History Slam Episode 147: Influence

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By Sean Graham

Influence debuts tonight on CBC and GEM at 8 pm (8:30 NT) and 9 ET/PT on documentary

Whenever I teach a course about popular culture, the final class always includes a discussion about the importance of being critical consumers of content. We are bombarded with information on a daily basis, whether advertising, news, or entertainment and I find it useful to constantly remind myself that all this stuff is created for a reason – the person/people behind it have some sort of goal (if even subconscious) for putting it into the world. It’s up to us to wade through those motivations as we navigate a media landscape that is growing more crowded each day.

Sometimes it’s pretty easy to figure out. An advertiser wants you to buy a product. A political party wants your support. A sitcom wants you to laugh so you’ll keep watching and they can sell ad time. Other times, though, the messaging isn’t as apparent. As marketing firms and PR professionals continue to innovate, they are using increasingly sophisticated techniques to convey messages.

With this, there has been an increase in the weaponization of information and misinformation. From sowing division, creating fear, and fostering distrust, the political landscape in which some people work has fundamentally changed.

This is the subject of the new documentary Influence. The film profiles the life and career of Sir Tim Bell, who rose to prominence in advertising before shifting his attention to politics. Following his success with the election campaign of Margaret Thatcher, Bell, and his now infamous Bell Pottinger firm, turned his attention to international affairs, with part of its portfolio creating influential campaigns in support of dictatorial regimes.

Despite its massive influence, the firm eventually collapsed following the revelations of its misdeeds by South African journalists, but its story and legacy are a powerful example of how susceptible societies are to misinformation. Featuring interviews with Tim Bell and many of his contemporaries, the film demonstrates the extent to which some people will openly spread misinformation for their own political and financial gains. The film is gripping without being prescriptive and serves as a welcome warning in an age where critical consumption is part of being an engaged citizen.

In this episode of the History Slam, I talk with the film’s writers and directors Diana Nielle and Richard Poplak. We talk about the film’s origins, the extent of Bell Pottinger’s international operations, and how things came to a head in South Africa. We also discuss why the principals agreed to be interviewed, their motivations, and what audiences can take away from the documentary.

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The Generation of 2020: Coming of Age in Covid-Time

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Teenagers in self-isolation, May 2020. Photograph from the author’s collection, courtesy of Alexander Ly.

Cynthia Comacchio

Although not always the most important identity marker, age has always mattered in the making of roles, rights, status and power structures. It signifies as much as, and occasionally more than, class, gender, race, sexuality, heritage. Only partly a biological/chronological category, it is also socially-constructed and consequently historical, varying in time and place. The time-shifting meanings of age reflect, correspond to, and also shape public discourses and national objectives.[i]

Age came to matter all the more in the wake of the Great War, that cataclysm that in so many ways lifted a rising tide ever faster toward cultural modernity. The traditional hierarchy that made status and power contingent with advancing years was overturned. Youth came to be revered, though not so much in the sense of real, chronological, biological, embodied age—what power do the unenfranchised reasonably have?— as in the matter of “modern” style: the newly-coined “sex appeal”, the apparent youth of those who could buy it. Youth, or at least youthfulness, not only sold new consumer products, it was the singular product of a modern consumer culture.[ii]

These ideas about age and generation are the basis of much of my research. But my own life, in our own day, gives me reason to consider how they apply to this unique—many say ‘unprecedented’—historical moment. Continue reading →

Addressing Precarity at ActiveHistory.ca

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The Active History collective is thinking about how to address precarious employment, both in the way we operate and in the wider history profession. We want your help to do it.

In February, Active History was asked to support and publish the Precarious Historical Instructors’ Manifesto. Written by a group of historians who have experienced, or continue to experience, the challenges of piecing together casual academic-labour contracts, the manifesto calls attention to the visceral problems of the “multi-decade internship system” this type of academic employment has created. The manifesto makes 3 key recommendations:

  1. Universities limit off-season and online offerings to non-tenure/tenure track faculty members.
  2. Contract faculty members should be considered as part of the departmental planning process.
  3. Acknowledge that the university is not a functioning meritocracy.

To implement these recommendations, the authors put forward several calls-to-action focusing specifically on activities to be taken up by professional associations, history departments, faculty associations, and funding agencies.

Though we – the editors at ActiveHistory.ca – appreciate the manifesto’s authors desire to use this site to launch and publicize their manifesto, we are not immune from their critiques. Started as a volunteer-run website, Active History has benefited from the unpaid labour of our editors and authors, many of whom have made significant and important contributions to the project while working under difficult and precarious employment conditions. We have had several editors and regular contributors leave the project over the years because their precarious employment situation did not afford them the time necessary to continue sustained involvement with us.

