I have worked at Laurier since 2009. I received my PhD in history from York University. I also studied history at the University of Waterloo (MA) and McGill University (BA). Prior to teaching at Laurier, I taught at York University, Trent University, and Brock University. 

My research focuses on Canadian women’s political activism in the 20th century, particularly regarding their mobilization for women’s rights and children’s safety during the World Wars and Cold War. I am also interested in children’s experiences as orphans and adoptees in Canada, and how children perceived and responded to the threat of nuclear war.

My current SSHRC-funded research project, Experiments in Peace: Grindstone Island, 1939-1989, examines the history of peace and social justice programs for youth and adults facilitated by the Quakers and the Grindstone Co-op.

• 2018 Merit Award, WLU Faculty Association
• 2017 Merit Award, WLU Faculty Association
• 2017 SSHRC Insight Grant, PI
• 2017 SSHRC Connections Grant, CI
• 2016 Merit Award, WLU Faculty Association
• 2014 SSHRC Connections Grant, CI
• 2014 Shortlist, C.P. Stacey Award Winner
• 2013 Shortlist, Political History Prize Best Book
• 2013 Finalist, Canada Prize for the Social Sciences
• 2012 Merit Award, WLU Faculty Association
• 2009 Governor General’s Academic Gold Medal, York University

I am a member of the Tri-University Graduate Program in History. I would love to supervise history graduate students in the areas relating to Canadian social and political history, Cold War Canada, Canadian women’s history (particularly in areas of women, war and peace and women’s political activism) and the history of childhood.

As a member of the Social Justice and Community Engagement MA program, I can supervise projects related to gender, war, peace, and child welfare.

Books

• Cold War Comforts: Canadian Women, Child Safety and Global Insecurity (Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2012).
• Our Voices Must Be Heard: Women and the Vote in Ontario (University of British Columbia Press, Forthcoming October 2018).

Book Chapters and Articles

• Tarah Brookfield and Sarah Glassford, “Home Fronts and Frontlines:  A Gendered History of War and Peace,” Reading Canadian Women's and Gender History, eds. Nancy Janovicek and Carmen Nielson (University of Toronto Press, 2019) 151-170.
• Tarah Brookfield. “Children as ‘Seeds of Destiny’: Nation, Race, and Citizenship in Postwar Foreign Relief Programs,” Bringing Children and Youth into Canadian History, eds. Tamara Myers and Mona Gleason (Oxford University Press, 2017) 376-391.
• Tarah Brookfield, “Save the Children/Save the World: Canadian Women embrace the United Nations, 1940s-1970s,” Canada and the United Nations: Legacies, Limits, and Prospects, eds. Robert Tiegrob and Colin McCullough (McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2017) 104-136.
• Tarah Brookfield. “He told me “Babies Sleep”:  Expectations and Realities about Maternity Leave Productivity,” The Parent-Track: Timing, Balance and Choice within Academia, eds. Christina DeRoche and Ellie Berger (Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2017) 135-148.
• “Object Lesson: Representing and Recovering Girls’ Pasts: The Inmates Orphan’s Home Album,” Journal of the History of Childhood and Youth (Forthcoming Fall 2016)
• “The Fasting Granny vs. The Trudeau Government: Demanding an End to the Canadian Presence in Vietnam,” Worth Fighting For: War Resistance in Canadian History, eds. Lara Campbell, Michael Dawson and Catherine Gidney. (Toronto: Between the Lines, Press, 2015) 187-200.
• “Until the world deserves them”: Representations of Apocalyptic Childhoods in The Day After, Testament, and Threads,” in The Child in Post-Apocalyptic Cinema, ed. Debbie Olsen (Lexington Books, 2015) 129-152.
• “History of Adoption and Fostering in Canada,” in Oxford Bibliographies in Childhood Studies, ed. Heather Montgomery. (Oxford University Press, 2015; 2017). 26 pp.
• “No Woman is an Island: Heroes, Heroines, and Power in the Gendered World of Lost,” The Journal of the Popular Culture 46.2 (2013): 315-337.
• “Reshaping Expectations and Emerging Anxieties: Ideal Womanhood Receives a Makeover in Twentieth Century America,” Labour/Le Travail 72 (Fall 2013): 295-308.
• “The Home Front Becomes the Front Line: Fallout Shelter Madness,” Gender History: Canadian Perspectives, eds. Willeen G. Keough and Lara Campbell (Oxford University Press, 2013) 196-206.
• “Modeling the UN’s Mission in Semi-Formal Wear: Edmonton’s Miss United Nations Pageants of the 1960s,” Contesting Bodies and Nation in Canadian History, eds. Jane Nicholas and Patrizia Gentile (University of Toronto Press, 2013.): 247-268.
• “Maverick Mothers and Mercy Flights: Canada’s Controversial Introduction to International Adoption,” Journal of the Canadian Historical Association, 19(1) 2008, 307-330.
• “Divided by the Ballot Box: The Montreal Council of Women and the 1917 Election,” Canadian Historical Review, 89(4) December 2008: 473-501.

Recordings

• Active History Slam Episode: Grindstone Island and Non-Violence Resistance in Canada.