Active History

Digital History Tools: Making Timelines

March 14, 2022 1 Comment

Krista McCracken

My work at the Shingwauk Residential Schools Centrecurrently includes a Canada History Fund funded project to create education modules connected to Residential Schools and colonialism. These modules are geared toward high school aged students and will be used as part of ongoing educational programming. When I wrote the grant proposal I included the idea that the modules would include interactive timelines. I thought they would be helpful educational tools. At the time I had no idea how I would make them come to life in practice.

Fast forward to actually getting the grant funding and starting to work on this project. A lot of our team prep work happened in a Google Doc, with staff building out narrative content in a fairly traditional way. We had multiple timeline sections that were huge walls of text and dates.

We decided to use Omeka as our platform for this project. Omeka’s exhibition module is really user friendly and something that we were able to customize to our own needs. The Neatline Time plugin is the most common timeline plugin for Omeka. It worked, but wasn’t exactly a perfect fit for the type of timeline I was hoping to create. Neatline uses Omeka’s item library to build out its timeline, which is great if you’re preparing a timeline around archival items or artifacts. We were looking for something that wasn’t as tied to the item library – something that could contain dates that weren’t associated with objects, but were more standalone. Continue reading →

History Slam 206: Fighting Sexual Harassment in the Workplace & “It Should be Easy to Fix”

March 10, 2022 No Comments

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By Sean Graham

On July 29, 1987, the Supreme Court of Canada issued its ruling in the case Robichaud v. Canada. In its decision, the court noted that the Canadian Human Rights Act places “responsibility for an organization on those who control it and are in a position to take effective remedial action to remove undesirable conditions.” For Robichaud, the case was part of an over decade-long effort for justice following her experience working at the Department of National Defense. Having started as a cleaner in 1977, she was sexually harassed by her supervisor, but the Department did not take action, instead trying to fire her. So through her union, she filed a grievance and fought for her right to a safe workplace. The case went through many levels of the legal system, but ultimately the Supreme Court’s precedent-setting decision was a significant step towards protecting people subjected to inappropriate behaviour at work.

Bonnie is sharing her story in a new memoir entitled It Should be Easy Fix. The title is the response she gave her union rep when he told her she was the first to make a complaint about harassment. In telling her story, it’s clear that it was not easy, but her passion and strength in face of at times intimidating odds have made workplaces safer. Certainly, reports of harassment are still far too common, but through this case there are greater protections for those subjected to harassment and more responsibilities on employers to take meaningful actions when those reports are made.

In this episode of the History Slam, I talk with Bonnie Robichaud about her memoir. We discuss the timeline of her case and how the book came together (4:00), her reaction to the case taking so long (18:45), and having other women reach out to her throughout the process (21:50). We also chat about the decisions leading to the Supreme Court case (26:05), the problem with non-disclosure agreements (32:00), and her advice for anyone going through a similar circumstance (34:55).

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A survey and the past that is still here

March 9, 2022 No Comments

Karen Dubinsky and Adele Perry

Surveys are a well-established research method. Twice in the last month or so, some (but certainly not all) academics in Canada received an email invitation to complete one such survey. For some, an email arrived on 9 February 2022, from “Leger au nom de l’Université Trent et de l’Université Concordia” (followed by English), with a subject line that read “Trent University and Concordia University want your opinion, (followed by French). The email opened with Trent, Concordia and Leger (the polling company) logos, and explains its contents in ten short lines. It’s a request for participation “in a survey on the role of university professors in Canada” and the purpose is “to understand how professors see the role of universities and university professors in Canada today.”

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Will Sanctions Against Russia Work?

March 8, 2022 No Comments

SCF Baltica, an oil tanker owned by Russian company Sovcomflot Varandey.

Lorenz M. Lüthi

Europe and North America have reacted to Russia’s outright aggression against Ukraine with an unprecedented slate of economic and political sanctions. Municipal governments, private companies, sports associations, cultural institutions, and other entities are taking matters into their own hands, too, by reviewing or even terminating links with Russian counterparts.

