We continue our month long deep dive into the history of Internment Camps in the Bow Valley with guest speaker Dr. Adriana Davies.
Do you participate in the Canmore Museum Stories of Canmore Book Club? Do you want to learn more about the themes highlighted in the monthly books? Do you need a way to spend more time with your Canmore Book Club friends? If so, please join us for our Stories of Canmore: Topic Deep Dives where guest speakers will add different perspectives to the themes brought up in our monthly book choice.
Our book for our January book club meeting is Park Prisoners: The Untold story of Western Canada’s National Parks by author Bill Waiser, and so for our deep dives we will be having different experts on Internment in the Bow Valley present to us.
We continue our deep dive into Internment Camps in Alberta with a lecture and Q&A with Dr. Adriana Davies. Adriana will share stories of Italian Internees in World War II, reading from her own book From Sojourners to Citizens: Alberta’s Italian History and sharing letters and journals from Internees.
Dr. Adriana Davies
Adriana (Albi) Davies was born in Grimaldi, Cosenza, Italy and grew up in Canada. She received B.A. and M.A. degrees from the University of Alberta, and a Ph.D. from the University of London, England. Her thesis topic was “The Art for Art’s Sake and Decadent Movements in Nineteenth Century English and French Literature.”
For more than 40 years, she has worked as a researcher, writer, editor, lecturer, executive director and curator in England and Canada. Professional accomplishments include: Science and Technology Editor, The Canadian Encyclopedia; Executive Director, Alberta Museums Association; and creator and Editor-in-Chief of the Alberta Online Encyclopedia – www.albertasource.ca. In 2009, the 84 multimedia websites were gifted to the University of Alberta.
Dr. Davies has a range of publications including authoring about one-third of the entries for the Collins’ Encyclopaedia of Antiques (London: Collins, 1973; New York: Random House, 1974); Dictionary of British Portraiture, Volume 1 (London: Batsford, 1979) and Dictionary of British Portraiture, Volume 4 (London: Batsford, 1981).
Her most recent publications are the critical biography From Realism to Abstraction: The Art of J. B. Taylor (Calgary: University of Calgary Press, 2014); The Rise and Fall of Emilio Picariello (Fernie: Oolichan Books, 2015); and The Frontier of Patriotism: Alberta and the First World War (Calgary: University of Calgary Press, 2016), an anthology that she co-edited with Jeff Keshen, former Dean of Arts, Mount Royal University, Calgary. Her newest publication, “From Sojourners to Citizens: Alberta’s Italian History” will be published by Guernica Editions in Spring 2021. It documents the settlement history and contributions of Italian immigrants who worked on the railways, in the coal mines of Alberta and BC, homesteaded and also set up a range of small and large businesses. She gives Italian immigrants their rightful place in the narrative of province and nation building.
She has contributed entries to the Dictionary of Canadian Biography for psychiatrist Charles Arthur Baragar, horticulturist George Harcourt, and city planner and administrator Christopher James Yorath.
For nearly 30 years she has worked in the museum sector in Alberta (including as Executive Director of the Alberta Museums Association) and is well-known for advocacy on behalf of the sector. Dr. Davies has served on various cultural advisory committees adjudicating grants and making policy decisions including the Canada-France Cultural Accord. As a member of the Canadian Heritage Information Network Advisory Committee, she took part in the Museums and the Web initiative that resulted in the creation of the Virtual Museum of Canada. In addition, she was a member of the committee that helped develop Canadian policies on the digital heritage for UNESCO.
Dr. Davies served on the Government of Canada’s Cultural Sector Initiative that examined the health of the voluntary sector. She co-chaired the Research Steering Committee, Capacity Joint Table, responsible for designing the first-ever National Survey of Non-Profit and Voluntary Organizations as well as the benchmarking study on charities in 40 countries done by Johns Hopkins University for UNESCO.
She has undertaken a range of curatorial work including obtaining loans from French and British museum collections for the millennium exhibit Anno Domini: Jesus through the Centuries at the Royal Alberta Museum. She curated two travelling exhibits: “People of the Coal Mines: The Italian Community” for the Galt Museum covering communities from the Elk Valley to Drumheller; and, “Alberta’s Italian CommunIty” with funding support from the Italian Consul General in Edmonton. In 2012, she curated the exhibit “J. B. Taylor and the Idea of Mountains” for the Whyte Museum of the Canadian Rockies and, in 2015, a travelling exhibit titled “The Rise and Fall of Emilio Picariello” for the Fernie Museum.
