On Wednesday 14 April, the United States of America’s Library of Congress (LOC) announced a deal with the popular social networking service, Twitter, to archive all public messages on the site right down to the first “tweet” from @jack (Jack Dorsey, Twitter co-founder) on 21 March 2006, at 3:50 PM. Response to the news can generally be described as positive… Read more »
This post draws comparisons between the April-May British Petroleum oil crisis and the 1862 oil gushers in Oil Springs, Ontario.
68 cities recently took part in Jane’s Walk, an annual weekend of free walking tours honouring the vision of urbanist Jane Jacobs. Ordinary people, Jacobs argued, can learn about and improve their surroundings by observing their daily environments at street level. These walks also bring out the histories of place through members of the local community – walk leaders and… Read more »
The increasing number of primary and secondary sources made available by various online archives and databases continue to aid researchers and enrich the historical community as a whole. But they have also created challenges for more conventional forms of resource sharing in a community where print arguably remains the standard. While websites have generally made a more concerted effort to… Read more »
The first of May, celebrated in many nations across the world as Labour Day or International Workers Day, has a long tradition of worker’s activism and protest. This year was no different, as protestors around the world rallied to send various messages to governments. May Day is not officially recognized as Labour Day in northern North America, despite its North… Read more »
In this post, I look at controversies surrounding a statue of Nellie McClung, due to her early-20th century support of eugenics.
Since 2007 people have come together once a year to celebrate and remember the life of Jane Jacobs by leading or participating in walking tours of their local communities. As Jacobs argued, walkability is essential for urban communities. These tours seem to be a truly fitting monument to Jacob’s legacy. The walks began in Toronto, but have since spread well… Read more »
Often the public face of history is seen in museums or government issued historical plaques; but important historical narratives also exist outside of these structures, and they often tell stories that otherwise remain obscure or hidden by more official ways of historical story telling. I call this way of sharing the past street history.
by Jane Whalen The 2010 Quality of Life Index boasted that Canada’s “health care and living standards are among the highest in the world.” Ask your average Canadian and they would probably agree. Ask an Aboriginal person and you would be in for quite a shock. Third world conditions exist in Canada – what an outrageous claim to make about… Read more »
This post quickly looks at some neat new internet-based websites that attempt to make historical imagery accessible to the general public.
