Tourists in a caleche get a souvenir snapshot on the Mount Royal lookout, Montreal, P.Q. June 1950. National Film Board of Canada. Copyright: Expired.
The latest in blog posts, news, and podcasts from the world of Canadian history.
Missed last week’s roundup? Check it out here.
Environmental History
- This week’s mostly commonly-used words in #envhist, according to Jessica DeWitt were: “Dugong,” “New,” and “Human.”
- Anya Zilberstein is back with part two of the series on environmental and early modern history, co-hosted by NiCHE and Borealia. In this post, she argues that “environmental historians of the 20thand 21stcenturies should be early modernists,” calling on historians to reconsider both chronological divisions as well as the meaning of the term “modern.”
- Alan MacEachern was profiled by Western for his work on climate history!
Military History
- The War of 1812 debate continues this week.
- René Lafferty-Salhany discussed the many things that people get wrong when they talk about the War of 1812.
- And Rachel Bryant wrote a special guest post for Unwritten Histories, on historical memory and the War of 1812, arguing that if Canada retroactively takes credit for British actions, it must also take credit for their atrocities.
- Remember that new article about the barrels of Agent Orange? The DND is looking for them.
- LAC has now reached the last name “Whittey”in its digitization of WW1 personnel files.
- Steve Clifford is back with Part 2 of his look at using trench maps as historical sources.
Archaeology
- In the Toronto Star’s ongoing series on the Ward, Holly Martelle described her experience finding what looked like a bomb in a privy. Insert joke here.
- In the latest blog post from the UVic’s ANTH 367 course blog, on the excavation of Victoria’s Jewish cemetery Emanu-el, Mekyah reflected on what she learned from the experience.
- There are currently no regulations in Ontario that require that the items an archaeologist collects go to a central repository.
History Education
- In the latest blog post in Active History’s Beyond the Lecture series, Susan Joudrey shared how she teaches first year students about postcolonial theory, using Curious George.
- Jasmine Wong reflected on the Decolonizing Schools Project, which involved high schools across the Greater Toronto Area, and was organized by Facing History and Ourselves, in consultation with Traditional Ojibway Grandmother, Kim Wheatley, Shkoden Neegan Waawaaskonen, of Shawanga First Nation.
Race, Ethnicity, and Immigration History
- Emily Burton has written a new blog post for the Pier 21 blog, on agency in refugee narratives.Featured in the blog post are the following stories: Czelaw Tomaszewski’s decision to come to Canada after WW2; Lynda Dyck’s resilience after WW2; and how mother and daughter, Umeeda Switlo and Lella Umedaly, fled Uganda in the 1970s.
- Do you remember that set of letters exchanged between Joan Gillis and several of her Japanese-Canadians friends who were sent to work camps during WW2? Well, the CBC spoke with Laura Ishiguro and Henry Yu about them recently, and why they are important.
- In response to comments that “Canada has always been supportive of our Black communities,” Bashir Mohamed put together a Twitter essay with images of historical sources that emphatically demonstrate that this was not the case.
- Philip S.S. Howard explained the history of blackface and minstrel shows in Canada.
- Guests Simon Evans and Peter Peller put together a blog post for Retroactive this week on the arrival of Hutterites in Alberta.
Indigenous History
- Ten years after the federal government apologized for the residential school system, the apology has been translated into seven Indigenous languages: Mohawk, Plains Cree, Western Ojibway, Mi’kmaq, Inuktitut, Dene, and Algonquin. Educational videos to be used in classrooms are also forthcoming.
- APTN spoke with St. Anne’s IRS survivor Angela Shisheesh about her feelings of betrayal following federal government’s attempt to sue the lawyer representing survivors for legal fees.
- Beyond the Spectacle has premiered their first map, documenting North American Indigenous peoples’ visits to and residence in the UK since 1616. Included in the map are details about each of these occasions where they exist.
- Sean Carleton spoke with Michael Langan (Cree and Saulteaux ancestry, member of the Cote First Nation in Saskatchewan), the owner of Colonialism Skateboards, about his work, history education, and his plans for the future.
- I didn’t really want to include the chihuahua-with-Indigenous-DNA story, since it’s not actually history (though it is hilarious), but definitely check out this interview with Kim TallBear about the problems with these tests, and why your DNA does not reflect your cultural heritage.
