Active History

Best Practices for Writing History on the Web

October 16, 2014 15 Comments

Tablet Reading. Source: Pabak Sarkar, Flickr Commons

By Sean Kheraj

As more of our reading moves from print to screens, learning how to write on the Web will become an increasingly important part of history writing skills. Just as we teach fundamental research and writing skills for print essays, we will likely begin to teach digital writing skills for the Web. Writing for the Web will also become an important component of teaching public history (as it has already).

These are some of the assumptions that have informed my current course on the history of Toronto at York University. I have asked students to write a Web essay for their Fall semester assignment, using WordPress on a course site that I set up at DevelopmentofToronto.com. This is not a unique or revolutionary idea. I have known several colleagues who have had students write Web essays and I have had students write optional Web assignments in the past. This is the first time that I will be asking all students in the class to write Web essays. As such, it is an opportunity to think about how to teach specific Web-based history writing skills.

I chose WordPress for a number of technical reasons, but mainly because I have been writing and editing history on the Web in WordPress for several years now at SeanKheraj.com, ActiveHistory.ca, and NiCHE-Canada.org. In my experience, I have identified a number of key skills for history writing on the Web. However, I am still looking for more ideas to generate a good list of best practices (please post in the comments). Here are some best practices that I have developed over the course of my own experience writing history on the Web: Continue reading →

History Slam Episode Fifty-Three: What to Wear to the Birth of a Nation

October 15, 2014 4 Comments

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By Sean Graham

The story has been told thousands of time in the same way: the Fathers of Confederation met in Charlottetown and Quebec in 1864 and laid the groundwork for Confederation. These were men of vision who, according the video shown at the PEI legislature, had few major disagreements and passed the time in congenial discussions while crafting the framework for the new nation. From George Brown to George-Étienne Cartier to John A. Macdonald, Canada was born out of the minds of the men who convened in 1864. Or at least that is the interpretation presented to grade-school kids across the country.

But why stick to that narrative? This doesn’t necessarily mean we have to denigrate the Fathers of Confederation (based on the over-the-top interpretation of the aforementioned video, such a task would be impossible), but we can at least look at the years and events leading to Confederation from a different perspective – although this one may be historically problematic.

Through the summer Prince Edward Island held a variety of celebratory events commemorating the 15oth anniversary of the Charlottetown Conference. The celebrations ranged from musical acts to visual art to culinary displays and went beyond merely telling the story of what happened in 1864. In a lot of ways it was really a celebration of the province as a whole and its place within Canada.

One aspect of the celebration that did re-visit the Charlottetown Conference, however, was the theatrical production ‘What to Wear to the Birth of a Nation.’ Written and performed by Laurie Campbell and Rebecca Parent, the show looked at the Conference from the perspective of the women who were on hand in Charlottetown. From their perceptions of a new nation to the daily realities of summer in PEI, the show examines these women’s presence and sheds light on the contributions that have not made it into the traditional narrative of the nation’s birth.
Continue reading →

Anti-War Poetry in Canadian Newspapers at the Beginning of the First World War

October 14, 2014 2 Comments

Though scenes of young men lined up at recruiting offices like this one in Toronto were common enough across Canada in the early days of the war, the First World War was also met with a great degree of apprehension in the public pages of its newspapers. Source: Wikipedia Commons

By Russ Chamberlayne

The war fever has reached an acute stage. It has now attacked the poets.
– “Pertinent and Impertinent,” Calgary Daily Herald, August 4th, 1914

Readers of ActiveHistory.ca may be surprised at the deeply emotional and mixed reactions to the opening of World War I in Canadian newspapers, and the forms they took. While many have described the patriotic response to war in Canada, the early days of war were met with greater ambivalence than is usually assumed. The Calgary Daily Herald and the Manitoba (now Winnipeg) Free Press were two of Canada’s major papers that published poetry to evoke the anti-war feelings of Canadians.

A century ago, poetry was a popular literary form that appeared in various sections of newspapers. In August 1914, as war broke out in Europe, editorial pages showed support in verse form for British imperial loyalty, justice for Belgium and other seemingly principled tenets that supported waging war. Drawing on traditions from past wars, editors also chose poetry that centred on more individual virtues, like duty, courage, sacrifice and glory. However, newspapers like the Herald also expressed fear and sorrow at the outset of the fighting.

