Person

Breen, David

[20—]

David Breen is a professor emeritus, historian, and author who focuses on Western Canadian history. Breen’s academic research interests revolve around the western settlement, land policy, and resource development. David Breen completed his Ph.D. In history at the University of Alberta in 1972, he was writing his dissertation on the history of ranching in the Canadian prairies. In 1998, Dr. Breen won a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Petroleum History Society – a group of academics, corporate representatives, and archivists – for his work in writing the first comprehensive scholarly book on the petroleum industry in Western Canada.
In the course of his life, Breen wrote and co-wrote many books and articles, including Alberta’s petroleum industry and the Conservation Board (1993), The Canadian Prairie West and the ranching frontier 1874-1924 (1983), William Stewart Herron: father of the petroleum industry in Alberta (1984) with R.C. Macleod, and Vancouver’s fair: an administrative and political history of the Pacific National Exhibition (1982) with K. Coates.