Oscar Douglas Skelton

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Skelton around 1925–35

Oscar Douglas Skelton (born July 13, 1878 in Orangeville , Ontario , † January 28, 1941 ) was a Canadian historian at Queen's University in Kingston, Canada (more precisely John A. Macdonald Professor of Political Science and Economics ) from 1909 to 1925. Ab In 1911 he became involved in the Liberal Party , was close to Wilfrid Laurier and from 1921 advised William Lyon Mackenzie King on foreign policy issues, as did his successor Louis Saint-Laurent . Skelton is considered to be the founder of the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade , which was previously only responsible for External Affairs . He also worked as a journalist and book author, which in turn influenced the country's economic and foreign policy.

life and work

Skelton was born into an Anglo-Irish family in the small town of Orangeville north of Toronto . In Kingston he first studied classical philology , although the classics in Canada do not quite match the analogue subject in Germany. From there he went to Chicago , but was so dissatisfied with his studies there that he returned to Kingston and studied political economy with Adam Shortt .

After studying at the University of Chicago , which he completed in 1908 with a PhD in Political Economy, a thesis that dealt with Marxism , Skelton returned to Queen's University . There he was appointed John A. Macdonald Professor of Political Science and Economics in 1909 , a position he held until 1925. In 1919 he became dean of arts.

Skelton participated on the side of the Liberals in the general election of 1911 and was close to Prime Minister Wilfrid Laurier. When Mackenzie King won the election in 1921, he became its advisor on foreign policy issues. In 1925 he became undersecretary of state for external affairs , which could be translated as Foreign Policy Undersecretary, a position he held until his death in 1941. In it he also served the conservative Richard Bedford Bennett from 1930 to 1935. He was active in all areas of domestic and foreign policy and is considered one of the driving forces behind the development of the Canadian welfare state.

After Adam Shortt established economic history in Canada at the end of the 19th century, Skelton is regarded as a mediator between him and Harold Innis . After completing his studies, he turned away from political economy and its models and turned to historical analysis. He had studied in Chicago with Laurence Laughlin , the founder of the Journal of Political Economy , and prepared his thesis from 1905. But in 1908 at the latest he regretted not having received his doctorate from Robert Hoxie, an ergonomist. When his dissertation was published, it was praised by Lenin and the British GDH Cole , among others . At that time he had already outgrown Shortt, who came from the field of philosophy , especially when he published his Economic History of Canada from Confederation in 1867 to 1912 in 1911 . Skelton was the first to analyze how markets were organized and economic spaces shaped by the private and public sectors. He recognized how these structures and their changes were closely linked to foreign policy and economic factors over which the country had little control, because these were more controlled in Washington and London.

Skelton saw the heyday of British-Canadian relations in the economically free trade years from 1854 to 1866. After that, there was increasing mutual protectionism , which culminated in 1879 with John Macdonald's foreign trade tariffs. This isolation from Great Britain was followed by stagnation in the 1880s, which was followed by significant emigration to the USA, especially in the years 1893 to 1896. Only the railroad connections held the strongly regionalized, either Europe or the USA-oriented economy of the country together. In doing so, he turned against Goldwin Smith's view that only massive anti-Americanism would hold Canada together. Even if the construction of the Canadian Pacific Railway, completed in 1886, encouraged massive corruption, it was in Skelton's opinion that it was this construction that held the former British colony together. He agreed with Innis, who planned in 1916 to do his doctorate on this railroad construction at Chicago University. Skelton saw Canada between the world powers Great Britain and the USA, and it was precisely this intermediate position that determined its existence.

Works (selection)

  • Socialism: A Critical Analysis , Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1919; London: Constable & Co., 1911.
  • Life and Times of Sir Alexander Tilloch Galt (1920)
  • Life and Letters of Sir Wilfrid Laurier (2 vols., 1921)
  • Our Generation, Its Gains and Losses (1938)

literature

  • Terry Crowley: Marriage of Minds: Isabel and Oscar Skelton Reinventing Canada . Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2003.

Web links

Remarks

  1. ^ Oscar D. Skelton: The Railway Builders. A Chronicle of Overland Highways (Gutenberg project).
personal data
SURNAME Skelton, Oscar Douglas
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Canadian historian at Queen's University in Kingston, politician
DATE OF BIRTH July 13, 1878
PLACE OF BIRTH Orangeville, Ontario
DATE OF DEATH January 28, 1941