Jay Young

Mad Men and Wonder Years: history, nostalgia, and life in The Sixties

May 7, 2012

By Jay Young Like many people, I anticipated the return of Mad Men (AMC, Sundays, 10 pm EST), one of television’s most acclaimed series of the past decade.  Now in its fifth season, the show looks at the life of Don Draper and other workers in the New York advertising industry during the 1960s. At [...]

Share
Read the full article →

Living History at New York’s Tenement Museum

March 5, 2012

By Jay Young I recently spent an extended weekend in New York City.  Along with the well-known sights, sounds and tastes of the Big Apple, I was excited to visit the Tenement Museum, a restored five-storey building at 97 Orchard Street that educates visitors about life in the Lower East Side during the late nineteenth [...]

Share
Read the full article →

Eating it up: historical perspectives, popular media, and food culture

January 23, 2012

Jamie Oliver has made a name for himself as a celebrity chef who has sought to improve the way we eat.  Whether it be his instructional cooking or his fight to reform school cafeterias, Oliver has spent over a decade teaching us how to make food, and urging us to think more about it. Some [...]

Share
Read the full article →

New Podcast: Richard Harris on the Making of a Toronto Suburb

October 25, 2011

Historical Geographer Richard Harris recently presented a talk entitled “The Making of Dufferin-St. Clair: 1900-1929” at a local library located in this Toronto neighbourhood.  Following his talk, a room full of community members shared their personal memories of the area’s social and physical development.  Harris’s talk comes from research for his book, Unplanned Suburbs: Toronto’s [...]

Share
Read the full article →

Family Ties: The Successes and Challenges of Genealogical Research

October 17, 2011

Trees are a common symbol for genealogy.  Like lines of ancestry, trees contain many branches that are united through a common trunk but grow in their own direction.  And like family history, we often only see the complexity of their roots when we start digging. In a previous post, I outlined strategies on conducting the research [...]

Share
Read the full article →

New Podcast: Lisa Rumiel Examines the Environmental Activism of Rosalie Bertell

October 12, 2011

Historian Lisa Rumiel recently presented a talk entitled “Three Mile Island to Bhopal: the Life and Work of Environmental Activist Rosalie Bertell” in front of an engaged audience at Toronto’s Parkdale library.  Bertell, who has a PhD in biometrics, has long spoken out about the environmental consequences of nuclear power. Rumiel’s talk is available here [...]

Share
Read the full article →

New Podcast: Ruth Frager on Toronto’s Spadina Sweatshops, 1900-1939

September 20, 2011

Last week, historian Ruth Frager presented a talk entitled “Spadina Sweatshops: Jews and Gender in Toronto’s Labour Movement 1900 to 1939.”  The lecture examined the dynamics of the Jewish labour movement in Toronto and focused on a strike at the clothing factory of the T. Eaton Company in 1912. Frager’s talk is available here for [...]

Share
Read the full article →

Death, politics and the memory of Jack Layton

August 29, 2011

The passing of Jack Layton has unleashed a tremendous amount of mourning across the country.  Saturday’s state funeral, usually reserved for current or former prime ministers, Cabinet ministers, and governors general, attracted thousands of attendees inside and outside of downtown Toronto’s Roy Thompson Hall.   Many more people gathered at events held this past week across [...]

Share
Read the full article →

History Matters Fall 2011 Lecture Series, Toronto Public Library

August 24, 2011

Toronto Public Library is pleased to announce the 2011 History Matters series. This year these lectures focus on two themes—labour and environmental history in the Toronto area and beyond. Part of TPL’s Thought Exchange programming, these lively talks will give the public an opportunity to connect with working historians and discover some of the many [...]

Share
Read the full article →

Like history? There’s an app for that

July 11, 2011

I recently purchased an Apple iPhone, so that means I now enjoy texting, web browsing on the go and, of course, a higher monthly cell phone bill.  But I’m also able to use a number of great apps that relate to history. An app (short for “application”) is essentially a computer program for a smartphone.  Apps are [...]

Share
Read the full article →

← Previous Entries