Canadian journalist, essayist, historian, social critic and political thinker
Frank Hawkins Underhill ,
SM ,
FRSC (November 26, 1889 – September 16, 1971) was a
Canadian
journalist ,
essayist ,
historian ,
social critic , and political thinker.
Biography
Frank Underhill, born in
Stouffville ,
Ontario , was educated at the
University of Toronto and the
University of Oxford in which he was a member of the
Fabian Society . He was influenced by social and political critics such as
George Bernard Shaw and
Goldwin Smith . He taught history at the
University of Saskatchewan from 1914 until 1927 with a long interruption during
World War I during which he served as an officer in the
Hertfordshire Regiment of the
British Army on the
Western Front .
[1] He also taught from 1927 until 1955 at the
University of Toronto . He left the University of Toronto due to a dispute with the administration and later joined the faculty at
Carleton University .
[2]
During the
Great Depression , Underhill joined several other
left-wing academics in forming the
League for Social Reconstruction .
[3] He was also a founder of the
Co-operative Commonwealth Federation and helped write its
Regina Manifesto in 1933. He joined the editorial staff of the leftist
Canadian Forum in 1927 in which he wrote a column of political commentary called "O Canada" from 1929 and served for a time as chair of that journal's editorial board.
[4] Despite those progressive leanings, Underhill had a conservative view of the historical profession and impeded the careers of several women historians.
[5]
During
World War II , Underhill moved away from
socialism and became a left-wing
liberal
continentalist .
[6] He remained a committed anti-
imperialist and was almost dismissed from the University of Toronto in 1941 for suggesting that Canada would drift away from the
British Empire and draw closer to the
United States . His struggle with the university became a landmark in the history of
academic freedom in Canada.
[7]
Underhill's most important writings are collected in the 1960 book of essays, In Search of Canadian Liberalism . In the essays, Underhill covered many Canadian concerns such as politics before and after the
Canadian Confederation , relations with the United States and Britain and assessments of the actions of Canadian public figures. The essays were praised in the Oxford Companion to Canadian Literature for their "iconoclasm and trenchant wit often bordering on sarcasm." Underhill's other notable works include Canadian Political Parties (1957), The Image of Confederation (1964), and Upper Canadian Politics in the 1850s (1967).
[4]
Underhill was a strong supporter of the
United States during the
Cold War . He also became a supporter of the
Liberal Party of Canada , particularly once his long-time friend
Lester Pearson joined the government. In his later years, Underhill served as a lecturer and Chair of the Department of History at
Carleton University in
Ottawa .
[8]
Carleton University has named a major reading room
[9] and the Underhill Graduate Student Colloquium,the longest-running graduate colloquium in Canada, in memory of the former chair.
[10]
In 1967, he received the
Medal of Service of the Order of Canada .
[11] Underhill died in
Ottawa, Ontario in 1971.
References
^ Spafford, Shirley (January 2000).
No Ordinary Academics . Toronto: University of Toronto Press. pp. 98–99.
ISBN
978-0802044372 . {{
cite book }}
: CS1 maint: date and year (
link )
^ Stevenson, Garth (16 December 2013).
"Frank Underhill" .
The Canadian Encyclopedia .
Historica Canada .
^ Francis, Douglas R. (1986).
Frank H. Underhill: Intellectual Provocateur . University of Toronto Press.
ISBN
0-8020-2545-5 .
^
a
b "Frank Underhill." Contemporary Authors Online . Reproduced in Biography Resource Center. Gale, Farmington Hills, Mich., 2009.
^ Wright, Donald (2005).
The Professionalization of History in English Canada . University of Toronto Press.
ISBN
0-8020-3928-6 .
^ Bicha, Karel D. (Summer 1999). "Five Canadian Historians and the USA". American Review of Canadian Studies . 29 (2): 195–210.
doi :
10.1080/02722019909481628 .
^ Horn, Michiel.
Academic Freedom in Canada: A History , University of Toronto Press: Toronto, 1999.
ISBN
0-8020-0726-0 , Google Print, p. 154.
^ Dewar, Kenneth C.
“Frank Underhill: Intellectual in Search of a Role," ,"The Underhill Review, "Fall 2008.
^
Underhill Reading Room , Carleton University
^
History Graduate Students' Association , Carleton University
^
Order of Canada citation
Further reading
Berger, Carl. The Writing of Canadian History: Aspects of English-Canadian Historical Writing Since 1900 (2nd ed. 1987), pp 54–84.
