Department of Geography ~ McGill University ~ Sherry Olson

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Research Interests

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Professor Sherry Olson

Dept. of Geography, McGill University
Room 611, Burnside Hall
805 Sherbrooke St. W.
Montreal, QC, H3A 2K6
Tel: (514) 398-4956
Fax:(514) 398-7437

E-mail: sherry.olson@mcgill.ca

Research Interests

As a historical geographer, I work at the intersection of economy, culture and environment. Topics in environmental history are centred on issues of environmental equity and sustainability. Early projects dealt with forest history - railways as consumers and tree-planters - and more recent projects with cities: the creation of distinct environments that advantage some citizens over others, and urban demands for resources and services that now disadvantage people in other parts of the world.

The perspective of the book Baltimore, the Building of an American City, was framed by reading the newspapers for 200 years! Less familiar primary sources are the foundation for the new book on Montreal. We designed a miniaturized "model" of the urban population 1840-1900 and reconstituted families from parish records of births, deaths and marriages, to explore survival rates, fertility, and migrant behaviour. Montreal sources are exceptionally rich, and the sample, amounting to a thousand married couples, is stratified for comparison of three communities — French Canadian, Anglo-Protestant, and Irish Catholic. Nineteenth-century Montreal was a laboratory of cultural co-existence, and family ties reinforced the bonds of cultural identity. The manuscript, recently submitted to a publisher, is co-authored with Patricia Thornton, geographer at Concordia University, under the working title Peopling the North American City, Montreal 1840-1900.

An ongoing project involves a wider-ranging collaboration called MAP - Montréal l'avenir du passé. With the McGill Geography Department as host, we developed an H-GIS - an array of databases and geobases that harnesses the power of geographic information systems for historical research on Montreal. Its layers are richest for 1825, 1846, 1880, and 1901. Data are available to all scholars for exchange, enrichment, and exploration, in searchable formats. Contact either sherry.olson@mcgill.ca or robert.sweeny@mun.ca.

An emergent project is a case study of urban design of one particular axis, known as Notre Dame East, a path from the centre of the 350-year-old city, downstream along the St Lawrence River to the site of the Prison des Patriotes and the Jacques Cartier Bridge. The neighbourhood was built, destroyed, and rebuilt three times over. Collaborators on the project include Jason Gilliland (UWO), François Dufaux (U Laval), and Nik Luka (McGill).

Sherry Olson received a B.A. from Swarthmore College in History, Master's and doctorate from Johns Hopkins University in Geography. She is a member of the Centre interuniversitaire d'études québécoises (CIEQ), with its homebases at Université Laval and l'Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières. Her publications, listed below, include contributions to the historical atlas series of the CIEQ, volumes titled Population et Territoire, La Paroisse, and (forthcoming ) Le fait urbain, and L'école au Québec.

Graphic display is central to all those activities. For some findings of the demographic research with Patricia Thornton and Danielle Gauvreau, see the poster in pdf format.

For observations on residential segregation in Montreal 1881-1901, compiled with Jason Gilliland from MAP geobases, download the two brief powerpoint shows. (Powerpoint file: English and French)

Pour d'autres informations sur la construction de Map, le système d'information géographique.

Pour connaître les activités de recherche du CIEQ, ses bases de données et ses publications, consultez www.cieq.ulaval.ca. Le centre reçoit l'appui du Fond québécois de recherche sur la société et la culture (FQRSC). Les chercheurs, issus de neuf universités, se rejoignent pour étudier les changements de la société québécoise, depuis les premiers peuplements. Ils privilégient une approche scientifique pluridisciplinaire pour comprendre le changement social et culturel dans ses dimensions spatiotemporelles. L'Atlas historique du Québec est le projet intégrateur de ces recherches.

Publications

Olson, Sherry, and Patricia A. Thornton 2011. Peopling the North American City: Montreal 1840-1900. Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 524pp. Click here for flyer and discount

Olson, Sherry 2011. City streets as environmental grid: The challenge of private uses and municipal stewardsip, pp. 148-167 In Metropolitan Natures, Environmental Histories of Montreal, Stéphane Castonguay and Michèle Dagenais eds. Pittsburgh, University of Pittsburgh Press.

Gilliland, Jason, and Sherry Olson (in press 2010). Residential segregation in the industrializing city, Montréal 1880. Urban Geography 31-1.

