Active History

Reports from New Directions in Active History: Art + History = In-site-full Collaborations

May 31, 2016 1 Comment

By Andrea Terry

As a historian of Canadian Art, I hope that my research, teaching, and writing resonates with historians of all types. My most recent book Family Ties: Living History in Canadian House Museums (2015) explores how house museums anchor and transmit mythic histories. It connects the artefact to the performance of history at three “living history” house museums – Dundurn Castle in Hamilton, Ontario; the Sir George-Étienne Cartier National Historic Site of Canada in Montreal, Quebec; and the William Lyon Mackenzie House in Toronto, Ontario. The material culture in situ or, more precisely, what I call the “artefactual accuracy” endorses the institutionalized interpretation offered at each site. The primary organizing idea for the study draws on the tenets of disciplinary art history, approaching the house museum as a representational object used as a civic instrument in the practice and performance of history.

In such analyses, it is imperative to consider the sites’ practical function: their operation as tourist destinations. The purpose of historic sites arguably depends upon their ability to generate sufficient visitation to validate their continuing operations. With the advent of Web 2.0 and social media, the need to re-invigorate historic sites has intensified, as evidenced by Parks Canada 2012 budget cuts and the subsequent development of guided tour applications. Such needs also take into account citizens’ expectations, particularly those attached to their “smart” devices, mesmerized by cyber games and seemingly dependent on social media for interaction. In the twenty-first century, American curator Lowry Stokes Sims explains, historic museums are expected “to address an appetite for unique experiences, novel experiences, and authentic experiences.”[1] Contemporary art exhibitions installed within historical sites, projects referred to in related scholarship either as “museum interventions” or, more pointedly, “artist-history interventions,” certainly satisfy this expectation. What is more, they foster opportunities for dynamic collaborations between historians, art historians, public historians, curators, artists, visitors, and the like – collaborations that, I believe, have the potential to generate far-reaching benefits. Continue reading →

Digital Outreach and Wikipedia in the GLAM Sector

May 30, 2016 4 Comments

by Krista McCracken

Discussion around the value of contributing to Wikipedia and its use as a resource has been occurring since the establishment of the collaboratively written encyclopedia in 2001. You don’t have to look very far to find someone decrying the crowdsourced material as rubbish or others proclaiming it as the best thing since sliced bread. In between these two extremes thoughtful discussions have provoked questions about the academic implications of editing Wikipedia and historical narratives as presented via Wikipedia as truths.

A number of Active History posts have been written about how historians engage with Wikipedia as editors, academics, and public scholars. In 2010 A.J. Rowley’s “Is Wikipedia Worth the Trouble?” evaluated Wikipedia as a user generated resource and in 2011 Jim Clifford wrote about editing Wikipedia, challenges of academics engaging with Wikipedia, and problems around citing original research. In 2012 Ian Milligan explored the history of Canada as represented on Wikipedia and in 2013 Jonathan McQuarrie reflected on his experience editing William Beverly Murphy’s Wikipedia entry.

All of these posts bring up the issue of accuracy on Wikipedia, the potential value of contributing to public knowledge, and perceptions of history online. Trained as a public historian and as someone working outside of academia I came at Wikipedia from a different angle. My interest developed from the perspective of someone employed in the Galleries, Libraries, Archives, and Museums (GLAM) sector wishing to increase the profile of a heritage institution and highlight the material held in an archival collection. Continue reading →

What does Canadian history look like? Active History at the 2016 CHA

May 26, 2016 4 Comments

Tom Peace & Daniel Ross

Keywords from the 2016 CHA Program

This weekend, historians from across the country will gather in Calgary for the annual meeting of the Canadian Historical Association (CHA). It’s one of the few opportunities for Canadian historians and historians of Canada to connect in person, share their most recent research, and discuss larger issues facing the profession. Many attendees also take advantage of the chance to learn firsthand about the history of an unfamiliar city or region and its communities.

Since 2013, we’ve been using a couple of metrics – mainly word counts and chronological markers in paper and panel titles – to provide an overview of what attendees are working on and talking about. There’s nothing particularly rigorous about our methods, but previous posts (2013, 2014, 2015) have provided a starting point for discussions about what Canadian history looks like today, and how that profile has changed over time.

As always, this year’s line-up speaks to the breadth and creativity of historical work being done in Canada. Continue reading →

History Slam Episode Eighty-Five: Slow Scholarship

May 25, 2016 2 Comments

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By Sean Graham

To paraphrase John Mulaney, kids are upset when there is nothing do, but adults are ecstatic at the thought of doing nothing. (He presents this theory in a much more entertaining way) Ultimately, the joke gets to the point that everyone seems overworked. This is an issue in both the public and private sectors, despite the jokes I make at the expense of my friends in the public sector in Ottawa. It just seems as though there is always work to be done – even when working hours are over.

