Tag Archives: Ontario

ActiveHistory.ca repost — Simcoe Day and the Politics of Reclaiming and Renaming

Colonel John Graves Simcoe, [ca. 1881], by George Theodore Berthon. Government of Ontario Art Collection, 694156.

ActiveHistory.ca is slowing down our publication schedule this summer, but we’ll be back with more new posts in September. In the meantime, we’re featuring posts from our archive. Thanks as always to our writers and readers! The following post was originally featured on July 18, 2017 As Canadians mark Simcoe Day and the August long weekend, Elliot Worsfold’s post on… Read more »

Fighting Racism Through Sport

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By Sean GrahamFighting Racism Through Sport | RSS.comWe’re back with new episodes and this week I’m joined by Ian Kennedy, author of On Account of Darkness: Shining Light on Race and Sport, which explores how athletes from Chatham-Kent in southwestern Ontario fought racial discrimination through sports. We discuss Ian’s interest in sports, Chatham-Kent’s history as a terminus of the underground… Read more »

Co-operative Agriculture – What’s Old is News

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By Sean Graham Co-operative Agriculture | RSS.com Catharine Wilson joins me to talk about the history of co-operative work bees in rural Canada. Communal events to complete big projects in short amount of time, work bees are representative of rural Canadian culture and are the subject of Catharine’s new book Being Neighbours: Cooperative Work and Rural Culture, 1830-1960. We chat… Read more »

Hard Times in Peterborough: Peter Wylie Takes on Small Town Big Business

David M. K. Sheinin In 1997, the Peterborough real estate developer AON, Inc. settled out of court libel suits against the Peterborough Examiner newspaper, local television station CHEX-TV, and Trent University Economics professor Peter Wylie. As a function of the settlements, each respondent apologized unreservedly to AON. At issue was an accusation by Wylie that AON and the City of… Read more »

History Slam 199: The Making of a Museum

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https://activehistory.ca/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/History-Slam-199.mp3Podcast: Play in new window | DownloadBy Sean Graham In this episode of the History Slam, I talk with Judith Nasby, former Director of the Macdonald Stewart Art Centre/Art Gallery of Guelph and author of The Making of a Museum. We discuss the gallery’s style (1:51), the challenges facing smaller museums (5:21), and how a dedicated space changed the gallery’s… Read more »

Sewell and the Septics: The Government Commission that Tried to Give Community Planning Back to Communities

David M. K. Sheinin In early December 2020, former Toronto mayor and federal Progressive Conservative cabinet minister David Crombie resigned as chair of the Ontario Greenbelt Council. Created in 2005, the Council advises the provincial Minister of Municipal Affairs on maintaining the Southern Ontario Greenbelt. As the COVID-19 second wave loomed large, Crombie’s announcement won little media play. But the… Read more »

History Slam Episode 173: How We Helped

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https://activehistory.ca/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/History-Slam-173.mp3Podcast: Play in new window | DownloadBy Sean Graham In 1935, a group of Ottawa social workers came together to form the Eastern Ontario Branch of the Canadian Association of Social Workers. Over the next 85 years, the group underwent a number of changes, including becoming part of the Ontario Association of Social Workers, but its role in representing the… Read more »

Ontario Training Schools: State Violence and New Possibilities for Reconciliation

John Rose My dad is a great storyteller. Exaggerating at the right moments and building an exciting narrative, he shares anecdotes of incarceration and survival that reflect a man who grew up in a post-World War II (WWII) working-class family in the rust belt of Ontario. When I was growing up, he would tell his stories to me and my… Read more »

History Slam Episode 140: Brotherhood

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https://activehistory.ca/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/History-Slam-140.mp3Podcast: Play in new window | DownloadBy Sean Graham Brotherhood opens for a week-long engagement at the Cineplex Yonge & Dundas in Toronto starting December 6. It will also be shown at the Sudbury Indie Cinema on December 13. In the summer of 1926, a group of young men were attending a camp along the shores of Balsam Lake in… Read more »

Bruce W. Hodgins (1931- 2019) Historian and Master Canoeist

An appreciation by James Cullingham I first met Bruce W. Hodgins in a tipi at Camp Wanapitei on Lake Temagami some 400 kilometres north of Toronto. It was 1973. I was an undergraduate student at Trent University attending the first autumnal Canadian Studies gathering of students and professors at that camp located at Sandy Inlet. The Trent Temagami Weekend continues… Read more »