Active History

Halloween and the Commodification of Indians

October 31, 2015 No Comments

By Benjamin Hoy

“The other braves thought it was wrong, that the chief was blessed with an arrow so long,” Chief Long Arrow and Pocahottie, Dreamgirl 2015-2016 Costume Collection Catalogue, p. 14

Each year numerous calls go out encouraging the public to choose respectful Halloween costumes. No more redface, faux headdresses, plastic tomahawks, or war paint. Newspapers run articles attempting to defeather Halloween, denounce the sexualized Indian maiden costumes, and highlight the problems created by using ceremonial objects such as headdresses in disrespectful ways. From buzzfeed videos to John Oliver’s How is this still a thing?, the breadth of outreach is extensive.

The calls go out and each year we are treated with the same stories. University teams dress up like Cowboys and Indians and sororities and fraternities host Consquistabros and Navajos themed parties. Massacred Indian costumes compete with black-faced cheerleaders and drug using Mexicans. Apologies, sensitivity training, and public relations measures follow.

A year passes and history seems to repeat itself. More apologies. More public relations. With the tens of thousands of Halloween costumes out there, why does offensive costuming persist?

Apathy, ignorance of the issues at stake, and a desire for controversy provide partial answers. Solving this problem, however, requires a much broader focus than is often provided by the media. This is not a one day problem and it is not a problem divorced from its historical context. Continue reading →

Justin Trudeau’s “New Deal” for Cities

October 30, 2015 No Comments

Bret Edwards

Justin Trudeau speaks to municipal leaders in June 2015. Liberal.ca

Cities played a key role in Canada’s recent federal election. New seats were available in many urban and suburban areas of the country after the House of Commons expanded to reflect recent population shifts and increases. Political parties also devoted large chunks of their platforms to cities in an effort to woo these voters. In some cases, their maneuverings began even before the campaign. In June, Liberal leader Justin Trudeau spoke at the Federation of Canadian Municipalities Conference, promising a “New Deal” for cities and communities. Declaring that municipalities “still don’t have the resources they need to deliver the services that citizens expect”, Trudeau acknowledged that the federal government should be “held to its responsibilities, financial and otherwise” at the municipal level. During the election, he doubled down on this commitment by vowing to run budget deficits in his first three years and invest $125 billion over ten years in building and upgrading urban infrastructure.

In the wake of the Liberal victory, public attention has quickly returned to Trudeau’s New Deal program. “How will you help Toronto, Mr. Trudeau?”, asked Marcus Gee in the Globe and Mail days after the election. In Calgary, the Herald ran a similar piece called “What a Liberal government means for Calgary”. And in the Toronto Star, Royson James argued that by making urban issues such a large part of his campaign, Trudeau has now put himself in a position where he would neglect cities at his own peril. “Cities…were good to Trudeau this election,” he wrote. “They’ll be expecting the Liberals to reciprocate the love.”

Reading these and other recent stories, one gets a sense from their language and tone that many Canadians see the federal government as a natural partner for cities that should be counted on to reliably support municipal needs over time. But historically this has not been true. Continue reading →

Trudeaumania Redux: Like Father, Like Son?

October 29, 2015 3 Comments

by Christo Aivalis

Less than two weeks ago, Justin Trudeau led a small parliamentary contingent from a distant third to majority government, overcoming an image of aloofness and style before substance. He stands poised to rule Canada for at least the next four years, carrying in the footsteps of his father Pierre, who stormed to victory nearly 50 years ago in a 1968 wave of Trudeaumania. Both father and son came about for similar reasons, namely that the public and punditry saw them as young, ambitious, and sexy arbiters of change. Indeed, both men have been sexualized in the media, sold as ‘pretty boys,’ after whom young women swoon.

While nearly every major news source has written comparative pieces of the two, I wish to focus on how both men, as per the Gramscian concept of passive revolution, were and are forces for the status quo. We can do this by examining their common motivations for reform, as well as the effect such manoeuvers had on the left and the New Democratic Party.

During their ascents to power, both Justin and Pierre emphasized the desire for new ideas and motivations that characterized the swinging 1960s and the post-crisis 2010s. In this desire to project change, Justin and Pierre combine both positive and negative rationales and language in their calls for reform. Continue reading →

History Slam Episode Seventy-Two: Religion and Belief in British Columbia and Ontario

October 28, 2015 1 Comment

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

By Sean Graham

This year at the Canadian Historical Association Annual Meeting, we recorded ten episodes of the History Slam. I am extremely grateful to the CHA and the Department of History at the University of Ottawa for help in getting everything done. It was a lot – I spent the majority of the Tuesday in a meeting room recording episodes – but it was also a lot of fun. Perhaps the only downside is that we had to hold an episode for nearly six months before it could be posted.

