Active History

The Home Archivist – Dust, Mold, and Adhesives, Part I

February 4, 2015 1 Comment

Home-Archivist-300x170 2 By Jessica Dunkin

In the last Home Archivist post, I tried my hand at processing letters from the MacKendrick family collection. At the end of that post, I expressed misgivings about some of the techniques and materials I had used. Since then, I have met with Doris St-Jacques, a paper conservator in the Maps and Manuscripts laboratory at Library and Archives Canada (LAC), and Greg Hill, Senior Conservator of Archival Materials and Photographs at the Canadian Conservation Institute (CCI).

Preservation Centre, Library and Archives Canada, Gatineau, QC (Photo Credit: Jessica Dunkin)

My visits with Greg and Doris were more than opportunities to learn about paper conservation from two experienced professionals. They were also opportunities to see inside two of the National Capital Region’s hidden archival gems. Doris works at LAC’s Preservation Centre in Gatineau, Quebec, a stunning amalgam of glass, steel, and concrete that houses preservation laboratories and 48 climate-controlled storage vaults containing some of the country’s most precious documentary heritage. This “modern temple of memory” employs approximately 70 preservation experts at work on books, manuscript collections, maps, films, photographs, and artwork that are part of LAC’s collections. When I visited the Preservation Centre, a team was busy processing the service files of the Canadian Expeditionary Force in anticipation of digitization. You can take a virtual tour of the building here. Public tours are offered occasionally. Contact 613.996.5115 for more information. Continue reading →

More than “Prisoners”: Discovering Welfare History in Holy Trinity Cemetery, Thornhill

February 3, 2015 12 Comments

By Danielle Terbenche

Five grave markers

In 2012, I began attending Holy Trinity Anglican Church in Thornhill, Ontario. After learning I was a historian, some church members invited me to join the cemetery board. During my first visit to the church’s historic cemetery, I was intrigued by five concrete crosses marking the graves of eight men, dating from 1928 to 1931. In a poor state of repair, and inscribed only with the names and death dates of the men, they looked nothing like the more elaborate marker that surrounded them, both historic and modern. At the time, I had no idea that over the next year, these crosses would lead me to an investigative journey of the history of early twentieth-century welfare institutions, social policy, homelessness, and unemployment. It was a project that demonstrated the hidden stories and social histories that may be represented through small, seemingly inconsequential artefacts. This article documents my search for answers about these mysterious gravestones. Continue reading →

What’s in a Name? Place Names, History, and Colonialism

February 2, 2015 4 Comments

By Kaleigh Bradley

But remember that words are signals, counters. They are not immortal. And it can happen – to use an image you’ll understand – it can happen that a civilization can be imprisoned in a linguistic contour which no longer matches the landscape…of fact. Brian Friel, Translations

Mikana Anishinaabe replaces the Indian Rd street sign in Toronto. Source: Ogimaa Mikana Project.

Brian Friel’s play Translations takes place in 1833, in the Irish-speaking village of Baile Beag. Translations is set during the early nineteenth century, a time when the Great Famine loomed over Baile Beag. The British were starting to survey and map Ireland, a process that followed the amalgamation of Ireland and the United Kingdom in 1801. Part of Britain’s renaming and remapping of Ireland was the anglicization of Gaelic place names. The main characters in Translations struggle with the erasure of traditional place names. In the play, the arrival of British cartographers signals the disappearance of Gaelic place names from the landscape – but not from the memories of confused villagers, who dont’t speak a word of English. Suddenly, Baile Beag “small town” becomes Ballybeg, Druim Dubh “black shoulder” turns into Dromduff, and Poll na gCaorach “hole of the sheep” is changed to Pollkerry. The British close all the hedge schools in Baile Beag and replace them with “national schools” where students are taught English. Translations explores the historical relationship between place, language, and power. I couldn’t help but notice a connection between the themes of cultural identity, language, and colonialism in nineteenth-century Ireland, and my own research on place names and colonialism here in Canada.

