Dictionary of Canadian Biography / Dictionnaire Biographique du Canada

This new volume of the Dictionary of Canadian Biography/Dictionnaire biographique du Canada (DCB/DBC) presents well-written, carefully documented, and meticulously edited biographies of Canadians from all walks of life. Its literary and scholarly standards make it, like its predecessors, the definitive biographical reference for its period of history. The 619 biographies by 446 authors present a panoramic view of the origins of modern Canada, its political landscapes, economic changes, educational institutions, cultural developments, and athletic achievements. The volume's coverage is inclusive, ranging from murderers to artists, from business magnates to religious leaders, from Canada's First Peoples to new immigrants. There are labour leaders, farmers, feminists, and naturalists, as well as prominent leaders in all aspects of Canadian life. The dominant theme of this volume is the emergence of a country engrossed by material gains and aware of broadening horizons. Sir Clifford Sifton, federal minister of the interior, Sir Lomer Gouin, premier of Quebec, and Sir Robert Bond, premier of Newfoundland, symbolize this age of development. The lives of Sir Adam Beck, father of Ontario Hydro, Gordon Morton McGregor, founder of the Ford Motor Company of Canada, and Alexander Graham Bell, inventor of the telephone, illustrate how new technologies harnessed natural energy sources and created new ways to communicate. Such innovations drove the transformation of Canada in the early years of the twentieth century. An expanding nation required thousands of new people to answer the demands of the agricultural enterprises in the west, the manufacturing industries of central Canada, and the fishing andlumbering businesses of British Columbia and the Atlantic region. Many newcomers were drawn from eastern Europe and Asia as well as the British Isles and western Europe, traditionally the homelands of new Canadians. The Doukhobor leader Peter Vasil'evich Verigin, the house