By Jacob Richard Imagine walking through the doors of the last large museum you visited. What do you see? Colourful artwork hanging off the walls? Marble sculptures along voluminous hallways? Rare cultural artifacts in neatly packed display cases? If any of this sounds familiar, your memory has betrayed you. You would have seen, first and foremost, the metal detector, the… Read more »
Daniel R. Meister It’s part of the craft of writing: a “killer quote” that powerfully demonstrates the point the author is trying to make. Taken from a primary source, it can become the most quoted part of the secondary piece in which it appears. And when loosed from its moorings to the publication that contextualizes it, the quote is carried… Read more »
Alvin Finkel Since the 1970s the proliferation of social histories has challenged once-dominant historical paradigms focused narrowly on elites and ignoring or diminishing women, colonized peoples, workers, and farmers as unworthy of consideration as agents of social change.[1] A sole dependence on archival sources for historical research had favoured the literate few and dismissed pre-literate societies as “prehistoric.” Reliance on such… Read more »
Laura Madokoro For the past two years, I have had the great pleasure of teaching a course at Carleton University called History in the News (HIST3909A). The idea for the course came from the notion that the contemporary news sphere could benefit from more historical context (a premise behind many of my posts here at Active History). As such, the… Read more »
Donald Wright Against the backdrop of the American election, and the vow to make America great yet again, I am reminded that there is a competing, and more expansive, definition of great with a long and inspiring history. But first, Donald Trump. He has co-opted the word, made it his own, and compelled it to do his bidding. Make America… Read more »
Joey Hollingsworth (b. 1936) is a tap dancer, creative force and one of the first Black performers on CBC television. Joey danced in the era of medicine shows, big bands and civil rights. He was backed by the Samuel Hershenhorn Orchestra on CBC (1954), directed by Norman Jewison – CBC Special Christmas with the Stars (1956); and acted with black… Read more »
On 21 October 2024, New Brunswickers elected Susan Holt as their premier, the first female to hold that office in the province’s 240-year history. Politics has long been gendered as a male game, and for an equally long time men have excluded both from voting and running for office.[1] Given that Holt’s win was accompanied by the election of a… Read more »
By E.A. Heaman It’s American election time again and, once again, everyone has an opinion on whether this is just another election or whether rule of law is seriously under threat. Donald Trump has said that he needs only one day of dictatorship, only one hour of summary violence, to quell all unreasonable resistance, leaving only the reasonable. Can we… Read more »
Stacey Zembrzycki In 1986 and 1987, Stanley G. Grizzle began to cold call old friends, asking them if they would be willing to share their memories of portering during the first half of the twentieth century. This famed Toronto-based labour activist, war veteran, civil servant and citizenship judge, who was also a porter for twenty years, was in the midst of writing… Read more »
“Laborem Ex Machina: A History of Operating Engineers and Heavy Machinery in Canada’s Construction Industry” is a new podcast and digital companion created by historian Gilberto Fernandes. Activehistory.ca editor Edward Dunsworth spoke with Fernandes about the project and his broader experiences in public history. Here’s an edited version of the interview. Edward Dunsworth: Tell me a bit about Laborem Ex… Read more »
