From the University of Toronto Press:
"The years after Newfoundland’s confederation with Canada were ones of rapid social and economic change, as provincial resettlement and industrialization initiatives attempted to transform the lives of rural Newfoundlanders.
"At Memorial University in St. John’s, a new generation of faculty saw the province’s transformation as a critical moment. Some hoped to solve the challenges of modernization through their rural research. Others hoped to document the island’s 'traditional' culture before it disappeared. Between them they created the field of 'Newfoundland studies.'
"In Observing the Outports, historian Jeff A. Webb illustrates how interdisciplinary collaborations among scholars of lexicography, history, folklore, anthropology, sociology, and geography laid the foundation of our understanding of Newfoundland society in an era of modernization. His extensive archival research and oral history interviews illuminate how scholars at Memorial University created an intellectual movement that paralleled the province’s cultural revival."
Contents
- Introduction
- Chapter One: Viewing the Universe Through Newfoundland Eyes: The Dictionary of Newfoundland English
- Chapter Two: Writing History
- Chapter Three: Herbert Halpert and Christmas Mumming in Newfoundland: Collecting Folklore
- Chapter Four: Cat Harbour: Anthropologists in Outports
- Chapter Five: Peopling of Newfoundland: Mapping Cultural Transfer and Settlement
- Chapter Six: Communities in Decline: The Study of Resettlement
- Conclusion
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