Nov 20, 2024 Mount Elgin Residential School

Book launch – meet the author.

7:00 p.m. – 9:00 p.m.  Hybrid: zoom or attend The Archives, 178 McKellar St, Glencoe, ON N0L 1M0

Zoom Event.  Link to be created. 

We are thrilled to host Mary Jane Logan McCallum, author of Nii NDahlohke – ‘I Work” and  editor of Brown Tom’s Schooldays by Enos T. Montour.  Mary Jane, a history professor at University of Windsor, is coming home to Ontario to promote these two books.

Enos Montour’s Brown Tom’s Schooldays, self-published in 1985, tells the story of a young boy’s life at residential school.  Drawn from Montour’s first-hand experiences of Mount Elgin Indian Residential School between 1910 and 1915, the book is an ironic play on ‘the school novel,” namely 1857’s Tom Brown Schooldays by Thomas Hughes.

Hot off the press, Brown Tom’s Schooldays is an accomplished literary text and uncommon chronicle of federal Indian schooling in the early twentieth century.  The story positions Brown Tom and his schoolmates as citizens of three worlds: the reserve, the “white man’s world,” and the school in between.  It follows Tom leaving his family home, making friends, witnessing sickness and death, and enduring constant hunger.  

Her other recent book  Nii NDahlohke – ‘I Work” , tells the story of student life at Mount Elgin Industrial School between  1890 and 1915. 

Mary Jane has a local family connection to Norma LOGAN Richter from Middlesex – cousin to Meg Tucker, Rita Hart, Frank Richter, Paul, Debbie, and Pam.  Meg Tucker recently spoke to us about their great Uncle Arnold Logan who lost his life in the Great War. 

From Mary Jane: “I research modern Indigenous histories, particularly in southern Manitoba and Ontario, focusing on the areas of education, health, and labour.  I also teach, supervise, and mentor post-secondary students who study in these fields. I am a founding member of the Native American and Indigenous Studies Association and Shekon Neechie, a website that promotes Indigenous history by Indigenous people. My most recent book deals with student labour at Mount Elgin Residential School. I’m currently working on several projects including”:

• Indigenous Histories of Tuberculosis In Manitoba, 1930-1970. Project website: https://indigenoustbhistory.ca
• Reprint of Enos Montour’s Brown Tom’s School Days (1985), a student memoir of Mount Elgin Industrial School
• Case studies on Indigenization, Equity and History Departments in Canadian Universities
• Wahbunahkee: Chief Scobie Logan and Local, National and International Expressions of Lunaape Rights and Responsibilities, 1860-1930
• The Indigenous Course Requirement Collection, an archive of the ICR at the University of Winnipeg Archives