Runnymede Branch Public Library ca. 1930 (City of Toronto Archives)

On Tuesday, September 14^th the Toronto Public Library (TPL) will kick off its 6 part History Matters lecture series.  As you might have guessed from the title, the idea for the series was inspired by what’s been going on over the past couple years with the folks at Active History – both at the blog and the 2008 conference.  My goal for organizing the series with the library was to encourage the development of community and exchange between active Toronto historians and the broader Toronto community.

The idea to use a public history lecture series for building these connections came from my own experiences as a first time university lecturer.  After spending 6 years working towards my doctorate, in my relatively tiny little field of nuclear history and my even tinier corner of that particular history, I felt a little disconnected from why it is that history matters.  My dissertation was about the role of activist-oriented physicians and scientists in the American anti-nuclear movement, but while writing it I always had this nagging feeling that maybe my life would have more meaning if I was doing what these activists were doing, rather than writing about them – at what felt like a turtle’s pace.  When I started regularly lecturing to undergraduate students – about the history of medicine and the history of science – I was energized.  It was immediately clear to me why it is that history matters – not only the finessed (and sometimes inaccessible) historical arguments that academic historians love to make, but stories about the past.  For me, active history has come to mean using what happened in the past to inspire people to look outside themselves and their small corner of the world, to develop empathy for their fellow human beings, and to learn from both the good and the bad that has been done in the past.  Since my students over the years seemed to get a lot out of learning about history and because lots of the people in the public places where I wrote most of my thesis seemed interested in the history I was studying, I figured the patrons of the TPL might also enjoy learning more about history from some really cool Toronto historians.  It also helped that the TPL has the largest public library system in Canada and a staff that is totally committed to developing interesting and engaging programming for library patrons across the city!

The theme of the series is Toronto history and will begin with a talk by Stuart Henderson at the Yorkville Branch, where he’ll discuss the history of hippies in the surrounding neighbourhood.  Subsequent talks will be given by the eminent Canadian labour historian, Craig Heron, Active History.ca’s own Jay Young, Susanna Miranda, Jennifer Bonnell, Megan Davies, and David Reville.  The talks cover a wide range of historical subjects, including the history of booze, the Toronto Transit Commission, Portuguese cleaning women, homelessness in the Don Valley, and the impact of deinstitutionalization on Toronto’s Parkdale neighbourhood.  The TPL did its best to have the location of each talk correspond with the topic.

See the full speakers list, with titles, dates, and times below.  If you’re in the Toronto area, I hope you’ll consider coming out to some of the talks.  With the exception of Henderson’s talk, which will take place at 2pm, all of them are scheduled in the evening.  ActiveHistory.ca plans to record and post these lectures on the website so those not able to attend the talks will still be able to hear them later on.  I would also appreciate people posting the program listing far and wide to help with marketing efforts.

Editor’s note: ActiveHistory.ca is happy to provide web support to anyone who wishes to start a History Matters lecture series in their own locale.  Please contact us at info@activehistory.ca if you are interested.

The Toronto Public Library Presents: Programs for the constantly curious…

History Matters

Connect with Toronto historians at these lively lectures showcasing current research on Toronto’s past and discover some of the surprising ways history matters to everyone in our city today.

Making the Scene in 1960s Yorkville
Stuart Henderson
Tues. Sept. 14, 2 pm
Yorkville Branch
22 Yorkville Ave. 416-393-7660

I’ll Drink to That: Booze in Hogtown
Craig Heron
Tues. Sept. 28, 7 pm
Annette Street Branch
145 Annette St. 416-393-7692

A Public Technology: The Building of Toronto’s Yonge Street Subway
Jay Young
Thurs. Oct. 14, 7 pm
Beaches Branch
2161 Queen St. E. 416-393-7703

Isolating Undesirables: Prisons, Pollution and Homelessness in Toronto’s Don River Valley, 1860-1932
Jennifer Bonnell
Thurs. Oct. 14, 7 pm
Bendale Branch
1515 Danforth Rd. 416-396-8910

