Category Archives: Uncategorized

What is Good Citizenship? Perspectives from Former Air Cadets of Diverse Identities

This is the fourth entry in a monthly series on Thinking Historically. See the Introduction here. Rebecca Evans  Our conceptions about good citizenship vary. Context, particularly space and time, matter. In citizenship education, young people participate and deepen their understanding of how to make change in their communities. They do so across various domains, inclusive of formal politics, political advocacy, civic… Read more »

Thinking Historically About Disability at the Ontario School for the Blind, 1903-1917

This is the third entry in a monthly series on Thinking Historically. See the Introduction here. Harrison Dressler “ALL THE EVIDENCE DEMANDED,” read an article published in the Toronto Globe on February 2, 1917. Written by two former students—R.F. Henderson and Byron G. Derbyshire—the article alerted the Canadian public about an investigation into the Ontario School for the Blind (OSB),… Read more »

‘Rather Absurd’: Christian Nationalism and the Dominion of Canada

Daniel R. Meister In July 2023, former adherents of a religious movement went public with concerns that Christian conservatives in New Brunswick were “more radical than they seem.” The specific context was a political controversy surrounding Policy 713 on LGBTQ+ students in public schools. In its coverage of Policy 713 and the conservative Christian reaction to it, the CBC reported… Read more »

Collecting – and Curating – Eclectic Canadiana

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Close-up photograph of a brown piece of wood. There is a brass plate affixed with these words embossed on it: “From the teak of H.M.S. Ganges, the last sailing ship to serve as a seagoing flagship.”

Forrest Pass Collecting made me a historian. A few months ago, in the course of my work as a curator at Library and Archives Canada, I came across a letter from Francis Parkman to Dominion Archivist Douglas Brymner and it made me smile, because my first “acquisition” as a child philatelist had been a stamp commemorating “Francis Parkman – American… Read more »

Reforming the History Dissertation

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By John C. Walsh The report of the CHA Task Force on the Future of the History PhD in Canada is now available (in English and in French). This is the sixth in a series of posts by Task Force members, offering their perspectives on selected themes from the report. Activehistory.ca encourages readers to join in the conversation, either in the comments… Read more »

90 Days to 50 Years: Commemorating the 50th Anniversary of the Expulsion of South Asians from Uganda

By Jackie Mahoney On August 4, 1972, the President of Uganda, General Idi Amin, announced that South Asians who were British citizens would be expelled from Uganda because, according to him, they were sabotaging the economy. This decree set into motion a mass exodus of the South Asian population of Uganda, who were given just ninety days to settle their… Read more »

The Academic Job Market: Tenure-Track Assistant Professors in History in Canada

By Will Langford The report of the CHA Task Force on the Future of the History PhD in Canada is now available (in English and in French). This is the third in a series of posts by Task Force members, offering their perspectives on selected themes from the report. Activehistory.ca encourages readers to join in the conversation, either in the comments or… Read more »

Activehistory.ca Project Receives Grant from Canada History Fund

ActiveHistory.ca is pleased to announce that its application to the Canada History Fund, made in partnership with McGill University (grantee), HistoireEngagée.ca, and the Asian Canadian and Asian Migration Studies Program at the University of British Columbia, was successful. Our project, “Active History on Display,” has been granted $99,958 to create two digital exhibits: one on the lived experiences of Asian… Read more »

Piece by Piece

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Sam Huckerby Piece by Piece uses images, maps, and public-friendly text to show that 19th century English clothing materials connected to everything from bird preservation movements to slavery. Born out of a desire to start filling in the gaps of how we talk about historical dress, Piece by Piece shows that clothes are more than just aesthetics: they have history… Read more »

Sketching the Passage of Time

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Laura Madokoro For the past few weeks, I have been deep into records relating to the 1980s sanctuary movement in the United States. This movement, which has been recalled in recent years as a result of renewed efforts to protect refugees and present-day undocumented migrants, consisted of a loose coalition of churches that offered refuge to arriving migrants from Central… Read more »