History and Everyday Life

Tangible History: Artifacts as Gateways to the Past

October 26, 2011

When someone talks about undertaking serious historical research what comes to mind? Perhaps you conjure up an image of a dusty archives room and leaning towers of paper. Census data, photographs, journals, correspondence, business records, and many other traditional archival materials may come to mind as potential sources. Did the phrase historical research make you [...]

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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 [...]

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Announcement: History on the Grand – People and Place

October 8, 2011

Join us for a day of history and heritage in beautiful downtown Cambridge on Saturday 22 October 2011 for the local history symposium History on the Grand: People and Place.

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My time in Hackney: Implications for youth

August 31, 2011

By Patricia Daley. [This article has already been posted on Pambazuka.org, OpenDemocracy.net and shared through the H-Urban email list. It was licenced on Pambazuka under Creative Commons, so we are reposting the full article here] I spent my teenage years on the Pembury Estate in Hackney – one of the locations of last week’s riots [...]

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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 [...]

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Stepping into the Past: Everyday Places that Awaken the Historical Imagination

August 15, 2011

As summer days begin to wane, we explore some of the everyday places that challenge us to think more deeply about the past. Got a place to add? Send us a message and we will add it to this post!

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From Andrew Carnegie to Margaret Atwood: Toronto’s “Unelected” Champions of Public Libraries.

August 4, 2011

Toronto city councillor Doug Ford, brother of city mayor Rob Ford, recently ignited public controversy over potential cuts to the city’s public library services when he claimed not to know much about author Margaret Atwood, who had spoken out against possible cuts to services and closures of library branches. Councillor Ford’s insistence that Atwood “get [...]

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IQT “Solutions”: Company Closures, Workers’ Rights, and the State of the Canadian Labour Movement

July 25, 2011

How does it feel to arrive at work one day to find the doors locked permanently? Most of us can imagine how cataclysmic an event this would be; unfortunately, 1200 more workers had to experience this recently, as IQT Solutions closed its doors in Canada. Claiming bankruptcy (no official filing could be immediately located), the [...]

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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 [...]

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