Keeping the City Clean: Portuguese Women in Toronto’s Cleaning Industry, 1970-1990
Susana Miranda
Thurs. Oct. 21, 7 pm
Bloor/Gladstone Branch
1101 Bloor St. W. 416-393-7674

Locating Parkdale’s Mad History: Back Wards to Back Streets, 1980-2010
Megan Davies and David Reville
Thurs. Nov. 4, 7 pm
Parkdale Branch
1303 Queen St. W. 416-393-7686

Organized by the Toronto Public Library, with the assistance of Dr. Lisa Rumiel, SSHRC Postdoctoral Fellow, McMaster University

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Franklin Expedition, 1845

In 1845 the Franklin Expedition disembarked from coastal England in search of the Northwest Passage, but instead of achieving this goal, the voyage became the source of one of history’s most enduring stories that would continue to spark interest over 150 years later.

This summer Parks Canada has announced its intention to continue its search for the wrecks of the HMS Erebus and HMS Terror – the two lost ships of the Franklin Expedition – that it began in 2008.

In 1845, the Franklin Expedition, led by Sir John Franklin, set sail with a crew of 128 men and three years worth of provisions in the hopes of finding a Northwest Passage. After three years without news from the expedition, and at the behest of the British public, including Franklin’s wife, Lady Jane Franklin, the Royal Navy launched a rescue party in search of the missing explorers. In addition to the navy’s official parties, a number of other rescue parties set out, spurred on by interest and concern, as well as the promise of a £20,000 reward. By 1850, the first traces of the ill fated voyage were found off the coast of Beechey Island in the Eastern Arctic. Searchers found the remnants of a winter camp, along with the graves of three sailors. Still, the search for survivors or answers continued, and by 1854 explorer John Rae had collected the most conclusive proof of the expedition’s demise by gathering information form the local Inuit who told him of a large group of starving white men, as well as stories of cannibalism. The Inuit had also collected a number of artefacts from the expedition that were subsequently passed on to Rae. Rae transmitted these stories back to England and while his evidence was accepted, he was vilified by Lady Jane Franklin and her supporters for daring to suggest that British sailors could have taken part in actions as grim as cannibalism.

In 1857, Lady Jane Franklin commissioned a second expedition that located handwritten messages left by the Franklin crew under a pile of rocks. These messages reported that during the expedition both the Erebus and Terror had been locked in ice for over a year and a half and that twenty-four men had died during this time, including Sir John Franklin. Running out of provisions, the remaining crew members abandoned ship and began to trek south. No man survived this journey.

Ironically enough, while Franklin has been credited by some of his countrymen with finding the Northwest Passage, in truth, it was actually the various search parties that did far more to map the landscape of Canada’s Arctic.

In the 1980s interest in the Franklin Expedition was renewed and new technologies were used on discovered human remains to determine that the crew had likely died from a number of causes that may have included pneumonia, scurvy, tuberculosis, and lead poisoning, caused either by lead in the tinned food or in the ship’s water filtration system. Theories of cannibalism were also confirmed by examining blade cuts found on human bones. Despite these findings, the Terror and Erebus remain lost at sea. It is this mystery, along with the fate of the Investigator, a rescue ship that sank while trying to locate the Franklin Expedition that archaeologists working for Parks Canada hope to solve by using the latest in sonar technology alongside the oral traditions provided by the area’s Inuit.

While a historical mystery underscores this government funded venture, its timing is also no accident. This expedition comes at a time that Canada is reasserting its claims over the Far North. As global warming causes Arctic waterways to open up, there is increased interest within Canada, and globally, about the materials, including vast amounts of oil and minerals that may lie underneath these waters. In the years ahead this changing landscape will continue to be the cause of international interest and competing agendas of national governments, businesses and environmentalists. With this in mind the Canadian Government is reasserting its sovereignty in the area and investing heavily to chart these waters.