States usually impose sanctions against an aggressor for external and internal reasons. They first want to ostracize the aggressor, but they also aim at creating a sense of unified purpose among themselves. Both reasons have been on display since February 24.

Making the sanctions stick in the long term, however, may turn out to be a tall order.

First, the sanctions are still not comprehensive. European countries continue to receive energy from Russia and pay for it.

Second, the sanctions are not global. A number of states in Asia, the Middle East, Africa, and Latin America hesitate to join in; a few even openly support Russia. Whether the sanctions will work depends on how many states eventually join in.

Third, the goals of the sanctions are not clear. What are they supposed to achieve? Will they remain in the long term? Is there a way out for Russia so that sanctions may be lifted in the future?

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Does a Single Building Matter? A Case for the Fugitive Slave Chapel

March 7, 2022 No Comments

By Thomas Peace

There is a small house in downtown London, Ontario that looks ready for the wrecking ball. If you walk by, it would stand out only for its state of disrepair. A security fence surrounds it.

London’s First Black Church, c. 1848

About a year ago, the London and Middlesex Heritage Museum – of which I am currently the Board Chair – received a letter asking whether our museum would be willing to accept this building as a gift.

My heart leapt at the opportunity.

The London and Middlesex Heritage Museum operates Fanshawe Pioneer Village, a living history museum that interprets the city’s and surrounding county’s histories between 1820 and 1920. This building – despite its state of disrepair – represents histories that remain poorly known and yet were critical to weaving together the fabric of London’s civic life from the time it was built – in 1848 – right through to the present.

Known locally as the Fugitive Slave Chapel, this small building is one of the few tangible connections to London’s early Black community. Built seven years before the city incorporated, Continue reading →

History Slam 205: Asiniskaw Ithiniwak Storytelling & The Gift of the Little People

March 4, 2022 No Comments

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By Sean Graham

As a child, William Dumas’ father told him the story of European fur traders arriving on what is now commonly referred to as Hudson Bay. The encounter between the Asiniskaw Ithiniwak (Rocky Cree) people and the Europeans resulted in an endemic, greatly reducing the local population. In telling the story, Dumas’ father explained how elder âhâsiw procured medicine from the little people, who are legendary beings in the Rocky Cree tradition.

This is one of several stories included in the Six Seasons of the Asiniskaw Ithiniwak project, a collaborative effort to, among other things, share traditional stories and preserve the language. As part of the project, the story of the little people has been made into a graphic novel entitled The Gift of the Little People. Using his father’s voice as inspiration, Dumas, with over 25 years as an educator and storyteller, shares a story that is both timely and timeless in its significance.

In this episode of the History Slam, I talk with William Dumas and Warren Carriyou, who is part of the Six Seasons project. We discuss the contemporary significance of telling an endemic story in 2022 (5:29), how the project team has built trust (6:30), and the challenge of putting an oral story into text (9:11). We also chat about the book’s images (13:41), gearing stories towards younger audiences (15:55), and the power of traditional stories (23:10).

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Rescuing Historical Data for Climate Science

March 2, 2022 1 Comment

Captain’s Remark Book, HMS Wanderer, 15-18 September 1863. Dr Clive Wilkinson./UK Hydrographic Office.

Emily Manson

[T]hose log books give the wind and weather every hour… spread over a great extent of ocean. What better data could a patient meteorological philosopher desire? – Francis Beaufort to Richard Lovell Edgeworth, 1809[1]

Captains of nautical vessels have been keeping logbooks for centuries, for a variety of purposes. In the early modern period, captains described their travels in detail because their accounts would serve as concrete guides for later voyages. Logbooks also provided governments with economic and social information about the regions visited and could even become popular entertainment. Beginning in the 18^th century, European navies recorded detailed weather observations on their voyages. The Royal Navy, especially, became heavily involved in meteorological and other scientific research.

These observations have proven to be invaluable today: they are an essential part of the effort to understand and combat humanity’s greatest threat, the climate emergency. Historians can contribute to that fight.

To understand how the Earth’s climate is changing, scientists develop computer models using historical data. Continue reading →

Putin’s War on Ukraine and on History

March 1, 2022 No Comments

A sign “Ukraine is leaving the USSR” at an independence rally next to Ukraine’s Verkhovna Rada in Kyiv, 1991.