The reality of precarious employment for historians is one with which our editorial collective has grappled on several occasions. This fall, we decided to revise how we distribute the small amount of donations we receive each year. Replacing our somewhat ineffective awards program, beginning in September 2020 ActiveHistory.ca will begin providing small honorariums to our editors and regular contributors who work for the project in conditions of precarious employment. Though these honorariums will not match labour market rates of compensation, it is our intention to recognize the time and energy that so many people put into the project while also balancing the challenging reality that comes with precarious employment.

Because our funds are entirely raised by donations, the amount we can offer at this time remains relatively small ($150/year). In adopting this new policy, however, we are also asking our community to begin making regular contributions to the project. Up until now, all contributors have been involved in the project in addition to their other personal and work commitments. We recognize, of course, that there is a significant discrepancy between tenured professors working on the project in this capacity and those contributors working under different conditions of employment. Our hope is that this honorarium policy will begin to mitigate some of those differences.

For the past eleven years, Active History has thrived upon institutional support from York University, Huron University College, and the University of Saskatchewan. These institutions have allowed us to stay online and maintain the infrastructure of our growing website, but we have not been able to secure funds to compensate our authors and editors. We have raised enough funds over the past several years for the honorarium policy to work in 2020. For the policy to continue, however, we will need our community to begin making regular contributions to the project. You can do so through Huron University College. Donations over $20 will receive a tax receipt; we encourage readers in general, and historians with secure employment, in particular, to consider giving monthly. If we are successful in this campaign, we will look to increase the honorarium in 2021.

To make a donation: Visit Huron’s donation page at Huron University College and select “Other” in the drop-down menu. In the comments section, clearly indicate that this gift is intended to support the work of Active History.

Who speaks? Who Tells? Who Listens? – Part 2

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By Victoria Freeman

Birds make me think about freedom.

They can go where they want and don’t have to talk about it.

It’s a gift in itself because it’s something that doesn’t come overnight.

You have to work on it. If you have it, it’s just there, like a light.

These words, from a person who lived for 20 years in a large Ontario institution for people with intellectual disabilities, inspired the title and overarching theme for Birds Make Me Think About Freedom, a play I co-created in 2018 with members of L’Arche Toronto’s Sol Express performance ensemble[i], led by Cheryl Zinyk, with assistance from Jumblies Theatre.[ii]

My late sister Martha had lived at the Rideau Regional Centre in Smiths Falls from 1960 to 1973. Birds was created through funding remaining from the court-ordered settlement for former residents of three such institutions, the last of a province-wide system that was finally shuttered in 2009.

Because the lawsuits were settled out of court, survivors’ stories had not been widely shared. Our aim was to educate the public about this shameful and shocking chapter of Ontario’s history and honour those who suffered and died in the institutions, as well as advocate for others still held in similar institutions in other provinces.

But how do you research and ethically represent a history that has been experienced by people with intellectual disabilities, some of whom do not use words to communicate? Continue reading →

History Slam Episode 146: Enemy Alien

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By Sean Graham

In the midst of the First World War, the Canadian federal government established a program for the internment of Ukrainian Canadians. Since many Ukrainian immigrants arrived in Canada on passports of what were now enemy countries, some government officials believed that confining these people was a necessary precaution. One of the places they were taken was Kapuskasing in northern Ontario, where the forced labour of those in the camp helped build the infrastructure for the new settlement.

Nearly 100 years later, University of Toronto PhD candidate Kassandra Luciuk was in the midst of researching for her dissertation and discovered a first-person memoir describing life in the camp. While the author is not directly identified, Luciuk was able to verify many of the memoir’s details. In the process, it became clear that the story outlined in the memoir could not be lost to history. The only question was in what format should it be told.

The answer comes in the form of the new book Enemy Alien: A True Story of Life Behind Barbed Wire. The graphic novel takes readers through the memoir, pairing engaging images with powerful stories of an oft-forgotten chapter of Canadian history.

As someone who hasn’t read a lot of graphic novels, I was really impressed with Enemy Alien. It is clear that both Luciuk and artist Nicole Marie Burton went to great lengths in researching the book and ensuring readers are presented a final product that respects the source material. The format, which, of course, allows information to be presented visually, is effectively balanced between text and image, making it is easy to find yourself completely engrossed in this story.

In this episode of the History Slam, I talk with Kassandra Luciuk about the book. We talk about the Ukrainian experience in Canada during the First World War, the legacy of the work camps, and her efforts to identify the memoir’s author. We also chat about confirming the memoir’s claims, the decision to write a graphic novel, and the challenges of funding.

