Active History

Christmas Traditions of Past and Present

December 16, 2013 1 Comment

By Jay Young

I put up my family’s Christmas tree yesterday. Although some have described me as a bit of a scrooge, the truth is, I really do enjoy many holiday traditions, especially as I get older. And as a historian, I realize that these traditions have a past, both within wider society and within my own life.

Take that very tree that is now festooned with lights, tinsel, and ornaments. The lineage of the Christmas tree dates back to Germany during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries (with pagan coniferous tree rituals dating back much earlier), before spreading to other areas by the nineteenth century.

Growing up, my family’s tree has long been artificial. Like others, we wanted to avoid the inconvenience of finding a tree outside (and countless pine needles inside).

But this year I decided to purchase a real tree, to celebrate the first holiday season in our new home and with our new child. My parents decided to donate to me this year many of my family’s special ornaments. Delicately examining these heirlooms brought back a flood of special memories. Some ornaments celebrated my own birth and that of my sister, while others commemorated various family milestones. The angel sitting on the tree top (design circa late 1970s) reminded me of my childhood, when I’d wonder what gifts sat at the tree’s base. Continue reading →

A Matter of Time

December 13, 2013 1 Comment

By Peter Seixas

For the Historical Thinking Project, 2013-14 was the best of times and the worst of times.

It was the best of times because two of Canada’s largest provinces made the most concrete and comprehensive headway in adapting the ideas of the Project for their curricula. Ontario implemented a new K-12 curriculum that embedded the historical thinking concepts as a core element of the history program. British Columbia released a draft social studies curriculum heading in much the same direction. As a result, the demands for professional development and materials in historical thinking have skyrocketed.

It was the worst of times because the Project, as it has taken shape over the past seven years, is coming to an end. Continue reading →

Regulation 274: Ontario Education and the Hiring Debate

December 10, 2013 12 Comments

By Ryan Kelly

The popular (over)reaction to Regulation 274, which intended to establish seniority-based teacher hiring in Ontario, is largely negative, and greatly misplaced. Since Reg. 274 came into effect, its intended anti-nepotism, job protecting spirit has not been realized. Instead school boards have faced ballooning costs and procedural nightmares in what Premier Wynne has characterized as an “overcorrection.” Recently, Ontario Progressive Conservative Party MPP Lisa McLeod introduced a private member’s bill to repeal Reg. 274. It was summarily defeated in the legislature. The passing of this Private Members bill would have been the true “overcorrection,” one that would have negatively affected the hatchings of what may become a positive and sustainable seniority-based hiring process. Continue reading →

Archives of Ontario and the World War 1 Centenary

December 9, 2013 No Comments

By Jenny Prior

From the Archives of Ontario’s online War Artists exhibit

At the Archives of Ontario, we’re marking the World War I centenary with three connected exhibits – onsite, online, and travelling – as well as educational programming and other outreach and promotional activities. This post is first in a series giving a glimpse into our work to showcase our collections and shed light on Ontario’s stories from this gripping, devastating, and inspiring era.

The Archives moved into our purpose-built facility on York University’s Keele campus in 2009, and a star feature of the building is the Helen McClung Exhibit Area. We’ll launch our onsite exhibit there in the fall of 2014. It’s the anchor for our long-term, coordinated approach to honouring the centenary. Continue reading →

An Unsettling Prairie History: A Review of James Daschuk’s Clearing the Plains

December 5, 2013 4 Comments

By Kevin Plummer

“Those Reserve Indians are in a deplorable state of destitution, they receive from the Indian Department just enough food to keep soul and body together, they are all but naked, many of them barefooted,” Lawrence Clarke wrote in 1880 of near-starvation Cree around Fort Carlton. “Should sickness break out among them in their present weakly state,” the long-time Hudson’s Bay Company employee concluded, “the fatality would be dreadful” (Daschuk, 114).

Sickness did break out, with tuberculosis and other infectious diseases decimating a reserve population made vulnerable to disease by years of famine and inadequate government rations. The loss of life was immense, James Daschuk recounts in Clearing the Plains: Disease, Politics of Starvation, and the Loss of Aboriginal Life, and amounted to a “state-sponsored attack on indigenous communities” whose effects “haunt us as a nation still” (186). Continue reading →

History Slam Episode Thirty-Two: Historical Anecdotes

December 4, 2013 4 Comments

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

By Sean Graham

With December finally upon us, we’ve entered the season of cocktail parties. From seeing friends to office gatherings, the end of the year brings with it more social occasions than any other time on the calendar. One of the things that I often struggle with at these events is trying to describe my research in a way that is appealing in these settings. As a result, I often rely on anecdotes – whether of historic events or funny archive stories – in talking with people about what it’s like to study history.

