Timing Is Everything: Heritage, Modernization and Temporal Politics in Mid-Century Lunenburg, Nova Scotia

Heritage in mid-twentieth-century Lunenburg, Nova Scotia, operated as a dynamic temporal practice, recalibrating rhythms and meanings of time to mediate change rather than serve as a static remnant of the past or a passive conduit of modernization. This study reveals that Lunenburgers actively negotiated modernization by adjusting pacing and rearranging time, asserting local agency through four case studies: artist Collins Eisenhauer's resistance to folklorization, the Dutch Oven Cookbook's role in slowing convenience foods for community longevity, the racial temporal violence embedded in the cookbook's caricatures of Afro-Nova Scotians, and the Fishermen’s Memorial Room's counterpoint to triumphalist narratives of progress. The research demonstrates that heritage was neither confined to nostalgia nor progress but functioned bidirectionally, securing identity and belonging through active temporal practices.

Grant, H. Timing Is Everything: Heritage, Modernization and Temporal Politics in Mid-Century Lunenburg, Nova Scotia. https://doi.org/10.22215/etd/2026-16900