- CBC spoke with Bert Crowfoot (of Siksika/Saulteaux descent) about his current project, Digitizing the Ancestors, preserving audio and video recordings at the Aboriginal Multi-Media Society of Alberta. Find out more about the project here.
- Patty Winsa put together great article for The Star, mapping Toronto’s Indigenous history.
- This is a rather thoughtful take on the meaning of reconciliation and what Canadian Catholics can do to atone for the horrors of the residential school system.
- The Toronto Public Library looks back on the Toronto Purchase.
New France/British North America
- This week, Patrick Lacroix introduced a new series that examines the concept of “américanité,” or the interest in French Canadians as “Americans” in a cultural, economic, and political sense. In this first installment, he discusses how the political ideology of republicanism tied French Canadians to the early American republic.
- Leah Grandy shared the story of the sinking of the Eclipse, off the coast of Cape Sable, Nova Scotia in 1831, with a focus on the cost of burying men so far from home.
- Know History has been awarded a contract by Parks Canada to collect the stories of Inuit knowledge keepers on the subject of the Franklin Expedition, as part of the Franklin Expedition Inuit Oral History Project. This project was approved by the Franklin Interim Advisory Committee, and is intended to continue the work started by the late Louie Kamookak.
Social History
- Children adopted between 1920 and 1970 in Quebec whose biological parents have been dead for at least one year will now be able to access their adoption records.
- The University of Waterloo Archives shared some photos of Eid celebrations from 1992. And for those of you who celebrated Eid this past week, Eid Mubarak!
- The Quebec City Archives shared some images from the 1857-58 Police Book.
- Check out these neat pictures of Canadians at work and play from the turn of the last century, taken by Reuben R. Sallows.
- This week on Acadiensis, Erin Morton reviewed the recent film, Maudie.
- Once upon a time, plastic was a dream come true.
- Newfoundland knitting history, anyone?
- The Times Colonist spoke with Ralph Bower about his long career as a photographer with The Sun.
- The Archives of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Toronto blog shared some of their collection relating to Archbishop McNeil’s work on the board of the Toronto Playgrounds Association in the 1910s.
- So I’m not really a big Beatles fan, but apparently there is a famous bootleg tape of their final Canadian concert. The Globe and Mail spoke with the creator, George Drynan.
- CBC’s Back in Time for Dinner tv show, where a Canadian family relives life in previous decades, premiered this week. The first episode covers the 1940s.
Political History
- Myra Tawfik explained the history of Canadian copyright law and its relationship with the U.S. in a great Twitter essay this week.
- In David Webster’s latest post for the Canadian International History Committee’s blog, he argued that it is time that historians who work on Canadian foreign affairs reconsider the role that religion has played.
The History of Gender and Sexuality
- I’m really excited about the new Heritage Minute that launched this week, profiling the life and work of LGTBQ+ activist, Jim Egan. I especially loved the way they centred Egan’s loving relationship with long-term partner Jack Nesbit.
- The Canadian Encyclopedia put together a Twitter moment with various news coverage!
- And Steven Maynard consulted on the creation of the minute!
- And Barbara Findlay explained why Egan’s court case was so important.
- Carole Gerson wrote a new piece for the Conversation on finding, recovering, and renaming the work of early Canadian women writers.
- This week’s new biography from the Dictionary of Canadian Biography is for Sister Sainte-Anne-Marie, who spent her career promoting the cause of women’s education.
- The Calgary Gay History Project shared the amazing story of how gay activist Windi Earthworm directly confronted Anita Bryant while she was speaking in Calgary in 1978.
- Gary Kinsman and Tom Hopper have issued a press release on the problems of Bill C-75, after the House of Commons sent the bill to the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights for study.
Local History
- There is a new interactive art project called Bitter Air, that showcases the history of North Vancouver’s waterfront using an app.
- Find out about Vancouver’s short-lived amateur and operatic dramatic society, the Arcadians.
- Chris Ryan has premiered a new series this week on the creation of the Regional Municipality of Ottawa-Carleton. There have been four new posts in this series so far:
- First, Ryan shared the first part of the Final Report and Recommendations from the Ottawa, Eastview, and Carleton County Local Government Review (the commission that led to the establishment of the Regional Municipality of Ottawa-Carleton).
- Next, he shared the second chapter of the report, containing statistics as well as fifty-six submissions.
- In the third post, he shared chapter three, on possible solutions.
- And in the fourth post, he shared the Commissioners’ specific recommendations.