In this episode of the History Slam – with Aaron Boyes as co-host – we talk about some of our favourite historical anecdotes. In addition, we welcome James Morgan, Madeleine Kloske, and Sean Nicklin, who provide some entertaining tales. And as a special bonus, the podcast features its first ever musical interlude.

Continue reading →

On Scottish Independence – a Metis perspective

December 3, 2013 11 Comments

Old Kings building, University of Aberdeen

By Zoe Todd
What does it mean to be a child of Empire? I’m not quite sure, but the complex roots of my ancestors stretch across small prairie towns and all the way back to Ireland, Scotland and England. I am Metis: an offspring of the fur trade and all of its complexities, paradoxes and rich histories. Today I study Indigenous issues from the cozy offices of the University of Aberdeen in Scotland, and the irony of coming back to the United Kingdom — the former colonial Empire — to study Indigenous realities in my own country is not lost on me.

Whatever drew me back here to the place where the contemporary experience of suffering of Canada’s Indigenous people began, I’m here now. And I am watching the Scottish Independence debate with great interest. Continue reading →

Lessons from History: Santayana vs. Vonnegut

December 2, 2013 No Comments

“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it” George Santayana, 1905

I hear variations of this quote all the time. Often in praise of what I do for a living: “You’re a historian, well great, cause if we don’t know history, we’re doomed to repeat it!” In the face of this good will, I never take the opportunity to explain why I much prefer Kurt Vonnegut version: “I’ve got news for Mr. Santayana: we’re doomed to repeat the past no matter what. That’s what it is to be alive.” (Bluebeard, 1987)

Neville Chamberlain holding the paper containing the resolution to commit to peaceful methods signed by both Hitler and himself on his return from Munich. He is showing the piece of paper to a crowd at Heston Aerodrome on 30 September 1938. (Photo and text from Wikipedia)

It is the end of term and I’m hopelessly behind on any number of deadlines (I’ll get those book reviews done in December!). On a personal level, I guess I’ve forgotten all those past Novembers and repeated my pattern of not being quite organized enough. As a result, I’m repurposing these quotes and the question I posed to my 20^th Century Europe students during our class discussion about Appeasement on Friday for this blog post. Appeasement, of course, is one of the “key” lessons from history. We need to avoid repeating the horrible mistakes made by Chamberlain and Halifax. Just this week, Fox News and their ilk have proclaimed the nuclear agreement with Iran the worst error since 1938. This, of course, is just the most recent example of people endlessly using Appeasement to advocate aggressive foreign policies (George W. Bush, Margaret Thatcher). But, are they learning the right lessons from this historical example? Can history really be boiled down to a slogan? Are there laws of human behavior that repeat themselves in every situation? Isn’t the real lesson of history that is it messy, confusing, contradictory and not susceptible to simple theorizing? Continue reading →

Building Sanctuary: The Movement to Support Vietnam War Resisters in Canada, 1965-1973 (Including Podcast)

November 29, 2013 1 Comment

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

By Jessica Squires

In addition to this article, ActiveHistory.ca is happy to present a recording of Jessica Squires’s talk as part of the Ottawa Historical Association lecture series. The talk was given on October 8 and was titled “Building Sanctuary: The Movement to Support Vietnam War Resisters in Canada, 1965-1973.”

Anyone who I talk to about it, and who later describes my project to someone else, tends to say it is about draft dodgers. The topic of Canadian support for resisters becomes the topic of the war resisters themselves. This may seem like a minor distinction, but I think it says a lot about the strength of the idea of Canada as a haven for war resisters. So strong is that idea that the importance of Canadian popular support for American war resisters is easily overlooked, because part of the story is that Canada has always been such a haven. There is an assumption that the support would have been automatic, homogeneous, and unproblematic from all levels of society, and so no movement to support resisters should have been necessary.
Continue reading →

History in the Shadow of War: The Spadina Museum’s Conversation on War and Myth-Making

November 28, 2013 2 Comments

By Jonathan Scotland

Canadians, it seems, are increasingly interested in war. Our polymer currency has replaced peacekeeping imagery with the Vimy memorial. 2005 was the ‘Year of the Veteran’ and 2013 is the ‘Year of the Korean War Veteran.’ Highways, buildings, and other civic infrastructure have been proudly re-named in honour of the country’s fallen. Battles are widely celebrated as crucibles for our country’s founding. Even Remembrance Day — increasingly Remembrance Week — appears to be undergoing poppy-creep, with the red symbol worn earlier every year. Why this increased fascination with our military past? Is it a response to our recent mission in Afghanistan, or does it reflect something else, perhaps even a growing militarization of society?

Last week, historians Jonathan Vance and Ian McKay put these questions to the test. Their talks, part of Toronto’s Spadina Museum conversation series, were thought provoking. The evening, entitled “War and Myth-Making,” consisted of consecutive half-hour presentations, followed by discussion considering how Canadians mythologize war. Continue reading →

Last »