In academia, one of the ways in which people have started to deal with this issue is slow scholarship. I have to admit that when I first heard the term slow scholarship, I had an immediate reaction to what that would mean, but as I read more, I discovered that it could be an effective way towards a better work-life balance. In a recent article in University Affairs, the case for slow scholarship way made by a group of 11 faculty members from across the country.

In this episode of the History Slam, I talk with one of the article’s authors, Alison Mountz of Laurier and Harvard. We talk about the Canada Program at Harvard, the Canada Research Chair program, and the origins of the group’s efforts at slow scholarship. Around the 20 minute mark we get into slow scholarship in greater detail and discuss what it means, how it can be practiced, and the gendered and racialized environments in which we all work.

Continue reading →

Enforcing Wildlife Conservation in Maine: The Lasting Legacy of the Nineteenth Century

May 24, 2016 1 Comment

By Ian J. Jesse

In_pine-tree_jungles;_a_hand-book_for_sportsmen_and_campers_in_the_great_Maine_woods_(1902)_(14738183436)

Image from In Pine Tree Jungles (Bangor and Aroostook Railroad Company, 1902)

Many are familiar with the show North Woods Law. The show first aired in 2012 and has been popular ever since. If you have not seen the show the premise is simple: camera crews follow Maine game wardens as they do their work. In an episode wardens could be chasing down poachers one minute and searching for missing hikers along the Appalachian Trail the next. Recently, however, the actions of game wardens in an episode have come under fire.

In February of 2014 the Maine Warden Service followed by television cameras concluded a two-year undercover operation in Allagash, Maine, near the Canadian border, and brought some three hundred charges against twenty-three individuals ranging from night hunting and improperly tagging deer to possession of marijuana and taking more trout than the limit allows. While many can generally agree that protecting wildlife is a good goal, Mainers are upset about the tactics used by wardens during this operation. On May 8, 2016 Colin Woodard with the Portland Press Herald ran a lengthy article that criticized the actions of the Maine Warden Service during this operation (click here to read the full article).

Throughout this undercover operation many claim that undercover agents broke the game protection laws they were supposed to be enforcing such as killing deer at night to entice would-be poachers. Perhaps, even worse, the wardens were accused of seizing canned vegetables and fruit from an elderly woman they accused of illegally processing deer meat.[1] This news of the Maine Warden Service behaving badly seems to be the latest accusation on a growing list; Colin Woodard also published a list of controversies surrounding the Maine Warden Service over the past thirteen years (click here to see this list).

What is most surprising about these recent events is that no one has turned to history to help understand or contextualize them. I would like to turn the focus on this matter from the questionable actions of the wardens to consider reasons why rural Mainers may break laws that protect wildlife. Continue reading →

Masculinities and the Culture of Parliament

May 20, 2016 1 Comment

By Matt Barrett

Drawing by Matt Barrett

Without a hint of hyperbole, the House of Commons descended into a scene resembling a Blue Jays–Rangers dugout-clearing brawl on the afternoon of May 18th. According to Peter Mansbridge, “We’ve never seen anything like this in the House of Commons.” Prior to a vote on the assisted-dying bill, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau crossed the floor, entered a crowd of MPs and took the arm of Conservative Whip Gord Brown. During the jostling, NDP MP Ruth Ellen Brosseau stated she had been “elbowed in the chest by the prime minister.” When NDP Leader Thomas Mulcair subsequently confronted Trudeau in an intense exchange, several Liberals left their seats as well until tensions cooled.

An incredulous Peter Julian, NDP House Leader, declared, “There is not a parallel in contemporary Canadian history.” Calling Trudeau’s action “an extraordinary example of physical intimidation,” Conservative Peter Van Loan added, “I have read about this stuff in history books from the 19th century. I have never seen such a thing in my lifetime.” Ironically, four years ago, Van Loan himself reportedly “stormed across the aisle” to yell and wave his finger at the NDP Opposition. Although for the most part attacks in the House of Commons are of the verbal variety, historically, physical confrontations between MPs are nothing new. Even a cursory look through the 149-year history of the Canadian Parliament reveals numerous incidents of insults, threats, intimidation, scuffles and even sporadic violence. Continue reading →

History on TV: Political Drama in the 2010s

May 19, 2016 No Comments

Alban Bargain-Villéger

Still from Borgen, 2010.

