Series: Personal Encounters With Primary Resources for Canadian Sci/Tech History
Sub-Series 4: The International Canadian Scientific Congresses Project
First Posted on Friday, October 23, 2020 / Yom Shishi, 5 Cheshvan , 5781
By: David Orenstein
Discovering the Canadian International Scientific Congresses
I’ll be debating Michael Barany today, Friday, October 23, at 2:00 pm, EDT = 11:00 am, PDT, on the success of the International Mathematical Congress (IMC) held in Toronto in 1924, as part of the Fall On-line Colloquia series of the Canadian Society for the History and Philosophy of Mathematics (CSHPM).
The Zoom link is at <www.cshpm.org>.
Having found two international scientific congresses that were held in my hometown of Toronto in 1924, I started exploring the University of Toronto’s Gerstein Science Information Centre in the Sigmund Samual Library building. There, I found the two volume Proceedings of the 1924 International Mathematical Congress in the main stacks, located in the Centre’s basement. They were edited by University of Toronto Mathematics professor John Charles Fields and published by the University of Toronto Press in 1928.
Yes, that’s the same John Charles Fields for whom the U. of T.’s Fields Institute is named and also the International Mathematics Union’s Fields Medal, the equivalent of the Noble Prize in Mathematics.
So that became my major historical research project: “Exploring the Ramifications of the International Scientific Congresses Held in Canada”. I soon discovered many others by looking for their published proceedings, often located in the old journal storage area of Gerstein’s sub-sub-basement. Given the accumulation of dust in some cases, and the occasional uncut pages, it felt like I was the first person to consult them.
Here are the one’s I know about from before World War II, in ascending chronological order. Any additions you can provide will be gratefully accepted.
1) 1857, Montreal, American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)
2) 1882, Montreal, American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)
3) 1884, Montreal, British Association for the Advancement of Science (BAAS)
3) 1889, Toronto, American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)
4) 1897, Toronto, British Association for the Advancement of Science (BAAS)
5) 1897, Montreal, British Medical Association (BMA)
6) 1906, Toronto, British Medical Association (BMA)
7) 1906, Quebec City, International Congress of Americanists (ICA)
8) 1909, Winnipeg, British Association for the Advancement of Science (BAAS)
9) 1913, Toronto, International Geological Congress (IGC)
World War I
10) 1921, Toronto, American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)
11) 1924, Toronto, International Mathematical Congress (IMC)
12) 1924, Toronto, British Association for the Advancement of Science (BAAS)
13) 1938, Ottawa, American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)
So the question emerged. In addition to the series of Proceedings of the various congresses, were there any other archival material available, such as the relevant correspondence?
But that’s another story.
Bibliography:
1) AAAS
1857: PROCEEDINGS OF THE AMERICAN ASSOCIATION FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE:
ELEVENTH MEETING , HELD AT MONTREAL CANADA EAST, AUGUST, 1857,
1858, Cambridge, (Massachussets ?), Joseph Lovering
<https://archive.org/stream/proceedingsamer01lovegoog#page/n10/mode/2up/search/Wilson>
1882: PROCEEDINGS OF THE AMERICAN ASSOCIATION FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE:
THIRTY-FIRST MEETING , HELD AT MONTREAL CANADA AUGUST, 1882,
1858, Salem, (Massachussets ?), Permanent Secretary
1889: PROCEEDINGS OF THE AMERICAN ASSOCIATION FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE:
THIRTY-FIRST MEETING , HELD AT TORONTO, CANADA AUGUST, 1889,
1858, Salem, (Massachussets ?), Permanent Secretary
2) BAAS
1884:
1924: British Association for the Advancement of Science, Report of the Ninety-Second Meeting…Toronto, August 6-13, 1925, London, Office of the British
Association for the Advancement of Science
Available through the Biodiversity Heritage website:
<https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/item/96033#page/4/mode/1up>
3) BMA
4) ICA
5) IGC
6) IMC
John Charles Fields, editor, Proceedings of the International Mathematical Congress held in Toronto, August 11-16, 2 volumes, 1928, Toronto, University
of Toronto Press
Available at the International Mathematics Union website:.
Volume 1: <https://www.mathunion.org/fileadmin/ICM/Proceedings/ICM1924.1/ICM1924.1.ocr.pdf>
Volume 2: <https://www.mathunion.org/fileadmin/ICM/Proceedings/ICM1924.2/ICM1924.2.ocr.pdf>