Artist unknown, “Send War Savings Christmas Cards – They Are Free,”(1942-1943?) Library and Archives Canada, Acc. No. 1983-30-555.
The latest in blog posts, news, and podcasts from the world of Canadian history.
Missed last week’s roundup? Check it out here.
- First up this week is a blog post by Patrick Lacroix for Histoire Engagée. Lacroix draws parallels between our current political and economic climate and that of the 1850s; in particular, he shows how a period of intense cultural change and technology innovation is often followed by a period characterized by a doctrine of “économisme,” a tendency to privilege economic concerns over all others.
- Over on NiCHE, John Baeten writes about how HGIS can help us to track historical mine waste (tailings) near Lake Superior, and to develop new ways of anticipating potential environmental disasters. This is the fifth post in the “Seeds: New Research in Environmental History” series cosponsored by NiCHE and Edge Effects.
- It’s not really Canadian, but this blog post by Ian Willis, for History Workshop, talks about why academic historians should pay more attention to the work of local historians.
- On Active History, Lillian Shirt, Corinne George, and Sarah Carter talk about the possible inspiration behind John Lennon’s “Imagine”: Shirt’s Cree grandmother’s (Tshichu, which translates to “Little Girl”) words of wisdom.
- Ann Little is back with another Teaser Tuesday. This week she looks at the domestic labour (like cooking, laundry, etc…) of an Ursuline convent. I love this series and these kinds of behind-the-scenes histories.
- David Frank, writing for the Acadiensis blog, reflects on the recent announcement that the use of coal as a fuel will be phased out by 2030. He also talks about the importance of staples to the Canadian economy, in general, and coal specifically.
- In a joint posting between Borealia and Active History, Elizabeth Mancke writes about Canada’s reputation for being “nice.” She talks about its origins in a culture of comity in the late eighteenth century, carefully cultivated right through to the present emphasis on personal, domestic, and international diplomacy. I also value this approach, but I’m not sure it really holds up to my family’s dinner discussions….
- In honour of the anniversary of the Halifax Explosion this week, the Nova Scotia Archives has released newly digitized first-person accounts of the explosion, as well as related materials.
- This week on Unwritten Histories, I had a special blog post in honour of the Montreal Massacre. This editorial reflects on the relationship between memorials/commemorations, our national historical narratives, and how we see ourselves.
- The Champlain Society’s Findings/Trouvailles blog is continuing with their Canadian history advent calendar this week!
- Day three is by Stacey Nation-Knapper and is an imagining of a fur trade Christmas at Spokane House in what is now Washington state.
- Day four is by Tina Adcock and recounts Christmas as it was experienced by two traders stuck alone in a cabin at Sheldon Lake, in the Yukon. Suffice to say, they were not happy campers.
- Day five is by Mairi Cowan, about what happens when you cause a scandal at a midnight mass in New France.
- Active History has republished a letter from Joan Sangster, President of the CHA, to the Polish Prime Minister regarding his government’s new legislation about historical interpretation.
- The letter is also available in French.
- The Atlantic Loyalist Connections blog is back with part 2 of their exploration of eighteen and nineteenth century names. In this blog post, they focus on surnames and how the spelling of surnames can vary widely. This isn’t just an issue for Loyalist documents either. For instance, my great-grandparents were recorded as “Edinger” in several documents, rather than Eidinger.
- Continuing with their introductions to new books on environmental history, NiCHE has a new blog post about the edited collection, Methodological Challenges in Nature-Culture and Environmental History Research. One of the editors, Jocelyn Thorpe, talks about the origins of the collection.
- LAC’s Discover Blog has a fascinating new mini-series about the weight of their collection. The issue was raised when they needed to move their nitrate film collection to a new location.
- This week’s UBC Digitizer’s Blog looks at The General Treaty of Fish, showcasing some lovely illustrations about French fishing techniques.
- The CHA has posted their latest featured article. This article, by Jean-Philippe Warren, looks at the naming of the Quiet Revolution. The link above will take you to the page where you can read the article, which is in pdf format.
- Samantha Cutrara, writing for Active History, looks at the portrayal of residential schools in children’s historical fiction. This is the first in a three part series looking at the “other” in children’s fiction.
- This week on the Royal Ontario Museum blog, Sarah Fee looks at the last-minute carpentry work done in 1971 in preparation for the Keep Me Warm One Night exhibition on Canadian handweaving. Every two weeks, the blog features posts with excerpts from curator Dorothy K. Burnham’s journals.
- Russell Potter has a new blog post about the analysis of a finger and toe nail belonging to one of the graves of a member of the Franklin Expedition. WARNING: The blog post has a really graphic picture of the corpse right at the top.
