Ella Prisco This essay is part of a 2-part series. See the other entry here. “They have borne the lonely hours with fortitude,” stated the Winnipeg Citizen in its coverage of scabbing women during the Winnipeg General Strike of 1919.[1] Indeed they had, taking up positions as telephone switchboard operators and waitresses in response to the nearly thirty thousand workers… Read more »
Ella Prisco This essay is part of a 2-part series. The second post will be published next week. Depending on who you asked, Winnipeg on May 15, 1919 was either a city in chaos or on the precipice of a brave new world. It was the first day of the Winnipeg General Strike, the culmination of weeks of tension between… Read more »
Gilbert Gagné This is the third post in a series on tariffs based on a roundtable organized at Bishop’s University in February 2025. Read the introduction by David Webster here and the first post by Heather McKeen-Edwards here. The second post by Gordon S. Baker appears here. Everything seems to be about tariffs now; how exposed to potential US tariffs… 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 »
by Steven High We are living in polarized times. Brexit, Trump, and the rise of right-wing populism has led to a resurgence of popular and scholarly interest in working class history and the ways it gets entangled with race in the wider politics of economic change. There is much at stake given the looming global transition away from fossil fuels…. Read more »
by Nicholas Fast For the public at any grocery store, the most shocking part of choosing any meat package is usually the price. It is no secret that the price of meat, especially beef, has skyrocketed during the pandemic. The sticker shock prevents many from looking beyond the plastic wrapping to really consider where the beef—or chicken or pork—comes from…. Read more »
This is the eleventh post in the series Historians Confront the Climate Emergency, hosted by ActiveHistory.ca, NiCHE (Network in Canadian History & Environment), Historical Climatology, and Climate History Network. By Jim Clifford “If you are a historian, your work is about global warming.” Dagomar Degroot. A few weeks ago Dagomar Degroot provided an overview of the excellent work done by historians of science,… Read more »
The Graphic History Collective recently released RRR #32, by historian and illustrator Frances Reilly, that looks at police surveillance and democratic socialism in Cold War Canada. In particular, the poster examines RCMP spying and the thirty-five year long covert program, Operation Profunc (PROminent FUNCtionaries of the Communist or Labor Progressive Party) that began in 1948. This program planned to arrest Canadians… Read more »
