Email: grace_mcnutt@cbu.ca
Dr. Grace McNutt is a SSHRC Postdoctoral Research Fellow under the supervision of Dr. Lachlan MacKinnon with the Cape Breton University (CBU) History Department and the Centre for Cape Breton Studies (CCBS). She is also a Postdoctoral Affiliate of the Deindustrialization - and the Politics of Our Time (DePOT) partnership, which examines the political responses to deindustrialization as well as its historical roots and lived experiences. Grace is a graduate of Cape Breton University (BA Hons., 2018), Saint Mary's University (MA, 2020), and Dalhousie University (PhD, 2025). She is a board member for the Royal Nova Scotia Historical Society (RNSHS) and the Nova Scotia Women's History Society (NSWHS). Her current research investigates the entanglements of seafaring, authorship, and deindustrialization as experienced by women in the late 19th century during the collapse of the shipping industry along Nova Scotia's Parrsboro Shore. Male and masculine experiences have long been privileged in the spheres of both seafaring and deindustrialization. However, by investigating the letters and journals of sea captains' wives in her PhD dissertation (Women on the Water), Grace unveiled that women played critical roles in the success of wooden, merchant, sailing vessels from Parrsboro and, like the men onboard, were shaped by their experiences at sea and onshore. Now, she is expanding this research to consider how women helped navigate their communities through the transition from sea to land, as the shipping and ship building industries died away in the late 19th century.