I graduated with my Master’s degree in History from Eastern Washington University in 2022 and had the privilege of completing my Bachelor’s degree (also in History) at Western Washington University in 2014. My primary research interest is the history of transportation in Canada, and that frequently correlates with labor history, political developments in the Canadian West, and Canada – U.S. relations in the Pacific Northwest.
My Master’s thesis, All the Princesses’ Men, brings forward the story of working for the British Columbia Coast Steamship Service (BCCS) from 1901-1928. BCCS was a division of Canadian Pacific Railway and provided ferry and freight services throughout the Salish Sea and Inside Passage to Alaska. The existing histories of the service, while excellent in their attention to the corporate and aesthetic stories of the company, largely neglected the people who made the ships run. My thesis shifts historical attention back to people, since it is people who are the basis of History.
My capstone paper for my undergraduate studies at Western, “An Honest Government with Nothing to Hide,” studies the moment when the Social Credit League stood at the precipice of losing power in Alberta. Ill-timed scandals and a miscalculated snap election resulted in Social Credit being brought to its lowest share of power at any point in its tenure before its ultimate fall. This moment first caught my interest as a blip on a chart, an unexplained and anomalous dip in support for a party that seemed invincible. I tend to believe that political histories open revealing doors into social and economic questions, and this proved no exception. Urban and rural voters displayed different patterns and letters to the editor displayed a mistrust of the economic motives.
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Contact
Contact me any time at neil@neilchristenson.net
