Memory and the Built Landscape: Edmonton’s Architectural Heritage Website

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ScreenshotBy Tim O’Grady

When you think of important events in your life, chances are you associate them with physical places. Whether it is your childhood home, a former school, or a family cottage or favourite vacation spot, the connection between memory and place is intangible, though very real. People are connected to the buildings in their city. They have lived their lives in and around them, and many of these structures hold a special place in their personal narratives.

Memory and Landscape

Defining memory can be difficult. For the purposes of this post, I will follow the definition provided by John Bodnar, who states that public (or collective) memory is not simply a time dimension between past and present, but is the interpretation of reality. Peter Burke describes five ways in which memory is transmitted: oral traditions, written documents, still or moving pictures, actions (dance, craft etc.), and space. Randall Mason in his article “Fixing Historic Preservation” argues historic preservation is the cultivation of society’s collective memory, and believes historic fabric, such as buildings, is essential to sustaining memory. To support this, he quotes sociologist Maurice Halbwachs, who said “it is the spatial image alone that, by reason of its stability, gives us an illusion of not having changed through time and of retrieving the past in the present.” Continue reading →

Faster Than a Speeding Canoe: ‘The Superheroes’ of the Fur Trade

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By Eve Dutton

There’s a certain image that the term “voyageur” conjures up in the Canadian consciousness: bearded, burly, and boastful rascals who prized their independence above all else, accomplished feats of superhuman strength and endurance, and braved the uncharted wilds with a song in their heart. This portrait of the voyageur has a long pedigree — it comes to us directly from post journals and other contemporary writings, which are often taken as the final word on the subject. It was embellished over the years by soulful idylls and popular histories such as Peter C. Newman’s Company of Adventurers.

In Making the Voyageur World: Travelers and Traders in the North American Fur Trade, Carolyn Podruchny rightly calls these mythical stereotypes the “comic-book superheroes” of Canadian history (2). However, as she notes in her introduction, there is a dearth of scholarship on voyageurs. Podruchny proposes that because voyageurs lived in a state of liminality, or transition, and because this informed their entire world order, the best approach to a cultural history of voyageur identity is a metaphorical “voyage” through the physical landscape and their social geography. Continue reading →

The Ethics of Active History

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By Andrew Nurse

Nurse - PlacesOne of the great innovations of the now aging “New Social History” (NSH) was its commitment to uncovering a past about which people knew little. The NSH focused on what we might, in a non-pejorative way, call the broad mass of people: workers, slaves, peasants, First Nations, women, among others whose names appeared at best briefly in the historical record, if at all.  The new social historians were guided by a broad range of heuristics (far broader than their critics at the time made it seem) and deployed new investigative strategies. They combed and compiled census records, hunted through archives for any sign of ordinary people, made use of “folklore” and oral traditions, and read official records (court proceedings, marriage and baptismal records, newspaper accounts, chronicles) in different ways.

I “grew up” with the NHS and its work was breathtaking and inspiring. In uncovering the lived experiences of ordinary people, social history brought history to life. For me, the lived experience of past times –with all of its grinding poverty, charismatic religions, popular traditions, and struggles — gave history a purpose that was something more than the “names and dates” one-damn-thing-after-another approach that has been so caricatured by educators, commentators, and historians. I was also struck, and continue to be so, by social history’s profound ethical imperative: everyone deserved to have their history written. It was deeply problematic and politically disturbing to reserve history only for “great men.” There was something powerfully democratic in social history and the fact that “old white men” seemed not to like it only confirmed, to me, its democratic character.

That was then. Time goes by and I find that I have become one of those “old white men” (well … middle aged) whose work I used to find so misplaced. Continue reading →

History Slam Episode Thirty-Seven: Historical Figure Reality Shows

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By Sean Graham

Love ’em or hate ’em, reality shows have fundamentally changed television over the past 20 years. Every night networks put on hours of reality programming that is inexpensive to produce and draws ratings (and advertising revenues). While some shows are based on competition, others simply follow ‘real’ people as they go about their daily lives. The (main) problem I have with this, however, is that there is no connection to the people on the show.

So that got us to thinking – what would make us care about reality shows? The answer – put on historical figures. Granted, actually doing such a thing would be extremely difficult given that most historical figures suffer from the unfortunate medical condition of being deceased. Despite this obstacle, we invited back popular History Slam regular Aaron Boyes and tried and put together some reality shows featuring historical figures that we would want to watch.
Continue reading →

New Paper: Sean Carleton: Rebranding Canada with Comics

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ActiveHistory.ca is pleased to announce the publication of Sean Carleton’s Rebranding Canada with Comics: Canada 1812: Forged in Fire and the Continuing Co-optation of Tecumseh:

Canada 1812: Forged in Fire. With permission.

Canada 1812: Forged in Fire. With permission.

In the current age of austerity, the Harper Government allocated over $28 million to commemorate the 200th anniversary of the War of 1812. For many historians this proved to be an unpopular decision. It even drew the ire of the much-maligned Jack Granatstein, who pointed out, “This is also a government that’s slashing the national archives dramatically and killing the national library by cuts. On the one hand they’re good for history and on the other hand they’re bad for history—you sometimes wonder if they really know what they are doing.”[1]

While historians are right to critique the controversial costs of the bicentennial celebrations in light of cuts to crucial public services, it is important to understand the government’s commemorative project as part of a more pernicious strategy of nation-building Continue reading →

What is the “Right Way” to commemorate the First World War?

