History in Niagara

Brock University is located in the heart of Niagara, Ontario – a region steeped in an extraordinarily rich history that is, in many ways, a microcosm of Canadian history.

This history includes early Indigenous settlement along the Great Lakes, the establishment of Loyalist communities in the wake of the American Revolution, and the War of 1812 (which, through the British military campaigns led by Major General Sir Isaac Brock, gave the University its name).

The region’s legacy also includes the flight of enslaved people of African descent across the U.S.-Canada border, technological revolutions in the uses of water power, and waves of migrants from Europe, the Caribbean, and elsewhere in the Atlantic world whose labour made agricultural and industrial development possible.

Niagara’s history offers numerous opportunities for public engagement and campus-community connections that Brock’s History Department is uniquely positioned to provide. We work closely with area institutions (museums, libraries, historical societies, archives, heritage sites, K-12 education) that regularly employ our students and alumni and allow them to contribute meaningfully and materially to the economic and intellectual development of their communities and regions.

Founding members of the Niagara Movement superimposed over an image of Niagara Falls, Fort Erie, Ontario, July 1905. Prominent U.S. civil rights activist W. E. B. Du Bois is pictured in the middle row, second from right, in white hat and bow tie. The Movement was launched at a conference of African-American leaders at the Erie Beach Hotel in Fort Erie. It laid the groundwork for the establishment of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, the oldest civil rights organization in the United States, in 1909. (W.E.B. Du Bois Library, Special Collections and University Archives, University of Massachusetts at Amherst, via Library of Congress) https://www.loc.gov/item/2014645233/
Paige Groot (History BA 2022) and volunteer Pam Mundy (Humanities BA 2021), Niagara on the Lake Museum, August 2022. They dressed a mannequin in an early 20th-century women’s cycling outfit that Mundy recreated for a museum exhibit Groot developed on the history of cycling in Niagara. Groot has since earned a Brock History MA (2024) and is currently a History PhD student at Queen’s University. (Brock News)

History and Heritage Sites in Niagara

Below are some of the Niagara locations where Brock History students volunteer, conduct research, obtain Co-op placements, and work during the summer and after graduation.