History of Alberta

What is today the province of Alberta, Canada has been settled for thousands of years by the ancestors of today's First Nations. Discussion of First Nations activities are generally classified as pre-history. Recorded or written history begins with the arrival of Europeans.

Native groups

The ancestors of today's First Nations in Alberta arrived in the area at least 8,000 years BC, according to the Bering land bridge theory. Southerly tribes, the Plain Indians, such as the Blackfoot, Blood, and Peigans eventually adapted to semi-nomadic Plains Bison hunting, originally without the aid of horses, but later with horses Europeans had introduced. More northerly tribes, like the Woodland Cree and the Chipewyan also hunted, trapped, and fished for other types of game in the aspen parkland and boreal forest regions.

Later, the mixture of these native peoples with white fur traders and missionaries created a new cultural group, the Métis. The Métis established themselves to the east of Alberta, but after being displaced by white settlement, many migrated to Alberta.

Pre-Confederation

The first European to reach Alberta was the fur trader Anthony Henday, who explored the vicinity of present-day Red Deer and Edmonton in 1754–55. He spent the winter with a group of Blackfoot, with whom he traded and went buffalo hunting. Other important early explorers of Alberta include Peter Fidler, David Thompson, Peter Pond, Alexander MacKenzie, and George Simpson. The first European settlement was founded at Fort Chipewyan by MacKenzie in 1788, although Fort Vermilion disputes this claim, having also been founded in 1788.

An Alberta fur trader in the 1890s.

The early history of Alberta is closely tied to the fur trade, and the rivalries associated with it. The first battle was between English and French traders, and often took the form of open warfare. Most of central and southern Alberta is part of the Hudson Bay watershed, and in 1670 was claimed by the English Hudson's Bay Company (HBC) as part of its monopoly territory, Rupert's Land. This was contested by French traders operating from Montreal, the Coureurs des bois. When France’s power on the continent was crushed after the fall of Quebec in 1759, the British HBC was left with unfettered control of the trade, and exercised its monopoly powers. This was soon challenged in the 1770s by the North West Company (NWC), a private Montreal-based company that hoped to recreate the old French trading network in the interior. Many of Alberta’s cities and towns started as either HBC or NWC trading posts, including Fort Edmonton. The HBC and NWC eventually merged in 1821, and in 1870 the new HBC’s trade monopoly was abolished and trade in the region was opened to any entrepreneur. The company ceded Rupert's Land and the North-Western Territory to the Dominion of Canada as the Northwest Territories as part of the Rupert's Land Act of 1868.

Fort Edmonton; painting by Paul Kane (1810–1871), 1849–56.

The economic struggle represented by the fur trade was paralleled by a spiritual struggled between rival Christian churches hoping to win converts among the native Indians. The first Roman Catholic missionary was Jean-Baptiste Thibault, who arrived at Lac Sainte Anne in 1842. The Methodist Robert Rundle arrived in 1840 and established a mission in 1847.

In 1864, the Roman Catholic Church in Canada tasked Father Albert Lacombe with evangelizing the Plains Indians, which he had some success with. Several Alberta towns and regions were first settled by French missionary activity, such as St. Albert, and St. Paul. The Anglican Church of Canada and several other Protestant denominations also sent missions to the Natives.

The area later to become Alberta was acquired by the fledging Dominion of Canada in 1870 in the hopes that it would become an agricultural frontier settled by White Canadians. In order to “open up” the land to settlement, the government began negotiating the Numbered Treaties with the various Native nations, which offered them reserved lands and the right to government support in exchange for ceding all claims to the majority of the lands to the Crown. At the same time the decline of the HBC’s power had allowed American whiskey traders and hunters to expand into southern Alberta, disrupting the Native way of life. Of particular concern was the infamous Fort Whoop-Up near present-day Lethbridge, and the associated Cypress Hills massacre of 1873.

NWMP Lancer, 1875.

At the same as whisky was being introduced to the First Nations, firearms were becoming more easily available. Meanwhile white hunters were shooting huge numbers of Plains Bison, the primary food source of the plains tribes. Diseases were also spreading among the tribes. Warfare and starvation became rampant on the plains. Eventually disease and starvation weakened the tribes to the point where warfare became impossible. This culminated in 1870 with the Battle of the Belly River between the Blackfoot Confederacy and the Cree. It was the last major battle fought between native nations on Canadian soil.

In order to bring law and order to the West, the government created the North-West Mounted Police, the “mounties”, in 1873. In July 1874, 275 officers began their legendary “march west” towards Alberta. They reached the western end of trek by setting up a new headquarters at Fort MacLeod. The force was then divided, half going north to Edmonton, and half heading back to Manitoba. The next year, new outposts were founded: Fort Walsh in the Cypress Hills, and Fort Calgary, around which the city of Calgary would form.

As the bison disappeared from the Canadian west, cattle ranches moved in to take their place. Ranchers were among the most successful early settlers. The arid prairies and foothills were well suited to American-style, dryland, open-range ranching. Black American cowboy John Ware brought the first cattle into the province in 1876. Like most hired hands, Ware was American, but the industry was dominated by powerful British- and Ontario-born magnates such Patrick Burns.

