By Jonathan McQuarrie Why do newspapers support the public-opinion polls?…Not only do the modern polls, based on a small, carefully selected cross section, provide more accurate measurements; they can be applied to give continuous and rapid measurements of public opinion at all times. -George Gallup and Saul Forbes Rae, The Pulse of Democracy, 1940, 119. So called ‘pollsters’ should hang… Read more »
By Daniel Macfarlane Invasive species in the Great Lakes have been a big problem for decades. From the alewife, which first appeared in the Great Lakes in the 1800s, to the zebra mussels in recent decades, the composition of the Great Lakes biomass has been constantly in flux. And the problem is about to get bigger – literally, as Asian… Read more »
By Elizabeth O’Gorek My husband and I recently moved to the United States. He accepted an good job offer in a nice city. The company arranged my work visa, and there is a good benefits package. So, in preparation for working and working on a family, I thought I’d research the legislation on paid maternity benefits. This is what I… Read more »
When Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria was assassinated by Serbian nationalist Gavrilo Princip on June 28, 1914, it set off a chain of events that became one of the deadliest combats in human history, known as the First World War. To mark the centennial of the start of this war, York University’s Department of History has produced a documentary series,… Read more »
By Eric Wright An earlier version of post originally appeared on the author’s blog Actually History. In 1814, an Irish fur-trader in the employ of the Northwest Company by the name of Ross Cox was conducting business with Indigenous people near present day Spokane, Washington when he encountered, in his eyes, a remarkable individual. In his journal under the titillating heading… Read more »
Our historical memory of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Malcolm X most often sets them in opposition — racial integrationism vs. separatism, pacifism vs. violence, “good” vs. “bad” black leader (or vice versa). But what happens if we move beyond this dualism and examine these African American icons together? What if we consider how and why their respective struggles for… 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 Carolyn Podruchny Is teaching Indigenous history any different than teaching other histories? This question was posed to organizers of a day-long Teaching History Symposium on history, heritage, and education for Toronto area public school teachers, heritage experts, graduate students, and faculty members in the History Department at York University.[1] Rather than providing an answer, I suggest more questions to… Read more »
By Kathryn Magee Labelle Reuben Gold Thwaites died in 1913, the same year of the final publication of his seventy-two volume The Jesuit Relations and Allied Documents, Travels and Explorations of the Jesuit Missionaries in New France, 1610-1791. One hundred years later they are still a valuable and widely circulated edited collection. These transcribed reports and letters from French Jesuit… Read more »
By Jon Weier When I learned that Marshall Berman, the great American theorist of modernity, died last month, it seemed appropriate to go back and reread his masterpiece, All that is Solid Melts into Air: The Experience of Modernity. First published in 1982 and then reissued with a new introduction in 1988, this book represented Berman’s attempt to reinvigorate discussions… Read more »
