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.
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 introduction to the BC Historical Textbooks collection (4 minutes)
- watch a 20-minute presentation given at the 2024 Children’s History Society Conference in Newcastle, UK, that compares understandings of settler colonialism in two textbooks
- listen to episode seven of Taapwaywin, a UVic podcast on truth, memory and human rights
- BCHT is featured in the episode Textbook Colonization: Land, Education, Stories. 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 blog post that compares textbooks used in BC with those used in the UK during the early twentieth-century
- read a blog post that compares historical education images 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 International Network of Educational History Collections (INEHC).
Acknowledgements
We wish to acknowledge the expertise and support of the following people:
- Gerry Ambers, Elder in Residence at UVic
- Gracie Kelly 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 Insight Grant program
- Institute of Education at the University College London’s Library, Culture, Collections & Open Science
- the Leibniz Institute for Educational Media | Georg Eckert Institute, Germany
- British Columbia Library Association (BCLA)
- Myer Horowitz Conference Presentation Award. Centre for Youth and Society, UVic
- Bibliothek and Information International, 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 The Homeroom: British Columbia’s history of education website
- Professor Penney Clark's research webpages
- Professor Helen Raptis’ ‘Education History Museum’