The peace and stability the Mounties brought fostered dreams of mass settlement on the Canadian Prairies. The land was surveyed by the Canadian Pacific Railway for possible routes to the Pacific. The early favourite was a northerly line that went through Edmonton and the Yellowhead Pass. The success of the Mounties in the South, coupled with a government desire to establish Canadian sovereignty of that area, and the CPR’s desire to undercut land speculators, prompted the CPR to announce a last minute switch of the route to a more southerly path passing through Calgary and the Kicking Horse Pass. This was against the advice of some surveyors who said that the south was an arid zone not suitable for agricultural settlement.

Nevertheless, the CPR went ahead and was nearly completed in 1885 when the North West Rebellion broke out between Metis and First Nations groups and the government. After the Cree war party attacked a white settlement at Frog Lake, Saskatchewan (now in Alberta), Canadian militia from Ontario were sent to the District of Alberta via the CPR and fought against the Cree.

Settlement

After the rebellion was pacified, thousands of settlers began to pour into Alberta. The railways developed town sites six to ten miles apart and lumber companies and speculators loaned money to encourage building on the lots. Immigrants faced an unfamiliar, harsh environment. Building a home, clearing and cultivating thirty acres, and fencing the entire property, all of which were equirements of homesteaders seeking title to their new land, were difficult tasks in the glacier-carved valleys.

Initially, the government preferred English-speaking settlers from Eastern Canada or Great Britain, and to a lesser extent, the United States. However, in order to speed up the rate of settlement, the government under the direction of Minister of the Interior Clifford Sifton soon began advertising to attract settlers from continental Europe. Large numbers of Germans, Ukrainians, and Scandinavians moved in, among others, often coalescing into distinct ethnic settlement blocks, giving parts of Alberta unique ethnic cultures.

One typical settlement involved Norwegians from Minnesota. In 1894, Norwegian farmers from Minnesota's Red River Valley, originally from Bardo, Norway, resettled on Amisk Creek south of Beaverhill Lake, Alberta, naming their new settlement Bardo, after their homeland. Since the Land Act of 1872, Canada had eagerly sought to establish planned single-nationality immigrant colonies in the Western Provinces. The settlement at Bardo grew steadily, and from 1900 on most settlers came directly from Bardo, Norway, joining family and former neighbors. While somewhat primitive living conditions were the norm for many years into the 20th century, the settlers quickly established institutions and social outlets, including a Lutheran congregation, a school, the Bardo Ladies' Aid Society, a literary society, a youth choir, and a brass band.

In July 1897 the Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR) began work on a railway passing through Crow's Nest Pass, Alberta. To attract a thousand workers from Wales who would eventually settle in Canada, the British government offered workers $1.50 a day and land through the homestead process. Publicized by shipping companies and newspapers, the scheme drew many workers from Bangor, Wales, where quarrymen had been on strike for nearly a year. However, the transport costs alone were more than many Welsh workers could afford, and this limited the number of people responding to the offer to under 150. By November letters began to arrive in Wales complaining about the living and working conditions in the CPR camps. Government officials, seeking to populate the Canadian prairies, began to downplay the criticisms and present more positive views. Although some of the immigrants eventually found prosperity in Canada, the immigration scheme envisioned by government and railroad officials was canceled in 1898.

Drive to provincehood

Alexander Rutherford, Alberta's first premier

At the dawn of the 20th century, Alberta was simply a district of the North-West Territories. Local leaders lobbied hard for provincial status. The premier of the territories, Sir Frederick Haultain, was one the most persistent and vocal supporters of provincehood for the West. However, his plan for provincial status in the West was not a plan for the provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan that was eventually adopted; rather he favoured the creation of one very large province called Buffalo. Other proposals called for three provinces, or two provinces with a border running east-west instead of north-south.

The prime minister of the day, Sir Wilfrid Laurier, did not want to concentrate too much power in one province, which might grow to rival Quebec and Ontario, but neither did he think three provinces were viable, and so opted for the two-province plan. Alberta became a province along with her sister Saskatchewan on September 1, 1905. Laurier marked the occasion by attending a large party at Burns Manor, hosted by Calgary businessman Pat Burns.

Haultain might have been expected to be appointed as the first Premier of Alberta. However, Haultain was Conservative while Laurier was Liberal. Laurier opted to have Lieutenant Governor George H. V. Bulyea appoint the Liberal Alexander Rutherford, whose government would later fall in the Alberta and Great Waterways Railway scandal.

Alberta's other main leader at the time was Frank Oliver. He founded Edmonton's influential Bulletin newspaper in 1880 from which he espoused a sharp criticism of Liberal policies in the West. He was especially disapproving of Ukrainian settlement. He was elected to the territorial assembly, but resigned to become a federal MP. He replaced Sifton as Minister of the Interior and set about reducing support for European immigration. At the same time he was in charge of drawing up the boundaries of the provincial ridings for the 1905 Alberta elections. He is accused by some of gerrymandering the boundaries to favour Liberal Edmonton over Tory Calgary.

Together Oliver and Rutherford made sure that Edmonton became Alberta's capital, and neighbouring Strathcona was home to the University of Alberta, much to the chagrin of Calgarians.

Early 20th century

Medical care and nursing

The first homesteaders relied on themselves for medical services. Poverty and geographic isolation empowered women to learn and practice medical care with the herbs, roots, and berries that worked for their mothers. They prayed for divine intervention but also practiced supernatural magic that provided as much psychological as physical relief. The reliance on homeopathic remedies continued as trained nurses and doctors and how-to manuals slowly reached the homesteaders in the early 20th century.