For Indigenous peoples, place names act as mnemonic devices, embodying histories, spiritual and environmental knowledge, and traditional teachings. Place names also serve as boundary markers between home and the world of outsiders. As Dominique Tungilik recounts, for the Inuit, “the names of places, of camps, and lakes, are all important to us; for that is the way we travel – with names.” Knowing one’s way around the land and bodies of water could mean the difference between life and death. Place names convey an array of information to the Inuit, from local knowledge about topographical features, to the presence of seasonal resources; sometimes they record information about the history of the landscape itself. Continue reading →

Podcast: Re-Imagining Universities in the Digital Age: Historical Reflections and Curent Questions

January 30, 2015 1 Comment

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On October 7, 2014 Professor Chad Gaffield of the University of Ottawa addressed the issues facing universities in the 21st century as part of the University of Ottawa History Department’s Brown Bag Lunch Series.

Activehistory.ca is pleased to present a recording of Professor Gaffield’s talk.

Science in Different States: The Science Council and the Trudeau Government

January 29, 2015 No Comments

Ursula Franklin receiving the Peace Medal

By Henry Trim

The recent closing of research labs and scientific libraries across Canada has generated a heated debate over the proper relationship between science and the Canadian government. The fundamental short sightedness of these policies and their dire consequences for environmental research have been ably discussed on this blog by William Knight, at the Walrus, and by the CBC’s Fifth Estate among other places. How, one might ask, have past Canadian governments related to science and how did this relationship shaped Canadian politics?

The so-called Age of Ecology in the 1970s corresponded with a particular approach to scientific knowledge. At the time the government of Pierre Elliott Trudeau placed a very high value on what it saw as science. Elected in 1968, at the apex of scientists’ political authority in Canada, Trudeau approached scientific knowledge as the most effective lens through which to approach the world. Immediately after forming the government, it set about reorganizing the Canadian state in an attempt to transform policy making into an almost academic process of discussion in which “knowledge power” framed cabinet debates and clearly defined national priorities guided government bureaucracy. Unsurprisingly, Canadian politics proved resistant to this attempt to systematize them. The Trudeau government’s efforts did, however, have a significant effect on scientists place in Canadian politics. Continue reading →

History Slam Episode Fifty-Eight: African Canadians in the U.S. Civil War

January 28, 2015 No Comments

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By Sean Graham

The first time I learned about the American Civil War (1861-1865), it was kind of along the lines of this:

Of course any war is more complicated than a single word, but that succinct answer nicely sums up how a lot of people think of the Civil War.

And yet, since slavery was abolished in the British Empire in the 1830s, it doesn’t directly address the way in which Canada and Canadians were involved in the war. Historians like John Boyko have written about how the Civil War influenced the Canadian political landscape in the lead up to Confederation, but less is know about the people who crossed the border in order to participate in the bloody conflict. Even within that context, the story of African Canadians fighting in the Civil War is underrepresented.

In his book African Canadians in Union Blue: Volunteering for the Cause in the Civil War, Richard Reid, Professor Emeritus at the University of Guelph, addresses that under-representation by examining the men who left British North America to fight for the North. Reid highlights the various personal motivations of the soldiers and sailors who enlisted while also highlighting the seemingly universal desire to fight for freedom, justice, and equality.
Continue reading →

Promises Broken, or Politics as Usual?

January 27, 2015 3 Comments

By Jonathan Scotland

Despite the Conservative Party of Canada’s fondness for promoting its support for Canada’s military, since assuming government in 2006 the federal government’s relationship with veterans has been rocky at best. By the close of last year’s parliament it seemed that new criticisms were being leveled at Julian Fantino, Minister of Veterans Affairs, on a daily basis. His department’s handling of the New Veterans Charter (NVC) and treatment of soldiers’ mental health came in for special criticism. Critics also added neglected war graves, unspent funds, cuts to the Veterans’ Affairs’ disability awards branch, and inadequate access to a growing list of complaints. Fantino, at least, was struck off that list early in the new year when he was replaced as Minister by Erin O’Toole, a sign the government is trying to repair its reputation with veterans.

In British Columbia wounded veterans have taken Ottawa to court over the change from life-long pensions to one-time, lump-sum payments. This shift, the veterans argue, amounts to a breach of trust between soldiers and the crown, a social contract that dates to at least the First World War.

