Our 30th anniversary in the beginning.

Taylor, John (English pop musician)

The Review/Revue began in a happy conjuncture of people, propinquity and technology, or what we used to call "agents" and "faceless forces".

In 1970, John Taylor's first office at Carleton University was next to one inhabited by Del Muise, then the Atlantic Canada historian in the History Division of the "Museum of Man" and teaching as a sessional at Carleton. He had an abiding interest in the urban and industrial development of the region.

The offices at Carleton in the those pre-internet days also contained telephones, fortunately in this case linked to a WATS (wide area telephone service) line that included Toronto, Montreal, and critically, Sudbury, where Gil Stelter was teaching one of the first urban history courses offered in Canada. A WATS line permitted extensive long-distance phoning in days when it was otherwise costly and discouraged by departmental administrators. Stelter and Taylor knew each other from the University of Alberta, and on Sundays, when the administration was not monopolizing the WATS line, they talked of the organization of an Urban Group.

An initial meeting was organized and held in the Faculty Club at Carleton, and included Stelter and Muise, Maurice Careless and Fred Armstrong, and a young scholar from Montreal, Paul-Andre Linteau. An urban newsletter or journal became part of the discussion, one that turned aside a suggestion from Stan Mealing to integrate activities with the new Histoire sociale/Social History.

After benediction of the urban group from the Canadian Historical Association/La Societe historique du Canada in St. John's in 1971, it was Del Muise who provided the vehicle for an Urban History Review/Revue d'histoire urbaine in the form of the Museum's "Mercury Series".

At the time the "Museum of Man" was sharing space with the "Museum of Nature" and awaiting not only the construction of a new building, but a new name. Much of the activity of the staff was focused on research, development and dissemination. The "Mercury Series" was designed to disseminate research of interest to the museum, hence the justification for the journal.

The first issue, edited by Muise and Taylor, rolled off the presses in February of 1972, modestly typed and stapled, its genesis as part of the "Mercury Series" accounting for its distinctive bright yellow cover, its peculiar numbering system, large format and Crown copyright. Single issues sold for 50 cents.

Authors of the first four articles were, however, an indication that there was much to be expected: Al Artibise, who had just completed his dissertation on Winnipeg; Paul-Andre Linteau, only a few years away from winning the Macdonald Prize for his study of Maisonneuve; Fred Armstrong, who was the anchor of urban history at Western; and Gil Stelter, first president of the urban group, and a future icon of urban history here and abroad.

The growth of the UHRIRHU to a more formal academic journal was due largely to Al Artibise, who joined the "Museum of Man" and took over from Del Muise with Issue 2 -- 1975, and a year later, by this time in the History Department of the University of Victoria, put together a much-expanded offering with Issue 2 -- 1976, though still with yellow covers and a typescript text.

Beginning in 1979, the link to the Museum was through Peter Rider, as associate editor. And under Al and Peter, an elegant grey cover and typeset text arrived with issue of February, 1982. The next year the Review/revue was published from the University of Winnipeg, where Al had moved, to become director of the Institute of Urban Studies. It was the Institute, with the June, 1983 issue that became the publisher of the Review/revue, ending the formal relationship with the museum that had lasted more than a decade.

Al successfully made the transition to a new publisher; and in 1984 the equally important transition to new sources of funding, from the Museum and the Institute to SSHRC/CRSHC and the Institute. In 1984 Wendy Fraser became managing editor of the journal to play a critical role in its development.

In various ways the Review/Revue has managed to bring together the essential elements of journal publishing: good general editors, institutional support and funding, and strong managing editors.

Al Artibise's long tenure as editor ended with the February, 1988 issue; and the June, 1988 number was edited by John Weaver, History, McMaster, with the publisher now the City of Toronto Archives, with Victor Russell as managing editor. John's tenure began with a new cover designed to accommodate illustrations, and during his tenure, in 1991, John Becker took over as managing editor. John Weaver was succeeded in 1993 by Richard Harris, of the Geography Department at McMaster. And so to now.