ActiveHistory.ca is a website that connects the work of historians with the wider public and the importance of the past to current events. It developed from the conference “Active History: History for the Future” at Glendon College in September 2008. We define active history variously as history that listens and is responsive; history that will make a tangible difference in people’s lives; history that makes an intervention and is transformative to both practitioners and communities. We seek a practice of history that emphasizes collegiality, builds community among active historians and other members of communities, and recognizes the public responsibilities of the historian.
Active History is a project open to contributions from all historians seeking to publish short essays that align with our mandate. As an entirely volunteer-run organization, we have a loose editorial structure, whereby copyright and ownership of published material remains with the author under a Creative Commons CC-BY-ND license (for more information, see the space at the very bottom of each page).
Our project has always embraced multiple definitions of active history. Authors are responsible for ensuring that their contributions are factually correct and ethically sound. Members of our editorial collective work with authors to revise pieces, where necessary, for tone, clarity and focus, and they are empowered to make decisions about publication independent of the whole, adhering to the editorial guidelines below.
We are always looking for people to contribute to the project. If you have a general inquiry about partnerships, or are interested in contributing to the blog, please contact Sara Wilmshurst (Public Outreach Coordinator) at activehistoryinfo@gmail.com. If you have any questions or comments about the History Slam podcast, please contact Sean Graham (History Slam Podcast Editor) at historyslam@gmail.com.
Most of the work that goes into Active History is unpaid. Recognizing the systemic nature of precarious employment for many historians, the editorial collective is working to provide small annual honoraria for regular contributors and editors working in unstable labour conditions.
Donations to support the project can be made here through Huron University College. To do so, select “other” in the designation box and in the comments clearly indicate that the donation should go towards Active History. Your money will go to maintaining the site and its archive of more than 2,000 blog posts, and to supporting precariously employed contributors to the project.
Please also visit our French-language partner site, HistoireEngagee.ca.
Guidelines for Authors
Activehistory.ca is continuously looking for short and thoughtful blog posts that bring historical perspectives to pressing issues. In order to ensure high quality writing and a diversity of voices, we welcome .doc file posts to activehistoryinfo@gmail.com. Anyone who is actively engaged in historical research is encouraged to submit a post. We also regularly solicit submissions from historians working in different fields at a variety of institutions, both within and beyond the academy.
We welcome submissions addressing any period or place as long as they are historical and anchored in research, engage critical issues facing Canadian society, and are written for a general audience. We also welcome posts dealing with issues related to historical teaching, research, and practice. Posts should focus on the ways historians or aspects of the past connect with the general public, the media, and policymakers.
All posts should meet the profession’s ethical standards and best practices including, where applicable, research ethics protocols such as the Tri-Council Ethics guidelines, research agreements, and opportunities for comment from living individuals or institutions named in a post.
Submissions should be clean, polished drafts that are written in an accessible style for a general audience, use hyperlinks over footnotes, and be between 700 to 1500 words. When submitting a post, be sure to include:
- a short list of accessible resources
- five key words that will help website users access your article
- at least one image that you have permission to use, with appropriate caption and credit information
- any pertinent ethical considerations
- your name, email address, social media handles, and institutional affiliation
- a short biography of one to two sentences
- any hashtags you would like included in social media promotion of the post
We usually only show the first couple of paragraphs of each new blog post on the website’s homepage with a “continue reading” link. Keep this in mind when you submit your draft, as the first paragraphs need to stand on their own and captivate the audience. So, too, should the post title convey a general sense of the topic and capture the attention of a general reader.
It generally takes a few weeks for a submitted post to appear on the website. During that time, you will work with an editor on the ActiveHistory.ca team to ensure that the post meets the website’s criteria.
Editors
Jim Clifford is an Associate Professor of environmental history with the Department of History at the University of Saskatchewan. His current research explores the environmental and economic histories of the global commodities that supplied industries in the Thames Estuary during the 19th century. For more information, visit jimclifford.ca. He can be reached at jim.clifford@usask.ca.
Edward Dunsworth is an Associate Professor in the Department of History and Classical Studies at McGill University. Previous research projects focused on migrant farm labour in Canada. His current research examines immigration politics and the origins of the welfare state in interwar Canada. He can be reached at edward.dunsworth@mcgill.ca.
Laura Madokoro is a historian and Associate Professor in the Department of History at Carleton University, located on the traditional territory of the Algonquin Anishinaabe people. In addition to her work with Active History, she is a member of the editorial collective for Refugee History and co-director of the journal Histoire Sociale / Social History. Laura is the author of Elusive Refuge: Chinese Migrants in the Cold War and, most recently, Sanctuary in Pieces: Two Centuries of Flight, Fugitivity and Resistance in a North American City and numerous scholarly articles and op-eds on histories of migration, race, and refuge.
Thomas Peace is an Associate Professor of History at Huron University College and co-director of the Huron Community History Centre. He is the author of The Slow Rush of Colonization: Spaces of Power in the Maritime Peninsula, 1680-1790 and an editor of Behind the Bricks: The Life and Times of the Mohawk Institute and From Huronia to Wendakes. In addition to serving as an editor at ActiveHistory.ca he also has a weekly history column on CBC London’s Afternoon Drive.
Mack Penner is a postdoctoral associate in the Department of History at the University of Calgary. His research focuses on intellectual and political histories from the far-left to the far-right in Canada, as well as the history of capitalism, energy politics, and the history of Alberta. You can read his work at mackpenner.com and you can reach him at pennermack@gmail.com.
Sara Wilmshurst (she/her) has been on the Active History editorial collective since 2022. She co-authored the 2018 monograph Be Wise! Be Healthy! Morality and Citizenship in Canadian Public Health Campaigns and has published on tobacco, sex ed, and cookbooks. She is a student in the Tri-University History PhD Program (based at University of Guelph) studying health and colonialism.
Contributing Editors
Sean Carleton is a settler historian and associate professor in the department of history and Indigenous Studies at the University of Manitoba. His research looks at the history and political economy of schooling and settler capitalism in Canada. He is also a co-founder of the Graphic History Collective.
Sean Graham is the producer and host of the History Slam podcast. He is a historian of North American broadcasting with a PhD from the University of Ottawa. He is an Adjunct Professor at Carleton University and the Education Coordinator for the Vimy Foundation’s immersive programs. He can be reached at theseangraham@gmail.com.
Andrew Nurse is Associate Professor of Canadian Studies at Mount Allison University where he teaches courses on Canadian political-economy, diversity, and regionalism. His published work includes the edited collections Beyond National Dreams: Essays on Canadian Citizenship and Nationalism (with Raymond Blake) and Dynamics and Trajectories: Canada and North America (with Mike Fox). He is currently working on a study of the Movement for Citizens Voice and Action, a 1970s Halifax-based democratization movement.
Former Editors
- Carly Ciufo, 2020-2025
- Krista McCracken, 2012-2023
- Jon Weir, 2019-2021
- Samantha Cutrara, 2018-2021
- Christo Aivalis, 2017-2020
- Beth A. Robertson, 2015-2017
- Kaleigh Bradley, 2012-2016
- Ian Milligan, 2009-2015
- Jason Young, 2009-2014
- Christine McLaughlin, 2009-2014
- Karen Dearlove 2010-2012
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Blog posts published before October 28, 2018 are licensed with a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.5 Canada License.