Nicole Neatby
Profile
Graduate & Honours Coordinator
Professor 
B.A. Ottawa
M.A. Queen's
Ph.D. Université de Montréal
Office: McNally North 222
Phone: 902-420-5765
Email: nicole.neatby@smu.ca
Nicole Neatby has taught in the History Department at Saint Mary's since 2002 having previously taught for eight years in the History Department at the University of Prince Edward Island. In 2004-2005, she was invited to teach at Yale University as Canadian Bicentennial Visiting Professor. She is co-editor of the Journal of the Canadian Historical Association/Revue d’histoire de la société d’histoire du Canada and French-langue editor at Histoire sociale/Social History. She has published in the fields of women's history, Quebec history (student protest movements, commemoration and tourism) and public history. She has also been an active member of various heritage and history organizations. She sits on the Board of the Nova Scotia Women’s History Society and was a member of the Council of the Royal Nova Scotia Historical Society. Between 2017 and 2022, she was the Nova Scotia representative on the Historical Sites and Monuments Board of Canada.
Recently Taught Courses
* Public History. This course introduces students to both the field of public history and the application of history and historical methods in a variety of workplace settings and media. In addition to in-class work, students are called upon to do 8 hours per week of unpaid field work in a local Halifax institution/organization (e.g. museum) charged with presenting history to the public.
*History of Canadian Culture(s) from the late 19th century to the present. Particular attention is paid to how culture/s has/have been produced and circulated in various forms including novels, magazines, music, art, film, radio, television and other public manifestations such as the celebration of holidays, fairs and commemorative events.
*Gender and Sexuality in Canada: A course that explores the history of Canadian women from the late nineteenth century to the present day.
*Making History
*Tourism in North America. This course analyzes how tourist promoters marketed various sites and regions of the country and how visitors from the US and Canada perceived themselves and others at different times in our history.
Current Research Project
I am looking at mid to late nineteenth century popular stage entertainment in Halifax and a select few Nova Scotia communities in order to chart the rising popularity of blackface entertainment in the province. I am paying particular attention to the activities of the numerous American touring theatrical/comedic companies who performed in Halifax and across the province. Their shows varied in content from classic racist minstrel shows to blackface performances of Harriet Beecher Stowe’s famous antislavery novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin. I am also reviewing reactions to the numerous performances of Irish author Dion Boucicault’s play The Octoroon set in the US South before the Civil War.
Selected Publications
Books
From Old Quebec to La Belle Province : Promoters and Travellers Representing the Authentic Quebec (1920-1967) with McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2018.
*** Winner of the Canadian Historical Association Clio Book Award (Quebec) for best monograph in Quebec history published in 2018.
Settling and Unsettling Memories: Essays in Canadian Public History, co-edited with Dr Peter Hodgins, Toronto: University of Toronto Press 2012.
Carabins ou Activistes? L'idéalisme et la radicalisation de la pensée étudiante à l'Université de Montréal au temps du duplessisme, Montreal & Kingston: , 1999.
Articles and Book Chapters
'Difficile à classer: Second regard sur la nature de l’engagement de Camille Laurin en milieu universitaire', Bulletin d’histoire politique, (forthcoming)
‘Remembering the Conquest: Mission Impossible?’ in John Reid and Philip Buckner, eds, 1759 Remembered: Interpreting the Conquest, Toronto: University of Toronto Press 2012, 251-278.
“Leaving the Past Behind: From ‘Old Quebec’ to ‘La Belle Province’” in Nicole Neatby & Peter Hodgins, eds, Settling and Unsettling Memories: Essays in Canadian Public History, Toronto: University of Toronto Press 2012, 491-537.
‘Faire l’histoire des attitudes et des activités des leaders étudiants à l’Université de Montréal durant les années cinquante. Pourquoi faire ?’in Michel Bock, dir, La Jeunesses au Canada- français: formation, mouvement et identité,,Ottawa: Presses de l’Université d’Ottawa 2007,171-180.
‘Meeting of the Minds: North American Travel Writers and Government Tourist Promoters in Quebec, 1920 -1955’, Histoire sociale/Social History, 36, # 72, (November 2003): 465-495.
Historiographical overview to the section on Education in Sharon A. Cook, Lorna McLean and Kate O'Rourke, eds , Framing Our Past: Canadian Women's History in the Twentieth
Century, Montreal & Kingston: McGill-Queen's University Press, 2001, pp. 149-154
Member of the Editorial Committee of Canada , Confederation to the Present - a Canadian history textbook on CD-ROM produced by Chinook Multimedia (Edmonton, 2001)
"Student Leaders at the University of Montreal During the Early 1950s: What did Catholics Want?", Historical Studies , vol 62, 1996, 73-88
"Student Leaders at the University of Montreal from 1950 to 1958: Beyond the ", Journal of Canadian Studies/Revue d'études canadiennes, Fall/Automne, vol 29, #3, 1994, 26-44
"Preparing for the Working World: Women at Queen's During the 1920s", Historical Studies in Education/Revue d'histoire de l'éducation , vol1, #1, Spring Printemps, 1989, 53-72
**Reprinted in Alison Prentice and Ruby Heap, eds, Gender and Education in Ontario: An Historical Reader , Toronto: Canadian Scholar's Press, 1991, 333-356