Active History

January 11th is Sir John A. Day

January 8, 2014 1 Comment

Design by Emma Jenkin

By Kaitlin Wainwright

In 2001, the federal government officially declared January 11th to be Sir John A. Macdonald Day, in honour of Canada’s first prime minister and a Father of Confederation. While it’s not an official holiday (shame, we could all use one of those in the cold winter months), it is a “heritage day” along with National Flag of Canada Day (February 15) and the Anniversary of the Statute of Westminster (December 11). Sir John A. Macdonald is seen by many as the man who built this country from east to west, using the railway as the tie that binds. He rightly deserves the attention he has received within the Canadian historical narrative and this will no doubt be paid a mari usque ad mare (from sea to sea) during the bicentennial of his birth in 2015.

Some, myself included, are jumping on the bandwagon a bit early. In Toronto, a period costume event is being held on January 10, and a Canadian history pub trivia night is on at the Duke of York on January 11. I am co-organizing the latter event, and am quite excited to see organizations such as Canada’s History, Historica Canada, and Penguin support the effort to shed some light on our shared and inherited past. Although Sir John A. Macdonald’s birthday has been an official day in Canada for 12 years, there seems to be not much done about it – or, really, any other important days in Canada’s history. The pub trivia night will be a chance to do what Sir John A. loved to do – drink – and to revel in some of the peculiar pieces of Canada’s past.

As a public historian, I have a complicated relationship with commemoration. On the one hand, anniversaries can often distill complex histories into dichotomies and brief moments with little context. On the other hand, if we can’t remember the past on the day in which it happened, when can we? Continue reading →

Ten Books to Contextualize the Environmental Movement in Canada

January 7, 2014 3 Comments

By Andrew Watson, Stacy Nation-Knapper, and Sean Kheraj

Mi’kmaq solidarity protest in Montreal, October 2013. Source: Robert Smith, McGill Daily Photo Editor

Last year, Nature’s Past, the Canadian environmental history podcast, published a special series called, “Histories of Canadian Environmental Issues”. Each episode focused on a different contemporary environmental issue and featured interviews and discussions with historians whose research explains the context and background. Following up on that project, we are publishing six articles with ActiveHistory.ca that provide annotated lists of ten books and articles that contextualize each of the environmental issues from the podcast series.

Our third and fourth episodes in the series we examined the history of the environmental movement in Canada. We began by taking the long view of Canadian ideas about and attitudes toward the natural environment by speaking Neil Forkey about his book Canadians and the Natural Environment to the Twenty-First Century. We then held a round-table discussion with a group of scholars whose work examines different aspects of the history of environmentalism in Canada.

Part 1

Part 2

Continue reading →

Archival Digitization and the Struggle to Create Useful Digital Reproductions

January 6, 2014 3 Comments

By Krista McCracken

Reverse of a photographic postcard, Benna Fuller Collection, Shingwauk Residential Schools Centre, 2011-8/001 (006)

The past decade has fundamentally changed how archives provide access to historical records. Many archives now provide digital access to collections, have digitization on demand services, and have started to prioritize collections for digitization. Much of this digitization has been driven by funding bodies and a desire to increase accessibility to collections. But how has the digitization of archival records been received by historians, genealogists, and other patrons?

One of the initial challenges presented by the digital representation of archival sources is the need to preserve context. Original order and provenance are fundamental archival arrangement principals which help maintain context within collections. Original order allows for connections between records to be illuminated and provenance describes the origins of archival records. However, many archives have struggled to replicate the physical experience of browsing through an archival box in a digital environment. At times this challenge has resulted in the loss of context or inability to determine original order online.

Some researchers are weary of the digital record being a true representation of the physical record. For example, an institution might make the decision to only scan the front of photographs for online consumption. Any notations on the rear of the photograph are then inputted into a notes field. The notation is still preserved but it’s not displayed in its original form. The transcription process used to enter the notation as metadata may include interpretations of handwriting, short forms, etc. The very process of transcription is subject to interpretation and human error. Continue reading →

First Annual(?) Year in Review (100 Years Later) Bracket

December 20, 2013 4 Comments

By Aaron Boyes and Sean Graham

We offer our two cents about 1913. Do you agree/disagree with our rankings?

We offer our two cents about 1913. Let us know what you think of our rankings.

Each year, websites and magazines come out with year in review articles that attempt to summarize the year and highlight the major events of the previous 12 months. While these can be entertaining, they are fraught with peril as it is difficult to determine what, moving forward, will prove to be influential. If you look back at some of these articles, things that were thought to be significant fade into oblivion while lesser known events or people end up being the most memorable.

With the perspective of 100 years, however, determining the significant events of a given year becomes a little easier. That is why we are inaugurating our First (Annual?) Year in Review (100 Years Later) Bracket. We compiled the major events of 1913, ranked them, and put them into a ‘March Madness’ style bracket. The four ‘regions’ are the Humanist Region, the International Region, the Innovation Region, and the Potpourri Region.

