Cape Breton University’s Department of History, along with the James Bryson McLachlan Commemorative Society is once again bringing our community’s rich history into focus with the 13th Annual J.B. McLachlan Memorial Lecture on Friday, October 28 at 1:30 pm in the Sydney Credit Union Room. Dr. Steven High, a Canada Research Chair in Public History, from Concordia University will present Brownfield Public History: Remembering and Forgetting in the Aftermath of Deindustrialization.
“Dr. High will present an engaging lecture that has close ties to developments in Cape Breton,” says Dr. Don MacGillivray, CBU Department of History. “The term ‘brownfield’ originated in North American business circles to differentiate the redevelopment of former industrial lands from the first-time development of so-called ‘Greenfield’ sites. I encourage everyone to come and take in this important lecture.”
Dr. Steven High is also the author of Industrial Sunset: The Making of North America’s Rust Belt and co-author of Corporate Wasteland: The Landscape and Memory of Deindustrialization.
The J.B. McLachlan Memorial Lecture series is in memory of one of Cape Breton’s finest labour leaders, Jim McLachlan. He arrived in Cape Breton from Scotland in 1902 to work in the expanding coal industry. In 1909 he was elected Secretary-Treasurer of District 26, United Mineworkers of America and was blacklisted. An exceptional organizer and a dedicated radical, he continued his role as a powerful and critical voice in Cape Breton, and Canada until he died in 1937.
For more information on the J.B. McLachlan Lecture series please contact Don MacGillivray, Cape Breton University at 563-1269 or Don_MacGillivray@cbu.ca or Terry McVarish at 842-4950.
