The MHSO started to stage conferences soon after it was established, combining community participation with serious scholarship in each gathering. In 
November 1979, it sponsored Finn Forum ’79, one the largest international conferences ever convened for the study of a single ethnocultural community. A gathering on Dutch migration was held soon after. Then, in the fall of 1980, the Society’s conference, Poles in North America, drew participants from all over the world. It marked the first visit to Canada of Czeslaw Milosz, the Nobel Laureate. A series of publications, from The Italian Immigrant Woman in North America (1978) to Looking into My Sister’s Eyes: An Exploration in Women’s History (1986), grew out of these MHSO conferences. They are listed below. All conference proceedings can be accessed online through the Libraries and Cultural Resources Digital Collections of the University of Calgary.
- Dutch Immigration to North America
- Finnish Diaspora I: Canada, South America, Africa, Australia and Sweden
- Finnish Diaspora II: United States
- The Italian Immigrant Woman in North America
- Little Italies in North America
- Looking into My Sister’s Eyes: An Exploration in Women’s History
- Migration and the Transformation of Cultures
- Pane E Lavoro: The Italian American Working Class
- The Polish Presence in Canada and America
- Portuguese Migration in Global Perspective
- The Quebec and Acadian Diaspora in North America
- The South Asian Diaspora in Canada: Six Essays