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Year in Review (100 Years Later): Winners at War

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By Aaron Boyes and Sean Graham

We put our money down on what we think is the most important event of the 1910s. Let us know what you think in the comments.

Welcome to the First Decennial(?) Year in Review: Winners at War (100 Years Later) bracket. In 2013, we had an idea to do a recap of 1913. The idea came out of our frustration with the annual recap columns that declared winners and losers, often before the year is even over. As historians, we felt that the only way to truly assess a year’s significance was through the benefit of time. And with that, an annual(?) tradition was born. Each December since that fateful first edition, we have convened to determine the most important event from 100 years ago. Over the past 3 weeks, we have gone back and completed the decade by looking at 1910, 1911, and 1912. And today, we put them against each other in an effort to determine the most significant event of the 1910s. To recap, here are the past winners:

1910: Binder Clip Patented

1912: Titanic Sinks on Maiden Voyage

1911: First International Women’s Day

1913: Zipper Patent

1914: First Successful Non-Direct Blood Transfusion

1915: Women’s Suffrage Legalized in Kingdom of Denmark

1916: Margaret Sanger Opens First American Birth Control Clinic in Brooklyn

1917: Russian Revolution

1918: Spanish Flu Pandemic

1919: First Nonstop Transatlantic Flight

Our two ‘rules’ through this series have been that no events from the first world war were eligible, nor would we have repeat winners. We have forgone the classic four-bracket model, and instead we seeded the 10 events. They will go head to head in a single-elimination format to determine the most important event of the 1910s.

Round 1

 (1) Spanish Flu Pandemic

v.

(10) Binder Clip Patented

Aaron: In light of the current COVID-19 pandemic, the Spanish Flu of 1918 seems eerily relevant. Each year, between 3 and 5 million people catch the seasonal flu, and between 250,000 and 500,000 of these cases are fatal. The Spanish Flu, however, was much worse. The virus spread around the world and infected close to 500 million people – for perspective, the estimated population of earth was 1.8 billion. That means that slightly less than one-third of all humans alive in 1918 contracted the flu and between 50 and 100 million of them died.

(Editor’s note: Aaron wrote the following in December 2018, proving once again that historians make TERRIBLE prognosticators: “With hope, virologists are able to determine the exact cause [of the Spanish Flu] and we can prevent another devastating flu season.”)

Louis E. Baltzley patented the basic design of the binder clip in 1910; he was granted the US patent number 1,139,627. As Sean so accurately pointed out in our original bracket, binder clips are everywhere despite the fact that you personally never seem to buy them. If you work in an office, like I do, binder clips are especially ubiquitous and necessary. Some people, like Sean, even use them as their “wallet”.

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Archivists in Isolation

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Man at desk surrounded by papers

Stanton Friedman in his office, Fredericton, N.B. Stanton T. Friedman fonds, ca.1950s – 2019, PANB

Meredith J. Batt

Contrary to popular belief, archivists are not solitary, isolated, introverted creatures, hidden away from view in a basement surrounded by dusty books and papers. In fact, our work often requires us to be front facing and social. We help students, researchers, journalists, lawyers, and tourists find the information they are looking for. We sometimes give tours and our institutions host local events which bring the community together.

With the onset of Covid-19, archivists across Canada have retreated to their homes. This retreat to home has left me wondering how other archivists are doing in this situation and if they are feeling the way I am: upset that I have been unable to finish that finding aid; wishing that I had had more time to help a client before the lockdown, etc.

As archivists worked from home, I wondered, were any archivists missing a particular collection and if so, did they wish they could have taken it home with them to work on? I reached out to archivists across Canada to see what fonds or collection they are missing the most. This is what they wrote back: Continue reading →

Who speaks? Who tells? Who listens? – Part 1

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By Victoria Freeman

In 1960, my twenty-month-old sister Martha was admitted to the Rideau Regional Centre, an institution for people with developmental disabilities located on the outskirts of Smiths Falls, Ontario. For the next thirteen years she would live in this isolated and overcrowded complex of 50 buildings that at its peak housed 2,600 inmates.

I use the word ‘inmate’ deliberately to highlight the forms of incarceration and unfreedom that this form of institutionalization represented, though at the time my entire family believed it was the best available care for my sister. Only two years older than Martha, I was deeply traumatized by the stigma associated with her Down Syndrome as well as by her removal from our family and our infrequent visits to the frightening alternate reality we referred to as the “hospital-school.”

