This page brings together the numerous posts Active History has run relating to commemoration, monuments, and naming. The posts have been organized thematically by topic.
Canada 150
Shirley Tillotson, #Canada150: How to Celebrate Freedom (November 14, 2017).
Janis Thiessen, #Canada150 / #Colonialism150: An Advertising History (October 10, 2017).
Matthew Hayday, Contesting Canada Day: A Tradition of Engagement, Challenges, and Change (June 30, 2017).
Christopher Dummitt, Canada 150: What’s to Celebrate? (April 21, 2017).
Commemoration, Colonialism, and Race
Donica Belisle, On the Bay’s 350th, let’s remember department stores’ contributions to colonialism and white supremacy (July 8, 2020)
Will Langford, Congress 2020, Interrupted: Racism and Commemoration in Western University’s Department of History (May 5, 2020).
Krista Barclay, Tombs with a View: Memorial Stones and Transatlantic Family Histories (March 26, 2020).
Magdalena Milosz, Settler Colonialism, Residential Schools, and Architectural History (November 21, 2019).
Mark T. S. Currie, The Evolution of a History: Examining Commemorative Markers at the Oro African Methodist Episcopal Church National Historic Site (November 20, 2019).
Matthew McRae, Remembering what we forget: Memory, commemoration and the 1885 Resistance (November 11, 2019).
Betsey Baldwin, 200 Years of Treaty Annuities (December 19, 2018).
Commemoration, General
Sean Graham, History Slam Episode 133: Pride, Commemoration, & Bill C-150 (June 26, 2019).
Christo Aivalis, It Inspires Us Still: A Century Later, the Winnipeg General Strike Still Matters (January 21, 2019).
Cornwallis
Thomas Peace, K’jipuktuk to Halifax and back: Decolonization in the Council Chamber (July 22, 2020)
Tom Fraser, Edward Cornwallis, Public Memory, and Canadian Nationalism (March 13, 2018).
Lindsay Gibson, Thinking Historically about Canadian Commemoration Controversies (December 4, 2017).
Elliot Worsfold, The Politics of Reclaiming, Not Renaming
Lachlan MacKinnon, Commemorative Controversies: Edward Cornwallis, Collective Contention, and Historical Memory (July 18, 2013).
Thomas Peace, Renaming Schools: A sign of a society in dialogue with its past (July 19, 2011).
Paul W. Bennett, Renaming Schools: What Does Sanitizing History Teach Students? (July 18, 2011).
Halifax Explosion
Claire L. Halstead, Local Tragedy or National Disaster? Commemorating the Halifax Explosion Centenary (November 9, 2017).
Claire Halstead, HExD: Changing Centennial Commemorations of the Halifax Explosion. (April 13, 2017).
Monuments
Gabriel A. Reich, Difficult History, Monuments, and Pedagogy: A Response to Levesque (November 27, 2018).
Stéphane Lévesque, A new approach to debates over Macdonald and other monuments in Canada: Part 2 (November 13, 2018).
Stéphane Lévesque, A new approach to debates over Macdonald and other monuments in Canada: Part 1 (November 6, 2018).
Matthew Neufeld, Memory, History, Monuments, and Mennonites: Or, what Winkler, Manitoba might teach us about dealing with historical and moral complexity in public commemoration (August 15, 2018).
Jewel Spangler, “What’s in a Monument? Part I: Robert E. Lee and Confederate Memory” (August 13, 2018).
Sean Graham, “History Slam Episode 120: Decoding Monuments and Memorials” (August 2, 2018).
Matthew Sears, The Monument War: Not just about “History” (October 5, 2017).
Tonya Davidson, On Wreaths and Graffiti: Reading Defacement and Nostalgia at Ottawa Monuments (April 3, 2016).
Sonya Roy and Steve Hewitt, One Monument Too Many: Why R.B. Bennett Doesn’t Deserve a Spot on Parliament Hill (September 16, 2015).
Gregor Kranjc, Memory Politics: Ottawa’s Monument to the Victims of Communism (March 17. 2015).
Karen Dubinsky, MacChe? Kingston prepares for Macdonald Bicentennial (December 2, 2014).
Mother Canada Monument
Tina Loo, Remember and Forgetting Canada in Cape Breton (July 9, 2015)
David Campbell, Jonathan Roberts, Corey Slumkoski, and Martha Walls, Heritage vs. History in the Commemoration of War in Cape Breton Highlands National Park (July 7, 2015)
Jill Campbell-Miller, A Monument to the Past? The Never Forgotten National War Memorial Project (July 6, 2015).
Naming and Renaming
Matthew McRae, What’s in a name? Thomas Scott and the curious case of the forgotten memorial (March 4 ,2020).
Thomas Peace, So long Dundas: From Colonization to Decolonization Road? (June 17, 2020).
Matthew Hayday, “Sir Hector-Louis Langevin, “Architect” of Residential Schools?” (June 23, 2017).
Anne Jahunen, “Colonization Road” and Challenging Settler Colonialism in Canada (November 3, 2016).
Thomas Peace, What’s in a Place Name: Adelaide Hoodless and Mona Parsons (February 9, 2015).
Kaleigh Bradley, What’s in a Name? Place Names, History, and Colonialism (February 2, 2015).
Kaitlin Wainwright, A building by any other name: The politics of renaming and commemoration (August 20, 2013).
Ian Milligan, Remembering and Commemorating a Complicated Past (April 25, 2010).
World War I Commemoration
Ross Fair, The Toronto Church Memorials to Soldiers of the Great War Project (March 26, 2020).
Jonathan Weier, We Need to Stop Talking about Vimy (April 17, 2019).
Laura Brandon, Art, Religion, & Iconography in the Vimy Memorial: An Overview (November 7, 2017)
Jackson Pind, The Alderville War Memorial: A Bizarre Monument or A Community’s Search for Meaning? (June 6, 2017)
Sarah Glassford, “You want to put what, where?” Contesting Malpeque’s (Second) First World War Memorial (November 11, 2016).
Claire L. Halstead, From Memorials to Instagram: Twenty-first Century Commemoration of the First World War (November 10, 2016).
Jonathan Weier, On the Road to 2017: Reflecting on Canada’s First World War Commemoration Plans (April 27, 2015).
Sarah Glassford, 1864 vs. 1914: A Commemorative Showdown (November 11, 2014).
Nathan Smith, Memory at 100: The First World War Centennial and the Question of Commemoration (June 4, 2014).
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