The episode that finally gets to emerge today is one on a topic that I’ve always enjoyed: religion. During my comprehensive exams, one of my favourite books was Revivals and Roller Rinks by Lynne Marks of the University of Victoria. I really enjoyed the way she examined people’s leisure time and its connection to religious participation. As we talk about in the episode, it’s difficult to study the depth of a person’s belief in a particular deity, but we can examine their participation in a church and how they self-identified in census records. With the great variety in motivations for joining a religious organization, there is so much to unpack when studying the history of religion.
Continue reading →

History in the Making: Witnessing South Africa’s #FeesMustFall Campaign

October 27, 2015 1 Comment

By Susanne M. Klausen

A Cape Town protester holds up a sign evoking 1976 Soweto Uprising. (Imraan Christian)

It’s been an exciting and inspiring week in South Africa watching the student movement #FeesMustFall in action. (The name builds on the recent successful #rhodesmustfall campaign that resulted in the removal of the Cecil Rhodes statue at the University of Cape Town, or the UCT). The students have placed the demand for free, quality education front and center on the public agenda here.

It all started at Wits University last week and rapidly escalated. On Wednesday, October 21, I was working in the national library when I heard the stun grenades go off at parliament, followed by screaming. By the time I got there the students, who had broken past police and gained access to parliament grounds in order to disrupt the speech by the finance minister, had been dispersed. Dispersed but certainly not defeated. At the UCT the faculty and campus workers (who are facing impending outsourcing), led by the students, regrouped and, among other things, marched to the downtown police station demanding the release of the arrested students. The police actually had the nerve to charge six of the students with Treason, i.e., the fact they climbed the fence and got to the front of parliament was called an attempt to overthrow the government. They’ve been widely mocked and criticized for this so surely the charges will be dropped.

Across the country, at most if not every single university, students have blocked entrances and exits to campuses, occupied buildings, etc., resulting in campus shutdowns. Continue reading →

Reclaiming spaces at Canada’s History Forum and the 2015 Governor General’s History Awards

October 26, 2015 2 Comments

by Stacey Devlin

Nellie McClung from the monument on Parliament Hill, showing historic newspaper headlines from the Persons Case. Photo: “Les Girls” – The Famous Five 10, Douglas Sprott, CC BY NC 2.0.

Humanity has an incurable habit of imposing meaning onto our surroundings. We transform every place we encounter into a landscape of the imagination, tinged by interpretation and experience, and populated by locations like “hometown,” “favourite fishing spot,” “sacred site,” and “mother country.” The tourism industry has long taken advantage of this to construct narratives which inspire travel, but place has also featured prominently in our interactions with the past.

Commemorations often focus on place – declaring not only that an event occurred, but that it occurred here. But who determines what places are important, why they are significant, or how they can be used? How can space be reclaimed for marginalized voices to share interpretations of what those spaces mean to them?

During this year’s Canada’s History Forum and the Governor General’s History Awards, held in Ottawa a little over a week ago, I had the opportunity to hear about some of Canada’s most exciting historical projects – and many of them use place as a vehicle for sharing those less-heard stories. From Parliament Hill to our dusty attics, people are turning to locations both familiar and rarely seen to share alternative perspectives of the past.

Sitting with the Famous Five

The first example of such “reclaimed” spaces that I encountered at the History Forum was the Famous Five monument. Focusing on the achievements of women, this year’s Forum began with a reception to mark the statue’s 15^th anniversary. The monument depicts Emily Murphy, Irene Parlby, Nellie McClung, Louise McKinney, and Henrietta Muir Edwards after their successful campaign for women to be regarded as persons under the law. The first Famous Five monument was erected in Calgary in 1999. An identical copy was later installed on Parliament Hill – the very place that the Famous Five fought to be recognized in, and a place where their achievements can be honoured alongside those of other nation-builders. The statue’s location contributes to the story of the Famous Five and their legacy. Continue reading →

Trafalgar Days in Nova Scotia

October 23, 2015 No Comments

In case you missed it or were swept up in ‘Back to the Future Day’, Wednesday once marked Trafalgar Day in Nova Scotia. As part of our partnership with the new early Canadian history blog Borealia, we’ve reposted Keith Mercer’s recognition of the day and what it once meant.

By Keith Mercer

1200px-the_battle_of_trafalgar_by_william_clarkson_stanfield

Clarkson Frederick Stanfield, The Battle of Trafalgar, 1836

The Royal Canadian Navy recently named October 21 “Niobe Day,” in honour of HMCS Niobe, one of Canada’s first two warships. It was bought from the British in 1910, shortly after the Naval Service of Canada was established that spring, and served in the First World War before being seriously damaged in the Halifax Explosion in 1917.

But for an older generation of Nova Scotians – and Canadians, growing up in a more British-centred school system and society – October 21 was once called “Trafalgar Day.” As children, they learned that on this day in 1805 a British fleet commanded by Lord Nelson in HMS Victory won the Battle of Trafalgar against the combined armadas of France and Spain. The most famous naval battle in history and the most decisive military engagement of the Napoleonic Wars, Trafalgar cemented Britain’s supremacy on the high seas. With the enemy decimated, Britons no longer worried about a French invasion. Of 33 enemy ships, the British captured or destroyed 18, while not losing any of their own. Unfortunately, Nelson, “Britannia’s God of War” and her most famous son and celebrity, died in the battle. He went out in the blaze of glory, during his crowning achievement.

