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Canadian Committee on Migration, Ethnicity and Transnationalism Article Prize
Lisa Chilton, “Sex Scandals and Papist Plots: The Mid-Nineteenth-Century World of an Irish Nurse in Quebec”. Journal of Women’s History 27(3), September 2015.
Taking the perspective that gossip and public scandal open a window into “social politics” of mid-nineteenth century Quebec, Chilton deftly traces the religious, class, national, and gendered tensions of empire through the life and career of nurse Jane Hamilton, an Irish immigrant to Canada in 1849 whose brief career at the Quebec Marine and Emigrant Hospital was marred by “petty rivalries”. Chilton reveals the multiple influences of transnational forces within a specific workplace, providing a nuanced account of the connection between international contexts and individual lives. The grounding of this analysis in rich archival sources gives the article vivid and compelling detail that make it ideal for teaching the history of migration, ethnicity, and transnationalism.