After 1900 medicine and especially nursing modernized and became well organized.

The Lethbridge Nursing Mission in Alberta was a representative Canadian voluntary mission. It was founded, independent of the Victorian Order of Nurses, in 1909 by Jessie Turnbull Robinson. A former nurse, Robinson was elected as president of the Lethbridge Relief Society and began district nursing services aimed at poor women and children. The mission was governed by a volunteer board of women directors and began by raising money for its first year of service through charitable donations and payments from the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company. The mission also blended social work with nursing, becoming the dispenser of unemployment relief.

Richardson (1998) examines the social, political, economic, class, and professional factors that contributed to ideological and practical differences between leaders of the Alberta Association of Graduate Nurses (AAGN), established in 1916, and the United Farm Women of Alberta (UFWA), founded in 1915, regarding the promotion and acceptance of midwifery as a recognized subspecialty of registered nurses. Accusing the AAGN of ignoring the medical needs of rural Alberta women, the leaders of the UFWA worked to improve economic and living conditions of women farmers. Irene Parlby, the UFWA's first president, lobbied for the establishment of a provincial Department of Public Health, government-provided hospitals and doctors, and passage of a law to permit nurses to qualify as registered midwives. The AAGN leadership opposed midwife certification, arguing that nursing curricula left no room for midwife study, and thus nurses were not qualified to participate in home births. In 1919 the AAGN compromised with the UFWA, and they worked together for the passage of the Public Health Nurses Act that allowed nurses to serve as midwives in regions without doctors. Thus, Alberta's District Nursing Service, created in 1919 to coordinate the province's women's health resources, resulted chiefly from the organized, persistent political activism of UFWA members and only minimally from the actions of professional nursing groups clearly disinterested in rural Canadians' medical needs.

The Alberta District Nursing Service administered health care in the predominantly rural and impoverished areas of Alberta in the first half of the 20th century. Founded in 1919 to meet maternal and emergency medical needs by the United Farm Women of Alberta (UFWA), the Nursing Service treated prairie settlers living in primitive areas lacking doctors and hospitals. Nurses provided prenatal care, worked as midwives, performed minor surgery, conducted medical inspections of schoolchildren, and sponsored immunization programs. The post-World War II discovery of large oil and gas reserves resulted in economic prosperity and the expansion of local medical services. The passage of provincial health and universal hospital insurance in 1957 precipitated the eventual phasing out of the obsolete District Nursing Service in 1976.

First Nations

Because health care was not provided by treaty with the Canadian government, First Nations reserve residents in the early 20th century usually received this service from private groups. The Anglican Church Missionary Society ran hospitals for the Blackfoot bands of southern Alberta during this time. In the 1920s the Canadian government authorized funds for building hospitals on both the Blackfoot and Blood reserves. They emphasized the treatment of tuberculosis through long-term care.

There was a strong link between federal Indian health care and the ideology of social reform operating in Canada between the 1890s and 1930. Between the 1890s and 1930 the Department of Indian Affairs became increasingly involved in Indian health. With the aim of revealing aspects of the department's Indian health administration in this early period, this article describes the creation and workings of two hospitals on Indian reserves in southern Alberta. The federal government took two main steps in dealing with Indian peoples' health: it built hospitals on reserves, and it created a system of medical officers to staff these facilities. Before World War II, the health care system had a number of characteristics: it was a system initially operated by missionaries and later taken over by the Department of Indian Affairs, it was an extensive and decentralized system, the health care services delivered by the system were firmly rooted in Canadian middle-class reformist values and represented an attempt to have these values applied to Indian communities, and, apparently, the system served peoples who were reluctant to use the facilities and services made available to them. Contrary to the idea that prior to World War II the federal government refused to take responsibility for Indian health in Canada, the development of an Indian health policy and system had already taken place gradually.

Religion, Ethnicity

Protestants

During the interwar period the various components of the Alberta Woman's Missionary Societies worked tirelessly to maintain traditional Anglo-Protestant family and moral values. Comprising a number of mainstream denominational groups and at one time numbering over five thousand members, the societies actively sought to "Christianize and Canadianize" the substantial numbers of Ukrainian immigrants who settled in the province. A particular focus was child education, with music activities used as a recruiting tool. Some chapters admitted male members. The movement faded as general society shifted away from religious activities and the conservative fundamentalist movement gained strength.

Methodist revivalism in early-20th-century Calgary promoted progress and bourgeois respectability as much as spiritual renewal. In 1908, the Central Methodist Church hosted American evangelicals H. L. Gale and J. W. Hatch. They drew big crowds, but the message was mild and the audience calm and well dressed. Few became church members after the revival was over, however. Working-class attendees probably experienced discomfort among their better-dressed and better-behaved neighbors, and the church leadership maintained strong ties to local business interests but did little to reach out to the lower classes. The cottage meetings that followed the revival typically took place in middle-class homes.