In recent years, serial political dramas such as House of Cards and the Danish series Borgen have enjoyed quite a bit of success in North America. Although one might argue that the genre is more of a child of the 1990s, since the original House of Cards trilogy (set in a fictional post-Thatcher Britain) came out in 1991, and The West Wing ran from 1999 to 2006, the four series that I intend to examine in this post are all products of the 2010s. A comparison of Borgen (“The Castle,” Denmark, 2010-13), Les Hommes de l’ombre (“The Shadow Men,” France, 2012), House of Cards (USA, 2013-present), and Okkupert (“Occupied,” Norway, 2015) is not only useful in providing an overview of how western European and American politics are being imagined (even fantasized about) in our day and age, but also yields precious information of a historical nature. In their own way, each of these series tries to make sense of a different political history. Of course, it should be acknowledged that these four series reflect the views of the writers, directors, consultants and producers who created and shaped them. Nonetheless, the commercial and critical success that they have garnered as well as the themes they address raise several questions about the ways western democracies and their histories are perceived today.

SPOILER ALERT: be warned that plot points will be given away. Continue reading →

Engaging the Past through a Community of Transcribers: The Rural Diary Archive

May 18, 2016 1 Comment

Erin Schuurs

John Harrington Ferguson
Peel Art Gallery, Museum and Archives

In September 2015, Professor Catharine Anne Wilson and the library at the University of Guelph, launched the Rural Diary Archive*, an online archive showcasing over 130 Ontario diarists writing from 1800 to 1960. This digital archive collectively holds thousands of pages of handwritten diaries and the goal in placing these pages online is to engage volunteer transcribers. By fostering a transcriber community, those working behind the scenes of the Rural Diary Archive hope to make these hard-to-use but highly valuable documents more accessible.

With the launch of the website, I myself decided to try my hand at transcribing. My first task was actually choosing the diary I would transcribe from the wide variety of diaries available. I eagerly searched through my options. Should I choose a diarist who lived in a region of Ontario I was familiar with? Would I relate best with a female diarist? Perhaps a farmer? I eventually landed upon John Ferguson’s diary from 1869. After looking through some of the diaries, I admit that my initial attraction to Ferguson’s journal was based upon the highly prosaic reasoning that I found his handwriting the easiest to read. Continue reading →

The Big Hole of Black Oblivion

May 17, 2016 1 Comment

RHphoto1 By Rachel Hatcher

[This is the second in a series of posts titled “Learning and unlearning history in South Africa’s public spaces”]

The Big Hole in Kimberley, in South Africa’s Northern Cape province, somehow manages to tower over the city in a way that is surprising for a big hole in the ground, which is precisely what the Big Hole is. Yet the Big Hole does just that. It towers. Part of this is certainly because the Big Hole, which is reputed to be the biggest hand-dug hole in the world, seems to be the only reason people visit Kimberley. Mention in nearby Bloemfontein that you went to Kimberley on the weekend, and you will be asked if you saw the Big Hole. Another reason the Big Hole towers over the city is because of its history. Kimberley exists because of the Big Hole and, more specifically, because of the millions of dollars of diamonds dug from the hole, many of which ended up with the DeBeers company, founded in Kimberley in 1888.

Today, the complete Big Hole experience begins with a short film, Diamonds and Destiny, which tells the “realistic” story of the mine’s early existence “through the eyes of two fictional characters of the time,” a white travel writer and a black labourer. The experience continues with a short tour of the underground mine; a visit to the viewing platform perched overlooking the Big Hole; and, finally, a visit to the mine museum and the heavily guarded diamond display. Visitors are also invited to take a trolley ride or walk around the restored old town with its blacksmith, garage, “High Class London Tailor,” milliners, and other shops. Continue reading →

Creating the Canadian Mosaic

May 16, 2016 1 Comment

Ryan McKenney and Benjamin Bryce

John Murray Gibbon’s image of a Czechoslovakian immigrant in his Canadian Mosaic

Canadians often describe their country as a “mosaic.” This idea is present on government websites and in many contemporary articles in the media (on outlets such as The Globe and Mail, Macleans, and the Huffington Post), and most importantly in the minds of people across the country. Though used in different contexts and with different goals, the mosaic almost always describes Canada as a multicultural landscape and symbolizes a national ideology of inclusion and diversity. Canadians hold great pride in this idea, placing it on the progressive end of a spectrum opposite to the American melting pot. Yet Canadians rarely question where the term comes from.

Many Canadians would likely be astonished to find that the first person to use the term “mosaic” to discuss the national character of Canada was in fact an American. Continue reading →

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