Oleksa Drachewych

On February 24, 2022, Russian President Vladimir Putin escalated his war of aggression against Ukraine. He began a “special military action” claiming he would “demilitarize” and “denazify” Ukraine to “defend people who have been victims of abuse and genocide from the Kyiv regime.” The declaration of war was shocking to many people because of the completely fabricated pretext for war and the unfounded accusations hurled towards the Ukrainian government of Vladimir Zelensky and, more broadly, the West. Three days earlier, Putin delivered a nearly one-hour speech detailing his distorted view of history. He sought to delegitimize the Ukrainian nation in the eyes of his government, his people and, perhaps, the world. Putin’s manipulation of history is not just factually wrong, but dangerous, since it is now being used to defend his illegitimate war in Ukraine. Historians have a duty to expose such falsifications, and to combat them by providing the public with a counter-narrative grounded in historical methods and research.

In his speech on February 21, Putin claimed Ukraine was an artificial construct, gifted to the Ukrainian people through the Soviet Union’s misguided nationalities policy and the personal decisions of Soviet leaders, particularly V.I. Lenin, Joseph Stalin, and Nikita Khrushchev. He also claimed the Soviet Constitution of 1924 allowed Soviet republics to leave the USSR, and linked that factor to the disintegration of the Soviet Union in 1991. Pivoting into his distortions, he asked rhetorically “Why was it necessary to make such generous gifts, which the most ardent nationalists did not even dare to dream of before, and, moreover, to grant the republics the right to secede from the unitary state without any conditions?” He derisively called Ukraine “Vladimir Lenin’s Ukraine” to further drive home his beliefs, while also highlighting Ukraine’s desires to “decommunize,” referring to the toppling of statues of Lenin during the Euromaidan protests. Using an almost a mocking tone, Putin declared that, if Ukraine seriously wanted to decommunize, Ukrainians should give up their independence as it was directly a result of Soviet policies. This connection between autonomy and the Soviet past was one of many arguments Putin made to support his actions in Ukraine.

The reality is much more complicated. Continue reading →

What’s in Putin’s Head?

February 28, 2022 2 Comments

Lorenz M. Lüthi

As we are slowly coming to terms with a new reality in international relations, we try to make sense of it using the anecdotal and fragmentary information available to us. Few outside of Russia can claim to understand what is going on in Vladimir Putin’s head. Most of us are guessing about the rationale behind the war, the decision-making process that led to its outbreak, and the long-term goals Putin is trying to pursue with this military assault on Ukraine.

The first casualty, when war comes, is truth, as the oft-cited saying goes. The aggressor Russia and the victim Ukraine wage a propaganda war at home and abroad, and opportunistic partisans in the rest of the world are not shy to use the conflict to score cheap points. Ideological convictions often trump logical thinking and detached analysis.

Yet, we still must ask what led Putin to start this war, because the answer will guide future European and North American policies towards Russia for a long time to come.

Whether or not Russia ever received a promise in the 1990s, as Putin claims, that NATO would not expand into East Europe is a matter of debate among scholars—with proponents on either side. Yet, three decades later, this is a moot point. International relations are not static but dynamic.

Continue reading →

A Chain of Events: Creating an Archive of Winnipeg Cycling History

February 21, 2022 No Comments

Jon Benson

From its early embrace as a recreational activity upon its arrival in the 1800s to hosting a world champion at a race downtown in the 1990s to a community of folks working diligently to build up and maintain an infrastructure making commuting here safe and enjoyable for everyone year-round, Winnipeg has a long history with the bicycle. But how do these things all connect?

At the WRENCH (Winnipeg Repair Education N’ Cycling Hub), we envision a world where everyone is empowered to experience their community by bicycle. The WRENCH operates the largest and best equipped community bike shop in western Canada. It is an international leader in community bike programming. Since 2010, the WRENCH has utilized volunteer labour and bike parts reclaimed from the waste stream to create community bike programming aimed at educating youth, empowering volunteers, and providing people with affordable and sustainable active transportation options.

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