On July 1st, 2010, she was invested in the Order of Canada for her role in creating the Alberta Online Encyclopedia and for her contribution to the promotion and preservation of Canada’s cultural heritage. In 2012, she was awarded the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee Medal. As a Member of the Order of Canada she officiates at Canadian citizenship ceremonies. Other awards include: the Alberta Museums Association Life Time Achievement Award, Province of Alberta Centennial Medal, Global Woman of Vision Award and the YWCA Woman of Distinction Award in the Arts. In 2015, the Association canadienne-francaise de l’Alberta awarded her the Prix Roger Motut helping to preserve the Francophone Culture and Language of Alberta and the Italian government awarded her a knighthood (Cavaliere d’Italia) for preserving the Italian language, culture and traditions as well as her scholarship. In September 2020, she received the inaugural Heritage Writers Reserve Award from the Edmonton Heritage Council.
Adriana (Albi) Davies was born in Grimaldi, Cosenza, Italy and grew up in Canada. She received B.A. and M.A. degrees from the University of Alberta, and a Ph.D. from the University of London, England. Her thesis topic was “The Art for Art’s Sake and Decadent Movements in Nineteenth Century English and French Literature.”
For more than 40 years, she has worked as a researcher, writer, editor, lecturer, executive director and curator in England and Canada. Professional accomplishments include: Science and Technology Editor, The Canadian Encyclopedia; Executive Director, Alberta Museums Association; and creator and Editor-in-Chief of the Alberta Online Encyclopedia – www.albertasource.ca. In 2009, the 84 multimedia websites were gifted to the University of Alberta.
Dr. Davies has a range of publications including authoring about one-third of the entries for the Collins’ Encyclopaedia of Antiques (London: Collins, 1973; New York: Random House, 1974); Dictionary of British Portraiture, Volume 1 (London: Batsford, 1979) and Dictionary of British Portraiture, Volume 4 (London: Batsford, 1981).
Her most recent publications are the critical biography From Realism to Abstraction: The Art of J. B. Taylor (Calgary: University of Calgary Press, 2014); The Rise and Fall of Emilio Picariello (Fernie: Oolichan Books, 2015); and The Frontier of Patriotism: Alberta and the First World War (Calgary: University of Calgary Press, 2016), an anthology that she co-edited with Jeff Keshen, former Dean of Arts, Mount Royal University, Calgary. Her newest publication, “From Sojourners to Citizens: Alberta’s Italian History” will be published by Guernica Editions in Spring 2021. It documents the settlement history and contributions of Italian immigrants who worked on the railways, in the coal mines of Alberta and BC, homesteaded and also set up a range of small and large businesses. She gives Italian immigrants their rightful place in the narrative of province and nation building.
She has contributed entries to the Dictionary of Canadian Biography for psychiatrist Charles Arthur Baragar, horticulturist George Harcourt, and city planner and administrator Christopher James Yorath.
For nearly 30 years she has worked in the museum sector in Alberta (including as Executive Director of the Alberta Museums Association) and is well-known for advocacy on behalf of the sector. Dr. Davies has served on various cultural advisory committees adjudicating grants and making policy decisions including the Canada-France Cultural Accord. As a member of the Canadian Heritage Information Network Advisory Committee, she took part in the Museums and the Web initiative that resulted in the creation of the Virtual Museum of Canada. In addition, she was a member of the committee that helped develop Canadian policies on the digital heritage for UNESCO.
Dr. Davies served on the Government of Canada’s Cultural Sector Initiative that examined the health of the voluntary sector. She co-chaired the Research Steering Committee, Capacity Joint Table, responsible for designing the first-ever National Survey of Non-Profit and Voluntary Organizations as well as the benchmarking study on charities in 40 countries done by Johns Hopkins University for UNESCO.
She has undertaken a range of curatorial work including obtaining loans from French and British museum collections for the millennium exhibit Anno Domini: Jesus through the Centuries at the Royal Alberta Museum. She curated two travelling exhibits: “People of the Coal Mines: The Italian Community” for the Galt Museum covering communities from the Elk Valley to Drumheller; and, “Alberta’s Italian CommunIty” with funding support from the Italian Consul General in Edmonton. In 2012, she curated the exhibit “J. B. Taylor and the Idea of Mountains” for the Whyte Museum of the Canadian Rockies and, in 2015, a travelling exhibit titled “The Rise and Fall of Emilio Picariello” for the Fernie Museum.
On July 1st, 2010, she was invested in the Order of Canada for her role in creating the Alberta Online Encyclopedia and for her contribution to the promotion and preservation of Canada’s cultural heritage. In 2012, she was awarded the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee Medal. As a Member of the Order of Canada she officiates at Canadian citizenship ceremonies. Other awards include: the Alberta Museums Association Life Time Achievement Award, Province of Alberta Centennial Medal, Global Woman of Vision Award and the YWCA Woman of Distinction Award in the Arts. In 2015, the Association canadienne-francaise de l’Alberta awarded her the Prix Roger Motut helping to preserve the Francophone Culture and Language of Alberta and the Italian government awarded her a knighthood (Cavaliere d’Italia) for preserving the Italian language, culture and traditions as well as her scholarship. In September 2020, she received the inaugural Heritage Writers Reserve Award from the Edmonton Heritage Council.
