Professor Marjory Harper | The University of Aberdeen

Professor Marjory Harper

Chair in History

Email Address: m.harper@abdn.ac.uk
Telephone Number: +44 (0)1224 274473
Office Address: School of Divinity, History and Philosophy
Crombie Annexe
Meston Walk
King's College
University of Aberdeen
Old Aberdeen
AB24 3FX
Room 211
School/Department: School of Divinity, History, Philosophy & Art History

Biography

Marjory Harper completed her undergraduate and postgraduate studies at the University of Aberdeen, where she has been employed since the mid-1980s. She is currently Professor of History and also a Visiting Professor at the Centre for History, University of the Highlands and Islands.

Marjory's research focuses on British (particularly Scottish) emigration since 1800. Two of her monographs have won international prizes, and she has published around 100 articles and book chapters. Her latest monograph, Testimonies of Transition (an oral history of twentieth-century Scottish emigration) was published in 2018, and a revised version was published as an audio book in 2020.

After three decades of teaching in a variety of undergraduate courses, Marjory's teaching activities now focus on the postgraduate sector. Since 2017 she has directed an award-winning online Master’s Programme in Scottish Heritage and she has also been involved in developing a training programme for the Scottish Tourist Guides' Association.

Public engagement lies at the heart of Marjory's interests and she particularly enjoys engaging with local communities through public lectures. She also acted as one of three historical consultants to the Scottish Child Abuse Inquiry and contributes regularly to radio and television programmes such as Digging Up Your Roots and Who Do You Think You Are?

Qualifications

MA History
1978 - University of Aberdeen
PhD History
1984 - University of Aberdeen

External Memberships

Chair of the Board of Trustees of the Rutherford Centre for Reformed Theology.

Latest Publications

Diet and the Diaspora
2023 - Accepted/In press
Harper, M.
Presses universitaires de Franche-Comté
Books and Reports: Books
Epistolary Exploits and Audible Adventures: Using Personal Testimony to Plot Patterns and Policies in Scottish-Australian Migration
2023 - Published
Harper, M.
Northern Scotland, vol. 14, no. 2, pp. 149-169
Contributions to Journals: Articles
- [ONLINE] DOI: https://doi.org/10.3366/nor.2023.0295
- [ONLINE] View publication in Scopus
Expectations, experiences and enigmas: hearing and evaluating emigrant testimony
2023 - Published
Harper, M.
Oral History, vol. 51, no. 2
Contributions to Journals: Articles
- [ONLINE] https://www.ohs.org.uk/journal/journal-search/
"I wish you would write oftender": An Aberdeenshire emigrant's experiences in 19th-century Canada
2023 - Accepted/In press
Harper, M.
Festschrift for Elizabeth Ewan. University of Guelph Centre for Scottish Studies
Chapters in Books, Reports and Conference Proceedings: Chapters
Identifying a Doric diaspora?: Patterns of emigration from north-east Scotland, c. 1750 - c. 1950
2023 - Published
Harper, M.
A New History of the University of Aberdeen. Aberdeen University Press
Chapters in Books, Reports and Conference Proceedings: Chapters
- [ONLINE] https://www.abdn.ac.uk/news/15750/

View My Publications

Prizes and Awards

2020: Winner of the Royal Historical Society's Jinty Nelson Award for Inspirational Teaching and Supervision

2019: University of Aberdeen Excellence Awards: Public Engagement with Research Award, main prize

2018: University of Aberdeen Postgraduate Teaching Prize

2013: Winner of the Frank Watson Prize (University of Guelph, Canada) and short-listed for the Saltire Society History Prize

2004: Winner of the Saltire Society History Prize and short-listed for the Frank Watson Prize

1992: Winner of Blackwell Prize

Research

Research Overview

Professor Harper's research is primarily in the area of Scottish emigration in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, particularly to Canada

Current Research

Preparation of monograph on emigration from the Northern Isles since the eighteenth century

Ongoing collection of interviews for interview databank and use in forthcoming monographs and articles

