On Thursday, September 18, we were pleased to host the first virtual lecture of our 2025 Cold War Series with Dr. Isabel Campbell. Dr. Campbell is a senior historian at the Department of National Defence, an adjunct research professor in the History Department at Carleton University, and a senior fellow at the Bill Graham Centre for Contemporary International History at the University of Toronto.
Dr. Campbell’s talk, Cold War Workers: Labour, Family, and Community in a Nuclear State, drew from their edited book of the same name. The volume explores how race, gender, family, and community shaped the experiences of people involved in Cold War labour, often revealing hidden or marginalized perspectives.
Key themes and chapters highlighted:
- Warren Sinclair’s chapter: The story of his father Elmer Sinclair, an Indigenous veteran and residential school survivor, reflecting on trauma, silence, and service.
- Sue Heffernan’s research: Impacts of the Pinetree Station on environment, gender, and Indigenous communities.
- Stacey Fritz’s oral histories: Lived experiences of Inuit families affected by the DEW Line, showing both cultural loss and later activism.
- Matthew Wiseman’s work: Cold War isolation research and its ethical implications for science, labour, and military needs.
- Frances Reilley’s study: Cold War pathologization of homosexuality and how science was used to enforce social norms as a means of promoting a particular version of masculine labour.
- Sarah Hogenbirk’s chapter: Construction of the “military career woman” in the 1950s and 1960s, showing both progress and persistent gender hierarchies.
Throughout the lecture, Dr. Campbell emphasized compassion, collaboration among contributors, and the importance of giving voice to those historically excluded from Cold War narratives.
The following Q&A session touched on pertinent lessons for readers, stressing the importance of having respect for diverse experiences, and holding space for silence and listening.
Diefenbunker Curator, Sean Campbell, closed by noting the value of broadening Cold War history beyond politics and military strategy to include social, cultural, and community impacts.
We are grateful to Dr. Isabel Campbell for this insightful discussion into often excluded narratives surrounding the Cold War.
You can watch a recording of the virtual lecture here:
Dr. Isabel Campbell is a senior historian at the Department of National Defence, an adjunct research professor in the history department at Carleton University, and a senior fellow at the Bill Graham Centre for International History at the University of Toronto. She has published on Canada and the Cold War, alliance strategy, gender and service families, and the intersections between foreign policy and military history, as well as on the Royal Canadian Air Force, the Canadian Army, and the Royal Canadian Navy, and archival matters.
LinkedIn: ca.linkedin.com/in/isabel-campbell-95860377
Book: Cold War Workers. Labour, Family, and Community in a Nuclear State
Use code MQ25 for 25% off until December 31, 2025. All royalties are donated to the Assiniboia Residential School Legacy Group.
We invite you to join us for an upcoming event in our 2025 Speaker Series:
October 16, 2025: Military Research in the Early Cold War, with Dr. Matthew Wiseman
November 20, 2025: Canada, Africa, and the Cold War, with Dr. Kevin Spooner