Alfred Goldsworthy Bailey, OC, FRSC (March 18, 1905 – April 21, 1997) was a Canadian educator, poet, anthropologist, ethno-historian, and academic administrator.

Born in Quebec City, Quebec, the son of Professor Loring Woart Bailey and Ernestine Valiant (Gale) Bailey, he received his BA degree in 1927 from the University of New Brunswick and his MA in 1929 and Ph.D in 1934 from the University of Toronto.

Alfred Goldsworthy Bailey, one of Canada's most distinguished historians and poets, is often regarded as the father of ethnohistory because of his seminal work The Conflict of European and Eastern Algonkian Cultures, 1504-1700: A Study in Canadian Civilization (1937; 2nd ed. 1969). His essay "Overture to Nationhood" in the Literary History of Canada (1965), which he helped to edit, and his collection Culture and Nationality: Essays by A.G. Bailey (1972) are classics in their field. His books of poetry include Songs of the Saguenay (1927), Tâo (1930), Border River (1952), Thanks for a Drowned Island (1973), and Miramichi Lightning: The Collected Poems of Alfred G. Bailey (1981).

From conservative beginnings that echoed strongly the romantic tones of late 19th-century verse, Bailey evolved into a contemporary poet whose statement was full of the surrounding reality, whose voice is, at times, deceptively subdued but whose imagination ranged widely and wisely.

From 1935 to 1938, he worked as assistant director and associate curator at the New Brunswick Museum in Saint John, New Brunswick. From 1938 to 1969, he was head of the University of New Brunswick history department. From 1946 to 1964, he was the first Dean of Arts at University of New Brunswick and from 1965 to 1969, he was Vice President (Academic). He retired in 1970.

He instituted colonial American studies at the University of New Brunswick, as a result a closer liaison developed between the history departments at UNB and at the University of Maine in the 1960s. Visits between scholars from Atlantic Provinces and the University of Maine became frequent after the establishment of the New England __ Atlantic Provinces Study Center at Orono in 1966.

In 1951, he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada. In 1978, he was made an Officer of the Order of Canada. Alfred Goldsworthy Bailey has had a formative influence on a generation of younger poets, notably Elizabeth Brewster, Fred Cogswell, and Robert Gibbs.

[edit] Publications include

[edit] Poetry

• Songs of the Saguenay and other poems (1927)
• Tao: A Ryerson Poetry Chap Book (1930)
• Border River (1952)
• Thanks for a Drowned Island (poems, 1973)
• Miramichi Lightning: The Collected Poems (1981), nominated for a 1981 Governor General's Awards

[edit] Other writings

• The Conflict of European and Eastern Algonkian Culture 1504-1700: A Study in Canadian Civilization (1937; 1969)
• Culture and Nationality: Essays (1972)
• The Letters of James and Ellen Robb: Portrait of a Fredericton Family in Early Victorian Times (1983)

[edit] References

• "Dr. Alfred Goldsworthy Bailey fonds". UNB Archives. http://www.lib.unb.ca/archives/Bailey/. Retrieved 7 August 2005.