The project was undertaken following a bequest to the University of Toronto from businessman James Nicholson for the establishment of a Canadian version of the United Kingdom's Dictionary of National Biography.
[1] In the spring of 1959, George Williams Brown was appointed general editor and the University of Toronto Press, which had been named publisher, sent out some 10,000 announcements introducing the project.
1 July was designated the formal date of the Dictionary's establishment, not coincidentally the same day Canada's confederation is celebrated.
Marcel Trudel was appointed directeur adjoint for Dictionnaire biographique du Canada, Université Laval the publisher.
The project by its nature required not only much translation, as articles would originate in English and in French, but close coordination as well.
Volumes were to be of approximate equal size, with the span of time covered within each reducing as biographies moved into the 20th century.
[1] A guide was issued for the writers of Volume I biographies, and repeated for subsequent volumes: "The biography should be a fresh and scholarly treatment of the subject based upon reliable sources (where possible first-hand) precise and accurate in statements of fact, concise, but presented in attractive literary form.... the aim is to secure independent and original treatments and not mere compilations of preceding accounts.
[2] David Hayne was now general editor, having replaced Brown who died suddenly during the preparation of Volume I;[1] André Vachon directeur adjoint.
[5] A period of long editorial stability was established as Francess G. Halpenny, who succeeded Hayne in 1969, would hold the position of general editor for 20 years.
[6] But when Volume XIII appeared in 1994, with Ramsay Cook as new general editor, the intervening years were described as "hav[ing] been among the most difficult in the history of this Canadian institution.
[16] Volume XIV was published in 1998, and marked a dramatic superficial change: a colourful dust-jacket featuring images of some 52 prominent Canadians, a stark contrast to the modest tan covers of previous volumes which featured only text.
[17] The introduction suggested that the financial and staff pressures were "becoming more acute"[17] but held out the hope that "funds from a wider variety of granting agencies" would permit the project to continue as planned.
And, as a sign of the rapidly changing means of communications the DCB was encountering, mention was made of the millennium project to distribute for free CD-ROMs of the contents of the first 14 volumes of the project to educational institutions and of the intellectual properties licensing agreement made with Library and Archives Canada in 2003 to make available on-line those same 14 volumes with some additional biographies afterwards.
[19] In 2007, the DCB published Canada's Prime Ministers: Macdonald to Trudeau – Portraits from the Dictionary of Canadian Biography.
[20][21][22][23] Halpenny emphasizes its use of "the insights of historical geography, sociology, anthropology, and literature," and notes that it responds to both the concerns of quantitative historians as well as scholars in the fields of minorities, labor, and women.
Volumes IX and X deemphasize Acadians and Indigenous peoples, and focus mostly on politics as contests between elites.
The treatment of Maritime economic and intellectual development suggests that the legendary mid-19th-century Golden Age was only a veneer.