Active History

4 Years of ActiveHistory.ca

May 27, 2013 1 Comment

We’re proud to announce that ActiveHistory.ca has been blogging about why history matters for more than four years!

Ever since our first anniversary back in 2010, we have celebrated the achievements of the past year, and this year is no exception. Our body of contributors and guest writers has grown larger and more diverse, while the number of posts featured on the site has continued to boom. During our best months, we enjoy a readership of almost 20,000 independent visitors.

Some specific highlights this year include Sean Graham’s excellent work on his History Slam! podcast, as well as regular book review posts, thanks to editor Kaleigh Bradley. Articles originally published here have led to full-page features in the Globe and Mail and press in other media outlets. Posts such as Tom Peace’s “History Wars: Terms of Debate” have contributed significantly to the national discussion about the purpose and aims of historical research, heritage, and history education in Canada.

A hearty thanks to all our contributors, guest writers, supporters, and of course you – our readers. The site just wouldn’t be possible without all of you.

A few weeks ago, I sat down with Karim Kanji to talk about the evolution of ActiveHistory.ca. Karim is co-founder of thirdocean, a social media agency that works with companies to help them utilize online, digital and social tools to strengthen specific business needs. He wanted to know how ActiveHistory.ca has used social media to make its mark on Canada’s history community. We chatted about the successes and challenges of the past four years and the story behind ActiveHistory.ca.

Not All Resource Towns Are Created Alike

May 23, 2013 No Comments

By Kayla Jonas Galvin

Company Towns: Corporate Order and Community
Neil White
University of Toronto Press, 2012
Cloth $55.00, ebook $54.95

I chose to review Neil White’s Company Towns: Corporate Order and Community because of my recent involvement in an interesting project within a company town, Kapuskasing, Ontario. For those unfamiliar with the term, a company town is one that is in some way settled, built, and run by a single company, usually one involved in resource extraction in frontier conditions. White’s introduction provides a solid overview of company towns, plus the current number of company towns in Canada—636 (4).

Continue reading →

Historicizing the Lobster Fishery Tie-up

May 22, 2013 No Comments

By Suzanne Morton

“Lobster Plant, 1926” Canadian National Railways/Library and Archives Canada/PA- R231-1235-X-E

“Cape Breton Lobster Fishers on Strike” ran the headline. On 8 May the lobster fishermen of Gabarus, Cape Breton struck demanding a price of $3.25 per hundred lobsters instead of the $2.35 offered by the buyers. The processors said there were too many lobsters being caught and they were losing money. The Gabarus men were joined by other fishermen at Main-à-Dieu and boats from a number of communities in Antigonish County and the Gulf Shore of Cape Breton.[1] How similar was this story from 1909 to May 2013, and how little has change over the last hundred years. Continue reading →

A Quarter Millennia of Local Food

May 21, 2013 5 Comments

By David Zylberberg

It is currently spring in Ontario, plants are blooming and many people are expectantly awaiting the cherries, strawberries or tomatoes. Yesterday a pamphlet arrived in my mailbox advertising the home-delivery of seasonal organic produce, which emphasized the virtues of it being locally grown. At the same time, I see others suggesting that eating local food is morally superior. As a historian of eighteenth-century England with an interest in changing diets, I started to think about the meaning of local food and some of the broad changes of the last quarter millennia.

England in 1763 was a model of efficient and sustainable agriculture. Some grain was shipped between regions, particularly to London, but most of the food eaten was grown locally. There were no fossil-fuel based fertilizers, chemical insecticides or injected hormones so the food supply was organic. The country had a population of 6.3 million. English people were generally well-nourished by contemporary standards so that rural men born in ensuing decades could expect to reach adult heights between 168 and 170cm. They ate a carbohydrate-heavy diet consisting primarily of oats, wheat or potatoes. These were supplemented with some vegetables, milk, cheese, butter and occasionally small amounts of meat.

More food was shipped in ensuing decades, but most of it continued to be grown in the same region as it was eaten. Continue reading →

Commemorating the Unprecedented; Canada, the Arctic Council, and the History of the Present

May 15, 2013 No Comments

The Arctic Council (dark blue represents members, light blue shows observers).

By Andrew Stuhl

Today marks an important turning point in Canadian history. Or does it?

This morning Canada assumes the chairmanship of the Arctic Council. Formed in 1996, the Council promotes cooperation, coordination, and interaction among the Arctic states and with the region’s indigenous communities. It is a high-level governmental forum that, while limited in its decision-making capacity, has shaped international policies regarding environmental protection and sustainable development in the far north, and elsewhere. For a primer on the Council’s composition, responsibilities, and organization, click here.

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Archives as Laboratories

May 14, 2013 1 Comment

By Merle Massie

Over the past two years, I lurked in the halls and wandered wide-eyed through the conferences of my social and natural science colleagues. An interdisciplinary institutional postdoctoral fellowship, funded by MISTRA (The Swedish Foundation for Strategic Environmental Research) and routed through the University of Saskatchewan, ensured my place at the lunch table and at the front of the classroom.