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As I reflected on these two news items I was struck by their differences in tone.  In New York City, the discovery of this ship seems to have sparked significant interest (especially given the global significance of the site).  The New York Times followed up on this with an interactive summary of other archaeological finds in the city.  In Toronto, the tone was quite different.  First, there was debate about the merits of historical designation of private property.  But more concerning was Adam Vaughan’s critical point that only four people work in the City’s Heritage Preservation Services department. [editors note (July 27 2010): there are actually 14 people currently employed at Historical Preservation Services see the comments section below for more information]

Without getting into the important differences between New York City and Toronto (and there are many), these two stories challenged me to take a look at the government departments overseeing historical preservation in each city.  The differences in how each city handles heritage preservation is striking and perhaps reflects why Toronto frequently suffers from a mythical reputation of being without history and culture while New York City thrives in both.

Toronto’s lack of history, heritage and culture is, of course, a myth; but the question that these stories raise for me is whether that myth thrives in the city’s municipal structure.

Take a quick peek at New York’s Landmarks Preservation Commission.  What you will find is a separate government commission overseen by 11 commissioners.  The commission must consist of 3 architects, 1 historian, a city planner or landscape architect, a realtor and 1 representative from each of the city’s five boroughs.  The commission has four departments, runs a grant program and co-ordinates environmental review.  It has a relatively balanced number of designated historic districts in each of the five boroughs.

Now let’s look at Toronto’s Heritage Preservation Services.  Instead of having four departments, the service only has four employees.  The service is overseen by the Heritage Preservation Board which is comprised of 7 city-council appointed members, 3 city-councillors, and the chairs of Toronto’s four Community Preservation Panels.  The presence of professionals working in history, architecture or city-planning is not mandated.  For the most part research and archaeology are contracted out rather than dealt with internally.   Finally, although Toronto is half the physical size of New York and has one less district, its designated historic districts are clustered around the downtown core; only five historical areas (of 30) fall outside of Toronto/East York.

The minimal support for Heritage Preservation Services in Toronto (4 staff members for 8,000 properties [editors note: there are 14 employees.  See the comments section below]) relative to New York City is not just a function of New York being much older.  It is more a symptom of the type of history that the city has chosen to remember.  Historic preservation in Toronto is centred on the 19^th and early-20^th centuries.  Toronto’s history is significantly broader than this.  The city has a deep history of Aboriginal migration and settlement, the 18th-century French fur trade, as well as important mid-to-late-twentieth century developments – all of which are important and inscribed on the urban landscape.

This somewhat narrow focus has had some serious consequences for how the past is remembered.   Take the Parsons Site, for example.  This pre-contact Iroquoian village neighbouring Jane/Finch, Black Creek Pioneer Village, York University and (now) the Archives of Ontario has been the subject of numerous archaeological studies since the 1950s.  Since the 1960s efforts have been made to commemorate the site.  These efforts ultimately failed and today the site is occupied by a hydro-corridor, an apartment building, and a gas pipeline.  Along with Black Creek Pioneer Village, the community at Jane/Finch, and York University, the landscape and built heritage tells more than 500 years of human history in the region.  None of this is apparent to local residents or visitors and the area is seldom seen as a place of cultural and historical value.

Imagine how Northwest Toronto might have developed if heritage preservation were to have had a more developed structure – perhaps something similar to New York’s Landmarks Preservation Commission – which included the input of professionals and citizens.  With greater professional involvement and more human resources Toronto might have a deeper sense of its history.  Instead of having been more-or-less destroyed, a site like the Parons site could have been a public park, a focal point for future urban planning, or even a museum representing pre-contact Aboriginal history and culture.  Demonstrating the way that Aboriginal peoples, immigrants and urban and suburban development have shaped our physical space can help to encourage Torontonians in thinking about their past and the way Toronto has developed.

The fact of the matter is that Toronto, and many other cities, has hidden treasures like the ship that was found underneath the World Trade Centre.  They are scattered beneath our feet, behind our walls, and sometimes immediately apparent without our knowing it.  Many people, groups, other municipal agencies and corporations (such as Heritage Toronto and Archaeological Services Inc) do a great job at revealing these places and their importance to us.

