History and Everyday Life

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 [...]

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Aboriginal History in Ontario’s Cottage Country

April 3, 2012
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The designation of the displacement of the Anishinaabeg of Southern Georgian Bay as a National Historic Event provides a useful starting point on which to more deeply consider the Anishinaabeg presence in Ontario’s cottage country. What is the history of this recreational space? How, over the twentieth century, did it transform from Anishinaabeg hunting camps into a vacation destination? And what role do First Nations have in this territory today?

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Where’s the History? The absence of history on History Television

April 2, 2012
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I love watching History Television! I’ve spent hours watching M*A*S*H with my father, and programs like Digging for the Truth are part of the reason I decided to get involved with public history and archaeology. But another part of me is sad to see History Television’s emphasis on ‘reality TV’ programming lately.

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Engaging Corporate Heritage: Struggling to Cultivate Institutional Memory

March 22, 2012

Almost everyone has at least one memory of working with a ‘lifer’ or ‘old-timer.’  In some cases these employees have been at the organization since its inception, in other cases they have worked there for their entire career or as long as anyone can remember. The phrase “can remember” is often at the heart of [...]

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Ottawa House: Public History and Active History

March 19, 2012

By virtue of its very lack of polish, commitment to community artifacts, and desire to treat different social groups fairly, Ottawa House presents more than a frozen past. It is not perfect, but it shows an active past, where goods moved along a range of trade networks to reach destinations far from their starting points.

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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 [...]

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Outreach and Collections. Encouraging Community Members to Play a Role in Saving History

February 28, 2012

This post discusses the need for professionals in cultural heritage fields to reach out to non-professionals so that we may gather and support the proper keeping of historical collections.

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Parliament Can Offer History More Than Just Legislation

February 22, 2012

“It’s a difficult thing to live in a country that has erased your past.” – Teju Cole, Open City Amnesty International is concerned about a new French law that would “…[make] it a criminal offense to publicly question events labeled ‘genocide’…”. The bill cleared the upper house of the French Parliament on 23 January 2012 [...]

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Public History at the Department of National Defence

February 15, 2012

By Dr. John Maker I was recently involved in a major project for the Department of National Defence (DND), that epitomized some of the challenges and excitement of doing public history. It included important questions of public policy, public safety, and environmental contamination. The findings were put to use in practical and immediate ways to [...]

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The Changing Place of Foxes on Prince Edward Island

February 9, 2012

by Ryan O’Connor I grew up on Prince Edward Island. As a youth I heard stories of the once-booming silver fox industry, which brought considerable wealth to the province in the early 1900s. While fox ranching has long since ceased, one need look no further than the provincial armorial bearings, adopted in 2002, for a [...]

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