- This week’s new DCB biography is of “A.G.,” a woman who lived for most of her life in an Ontario psychiatric institution in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. This is a fantastic biography, and I hope to see more like this.
- Mica Jorgenson has the latest NiCHE New Scholars discussion recap, on Northern History.
- James Wood, writing for the Laurier Centre blog, reviews Craig Stockings’ Britannia’s Shield: Lieutenant-General Sir Edward Hutton and Late-Victorian Imperial Defence.
- Check out this great blog post about why Viola Desmond should not be compared to Rosa Parks, and the erasure of Black history in Canada. African-Canadians and Black Canadians have a very long and diverse history in this country, and one that is very different than the American experience.
- As part of LAC’s digitization efforts of the CEF personnel files from WW1, they needed to remove the brass fasteners that held these files together. These fasteners were given to artist Sarah Hutton, who transformed them into star charts of the skies as they would have appeared during major WW1 battles in which Canadians participated. The project is called Detachment, and I highly recommend that you look at the video. It is a remarkable and beautiful memorial to those who served.
- The Museum of Vancouver is back with their five favourite photos from 1978, touching on the weather, housing, fashion, generational conflict, and romance.
- Also from MOV this week is a blog post showing the history of the Woodwards Department store Christmas catalogue covers from 1902 until 1993, when it was sold to HBC.
- The Toronto Public Library has a new blog post, reminding Canadians that “We are all Treaty People.” The post includes some reading recommendations, and highlights some of their online collections of materials relating to treaties and Indigenous peoples.
- This week on the Borderlands History blog is a post all about the portrayal of the frontier in the new HBO show, Westworld. I absolutely want to watch it, but we don’t have HBO. 🙁
- Also on the Laurier Centre blog this week is a post by Eric Story about the idea of the Roaring Twenties and how it poorly reflects the reality of soldiers who came back from the war with physical or emotional injuries that limited their mobility and/or made it uncomfortable for them to be around others.
- The Canadian Centre for the Great War has a new post all about the experiences of Canadian POWS in WW1.
- This week Library and Archives Canada held their “Taking it to the Streets: Summit on the Value of Libraries, Archives and Musuems in a Changing World.” If you missed it, you can watch it here!
- Huron University College’s history department has a website devoted to showcasing the work of their students. This year, they are showing the Huron Heritage Minutes created by students in HIST 3801E: The Historian’s Craft, all about different aspects of the institution’s history. Such a cool project!
- Sonya de Laat and Dominique Marshall showcase the Canadian International Development Agency photography collections on Active History this week. The images reveal a great deal about Canadian international aid over the twentieth century.
- Christopher Ryan has some new building permit databases! The new additions are from 1947, 1946, 1945, and 1944.
- Chelsea Vowel has another great blog post about the “duty to consult,” explaining the meaning and origin of the term and concept. She focuses specifically on how the “duty to consult” relates to efforts on Innu, Maliseet, and Mi’gmaq territory to drill for oil and gas, and how the “duty to consult” can become a political weapon wielded against Indigenous peoples.
- On a new-to-me blog called Genealogy on my Mind, writer Diane Tourville has been tracing the history of the Bangle family through archival documents. In this latest blog post, she continues her look at John Bangle, a man of a most “improper character.” I love these stories.
- Retrospective takes a look at two ancient ‘eccentrics’ (archaeological artefacts with no clear practical purpose, likely created for aethestic reasons) that were found in Alberta, and made out of material from more than 800km distant, in North Dakota.
- This week’s blog post from the Canadian Museum of History takes a look at psychoacoustics, or how sound and listeners interact.
- Archaeology News Network has a new blog post about the work being done by Mélanie Lamotte on race and early encounters between Indigenous peoples and European explorers across the Americas. She is interested specifically in the subject of race, “before race mattered” (as she put it). This article is transnational is scope, but it does devote considerable attention to New France.
- Canadian History in the News
- There is some controversy going around this week about the upcoming exhibition of artefacts from the Franklin Expedition.
- CBC Initially broke the story by noting that the first major exhibition would be held in Britain, and they would only return to Canada in 2018. Further, Parks Canada has not accepted that Nunavut has any rightful claim to the artefacts.
- Russell Potter described this article as misleading, and offers his take here. His main points are that the artefacts and the wrecks remain the property of Canada, not the UK, the dialogue with Nunavut Inuit groups is ongoing, that the UK exhibition is not a bad thing, and that Nunavut doesn’t have the facilities to house the artefacts properly.
- Shannon VanRaes, writing for Metro Winnipeg, also offers some comments on the situation.