The municipal government, however, should be leading the way.  A strong well-developed and supported municipal heritage preservation program not only preserves the city’s historical and cultural heritage, but also creates greater pride and engagement with civic issues, builds a desire to explore a broader range of neighbourhoods and urban spaces, and helps to foster a deeper sense of the dynamics of a city’s history.

***Two important side notes should be made here:

First, in 1997 Toronto found a boat of its own underneath the city floor during the construction of the Air Canada Centre.  The discovery of the Commodore Jarvis became the subject of Michael Redhill’s novel Consolation.  More information (with pictures and maps) can be found on pages 44-47 of “The Archaeological Master Plan of the Central Waterfront.”

Second, Heritage Toronto was created by the city and has a role in heritage preservation in Toronto.  Its structure bears closer resemblance to New York’s Landmarks Preservation Board.  It is, however, more of an advisory body.  Its mission is to celebrate, interpret, and advocate “for our cultural, architectural, archaeological and natural heritage.”  Although mandated through they city, much of its work is supported by donation.

The following upcoming events may be of interest to our readers (click on ‘continue reading’ below for full descriptions):

1)  CFP: We Demand: History/Sex/Activism in Canada – deadline: 30 Sept 2010

2) ActiveHistory.ca is looking for a co-book review editor

3) CJSW: Today in Canadian History still looking for submissions

4) Digest of this week’s blog posts

AH Announcements will be on vacation for the month of August.  AH announcements will return on August 28th.  If you have an announcement that you would like included in this weekly dispatch, please e-mail info@activehistory.ca. 1)  The organizers of “We Demand” are currenting accepting proposals for papers, panels, round table discussions, or posters.  The conference is being held August 25-28, 2011 in Vancouver, BC to commemorate the first national political action taken by gay and lesbian activists.  The keynote speaker will be Ann Cvetkovich.  For more information visit the We Demand website.

2) We are looking for someone to join our editorial team as one of two book review editors.  Responsibilities include selecting books to be reviewed, finding appropriate reviewers, and contacting publishers for review copies.  Please visit our book reviews section for more information about the type of book review that we solicit.

3) Calgary radio station CJSW is still looking for recommendations and contributions for their program Today in Canadian History.  Sean Kheraj posted an interview on his blog with series producer Joe Burima.  It describes the radio program and some of its key features.  You can get in touch with Today in Canadian History at todayincanadianhistory@cjsw.com.

4) This has been a slow week in the AH blogosphere:

-     Krista McCracken: Canadian Census Data: A lost resource

page from the 1881 census

Historians, genealogists, sociologists, and numerous other researchers all use census data generated through the old long census form.  Genealogy is on the rise in Canada and one of the primary resources genealogists rely on is census data.   The public release of Canadian census data collected prior to 1911 has made it easier for anyone to explore their family’s past. Additionally, census data is used to track changes over time, to learn more about factions of society, track migration patterns, and examine various other social history topics.  It is not clear if the new NHS will include all of the topics previously covered by the long census form or if it will  be changing the type of information collected.

In previous years, the long census was distributed to 1 out of 5 families.  The new survey will be sent to 1 of 3 families. However, the survey will be completely voluntary.   The voluntary aspect of the NHS has the potential to impact the validity of the results, as certain segments of the population are traditionally less inclined to respond to surveys.  This has the potential to drastically skew the results.  A lot of government policy relating to community groups and local programming has traditionally been crafted out of the data collected via the long census form.  The use of the voluntary NHS has the potential to impact the creation of policy and impact the funding which community programming receives. The voluntary survey has the potential to handicap the practicality of using census data to shape policy.

According to Statistics Canada, the decision to eliminate the long census form was based on privacy concerns held by the Canadian public.  The increased desire for protection of personal information is nothing new.  However, the data previously collected by the long census form was only released to the public 92 years after it was collected.  This delay in releasing detailed information was enacted as a means of protecting privacy and still allowing the public to benefit from the information collection.

