The Sash Canada Wore, a Historical Geography of the Orange Order in Canada

This work explores the role of the Orange Order in the unfolding settlement geography of Canada. The social and cultural life of Canada is examined as it progressed from British colonial status to an ethnically complex and industrially advanced modern nation. Although a distinctly Irish creation, the Orange Order, early in its development, was inserted into a British North America that was being opened to British settlers. Protestant Irish soldiers and emigrants, largely Ulster-born, introduced the organization into New Brunswick, Quebec, and Ontario within the first decade of the nineteenth century. At its zenith, the movement had a membership of as many as one in three Canadians. Successive waves of Ulster emigrants extended the Orange ideals and the order's institutional superstructure to the settlement frontier. To understand cultural and political development of Canada throughout the nineteenth and early twentieth century, researchers must gain an understanding of the effect of the Orange Order. This book is your best first step in gaining that understanding.