Historical Roots: Sandy, Skeletons, and Elm City

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Satellite image of Hurricane Sandy, October 25 2012. Source: http://www.nnvl.noaa.gov/GOESEast.php

By Jeffers Lennox

Having spent four years living in Halifax, I’ve experienced my share of Nor’easters. During my MA year, a huge snowstorm forced the university to close on the day scheduled for my first comprehensive exam.  The entire class considered this a divine gift. Having now returned to the east coast after two years in Montreal and two years in Vancouver, I expected a “storm of the century” at some point. As any environmental historian will tell you (whether you ask them or not), climate change has increased the frequency and intensity of these kinds of meteorological events. By late October, the northeast was bracing for something awful.

Superstorm Sandy, which for a brief moment was hilariously named the “frankenstorm,” devastated much of New York City, especially the Staten Island area. The human and financial costs are unimaginable and many residents are still dealing with the fallout. Sandy affected other parts of the northeast, but to varying degrees. In our part of southern Connecticut, power outages, flooding, and highway closures were common. Wandering around New Haven the day after the storm meant climbing over fallen trees, cringing at dented cars or smashed porches, and generally feeling fortunate to have come out relatively unscathed.

The storm had historical significance, and not just because it had been dubbed a storm of the century. New Haven residents came face to face with their civic history when a felled tree on the New Haven Green exposed not only its root system, but also a human skeleton. Continue reading →

Making History Look Delicious at the Royal Alberta Museum

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The author interviewing the owner of the Silver Inn

By Lauren Wheeler

I recently took a trip to a Calgary restaurant where the most iconic of Chinese-Canadian dishes originated.  The restaurant is on Centre Street at 27th Avenue North and you would likely miss it unless you looked for the sign reading “Silver Inn.” Two colleagues from the Royal Alberta Museum (RAM) also  made the trip from Edmonton to Calgary to record the interviews.  When the interviewee is the owner of the first restaurant to serve “ginger beef,” the footage has to look better than good.  It must look delicious.

Making history look good is a big part of designing a museum exhibit.  As sites of public history, museums suffer from the stereotype of stale rooms filled with artefacts hidden behind glass and a sleepy security guard ensuring nothing happens to the precious items on display.  This idea of museums persists in spite of decades of interesting and innovative exhibits and new methods designed to engage the public with museums.  Food is still prohibited in exhibits, but high-quality video of a dish or a detailed description of its ingredients can create the same Pavlovian reaction as the smells of a busy kitchen or a table set for a feast.  With this in mind, we went to Calgary in search of footage to add this dimension to the RAM’s Chop Suey on the Prairies exhibit.  Continue reading →

The Shrine That Vincent Built

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By Laura Madokoro

Source: vancitybuzz.com, accessed 14 December 2012.

Earlier this semester, I flashed a photo of rock icon Jimi Hendrix up on the screen during a class on settler colonialism. It was a bit over the top but I was trying to get my students to think of connections as well as divides, and Hendrix’s part-Cherokee heritage seemed like a good way of driving home the point. What I missed completely, from my perch as a scholar-in-transit at UBC, was that Hendrix’s story would have been much more effective in a talk about the crafting of local history. What I didn’t realize, when I used his image in class, was that Hendrix had ties to Vancouver. Thanks to the efforts of a lone individual, this history has not been forgotten. In fact, it is being recovered by hundreds of visitors who, like me, find themselves staring at the incongruous presence of a Jimi Hendrix Shrine on the edge of the Vancouver’s historic Chinatown district. Continue reading →

Hope and its Implications for Greece: A Perspective from the Diaspora

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By Christopher Grafos

I should have written this article a long time ago. Selfishly, I have remained vaguely apathetic towards Greek politics in anticipation that the negative publicity and connotations of the Greek state and people would quickly dissipate. My assumption was wrong and now I realize that as an aspiring academic, I am, and have been, derelict.