Despite the claims that these changes were enacted in the name of privacy, according to the Office of the Privacy Commissioner the actual number of complaints about the census has dropped in recent years.[1]  Additionally, there have been suggestions that the feedback report Statistics Canada received following the last census made no mention of privacy at all.

Even prior to the exposure of the lack of evidence of privacy complains, the Liberal Party began to urge the Conservatives to recant their decision.  The Liberals have called the census changes a veiled attack against social services and see it as a serious blow to future policy creation.  Overall, the movement to a voluntary survey, with results that may never be made public, is a serious blow to social research, compromises the ability to track long term trends, and has the potential to drastically impact future government policy.

A petition to keep the Canadian census long form can be found here.

Krista McCracken is a public history consultant and is currently working as a Digitization Facilitator for Knowledge Ontario.

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The following upcoming events may be of interest to our readers (click on ‘continue reading’ below for full descriptions):

1)  CFP: We Demand: History/Sex/Activism in Canada – deadline: 30 Sept 2010

2) ActiveHistory.ca is looking for a co-book review editor

3) Responses to the end of the mandatory long-form census

4) Digest of this week’s blog posts

Newspaper article of note: Washington Post: Lessons from Exxon Valdez spill have gone unheeded

If you have an announcement that you would like included in this weekly dispatch, please e-mail info@activehistory.ca.

1)  The organizers of “We Demand” are currenting accepting proposals for papers, panels, round table discussions, or posters.  The conference is being held August 25-28, 2011 in Vancouver, BC to commemorate the first national political action taken by gay and lesbian activists.  The keynote speaker will be Ann Cvetkovich.  For more information visit the We Demand website.

2) We are looking for someone to join our editorial team as one of two book review editors.  Responsibilities include selecting books to be reviewed, finding appropriate reviewers, and contacting publishers for review copies.  Please visit our book reviews section for more information about the type of book review that we solicit.

3) Historians have been rallying in opposition to the announcement that the Canadian government would be cancelling the mandatory long-form census.  Mary Lynn Stewart, president of the Canadian Historical Association, has written a letter in opposition to this decision outlining the impact of this change for historians.  Sean Kheraj provided a brief background to this issue on his blog.  Leo Charbonneau has provided a fairly extensive list of public opposition to this decision in his blog for University Affairs.  But few in Canada are discussing whether this is a broader trend.  On July 9, the Cabinent Office minister in the UK, Francis Maude, disclosed that his government was investigating “different and cheaper ways to count the population.”  This follows up on an earlier announcement that, due to cost-saving measures, over 3/4 of UK government websites would be closed down.  A quick read through the coverage in the Daily Telegraph, who released the story, demonstrates that a similar reasoning governs these decisions as those in Canada.  An online petition has been gathering a lot of steam over the past couple of weeks.  It asks the Harper government to reverse its decision.

4) This week in the AH blogosphere:

-     Jamie Trepanier: Community Service-Learning and Active Historians on Campus

-     Jim Clifford: Dr. Georgina Feldberg, 1956-2010

-     Adam Crymble: Protect Your Copyright

Keep it, sell it or release it to everyone?

Copyright isn’t a topic of which many young academics have a strong understanding. But, as a writer, it’s something to which you should pay attention. And you shouldn’t be afraid to assert your rights when it comes to assigning copyright when you publish.

Your copyright is your ownership over the fruits of your labour. You did the research and the writing, so you have a right to benefit from that writing. Copyright is the only thing that legally protects you from people who want to steal your work and make money from it.

The catch is, it only works if you don’t give it away carelessly.

When you publish something, the editor of the publication has to obtain your permission, and you can count on each publication having a set of rights that they require you to sign over in return for publishing your work. There are thousands of combinations of rights publishers can and will ask for. Here I’ve put together the four most common types: Publication Rights, Grant of Rights in Exchange for Compensation, Pressure to Relinquish Rights, and Releasing Rights.

PUBLICATION RIGHTS

First worldwide publication rights including in translation, and the rights to reproduce, transmit, distribute and translate in whole or in part, on magnetic, optical or any other form of electronic media or transmission, whether now in existence or developed in the future, including electronic transmission to on-line terminals and computer networks for searching, displaying and printing.

