution: Essays in Honor of Robert M. Calhoon, Rebecca Brannon & Joseph Moore eds. (2019); Violence, Order and Unrest: a History of British North America, 1749-1876, Elizabeth Mancke, Jerry Bannister, Denis McKim, & Scott W. See eds. (2019); Celebrating Canada: Volume 2. Commemorations, Anniversaries and National Symbols, Raymond Blake and Matthew Hayday eds (2018); Exploring the Dimensions of Self-Sufficiency for New Brunswick, Michael Boudreau, Peter G. Toner, & Tony Tremblay eds. (2009); Labouring Canada: Class, Gender and Race in Canadian Working-Class History, Joan Sangster & Bryan Palmer eds. (2008); Reappraisals in Canadian History. Pre-Confederation, C.M. Wallace and R.M. Bray eds. (1999); Age of Transition: Readings in Canadian Social History, 1800-1900, Norman Knowles ed. (1998); Separate Spheres: Women’s Worlds in the 19th Century Maritimes, Suzanne Morton & Janet Guildford eds. (1994); and Studies on Atlantic Canada (1985).
She is also working on two collaborative projects with Dr. Wendy Churchill from the History Department at UNB on two story map projects: “An Engineer’s Empire: The Life and Career of William Booth (1748-1826)” and “Revolutionary and Loyalist Era Medicine”.
She has received research funding from SSHRCC, the STU Senate Research Committee, the Global & International Studies Initiative, Société Jersiaise, The History Education Network, and the New Brunswick and Atlantic Studies Research and Development Centre.
Teaching
Dr Huskins offers a graduate course on Atlantic Canada; an undergraduate Honours seminar on The Loyalists; upper-level undergraduate courses on the American Revolution, the Loyalists, migration history in Canada, and women’s history in Canada; as well as second-year survey courses on Indigenous and settler Canada and colonial America.
She has published a number of blogs on integrating American Revolutionary War loyalists into the classroom and recorded a podcast on the loyalists for Ben Franklin’s World.
Dr. Huskins received the Excellence in Part-Time Teaching Award for St. Thomas University in 2018-19, and has been nominated three times for the Award for Excellence in Teaching for Part-Time faculty at UNB.
Refereed academic publications
“From a Cosmopolitan Fraternity to an Imperialist Institution: Loyalist Freemasonry in Canada in the 1780s-1790s,” in a special issue “The Fraternal Atlantic,” in Atlantic Studies (forthcoming, 2019).
`New Hope’ in Shelburne: loyalist dreams in the journal of British engineer William Booth, 1780s-90s,” in Rebecca Brannon & Joseph Moore eds, Loyalty & Revolution: Essays in Honor of Robert M. Calhoon (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 2019).
“Discontents and Dissidents: Unrest amongst Loyalist Freemasons in Shelburne and Saint John in the 1780s and 90s,” in Elizabeth Mancke, Jerry Bannister, Denis McKim, and Scott W. See eds. Violence, Order and Unrest: a History of British North America, 1749-1876 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2019)
(with Denis Bourque, Greg Marquis, Chantal Richard) « Chapter 9: National Symbols and Commemorations: Analyzing the Loyalist Centennial and the Conventions nationales acadiennes in New Brunswick in the 1880s,”in Raymond Blake and Matthew Hayday, eds., Celebrating Canada: Volume 2. Commemorations, Anniversaries and National Symbols (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2018).
(with Dr. Michael Boudreau) “Irresponsibility, Obligation, and the ‘Manly Modern’: Tensions in Working-class Masculinities in Postwar Saint John, New Brunswick, Labour/Le Travail, Vol. 78 (Fall 2016).
“`Ancient’ tensions and local circumstances: Loyalist Freemasons in Shelburne Nova Scotia,” Journal for Research into Freemasonry and Fraternalism, Vol. 5.1 (2014) (published in 2016).
“`Shelburnian Manners’: Gentility and the Loyalists of Shelburne Nova Scotia,” Early American Studies, Vol. 31, no.1 (Winter 2015).
(with Chantal Richard, Anne Brown, Margaret Conrad, Gwendolyn Davies, & Sylvia Kasparian) “Markers of Collective Identity in Loyalist and Acadian Speeches of the 1880s: A Comparative Analysis,” Journal of New Brunswick Studies, Issue 4 (2013)
“`Remarks and Rough Memorandums’: Social Sets, Sociability, and Community in the Journal of William Booth, Shelburne, 1787 and 1789,” Journal of the Royal Nova Scotia Historical Society, Vol. 13 (2010).