Preparation of monograph on Scots in the Antipodes

Past Research

Several monographs, edited collections, book chapters and over 100 articles. Recent research strands have included migration and mental health, in particular Marjory Harper (ed.) Migration and Mental Health: Past and Present (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016) and migration and oral testimony (monograph published in 2018 and audio book in 2020)

Audio book

Marjory Harper, Testimonies of Transition: Voices from the Scottish Diaspora (Edinburgh: Luath Press, 2018, audio book, 2020) based on databank of over 120 interviews (ongoing project)

Knowledge Exchange

Interface research project on the Iolaire disaster, under auspices of the UHI Centre for History. Included interview about the project with BBC Alba

Lecture to Stornoway Historical Society in connection with the centenary of the sailing of the Metagama in April 1923, and making available material from the Scottish Emigration Database for use as part of centenary exhibition

Guest lectures for Cunard on the Queen Mary from Southampton to New York

Article on British migration for British Library Learning Digital Resource 'Discovering History'

Participation in video 'Journey to New Edinburgh' for the Otago Early Settlers' Museum

https://youtu.be/8d_bFzwSzN8

Numerous public lectures since the lifting of Covid restrictions, including lecture for Greyhope Bay Community Programme (Aberdeen) which led to a podcast for 'Aberdeen Harbour Voices' https://www.openroadltd.com/projects/harbour-voices/#:~:text=Harbour%20Voices%20is%20a%20series,harbour%20area%20of%20Aberdeen%20home.

Invited to Albyn School, Aberdeen, to lecture to Higher pupils

July 2023: hosting a panel discussion at Ullapool Museum on the 250th anniversary of the sailing of the ship Hector from Lochbroom to Nova Scotia

Continuing involvement with the Scottish American History Forum (Chicago) including online talks

2022: participation as interviewee for BBC TV episode of Who Do You Think You Are?

Collaborations

Collaboration with Dr Lauren Brancaz-McCarten, University of Chambery, on Celtic migrations

Collaboration with Ian Leith (Caithness) on migration and mental illness in Patagonia

Collaboration with Dr Iain Robertson, UHI Centre for History, in Knowledge Exchange Project on Lewis in the inter-war era

Teaching

Teaching Responsibilities

HI502W A Millennium of Scottish History

HI502X: Approaches to Research - Archives and Sources

HI552T: The Scottish Diaspora

HI553E/HI5916: Dissertation in Scottish Heritage

HI2524: Scottish History: Chronologies and Controversies

Non-course Teaching Responsibilities

Numerous guest lectures in Scotland and overseas

Invited lecturer at Summer School run by the German Historical Institute, London, July 2023

Publications

Update

Biography

Qualifications

External Memberships

Latest Publications

Diet and the Diaspora

Epistolary Exploits and Audible Adventures: Using Personal Testimony to Plot Patterns and Policies in Scottish-Australian Migration

Expectations, experiences and enigmas: hearing and evaluating emigrant testimony

"I wish you would write oftender": An Aberdeenshire emigrant's experiences in 19th-century Canada

Identifying a Doric diaspora?: Patterns of emigration from north-east Scotland, c. 1750 - c. 1950

Prizes and Awards

Research Overview

Current Research

Past Research

Audio book

Knowledge Exchange

Collaborations

Teaching Responsibilities

Non-course Teaching Responsibilities

Diet and the Diaspora

Epistolary Exploits and Audible Adventures: Using Personal Testimony to Plot Patterns and Policies in Scottish-Australian Migration

Expectations, experiences and enigmas: hearing and evaluating emigrant testimony

"I wish you would write oftender": An Aberdeenshire emigrant's experiences in 19th-century Canada

Identifying a Doric diaspora?: Patterns of emigration from north-east Scotland, c. 1750 - c. 1950

Spiritual homes on the move: narratives of migrations from Scotland in the 18th and 19th centuries

Abroad was where it all happened: Inter-war and Post-war Sponsored Migration to the Commonwealth

Testimonies of Transition: Voices from the Scottish Diaspora

A Controversial Scottish Pioneer in New Zealand: James MacAndrew and the identity of Otago

