Article

Fernand Ouellet

Published Online January 15, 2008

Last Edited December 16, 2013

Fernand Ouellet, historian, educator (b at Lac Bouchette, Qué 6 Nov 1926). After taking his doctorate from Université de Laval, Ouellet did specialized study in Paris, returning to teach history at Laval, then at Carleton University, the University of Ottawa and, finally, York University in Toronto.

Ouellet, Fernand

Fernand Ouellet, historian, educator (b at Lac Bouchette, Qué 6 Nov 1926). After taking his doctorate from Université de Laval, Ouellet did specialized study in Paris, returning to teach history at Laval, then at Carleton University, the University of Ottawa and, finally, York University in Toronto. He is a member of the Royal Society of Canada and an Officer in the Order of Canada. The most important figure in the transformation of French Canadian history since WWII, Ouellet repudiated 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).