(with Dr. Michael Boudreau) “`Getting by’ in Postwar Saint John: Working-Class Families and New Brunswick’s Informal Economy”, in Michael Boudreau, Peter G. Toner, & Tony Tremblay eds., Exploring the Dimensions of Self-Sufficiency for New Brunswick (Fredericton: New Brunswick and Atlantic Studies Research and Development Centre, 2009).
(with Dr. Michael Boudreau) “`Daily allowances’: literary conventions and daily life in the diaries of Ida Louise Martin (nee Friars), Saint John, New Brunswick, 1945-1992", Acadiensis, XXXIV, 2 (Spring 2005).
“From Haute Cuisine to Ox Roasts: Public Feasting and the Negotiation of Class in Mid 19th Century Saint John and Halifax,” Labour/Le Travail, Vol. 37 (Spring 1996).
“From Haute Cuisine to Ox Roasts” reprinted in:
- Joan Sangster & Bryan Palmer eds., Labouring Canada: Class, Gender and Race in Canadian Working-Class History (Don Mills: Oxford University Press, 2008).
- Reappraisals in Canadian History. Pre-Confederation, C.M. Wallace and R.M. Bray eds. (Scarborough: Prentice Hill Allyn and Bacon Canada, 1999).
- Age of Transition. Readings in Canadian Social History, 1800-1900, Norman Knowles ed. (Toronto: Harcourt Brace, 1998)
“A Tale of Two Cities: Boosterism and the Imagination of Community during the Visit of the Prince of Wales to Saint John and Halifax in 1860", Urban History Review/Revue D’histoire urbaine, Vol. XXVIII, No. 1 (October 1999).
“Separate Spheres and Ceremonial Space: The Role of Women in Public Processions in 19th Century Saint John and Halifax”, in Separate Spheres: Women’s Worlds in the 19th Century Maritimes, Suzanne Morton and Janet Guildford eds. (Fredericton: Acadiensis Press, 1994).
"What Music Did for the Victorians: the Perceived Uses and/or Consequences of Music in Nineteenth Century Saint John, N.B.", in Studies on Atlantic Canada. (Charlottetown: University of Prince Edward Island, 1985).
Short entries, reviews and introductions
“Introduction” to New Brunswick Loyalist Journeys story map
“A Changed Heart,” [introduction to novel set in mid-19th century Saint John] in Gwendolyn Davies ed. Fiction Treasurers by Maritime Writers: Bestselling Novelists From Canada’s Maritime Provinces (Toronto: Formac Maritime Fiction Treasurers, 2015).
“Introduction” to May Agnes Fleming, A Changed Heart (Halifax: Formac Maritime Fiction Treasures, 2015).
“A Tribute to Margaret Conrad: Activist, Scholar, and Feminist Pioneer,” Atlantis, 34.2 (2010).
“Progress and Permanence: Women and the New Brunswick Museum, 1880-1980", review of virtual exhibit, Public Historian, Vol. 31, no. 1 (Winter 2009).
“Worth Another Look (review of Georgina Binnie-Clark, Wheat and Woman)”, H-NET BOOK REVIEW, H-Canada@h-net.msu.edu (August 2007).
Review of The Workers’ Festival: a History of Labour Day in Canada, in left history, Vol. 11.2 (2006).
(with Dr. Michael Boudreau) “Life After Ile Ste-Croix (review of film: Life After Ile Ste-Croix),” Acadiensis, Vol. XXXV, No. 2 (Spring 2006).
“Racial Rhetoric”, Canadian Literature, No. 186 (Autumn 2005).
"Isabella Forrest" in Dictionary of Canadian Biography, Vol. XIII (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1998).
"Robert Grant Haliburton" in Dictionary of Canadian Biography, Vol. XIII (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1998).
"Charlotte Geddie Harrington" in Dictionary of Canadian Biography, Vol XIII (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1998).
"George Huestis" in Dictionary of Canadian Biography, Vol. XIII (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1998).
Samuel Creelman", in Dictionary of Canadian Biography, Vol. XII (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1998).
Blogs and podcasts
“‘A hierarchical world of Scottish military settlers’: the diaries of Jacobina Campbell and Hector MacLean,”in Acadiensis: Blogging the History of Atlantic Canada
“Teaching Loyalist History: Using Blogs as Teaching Tools,” in Canadian Historical Association Bulletin, Vol 42.3 (2016).
“Let’s work together: A loyalist historian from Canada responds to American scholars,” Borealia: a Group Blog on Early Canadian History
“Loyalists in the Classroom: Students reflect on historical sources,” Borealia: a Group Blog on Early Canadian History
“Loyalists in the Classroom,” Atlantic Loyalist Connections
“Local and Atlantic Sociability: Military Engineer William Booth,” Borealia: a Group Blog on Early Canadian History
“American Loyalists in Canada,” Ben Franklin’s World: a Podcast About Early America
Recent conference papers
Participant in roundtable, “Primary research, story maps, blogs, and historiography: Integrating loyalist and revolutionary era history into the classroom," Canadian Historical Association, Vancouver, 5 June 2019.