Francophone

In 1892 Alberta adopted the Ontario schools model, emphasizing state-run institutions that glorified not only the English language but English history and customs as well. Predominantly francophone communities in Alberta maintained some control of local schools by electing trustees sympathetic to French language and culture. Such groups as the Association Canadienne-Française de l'Alberta expected trustees to implement their own cultural agenda. An additional problem francophone communities faced was the constant shortage of qualified francophone teachers during 1908-35; the majority of those hired left their positions after only a few years of service. After 1940 school consolidation largely ignored the language and culture issues of francophones.

Ukrainians

A key controversy concerning the linguistic rights of ethnic minorities in western Canada was the 1913 Ruthenian School Revolt in the Edmonton, Alberta, area. Ukrainian immigrants, called "Galicians" or "Ruthenians" by Anglo-Celtic Canadians, settled in the vicinity of Edmonton. The attempts by the Ukrainian community to use the Liberal Party to garner political power in districts that were predominantly Ukrainian and introduce bilingual education in those areas, were quashed by party leaders, who blamed a group of teachers for the initiative. As a reprisal, these teachers were labeled "unqualified." The various rebellious actions by Ukrainian residents of the Bukowina school district did not prevent the dismissal of Ukrainian teachers. By 1915 it was clear that bilingual education would not be tolerated in early-20th-century Alberta.

Catholics

The Catholic archbishop of Edmonton, Henry Joseph O'Leary had a considerable impact on the city's Catholic sectors, and his efforts reflect many of the challenges facing the Catholic Church at that time. During the 1920s, O'Leary favored his fellow Irish and drastically reduced the influence of French Catholic clergy in his archdiocese and replaced them with anglophone priests. He helped to assimilate Ukrainian Catholic immigrants into the stricter Roman Catholic traditions, extended the viability of Edmonton's separate Catholic school system, and established both a Catholic college at the University of Alberta and a seminary in Edmonton.

Farms

Map of Palliser's Triangle.

Recklessness, greed, and overoptimism played a part in the early-20th-century financial crisis on the Canadian wheat frontier. Beginning in 1916, the Palliser Triangle, a semiarid region in Alberta and Saskatchewan, suffered a decade of dry years and crop failures that culminated in financial ruin for many of the region's wheat farmers. Overconfidence on the part of farmers, financiers, the Canadian Pacific Railway, and the Canadian government led to land investments and development in the Palliser on an unprecedented and dangerous scale. A large share of this expansion was funded by mortgage and loan companies in Britain eager to make overseas investments. British money managers were driven by a complex set of global economic forces including a decline in British investment opportunities, excess capital, and massive investment expansion on the Canadian frontier. Reduced grain production in Europe and increased grain production in the Prairie Provinces also encouraged the export of capital from London. The mythical image of the Palliser as an abundant region, coupled with a growing confidence in technology, created a false sense of security and stability. Between 1908 and 1913 British firms lent vast sums to Canadian farmers to plant their wheat crops; only when the drought began in 1916 did it become clear that far too much credit had been extended.

Ranches and mixed farming

The term "mixed farming" better applies to southern Alberta agricultural practices during 1881-1914 than does "ranching." "Pure ranching" involves cowboys working predominantly from horseback; it was the norm when huge ranches were formed in 1881. Quickly practices were modified. Hay was planted and cut in summer to provide winter cattle feed; fences were built and repaired to contain winter herds; and dairy cows and barnyard animals were maintained for personal consumption and secondarily for market. Mixed farming was clearly predominant in southern Alberta by 1900. Captain Charles Augustus Lyndon and his wife, Margaret, established one of the first ranches in Alberta in 1881. Lyndon homesteaded a site in the Porcupine Hills west of Fort Macleod. They primarily raised cattle but also raised horses for the Royal Canadian Mounted Police for additional income. Lyndon's herds suffered with others' herds during the hard winter of 1886-87. He developed an irrigation system and a post office as the district grew during the 1890's. Although Lyndon died in 1903, his family maintained his enterprises until 1966 when the ranch was sold.

Benson (2000) describes the social structure for cowboys and other workers on large, corporate ranches in southwestern Alberta around 1900. Four of those ranches, the Cochrane, the Oxley, the Walrond, and the Bar U, demonstrate the complex hierarchies that separated cowboys from cooks and foremen from managers. Ethnic, educational, and age differences further complicated the elaborate social fabric of the corporate ranches. The resulting division of labor and hierarchy permitted Alberta's ranches to function without the direct involvement of investors and owners, most of whom lived in eastern Canada and Britain.

The survival of Alberta's cattle industry was seriously in doubt for most of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. At two points during this time, 1887-1900 and 1914-20, the industry enjoyed great prosperity. The latter boom began when the United States enacted the Underwood Tariff of 1913, allowing Canadian cattle free entry. Exporting Alberta cattle to Chicago markets proved highly profitable for the highest quality livestock. By 1915, most stocker and feeder cattle from the Winnipeg stockyards were exported to the United States, harming Canada's domestic beef market. Several factors, including the severe winter of 1919-20, the end of inflated wartime prices for beef, and the reinstitution of the US tariff on Canadian cattle, all contributed to the collapse of the Alberta cattle market. The boom ultimately worked against Alberta's economic interests because the high prices during that period made it unfeasible to establish local cattle finishing practices.

