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This paper explores whether there has been a recent decline in helping behavior in the United States. In a lost letter experiment, 7,466 letters were 'lost' in 63 urban areas in the United States and Canada in 2001 and 2011. There has been a 10 percent decline in helping behavior in the United States, but not in Canada. Two arguments anticipate change in the level of help provided to strangers: the rise of new technologies, and neighborhood racial and ethnic diversity. Findings exclude increased privatism as a source for the decline in helping. In 2001 there was no variation in altruistic behavior based on neighborhood diversity. However, areas of the United States where the proportion of noncitizens increased since 2001 experienced reduced helping; the opposite was found in Canada. Possible explanations include changing attitudes toward noncitizens, and differences in public policy related to economic inequality, social inclusion, and the acceptance of multiculturalism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Histories of public health reform in Canada rarely mention New Brunswick, even though its innovative Department of Health, established in 1918, was the first full ministry of health in Canada. This paper traces the institutionalization of this public health reform by a small group of New Brunswick physicians, united by their immersion in American medical training and innovative public health ideologies. It reframes explanations of the rise of public health reform in Canada by widening an explanatory lens to encompass the exclusive influence of American models of disease and public health. It also breaks a negative regional stereotype of New Brunswick by highlighting the potential for reform and innovation in small and ostensibly less modern regions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Robert William Boyle was one of the pioneers in the development and application of ultrasound. His remarkable career has not been previously traced in any depth, nor have his contributions, especially those during WWI, been carefully described. In collaboration with Lord Rutherford, his work on the development of ultrasound methods for submarine detection paralleled those in France under Paul Langevin (1872–1946), who many consider to be the father of modern ultrasound. This biographic account of Boyle’s life focuses on his ultrasound research contributions, particularly the developments during WWI and those in the 10 years after. Evidence is presented that his pioneering research, along with that of Langevin, provided much of the foundation for modern ultrasound developments. Although this paper is partially based on somewhat dispersed biographic information performed by others, original letters and research papers, in addition to records and verbal accounts provided by relatives, have been used and consulted. (E-mail: cobbold@ecf.utoronto.ca) [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

The Coptic Church has a very unique historical trajectory that includes an early separation from the Greco-Roman Byzantine Christian world in the fifth century followed by a legacy of subordination in Egypt after the Arab Conquest. This paper looks at how the Coptic Church narrates this history particularly as it transcends the national boundaries of Egypt to serve migrant Copts in Western societies. The historical narrative of the Coptic Church celebrates its contributions to early Christianity; defends its stance in the Chalcedon Council in 451 CE; and celebrates a legacy of triumph and survival after the Arab conquest. Building on theories on collective memory, this paper shows how the present and the past shape one another in a very complex way. The paper is based on interviews with both lay and clerical members of Coptic immigrant communities in Canada and the United States and on textual analysis of books, bulletins and websites launched on and by the Church. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For many Japanese people, the 49th parallel was only a line on a map, yet there were differences for the Japanese residents in the United States and Canada. The two nations had different concepts of citizenship and constitutions but, in what has been called “hemispheric orientalism,” prejudice knew no border. Both countries severely restricted immigration from Japan. In the United States, immigrants, the Issei, were aliens ineligible for citizenship. Thus, states could deny their access to commercial fishing and the right to own or lease land. Because the American constitution bestows full citizenship on the native-born, their American-born children, the Nisei, could vote and acquire land, but experienced discrimination especially in employment. On paper, the Canadian Issei had more civil rights since they could become naturalized but this provided few advantages apart from the rights to own land and to fish commercially. The Canadian Nisei had no more rights than their parents. In British Columbia, where 95 percent of the Japanese lived, they could not vote and provincial laws and customs denied their access to many occupations. During the Second World War, both nations required all the Nikkei to leave the Pacific Coast, incarcerated some, severely restricted the mobility of others, and proposed to “repatriate” many of them to Japan. Drawing mainly on the previous scholarship which has examined specific themes, time periods, or comparisons, this article offers an overview of how between the 1890s and the 1940s the effects of prejudice varied more in detail and timing than in principle even though formal consultation between the two nations was sporadic. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In 1861, in his Montreal studio, the Canadian photographer William Notman (1826–1891) took acarte-de-visiteportrait of the fugitive African-American John Anderson, who had fled to Canada to escape slavery in the US. Subsequently, examples of this portrait had been sold at abolitionist events. This essay explores visual strategies underlying the production of this image, at a time when Anderson had become the focus of a transatlantic extradition case that received extensive international media attention. The paper argues that thecarte-de-visitefunctioned strategically to situate Anderson among free subjects by using a visual language of composure and stability, while relying also on a certain societal distance between Anderson and his many advocates. It shows too how Anderson, when posing for thecarte-de-visite, negotiated the tensions between ‘objecthood’ and ‘subjecthood’ within a transatlantic context. Finally, it compares Notman'scarte-de-visitewith other examples of antislavery visual culture, such as the Wedgwood slave medallion, a daguerreotype abolitionist button and other depictions of Anderson. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper builds on the growing body of literature on the British World, which has shown that people in the dominions had a strong British identity and their claims to Britishness were recognised by people in the British Isles. It attempts to gauge the extent to which this British World identity influenced the global allocation of British capital. Much of the existing literature on British investment in the dominions dismisses the possibility that the pattern in Britain's capital exports was significantly affected by imperial patriotism. This article will suggest that imperial sentiment did indeed influence the destination of British capital exports. Imperialist sentiment influenced the legal and political institutions of the dominions in ways that encouraged British investment. Moreover, imperial ideology may have influenced investors' decisions in ways that the existing historiography does not adequately explore: at least some British investors may have been willing to accept a lower anticipated rate of return because they valued the psychological satisfaction of investing in territories that happened to be part of the British Empire. This article compares the experience of British investment in the United States, which has an ambiguous relationship with the British World, with that of investment in Canada with a view to understanding the impact of the British World identity on investment patterns. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

After much fiery debate at the Constitutional Convention in 1787, delegates agreed to allow slavery, to continue exist on American soil. Embedded in this agreement, was a slave fugitive law, which stated that runaway slaves musts be lawfully returned to their rightful owners. It was this component of the U.S. Constitution, which laid the foundation for the Slave Fugitive Acts of 1793 and 1850. Each of these acts made the U.S. a vast hunting ground for bounty hunters and ordinary, White citizens. Consequently, Canada became the most secure safe-haven for slave fugitives in North America. Seen as the "Promised Land" in the slave imagination, Canada, in many ways, lived up to being an egalitarian utopia for slave fugitives. In Canada, slavery was denounced in 1793 and was formally abolished in 1834. The Underground Railroad, a clandestine system of trails and safe houses, enabled an estimated 100,000 slaves from 1810-1850 to escape the South to the slave-free northern states and Canada. Many among the northern U.S. population were averse to assisting escaped slaves because of the harsh consequences outlined in the slave fugitive laws. Consequently, Canada became the ultimate destination for runaways and those guiding the Underground Railroad. This paper will examine the impetus for slave fugitives to migrate to Canada. Canada as the Promised Land in the slave imagination, the anti-slavery spirit and early Black settlements in Canada, and the perceptions versus realities of Canada being an egalitarian utopia for slave fugitives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]