Their suit builds on Aboriginal case law by invoking the honour of the crown. If it succeeds, it will be precedent setting. Veterans’ benefits will henceforth be enshrined as a permanent fiduciary responsibility.

With parliamentary sovereignty at stake, government lawyers are vigorously seeking to have the suit thrown out.

At the heart of the case are Prime Minister Robert Borden’s wartime commitments to Canada’s troops. Continue reading →

1847 and 2010: Ugly Manifestations of the Macroeconomic Trilemma

January 26, 2015 No Comments

By David Zylberberg

On January 25, 2015 Greece’s New Democracy government led by Antonis Samaras lost its bid for re-election. Meanwhile, its coalition partner, PASOK, received less than 5% of the vote, despite having been the largest party in recent decades and in government for over half of the last 40 years. They were voted out after presiding over the worst peace-time economic collapse ever in an advanced economy. The statistics are staggering and reflect great levels of both suffering and lost opportunity for a skilled generation of young adults. With an economy losing over a quarter of its capacity in six years, unemployment of 26%, youth unemployment over 50% and the emigration of many university graduates. Despite the colossal failure of their administration, it is hard to imagine that Messrs Samaras and Venizelos wanted so many young graduates to head for Melbourne or middle-aged adults scrounging through dumpsters for food.

In thinking about the causes of the current Greek suffering, I am reminded of an excellent paper given by Charles Read on the role of monetary policy in Irish Famine Relief in 1846-1848. As it is available online, I would highly recommend that people read it (the paper begins on page 73). Read effectively argues that the British government of the 1840s was a victim of the macroeconomic trilemma, whereby government policies are limited. For reasons connected to the dynamics of currency, the trilemma explains that governments are effectively limited to choosing any two of the following three policies: fixed exchange rates, free movement of capital and trade, and discretion over levels of spending. The British government of the mid-1840s was ideologically committed to fixed exchange rates through a gold standard and to free trade. Continue reading →

The king in a car park: Digging up Richard III

January 26, 2015 1 Comment

By Daniel Ross

“Bloody thou art; bloody will be thy end.” Duchess of York, Act IV, Scene IV, Richard III

Not such a bad guy after all? Olivier as Richard III, 1955.

Shakespeare’s Richard III is one of fiction’s classic villains, a schemer who knocks off one family member after another on his way to the crown. Even his mother the Duchess would rather he was dead, and she gets her wish by the end of the play. King of England for just two years, Richard died at the battle of Bosworth Field in 1485, making him one of the last victims of the War of the Roses.

Opinions differ as to how nasty the historical Richard was, but it’s safe to say that, until recently, he hasn’t had a very positive cultural legacy (although he did make 82 of 100 in a 2002 poll of greatest Britons). That might be changing. In 2013 archaeologists digging under a parking lot in the English Midlands made international news when they claimed to have found the king’s remains. In this post, I take a look at Richard III’s extraordinary return to the public eye over the past two years: it’s a story about much more than archaeology and historical inquiry, as it turns out. Continue reading →

Review of Photography, Memory, and Refugee Identity: The Voyage of the SS Walnut, 1948 by Lynda Mannik

January 23, 2015 No Comments

By Phil Gold

For Estonians, the twentieth century was a tug-of-war between political independence and social freedoms and repressive subjugation under the Soviet boot. Lynda Mannik’s book, Photography, Memory and Refugee Identity: The Voyage of The SS Walnut, 1948 provides a fascinating snapshot of one moment in that tumultuous history: the journey of the 347 Estonian refugees from Communism who sailed from Goteborg, Sweden to Pier 21 in Halifax and a new life in Canada. The book is a clear and well-written historical monograph that uses the narrative power of photographs to immerse readers. The author also reminds the reader that Estonian refugees have a significant place in Canadian history. As Canada’s first “boat people,” their story is part of a permanent exhibit at Pier 21 that highlights the immigrant experience and arrival in Canada. For Mannik, narrating the Walnut’s voyage also provides an opportunity to explore a period of transformation in Canadian immigration policy. Continue reading →

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