By Kaitlin Wainwright When British Labour politician Tony Benn passed away this March, attention was drawn to his efforts in the British Houses of Parliament to install plaques that told histories of the suffrage movement in Britain. Among them was one he installed illegally in the broom closet where Emily Wilding Davison, a suffragist, hid on the night of the… Read more »
By Krista McCracken Museums, galleries, parks and other heritage sites play a significant role in commemoration. Exhibitions present specific ways of looking at history and attribute significance to particular historical events. Commemoration at heritage sites might take place in the form of a dedicated memorial site such as the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum or the September 11th Memorial and… Read more »
ActiveHistory.ca is pleased to announce the publication of Sean Carleton’s Rebranding Canada with Comics: Canada 1812: Forged in Fire and the Continuing Co-optation of Tecumseh: In the current age of austerity, the Harper Government allocated over $28 million to commemorate the 200th anniversary of the War of 1812. For many historians this proved to be an unpopular decision. It even… Read more »
By Heather E. McGregor Recently Peter Seixas announced that the Historical Thinking Project (the Project) was denied ongoing funding by the Department of Canadian Heritage. This change was said to be because the purposes of the Project do not coincide with, as quoted from The Canada History Fund, “projects that celebrate key milestones and people who have helped shape our… Read more »
By Thomas Peace “Our historians have almost wholly ignored the existence of slavery in Canada.” Two weeks ago these words echoed through Fountain Commons here at Acadia University. Historians, educators and activists had gathered for Opening the Academy: New Strategies for Exploring and Sharing African Nova Scotian Histories. The message those of us in the audience heard was that African-Canadian… Read more »
By Michelle Hope Rumford The undertaking of “commemoration” encompasses actions taken in a spirit of remembrance and honor. Choosing to commemorate acknowledges the importance of an event. It allows history to live on into present contexts. In the context of the continuous formation and re-evaluation of the relationship between Aboriginal peoples and the Canadian government, 2013 was marked by a… Read more »
In the lead up to Opening the Academy: New Strategies for Exploring & Sharing African Nova Scotian History on 28 February 2014 and at the start of Black History Month, ActiveHistory.ca is republishing Karolyn Smardz Frost‘s “The Birth of Black History Month.” This short essay originally appeared in the Ontario Heritage Trust’s magazine Heritage Matters in 2006. For more information about… Read more »
By Thomas Peace 2014 has begun and it looks like another banner year for historical commemoration. The government of Canada has been clear: we’re now on the road to commemorating Confederation. But as the new year begins, the metaphorical road we’re headed down better resembles the roads at the time of Confederation than anything we’re familiar with today (Montreal and… Read more »
By Jonathan Scotland Canadians, it seems, are increasingly interested in war. Our polymer currency has replaced peacekeeping imagery with the Vimy memorial. 2005 was the ‘Year of the Veteran’ and 2013 is the ‘Year of the Korean War Veteran.’ Highways, buildings, and other civic infrastructure have been proudly re-named in honour of the country’s fallen. Battles are widely celebrated as… Read more »
By Tom Peace October 7th 2013 marks the 250th year since King George III issued what is, for Canadians, the Crown’s most famous Royal Proclamation. Over the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the English monarch released over a hundred royal proclamations. Some of these proclamations declared war (usually against France), others – such as the Royal Proclamation of October 23rd 1759 –… Read more »