On August 8th, 1914, the Herald published the poem “The Wail of the Mothers” with its repeated line, “Oh, give me back my son!” In its August 29th pages, another poem, titled “Peace!” opened with these lines:

Great God of Peace and Love, how long shall man
Shed blood of man for paltry pomp of power,
And earth be rife with warfare, and the land
Filled with the tears of widowed hearts, that cry
To Thee in bitter agony for aid?

Continue reading →

Passage to Promise Land: Voices of Chinese Immigrant Women to Canada, by Vivienne Poy

October 10, 2014 No Comments

By Cristina Pietropaolo

Passage to Promise Land: Voices of Chinese Immigrant Women to Canada is a thoroughly researched and eloquent documentation of the experiences of twenty-eight women of different ages (the oldest in their nineties and the youngest in their thirties) who emigrated from the southern coastal region of China to Canada between 1950 and 1990. Vivienne Poy, an historian, entrepreneur, and former member of the Senate, began the book as an extension of her doctoral research about the agency of Chinese women immigrants and the choices they were able to make for themselves and their families. The women in her book, she argues, were determined and able to navigate their own futures. She also notes that for earlier generations of Chinese women, leaving China gave a certain sense of empowerment and a release from the cultural traditions that dictated so much of their lives; that while complex and difficult to negotiate, immigration could also be empowering and full of opportunity. More…

Graphic Environmentalism: An Interview with Comic Writer-Artist Steph Hill

October 9, 2014 No Comments

Hill comic Previous Active History posts (see here, here, and here) have examined the use of comics in telling – and interpreting – stories about the past. In this post, Ryan O’Connor (RO) interviews Steph Hill (SH), the writer-artist behind A Brief, Accurate Graphic History of the Environmental Movement (Mostly in Canada).

RO: This is a really interesting project. What is it that drew you to creating a graphic history of the environmental movement?

SH: I had the idea when I started canvassing for an activist group here in Vancouver. We were going door to door around the BC election, and I was surprised at how often the people I was walking with knew pieces of environmental history, but not the general story. I thought it would be neat if you could give someone a short summary of what environmental activists had started off doing, where they had succeeded and where they had failed. Actually, that was my second thought. My first thought was an in-depth series of case studies of environmental campaigns that succeeded and failed, but that’s more of a book than a booklet.

RO: What are the advantages of telling this sort of story in this medium?

SH: Since my goal (assuming people actually read the thing) was to give both a brief and accurate primer to environmental history, the comic format made it possible to take in a topic more or less at a glance. One page per decade or issue. If I’d really been thinking I would have put taglines on each page, too. “The eighties: Eco goes corporate!” And, at the risk of sounding flippant, I find it easier to make jokes in comics than in writing. Continue reading →

Mookomaanish: The Damn Knife (Odaawaa Chief and Warrior)

October 8, 2014 1 Comment

By Alan Corbiere

This post marks the second in a series of essays – posted the second Wednesday of each month – by Alan Corbiere focusing on Anishinaabeg participation in the War of 1812.

Mookomaanish – Beaverbrook Collection of War Art – Canadian War Museum

At the commencement of the War of 1812, the British were not totally certain that the Western Confederacy (including the Anishinaabeg: Ojibwe, Odaawaa and Potowatomi) would fight alongside them. The Western Confederacy had lost confidence in the British at the Battle of Fallen Timbers in 1794 when the British had abandoned the Anishinaabeg at Fort Maumee. The Anishinaabeg and the other members of the Western Confederacy had to face the Americans on their own and were slaughtered. At subsequent councils the Anishinaabeg reminded the British of this betrayal. The British knew that they needed the Western Confederacy as allies, but they also knew that trust had been broken and actions would have to replace words. So when Captain Roberts, Commanding officer at St. Joseph’s Island, received a second letter from General Brock advising him to take the action he saw most fit, Roberts opted for attacking Michilimackinac because he knew that he had to demonstrate to the Anishinaabeg that the British would fight this time.

