History of Vancouver
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The history of
The presence of people in what is now called the
The first Europeans to explore the area were Spanish Captain José María Narváez in 1791, and British naval Captain George Vancouver in 1792. The area was not settled by Europeans until almost a century later, in 1862. The city grew rapidly following the completion of the Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR) transcontinental line from Eastern Canada, allowing for continuous rail service in the late 1880s. Many Chinese settlers moved into the region following the completion of the CPR. Subsequent waves of immigration were initially of Europeans moving west, and later, with the advent of global air travel, from Asia and many other parts of the world.
Early history
First Nations settlements
The
The Musqueam have been living continuously at their main winter village, Xwméthkwyiem, at the mouth of the Fraser River, for 4,000 years. Vancouver's
The
European exploration
Spanish Captain
Despite the influx of the Fraser Gold Rush in 1858–59, the settlement on Burrard Inlet and English Bay was almost unknown prior to the early 1860s due in large part to the lack of interest in the area as the access to the BC interior was via the City of New Westminster and the Fraser River and also due to the power of the Squamish chiefs over the area. Robert Burnaby and Moberly camped and prospected for coal in what is now Coal Harbour in the summer of 1859. They had an amicable relationship with the First Nations of the area. Robert Burnaby wrote to his family, "our [spare] time has been occupied in exploring all the ins and outs of this Inlet, which I prophesy will become one of the greatest naval rendezvous and centres of commerce on this side of the world."[4]
European settlement and growth
The first non-Indigenous settlement in the city limits of Vancouver was about 1862 at McCleery's Farm, in the vicinity of what is now the Southlands area.[5]
Lumbering was the early industry along
A former river pilot,
The new townsite was situated on a natural harbour, and for this reason, it was selected by the Canadian Pacific Railway as their terminus. The transcontinental railway was commissioned by the government of Canada under the leadership of Prime Minister Sir John A. Macdonald and was a condition of British Columbia joining the confederation in 1871. The CPR president, William Van Horne, decided that Granville was not such a great name for the new terminus because of the seedy associations with Gastown, and strongly suggested "Vancouver" would be a better name, in part because people in Toronto and Montreal knew where Vancouver Island was but had no idea of where Granville was.
Under its new name, the city was incorporated on April 6, 1886. Two months later, on June 13, a spectacular blaze destroyed most of the city along the swampy shores of Burrard Inlet in twenty-five minutes. The Great Vancouver Fire, which destroyed the city, was eventually considered to be beneficial, as the city was rebuilt with modern water, electricity and streetcar systems. Things recovered quickly after the fire, although celebratory Dominion Day festivities to launch the opening of the CPR were postponed a year as a result. The first regular transcontinental train from
The Port of Vancouver became internationally significant as a result of its key position in the All-Red Route, which spanned the global trade network of the British Empire, with the combined steamship and railway of the CPR shortening shipping times from the Orient to London drastically, with the new city becoming a node for major speculative investment by British and German capital.[8][9] The completion of the Panama Canal initially reduced Vancouver's shipping traffic by becoming the new preferred route from Asia to Europe,[8] however reduced freight rates in the 1920s made it viable to ship even Europe-bound prairie grain west through Vancouver in addition to grains that already shipped to parts of Asia.[10]
Early 20th century
Economy
With the opening of the Panama Canal in 1914, Vancouver's seaport was able to compete with the major international ports for global trade because it was positioned as an alternative route to Europe. During the 1920s, the provincial government successfully fought to have freight rates that discriminated against goods transported by rail through the mountains eliminated, giving the young lawyer of the case, Gerry McGeer, a reputation as "the man who flattened the Rockies."[11] Consequently, prairie wheat came west through Vancouver rather than being shipped out through eastern ports. The federal government established the Vancouver Harbour Commission development. With its completion in 1923, Ballantyne Pier was the most technologically advanced port in the British Empire.[12]
The
The rapid growth in automobiles and trucks after 1910 led to the construction of new bridges over
Labour disputes
Although the provincial resource-based economy allowed Vancouver to flourish, it was nonetheless not immune to the vagaries of organized labour. Two general strikes were launched by labour groups during the years following the First World War, including Canada's first general strike following the death of a trade unionist,
Great Depression
BC was perhaps the hardest Canadian province hit by the depression. Although Vancouver managed to stave off bankruptcy, other cities in the Lower Mainland were not so lucky, such as North Vancouver and Burnaby. Vancouver also happened to be the target destination for thousands of transients – unemployed young men – who travelled across Canada looking for work, often by hopping on boxcars. This was the end of the line and had for years been a "Mecca of the Unemployed" because, as some cynically joked, it was the only city in Canada where you could starve to death before freezing to death.[17] "Hobo jungles" sprouted up in the earliest days of the depression, where men built makeshift shanty towns out of whatever they could find (or steal).[18] The largest of these was shut down allegedly for being unsanitary.