—

These are the rights University Affairs magazine asked for when commissioning an article from me this past spring. In exchange for these rights, they wrote me a cheque. I still own the piece of writing, which means I can hand out copies of it to my students as long as I let University Affairs publish it first. They can republish it as many times as they like, in as many formats as they like. This agreement protects the publisher’s ability to make money from my article in exchange for the money they paid me.

Another article I wrote last year for a different publication had more stringent rights:

GRANT OF RIGHTS IN EXCHANGE FOR COMPENSATION

Work-made-for-hire: Writer acknowledges that the Work has been commissioned by the Publisher as a contribution to a collective work and that it shall be deemed a work-made-for-hire under U.S. copyright law. Against the possibility that the Work might be deemed, for any reason, incapable as a matter of law of characterization as work-made-for-hire, Writer hereby assigns to Publisher all right, title, and interest in and to the Work, including without limitation all copyrights throughout the world.

—

This time, the publisher wanted to purchase all forms of copyright related to the article. Unlike the article for University Affairs, which I still technically own, another publisher now owns this, and I would have to obtain permission to reproduce it, as would anyone else. For these rights, I was again sent a cheque. In essence, I sold my rights to the work in the same manner a farmer sells his eggs and gives up any right to eat them afterwards. Even though it’s not as liberal as the deal with University Affairs, I was still fairly compensated.

A third model many small publishers attempt to use is as follows:

PRESSURE TO RELINQUISH RIGHTS

Once the editor has decided to publish your piece, the article may not be published in another publication without our express consent. Once articles are submitted, the rights belong to the publication.

___

In exchange for giving away your rights entirely, these publishers will give you a variety of benefits, including “seeing your work published” or “a chance to win a prize in our annual draw” or even “a share of advertising revenue” which by the end of ten years may be worth upwards of 25 cents. If they’re an academic journal, they dangle the “line on your C.V.” in front of you.

These are the publishers you need to watch out for. Unlike more established publications, they don’t make enough money from subscriptions or advertising to stay afloat, so they can’t pay you for the rights they demand. They want to make money from your labour without giving you a tangible return on your efforts.

If you see this on a website or from a magazine publisher, either negotiate the copyright, or run away. Most editors should be completely satisfied with the promise of “First worldwide publication rights” that lets them publish it first and reap the rewards of any buzz the article creates. If they aren’t happy with that, they’ve got ulterior motives and you shouldn’t be afraid to ask why they don’t want you to be able to reproduce your own work in exchange for nothing.

I’d suggest you should also be wary of academic journals who demand full rights to your work. Academic journals are vehicles for disseminating academic knowledge. For a journal to require you to transfer ownership of the work to them, thereby preventing you free access to further disseminate the work is against the best interests of you and of those who could benefit from your knowledge who may not have access to the journal. In this case, the fourth option may be the best:

RELEASING RIGHTS

Author hereby releases this article under an “Attribution-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported” license.

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The fourth model, and the perhaps best suited to academia, is to release the rights under a Creative Commons License.  There are several different Creative Commons licenses, which provide flexible solutions to granting various rights, while protecting others. You can read more on the various option on the Creative Commons website, but to get you started, you might consider an “Attribution-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported” license.

This license lets anyone publish your work anywhere in the world (UNPORTED), as long as they don’t make changes to it (NO DERIVATIVES) and they attribute the work in the manner specified by you, but not in any way that suggests that you endorse them or their use of your work. (ATTRIBUTION)

If you are dealing with a non-commercial publication such as a not-for-profit journal or website, you could change your license to an “Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported” which would disallow use by anyone out to make money.

The advantage of a Creative Commons license is that everyone knows how the work can be used without having to track you down and ask you directly. As the original creator, you will always have the right to republish or change the work, and your publisher can negotiate terms, which allow them to achieve all their publishing needs without taking anything from you.

