Char Smith

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Char Smith is a research consultant in Calgary, Alberta. She received a BA in English Literature from Okanagan University-UBC, a MA in Canadian Legal History, and completed coursework towards a PhD-History at the University of Calgary. She has extensive experience working on Aboriginal claims and oil and gas litigation in western Canada

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Books by Char Smith

Unsettled Pasts: Reconceiving the West Through Women’s History

The traditional mythology of the West is dominated by male images: the fur trader, the Mountie, t... more The traditional mythology of the West is dominated by male images: the fur trader, the Mountie, the missionary, the miner, the cowboy, the politician, the Chief. This collection aims to re-examine the West through women’s eyes. It draws together contributions from researchers, scholars, and academic and community activists, and seeks to create dialogue across geographic, cultural, and disciplinary boundaries. Ranging from scholarly essays to poetry, these pieces offer the reader a sample of some of today’s most innovative approaches to western Canadian women’s history; several of the themes that run throughout the volume have only recently been critically addressed. By rewriting the West from the perspective of women, the contributors complicate traditional narratives of the region’s past by contesting historical generalizations, thus transcending the myths and “frontier” legacies that emerged out of imperial and masculine priorities and perspectives.

Papers by Char Smith

Customary Marriage Law in British Columbia, 1880-1920: Making and Breaking the Mold

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"'Crossing the Line' American Prostitutes in Western Canada 1895-1925" in One Step over the Line: Toward a History of Women in the Northern American Wests, Elizabeth Jameson and Sheila McManus, Eds., Edmonton: The University of Alberta Press, 2008

Abstract for One Step over the Line: Toward a History of Women in the Northern American Wests, El... more Abstract for One Step over the Line: Toward a History of Women in the Northern American Wests, Elizabeth Jameson and Sheila McManus, Eds., Edmonton: The University of Alberta Press, 2008

This eclectic and carefully organized range of essays—from women’s history and settler societies to colonialism and borderlands studies—is the first collection of comparative and transnational work on women in the Canadian and U.S. Wests. It explores, expands, and advances the aspects of women's history that cross national borders. Out of the talks presented at the 2002 “Unsettled Pasts: Reconceiving the West through Women’s History,” Elizabeth Jameson and Sheila McManus have edited a foundational text with a wide, inclusive perspective on our western past.

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“Boomtown Brothels in the Kootenays, 1895-1905” in People & Place: Historical Influences on Legal Culture, Edited by Constance Backhouse and Jonathan Swainger (Vancouver: UBC Press, 2003)

People and Place presents a path-breaking collection of essays demonstrating the fascinating ways... more People and Place presents a path-breaking collection of essays demonstrating the fascinating ways in which personalities interact with physical locale in shaping the law. Examining law through the framework of history, this anthology presents a mixture of innovative articles produced by established scholars as well as representatives of the next generation. The collection represents a rich array of interdisciplinary expertise, with authors who are law professors, historians, sociologists and criminologists. Their essays include studies into the lives of judges and lawyers, rape victims, prostitutes, religious sect leaders, and common criminals. The geographic scope touches Canada, the United States and Australia. The essays explore how one individual, or small self-identified groups, were able to make a difference in how law was understood, applied, and interpreted. They also probe the degree to which locale and location influenced legal culture history. The essays offer snapshots of human history, capturing the centrality of law as individuals located themselves in relation to others and to the places and times in which they lived. Accessible to academics, students, and general readers interested in the formation of law within a social context, this collection offers a compelling perspective of this subtle relationship. The close examination of people and place will allow readers to unpack law’s various meanings across communities and time, and to move closer to a more profound awareness of the complexity of human society.