R. Douglas Francis, Frank H. Underhill: Intellectual Provocateur (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1986)
External links
1930s 1940s
J. F. C. Wright , Slava Bohu (1940)
Emily Carr ,
Klee Wyck (1941)
Bruce Hutchison , The Unknown Country (1942)
Edgar McInnis , The Unguarded Frontier (1942)
E. K. Brown , On Canadian Poetry (1943)
John Robins , The Incomplete Anglers (1943)
Dorothy Duncan , Partner in Three Worlds (1944)
Edgar McInnis , The War: Fourth Year (1944)
Ross Munro , Gauntlet to Overlord (1945)
Evelyn M. Richardson , We Keep a Light (1945)
Frederick Phillip Grove , In Search of Myself (1946)
Arthur R. M. Lower , Colony to Nation (1946)
William Sclater , Haida (1947)
Robert MacGregor Dawson , The Government of Canada (1947)
Thomas Head Raddall , Halifax, Warden of the North (1948)
C. P. Stacey , The Canadian Army, 1939-1945 (1948)
Hugh MacLennan , Cross-country (1949)
Robert MacGregor Dawson , Democratic Government in Canada (1949)
1950s
Marjorie Wilkins Campbell , The Saskatchewan (1950)
W. L. Morton , The Progressive Party in Canada (1950)
Frank MacKinnon, The Progressive Party in Canada (1951)
Josephine Phelan , The Ardent Exile (1951)
Donald G. Creighton , John A. Macdonald, The Young Politician (1952)
Bruce Hutchison , The Incredible Canadian (1952)
J. M. S. Careless , Canada, A Story of Challenge (1953)
N. J. Berrill , Sex and the Nature of Things (1953)
Hugh MacLennan , Thirty and Three (1954)
Arthur R. M. Lower , This Most Famous Stream (1954)
N. J. Berrill , Man's Emerging Mind (1955)
Donald G. Creighton , John A. Macdonald, The Old Chieftain (1955)
Pierre Berton , The Mysterious North (1956)
Joseph Lister Rutledge, Century of Conflict (1956)
Thomas H. Raddall , The Path of Destiny (1957)
Bruce Hutchison , Canada: Tomorrow's Giant (1957)
Pierre Berton , Klondike (1958)
Joyce Hemlow , The History of Fanny Burney (1958)
[No award] (1959)
1960s 1970s
[No award] (1970)
Pierre Berton ,
The Last Spike (1971)
[No award] (1972)
Michael Bell, Painters in a New Land (1973)
Charles Ritchie , The Siren Years (1974)
Marion MacRae and
Anthony Adamson , Hallowed Walls (1975)
Carl Berger, The Writing of Canadian History (1976)
F. R. Scott , Essays on the Constitution (1977)
Roger Caron ,
Go-Boy! Memories of a Life Behind Bars (1978)
Maria Tippett , Emily Carr (1979)
Robert Bothwell and
William Kilbourn , C.D. Howe (1979)
Larry Pratt and
John Richards , Prairie Capitalism (1979)
1980s
Jeffrey Simpson , Discipline of Power: The Conservative Interlude and the Liberal Restoration (1980)
George Calef , Caribou and the Barren-Land (1981)
Christopher Moore , Louisbourg Portraits: Life in an Eighteenth- Century Garrison Town (1982)
Jeffery Williams , Byng of Vimy: General and Governor General (1983)
Sandra Gwyn , The Private Capital: Ambition and Love in the Age of Macdonald and Laurier (1984)
Ramsay Cook , The Regenerators: Social Criticism in Late Victorian English Canada (1985)
Northrop Frye , Northrop Frye on Shakespeare (1986)
Michael Ignatieff , The Russian Album (1987)
Anne Collins , In the Sleep Room (1988)
Robert Calder , Willie: The Life of W. Somerset Maugham (1989)
1990s
Stephen Clarkson and
Christina McCall , Trudeau and Our Times (1990)
Robert Hunter and Robert Calihoo, Occupied Canada: A Young White Man Discovers His Unsuspected Past (1991)
Maggie Siggins , Revenge of the Land: A Century of Greed, Tragedy and Murder on a Saskatchewan Farm (1992)
Karen Connelly , Touch the Dragon (1993)
John Livingston , Rogue Primate: An Exploration of Human Domestication (1994)
Rosemary Sullivan , Shadow Maker: The Life of Gwendolyn MacEwen (1995)
John Ralston Saul , The Unconscious Civilization (1996)
Rachel Manley , Drumblair: Memories of a Jamaican Childhood (1997)
David Adams Richards , Lines on the Water: A Fisherman's Life on the Miramichi (1998)
Marq de Villiers , Water (1999)
2000s
Nega Mezlekia , Notes from the Hyena's Belly (2000)
Thomas Homer-Dixon ,
The Ingenuity Gap (2001)
Andrew Nikiforuk , Saboteurs: Wiebo Ludwig's War Against Big Oil (2002)
Margaret MacMillan ,
Paris 1919: Six Months That Changed the World (2003)
Roméo Dallaire ,
Shake Hands With the Devil: The Failure of Humanity in Rwanda (2004)
John Vaillant , The Golden Spruce: A True Story of Myth, Madness and Greed (2005)
Ross King , The Judgment of Paris: The Revolutionary Decade That Gave the World Impressionism (2006)
Karolyn Smardz Frost , I've Got a Home in Glory Land: A Lost Tale of the Underground Railroad (2007)
Christie Blatchford , Fifteen Days: Stories of Bravery, Friendship, Life and Death from Inside the New Canadian Army (2008)
M. G. Vassanji , A Place Within: Rediscovering India (2009)
2010s
Allan Casey ,
Lakeland: Journeys into the Soul of Canada (2010)
Charles Foran , Mordecai: The Life and Times (2011)
Ross King ,
Leonardo and the Last Supper (2012)
Sandra Djwa , Journey with No Maps: A Life of P.K. Page (2013)
Michael John Harris , The End of Absence: Reclaiming What We’ve Lost in a World of Constant Connection (2014)
Mark L. Winston , Bee Time: Lessons from the Hive (2015)
Bill Waiser , A World We Have Lost: Saskatchewan Before 1905 (2016)
Graeme Wood , The Way of the Strangers: Encounters with the Islamic State (2017)
Darrel J. McLeod , Mamaskatch: A Cree Coming of Age' (2018)
Don Gillmor , To the River: Losing My Brother (2019)
2020s
International National Other