Matthew S. Wiseman

University of Waterloo | UWaterloo · Department of History

Between 1947 and 1954, medical scientists in Canada received support from federal and independent agencies to conduct a series of comparative biochemical studies on Inuit and white “test subjects.” Originally conceived from a racialized intrigue in defining the vascular characteristics of cold tolerance, the Canadian defence establishment absorbed...

This article examines the militarization of academic science in Canada during the Cold War period between 1947 and 1960. As evidenced by the extramural program of the Defence Research Board (DRB), the scientific research branch of the Canadian armed services, funding for defence attracted faculty and graduate students to the world of military resea...

In the process of creating the policies and structures that led to the formal organization of Canada’s Defence Research Board after the end of the Second World War, senior military and defence officials in Ottawa conceptualized and established a scientific intelligence bureau within the defence department. Recognizing the heightened military signif...

Canada is often seen as a peaceful country with a modest military and a small defence industrial base, but its military-industrial complex is deeply embedded in the fabric of the country. Silent Partners reveals its origins and influence. During the Cold War, Canada’s military, industrial, and political partnerships developed in silent ways, behin...

This article examines the history of synchronized swimming in Ontario, with a specific focus on Peterborough, between the 1920s and the 1950s. Two factors explain the rise and consolidation of “synchro” as a women’s sport in the period. The first factor relates to earlier changes in women’s sport in the interwar period, alongside the rise of modern...

Between 1948 and 1954, the National Film Board of Canada (NFB) produced two films depicting Canadian military personnel training for cold-weather warfare in the sub-Arctic region of Hudson Bay near Churchill, Manitoba. This chapter provides a comparative analysis of each film, examining the social consequences of military-funded research for Indige...

Between 1947 and 1953, leading scientists at Canada’s Defence Research Board (DRB) administered physiological and psychological experiments on soldiers conducting indoctrination training for Arctic warfare. Designed in an attempt to determine the ideal characteristics of cold-weather soldiery, one experiment resulted in physical and mental injury t...

Contesting Bodies and Nation in Canadian History aims, as pointedly noted by editors Patrizia Gentile and Jane Nicholas, “to position the contested body as another category of analysis towards understanding both Canadian history and the nation” (pp. 3). Within this volume is an assortment of essays from well-established and emerging scholars that a...