Olson, Sherry, Kevin Henry, Michele Jomphe, Paul Brassard and Kevin Schwartzman (in press 2010) Tracking tuberculosis in the past: the use of genealogical evidence. Accessible pre-publication on-line at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jhg.2009.10.003

Poutanen, Mary Anne, Sherry Olson, Raphael Fischler, and Kevin Schwartzman, 2009. Tuberculosis in town: mobility of patients in Montreal, 1925-1950. Social History / Histoire sociale 42, no 83 (May): 69-106.

Dufaux, François, and Sherry Olson, 2009. Reconstruire Montréal, rebâtir sa fortune. Revue de Bibliothèque et Archives nationales du Québec, numéro 1, 44-57.

Carter, Andrew, Alice Zwerling, Sherry Olson, Terry-Nan Tannenbaum, and Kevin Schwartzman, 2009. Tuberculosis and the city, Health & Place 15-3 (September):807-813.

Gauvreau, Danielle, and Sherry Olson, 2009. Mobilité sociale dans une ville industrielle nord-américaine: Montréal, 1880-1900, ADH Annales de démographie historique 2008, numéro 1: 89-114.

Gauvreau, Danielle, Patricia Thornton, and Sherry Olson, 2007. The harsh welcome of an industrial city: Immigrant women in Montreal, 1880-1900. Social History - Histoire Sociale. 40, no 80 (November):345-380.

Brassard, Paul, Kevin A. Henry, Kevin Schwartzman, Michele Jomphe, and Sherry Olson, 2008. Geography and genealogy of the human host harbouring a distinctive drug resistant strain of tuberculosis, Infection, Genetics and Evolution 8: 247-257.

Olson, Sherry, 2007. Downwind, downstream, downtown: The environmental legacy in Baltimore and Montreal, Journal of Environmental History 12-4 (October), pp. 845-866, special issue on Canadian environmental history.

Olson, Sherry, 2007. Saint-Patrick et les paroissiens irlandais, pp. 289-304 in Les Sulpiciens de Montréal, Une histoire de pouvoir et de discrétion, 1657-2007, Dominique Deslandres, John A. Dickinson, and Ollivier Hubert, eds.

Haase, Ian, Sherry Olson, Marcel A. Behr, Ian Wanyeki, Louise Thibert, Allison Scott, Alice Zwerling, Nancy Ross, Paul Brassard, Dick Menzies, Kevin Schwartzman. 2007. Use of geographic and genotyping tools to characterise tuberculosis transmission in Montreal. International Journal of Tuberculosis and Lung Disease 11(6): 632-638.

Henry, Kevin, and Sherry Olson, 2006. Balises patronymniques de l'Amérique française, pp. 251-266 in Thomas Wien, Cécile Vidal and Yves Frenette, De Québec à l'Amérique française Histoire et mémoire, Presses de l'Université Laval, 403pp. (Textes choisis du deuxième colloque de la Commission franco-québécoise sur les lieux de mémoire communs)

Thornton, Patricia, and Sherry Olson, 2006. The religious claim on babies in nineteenth-century Montreal, pp. 207-237 in Religion and the Decline of Fertility in the Western World, Renzo Derosas and Frans van Poppel, eds. Dordrecht, Springer.

Wanyeki, Ian, Sherry Olson, Paul Brassard, Dick Menzies, Nancy Ross, Marcel Behr, Kevin Schwartzman, 2006. Dwellings, crowding, and tuberculosis in Montreal. Social Science & Medicine 63-2 (July): 501-511 .

Gauvreau, Danielle, Sherry Olson, and Patricia Thornton 2005. Three demographic regimes in an industrializing city. Poster, International Union for the Study of Population (Tours 1 July), published to cd-rom Proc. & web, http://artsandscience.concordia.ca/GEOG/projects/

Olson, Sherry, 2004. 'Thinking on time, toward a four-dimensional geography’, pp. 383-400 in Glimpses of a Gaian World, Essays in Honour of Peter Holland. Geoff Kearsley and Blair Fitzharris, eds. Dunedin, University of Otago School of Social Science.

Sweeny, Robert C.H., and Sherry Olson, 2003. ‘MAP: Montréal l’avenir du passé, Sharing geodatabases yesterday, today and tomorrow’, Geomatica 57-2, p.145-154

Gilliland, Jason, and Sherry Olson, 2003. ‘Montréal l’avenir du passé’, Géoinfo, Le bulletin du Plan géomatique du gouvernement du Québec, janvier-février, pp. 1-3 (www.pggq.gouv.qc.ca)

Thornton, Patricia, and Sherry Olson, 2002. ‘The Challenge of the Irish Catholic community in nineteenth-century Montreal’, Histoire sociale / Social History, 35, 70, 333-362 (published January 2004).

