Acadiensis, 1901 and 1999

© Canadian Review of American Studies/Revue canadienne d’études américaines 30, no. 3, 2000 Acadiensis, 1901 and 1999 David Frank “The name is short, concise, significant and phonetic” (Jack, “Salutatory” 3). With these words—though some of us think the last word should have read “prophetic ”—an ambitious amateur historian by the name of David Russell Jack (1864–1913) launched the original Acadiensis in Saint John, New Brunswick, in January 1901. The name was an invented one, derived from the historical and scientific name for the territory of “Acadia”—a geographic region including the present -day Maritime Provinces and adjacent areas to the north around the Gulf of St. Lawrence and to the south in northern New England. The name appears to owe something to a cultural convergence between Verrazzano’s idyllic land of “Arcadia” and the Mi’kmaq term “quoddy,” signifying land or territory. By the early eighteenth century the predominantly Frenchspeaking population referred to themselves as “le peuple acadien,” and the story of the dispersal and reconstruction of their society is one of the epics of regional history; by the 1880s they had established institutions and traditions that would guarantee their survival into the twentieth century. In addition, the Acadian identity was being popularized by a New England poet named Longfellow, although his principal theme was not so much the survival of the Acadians as the fidelity of womankind. Meanwhile, the term “Acadia” was also receiving scientific approval as a convenient description of a geographic region; the best example, perhaps, is the classic Victorian scientific text Acadian Geology by J.W. Dawson, the Nova Scotian who was the principal builder of McGill University in this era and arguably the most important Canadian scientist of the nineteenth century. It is clear that, in 1901, the founders of Acadiensis were not thinking of “le peuple acadien” but of “Acadia” when they explained the meaning of the name: Acadia is a title now recognized by the scientific world as applying to the territory embraced within the areas of the Maritime Provinces, including a small portion of the Province of Quebec and the State of Maine, immediately adjacent. This is precisely the ground we wish to cover. (Jack, “Salutatory” 4–5) Jack himself was a member of a vigorous group of local citizens in Saint John, mainly businessmen and professionals of Loyalist origins, with an interest in the Canadian Review of American Studies 30 (2000) 366 preservation of heritage and promotion of progress in their community. As a youth Jack had won a prize awarded by the Mechanics’ Institute for an essay on the city’s centennial; he became an active member of the New Brunswick Historical Society and maintained a lifelong interest in local history. In business life Jack was vice-consul for Spain and an agent for the North British and Mercantile Insurance Company. He was also a prominent civic booster—a member of common council, an advocate of electric street lighting, a promoter of tourism and motion pictures. Characteristically for the times, he was also at once a supporter of British imperialism, Canadian nationalism—and regional identity. 1 Indeed, Jack and his colleagues shared in some of the growing malaise about the place of the Maritime Provinces within the expanding Canadian Confederation , and there was an idealistic agenda behind the magazine’s definition of territory. As Jack explained in the first issue of Acadiensis, he hoped to see a “closer amalgamation of the people of Acadia” in the form of a “united Acadia,” “one great Province” able to hold its own in the country and in the eyes of the world (“Salutatory” 5–6). As Phillip Buckner has noted, “Acadiensis was to create the sense of regional awareness upon which this union would be built” (7). This ambition turned out to be less prophetic than expected in 1901, but the existence of a regional identity cannot be denied, and discussions of Maritime Union have remained a staple theme in regional politics for much of the twentieth century.2 The original Acadiensis was a general interest quarterly magazine, handsomely produced and focusing on a wide range of historical, literary, artistic, and cultural themes. Much of it was biographical, descriptive...