Vancouver was also the launching pad for the Communist-led unemployed protests that frequented the city throughout the decade, culminating in the
Asian immigrants
Economic hard times fuelled social tensions. In particular, members of the new and growing Asian population were subjected to discrimination as well as periodic upsurges of more physical objections to their arrival.
The most overt expression of this came in the
Some politicians and publicists promoted and disseminated controversial ideologies through popular books such as H. Glynn-Ward's 1921 The Writing on the Wall and
This determination of British Columbians to secure B.C.'s borders
A growing population of Indians, primarily from the province of
A group of residents of Indian origin rallied in support of the passengers. After losing a court challenge of the immigration laws, the ship remained in Burrard Inlet while negotiations continued concerning its departure. When negotiations dragged on, the head immigration officer in Vancouver arranged an attempt by the Vancouver police and other officials to board the ship, who were repelled by what the Vancouver Sun reported as "howling masses of Hindus". Subsequently, the federal government sent a naval ship and after concessions made by the federal Minister of Agriculture, an MP from Penticton, the ship departed. After returning to India, twenty of the passengers were shot by police in an incident after they refused to return to Punjab.[23]
Vice and politics
Vancouver, was also the home port of the 246 ft. Malahat, a five-masted schooner known as the "Queen of Rum Row," maintained an active liquor trade throughout the Prohibition Era of the neighbouring United States, despite efforts to bring Prohibition to Canada.
Vancouver's longest serving and most often elected mayor, L. D. Taylor, followed an "open town" policy prior to his final defeat in 1934 to Gerry McGeer. Essentially, the policy was that vice crimes such as prostitution, gambling, and bootlegging would be managed, rather than eliminated, so that police resources could be directed towards major crime. [24]
A consequence of this, in addition to assumptions that Taylor was colluding with the criminal underworld, was the maintenance of
Neighbourhood and property development
The first act of the City Council at its first meeting in 1886 was to request that the 1,000-acre (4.0 km2) military reserve be handed over for use as a park. Historians have pointed out that this may seem a strange priority for the nascent city as there was an abundance of green space at the time. The West End, however, was designated to be an upscale neighbourhood by speculators with connections to the CPR.,[29] They did not want the scattered settlements on this property to grow into another industrial, working-class neighbourhood.[30] This act also signalled the beginning of the process that would see the remaining inhabitants of various origins evicted as squatters in the 1920s for the creation of a seemingly pristine park.[31] It has been suggested that perhaps the new Stanley Park would over time be purged of any trace of native occupation. However over time the Parks Board has begun to refill it with Native artifacts.[32]
In 1877, Superintendent of Education John Jessop submitted a proposal for the formation of a provincial university. An Act Respecting the University of British Columbia was passed by the provincial legislature in 1890, but disagreements arose over whether to build the university on Vancouver Island or the mainland. A provincial university was formally called into being by the British Columbia University Act of 1908, although its location was not yet specified. Originally titled McGill University College of British Columbia (associated with McGill University in Montreal), it was selected in 1910 to be constructed at a site at Point Grey, though the outbreak of the First World War delayed construction. The now-independent University of British Columbia began operations in 1915.[33][34]
In 1911, Vancouver expanded with the amalgamation of Hastings Townsite (originally called New Brighton). The former municipality's name continues on in the
By the interwar years, other neighbourhoods had grown that was working class, but not especially impoverished or racially exclusive, such as
Civic celebrations
Vancouver was the site of major celebrations in 1936, in part to bolster civic spirit in the midst of the depression, as well as to celebrate Vancouver's Jubilee. Mayor McGeer provoked considerable controversy by organizing expensive celebrations at a time when the city was teetering on the brink of bankruptcy and civic employees were working at a significantly reduced pay rate. Nevertheless, he did find a great deal of support from those who agreed a celebration would ultimately be good for the city's prosperity. While some large expenditures were roundly criticized – for example, the "ugly" fountain erected in Stanley Park's Lost Lagoon[32] – others drew significant financial and public support, such as the construction of a new (and the current) city hall on Cambie Street.