Olson, Sherry, 2004. ‘Ethnic partition of the work force in 1840s Montreal’, Labour / Le Travail 53 (Spring), 157-200.

Olson, Sherry, and Patricia Thornton, 2003. ‘Mobilité et structure démographique dans la région montréalaise, 1840 à 1900', pp. 341-354 in Christian Dessureault, John Dickenson et Joseph Goy (dirs.), Famille et marché XVIe-XXe siècles. Montréal, Septentrion.

Olson, Sherry, et Patricia Thornton, 2001. ‘La croissance naturelle des Montréalais au XIXe siècle’, Cahiers de démographie du Québec, 30, 2 (automne 2001), p. 191-230.

Thornton, Patricia, and Sherry Olson, 2001. ‘A deadly discrimination among Montreal infants 1860-1900', Continuity and Change 16-1: 95-135.

Olson, Sherry, 2001. ‘Ces touchants spectacles’, pp. 232-247 dans La Paroisse , Serge Courville et Normand Séguin, eds. (Sainte-Foy, Presses de l’Université Laval).

Olson, Sherry, et Jean-Claude Robert, 2001. ‘Morphologie de la paroisse urbaine’, pp. 98-105 dans La Paroisse , Serge Courville et Normand Séguin, eds. (Sainte-Foy, Presses de l’Université Laval).

Olson, Sherry, 2000. ‘Form and energy in the urban built environment’, pp. 224-243 in Canadian Cities In Transition, T. Bunting and P. Filion eds. (Oxford University Press, 2000, 2d ed.)

Olson, Sherry, 2000. ‘Feathering her nest in nineteenth-century Montreal’, Social History / Histoire sociale 33 (May), 65 :1-35.

Olson, Sherry, 1998. '”Pour se créer un avenir”, Stratégies de couples montréalais aux XIXe siècle’, Revue d'histoire de l'Amérique française 51-3 (hiver):357-389.

Gilliland, Jason, and Sherry Olson, 1998. ‘Claims on housing space in nineteenth-century Montreal’, Urban History Review 26(2):3-16.

Olson, Sherry (1997) ‘Wind and Water, 1970-1996', in expanded (2nd) edition of (own) Baltimore, Building an American City, Johns Hopkins Univ. Press, pp. 387-418.

Thornton, Patricia, and Sherry Olson, 1997. ‘Infant vulnerability in three cultural settings in Montreal 1880', pp. 216-241 in Infant and Child Mortality in the Past, A. Bideau, B. Desjardins et H. Perez-Brignoli eds. (Oxford: Clarendon Press).

Olson, Sherry, 1996. ‘Le peuplement de Montreal’, pp. 81-94 and 104-107 (plates) in Population et Territoire, series Atlas historique du Québec, dir. S. Courville, PUL.

Olson, Sherry, and Patricia Thornton, 1995. ‘Le raz de marée irlandais à Montréal’, in Y. Landry et al., Les Chemins de la migration en Belgique et au Québec XVIIe-XXe siècles. MNH, 69-80.

Olson, Sherry, 1995. ‘A profusion of light in nineteenth-century Montreal’ in S. Courville and N. Séguin, eds. Espace et Culture /Space and Culture (Sainte-Foy, Presses de l’Université Laval), 253-262.

Holland, Peter, and Sherry Olson, 1995. ‘Maintaining the rural landscape: expectations and costs of hedging’, New Zealand Geographer 51-2, 16-24.
Olson, S.H., and A.L. Kobayashi, 1993. ‘The emerging ethncultural mosaic’, in L.S. Bourne and D.F. Ley, The Changing Social Geography of Canadian Cities. Montreal, McGill-Queen’s University Press, 138-152.

Olson, Sherry, et Patricia Thornton, 1992. ‘Familles montréalaises du XIXe siècle : trois cultures, trois trajectoires’, Cahiers québécois de démographie, 21, 2 (automne) : 51-75.

Olson, Sherry, and David Hanna, 1990 and 1993. ‘Social landscape of Montreal 1901’, In Historical Atlas of Canada (Presses of University of Toronto and Université de Montréal), vol. III (1990) Plate 30, and in volume II (1993) Plate 49.

