Michelle A. Hamilton

Assistant Professor
PhD, University of Western Ontario, 2004


Director, Public History Program

On Leave (Jan-April 2012)

Research Interests

I am a Public Historian whose research focuses on historical and contemporary issues surrounding museums and heritage, social memory and commemoration, cultural identity and issues of representation, usually in regards to Aboriginal peoples in Canada.  Much of my work includes the use of museum collections as historical sources in conjunction with archival material.  I am also committed to increasing the accessibility of material culture to Aboriginal peoples, and am exploring methods of virtual repatriation.

I am currently examining the changing conceptions of pre-contact Aboriginal copper mines in the Great Lakes region from spiritual places, to natural resources for exploitation by mining companies, to places of wilderness preservation.  This is part of a larger project which explores how nineteenth-century ethnological work of geologists such as Dr. Robert Bell of the Geological Survey of Canada affected Aboriginal land claims, treaty rights and access to natural resources.

As a Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Guelph (2005-08), I researched the enumeration of First Nations and Métis people in Canada, particularly the links between census-taking, race, and the regulation of Aboriginal communities by the Department of Indian Affairs.  This research is ongoing and forms a part of the 1871 and 1891 Census of Canada projects at the University of Guelph.

Teaching Grants

  • Community Service Learning Grant, UWO (2011-12)
  • Agnes Cole Dark Fund, UWO (2011)
  • International Curriculum Fund, UWO (2010-11)

Research Grants

  • SSHRC Standard Research Grant (2011-14)
  • International Research Grant, UWO (2009-11)
  • ADF Small Grants Fund, UWO (2009-11)
  • London Heritage Council Grant (2009)
  • Van Pelt Research Grant, Michigan Technological University Archives and Copper Country Historical Collections (2008)

  • Postdoctoral Fellowship in Rural History, Canada Research Chair program, Department of History, University of Guelph (2005-08)

  • Jacob M. Price Visiting Fellowship, University of Michigan (2004)

Teaching

Before coming to Western in 2008, I taught at Simon Fraser University and the University of Guelph.  In the fall term of 2012, I will be teaching a Canadian socio-cultural history course called Life, Love & Death in Early Canada in which we will explore the elements of everyday life including birth, family, home, courtship and marriage, food, dress and etiquette, and death and mourning.

For graduate students, I teach the core courses in the Public History program. I am also willing to supervise in First Nations History and Public History.

Selected Publications

 

Monographs

Collections and Objections:  Aboriginal Material Culture in Southern Ontario. Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2010.

 

 Winner of the 2011 Clio (Ontario) Prize, Canadian Historical Association, and the 2011 Chalmers Award from the Champlain Society.

Articles 

“‘Anyone not on the list might as well be dead:’ First Nations and Enumeration in Canada, 1851-1901," Journal of the Canadian Historical Association 19 (2007/8): 57-79.

With R. Woods. “‘A Wealth of Historical Interest:’ The Medical Artifact Collection at the University of Western Ontario,” The Public Historian 29, 1 (Winter 2007): 77-91. 

With S. McKellar. “Learning Through Objects: Development of the UWO Medical Artifact Collection as a Teaching and Research Resource,” Canadian Bulletin of Medical History 23 (2006): 219-40.  

Book Chapters

 With K. Inwood. “The Aboriginal Population and the 1891 Census of Canada,” Indigenous Peoples and Demography: The Complex Relation Between Identity and Statistics. Ed. P. Axelsson and P. Sköld. New York: Berghahn Books, 2011.

“Borders Within: First Nations and Anthropology in Victorian Ontario.” Lines Drawn Upon the Water: The First Nations Experience in the Great Lakes Borderlands. Ed. K.S. Hele. Aboriginal Studies Series. Kitchener: Wilfrid Laurier Press, 2008, 191-204.

“In the King’s Service: Provisioning and Quartering the British Army in the Old Northwest, 1760-73,” English Atlantics Revisited: Papers Honouring Ian K. Steele. Ed. N. Rhoden. Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2007, 310-41.

“Iroquoian Archaeology, the Public and Native Communities in Victorian Ontario,” Historicizing Canadian Anthropology. Ed. J. Harrison and R. Darnell. Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 2006, 65-74.

Museum and Public History Experience

Since 1993 I have worked at various museums across Canada, including the Museum of Ontario Archaeology (London), the Aylmer and District Museum, the Woodland Cultural Centre (Six Nations of the Grand River) and the Glenbow Museum (Calgary), in curatorial, interpretative and collections management capacities.  With Professor Shelley McKellar, I currently manage the UWO Medical Artifact Collection.  Locally, I sit on the Material Culture Committee of Museum London, the Academic Sub-Committee for the Museum of Ontario Archaeology, the Fanshawe Pioneer Village Planning Committee and Board of Directors, and advise on matters at the JP Metras Museum at UWO. As of 2010, I am a contract historian for the Ontario Heritage Trust, and as of 2011, a consultant for the C.A.V. Barker Museum of Canadian Veterinary History at the University of Guelph. I also sit on the Board of Directors of the National Council on Public History, and am the Chair of its Professional Development Committee, and co-Chair of the 2013 Annual Conference Program Committee.

Community Outreach

An essential part of Public History is working with and learning from cultural and historical organizations.  Each year the MA students in the Public History program work with a number of community institutions in heritage, museum, archival, and educational fields.  In the summer semester, students complete an internship. Please email me if you wish to discuss a future collaborative project with the program, or if you wish to host an intern.

Doctoral Level supervisory privileges.

Also from this web page:

Current Courses