Category Archives: Canadian history

A Narrow Vision: Politics in Canada in Historical Perspective

By James Cullingham As the imbroglio concerning Jody Wilson-Raybould, Jane Philpott and the Liberal government emerged, an immediate wave of sentiment broke across social media. The panicky message can be summed up:  “In light of this scandal, Canadians will inevitably end up with an Andrew Scheer government.” This type of thinking reflects a reductive historical and political fallacy that assumes… Read more »

Using Infographics to Teach about Canadian History

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Krista McCracken As part of my work at the Shingwauk Residential Schools Centre (SRSC) I’ve recently been working with a group of colleagues to update some of our handouts, educational material, and brochures. As part of this work we’ve created promotional banners, postcards, brochures, and an infographic. The infographic we created (below) was designed to discuss the history of the… Read more »

Anti-69 FAQ

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Tom Hooper, Gary Kinsman, and Karen Pearlston (The Anti-69 Forum is taking place March 23-24, 2019 at Carleton University. See www.anti-69.ca for more information) When we say we are Anti-69, we are referring to the mythologies surrounding the 1969 Criminal Code reform. We are not Anti-69 in all contexts. There are many important events from 1969 that deserve to be… Read more »

The “role of women” in Ontario school history narratives

by Rose Fine-Meyer In yesterday’s post, Seneca undergrad Jvalin Vijayakumaran found that there has been a cursory integration of women in the current grade 7 & 8 Ontario history curriculum. His research supports what scholars have found since the 1970s, that women’s historical experiences are either missing or are limited in their inclusion in school history textbooks and resources. The… Read more »

The Significance of Women in the Ontario History Curriculum: The Findings of an Undergrad

In recognition of International Women’s Day on March 8, and the celebration of Women’s History Month in March in both the USA and UK (Women’s History Month in Canada takes place in October), this post shares the findings of an undergraduate student from Seneca College about whether women in the grade 7 and 8 Ontario history curriculum were “significant.” Spoiler… Read more »

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 »