So, I’ve spent two years trying to explain how I, as a humanist, conduct my research. More importantly, I’ve noticed, the question is not so much how, but where does that research take place?

Since most of my professional work has focused on the 20^th and 21^st century, I do (on occasion) conduct interviews and focus groups with living people. I even have a working knowledge of qualitative methods, rigour, and the point of statistical analysis. I parlayed this penchant into the postdoc, with good results. But I remain, at heart, a document hunter/gatherer.

Working with social and natural scientists, I soon learned that research is about data generation. Set up the research parameters/test/study/measurement/focus group/survey/experiment, in order to generate data. Few, if any, ever work with someone else’s data set. The core concern is to generate something new.

That was my first hurdle: what I always thought of as ‘sources,’ now had to become ‘data.’ It’s a bump in the sidewalk that I trip over, every time. Continue reading →

Backward as Forward: Reflections on Canada’s “Modern” Political Scene

May 13, 2013 4 Comments

By Christine McLaughlin

Tommy Douglas, C.M. Fines and Clarence Gillis following the 1944 CCF victory in Saskatchewan.
Original Source: Saskatchewan Archives Board

While it is too soon for the historian to comment on the long-term effects of recent changes on the Canadian political landscape, the larger rightward shift is perhaps best evidenced by the federal New Democratic Party’s decision to “modernize” its constitution at its recent convention by “toning down” references to socialism. Pointing to “pragmatic” economic policies that made the convention floor, one MP went so far as to say “the party is growing up.” It is indicative of our own modern times that alternatives to liberal and neoliberal orthodoxy can be so readily cast as anti-modern. This Whig style of history-telling, which presupposes improvement as natural to the passage of time, is not just questionable history; it obscures the many ways history can and does repeat itself, widening the path for us to repeat its mistakes. Framing a political shift to the right as “modernization” is arguably much more suited to Orwell’s 1984 than 2013. Continue reading →

“The Portuguese in Toronto” Photo Exhibit: An Organizer’s Reflection

May 10, 2013 4 Comments

Three generations of Portuguese-Canadians at Tivoli Billiards Hall, on Augusta Ave., Kensington Market, 1980. Photo by Gilberto Prioste.

From May 13-19, Toronto’s City Hall will feature “The Portuguese in Toronto,” a free photo exhibit. What follows are some reflections on how historians can engage with the public by one of the exhibit’s organizers.

Raphael Costa

On May 13, 2013, the Portuguese Canadian History Project’s (PCHP) photographic exhibit celebrating the sixtieth anniversary of mass Portuguese migration to Canada will open (the inaugural event is scheduled for 5:30, if you are free). Held in the Rotunda of Toronto’s City Hall, the exhibit will feature twenty historic photographs from the PCHP’s catalogue in the Clara Thomas Archives and Special Collections (CTASC) at York University, along with other images provided by various community members. The enthusiastic and active participation of community organizations and individuals has played a key part in the exhibit. For me, the most refreshing aspect of curating an exhibit like this is seeing just how excited people get about the kind of history – a history, I think, in contrast to the ‘War of 1812-esque’ public history we have seen so much of recently – we want to share. Continue reading →

Eat Your Primary Sources! Or, Teaching the Taste of History

May 9, 2013 8 Comments

By Ian Mosby

History has a distinct taste. Actually, it also has a distinct smell, feel, sound, and look to it but – as a historian of food and nutrition – I always find myself coming back to the taste of history. No, I’m not talking about the musty, acrid taste of dust and mildew as you open up a long neglected archival box or that weird metallic aftertaste you get after sitting in front of a microfilm reader for way, way too long. History can also taste like molasses, cloves, nutmeg, raisins. You know, the good stuff.

At least this is what I tried to prove to the students in History 3240: Food History at the University of Guelph this past semester. Not only did I want to teach them about the versatility of food history as an entry point into the history of science, immigration, colonialism and gender – not to mention business, environmental, or political history. But I also wanted to prove to them that, as budding food historians, they should always make sure to actually eat their primary sources. Continue reading →

The Public Historian in the History Wars: A Report from #NCPH2013

May 8, 2013 1 Comment

Arthur Doughty, the first Dominion Archivist of Canada, believed that ‘of all national assets archives are the most precious; they are the gift of one generation to another and the extent of our care of them marks the extent of our civilization’

By Pete Anderson

I had the good fortune to facilitate a lively discussion on the role of public historians in the history wars at a ‘dine around’ session during the recent annual conference of the National Council on Public History, held in Ottawa from April 17-20. We had representatives from both Canada and the United States of various ages and experiences across the range of the public history community: students, consultants, archivists, parks interpreters, educators, museum professionals, bureaucrats, and heritage professionals, with some attendees wearing more than one of these “hats.”

While our conversation flowed freely, three questions emerged in different forms time and time again:

What is the role of public historians in history wars?
How do we strike a balance between professional ethics and the obligations of employment?
Who will champion our cause if and when we can’t speak for ourselves? Continue reading →

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