Take some time to learn about the various copyright options out there. And don’t be afraid to assert yourself. Publishers need writers just as much as writers need publishers. Don’t be taken advantage of. And if you’re going to give your work away, make sure the cheque’s in the mail; if it’s not, give the work to everyone.

Protect Your Copyright by Adam Crymble is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

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In reading about her death and listening to the kind words said about her at the funeral, it occurred to me that Dr. Feldberg’s work provides a model for active history. She wrote an award winning monograph about the social history of tuberculosis and a number of important articles on gender and health, but she also argued for the importance of engagement with current health policy development.  A York article published after Feldberg, Kathryn McPherson, Molly Ladd-Taylor and Alison Li completed a major Wellcome Institute Grant, included her thoughts on the value of history in shaping current policy:

‘Medical history is a really important contributor to current health policy,’ says Feldberg. ‘If we want policy to be effective we need to know why it looks the way that it looks and how we can change it.’

For instance, if the federal government had looked to the past before it drafted its new reproductive legislation, it might not be proposing to make it a crime to pay egg donors and surrogate child bearers. ‘We know from the history of abortion that the Criminal Code has never served women well,’ says Feldberg. ‘It doesn’t stop practices, it only drives them underground and makes them unsafe.’

A few years earlier Feldberg wrote an op-ed for the York Gazette on the reemergence of infectious disease in the late twentieth century and the used her knowledge of the history of TB to contextualize the social response to AIDS and the return of TB.  Here is the concluding paragraph:

The history of efforts to control TB and of attitudes toward the disease help to explain its resurgence and that of other infections. The historical parallels between TB and AIDS also challenge us to recognize the consequences of the interplay between disease, class, social policy and health policy. In the cases of both AIDS and TB, responses to patterns of infection must be examined from both scientific and social perspectives, and the socio-political determinants and consequences of health policies should be considered.

Feldberg also weighed into the Canadian health care debate in the 1990s and wrote an article in the Canadian Journal of Women and the Law on the use of medical evidence in rape trials.  Together these few examples demonstrate Feldberg’s work to link historical research with current issues during her tragically short academic career.  I hope her efforts to understand the past and contribute to the present will live on as people continue to read her book and articles.

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“One way of making education more holistic is to get outside the classroom and off the campus. It interrupts the programming that twelve years of classroom conditioning automatically call up; the change in environment changes everything. The class becomes a social unit; students become more fully rounded human beings not just people who either know the answer or don’t know it. Inside the classroom, it’s one kind of student that dominates; outside, it’s another. Tying course content to the world outside offers a real-world site for asking theoretical questions; it answers students’ need to feel that their education is good for something other than a grade point average.  And it begins to address the problem of the student who has no conception of what is possible after graduation…” – From A Life in School by Jane Tompkins, Duke University, Addison Wesley Longman, 1996 (from Service Learning website at St. Francis Xavier University)

Since joining the Active History CHA group a year ago I have been wrestling with the concept of what it means to be an “active historian”. While the teaching of history is an evident tool of engagement for the historian, and has been the subject here of some wonderful posts about the many diverse and fascinating projects currently on the go, I am still left with a familiar question I have had since my days as an idealistic undergraduate history student; how to mesh our sense of civic engagement/political activism/social responsibility with our interests and skills as aspiring/professional historians and, for those of us who want and actually get teaching positions, future educators?Getting to the intersection where theory meets practice and makes a tangible difference has been a long-standing challenge for scholars. While historians in public history programs at the graduate level, as profiled by Adam Crymble in a recent post on this site, or those engaged in community histories using oral history, such as students at Concordia’s Centre of Oral History and Digital Storytelling, focus on specific historical methodologies to engage with their communities, there are also tools out there for engaging undergraduates.

Community service-learning (CSL), defined loosely as “an educational approach integrating community service with intentional learning activities,” (Canadian Alliance for Community Service-Learning) is one such tool.  Students connect what they learn in class and in the community – between theory and practice – through reflections and analysis that may take the form of such things as journal writing, group discussions and written reports under faculty supervision, for which they receive academic credit.

