Thanks to all attendees at our fourth Jenny Wormald lecture, delivered by Professor Karly Kehoe

Thank you to our lively and well-informed audience, both online and at John Sinclair House, for their participation in our fourth Jenny Wormald lecture. It was a particular pleasure to once again have Luke Wormald, Jenny Wormald's son, in attendance. 

Professor Karly Kehoe spoke to the title, 'From the Merchant City to McNab’s Cove: A Scottish family’s journey of reinvention in nineteenth-century Nova Scotia'.

This was a rich paper that revealed very vividly the experiences of migrants from Scotland to Cape Breton Island, and especially those of women. We heard about an illegitimate birth, the negative repercussions for indigenous peoples of the arrival of land-grabbing migrants, and how hard it was simply making a living. Karly described how the establishment of a convent in the area opened up educational opportunities for children and, she argues, offered a new degree of independence and agency for the sisters. A particularly poignant document, a poem written by one of the emigres, revealed longing for a life lost back in Scotland. What made this lecture particularly exciting was that Karly's research is based on papers recently discovered in the possession of her own family.