Oblivion stalks Postal Station K

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Postal Station K. Image from “Save Historic Postal Station K” Facebook page.

by Tom Cohen

“Postal Station K!” Poetic resonance: none! Just one more slightly surplus postal station – in this age of electronic mail, a property easily unloaded, after all. A splendid spot on Yonge Street, in booming North Toronto, just perfect for a big condominium, with a shopping podium at sidewalk level. So sell it, right!

Now wait a minute. Take a good hard look at Station K. Look above the door, right between the lion and the unicorn. That’s “ER” – Elizabeth Regina, The Queen.

Ooops! Look again! Between the E and the R we have not “II” but “VIII”! Who in heaven’s name is that? Why, it’s Edward. Edward the Almost Eighth! The King Who Never Was, gave up the crown to marry Wallis Simpson and eke out his exiled life in love of Hitler. That “royal cipher” is a royal rarity. There are few indeed in Canada, or anywhere. Continue reading →

Fresh, Local, and Financially Sound: Community Supported Agriculture in Canada

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One weekly share of produce from a CSA

By Krista McCracken

In recent years Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) operations in Canada have increased dramatically in number and their popularity continues to grow.  The state of CSAs in my area speaks to the rising success of the CSA movement; all of the established CSAs in my area are no longer taking members or have a waiting list.  Across the country CSAs have become an increasingly popular way to obtain local, seasonal, or organic produce.

So how does as CSA work? Typically a CSA operates by having consumers provide farmers with a set fee prior to the growing season.  In return for this fee, the consumers receive weekly shares of vegetables throughout the harvest season. Typically, no farm work is required by the shareholders and their financial contribution helps support the farm and local agricultural community. Some CSAs also include dairy or meat products.  Variations of this CSA model, with different levels of participation can now be found in both rural and urban centers across the country. Continue reading →

Sex, Crime and Power: A Testimonial

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By Christine McLaughlin

My background in the history of women and gender has led me to be critical of treating history as a linear march towards progress. In spite of this, I have very much taken for granted what I thought was a much safer and open space for women in my contemporary time and place.

I realized how deeply my own personal experience shaped this point of view when I was sexually violated. This experience emphasized that a safe space in many ways is very much a state of mind, while a state of mind can very much be shaped by experience. Continue reading →

History Slam Episode 2 with Guest Victoria Lamb Drover

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In this edition of the History Slam I talk with Victoria Lamb Drover about the history of Participaction. Discussion includes Body Break, the use of the media, and Hal Johnson’s mustache. Got any personal stories of your involvement with Participaction? Let Victoria know at victoria.drover@gmail.com and be sure to subscribe to the History Slam on iTunes!

History Slam Episode 2 with Guest Victoria Lamb Drover

Historical Fiction as a Gateway Drug

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By Jeffers Lennox

I can trace my interest in the past to a single book: Jack Whyte’s The Skystone, a story set in the time of the legendary King Arthur.  First published in 1992, when I was 12, The Skystone had just about everything necessary to hook a young kid: historical imagination, magic, war, heroism, and enough “adult” subject matter to make this my childhood version of 50 Shades of Grey.  My dad gave me the book – a fact I desperately tried to forget while reading some of the more erotic passages – and he continued providing me with whatever Whyte wrote until I was sick of stories about King Arthur and the Knights.

Fast-forward twenty years, and I’m once again reading historical fiction.  Both my father and my father-in-law suggested Hilary Mantel’s Man Booker prize-winning Wolf Hall, the story of Tudor England told through the fictionalized life of Thomas Cromwell. I haven’t read fiction for years, but thought I’d give it a try; once again, I find myself hooked.  And I’m obviously not the only one.  The success of Wolf Hall has led me to wonder if this is someone else’s The Skystone, and what future academic work might be traced back to a few evenings spent with Thomas Cromwell?  I found myself particularly interested in Henry VIII and his court during a recent trip to England and France.  While I was wandering Versailles I was struck by the fact that Louis XIII’s hunting chateau (which served as the foundation for the great palace) was constructed over eighty years after Thomas Cromwell lost his head.  Continue reading →

Exhibiting Race: The Power of Portraiture

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Is race something we wear on our faces? Does it lie our skin colour, place of origin, or ancestry? Is it tangible? Two online exhibits challenge these ideas.

