Food history is, in many ways, perfectly suited to the goals of the active historian. In part, this is because food touches nearly every aspect of our lives. We need it to survive and to maintain our health. Our identities are often profoundly wrapped up in what kinds of foods we eat – or, in the case of many major… Read more »
By Andrew Nurse One of the basic rules of historical scholarship is to avoid “anachronistic judgments.” In simple terms, this means the following: the people who lived in the past, lived different lives with different values and different obligations then do we in the present. Therefore, it would be wrong to judge them by standards that are outside the context… Read more »
By Kevin Plummer “Those Reserve Indians are in a deplorable state of destitution, they receive from the Indian Department just enough food to keep soul and body together, they are all but naked, many of them barefooted,” Lawrence Clarke wrote in 1880 of near-starvation Cree around Fort Carlton. “Should sickness break out among them in their present weakly state,” the… Read more »
By Krista McCracken The days are getting shorter and colder, areas of Canada have already had the first snowfall of the year, and curling clubs around Canada are gearing up for the season. Curling has been part of Canadian culture for centuries and is still a sport that holds popularity amongst Canadians. The form of curling that exists today has… Read more »
Join in this series of participatory talks on topics that highlight how perspectives on movie monsters, war and product pitching in Toronto have evolved from the 1920s to today. All talks are Tuesdays from 7 to 9 pm at Spadina Museum, 285 Spadina Road, Toronto, 416-392-6910. Tickets are $8/talk (students $5) or $20 for all three. Taxes not included. … Read more »
By Lachlan MacKinnon Two weeks ago, David Zylberberg wrote on ActiveHistory of the political responses to deindustrialization in Belgium, France, and the United Kingdom. In expressing the relatively divergent implementation of industrial policy in these areas, he concludes that these examples “should serve as a warning against [policies of austerity] in Europe and beyond.” Today, with a new Liberal government… Read more »
ActiveHistory.ca is on a two-week hiatus, but we’ll be back with new content in early September. During the hiatus, we’re featuring some of our favourite and most popular blog posts from this site over the past year. Thanks as always to our writers and readers! The following post was originally featured on April 2 2013. By Kaitlin Wainwright Recently, I… Read more »
By Lachlan MacKinnon On 30 May 2013, the controversial statue of Edward Cornwallis standing in downtown Halifax was once again thrust into public debate. That morning, the rear of the monument’s base was found to have been graffitotagged with the word “fake.” Similarly, the plaque bearing Cornwallis’s name was defaced with the words “self-righteous ass.” This was the latest salvo… Read more »
By Christine McLaughlin and Councillor Amy England We’ve come a long way from the days when women were denied the vote and barred from public office. Because of the efforts of a few willing to challenge the status quo, women won the right to vote and serve as political representatives in twentieth-century Canada. But many barriers remain for women in… Read more »
By Kaitlin Wainwright Making the Scene: Yorkville and Hip Toronto in the 1960s Stuart Henderson University of Toronto Press, 2011 394 pages, Paperback and ebook $29.95, Cloth $70.00 Stuart Henderson’s Making the Scene: Yorkville and Hip Toronto in the 1960s is an adventure back in time to Yorkville at what many would consider the pinnacle of its cultural history. Fifty… Read more »