The results of the first two rounds can be seen in the bracket here with the primary factor being the long-term significance of the event. For the final sixteen, we decided to engage in a back and forth debate to determine the biggest event of 1913.
Continue reading →

Podcast: Ian McKay’s “War, Memory and Reaction: Reshaping History in Harper’s Canada”

December 18, 2013 No Comments

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

ActiveHistory.ca is happy to present a recording of Ian McKay’s talk, “War, Memory and Reaction: Reshaping History in Harper’s Canada.”

McKay delivered the talk to the First Unitarian Congregation in Ottawa as the 2013 Holtom Lecture.

Christmas Traditions of Past and Present

December 16, 2013 1 Comment

By Jay Young

I put up my family’s Christmas tree yesterday. Although some have described me as a bit of a scrooge, the truth is, I really do enjoy many holiday traditions, especially as I get older. And as a historian, I realize that these traditions have a past, both within wider society and within my own life.

Take that very tree that is now festooned with lights, tinsel, and ornaments. The lineage of the Christmas tree dates back to Germany during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries (with pagan coniferous tree rituals dating back much earlier), before spreading to other areas by the nineteenth century.

Growing up, my family’s tree has long been artificial. Like others, we wanted to avoid the inconvenience of finding a tree outside (and countless pine needles inside).

But this year I decided to purchase a real tree, to celebrate the first holiday season in our new home and with our new child. My parents decided to donate to me this year many of my family’s special ornaments. Delicately examining these heirlooms brought back a flood of special memories. Some ornaments celebrated my own birth and that of my sister, while others commemorated various family milestones. The angel sitting on the tree top (design circa late 1970s) reminded me of my childhood, when I’d wonder what gifts sat at the tree’s base. Continue reading →

A Matter of Time

December 13, 2013 1 Comment

By Peter Seixas

For the Historical Thinking Project, 2013-14 was the best of times and the worst of times.

It was the best of times because two of Canada’s largest provinces made the most concrete and comprehensive headway in adapting the ideas of the Project for their curricula. Ontario implemented a new K-12 curriculum that embedded the historical thinking concepts as a core element of the history program. British Columbia released a draft social studies curriculum heading in much the same direction. As a result, the demands for professional development and materials in historical thinking have skyrocketed.

It was the worst of times because the Project, as it has taken shape over the past seven years, is coming to an end. Continue reading →

Regulation 274: Ontario Education and the Hiring Debate

December 10, 2013 12 Comments

By Ryan Kelly

The popular (over)reaction to Regulation 274, which intended to establish seniority-based teacher hiring in Ontario, is largely negative, and greatly misplaced. Since Reg. 274 came into effect, its intended anti-nepotism, job protecting spirit has not been realized. Instead school boards have faced ballooning costs and procedural nightmares in what Premier Wynne has characterized as an “overcorrection.” Recently, Ontario Progressive Conservative Party MPP Lisa McLeod introduced a private member’s bill to repeal Reg. 274. It was summarily defeated in the legislature. The passing of this Private Members bill would have been the true “overcorrection,” one that would have negatively affected the hatchings of what may become a positive and sustainable seniority-based hiring process. Continue reading →

Archives of Ontario and the World War 1 Centenary

December 9, 2013 No Comments

By Jenny Prior

From the Archives of Ontario’s online War Artists exhibit

At the Archives of Ontario, we’re marking the World War I centenary with three connected exhibits – onsite, online, and travelling – as well as educational programming and other outreach and promotional activities. This post is first in a series giving a glimpse into our work to showcase our collections and shed light on Ontario’s stories from this gripping, devastating, and inspiring era.

The Archives moved into our purpose-built facility on York University’s Keele campus in 2009, and a star feature of the building is the Helen McClung Exhibit Area. We’ll launch our onsite exhibit there in the fall of 2014. It’s the anchor for our long-term, coordinated approach to honouring the centenary. Continue reading →

An Unsettling Prairie History: A Review of James Daschuk’s Clearing the Plains

December 5, 2013 4 Comments

By Kevin Plummer

“Those Reserve Indians are in a deplorable state of destitution, they receive from the Indian Department just enough food to keep soul and body together, they are all but naked, many of them barefooted,” Lawrence Clarke wrote in 1880 of near-starvation Cree around Fort Carlton. “Should sickness break out among them in their present weakly state,” the long-time Hudson’s Bay Company employee concluded, “the fatality would be dreadful” (Daschuk, 114).

Sickness did break out, with tuberculosis and other infectious diseases decimating a reserve population made vulnerable to disease by years of famine and inadequate government rations. The loss of life was immense, James Daschuk recounts in Clearing the Plains: Disease, Politics of Starvation, and the Loss of Aboriginal Life, and amounted to a “state-sponsored attack on indigenous communities” whose effects “haunt us as a nation still” (186). Continue reading →

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