The next major civic celebration was the 1939 Royal visit of the King and Queen as part of their tour of Canada which marked the end of the depression and the likelihood of another world war.[37]
World War II
The outbreak of the
Massive new spending by the governments and employment in the military and factories provided a much-needed economic boost after the Great Depression of the 1930s. Among the many products and weapons for war service produced in the Vancouver area were
In 1942, a few months after the Japanese
Due to the fear of bombing and of poison gas attacks, a blackout was imposed on the West Coast in 1942 and schoolchildren and others were issued gas masks. Japan did indeed attack the West Coast. A Japanese submarine shelled
1945 to 2000
Another major bridge across the Fraser River, the
In 1968 the Canada Council awarded a $3,500 grant to Joachim Foikis of Vancouver "to revive the ancient and time-honoured tradition of town fool." He made a habit of attending all city council meetings in full traditional jester's outfit, adding wit, nursery rhymes and interest to the normally pedestrian meetings and bringing international attention to Vancouver.[38][39]
Disc sports debuted in Vancouver on Kitsilano Beach in 1974 with the Vancouver Open Frisbee Championships.[40][41]
The continuing growth of the airport on
As
In 1951 the population stood at 562,000; by 1971 it reached 1,000,000. The Park Royal Shopping Centre, in West Vancouver, became the first in the city in 1950 and
The establishment of the Queen Elizabeth Theatre in 1959 and of Simon Fraser University in 1965, enriched the city's cultural life. Canada's first purpose-built auto racing track, the Westwood Motorsport Park was built in nearby Coquitlam, that same year. The first McDonald's restaurant outside the United States was opened in Richmond in 1967.
Chinese immigration
Political uncertainties rose as
According to statistics compiled by the Canadian Consulate in Hong Kong, from 1991 to 1996, "about 30,000 Hong Kongers emigrated every year to Canada, comprising over half of all Hong Kong emigration and about 20% of the total number of immigrants to Canada." The great majority of these people settled in the Toronto and Vancouver areas, as there are well-established Chinese communities in those cities. After the Handover, there was a sharp decline in immigration numbers. Since 1997, there has been a steady influx of Chinese from China, Singapore and other locales of the Chinese diaspora.[44]
See also
Notes
- ISBN 1-55054-812-3.
- ISBN 978-1-4120-7097-3.
- ^ "Noon Breakfast Point". BC Geographical Names.
- ISBN 0-9692828-5-0.
- ^ Kluckner, Michael. "Marpole". myZone Media Inc. Archived from the original on 2007-01-27. Retrieved 2007-01-24.
- ^ a b Sterritt, Angela (24 June 2021). "Road signs along the Sea to Sky Highway offer insight into the history of the Sḵwx̱wú7mesh people". CBC News. Canadian Broadcasting COrporation. Retrieved 25 July 2021.
- ^ McDonald, R. A. (1996). Making Vancouver: Class, status and social boundaries, 1863–1913. Vancouver, BC, Canada: UBC Press, p 7.
- ^ a b Morley, A. (1974). Vancouver: From Milltown to Metropolis. Vancouver: Mitchell Press.
- ^ Strangers Entertained, British Columbia government centennial publication, 1971
- JSTOR 140264.
- ^ Eric Nicol, Vancouver. Toronto: Doubleday, 1970.
- ^ "Port of Vancouver - Yesterday". Archived from the original on 2006-03-28. Retrieved 2006-09-29. "Port of Vancouver – Yesterday," [video] Port of Vancouver [website].
- ^ Andrew Yarmie, "The Right to Manage: Vancouver Employers’ Associations, 1900–1923," BC Studies, no. 90 (1991): 40–74.
- ^ Paul A. Phillips, No Power Greater: A Century of Labour in British Columbia. Vancouver: BC Federation of Labour/Boag Foundation, 1967.
- ^ Leah Stevens, "Rise of the Port of Vancouver," Economic Geography 12, no. 1 (January 1936): 61–70, and R. C. McCandless, "Vancouver’s ‘Red Menace’ of 1935: The Waterfront Situation," BC Studies 22 (1974): 56–70.
- ^ Warren G. Harding & Stanley Park. The History of Metropolitan Vancouver. Vancouver.ca [1] Archived 2015-09-16 at the Wayback Machine. Retrieved June 11, 2017
- ^ Patricia Roy, "Vancouver: Mecca of the Unemployed, 1907–1929," Alan F. J. Artibise, ed., Town and City: Aspects of Western Canadian Urban Development, Regina: Canadian Plains Research Center, 1981: 393–413, and Tom McEwan, The Forge Glows Red: From Blacksmith to Revolutionary. Toronto: Progress Books, 1974.