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Michael Gove (from the Wikipedia Commons)

By Jonathan Weier

Those who regularly read the British press have been exposed, over the past three months, to a vitriolic war of words over the legacy and meaning of the First World War in Britain.  This controversy has become increasingly acrimonious as representatives of the Conservative government and their sympathizers have sought to paint a number of British historians as disloyal for presenting a view of the First World War that minimizes the glory and moral superiority of the British war effort.

The first salvo in this controversy was fired by Michael Gove, the British Education Secretary, in a January 2nd editorial in the Daily Mail.  In his editorial, Gove argued that there is a “right way” to commemorate and learn from the First World War, and to honour the sacrifice of British soldiers Continue reading →

Video: Karen Ferguson – “The Yin-Yang of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, Jr.”

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Our historical memory of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Malcolm X most often sets them in opposition — racial integrationism vs. separatism, pacifism vs. violence, “good” vs. “bad” black leader (or vice versa).  But what happens if we move beyond this dualism and examine these African American icons together? What if we consider how and why their respective struggles for black liberation and historical legacies were and are interconnected and interdependent?

Karen Ferguson’s talk — part of the SFU History Department’s Heroes and Villains series — does just that, and promises both to complicate your idea of both men and deepen your understanding of the African American freedom struggle.

Dr. Ferguson holds a doctorate in African-American history from Duke University in North Carolina. Her research is concerned with the ways that race and public policy intersect in American urban politics. Her latest book, Top Down: The Ford Foundation, Black Power, and the Reinvention of Racial Liberalism (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2013), considers the continuities and changes in racial liberalism in the 1960s and 1970s as its focus shifted from civil-rights integrationism to multiculturalism.

The next (and final) lecture of the Heroes and Villains series, “Ottoman Hero or Frontier Villain? Ahmed Feyzi Pasha, 1839-1915,” will be held on April 3rd. Click here for details. Like other lectures from the series, video of the final talk will appear on ActiveHistory.ca.

More With Less? A Historical View of the NSGEU Labour Dispute

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Nurse, Elderly Home Corridor. Wikimedia Commons. 31 December 2012.

Nurse, Elderly Home Corridor. Wikimedia Commons. 31 December 2012.

By Lachlan MacKinnon

Almost 300 nurses in the Halifax region of Nova Scotia walked off the job on Tuesday in a one-day wildcat strike, although those working in cancer care, emergency and dialysis units, and veterans care remained at work. The ongoing dispute between the Nova Scotia Government and General Employees Union (NSGEU), which represents more than 2,400 nurses and nearly 35,000 other healthcare workers, and their employer, the Capital District Health Authority, is twofold: the union is asking for an increase in nurse-to-patient ratios while also challenging the controversial “Bill 37.” The bill, also known as the “Essential Health and Community Services Act,” seeks to deny nurses, paramedics, and 911 operators the right to strike until an essential services agreement is put into place. Such an agreement would see senior nurses pulled from their duties to negotiate the terms of “essential services” with employers for several months before any collective bargaining takes place.

The striking NSGEU workers were ordered back to work on Tuesday, and the union has announced that legal strike action is scheduled to begin on Thursday morning. The Nova Scotia Nurses Union (NSNU), who represent an additional 6500 nurses in the province, are not in a position to strike but have declared their shared opposition to the planned legislation. With these issues in mind, as nurses and other healthcare workers are poised to strike and the provincial government seeks to limit their right to do so, we have an opportunity to briefly explore the history of healthcare and nurses unions in Canada and to reflect upon the continued importance of organized labour in fighting for the rights of Canadian workers. Continue reading →

Canada’s Presence in the World: A Discussion with the Right Honorable Joe Clark

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By Andrew Sopko and Sarah Dougherty

Clark w Carleton SeminarOn January 31st 2014, the Right Honorable Joe Clark came to Carleton University to discuss his new book, How We Lead: Canada in a Century of Change (Random House, 2013), with students in Professor Norman Hillmer’s seminar on nationalism, internationalism, and political culture. This book, by the former prime minister and foreign minister is, in his own words, “a reflection on what Canadians have accomplished at our best, specifically in international affairs.” (p.4) In his book and the discussion which followed, Clark expressed his desire to see Canada re-engage with international issues, to re-take its position as a global leader. He agreed with the Carleton students that Canada has abandoned its impressive tradition of global leadership.

How We Lead outlines the dramatic dismissal of activist international policy that has taken place under the watch of the current government. Continue reading →

Government Cuts Funding After Five Years of ActiveHistory.ca

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closed-sign.big_Happy April Fool’s Day! We’re happy to be celebrating our fifth year and thank you to our readers for all your support over the years!

After five years of operation, ActiveHistory.ca will be shutting down because of government funding cuts. This website, originally envisioned as a Canadian version of Britain’s popular History & Policy website, grew into a widely accessed collection of blog posts, podcasts, book reviews, and short papers. Continue reading →