Active History

ActiveHistory.ca repost – Slavery in Canada? I Never Learned That!

August 22, 2014 Comments Off

ActiveHistory.ca is on a two-week hiatus, but we’ll be back with new content in early September. During the hiatus, we’re featuring some of our most popular blog posts from this site over the past five years and some of the editors’ favourite posts from the past year. Thanks as always to our writers and readers – see you again in September!

The following post was originally featured on October 23, 2013.

Slavery advertisement from Upper Canada Gazette, 10 February 1806.

By Natasha Henry

The highly anticipated soon-to-be-released film, 12 Years a Slave, has garnered lots of attention following its premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival. The film provides a shocking but realistic depiction of American slavery. It is based on the life of Solomon Northrup, a free man, who was kidnapped from his hometown in New York and sold south into slavery. Northup is able to regain his freedom after Canadian Samuel Bass, a carpenter from Prescott, Upper Canada, writes several letters to authorities in New York on his behalf. No doubt, Canadians are proud of the usual portrayal of us as crusaders against American slavery and wear the badge of “Canadians as abolitionists” with honour. Canadians readily embrace the notion of Canada as a haven for American freedom-seekers, who were escaping the same conditions that Solomon Northup endured. Once he was freed, Northrup himself helped fugitives flee to Canada, the “Promised Land.”

But what about Canadian slavery?

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ActiveHistory.ca repost – A Climate Migration Primer

August 21, 2014 No Comments

The following post was originally featured on January 23, 2014.

By Merle Massie

So, I’m writing a book.

What follows, for your January darn-it’s-cold-and-I’m-ready-for-something-kind-of-fun reading pleasure, is a primer (briefing notes) about the book. Given the growing recognition that Mother Nature remains strong and rather angry about human-induced climate change – kudos to everyone who spent Christmas with no power – I’m writing about human migration.

Drawing lessons from families who pulled up stakes and moved during the Great Trek from one biome (prairie south) to another (boreal north) due to drastic climate and economic problems during the Great Depression and Dirty Thirties, this book is based on history but with an eye to practical suggestions for the future. Imagine me having a conversation with my Grandpa and Grandma: what should I do to be prepared? Some of the following five lessons may or may not apply to your situation. It depends if you have a horse. Lessons may be tongue-in-cheek or serious. I’ll leave it to you to figure out which is which.

The underlying premise of the book is that climate change is happening and is worsening, and that Canada (in particular, Canada’s middle north and north) has been pinpointed as a place to which climate migrants from around the world may flee.

So, let’s get started, shall we?

Click here to read more.

ActiveHistory.ca repost – Of History and Headlines: Reflections of an Accidental Public Historian

August 20, 2014 No Comments

The following post was originally featured on April 29, 2014.

By Ian Mosby

When I first heard Alvin Dixon’s voice I was driving along Dupont Avenue in Toronto with my partner, Laural, and our three-month-old son, Oscar. Dixon was talking to Rick MacInnes-Rae, who was filling in as the co-host of the CBC Radio show As It Happens. The interview was about Dixon’s experience at the Alberni Indian residential school (AIRS) where he had unwittingly been part of a recently uncovered nutrition experiment conducted by the federal government during the late 1940s and early 1950s.

In addition to describing his memories of the experiment – in impressive and accurate detail – Dixon talked in a jarringly blunt manner about hunger and about the horrors of life in that notorious institution on the west coast of Vancouver Island. “It was totally inadequate food a lot of the time,” Dixon told MacInnes-Rae. “I remember all of us kids having to steal fruit, steal carrots and potatoes so that we could roast potatoes somewhere off site on a fire and eat them – because we were never full when we left the dining room table.”

Dixon had long suspected that something had been done to them at the school. “As early as 20 years ago,” Dixon told MacInnes-Rae, “I heard that there were these experiments from former students who worked in the kitchens.” And when asked what it said to him that his federal government was willing to do this, Dixon responded that it affirmed what he’d always believed: “That the federal government and most Canadians don’t give a shit what happens with us as First Nations people. They’re on our stolen lands, our holy lands and they’re not going to be happy until they have it all. They were trying to eliminate us. So that’s not surprising.”

By the end of the interview I was in tears – something that would happen with increasing frequency over the coming months as I met, corresponded with, and listened to the stories of survivors of these experiments and of Canada’s Indian residential school system more generally. While I’m still not sure what I expected to happen after I published my research on these experiments, I don’t think anything could have prepared me for how profoundly the strength, courage, and anger of survivors like Dixon would change my life and my perspective on what it meant to be an (active) historian.

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ActiveHistory.ca repost – Sudbury: The Journey from Moonscape to Sustainably Green

August 19, 2014 No Comments

The following post was originally featured on June 10 2013.