Initiated in the United States, community service-learning was first adopted in Canada at Saint Francis Xavier University in Nova Scotia in the late-1990s. Saint F.-X.’s pioneering in this regard should come as no surprise, given its historic role as a catalyst in the Antigonish Movement in the 1920s.

Boosted by a grant by the J.W. McConnell Family Foundation (which runs out in 2011), CSL has grown across the country. A glance at the current list of universities participating in CSL partnerships in one form or another reveals CSL’s growing popularity in Canada. (For more on the growth of and challenges facing CSL on Canadian campuses, see a recent article published inUniversity Affairs)

If getting undergraduates to think critically about the applications of their learning and, hopefully, getting them engaged with their communities in the process while various community organizations themselves begin to reconnect with the academy in useful ways is an exciting exercise, it is difficult to gauge how much attention these initiatives have been given in university history departments.

I spoke recently with Jeffrey Keshen, Chair of the History Department at the University of Ottawa and a key player in that university’s adoption of CSL, about how historians might engage with CSL programs.

Keshen argues that opportunities for history students to use classroom skills in their communities are numerous; anything from interviewing veterans, labour or community activists; building community groups’ life histories; to helping in the writing of the histories of schools, NGOs, and not for profit organisations.  Such projects, he argues compel students to use their emerging skills to produce original works.  The key, he points out, is that faculty and students often need to make first contact with community groups about how they might help, as often they are too overburdened with the operational end of their work to be able to take advantage of such programs. The benefits to community and history student are mutual he says, “CSL makes students interact with the broader community.  That builds self-confidence, group work skills, understanding the application and limits of theory.  The organization can get benefits if the project is well defined and viable.”

The future of CSL programs is uncertain. Significant funding for CSL initiatives is set to dry out in 2011 and supporters of CSL worry that critical momentum might be lost.

While summer isn’t typically a time for deep reflection about teaching or university life, I think that it is a time when we can reflect on ways in which our university campuses allow for all of their members, not just graduate students and faculty, to become “active historians”. My hope is that those of you who have had some experience with CSL programs across the country or may know of history-related projects that students and faculty may have initiated will share your insights here.

As we drift into the hazy days of summer, some reflection about how universities engage with the wider community, and the role historians can play in that engagement, is certainly called for, and looking at how we might engage with and promote programs like CSL is a good starting point.

The following upcoming events may be of interest to our readers (click on ‘continue reading’ below for full descriptions):

1)  CFP: We Demand: History/Sex/Activism in Canada – deadline: 30 Sept 2010

2) ActiveHistory.ca is looking for a co-book review editor

3) Blogs of note: Christopher Moore and Andrew Smith on academic disengagement

4)) Digest of this week’s blog posts

If you have an announcement that you would like included in this weekly dispatch, please e-mail info@activehistory.ca.

1)  The organizers of “We Demand” are currenting accepting proposals for papers, panels, round table discussions, or posters.  The conference is being held August 25-28, 2011 in Vancouver, BC to commemorate the first national political action taken by gay and lesbian activists.  The keynote speaker will be Ann Cvetkovich.  For more information visit the We Demand website.

2) We are looking for someone to join our editorial team as one of two book review editors.  Responsibilities include selecting books to be reviewed, finding appropriate reviewers, and contacting publishers for review copies.  Please visit our book reviews section for more information about the type of book review that we solicit.

3) Two blog posts that speak directly to the mandate of ActiveHistory.ca appeared late last week.  Both Christopher Moore and Andrew Smith addressed academic disengagement and the role non-academic historians seem to be playing in defining and discussing historically important subjects in Canada.  Each post highlights specific examples where academic historians could (and should) be engaged, while Smith also points out that some historians are succeeding in making their work both accessible and relevant.

4) It was also a busy week in the AH blogosphere:

-     Tom Peace: Remembering Oka

-     Jeff Slack: An Environmental 9/11

-     Christine McLaughlin: The Moral Economy of the 2010 Toronto G20 Crowd?

-     Ian Milligan: Contextualing G20 Policing in Toronto

-     James Cullingham: The Queen Among the Mohawks