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Fernand Ouellet, OC, historian, educator (born 6 November 1926 in Lac Bouchette, QC; died 28 June 2021 in Toronto, ON). Ouellet was a member of the Royal Society of Canada and an Officer in the Order of Canada.
Education and Career
After taking his doctorate from Université Laval, Ouellet did specialized study in Paris, returning to teach history at Université Laval, then at Carleton University, the University of Ottawa and, finally, York University in Toronto.
The most important figure in the transformation of French Canadian history since WWII, Ouellet rejected the nationalist interpretations previously dominating the field and replaced traditional methods with quantitative and scientific techniques derived from modern French scholarship. The "Ouellet Revolution" shifted Canadian historians' attentions from nation to class and from dramatic events to social and economic structures and tendencies. Especially noteworthy are his Histoire économique et sociale du Québec, 1760-1850 (1966, tr in 1980 as Economic and Social History of Quebec, 1760-1850), and Le Bas-Canada, 1791-1840 (1976, abridged and tr in 1980 as Lower Canada, 1791-1840).
