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������Ƶ’s Special Collections & University Archives has a unique collection of BC historical textbooks. These textbooks were used in public schools since the province joined confederation in 1871.

The British Columbia Historical Textbooks (BCHT) collection includes books on a variety of school subjects including science, math, health, English and language arts, foreign languages, history, and social studies.

These textbooks have touched the lives of many citizens for nearly a century and a half. When we review school textbooks, we gain insights into the people who used them. We can explore the thinking, priorities, values, and assumptions of those who wrote, taught, and read these books.

About the project

The development of this digital library is a multi-year project. Through it, we hope to preserve and highlight these unique artefacts of our province’s history. The BCHT will be of interest to the general public, educators, and researchers, specifically historians.

If you have questions about the historical textbooks or would like a presentation about how these books were used throughout British Columbia, please contact the curator of this collection, Librarian Pia Russell.

Videos & podcasts

• Watch a brief to the BC Historical Textbooks collection (4 minutes).
• Listen to episode seven of , a ������Ƶ podcast on truth, memory, and human rights.
  • BCHT is featured in the episode . Ry Moran interviews co-researchers Chaa’winisaks and Pia Russell as they share insights on the BCHT collection. (Our segment runs from minutes 05:24 to 22:12.)
• Watch a given at the 2024 Children’s History Society Conference in Newcastle, UK, that compares understandings of settler colonialism in two textbooks.
• Watch a given virtually at the 2026 University College London’s Research Institute for Collections. Titled, "Teaching Britishness in Canada: A historical analysis of schoolbooks at the heart and edge of empire," this talk outlines Pia’s research as a recent Liberating the Collections Fellow.

Reading

• Read a  during the early twentieth century.
• Read a  used in Dutch and BC schools in 1910.
• Explore a lesson plan comparing textbooks used in BC and the UK.
  • This lesson plan aligns with BC’s Grade 9 Social Studies curriculum and the UK National Curriculum History Program Stage Three.

We are proud to have the BCHT collection included as a member of the  (INEHC).

Acknowledgements

Support for the BC Historical Textbooks project is provided by:

• The University Librarian’s Office at ������Ƶ
• The Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada
•  at the
• The Leibniz Institute for Educational Media | , Germany
•  (BCLA)
• Myer Horowitz Conference Presentation Award. Centre for Youth and Society, ������Ƶ
• , Germany
• The Kalman Award for International Heritage Studies. Cultural Resource Management Program, ������Ƶ

Learn more

To learn more about the history of textbooks in BC, we recommend the following resources:

• Professor Patrick Dunae’s