Category Archives: Canadian history

Boxes of possibility—and frustration

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Laura Peers Museum collections are legacies of imperial and colonial histories. The dynamics of those histories mean that much Indigenous material heritage from what is currently called Canada is not held in Canadian museums. Much of this material resides in overseas museums, especially in Britain. This geographic distance complicates the ability of Indigenous peoples to access ancestral items. As many… Read more »

Museums and Community Partnerships

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Meredith Leonard At Halton Heritage Services, we’re all about working together with our community of heritage partners in sustained relationships of co-creation, collaboration and radical trust. In the last three years, we have engaged with community partners on exhibit development, building animation projects and school-age learning partnerships. Community partnerships are essential to our work at Heritage Services because we no… Read more »

Practicing Theory: What’s Really Happening When You Write Exhibit Text for Museums

John Summers Ostensibly about the preservation, display and interpretation of objects, museums are also full of words. From way-finding signage (as anyone who has ever visited with a small child knows, a successful museum experience can critically depend on being able to locate the nearest washroom!) to fundraising, written text is an important part of what museums do. In the… Read more »

Remember/Resist/Redraw #18: The Sir George Williams Protest

2019 marks the 50th anniversary of the Sir George Williams student protest—often referred to as an “affair” or “riot”—that took place in Montreal between 29 January and 11 February 1969. As part of Black History Month, the Graphic History Collective released RRR poster #18 this week by Lateef Martin and Funké Aladejebi. The poster examines the protest and contextualizes it… Read more »

What Are You Listening To? Talking History Podcasts

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Edward Dunsworth The other night, out to dinner with my aunt, uncle, and cousins, my wife Vanessa began comparing notes with my cousins on some of their favourite podcasts. “What’s that?” my uncle interjected. Assuming the appropriate tone for a nephew explaining something technological to his uncle, I began to respond. He quickly cut me off. “Oh, podcasts. Yeah, I’m… Read more »

What Black History Month Can Teach the Rest of the Year

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February is one of my favourite months. Not only do red and pink hearts predominate, but there is a proliferation of events, displays, and articles celebrating the contributions of Black Canadians as part of Black History Month. Growing up in the southern United States and in the Caribbean, I was introduced to the richness of Black history as a young… Read more »

It Inspires Us Still: A Century Later, the Winnipeg General Strike Still Matters

Christo Aivalis In just a few months, we will be in the midst of celebrating the 100th anniversary of the Winnipeg General Strike, where thousands of workers walked off the job, initially to support the traditional bargaining demands from some of the city’s established unions, but eventually to demonstrate a more systemic challenge to the social, political, and economic status… Read more »

The Mysteries of a Hobo’s Life: Uncovering a Forgotten Revolutionary

Saku Pinta An earlier version of this post appeared on the “Increasing Access to the Finnish Language Archives” project blog. This black and white photograph appears, at first glance, to be quite ordinary. An unidentified man poses in front of a tar paper shack, possibly at a logging camp, hands clasped behind his back. His stony gaze is contemplative, confident…. Read more »

A Canadian Immigration Syllabus

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Two years ago, following the election of Donald Trump to office, historians specializing in the history of migration and ethnicity in the United States compiled the #ImmigrationSyllabus to serve as a resource and teaching tool for instructors, students and the general public. It was an inspired collaboration, one that showcased how historians can play an important role in disseminating knowledge… Read more »

What Makes Oshawa So Special?

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Steven High Most mills and factories close with a whimper and not a bang. Few were therefore prepared for the media fire-storm sparked by General Motor’s (GM) decision to close its auto-assembly plant in Oshawa, putting 2,500 Canadians out of work. What makes this closure so special? For starters, there is the historic centrality of the auto industry in Southern… Read more »