- ^ Todd McCallum, "The Great Depression’s First History? The Vancouver Archives of Major J. S. Mathews and the Writing of Hobo History," Canadian Historical Review 87, no. 1 (March 2006): 79–107.
- ^ W. Peter Ward, White Canada Forever: Popular Attitudes and Public Policy Towards Orientals in British Columbia, 3rd ed. Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queens University Press, 2002.
- ^ Patricia Roy, "The Oriental ‘Menace’ in British Columbia," J. Friesen and H. K. Ralston, eds., Historical Essays on British Columbia, Toronto: Gage, 1980: 243–255, and Ian Macdonald and Betty O’Keefe, Canadian Holy War: A Story of Clans, Tongs, Murder, and Bigotry. Vancouver: Heritage House, 2000.
- ^ Patricia E. Roy, A White Man's Province: British Columbia Politicians and Chinese and Japanese Immigrants, 1858–1914. Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 1989.
- ^ Ian Macdonald and Betty O’Keefe, Canadian Holy War: A Story of Clans, Tongs, Murder, and Bigotry. Vancouver: Heritage House, 2000.
- Komagata Maru.
- ^ Greg Marquis, “Vancouver Vice: The Police and the Negotiation of Morality, 1904–1935,” Essays in the History of Canadian Law: Volume VI British Columbia and the Yukon. Hamar Foster and John McLaren, eds. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1995: 242–273.
- ^ Excerpt from Daniel Francis's L. D. in the Vancouver Courier Archived 2007-03-11 at the Wayback Machine
- ^ Daniel Francis, L. D.: Mayor Louis Taylor and the Rise of Vancouver, Vancouver: Arsenal Pulp Press, 2004.
- ^ Kay J. Anderson, Vancouver’s Chinatown: Racial Discourse in Canada, 1875–1980. Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queens University Press, 1991.
- ^ Daphne Marlatt and Carole Itter eds., Opening Doors: Vancouver’s East End. Sound Heritage Series, vol. VIII, nos. 1–2. Victoria, BC: Aural History Project, 1979.
- ^ Eric Nicol, Vancouver. Toronto: Doubleday, 1970. On page 50 Nicol writes that "in addition to the substantial grant of land from Smithe's [provincial] government, the company secured appreciable holding from a private syndicate, including original residents Morton, Brighouse and Hailstone. Some of these owners of small lots made what they thought was a killing, till the rapid increase of land values proved the corpus delicti to be their own." On the setting aside of Stanley Park as part of real estate development in the West End, including the role of CPR Land Commissioner, L. A. Hamilton, see Robert A. J. McDonald, "'Holy Retreat' or 'Practical Breathing Spot'? Class Perceptions of Vancouver's Stanley Park, 1910–1913," Canadian Historical Review LXV, no. 2 (1984): 139–140.
- ^ Mike Steele, The Stanley Park Explorer, Vancouver: Whitecap Books, 1985, and Eric Nicol, Vancouver. Toronto: Doubleday, 1970.
- ^ Jean Barman, Stanley Park’s Secret: The Forgotten Families of Whoi Whoi, Kanaka Ranch, and Brockton Point, Vancouver: Harbour Publishing, 2005.
- ^ a b Mike Steele, The Stanley Park Explorer, Vancouver: Whitecap Books, 1985.
- ^ "University of British Columbia". The Canadian Encyclopedia. Retrieved 2015-11-26.
- ^ "The University of British Columbia". www.ubc.ca. Retrieved 2015-11-26.
- ^ Jean Barman, "Neighbourhood and Community in Interwar Vancouver," Robert A. J. McDonald and Jean Barman, eds., Vancouver’s Past: Essays in Social History. Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 1986: 97–141.
- ^ Jean Barman, "Neighbourhood and Community in Interwar Vancouver," Robert A. J. McDonald and Jean Barman, eds., Vancouver’s Past: Essays in Social History. Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 1986: 97–141.
- ^ David Ricardo Williams, Mayor Gerry: The Remarkable Gerald Gratten McGeer. Douglas and MacIntyre, 1986.
- ^ New York Times, May 14, 1968
- ^ Northumberland needs county jester to lighten up politics :: Consider This :: community voices in discourse Archived 2007-09-28 at the Wayback Machine
- ^ "History of Ultimate Frisbee and Disc Sports". Retrieved December 25, 2017.
- ^ admin. "BC Disc Sports History". Retrieved 11 November 2014.
- ^ "Expo '86". The Canadian Encyclopedia. Historica. Archived from the original on 2007-03-13. Retrieved 2007-01-17.
