Little Wanderers: a literary history of the British Home Children in Canada
Channel: Queen's University Library
Date: 2022-01-31

A talk by Dr. S. Brooke Cameron (Associate Professor) and Alicia Alves (PhD Candidate), from the Department of English, Queen’s University, Kingston, Ontario. Between 1869 and 1948 as many as 118,000 children came to Canada under a British program of child migration. Many of these “Home Children” journeyed to Canada from the UK in search of a better life, far from poverty and discrimination in the old world. But why was migration viewed as a reasonable solution to urban poverty in the first place, and why was Canada the selected destination for these displaced youth? This talk accompanies the exhibition, “Little Wanderers,” at W.D. Jordan Rare Books and Special Collections, Queen’s University Library, on view from December 3, 2021 to March 4, 2022.  The talk is introduced by Dr. Brendan Edwards (Curator, Rare Books and Special Collections). The exhibition can be viewed virtually at https://clc.omeka.net/exhibits/show/little-wanderers