Olson, Sherry. ‘The Evolution of metropolitan form’, in Trudi Bunting and Pierre Filion eds., Canadian Cities in Transition (Toronto, Oxford University Press), 240-262.

Olson, Sherry, 1991. ‘Ethnic strategies in the urban economy’, Canadian Ethnic Studies 23-2, 39-64.

Thornton, Patricia A., and Sherry Olson, 1991. ‘Family contexts of fertility and infant survival in nineteenth-century Montreal’, Journal of Family History, 16, 4 : 401-417.

Olson, Sherry, 1989. ‘Occupations and residential spaces in nineteenth-century Montreal’, Historical Methods 22-3 (Summer), 81-96.

Olson, S., P. Thornton, and Quoc Thuy Thach, 1989. ‘Dimensions sociales de la mortalité infantile à Montréal au milieu du XIXe siècle’, Annales de Démographie historique 1988, pp. 299-325.

Olson, Sherry, 1989. ‘Paternalism and urban reform: an introduction’, Urban History Review 17-3 (February), 143-147 (ed. Special issue).

Holland, Peter, and Sherry Olson, 1989. ‘Introduced versus native plants in austral forests’, Progress in Physical Geography, 13-2: 260-293.

Holland, P.G., and S.H. Olson, 1989. ‘Provenances of naturalised plants in Australasia’, Australian Geographer 20-2: 136-143.

Holland, Peter, and Sherry Olson, 1989. ‘Ecosystems in transition: the experience of Australia and New Zealand’, New Zealand Journal of Geography 87 (April): 2-7. (Available at www.learner.org/channel/courses/ worldhistory/support/reading_24_2.pdf)

Olson, Sherry, 1988. ‘Environments as shock absorbers, examples from Madagascar’, Environmental Review 12-4 (Winter), 61-80.

Olson, Sherry, 1987. ‘Red destinies: the landscape of environmental risk in Madagascar’, Human Ecology 15-1, 67-89.
Olson, Sherry, and Paul Gauthier, 1984. ‘Qui est membre d’une coopérative d’habitation?’ Service social 33-1, 37-56.

Olson, Sherry, and Michael Taylor, 1984. ‘Les coopératives face aux fluctuations du marché de l’habitation’, Actualité immobilière 8-1 (printemps), 11-22.

Olson, Sherry, 1984. ‘The robe of the ancestors: Forests in the history of Madagascar’, Journal of Forest History 28-4 (October), 174-186.

Hanna, David, and Sherry Olson, 1983. ‘Métiers, loyers et bouts de rues: l’armature de la société montréalaise, 1881 à 1901', Cahiers de Géographie du Québec 27-71, 255-275.

Olson, Sherry, 1982. ‘Urban metabolism and morphogenesis’, Urban Geography 3-2 (April-June), 87-109.

Olson, Sherry, 1980. Baltimore, Building an American City (Johns Hopkins University Press, 400pp.

Olson, Sherry H., 1979. ‘An ecology of workplace hazards’, Economic Geography 55-4 (October), 287-308.

Olson, Sherry H., 1979. ‘Baltimore imitates the spider’, Annals of the Assoc. of American Geographers 69-4 (December), 557-574.

Olson, Sherry, 1977. ‘The Mirage of long-range planning’, in Forestry and Long-Range Planning, F.J. Convery and C.W. Ralston, eds. Duke Univ. School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, 31-44.

Olson, Sherry, 1976. Baltimore. (Ballinger Press, 112pp.) Series Comparative Metropolitan Analysis Project of Assoc. of Amer. Geographers and National Science Foundation.

Olson, Sherry H., Geoffrey N. Berlin, and L. Stephen Guiland, 1973. ‘Computer modeling in a course on urban decision-making’, Simulation & Games 4-4 (December), 440-453.

Olson, Sherry, 1971. The Depletion Myth, A History of Railroad Use of Timber (Cambridge, Harvard University Press, 228pp.)

Olson, Sherry, 1966. ‘Some conceptual problems of interpreting the value of water in humid regions, Water Resources Research 2-1 (First Quarter), 1-11.

Hessler, Sherry O., 1962. ‘The great disturbing cause and the decline of the Queen City’, Bulletin Historical & Philosophical Society of Ohio (July), 169-185.

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Contact Information

Department of Geography

McGill University

805 Sherbrooke Street West

Montreal, Quebec, Canada H3A 2K6

phone: (514) 398-4111 fax: (514) 398-7437

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Last updated 01/21/2010