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  • The Rooms A 49-13; Mary Jemima Leamon Bartlett Before 1908

  • The Rooms 08.02.009-Burin.-View-of-flakes-houses-and-boats-Burin-ca.-1900

  • The Rooms B 9-128. Knights of Columbus fire on Harvey Road

  • The Rooms B 23-90; The Last Sitting of the House of Assembly

  • The mission at Hebron, Labrador, around 1860. Original drawing by Moravian Bishop Levin Theodor Reichel (1812-1878).

  • Sir-Wilfred-T.-Grenfell-and-Dr.-Curtis-in-the-womens-ward-St.-Anthony-hospital-IGA-1-409-1930-

  • VA 15D-23.5; Looking down on Kings Cove 1947


Founded in 1905, the Newfoundland & Labrador Historical Society is the oldest non-profit, independent heritage organization in the province.

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All regular lectures at the Marine Institute at Ridge Road are suspended due to COVID-19. We are working to provide online lectures for the 2020-21 season, the first of which can be viewed below. Please check back for updates.
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Barron Street Girls

Annual George Story Lecture – Housing in Newfoundland: A Century of Problems, Solutions, and Unintended Consequences

Chris Sharpe & Jo Shawyer

April 27, 2023

Urban Newfoundland struggled with housing problems during the 20th century: both a lack of houses and the burden of poor-quality houses. In 1944, the St John’s Housing Corporation (SJHC) was established by the city and the Commission of Government to build a garden suburb and perhaps do away with the poor-quality houses in the inner… Read More


Recollections of Labrador Life

The Mysterious Lambert de Boilieu

Robin McGrath

March 30, 2023

Recollection of Labrador Life was first published in England in 1861 by Lambert de Boilieu, then reprinted with editing and notes by Thomas F. Bredin in by Ryerson Press in 1969. The work has been widely accepted as a memoir of life at Battle Harbour in the 1850s, and is frequently cited in popular and… Read More


Chinese tax

From a Sojourner’s Life to Family Reunification: Reflections on the Experiences of Chinese Immigrants in Newfoundland, 1890s-1950s

Miriam Wright & Robert Hong

February 23, 2023

Between the 1890s and 1949, over 400 Chinese men came to the Dominion of Newfoundland, looking to escape economic and political conflict at home. Arriving without female family members, these men put down roots in Newfoundland, opening and working in laundries, cafes and restaurants to earn money to support themselves, and to send what they… Read More


First Teacher's Concention 1898 (ASC 04.03.001) (004)

From Collective Begging to Collective Bargaining: The Professionalization of Teachers and Their Influence on Reforming Newfoundland and Labrador’s Denominational Education System

Rebecca Ralph

January 26, 2023

This talk will examine how teachers were professionalized and regulated, beginning in 1876, and explore the development of the teaching organization that became the NLTA in the context of the political and social debates over the purpose of education and the place of churches in education. Teachers came to take on significant roles in government… Read More