The White Australia Policy began in 1901. Years of xenophobia and racial tensions, caused by increasing immigration, labour disputes, and competition in the Australian goldfields, fostered the passing of the Immigration Restriction Act in the newly formed Australian Parliament. Australia was to be a visibly ‘white’ place. The Act was only the beginning of the White Australia Policy, a series of  laws that encouraged and privileged ‘white’ British migrants. These systems discriminated against Indigenous Australians, Asians, and non-caucasian Europeans, making it difficult and almost impossible for them to integrate freely into Australian society. As a result of their skin colour, non-caucasian immigrants were monitored by the Australian government and part of this monitoring involved portraiture. Continue reading →

‘Not a Matter of Statistics:’ The HPV Vaccine Controversy, Promiscuity, and the History of Women, Children and Youth

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The HPV Vaccine (image courtesy Wikimedia Commons)

By Angela Rooke

For several years now, school boards across the country have been providing the human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine to girls and young women. But it seems the debate is just getting fired up, especially in Calgary, where the top Catholic Bishop successfully urged many Catholic schools to refuse to administer the vaccine on the grounds that it leads to promiscuity.

In this post, I suggest that the past can shed light on the important question of how a vaccine that prevents cancer could spark a debate about girls’ sexuality, promiscuity and moral values. Continue reading →

2012 London Olympic Park Through Time

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By Jim Clifford

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The 2012 Summer Olympic park is located in the Lower Lea River Valley in the east of London. The games were sold to the British public from the beginning as an opportunity to transform one of London’s most economically disadvantaged regions. Early promotional material on the London 2012 website in 2006 put the goal of revitalizing the “underdeveloped” valley as the main legacy of the games:

Currently one of the capital’s most underdeveloped areas, the Lea Valley is an area of outstanding potential which will be transformed by the Olympic Games and Paralympic Games… The natural river system of the valley will be restored, canals would be dredged and waterways widened. Birdwatchers and ecologists will be able to enjoy three hectares of new wetland habitat… The rehabilitation of the Lower Lea Valley lies at the heart of the Olympic legacy to east London, restoring an eco-system and revitalising an entire community.

Labeling one of the most important sites of Greater London’s industrial development as underdeveloped ignores the significance of the Lower Lea Valley’s  history. It might have been more accurate to borrow the phrase “rust belt” from the United States to label the river valley as a major location of deindustrialized brownfields, but even this would disregard the large number of surviving industrial jobs lost only after the expropriation of the Olympic site. Continue reading →

Wearing Our Work on Our Sleeves: Transmitting History Through Clothing

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by Mike Commito

This past May I attended the annual general meeting of the Canadian Historical Association (CHA) at the University of Waterloo and the EH+ 2.0 Graduate Writing Workshop at McMaster. At the CHA I attended a roundtable titled “Macro-Theories of Canadian History: A Round Table on the Staples, Metropolitan and Laurentian Theses.” The discussion during the panel largely focused around the limitations of grand theories in history in general and Canadian history in particular. Panelist Doug Owram made an interesting offshoot comment about current relevance: there was a time, he mentioned, when Canadian historians such as Ramsay Cook could write to the Prime Minister and expect a response that was not boilerplate. Given today’s current political climate, perhaps one would not want to lay claim to being the historian that has Stephen Harper’s ear – given his recent attacks on the environment, women, First Nations, and academics – but it’s clear that historians do not have the same clout in Canada as we once did.

The writing workshop run by Michael Egan and Claire Campbell in Hamilton discussed various issues, including the fact that many articles and books by historians do not reach a wide audience. Historians are professional storytellers but in recent years we’ve lost our voice.  Journalists and other writers have done a better job not only telling the stories but also reaching the general public. What can be done to shake things up? I’ve got a couple of ideas. Continue reading →

Introducing the History Slam Podcast: First Episode

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By Sean Graham

Subscribe to the podcast (iTunes coming soon).

As someone who studies the history of radio, it is a little embarrassing to admit that I spend just as much time listening to podcasts as I do the radio. For me, the ability to listen when I want, where I want, and on the platform I want, make podcasts a great option – granted I mostly listen to them while walking back and forth between my apartment and Library and Archives Canada. But that freedom and accessibility, while at the same time not being restricted by time constraints or commercials, are the major appeal of podcasts.

Given the overall purpose of this site, it seems natural that podcasting would represent a component of connecting “historians with the public, policy makers and the media.” To that end I am happy to introduce History Slam, a new podcast that will be featured on this very site. While the podcast section already features some great lectures and conference presentations, History Slam will be different in both form and content. Each edition will feature discussions and debates around various historical topics or issues relevant to the understanding of history. Whether we talk with a historian about their new book or a musician about including historical references in their songs, History Slam will focus on the stories of the past, how those stories influence us today, and their role in shaping our shared culture. Continue reading →