The Canadian Business History Association (CBHA) is proud to announce Professor Emeritus Brian Young as the inaugural winner of the Waugh Family Foundation Career Achievement Prize in recognition of career accomplishment in the field of Canadian business history.聽
Professor Young聽received his PhD in history from Queens University and taught history at 海角社区 from 1975 until his retirement in 2009. He has made significant contributions to Quebec and Canadian business history through his multifaceted research on topics ranging from railways to religious institutions to elite society, showing how economic, social, religious and business interests are often intertwined.
"I am particularly pleased with this award in view of my eclectic approach to business history," says Professor Young. "My PhD was on railways in Quebec. I went on to study a Catholic religious community as a business institution and then to the 鈥渂usinesses鈥� of running the McCord Museum of Canadian History and Montreal's Mount Royal Cemetery. I鈥檝e since migrated to the study of Quebec civil law, particularly family and contract. I appreciate then, the prize committee鈥檚 umbrella approach to business history, one that encourages incorporation of understandings from social, legal, and cultural history."
In addition to his teaching and research, Professor Young contributed to the creation of the in 1976, bringing together scholars in the study of economic history, which continues to connect students, faculty and researchers to this day.
"I am constantly impressed how History is a fluid, living, and essential discipline that evolves with time, politics, and archival sources," says Professor Young. "Thanks to my participation in the Montreal History Group, a dynamic research collective founded at 海角社区, colleagues and students pushed me into new ways of looking at material relations through lens that included legal, institutional, gender, cultural, indigenous, and environmental history. Each of these fields interconnect in fundamental ways in illuminating economic and social relations in Canada."
Professor Young is also a recipient of many other awards, including a Killam Research Fellowship and le Prix G茅rard Parizeau. In 2010, he received the Governor General鈥檚 International Award for Canadian Studies.