By Jay Young The passing of Sam “the Record Man” Sniderman at the age of 92 filled the airwaves, newspaper pages, and conversations on the street in Toronto this past week. Sniderman owned the largest chain of record stores in Canada and ardently promoted the Canadian music industry. Many people expressed warm memories of the entrepreneur and his flagship shop… Read more »
By Mark J. McLaughlin September 2012 marks the fiftieth anniversary of the publication of Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring. In this influential book, Carson argued exhaustively that the indiscriminate use of chemical pesticides such as DDT for industrial and agricultural purposes was detrimental to ecosystems and human health. Generally well received by the public, Silent Spring helped fuel the development of… Read more »
By Greg Kennedy The government is trying really hard to make Canadians feel like the War of 1812 was important. Variations of these themes announced on the government’s website, 1812.gc.ca, are routinely expressed by politicians, directors of heritage sites and members of local historical societies: “Canada would not exist had the American invasion of 1812-15 been successful.” The war “set… Read more »
By Mireille Mayrand-Fiset When wandering around the streets of Old Montreal, one may come across a public square facing City Hall named Place Marie-Josèphe Angélique. Most people will not give much thought to it, unaware that the woman who gave her name to the square was once accused of setting fire to the very streets they are walking on. Marie-JosephAngélique… Read more »
Esyllt Jones and Adele Perry, eds. People’s Citizenship Guide: A Response to Conservative Canada (Winnipeg: Arbeiter Ring Publishing, 2011). Reviewed by E.L. Payseur I was asked to write a review of the People’s Citizenship Guide as someone who has fairly recently taken the Canadian citizenship test, and not as the historian I am. It is extremely difficult to separate these… Read more »
By Kayla Jonas As a heritage lover I’ve been on walking tours in cities all around the world. Everywhere I go I like to get the city’s history by walking around and seeing the sights. But I’d never been on a cemetery tour, and surprisingly never on a tour in my hometown of Hamilton. A recent tour given by historian… Read more »
By Krista McCracken One of my favourite rural Canadian moments occurred when I was a child attending the International Plowing Match. I was standing with my parents in front of a pen that held two young calves, when a young girl yelled “Look at the sheep, Mom!” The girl was at least eight years old and apparently didn’t know the… Read more »
https://activehistory.ca/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/Laurie-Bertram-First-Cut.mp3Podcast: Play in new window | DownloadIn this edition of the history slam I talk to Laurie Bertram about her upcoming exhibit Pioneer Ladies [of the evening], which opens this week at the Human Ecology Gallery at the University of Alberta and has previously been on display in Winnipeg. We chat about material culture, the role of trauma in history,… Read more »
What’s the Use of History? Citizenship and History in Canada’s Past and Present 6:30-8:00 p.m. Tuesday, October 16 2012 Palmerston Branch, Toronto Public Library 560 Palmerston Ave., Toronto, ONInspired by the newly published People’s Citizenship Guide (Arbeiter Ring Publishing, 2011), this roundtable of historians will discuss how concepts of citizenship have changed over the past century, and how history has… Read more »
By Christine McLaughlin On a hot summer day, few activities are more pleasant than a visit to your nearest waterfront to enjoy a cool dip or a stroll along a breezy beach. In my own heavily (de)industrialized city, where the landscape is dotted with abandoned factories, vacant fenced lots, and a few industrial complexes that still produce in the city,… Read more »