- The Archaeology News Network showcases some new artefacts excavated near Grand-Falls Windsor by Laurie Maclean and Don Pelley. The artefacts come from a 2,000 year old Indigenous site.
- A group of Algonquins (Algonquin Anishinabe Nation) from Quebec have moved to block the signing of a treaty between the Algonquins of Ontario, the feds, and the Ontario government. The Algonquin Anishinabe Nation are arguing that their people historically occupied the area around Ottawa, that they were not consulted about the original deal, and that they would like to work together with the Algonquins of Ontario.
- CBC News Nova Scotia has an article about the so-called “Butterbox babies” of the Ideal Maternity Home, which illegally sold the babies of unwed mothers to childless couples. The babies that were “unmarketable,” were starved on a diet of molasses and water before being buried nearby in butter boxes. Many of the children who were adopted are still trying to find their birth mothers. Sometimes I really hate people.
- The Shelburne County Museum in Nova Scotia is asking for donations of women’s undergarments from 1860 to 1960 for an upcoming exhibition. I totally need to see this exhibition.
- France has filed an official claim to a shipwreck that was found off Cape Canaveral. They believe it to be from their Fort Caroline colony. The fight over the artefacts will likely end up in a court.
- Two new exhibits, on Japanese-Canadian internment camps and D-Day, have just opened at the Military Museums in Calgary.
- For some reason, the Halifax Metro has a story this week about the St. Boniface Museum in Winnipeg. The article talks about some of the museum’s holdings, including a pistol and a lock of hair from Louis Riel, as well as the history of the museum.
- Global News profiled the Kelowna cemetery that is home to the first provincial Chinese-Canadian commemorative monuments. The monuments honour the contributions of Chinese and Chinese-Canadian people to BC.
- This week was the 99th anniversary of the Halifax Explosion. So there has been quite a bit of news coverage.
- This fascinating article from the CBC talks about how the Halifax Explosion led to the establishment of the Canadian National Institute for the Blind.
- Metro Halifax looks at the commemorations of the explosion.
- The Globe and Mail interviewed Kaye Chapmain, who was five years old when she witnessed the Halifax Explosion.
- The Canadian Museum of History and LAC are collaborating on a new exhibition called “Treasures from LAC,” featuring some of the most significant documents from LAC’s collection.
- Hakai Magazine looks at the tradition of Mummers in Newfoundland and Labrador. Am I the only one who finds them creepy?
- The Chinese Canadian archives opened on Tuesday at the Toronto Public Library. The Star goes behind the scenes to talk about the history of the collection and some of its contents.
- Radio Canada International has a fascinating look at the secret spy training facility, Camp X.
- SouthwesternOntario.ca has a really adorable article about Canadian war horses at the Wellington County Museum.
- Bill Waiser’s regular column for the Saskatoon StarPhoenix is out, and looks at the 1910 Farmer’s Siege of Ottawa. Think on-to-Ottawa trek, but with farmers.
- Canadian Geographic looks at the history of Terry Mosher’s (Aislin) famous Réné Lévesque cartoon.
- Brennan Doherty, writing for The Star gives his take on the Upper Canada Rebellion.
- There is a new exhibit at Vancouver’s Museum of Anthropology (at UBC) about clothing and culture. It looks fascinating!
- Ontario has announced that November will now be Hindu Heritage Month in the province.
- The Vancouver Sun tells us about how Hastings township joined Vancouver. Spoiler alert: there is a dancing bear involved.
- The Toronto Star tells us about the history of the southeast corner of Church and Dundas.
- The BC Legislature has a new in-person and online exhibit, “100 Years of Women and the Vote.”
- Finally, it’s official: The first Canadian woman to appear on the $10 bill will be Viola Desmond! This is awesome!
- David Wencer, writing for the Historicist, talks about traffic accidents in 1930s Toronto. We tend to take traffic lights, lanes, and crosswalks for granted, but they haven’t already existed. Of course, if you live in Richmond, you know they’re just suggestions…. 😉
- CHEK remembers the West Coast snowstorm of 1996.
- J.S. Woodsworth’s grandson and his wife have donated a significant collection of documents and photographs to SFU. Woodsworth is best know for founding a political part called the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation, which would eventually become the NDP.
- There is some controversy going around this week about the upcoming exhibition of artefacts from the Franklin Expedition.
That’s it for this week! This coming Tuesday, we’ll have another edition of Best New Articles. And since apparently everyone had to publish their journal issues at the end of November, we’ll be covering quite a bit. 😛 If you liked this roundup, don’t forget to click the share button below and spread the word! And if you’d like to find out more about the photo at the top of the page, check out the Unwritten Histories Instagram account, @unwrittenhistories. See you guys on Tuesday!
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