Participant in roundtable “Writing Family History and Objectivity,” Canadian Historical Association, 4 June 2019, Vancouver.
“Seduction Amongst the Freemasons: Moral Regulation and Gossip in Digby Lodge No 6,” AMA/AMEMG Joint Conference. Translatio: Knowledge Migrations of the Medieval and Early Modern Periods, Mount Allison University, 12 October 2018.
“’Such is the very important office of the engineer’: professional self-fashioning and 18th-century British military engineer William Booth in Gibraltar and Nova Scotia, 1774-1789,” Stokes Seminar, Dalhousie University, 21 September 2018.
‘Such is the very important office of the engineer’: professional self-fashioning and 18th-century British military engineer William Booth in Gibraltar and Nova Scotia, 1774-1789, Network for the Study of Civilians, Soldiers, & Society (NSCSS), University of New Brunswick, 14 September 2018.
Presider on Panel: “Recent Directions in Loyalist Studies,” Atlantic Canada Studies Conference, Acadia University, 4-5 May 2018.
“`Such is the very important office of an engineer’: William Booth, professional self-fashioning, and British military engineers in the 18th century,” The 5th Annual Meeting of the Atlantic Medieval and Early Modern Group (AMEMG), University of New Brunswick, 14 October 2017.
“A Working-Class Woman’s Political Engagement in Postwar Canada,” Power, Politics, and the State in Canadian History,” Liu Institute for Global Issues at UBC-Vancouver, 29-30 September 2017.
Presider and Commentator on Panel: “American Loyalists and the Quest to Stay Home and Stay American,” The Southern Historical Association 82nd Meeting, St Pete Beach, Florida, 2-5 November 2016.
“Unrest amongst Loyalist Freemasons in Saint John in the 1780s and 90s,” Unrest, Violence, and the Search for Social Order Workshop, UNB Fredericton, St. Mary’s University, 25-26 June 2015 & 22-23 June 2016.
“Loyalist Freemasons in Nova Scotia and Atlantic World History,” Atlantic Brotherhoods: Fraternalism in Transcontinental Perspective, 18th-early 20th century Workshop, German Historical Institute, Washington, DC, 4-5 December 2015.
“Using Social Biography to Connect the Local and the Global: 18th-century Military Postings in the Journals of British Royal Engineer William Booth,” Thinking Big: International and Global Studies at STU, St. Thomas University, 25 April 2015.
“Sociability as a form of social welfare?: a case study based on the life and writings of William Booth, British Royal Engineer, Shelburne Nova Scotia, 1787-89,” 18th-Century Studies Conference, Montreal, 11 October 2014.
“Celebrating peripheral nationalisms in New Brunswick in the 1880s: an analysis of the Loyalist Centennial and the Conventions nationals acadiennes,” workshop for upcoming anthology entitled Celebrating Canada: National Holidays, Commemoration, and Identity Politics, Canadian Museum of History, Ottawa, 9 September 2014.
“The `consequences of war’ in the journal of William Booth, British Royal Engineer, 1780s-1800,” The 20th Annual Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture Conference, St. Mary’s University, Halifax, 13 June 2014.
“Intersections between local, transatlantic, and North American: freemasonic lodges as vehicles of community formation in loyalist Shelburne Nova Scotia,” Canadian Historical Association, University of Victoria, 5 June 2013.
““Freemasonic Lodges as Sources of Social Capital in Loyalist Shelburne Nova Scotia,” The 58th British Association of American Studies Annual Conference, University of Exeter, 19 April 2013.
“Masonic Lodges in 18th Century Shelburne: Sources of Sociability and Community Formation,” 19th Atlantic Canada Studies Conference, University of New Brunswick at Saint John, 5 May 2012.
“`A sociable sett of friends’: sociability and contested community amongst the loyalist exiles of late 18th-century Shelburne, Nova Scotia,” Food and Drink: their Social, Political and Cultural Histories, University of Central Lancashire, Preston, UK, 16 June 2011.
Participant on roundtable with Dr. Michael Boudreau: “‘Evocative Details’: New Directions in the Use of Diaries as Historical Sources,” Canadian Historical Association, Fredericton, 30 May 2011.
“`Shelburnian manners’ or a discourse on gentility?: Shelburne sociability in the writings of James Fraser, Benjamin Marston, and William Booth,” The Fifth Planters Studies Conference: `The Next Generation’, Acadia University,18 June 2010.
