Dr. Elizabeth Jameson presents fourteen public lectures that trace the evolution of a remarkable career.
Thresholds, Walls, and Bridges is a collection of essays inspired by public lectures given by historian Dr. Elizabeth Jameson during her tenure as Imperial Oil-Lincoln McKay Chair in American Studies at the University of Calgary from 1999 to 2017.
Together, these essays represent the intellectual evolution of an important and influential scholar told through engaging original research. Thresholds, Walls, and Bridges presents insightful and challenging discussions of historical questions informed by contemporary debates. Ranging from the gold camps of California to northwest Alaska, from North Dakota homesteads of the late 19th century to New Jersey cities of the 1960s, they address the boundaries that divide people and the ways that private acts in everyday lives can make meaningful change.
Dr. Jameson explores the histories of borderlands, labour, women, workers, people of colour, and the connected pasts of Canada and the United States. Rejecting approaches that write most people out of history, she makes humanity visible again and again. Thresholds, Walls, and Bridges is a record of a remarkable career.
About the Author
Elizabeth Jameson is professor emerita of History at the University of Calgary. A social historian, her scholarship has focused on the histories of women, workers, and social movements in the North American Wests. She is the author of All That Glitters: Class, Conflict and Community in Cripple Creek and Building Colorado: The United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners in the Centennial State and co-editor of The Women’s West, Writing the Range: Race, Class and Gender in the Women’s West.
Elizabeth Jameson spent her career deciphering the complexities and intersections of capitalism, race, class, gender, migration, and nation that shape the histories of the North American Wests. Part memoir as well as a compilation of her finest essays and public lectures about the region, Thresholds, Walls, and Bridges examines the borders that divide us, how systems of power exploit them, and how ordinary people challenged them.
—Laurie K. Mercier, Washington State University
This collection from one of the North American West’s most original commentors couldn’t come at a better time. Elizabeth Jameson refuses to whitewash the inequalities that continue to haunt our present on both sides of the border. But as she illuminates the historical roots of our present challenges, she also reminds us of the collective vision for a better world many of our ancestors shared. Critically, at the heart of her analysis is her signature effort to reveal the nuances of class identity and labor relations. Both longtime readers and those learning from Jameson for the first time will find new insights in the wonderful range of essays in Thresholds, Walls, and Bridges.
—Matthew Basso, University of Utah
Historian Elizabeth Jameson has been fighting truth decay for decades. Written during her years as a scholar of the U.S. working at a Canadian university, these essays are more timely than ever. They remind us that the struggle for equality, social justice, and the right to be seen and heard is deep-rooted and must be ongoing.
—Mary Murphy, professor emerita, Department of History & Philosophy, Montana State University
An eloquent and timely collection of thoughtful and deeply-researched essays drawing on decades of writing and teaching women’s and labour history in both Canada and the U.S. Combining memoir and scholarship, Dr. Jameson explains her mission to make humanity visible across borders, helping to build the bridges we need to see beyond national and social differences.
Her work has long challenged popular, mythic, masculine images of both Wests, introducing a new and expanded cast including Indigenous agriculturalists, hide tanners, women homesteaders and butter churners as well as gold and coal miners on the job and on strike. She brings to light how ordinary people made history.
A powerful final essay reflects on the challenges of the present day (from the Trump administration) to Canada-U.S. relations, the historical profession, academic freedom, education and the very existence of the border. I hope it will be read on both sides of the border, helping us to understand one another at this critical time.
—Sarah Carter, University of Alberta