Occupied St John S

In January 1941, the hulking twenty-one thousand ton troopship Edmund B. Alexander docked in St John's harbor, carrying a thousand American soldiers sent to join the thousands of Canadian troops protecting Newfoundland against attack by Germany. France had fallen, Great Britain was fighting for its survival, and Newfoundland - then a dominion of Britain - was North America's first line of defence. Although the German invasion never came, St John's found itself occupied by both Allied Canadian and American forces.

The stories and memories of those who lived through the Second World War in Newfoundland.

Historians believe that the May 1941 establishment of the Newfoundland Escort Force elevated the Royal Canadian Navy into a major combatant during the Second World War. This thorough and annotated study of The "Newfyjohn" Solution, tells the story of how St. John's, Newfoundland overcame jurisdictional challenges and logistical hurdles as it evolved from a defended harbour into a major Allied escort base. The audience for The "Newfyjohn" Solution will be graduate students, researchers and historians studying the operational history of Newfoundland and Royal Canadian Navy, as well as those interested in how Second World War Allied naval bases developed during the Battle of the Atlantic.

At a distance, Corner Windows and Cul-De-Sacs is a study of urban growth, planning, and household reform; up close, the study reveals a much more human story. In 1942, while Newfoundland was in an active war zone, the death rate in St. Johns was higher than anywhere else in the colony. Overcrowded and dilapidated tenements, huddled on a maze of narrow lanes, fell prey to rampant tuberculosis, shockingly high infant mortality rates, and infectious disease. In 1944, under crippiling debt, the St. Johns Housing Corporation was formed, with a mandate to build a new garden suburb north of the city that would lead to the abandonment and demolition of the derelict housing. Churchill Park became the core of this residential development, and between 1945 and 1947 more than 200 houses and nearly 100 apartment units were constructed, laying the groundwork for the orderly post-war expansion of the city.--

Bonnycastle wrote several books which described the provinces in which he served as an officer, and later commander, of the Royal Engineers. This particular work, which is comprised of two volumes, focuses on Newfoundland; Bonnycastle's aim was to demonstrate the importance of Newfoundland as a British colony, and to provide an unbiased view of Newfoundland, as previous literature generally portrayed her as inhospitable and desolate. Volume one contains the general, political, natural, and physical history of Newfoundland, including information on the animals, vegetation, agriculture, and geology of the province, as well as the climatology and meteorology of the island, while volume two contains the moral history of Newfoundland and information on the province's current political economy, modern geography, and topography.

In over 220 drawings and photographs, Robert Mellin presents the development of architecture in the decades immediately following Newfoundland's 1949 union with Canada. Newfoundland's wholehearted embrace of modern architecture in this era affected planning as well as the design of cultural facilities, commercial and public buildings, housing, recreation, educational facilities, and places of worship, and Premier Joseph Smallwood often relied on modern architecture to demonstrate the progress made by his administration. Mellin explores the links between Smallwood and modern architecture, revealing how Smallwood guided the development of numerous architectural projects. He also looks at the work of two innovative local architects, Frederick A. Colbourne and Angus J. Campbell, showing how their architecture was influenced by their life-long interest in art. The first comprehensive work on an important period of architectural development in urban and rural Newfoundland, Newfoundland Modern complements Mellin's award-winning book on the outport of Tilting, Fogo Island.