These experiences profoundly shaped my life as well as hers, including my ability to live confidently with my own difference, as a bisexual and gender-queer person.  As philosopher of science Ian Hacking has said, the word “normal” was “one of the most powerful ideological tools of the twentieth century.”[i]

Attitudes to disability and difference began to shift in the mid 1960s and early 1970s. My sister was discharged from the institution to live in an Approved Boarding Home in another city, and then in the caregiver’s family home, when the Boarding Home closed. Martha would flourish in the care of this loving woman for 29 years. Meanwhile, I lived with unacknowledged survivor’s guilt. Only through therapy and new connections forged decades later with people with intellectual disabilities did I begin to understand the ways I had been haunted by the injustices experienced by my sister. Continue reading →

Western’s History Department and the Hilborn Student Awards

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By Francine McKenzie

This letter is a response to Will Langford’s essay Congress 2020, Interrupted.

Ken Hilborn was a member of the History Department at Western from 1961-1997.  He died in 2013.  In his will, he left a bequest to the University of Western Ontario to reward academic achievement amongst history students.

While Hilborn was a faculty member, his controversial and objectionable views provoked critical responses from faculty and students.  Few current members of the History Department knew Ken Hilborn or were aware of his political and personal beliefs. After Asa McKercher’s essay appeared in ActiveHistory in September 2019, the department discussed the implications of having student awards created through his bequest and decided that the awards should stay.

Will Langford’s recent essay is a more direct criticism of the History Department’s ‘commemoration’ of Hilborn.  Lest outward silence be mistaken for indifference, I will explain why the department decided to maintain the Hilborn awards.  My explanation is short.  A longer explanation might be interpreted as an apology for Hilborn and that is not my intention.

The Hilborn awards do good, now and forever.  With the funds that Ken Hilborn donated, the History Department has created six undergraduate and graduate awards that support internships and other global opportunities, allow students to attend conferences and travel for research, and reward academic achievement.  Students are able to deepen their international perspectives, take advantage of opportunities that are personally and academically enriching, and produce excellent scholarship.  Some of the recipients of the Hilborn awards work on projects that are antithetical to Hilborn’s personal and political views.  That is also for the good.  While the Hilborn awards are on a much more modest scale than Rhodes scholarships, the comparison is useful: The Rhodes Trust does not endorse Cecil Rhodes’ views; the History Department doesn’t endorse Ken Hilborn’s views.

The Hilborn awards can and should be turned into an opportunity for reflection and improvement.  Issues of commemoration are dealt with explicitly in the undergraduate and graduate programs in Public History at Western.  As a department, and in consultation with our students, we will consider how we can better acknowledge Hilborn’s beliefs, career and activism so that the awards in his name advance our historical consciousness.

Perhaps this can be a learning opportunity for ActiveHistory, too.  As a site that combines academic and journalistic practices, it has a real impact on historical discussion in Canada. Neither the authors of the essays nor the editors of ActiveHistory asked the department for comment – a basic journalistic principle.  A dialogue might stimulate useful discussion about the challenges we face in telling our own histories.

Francine McKenzie
Professor & Chair
Department of History
Western University

History Slam Episode 145: Hamilton as Public History

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By Sean Graham

In August 2015, a new musical opened at the Richard Rogers Theater in New York. With music, lyrics, and book by Lin-Manuel Miranda, who had previously won a Tony for In the Heights, the show was an adaptation of Ron Chernow’s 2004 biography of Alexander Hamilton.  Miranda had previewed some of the show, to laughter, at the White House in 2009, but when it opened on Broadway it became an international phenomenon. Even though it opened half way through the decade, it was the 4th highest grossing show of the 2010s in New York, a ranking which does not include its tours and run in the West End, San Francisco, and Chicago, where it was the city’s most profitable musical run ever. From its diverse cast to the variety of musical styles within the show, Hamilton has transcended generations to become, in a way, the soundtrack of modern America. In the same way that West Side Story and Les Miserables became cultural icons beyond the theatre, Hamilton has resonated with audiences not only within the Broadway community, but also with those who had never before seen a musical.

I had the opportunity to see the show in New York a couple years ago. As many of my colleagues know, despite the fact that I spend a majority of my day listening to Broadway soundtracks, I have a firm policy of not listening to a show’s music before seeing it on stage, so I went into the theatre expecting to see a great show without knowing too much about its style and structure. When I left the show and was asked what I thought, I said I it was good. Little did I know, that in the world of Hamilton fans, that counted as an insult.

While I loved the staging and choreography, the artistic licence taken with some of the story’s factual elements left me a little confused. I had heard so much about how the show was a great way to bring people to history, but there were some immediate red flags. At the same time, I found the finale underwhelming and couldn’t help but wonder if I was missing something. I was happy to learn that other historians have wrestled with similar questions and it occurred to me that the show presents a unique opportunity to discuss both the role of historical fiction in engaging people with the past and the role historians play in contextualizing the forms of popular culture.

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