Dear Mr. Smallwood considers the lives and stories of everyday Newfoundlanders and Labradorians as they navigated what was arguably the biggest political transition of their lifetimes: the entry of the former nation of Newfoundland into Confederation with Canada. Drawing on one of the province’s richest archival treasures, the letters written to J.R. Smallwood before and during his time as premier, contributors unearth the hopes, dreams, discontents, and desires of ordinary people living in an extraordinary time. A collaborative project that brings together archival materials, personal reflections, scholarly essays, and poetic and visual responses, Dear Mr. Smallwood moves discussions beyond the polarizing figure of J.R. Smallwood and recentres the conversations about Confederation to consider how Newfoundlanders and Labradorians understood themselves and their world at the time of Confederation. Together, these letters, reflections, and essays can be seen as a layered patchwork quilt. The letters to Smallwood—a small sampling of 250 chosen by contributors from an archival collection of thousands—are the colourful swatches that reveal not just the individual voices of Newfoundlanders and Labradorians of all ages at mid-century, but also the beating life narrative—the collective autobiography—of this place itself.
