British Columbia Historical Textbooks

UVic’s Special Collections & University Archives has a unique collection of BC historical textbooks. These textbooks were used in public schools since the province joined confederation in 1871.

The British Columbia Historical Textbooks (BCHT) collection includes books on a variety of school subjects including science, math, health, English and language arts, foreign languages, history, and social studies.

These textbooks have touched the lives of many citizens for nearly a century and a half. When we review school textbooks, we gain insights into the people who used them. We can explore the thinking, priorities, values and assumptions of those who wrote, taught and read these books.

Martin, H. Newell. The Human Body: an Elementary Textbook of Anatomy, Physiology, and Hygiene. Groom, Percy. Elementary Botany. Hodgins, J. George. Easy Lessons in General Geography with Maps and Illustrations. Bartholomew, John George. Royal Canadian Atlas: A New Series of Physical and Political Maps. Smith, Barnard, and Archibald McMurchy. Elementary Arithmetic for Canadian Schools. McLaughlin, James M., George A Veazie, and William Wallace Gilchrist First Music Reader. N.A. New Canadian Readers, First Primer. Education students analyzing the BC Historical Textbooks collection in Special Collections and University Archives at UVic, Fall 2024. Education students analyzing the BC Historical Textbooks collection in Special Collections and University Archives at UVic, Fall 2024.

About the project

The development of this digital library is a multi-year project. Through it, we hope to preserve and highlight these unique artefacts of our province’s history. The BCHT will be of interest to the general public, educators and researchers, specifically historians.

If you have questions about the collection or would like a presentation about the history of how these books were used, please contact the Education Librarian, Pia Russell.

Videos & podcasts

watch a brief (4 minutes)
watch a in Newcastle, UK, that compares understandings of settler colonialism in two textbooks
listen to episode seven of , a UVic podcast on truth, memory and human rights
- BCHT is featured in the episode . Ry Moran interviews co-researchers Chaa’winisaks and Pia Russell as they share insights on the BCHT collection (Our segment runs from minutes 05:24 to 22:12.)

Reading

read a during the early twentieth-century
read a used in Dutch and BC schools in 1910
explore a lesson plan comparing textbooks used in BC and the UK
- this lesson plan aligns with BC’s Grade 9 Social Studies curriculum and the UK National Curriculum History Program Stage Three

We are proud to have the BCHT collection included as a member of the (INEHC).

Acknowledgements

We wish to acknowledge the expertise and support of the following people:

Gerry Ambers, Elder in Residence at UVic
of The'wa:li (Soowahlie First Nation)
Patrick Dunae, Adjunct Professor—Department of History, UVic
Don Hamilton, Retired Education Librarian—UVic

Support for the BC Historical Textbooks project is provided by:

the University Librarian’s Office at UVic
the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada
at the
the Leibniz Institute for Educational Media | , Germany
(BCLA)
Myer Horowitz Conference Presentation Award. Centre for Youth and Society, UVic
, Germany
the Kalman Award for International Heritage Studies. Cultural Resource Management Program, UVic

Learn more

To learn more about the history of textbooks in BC, we recommend the following resources:

Professor Patrick Dunae’s
Professor Helen Raptis’

���ɱ���