Source: National Archives & Historic Records of Canada
Economics • Historical Archive • 🇨🇦 Canada • 0 views

Harold Innis 🇨🇦

Harold Adams Innis (Known as "Father of the Staples Thesis")
Political Economist, Author of The Fur Trade in Canada, Communications Pioneer
Born Nov 05, 1894 🇨🇦 Otterville (Oxford County, Ontario), Canada
Passed Away Nov 08, 1952 Toronto, Canada
Lifespan 58 years old
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Notice / Correction
"Canada emerged not in spite of geography, but because of geography and the rivers of the fur trade."

Archival Overview

Foundational economic historian who developed the 'Staples Thesis' in The Fur Trade in Canada (1930) and pioneered the study of media monopolies of knowledge that inspired Marshall McLuhan.

Biographical Record

Wounded at Vimy Ridge in 1917, Innis completed his doctorate at Chicago before joining the University of Toronto, where he served as Dean of Graduate Studies. In his groundbreaking books The Fur Trade in Canada (1930) and The Cod Fisheries (1940), he demonstrated that Canada was created by fur and fish river networks.

In his later works, Empire and Communications (1950) and The Bias of Communication (1951), Innis analyzed how time-biased and space-biased media determine the rise and fall of civilizations, providing the foundational insights for the Toronto School of Communication.

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Final Resting Place

Perpetual Memorial
Mount Pleasant Cemetery
Toronto, Canada
GPS: 43.6967, -79.3886
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