By Krista McCracken

Roast yard near Victoria Mines, Sudbury 1898. Greater Sudbury Historical Database.

The image of Sudbury, Ontario has long been associated with mining, smelting, and a barren landscape. Perhaps most famously, the landscape of Sudbury has been said to be comparable to the landscape present on the moon. Similarly, the image of the towering Sudbury Superstack is one which holds sway in the minds of many Canadians. However, since the 1970s Sudbury has put considerable financial and community resources into mitigating the ecological impact of mining on the community.

Nickel was identified in the Sudbury Basin as early as 1750. Despite this discovery the early years of industry in Sudbury were dominated by forestry. By the mid 1880s forest fires and clear cut logging had already contributed to significant alteration of the natural landscape of Sudbury.

The industrial scars on the landscape increased as the mining industry developed in the area. In 1888 the first roast yard and smelter were established in Copper Cliff, and marked the beginning of large scale mining in the Sudbury area. Between 1913 and 1916 the Mond Nickel Company removed all vegetation from the Coniston area to provide fuel for the roasting yard.

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ActiveHistory.ca repost – The Berlin Wall: Life, Death and the Spatial Heritage of Berlin

August 18, 2014 No Comments

The following paper was originally featured on November 6, 2009.

By Rector Gérard-François Dumont
Translated by Thomas Peace, York University

Walls that divide are meant to be broken down. Twenty years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, the legacy of the East-West division can still be seen in the city’s architecture, economy and overall culture. This paper examines Berlin’s spatial and political history from the wall’s beginnings to the long-term repercussions still being felt today.

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History Slam Episode Forty-Nine: Coming Out in the Classroom

August 13, 2014 2 Comments

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

By Sean Graham

In the spring, I taught HIS 3375, History of Popular Culture in Canada, at the University of Ottawa. Since the course had a participation element, I thought it would be fun to have an ice-breaker activity. So I compiled a list of ten questions that ranged from the hard-hitting “What is the first movie you remember seeing?” to the nonsensical “You get abducted by aliens – would you rather be in their zoo or their circus?” (A question first discussed on Seinfeld) which ten randomly selected students would have to answer. In prefacing the activity, I stressed that the students should not be worried because none of the questions were particularly personal and that I would answer the questions too.

In the past, I’ve been accused of being too private, so it’s not surprising that I wouldn’t include personal questions in the class. Afterwards, however, a colleague asked why I seemed so averse to divulging personal information in class when, on occasion, it might be relevant to the course material. In the case of popular culture, for example, does the fact that I have an irrational dislike of the NHL (hockey is great, but the NHL has destroyed the sport) not shape the way I discuss the league’s significance to Canada?

Not long after that discussion, I read Justin Bengry’s post on Notches entitled “‘Coming Out’ in the Classroom: When the Personal is Pedagogical” in which he discusses the issue of professors revealing their sexuality to their students, with specific reference to queer history courses. In addition to questions over an instructor’s personal background influencing their interpretation of the past, the post also discusses whether including personal information can help foster positive relationships in classes by breaking down barriers, and thus improving classroom dynamics.
Continue reading →

‘1914-1918 In Memoriam’: A View from the Grandstand

August 12, 2014 3 Comments

At the “In Memoriam” event , July 31st 2014: the speakers’ platform, seating for distinguished guests, and flags of Canada, its provinces, and territories.

ActiveHistory.ca is featuring this post as the first piece for “Canada’s First World War: A Centennial Series on ActiveHistory.ca”, a multi-year series of regular posts about the history and centennial of the First World War.

By Nathan Smith

A sizeable audience turned out for a First World War commemorative event held at the University of Toronto’s Varsity Stadium this past July 31^st. The grandstand was more than half full, so there were probably three thousands of us in attendance. We crowded near the centre to best view the proceedings on Varsity’s (sadly) artificial turf. Passing clouds occasionally filtered or blocked a setting sun, which dropped below the horizon near the end of the event. The beautiful evening light perfectly suited organizers’ plans.

“1914-1918 In Memoriam” was, as the Master of Ceremonies explained, held at sundown to echo the poetic hour given to mourning and remembrance, as in Binyon’s “For the Fallen”. The event’s timing, we were told, also paralleled the last hours of peace a century ago. On August 1^st 1914 Russia went to war with Germany and Austria, which in three short days pulled in France and Britain, and much of the rest of the world. I quibbled to myself that a war was already raging on July 31^st 1914 between Austria-Hungary and Serbia, but admitted such details, and others I noted during the evening, were not really the point at an event such as this. Unlike the “1914-1918: The Making of the Modern World” conference at the University of Toronto’s Munk School for Global Affairs that was tied to this public event, “In Memoriam” was about performing big, collective meanings for a general audience.