Women

Gender roles were sharply defined. Men were primarily responsible for breaking the land; planting and harvesting; building the house; buying, operating and repairing machinery; and handling finances. At first there were many single men on the prairie, or husbands whose wives were still back east, but they had a hard time. They realized the need for a wife. In 1901, there were 19,200 families, but this surged to 150,300 families only 15 years later. Wives played a central role in settlement of the prairie region. Their labor, skills, and ability to adapt to the harsh environment proved decisive in meeting the challenges. They prepared bannock, beans and bacon, mended clothes, raised children, cleaned, tended the garden, helped at harvest time and nursed everyone back to health. While prevailing patriarchal attitudes, legislation, and economic principles obscured women's contributions, the flexibility exhibited by farm women in performing productive and nonproductive labor was critical to the survival of family farms, and thus to the success of the wheat economy.

Miners

James Moodie developed the Rosedale Mine in Alberta's Red Deer River Valley in 1911. Although Moodie paid higher wages and operated the mine more safely and efficiently than other coal mines in the province, the Rosedale experienced work slowdowns and strikes. Because Moodie owned the mine and provided services for the camp, Bolshevik sympathizers considered him an oppressor of the laborers and a bourgeois industrialist. The radicalism at the mine diminished as Moodie replaced the immigrant miners with Canadian military veterans ready to appreciate the safe work environment offered there.

Urban life

Women

The Calgary Current Events Club, started in 1927 by seven women, rapidly gained popularity with professional women of the city. In 1929 the group changed its name to the Calgary Business and Professional Women's Club (BPW) in response to a call for a national federation of such groups. Members traveled to London, England, in 1929 to make the case for recognizing women as full legal citizens. In the 1930s the group addressed many of the controversial political issues of the day, including the introduction of a minimum wage, fair unemployment insurance legislation, the compulsory medical examination of school children, and the requirement of a medical certificate for marriage. The national convention of the BPW was held in Calgary in 1935. The club actively supported Canadian overseas forces in World War II. At first most of the members were secretaries and office workers; more recently it has been dominated by executives and professions. The organization continues to attend to women's economic and social issues.

Cinema

Motion pictures have been an important aspect of urban culture since 1910. The places where people have watched films, from the nickelodeon to the multiplex, have changed in ways that reflect changes in the society generally. The cinema in Edmonton reflected the changing urban landscape. Because the movie houses themselves are part of the entertainment product, the cinema industry follows a cycle of construction, renovation, and demolition. The industry's face is constantly changing in an effort to draw people inside; Edmonton's cinemas have moved with the retail industry from the downtown core to the suburban shopping malls, and are now experimenting with new formats similar to retailers' big boxes. Just as Edmonton is known for massive amounts of retail space, it also has one of the highest numbers of movie screens in Canada in proportion to its population. Cinemas are thus a revealing aspect of trends in urban development.

Sports

Competitive hockey provided an arena for the civic rivalries between the cities of Edmonton and Strathcona during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Edmonton, on the north bank of the Saskatchewan River, and Strathcona, on the south bank of the river, developed separately - economically, politically, and socially - because travel and communication across the river were limited. In addition to affording an outlet for civic rivalries, the games between the Edmonton Thistle and Strathcona Shamrock hockey clubs united individuals from different social classes and diverse cultural backgrounds in support of their team.

Later history

Alberta has played the central role in Canada's petroleum industry — both from the discovery and development of conventional oil and natural gas, and through the development of the world's foremost bitumen deposits in the province's vast northern oil sands. The province is one of the world's foremost producers of crude oil and natural gas.

The Liberals formed the first government of Alberta and remained in office until 1921. In that year the United Farmers of Alberta were elected and held power until 1934. In 1934 the UFA was defeated, in part due to the John Brownlee sex scandal and in part due to the government's inability to combat the Great Depression.

In 1934 a Social Credit government was elected. Social Credit was based on the economic theories of an Englishman, C. H. Douglas. These theories were very popular all over the continent as a result of the pain and suffering of the Great Depression. In large part it called for the return of prosperity certificates (or social credit) but more commonly called "funny money" to the people of the province.

After its election many actions of the Social Credit government, such as its plan to issue prosperity certificates and its plan to censor the press, were declared unconstitutional. Despite this the Social Credit Party remained in power for 36 years until 1971. They were re-elected by popular vote no less than 9 times.

Alberta's contribution to the Canadian war effort from 1939 to 1945 was substantial. At home, prisoner of war and internment camps were maintained at Wainwright and in Kananaskis Country, housing captured Axis service personnel as well as Canadian internees. A large number of British Commonwealth Air Training Plan airfields and training establishments were established in the province. Militarily, thousands of men (and later, women) volunteered for the Royal Canadian Navy, Royal Canadian Air Force and Canadian Army. Major David Vivian Currie, a Saskatchewanian serving with the South Alberta Regiment, was awarded the Victoria Cross as was Calgarian Ian Bazalgette, who was killed in air combat. Dozens of Alberta-based militia units provided cadres for overseas units, including The Loyal Edmonton Regiment, Calgary Regiment (Tank), Calgary Highlanders in addition to numerous artillery, engineer, and units of the supporting arms.

In the election of 1971 the Social Credit government was defeated and the Progressive Conservative Party came to power. They remain in power to this day, coming up on 37 years of majority governments.