- ^ Katharyne Mitchell, Crossing the Neoliberal Line: Pacific Rim Migration and the Metropolis (2004)
- ^ Peter S. Li, "Vancouver Chinatown in Transition." Journal of Chinese Overseas (2011) 7#1 pp. 7-23.
Further reading
- Berelowitz, Lance. Dream city: Vancouver and the global imagination (Douglas & McIntyre, 2010).
- Bjorkman, Anne D., and Mark Vellend. "Defining historical baselines for conservation: ecological changes since European settlement on Vancouver Island, Canada." Conservation Biology 24.6 (2010): 1559-1568. online
- Clayton, Daniel. Islands of truth: The imperial fashioning of Vancouver Island (UBC Press, 1999).
- Francis, Daniel. Becoming Vancouver: A History (Harbour Publishing, 2021) online.
- Kalman, Harold, and Ron Phillips. Exploring Vancouver: The Essential Architectural Guide (UBC Press, 2011) online.
- Kenny, Nicolas. "Forgotten pasts and contested futures in Vancouver" British Journal of Canadian Studies 29.2 (2016): 175-197. excerpt
- McCallum, T. Hobohemia and the Crucifixion Machine: Rival Images of a New World in 1930s Vancouver, (AU Press, 2014)
- MacDonald, Norbert. "Seattle, Vancouver, and the Klondike." Canadian Historical Review 49.3 (1968): 234-246.
- MacDonald, Norbert. "Population Growth and Change in Seattle and Vancouver, 1880-1960." Pacific Historical Review 39.3 (1970): 297-321. online
- McDonald, Robert A.J., and Jean Barman, eds. Vancouver past: Essays in social history (UBC Press, 1986).
- Macdonald, B. Vancouver: A Visual History, (Talonbooks, 1992)
- Ross, Becki. Burlesque west: Showgirls, sex, and sin in postwar Vancouver (University of Toronto Press, 2009). online
- Thirkell, Fred, and Bob Scullion. Postcards from the Past: Edwardian Images of Greater Vancouver and the Fraser Valley (Heritage House, 1996).
- Vogel, Aynsley, and Dana Wyse. Vancouver: A History in Photographs (Heritage House, 2009) online.
Race, ethnicity and class
- Anderson, Kay J. "Cultural hegemony and the race-definition process in Chinatown, Vancouver: 1880–1980." Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 6.2 (1988): 127-149. online
- Baker, Don. "Koreans in Vancouver: a short history." Journal of the Canadian Historical Association 19.2 (2008): 155-180. online
- Creese, Gillian. "Exclusion or Solidarity? Vancouver Workers Confront the 'Oriental problem'." BC Studies: The British Columbian Quarterly 80 (1988): 24-51. online
- Kim, Jae Yeon. "Racism is not enough: Minority coalition building in San Francisco, Seattle, and Vancouver." Studies in American Political Development 34.2 (2020): 195-215. online
- McDonald, Robert AJ. Making Vancouver: Class, Status, and Social Boundaries, 1863-1913 (UBC Press, 2011).
- Madokoro, Laura. "Chinatown and monster homes: The splintered Chinese diaspora in Vancouver." Urban History Review 39.2 (2011): 17-24. online
- Mitchell, Katharyne. Crossing the Neoliberal Line: Pacific Rim Migration and the Metropolis (2004), on Chinese migration to Vancouver from Hong Kong.
- Nayar, Kamala Elizabeth. The Sikh Diaspora in Vancouver: Three Generations Amid Tradition, Modernity, and Multiculturalism (2004)
- Ng, Wing Chung. The Chinese in Vancouver, 1945-80: The pursuit of identity and power (UBC Press, 2000) online.
- Roy, Patricia E. A White Man's Province: British Columbia Politicians and Chinese and Japanese Immigrants, 1858–1914 (University of British Columbia Press, 1989).
- Stanger-Ross, Jordan. "Municipal colonialism in Vancouver: City planning and the conflict over Indian reserves, 1928–1950s." Canadian Historical Review 89.4 (2008): 541-580.
- Wood, Patricia K. Nationalism from the margins: Italians in Alberta and British Columbia (McGill-Queen's Press-MQUP, 2002) online.
- Yee, Paul. Saltwater city: An illustrated history of the Chinese in Vancouver (Douglas & McIntyre, 2006).
- Yu, Henry. "Is Vancouver the future or the past? Asian migrants and white supremacy." Pacific Historical Review 75.2 (2006): 307-312. online