Great Plains Studies, Center for

 

Date of this Version

Spring 2010

Citation

Great Plains Quarterly 30:3 (Spring 2010).

Comments

Copyright © 2010 Center for Great Plains Studies, University of Nebraska.

Abstract

In The American West Transformed: The Impact of the Second World War, noted historian Gerald D. Nash argued that the war, more than any other event in the West's history, completely altered that region.1 There is as yet no equivalent of Nash's fine study for the Great Plains north of the forty-ninth parallel, or what Canadians call the "prairies."2 This gap notwithstanding, historians of western Canada have begun to explore at least one key aspect of Nash's research: the war's impact on cities. Since 1995 there have been three histories of urban centers in wartime: Red Deer (Alberta), Lethbridge (Alberta), and Regina (Saskatchewan).3 However, these previous studies pay insufficient attention to the impact of "patriotism," a curious omission given how frequently both government officials and ordinary citizens used their love of country as a rallying cry. In this article I focus on Saskatoon, whose 43,027 inhabitants made it Saskatchewan's second-largest city, and examine the way in which patriotism was nourished in the collective mind by several war-related events in the city.4 Through what may be called the patriotic imagination, the war was made intense and immediate to prairie dwellers far removed from its conflict zones.5

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