See also

• Battle of the Belly River
• History of Lethbridge
• List of Alberta premiers
• Monarchy in Alberta
• Natural Resources Transfer Acts
• History of the petroleum industry in Canada

Bibliography

Surveys and reference

• Heritage Community Foundation. Alberta Online Encyclopedia, online 2009, a short encyclopedia
• The Canadian Encyclopedia (2008) a very good starting point online edition
• The Dictionary of Canadian Biography (1966-2006), scholarly biographies of every important person who died by 1930 online edition
• Cashman, Tony. A Picture History of Alberta. Edmonton, Alta.: Hurtig, (1979) . 215 pp.
• Friesen, Gerald. The Canadian Prairies: A History (2nd ed. 1987)
• MacGregor, James A. A History of Alberta. Edmonton, Alta.: Hurtig, 1972. 335 pp.
• Owram, Douglas R., ed. The Formation of Alberta: A Documentary History. Calgary: Hist. Soc. of Alberta, 1979. 403 pp. primary sources
• Palmer, Howard. Alberta: A New History (1999), standard survey by leading historian
• Pitsula, James M. "Disparate Duo" Beaver 2005 85(4): 14-24, a comparison with Saskatchewan, Fulltext in EBSCO
• Wardhaugh, Robert A., ed. Toward Defining the Prairies: Region, Culture, and History. (2001). 234 pp.

Economics, business, labour

• Ascah, Robert L. Politics and Public Debt: The Dominion, the Banks, and Alberta's Social Credit. Edmonton: U. of Alberta Press, 1999. 360 pp.
• Bercuson, David Jay, ed. Alberta's Coal Industry, 1919. Calgary: Hist. Soc. of Alberta, 1978. 264 pp. 1919 primary source
• Breen, David H. Alberta's Petroleum Industry and the Conservation Board. Edmonton: U. of Alberta Press, 1993. 800 pp.
• Breen, David H. and Macleod, R. C., eds. William Stewart Herron: Father of the Petroleum Industry in Alberta.

Calgary: Hist. Soc. of Alberta, 1984. 459 pp. primary sources

• Bright, David. The Limits of Labour: Class Formation and the Labour Movement in Calgary, 1883-1929. Vancouver: U. of British Columbia Press, 1998. 286 pp.
• Burrill, Gary. Away. Maritimers in Massachusetts, Ontario and Alberta: An Oral History of Leaving Home. Montreal: McGill-Queen's U. Press, 1992. 272 pp. a primary source; interviews with oil workers
• Chatko, Paul. Developing Alberta's Oil Sands: From Karl Clark to Kyoto (2005) author's dicsussion
• Ferguson, Barry Glen. Athabasca Oil Sands: Northern Resource Exploration, 1875-1951. Regina, Saskatchewan: Can. Plains Res. Center, 1986. 283 pp.
• Hart, E. J. The Selling of Canada: The CPR and the Beginnings of Canadian Tourism. Banff, Alta.: Altitude, 1983. 180 pp.
• House, John D. The Last of the Free Enterprisers: The Oilmen of Calgary. Toronto: Macmillan, 1980. 230 pp.
• Johnston, Alex; Gladwyn, Keith G.; and Ellis, L. Gregory. Lethbridge: Its Coal Industry. Lethbridge, Alta.: Lethbridge Hist. Soc. (1989) 148 pp.
• Kennedy, Margaret A. The Whiskey Trade of the Northwestern Plains: A Multidisciplinary Study. New York: Lang, 1997. 181 pp.
• Klassen, Henry C. A Business History of Alberta. Calgary, Alta.: U. of Calgary Press, 1999. 362 pp.
• Parker, James M. Emporium of the North: Fort Chipewyan and the Fur Trade to 1835. Regina, Sask.: Can. Plains Res. Cen., 1987. 208 pp.
• Richards, John and Pratt, Larry. Prairie Capitalism: Power and Influence in the New West. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1979. 340 pp.
• Schneider, Ena. Ribbons of Steel: The Story of the Northern Alberta Railways. Calgary, Alta.: Detselig, (1991) 312 pp.
• Wetherell, Donald G. and Kmet, Irene. Useful Pleasures: The Shaping of Leisure in Alberta, 1896-1945. Regina, Sask.: U. of Regina Press, 1990. 430 pp.

First Nations, Metis

• Drees, Laurie Meijer. The Indian Association of Alberta: A History of Political Action.

Vancouver: U. of British Columbia Press, 2002. 246 pp.

• McClintock, Walter. The Old North Trail: Life, Legends, and Religion of the Blackfeet Indians. (1910). 539 pp.
• Pocklington, T. C. The Government and Politics of the Alberta Métis Settlements. Regina, Sask.: Can. Plains Res. Cen., 1991. 162 pp.
• Price, Richard, ed. The Spirit of the Alberta Indian Treaties. Toronto: Butterworth, 1979. 202 pp.
• Samek, Hana. The Blackfoot Confederacy, 1880-1920: A Comparative Study of Canadian and U. S. Indian Policy.

Albuquerque: U. of New Mexico Press, 1987. 236 pp.

• Ward, Donald. The People: A Historical Guide to the First Nations of Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba. Saskatoon, Sask.: Fifth House, 1995. 115 pp.