My doctoral dissertation at York University examines Greek homeland politics during the 1960s and 1970s. Inevitably, I recently became an informal expert on the Greek crisis because of my education and perceived connection with the country of my parent’s birth.  Simultaneously, I have become an audience for opinions that I have increasingly found to be quite startling and concerning. Continue reading →

Canada and the Monarchy in the 21st Century

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When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things. (1 Corinthians 13 King James Version)

By Greg Kennedy

The news that the Duchess of Cambridge is pregnant has made headlines around the world, including here in Canada.  Assuming a healthy child is produced, there will be three generations of royal heirs waiting for their turn to assume the throne after Queen Elizabeth II.

In Canada, the debate over the monarchy has generally been muted for a long time.  There seemed to be an unspoken consensus that it would be impolite to criticize the institution during the reign of such a respected lady, that the discussion would be postponed until the less loved Prince Charles became king. Continue reading →

History Slam Episode Eleven: “A Struggle to Remember: Fighting for Our Families”

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By Sean Graham

It may be surprising to learn that I don’t go to a lot of big movie premieres – all the lights and cameras aren’t really my thing. But a few weeks ago I did have the privilege of going to the premiere of a new documentary from the Workers History Museum. Entitled ‘A Struggle to Remember: Fighting for our Families,’ the film documents the movement for family leave in Canada. Beautifully put together by director Aaron Floresco, the film follows the struggle from the the Royal Commission on the Status of Women in the late 1960s to today through first-person interviews from those involved in the movement. The film is the second production in this project, as the museum has also created a traveling exhibit on the history of family leave.

In this episode of the History Slam I talk with Arthur Carkner and Rosemary Warskett about both the project and the history of family leave in Canada. Both Arthur and Rosemary were involved in the struggle for family leave and offer some terrific insights into the process. In listening to them it becomes clear that the word ‘struggle’ is apt to describe the history of family leave in this country. The film itself is available for purchase and institutions can display the exhibit for free (if you’re outside Ottawa you have to provide shipping), both of which can be obtained by contacting the Workers History Museum. You can also follow
them on Twitter at @workershistory.

In addition, this is the final podcast of 2012 so I take a minute or two to thank some of the people who have been instrumental in getting the podcast going. I’ve had a blast putting them together and want to say thank you to everyone who has listened and subscribed on iTunes.

Have a great and safe holiday!

Sean Graham is a doctoral candidate at the University of Ottawa where he is currently working on a project that examines the early years of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. He has previously studied at Nipissing University, the University of the West Indies, and the University of Regina and like any red-blooded Canadian his ultimate dream is to be a curling champion while living on a diet of beer and poutine.

Remembering Montreal’s Cabarets

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By Mireille Mayrand-Fiset

St-Laurent Boulevard, where most of the action took place in an earlier era. Photo by author.

Montreal, Quebec’s largest and most vibrant city, is known internationally for its joie de vivre, its festive ambiance and its open-mindedness. This reputation goes back a long while: from as early as New France, Montreal was known for being a joyful, pleasurable city. In 1721, François-Xavier Charlevoix, first historian of New France, wrote in his Journal of a Voyage Made in North America By Order of the King: “The City of Montreal has a most pleasant quality; is it well situated, well established and well constructed. The beauty of its surroundings, areas and vistas instils pleasure, felt by All.”

Montreal truly discovered its own potential of excitement during the twentieth century. Between the 1920s to the late 1960s, Montreal was one of the most lively, thrilling and somewhat decadent cities in North America. St-Laurent Boulevard, a.k.a “The Main,” was the epicenter of a effervescent nightlife: cabarets, gaming houses and brothels were everywhere, welcoming, at all hours of day or night, a crowd of night birds, many of whom came from the United States or Europe.

Here’s a glimpse at one of the most exciting pages of Montreal’s history; one which largely contributed to its modern uniqueness. Continue reading →

London’s Great Smog, 60 Years On

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When did the modern environmental movement begin? Did one event mark its beginning? Earlier this year we commemorated the fiftieth anniversary of Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring, which is often identified as bringing about the environmental movement. While this book’s importance is without question, focusing on it as the birth of environmentalism ignores the importance of urban environmental problems, from unsafe drinking water to severe air pollution, in raising people’s environmental awareness.

