Dictionary of Canadian Biography main subject Canadians
Establishment of the project
The project was undertaken following a bequest to the University of Toronto from businessman, James Nicholson for the establishment of a Canadian version of the United Kingdom's Dictionary of National Biography.In the spring of 1959, George Williams Brown was appointed general editor and the University of Toronto Press, which had been named publisher, sent out some 10,000 announcements introducing the project. Work started in July of that year. 1 July was designated the formal date of the Dictionary's establishment, not coincidentally the same day Canada's confederation is celebrated.New ground was broken when on 9 March 1961, the French edition of the dictionary was established. No similar research or publication project of this size in English and French had ever been undertaken before in Canada. Marcel Trudel was appointed directeur adjoint for Dictionnaire biographique du Canada, Université Laval the publisher.It had been decided from the start that for the project to have true resonance for Canadians, the French and English editions of the Dictionary would be identical in content, save for language, and each volume of the Dictionary would be issued simultaneously. The project by its nature required not only much translation, as articles would originate in English and in French, but close coordination as well.