High culture

• Ainslie, Patricia Ainslie, and Mary-Beth Laviolette. Alberta Art and Artists: An Overview‎ (2007) 147 pages
• Calder, Alison and Wardhaugh, Robert, ed. History, Literature, and the Writing of the Canadian Prairies. U. of Manitoba Press, 2005. 310 pp.
• Keahey, Deborah. Making It Home: Place in Canadian Prairie Literature. (1998). 178 pp.
• Johns, Walter H. A History of the University of Alberta, 1908- 1969. Edmonton: U. of Alberta Press, 1981. 544 pp.
• Melnyk, George. The Literary History of Alberta, Vol. 1: From Writing-on-Stone to World War Two. Edmonton: U. of Alberta Press, 1998. 240 pp.
  • Melnyk, George. The Literary History of Alberta. Vol. 2: From the End of the War to the End of the Century. U. of Alberta Press, 1999. 302 pp.

Politics and government

• Aberhart, William. Aberhart: Outpourings and Replies. ed. by David R. Elliott, Calgary: Hist. Soc. of Alberta, 1991. 296 pp. a primary source
• Baergen, William Peter. The Ku Klux Klan in Central Alberta. ed Deer, Alta.: Central Alberta Hist. Soc., 2000.

359 pp.

• Barr, John J. The Dynasty: The Rise and Fall of Social Credit in Alberta. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart. 248 pp.
• Bell, Edward. Social Classes and Social Credit in Alberta. Montreal: McGill-Queen's U. Press, 1993. 196 pp.
• Boudreau, Joseph A., ed. Alberta, Aberhart and Social Credit. Canadian History Through the Press. Toronto and Montreal: Holt, Rinehart and Winston of Canada, 1975. 122 pp. newspaper reports; primary source
• Bruce, Christopher J.; Kneebone, Ronald D.; and McKenzie, Kenneth J., eds. A Government Reinvented: A Study of Alberta's Deficit Elimination Program. New York: Oxford U. Press, 1997. 518 pp.
• Caldarola, Carlo. Society and Politics in Alberta: Research Papers. Toronto: Methuen, 1979. 392 pp.
• Elliott, David R. and Miller, Iris. Bible Bill: A Biography of William Aberhart. Edmonton, Alta.: Reidmore Books, 1987. 373 pp.
• Finkel, Alvin. The Social Credit Phenomenon in Alberta. Toronto: U. of Toronto Press, 1989.
• Gray, James H. R. B. Bennett: The Calgary Years. Toronto: U. of Toronto Press, 1991. 310 pp.
• Hesketh, Bob. Major Douglas and Alberta Social Credit. Toronto: U. of Toronto Press, 1997. 315 pp.
• Hewitt, Steve. Riding to the Rescue: The Transformation of the RCMP in Alberta and Saskatchewan, 1914-1939. (2006). 205 pp. excerpt and text search
• Johnson, William. Stephen Harper and the Future of Canada (2006)
• Rennie, Bradford J. Alberta Premiers of the Twentieth Century (2004) excerpt and text search
• Thomas, Lewis H., ed. William Aberhart and Social Credit in Alberta. Toronto: Copp Clark, 1977. 175 pp.
• Tupper, Allan and Gibbins, Roger, eds. Government and Politics in Alberta. Edmonton: U. of Alberta Press, 1992. 335 pp. textbook

Regional, urban

• Belliveau, Anne. The Story of Alberta's Big West Country: Upper North Saskatchewan River Corridor, Shunda Basin, Brazeau Collieries and Nordegg. Calgary, Alta: Detselig, 1999. 240 pp.
• Foran, Max and Jameson, Sheilagh S., eds. Citymakers: Calgarians after the Frontier. Calgary, Alta.: Hist. Soc. of Alberta, 1987. 386pp.
• Foran, Max and Foran, Heather MacEwan. Calgary: Canada's Frontier Metropolis. An Illustrated History. Windsor, Ont.: Windsor, 1982. 367 pp.
• Foran, Max. Calgary: An Illustrated History/Calgary: Histoire Illustrée. Toronto: Lorimer; Ottawa: Natl. Mus. of Man, 1978.

192 pp.

• Hesketh, Bob and Swyripa, Frances, eds. Edmonton: The Life of a City. Edmonton, Alta.: NeWest, 1995. 366 pp.
• Johnston, Alex and denOtter, Andy A. Lethbridge: A Centennial History. Lethbridge, Alta.: City of Lethbridge and Whoop-Up

Country Chapter, Hist. Soc. of Alberta, 1985. 240 pp.

• MacDonald, Graham A. Where the Mountains Meet the Prairies: A History of Waterton Country. (Parks and Heritage Series, No. 3.) Calgary, Alta.: U. of Calgary Press, 2000. 210 pp.
• Melnyk, Bryan P. Calgary Builds: The Emergence of an Urban Landscape, 1905-1914. Calgary: Alberta Culture, Can. Plains Res. Center, 1985. 214 pp.
• Rasporich, Anthony W. and Klassen, Henry C. Frontier Calgary: Town, City, and Region, 1875-1914. Calgary, Alta.: U. of Calgary and McClelland and Stewart West. 306 pp.
• Reasons, Chuck, ed. Stampede City: Power and Politics in the West. Toronto: Between the Lines, 1984. 216 pp. impact of oil on Calgary
• Smith, Donald B., ed. Centennial City: Calgary, 1894-1994. Calgary, Alta.: U. of Calgary Press, (1993) 88 pp.
• Wetherell, Donald G. and Kmet, Irene R. A. Alberta's North: A History, 1890-1950. Edmonton: U. of Alberta Press, 2000. 520 pp.
• Wetherell, Donald G. and Kmet, Irene R. A. Town Life: Main Street and the Evolution of Small Town Alberta, 1880-1947. Edmonton: U. of Alberta Press, 1995. 368 pp.

