https://media.rss.com/whatsoldisnews/2025_01_22_04_59_42_1a8a866c-3afc-4959-906f-745b6be9b8e7.mp3Podcast: Play in new window | DownloadBy Sean Graham This week I’m joined by Robin C. Whittaker, author of Alumnae Theatre Company: Nonprofessionalizing Theatre in Canada. We discuss the establishment of the Alumnae Theatre Company and its place as Canada’s longest-running women-led theatre group, how the group survived its early years, and the place of non-professional theatre in 20th century… Read more »
https://media.rss.com/whatsoldisnews/2025_01_09_05_34_34_9214266a-8da2-4ebd-8271-32991e5ad510.mp3Podcast: Play in new window | DownloadBy Sean Graham This week, I’m joined by Tonya Davidson, author of Inside the Snow Globe: Ottawa Monuments and National Belonging. We discuss Tonya’s approach to monuments as a primary source, how publics respond to monuments, and how national monuments fit into local communities. We also talk about some of Ottawa’s less known monuments,… Read more »
https://media.rss.com/whatsoldisnews/2024_12_12_05_55_34_6e45620e-0180-489d-95df-e0e68151387b.mp3Podcast: Play in new window | DownloadThis week I’m joined by Crystal Gail Fraser, author of By Strength, We Are Still Here: Indigenous Peoples and Indian Residential Schooling in Inuvik, Northwest Territories. We discuss the lesser known story of northern residential schools, conducting oral history with survivors, and the Gwich’in concepts of individual and collective strength. We also chat about the significance… Read more »
Residential school denialism may have its origins in Canada, but it is increasingly circulating and being used around the world as part of a wider matrix of imperial apologetics – a transnational network of discourse that aims to defend the legacy of the British Empire in the metropole and former colonies
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 »
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 »
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 »
By David Sobel For three consecutive nights in November 1921, Her Own Fault, “a realistic drama in which the heroine is a factory girl” was shown at the Madison Theatre (at the corner of Bloor and Bathurst) and the Review Theatre, in the west end of Toronto.[i] Made by the Ontario Motion Picture Bureau at the Gutta Percha Factory in… Read more »
Matt Ormandy “There’s just one kind favor I’ll ask of you, See that my grave is kept clean.” Lemon Jefferson, 1927 The Alberta Penitentiary was a federal institution that operated from 1906-1920 just east of Amiskwaciwâskahikan, also known as Edmonton, located on the stolen lands of diverse Indigenous peoples. Forced labour in the prison coal mine, farm, and construction shops… Read more »