Known for his bold fighting style and leadership, Vice-Admiral Horatio Nelson rose to prominence during the Battle of Cape St. Vincent in 1797. However, he is best known for three signature victories: the Battle of the Nile in 1798, in which he led the British in the destruction of a large French fleet off Egypt; the Battle of Copenhagen in 1801, which saw Nelson’s squadron capture or sink the bulk of the Danish navy; and Trafalgar in 1805.

Like Britons everywhere, Nova Scotians followed Nelson’s career closely and celebrated his triumphs, particularly Trafalgar. This allowed them to express nationalistic sentiment and to show their support for the British war effort.

At Halifax in 1805, they celebrated Trafalgar in the streets…[Read More]

A Brief History of Canadians Who Don’t Vote

October 22, 2015 1 Comment

A man voting in Ottawa, 1962. Source: Library and Archives Canada, Mikan 4316670.

by Sean Kheraj

Following Monday night’s election results, Canada may have marked a shift in the downward trend of voter turnout over the past twenty-seven years. According to early figures from Elections Canada, 68.5% of eligible voters (17,546,697 people) cast ballots. This is up considerably from the historic low turnout of 58.8% in the 2008 federal election and may mark a reversal of the trend of declining voter turnout, which began after the 1988 federal election. Toronto Star provides a full look at the breakdown of voter turnout in the 2015 election here.

Low voter turnout in Canada did not emerge as a popular concern until the recent past. The average voter turnout from 1945 to 1988 was almost 75% and showed limited variability, dropping below 70% in just two elections. Beginning with the 1993 election, the overall number of eligible voters who cast ballots began a general decline. Average voter turnout from 1993 to 2011 was about 64%.

In November 1989, the federal government appointed the Royal Commission on Electoral Reform and Party Financing to inquire into how Canadians elect members of the House of Commons and the financing of political parties. Volume 15 of its 23-volume report focused on voter turnout. Jon H. Pammett, one of the authors of this volume, found that the population of non-voters in Canadian federal elections changes from election to election. Continue reading →

A Review of Dan Malleck’s When Good Drugs Go Bad: Opium, Medicine, and the Origins of Canada’s Drug Laws (UBC Press 2015)

October 21, 2015 No Comments

by Joel D. Rudewicz

UBC Press 2015, 320 pages. Casebound $95.00

Restrictions against the general public procuring powerful and often dangerous poisons, drugs, and remedies are a fairly recent development in history. A time once existed when children could smoke cigarettes, arsenic was supplied by your friendly neighbourhood pharmacist, and medication and healing were a mish-mash of druggists recommendations, physician’s advice, and longstanding home- cures. This system remained generally unchanged until medical science began to accept germ theory and cast away humourist ideas about the inner-workings of the human body. Likewise, the druggist’s profession grew out of its alchemy roots, and only with a more modern understanding of chemistry did molecular compounds and chemical interactions bring a truer knowledge of the cures and poisons pharmacists held providence over.

Dan Malleck’s study, When Good Drugs Go Bad originates in this world. He draws upon extensive newspapers, scientific journals, pharmacy records, medical association files, asylum records, and case books to interweave the dynamic social, economic, and cultural factors that began the big push towards drug regulation in Canada. On one side you had moralists who expounded temperance and the degenerating effect that drugs like alcohol, tobacco, and opium had on the individual and society as a whole. On the other, physicians and druggists who saw themselves as both an authority and steward over the health and destiny of their fellow citizens’ development.

Continue reading →

The TPP and Public Domain Content in Canada

October 18, 2015 1 Comment

By Jim Clifford

Today in Canada you can legally distribute, download and create new editions of George Orwell’s 1984, Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring, Vita Sackville-West’s Passenger to Teheran, Georges Lefebvre’s work on the French revolution, Ian Fleming’s Bond novels, Ernest Hemingway’s many short stories and novels, and for all the fans of the staples thesis, the works of Canadian political economist, Harold Innis. Many thousands of lesser known authors also fall into the public domain each year, creating a growing source base for digital history and the digital humanities more generally. There is also a flood of audio and film recordings entering the public domain under Canada’s current rule that limits copyright to 70 years after the recording (it was 50 years until earlier this year).

This is very good for scholarship and teaching. It makes it possible for digital humanists to create innovative digital editions of the public domain material. Project Gutenberg Canada and other websites are allowed to post a growing catalog of open material that we can use to build corpora of resources for research and text mining. As professors, we take advantage of the internet and public domain material to assign free readings for students in our undergraduate classes. Material from the 19th century is safe, but the new rules will limit what we can use for teaching mid-20th century history (we can still use one chapter or 10% under fair dealing).

Four years ago Canada passed the Copyright Modernization Act through a relatively open and democratic process where experts and stakeholders testified before parliamentary committees. The Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP) has changed all of that. In the context of secret negotiations, this emerging trade agreement threatens to force Canada to rewrite this law. Did the negotiators consult any stakeholder in the archives, libraries, publishing industry or experts in internet law?

What is truly alarming, is that it appears the trade agreement copyright clauses are retroactive. Continue reading →

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