Settlement, rural, pioneers

• Baker, William M., ed. Pioneer Policing in Southern Alberta: Deane of the Mounties, 1888-1914. Calgary: Hist. Soc. of Alberta, 1993.
• Bennett, John W. and Seena B. Kohl. Settling the Canadian-American West, 1890-1915: Pioneer Adaptation and Community Building. An Anthropological History. U. of Nebraska Press, 1995. 311 pp.
• Bowen, Lynne. Muddling Through: The Remarkable Story of the Barr Colonists. Vancouver: Douglas & McIntyre, 1992. 234 pp.
• Brado, Edward. Cattle Kingdom: Early Ranching in Alberta. Vancouver: Douglas & McIntyre, 1984. 298 pp.
• Brunvand, Jan Harold. Norwegian Settlers in Alberta. National Museum of Man, Mercury Series, Canadian Centre for Folk Cultural Studies, Paper no. 8. Ottawa: Natl. Mus. of Man, 1974. 71 pp.
• Danysk, Cecilia. Hired Hands: Labour and the Development of Prairie Agriculture, 1880-1930. (1995). 231 pp.
• Hurt, Leslie J. The Victoria Settlement, 1862-1922. Occasional Paper, no. 7. Edmonton: Alberta Culture, Hist. Resources Division, 1979. 242 pp.
• Jaques, Carrol. Unifarm: A Story of Conflict and Change. U. of Calgary Press, 2001. 342 pp.
• Jones, David C. Empire of Dust: Settling and Abandoning the Prairie Dry Belt. U. of Nebraska Press, 1987. 330 pp.
• Jones, David C., ed. "We'll All Be Buried Down Here": The Prairie Dryland Disaster, 1917-1926. Calgary: Alberta Records Publ. Board; Hist. Soc. of Alberta, 1986. 200 pp. collects primary sources
• Leonard, David W. Delayed Frontier: The Peace River Country to 1909. Calgary, Alta.: Detselig, 1995. 256 pp.
• Palmer, Howard. The Settlement of the West (1977) online edition
• Rennie, Bradford James. The Rise of Agrarian Democracy: The United Farmers and Farm Women of Alberta, 1909-1921. of Toronto Press, 2000. 282 pp.
• Gross, Renie. Groundwork: Carl Anderson, Farm Crusader. Wardlow, Alta.: Badlands Books, 1998. 352 pp.
• Jackson, Mary Percy. Suitable for the Wilds: Letters from Northern Alberta, 1929-1931. ed. by Janice Dickin McGinnis, Toronto: U. of Toronto Press, 1995. 264 pp.; a primary source
• Sharp, Paul F. Whoop-up Country: The Canadian-American West, 1865-1885. Reprint ed., Norman: U. of Oklahoma Press, 1973. 347pp. primary source
• Silverman, Eliane Leslau. The Last Best West: Women on the Alberta Frontier 1880-1930. Montreal: Eden, 1984. 183 pp.
• Thompson, John Herd. Forging the Prairie West. (1998)
• Voisey, Paul. Vulcan: The Making of a Prairie Community. Toronto: U. of Toronto Press, 1987. 341 pp.

Social, ethnic, religion and schools

• Byrne, M. B. From the Buffalo to the Cross: A History of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Calgary. Calgary, Alta.: Calgary Arch. and Hist. 555 pp.
• Cavanaugh, Catherine A. and Warne, Randi R., ed. Standing on New Ground: Women in Alberta. Edmonton: U. of Alberta Press, 1993. 202 pp.
• denOtter, Andy A. Civilizing the West: The Galts and the Development of Western Canada. Edmonton: U. of Alberta Press, 1981. 395 pp.
• Flint, David. The Hutterites: A Study in Prejudice. Oxford U. Press, 1975. 193 pp.
• Hoe, Ban Seng. Structural Changes of Two Chinese Communities in Alberta, Canada. Mercury Series, no. 19. Ottawa: Natl. Mus. of Man, Can. Centre for Folk Culture Studies, 1976. 385 pp.
• McLachlan, Elizabeth. With Unshakeable Persistence: Rural Teachers of the Depression Era. Edmonton: NeWest, 1999. 187 pp.
• Palmer, Howard and Palmer, Tamara, eds. Peoples of Alberta: Portraits of Cultural Diversity. Saskatoon, Sask.: Western Producer Prairie Books, 1985. 551 pp.
• Palmer, Howard. Patterns of Prejudice: A History of Nativism in Alberta. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1982. 217 pp.
• Scheffel, David. In the Shadow of Antichrist: The Old Believers in Alberta. Peterborough, Ont.: Broadview, 1991. 252 pp.
• Stebbins, Robert A. The Franco-Calgarians: French Language, Leisure, and Linguistic Life-Style in an Anglophone City. Toronto: U. of Toronto Press, 1994. 152 pp.
• Ukrainian Pioneers' Association of Alberta. Ukrainians in Alberta. Edmonton: Ukrainian Pioneers' Assoc. of Alberta (1975) 560 pp.