Rhetoric and reality: the quest for "freedom" in the Scottish diaspora

Obstacles and opportunities: labour emigration to the ‘British World’ in the nineteenth century

Testimonies of Transition: Voices from the Scottish Diaspora

Scotland and Prince Edward Island: A Professional and Personal Insight

Migration and Health Webinar Two: Mental health of refugees and migrants: myths and realities

‘Quite destitute and … very desirous of going to North America’: The Roots and Repercussions of Emigration from Sutherland and Caithness

Moving Out and Moving On? Emigration from Scotland to Australia in the Twentieth Century

Homecoming Emigrants as Tourists: Reconnecting the Scottish Diaspora

Migration and Mental Illness

Missing Emigrants: Gleanings from Petitions Presented under the Presumption of Life Limitation (Scotland) Acts

Migration and Mental Health: Past and Present

Ethnicities and Environments: Perceptions of Alienation and Mental Illness Among Scottish and Scandinavian Settlers in North America, c. 1870–c. 1914

Introduction: Migration and Mental Health

Is Migration Good For You? A Psychiatric and Historical Perspective

The evolution of emigrant travel to New Zealand in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries

Initiatives, impediments and identities: Scottish emigration in the twentieth century

A vicious and soulless propaganda: Dr Lachlan Grant and emigration

Dysfunctional diasporas?: Migration and mental illness

Minds on the Edge: Immigration and Insanity among Scots and Irish in Canada, 1867-1914

A dysfunctional diaspora?: Causes of mental illness among Scottish emigrants to Canada, 1867-1914

Migrants and Migration

"Come to Corby": a Scottish steel town in the heart of England

Arctic encounters: twentieth-century Scots in the Hudson's Bay Company

The land struggle and emigration

Scotland No More?: The Scots who left Scotland in the twentieth century

Emigrant homecomings: The return movement of emigrants, 1600-2000

Migration and empire

'Missions and emigration/colonization'

The persuaders: recruiting Scots for New Zealand

Arctic Encounters: Scots in the Hudson's Bay Company

Introduction to new series

Rhetoric and reality: British migration to Canada, 1867-1967

Socio-economic Dislocation and Inter-war Emigration to Canada and the United States: a Scottish Snapshot

Exiles or entrepreneurs? Snapshots of the Scots in Canada

'The Marchioness of Aberdeen and Temair', 'Anne Drysdale', 'Lady Emily Gordon Cathcart', 'Annie Macpherson', 'Emma Stirling': 5 entries in E. Ewan, S. Innes and S. Reynolds (eds), A Biographical Dictionary of Scottish Women from the earliest times to 2004 (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press)

Entrepeneurs or Exiles? Snapshots of the Scots in Canada

Emigrant Homecomings: The Return Movement of Emigrants, 1660-2000

'Personal Contact is Worth a Ton of Text-Books': Educational Tours of the Empire, 1926-39

Crossing the Atlantic: Snapshots from the migration album

Enticing the Emigrant: Canadian agents in Ireland and Scotland, c.1870-1920

Pains, perils and pastimes: The Emigrant Voyage in the Nineteenth Century

Adventurers and Exiles: The Great Scottish Exodus

No English Need Apply? Saskatchewan's English Settlers, 1878-1914

Aberdeen and the Outside World

Enticing the Emigrant: Agency Activity in the Highlands

Scotland and the Americas, 1650-1939: A Documentary Source Book

'Highlands and Islands, emigration' and 'emigration, post-1750, excl. Highlands', two entries in M. Lynch (ed), The Oxford Companion to Scottish History (Oxford, 2001)

Abraham and Isaac Ride the Range: British Images of the American West

Myth, Migration and the Making of Memory: Scotia and Nova Scotia, c. 1700-1990

Emigration from Scotland between the wars: Opportunity or Exile?

Cossar's colonists: Juvenile migration to New Brunswick in the 1920s

The advantages and drawbacks of cardbox-plus as a means of analysing Aberdeen University students in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries

Through Canada with a Kodak: The Countess of Aberdeen