Continue reading →

Digital Approaches to 19th Century Globalization

August 11, 2014 1 Comment

By Jim Clifford

The map below drew a lot of attention on Twitter when I posted it a few weeks ago in advance of a presentation I gave at an environmental history conference in early July. It was retweeted, not just by friends and fellow environmental historians, but also by Shawn Donnan, a World Trade Editor at the Financial Times. I think it gained traction because it helps visualize something historians and students who take our classes know, but might not be general knowledge: globalization did not begin in the late 20th century with the rise of industrial economies in Asia.

Extensive trade networks predate Columbus and the flow of silver from mines in the Americas through Europe and to China linked and transformed the world economy during the Early Modern period. The scale of global trade and communications has changed significantly over the centuries, but globalization has very deep roots.

Far reaching industrial supply chains date back to the nineteenth century and in a few cases further back. British industrial development relied on importing raw materials from all over the world. Britain was simply too small of an island to supply all of the materials required by the growing factories and it did not have the climate to produce many of the materials required by innovative new industries. By the second half of the nineteenth century many of the products consumed and produced in London originated overseas. These included soap, candles, bread, margarine, marmalade, rubber rain jackets, leather shoes, inks, dyes, paints, fertilizers, and wooden furniture. These consumer goods were manufactured in factories in the Thames Estuary from raw materials imported, as the map above shows, from Canada, the United States, Jamaica, Peru, Brazil, Spain, West Africa, India, Sri Lanka (Ceylon), and New Zealand, among many other locations. You can zoom into the map and click on locations to see the range of commodities sent to Britain (the locations are rough approximations, as most of the underlying data is at the national level).

Identifying and following industrial supply chains is difficult enough in the present and it is even more complicated for the nineteenth century. I’ve found a lot of information in British archives, but these sources only get me so far. The internet, however, makes it possible to find, organize and read digitized government reports, newspapers, and books from a wide range of sources. Continue reading →

Is it time for the dinosaurs to go extinct? A response to “A Brief History of the Laptop Ban”

August 7, 2014 4 Comments

By Gregory Kennedy

Mark Garlick, “The Dinosaur Extinction Event”

Last week, as I was sitting down to write my regular contribution to ActiveHistory.ca, Sean Kheraj’s brief history of banning laptops in the classroom was published. It really struck a chord. I had been planning to write yet another piece about the commemoration of the First World War and how historians have a unique opportunity to be leaders in a national narrative. But this question about laptops, and their place in the classroom, struck me as a fundamental question for those teaching history in universities. The debate that has developed around this issue is, in my view, not only a proxy for larger questions about what universities are for and the nature of learning, but it also has far broader implications beyond the university classroom.

For those of us interested in history and historical practices, discussion over the place of technology in the classroom points to four issues that regularly affect the culture of teaching and learning history. First, the pace of transformation matters. People fear change. They especially fear change that threatens their reputation or livelihood. Second, change is not benign. The social sciences and humanities are under significant pressure today and technology has been a significant factor eroding its influence. Third, especially for those of us teaching history in universities, the ease with which information can be accessed has changed both the skills and behaviour of not only our students but – increasingly – the demands of our profession. Finally, and relatedly, we need to ask whether a wholesale embrace of teaching digital skills should be a task for the university history classroom. There are definitely areas in which we should integrate technology, but are we equipped to teach these skills well? And are the students adequately prepared to receive this teaching? Continue reading →

New Paper: Travel and Access to Abortion

August 6, 2014 No Comments

With the Abortion: The Unfinished Revolution Conference beginning tomorrow, ActiveHistory.ca is proud to publish “Travel and Access to Abortion,” a paper written collectively by Nancy Janovicek, Christabelle Sethna, Beth Palmer, and Katrina Ackerman.

On July 18^th, the Morgentaler Clinic in Fredericton performed its last abortion. Without government funding, and the generous support of Dr. Henry Morgentaler, the clinic is no longer sustainable financially. The closure of this clinic is a reminder that although abortion is legal in Canada, there are still significant disparities in timely access to abortion services. The closure of the clinic is part of a long history of the undermining of women’s access to abortion services at the local level before and after the legalization of abortion in 1969 and the decriminalization of abortion in 1988. The lack of access at the local level has a major impact on access to abortion services in much wider contexts because women have tended to travel to other jurisdictions for pregnancy termination. Travel is one of the main barriers to access to abortion. Yet travel is often the only way women can access abortion services. In this essay, we use four responses drawn from an article we published in Labour/Le Travail that examines Canadian women’s transnational travel to access abortion services as well as their attempts to defend access in their home communities. [read more]

In addition to our group blog, ActiveHistory.ca strives to provide timely, well-written and researched papers on a variety of history-related topics. If you have a paper that resonates well with our mandate please consider submitting it to us. For more information visit our Papers Section or contact papers@activehistory.ca. All of our papers are peer reviewed to ensure that they are accurate and up-to-date.

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