On July 17, 1812, Captain Roberts with 30 regular British soldiers, who he described as aged and given to drunkenness, along with 200 Canadian voyageurs, 113 Sioux, Menominee and Winnebago, and 280 Ojibwe and Odaawaa, captured Fort Michilimackinac. This first victory ignited the Western Confederacy to war and many warriors came out to fight the Americans. Captain Roberts later revealed that he had learned that a force of Odaawaa warriors from L’Arbre Croche (a grouping of villages south of Michilimackinac) had landed at another part of Michilimackinac and watched from that vantage point. He alleged that this force was to wait and see how the battle was going, and then join the winning side. Clearly the mistrust was on both sides. However, the victory bolstered the spirit for war and many warriors proceeded to Detroit.

Upon reaching the main theatre of war, the British knew that they still had to court the Anishinaabeg and they did this by making more promises to them. The Anishinaabeg, and other warriors, were told in council not to fear the ball or shot of the enemy because their Great Father would care for them if wounded, and if killed, their wives would become pensioners of the Crown. Continue reading →

Consider the Comments: Why Online Comments are Important for Public Historians

October 7, 2014 3 Comments

By Kaitlin Wainwright

There are a few adages that go with comments on the Internet. Among them: “if you don’t have the energy to read something, you shouldn’t have the hubris to comment on it” and, simply put, “never read the comments.” It’s rare that comments and forums on the Internet are seen as something positive. Ian Milligan has written on ActiveHistory.ca about the Internet Archive and the preservation of old hosting websites like Geocities. But, what of the comments?

I used to be a detractor of “the comments.” I saw mean, angry things written there, so-called trolls (those who sow discord on digital forums), and people who didn’t understand the crux of the original content. I rarely comment on the Internet and I rarely read the comments. Until recently, I didn’t fully understand their value.

Yet online comments are another public, digital forum. They offer a unique tool for research and content space especially since public history increasingly demands a digital presence, whether through methods of its inquiry or interpretation. Continue reading →

Feeling the City: Getting at the Historical Sights and Sounds of Downtown

October 6, 2014 2 Comments

Like most of us humans—80% in Canada, more than 50% worldwide—my home is in the city. And like so many urbanites, I take a whole range of day-to-day sensations for granted. The screech of garbage trucks, the overheard conversations on public transit; the smells of street food and exhaust; the sight of thousands of other people going about their lives.

I’m used to the way the city plays to—and sometimes overwhelms—my senses, so much so that I tend not to notice it. Except, of course, when I’m thinking like an urban historian. Then, it’s hard to ignore that peoples’ different sensory experiences of urban life really matter to understanding the past. In today’s post, I want to talk about how the “feel of the city” has come up in my own research, why it matters, and what one innovative UK project is doing to record and interpret it. More…

Podcast – Canadian Archives at Risk?

October 3, 2014 No Comments

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On May 26^th, a panel discussed recent developments in the archives world in Canada and the challenges archives face today. The panel was part of the Canadian Historical Association’s annual meeting in St. Catharines, Ontario.

Moderated by Erika Dyck (University of Saskatchewan), the panel featured Nicole Neatby (CHA Liaison – Archives), Peter Baskerville (Chair Modern Western Canadian History, University of Alberta) and Heather Moore (Former Chief Librarian at Public Safety Canada Library).

ActiveHistory.ca is pleased to feature a recording of the roundtable.

How Cuban Music Made Me a Better Historian

October 2, 2014 No Comments

By Karen Dubinsky

“If you want to learn anything about the history of this country, you have to start listening to Carlos Varela.” This advice, offered by a colleague who was helping me make my way through a Cuban film archive a decade ago, proved remarkably true. I arrived in Havana in 2004 to research child migration conflicts. But what I also gained was an appreciation for music as a form of social history. Cuba’s Carlos Varela, about whom I’ve just helped to edit a new anthology, has become not only a much-loved musician but also my favourite Cuban historian. He’s a testament to one of the many truths sung by Bruce Springsteen: “We learned more from a three minute record, baby, than we ever learned in school.”

Good musicians can be great historians because they take us places that only the poets can go. Continue reading →

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