Margaret Connell Szasz

Margaret Connell Szasz was a Canadian-born historian and ethnohistorian noted for her studies of Indigenous peoples, particularly in North America. She combined archival research with oral history and interdisciplinary methods to examine colonial encounters, cultural transmission, and linguistic change. Her career spanned appointments at major universities and fostered collaborations with scholars, museums, and Indigenous communities.

Early life and education

Born in Toronto in 1928, she completed undergraduate studies at the University of Toronto where she encountered scholars influenced by the historiography of Frederick Jackson Turner and the archival methods associated with the Bureau of American Ethnology. She pursued graduate study at Harvard University, working with mentors connected to the disciplines represented by the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology and émigré historians influenced by the intellectual circles of Cambridge University and the University of Chicago. During doctoral research she conducted fieldwork among communities whose histories intersected with the narratives preserved in collections at the Smithsonian Institution and the Library of Congress.

Academic career and research

Szasz held faculty positions at institutions including the University of Manitoba and later at the University of New Mexico, linking her work to the networks of scholars at the American Historical Association and the Native American and Indigenous Studies Association. Her research drew on archival materials from the Hudson's Bay Company records, mission archives such as those of the Roman Catholic Church and the United Church of Canada, and oral histories connected to tribes documented by the Bureau of Indian Affairs. She engaged methodological debates alongside figures associated with the Annales School, the Oral History Association, and historians working on settler colonial studies like those at the Social Science Research Council. Her publications addressed interactions involving companies such as the North West Company and events tied to the expansion of Canadian Pacific Railway lines, while also examining legal frameworks like cases heard at the Supreme Court of Canada and policies shaped by the Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development.

Major works and publications

Her monographs and edited volumes appeared with academic presses that also published work by historians tied to the University of British Columbia Press, the University of Toronto Press, and the Oxford University Press. Signature works treated communities whose histories intersect with figures like Samuel Hearne and Captain James Cook, and themes related to missionary registers comparable to those in the archives of the London Missionary Society. She contributed chapters to edited collections alongside scholars from the American Ethnological Society and the Royal Society of Canada, and published articles in journals associated with the Canadian Journal of Native Studies and the Ethnohistory journal. Her books are cited in scholarship on the fur trade referenced by studies involving the Beaver fur economy and analyses of treaties such as the Treaty of Paris (1763) insofar as they reshaped colonial boundaries affecting Indigenous lifeways.

Teaching and mentorship

As a professor she taught courses that drew students from programs linked to the Department of History at her host universities, collaborating with colleagues from the Department of Anthropology and the School of Social Work. She supervised graduate theses engaging archival sources from repositories like the Provincial Archives of Manitoba and the New Mexico State Records Center and Archives, and mentored scholars who later joined faculties at institutions including the University of Alberta, the University of Calgary, the McGill University, and the University of California, Berkeley. Former students entered roles at museums such as the Royal Ontario Museum and the Autry Museum of the American West and contributed to initiatives with organizations like the National Congress of American Indians and the Assembly of First Nations.

Awards and recognition

Szasz received distinctions from bodies including the Royal Society of Canada and awards administered by the Canadian Historical Association and the American Philosophical Society. Her work was honored with prizes from presses and foundations similar to those awarded by the Guggenheim Foundation and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. She delivered invited lectures at venues such as the British Museum, the Smithsonian Institution, and the Museum of Anthropology at the University of British Columbia, and was cited in historiographical surveys by scholars associated with the History Workshop Journal and the Journal of American History.

Category:Canadian historians Category:1928 births Category:2017 deaths