Ten years before Carson’s book, a great smog blanketed Greater London. From Friday December 5th through to the following Tuesday (Dec 9) 1952, the thick air pollution disrupted daily life and killed thousands of people. In the aftermath of the Great Smog, the British passed the Clean Air Act (1956). This event, along with other deadly smogs in the United States (Donora), lifeless or burning rivers (Don, Cuyahoga, Thames), and the threat of nuclear radiation (CND), all combined with the ecological knowledge Carson made accessible to a wide public audience, to help make the environment a growing political concern in the post-war era.  The process was different between regions and nations, but not completely independent, as the media and publishing industries helped to spread stories about both environmental crises and the ideas within Silent Spring. Continue reading →

TV Documentary Explores Shipbuilding Legacy in the Maritimes

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Maritime shipbuilders in front of ship. Photo Credit: CBC.

It’s a chapter of history mostly forgotten, not just across Canada but even in the Maritime provinces themselves. Shipbuilding – like fishing – is an obvious fact of life on the Atlantic coast, but few people today know just how extensive the industry once was. There was a time not that long ago when men built ships in sheltered harbours, on open beaches and up narrow rivers – ships that went on to carry cargoes and passengers all over the world.

From the first boats built by the earliest settlers, to the golden Age of Sail in the 1800s, and from the Grand Bank fishing schooners to the high tech naval frigates of today – the thousands of vessels built in Atlantic Canada during the past 250 years have shaped the region like no other industry.

Maritime Shipbuilding is a half hour documentary that explores this seafaring history and the proud tradition that lives on to this day. The film travels to once-thriving shipbuilding centres in the Maritimes to rediscover the story of one of the world’s most vibrant, productive, and profitable shipbuilding regions.

Although no longer the economic driving force it once was, the shipbuilding industry in Atlantic Canada continues to prosper. The thousands of people who recently attended the re-launch of the Bluenose II in Lunenburg, Nova Scotia are a testament to that enduring legacy.

Maritime Shipbuilding was written and directed by award-winning Halifax documentary-maker Geoff D’Eon, (Blood On The Coal/Facebook Follies) and produced by Edward Peill from Halifax-based Tell Tale Productions Inc.

“This was an interesting piece to work on. More than 28,000 ships built in the Maritimes? Who knew?” says D’Eon “It’s not only the numbers that are surprising, but the locations where these ships were built, places that today show no trace of the industry that once was.”

Maritime Shipbuilding will have its world broadcast premiere on CBC Television’s Land & Sea on Sunday, December 9, 2012 at 12 Noon. Following the broadcast, the documentary can be watched on the CBC TV website at:  www.cbc.ca/landandsea. Land & Sea is CBC’s 2nd longest running TV series and can be followed on Twitter: @cbclandandsea

Maritime Shipbuilding was produced in association with CBC TV with funding from Film NS, and Provincial and Federal tax credits.

How Should the Great War be Remembered? Your Chance to Weigh In with Canada’s Leading Educators, Historians, Community Leaders & Museum Curators

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2014 marks the 100th Anniversary of the start of the First World War. It was the world’s first global conflict and it affected every level of society. Over 500 high school students from Victoria High School are remembered in the Great War Roll of Honour; the first woman officially in the Royal Canadian Navy was a ‘nursing sister’ from Bruce County, Ontario named Elizabeth Pierce; 700 men from the Newfoundland regiment were killed or injured during the First World War and children across Canada saved their pennies to buy War Savings Stamps.

Cenotaphs in tribute to these sons, daughters, men and women exist in virtually every city and town acrooss the country yet only 22 in 10 Canadians attend annual Remembrance Day events in their communities. Teachers and community groups are now seizing upon the centennial anniversary to renew interest about Canada’s role during the Great War and make the distant past more relevant for Canadian students.

Canada’s History Forum will bring together over 150 of Canada’s leading educators, students, community leaders, historians and museum curators to join with the Governor General’s History Award recipients and critically examine leading practices inside the classroom and in community commemorations. The theme of this year’s 5th national history forum is ‘How should World War I be remembered?” As the First World War fades from public memory, efforts as to how to preserve the world’s first global conflict as a vibrant part of the Canadian historical and cultural landscape will be explored. Continue reading →