- Summer seems to be here (unless you live in some parts of the East Coast…), so the Toronto Public Library celebrated by sharing some images of picnics in municipal parks from its collection.
- Whistorical looked back on the week of June 14thfrom the late 1970s into the 1980s.
- And there is a brand new documentary on the 1958 collapse of the Second Narrows Bridge, connecting Vancouver and the North Shore, in which nineteen workers died.
- This week, Eve Lazarus shared some images from Selwyn Pullan’s current exhibit, focusing on West Coast Modern Architecture.
- Heritage Winnipeg looked back on the history of Ross House, home to the prominent Métis family.
- Check out some of the cool items from a new exhibition on Kamloops’ history of fire.
- I’m not totally sure if this is new or just new to me, but check out some of the cool things you can learn about the Museum of Ontario Archaeology. There seems to be a corresponding online exhibit, but it isn’t currently functional.
Digital and Public History
- Even BAnQ is getting in on the volunteer online transcription bandwagon.
- Gabriel Eidelman discussed the work that went into digitizing the records from the defunct Toronto Bureau of Municipal Research.
- You can see the collection itself here. What a fantastic new resource!
- Find out about the new slate of upcoming online exhibits from the Virtual Museum of Canada.
Doing History
- While she is speaking on the field of Anthropology, Zoe Todd’s recent article, “The Decolonial Turn 2.0: The Reckoning,” is a must-read for Canadian historians, who must grapple with these same issues.
Sports History
- This diehard Habs fan isn’t impressed, but some of you might be interested in this 1933-34 Ottawa Senators hockey sweater, worn by Nick Wasnie. I don’t know who, but you never know…. #GoHabsGo
- There is some event going on this month called the “World Cup”??? (I’m just kidding, my husband is a huge soccer fan. Ironically, he roots for Germany.)
- The UBC Digitizer’s blog shared some pictures of people playing soccer from their collection.
- The CBC tracked down the members of the only Canadian team to ever qualify for the men’s World Cup.
- But as @cajoubs pointed out on Twitter, the article does not include the “men’s” qualifier, and ignored the Canadian women’s teams that qualified for the World Cup in 2003 and 2015.
Miscellaneous
- While this is happening in the US, even Canadians should be concerned about the new parameters of the AP World History course, which will now only start in 1450.
- The Canadian Encyclopedia published several new entries this week, including ones for:
- In honour of a new collaborative exhibition between LAC and the Glenbow Museum on artists’ self-portraits, the LAC blog featured several of the portraits in the exhibit.
- So while we may have learned that Einstein was kinda racist this week, we also found some of his letters in Calgary…. So there’s that.
- Blair Stein shared this amazing Air Canada Ad from 1969…. Just wow. And not in a good way.
Labour History
- The Graphic History Collective’s Remember/Resist/Redraw project has just premiered a brand new poster, honouring the 1920s Cape Breton Coal Miner’s strikes.The poster was created by Karen Jeane Mills, and the accompanying essay was written by David Frank.
Podcasts
- In the latest History Slam episode, Sean Graham spoke with Sarah Cox about her recent book, Breaching the Peace: The Site C Dam and a Valley’s Stand Against Big Hydro.
- In the latest Witness to Yesterday podcast, Greg Marchildon spoke with Patrick Dutil about his book, Prime Ministerial power in Canada: Its Origins under Macdonald, Laurier, and Borden.
- In this week’s History Chats episode, Jean Teillet presented on “We Get a Piece and We Get a Say: Approaching Confederation from the Perspective of the Métis Nation of the North-West.”
Better Late Than Never
- In the Toronto Star’s ongoing series on the Ward, Karolyn Smardz Frost discussed the relationship between a blackface figurine, a Chinese pharmacy, and minstrel shows.
- In May’s Findings/Trouvalliles blog post from the Champlain Society, W. Kaye Lamb shared Gabriel Franchère’s recounting of the desctrution of the ship, Tonquin, in 1811 in Clayoquot Sound.
Calls for Papers
- The Wilson Institute has issued a CFP for their upcoming workshop on Realities of Canadian Democracy. Proposals are due September 30.
- Histoire Engagée is looking for contributors for a new series on using archival sources.
It’s nice to be back to a regular length of roundup. Those multi-week ones are killer. Anyways, I hope you enjoyed this week’s Canadian history roundup. If you did, please consider sharing it on the social media platform of your choice! And don’t forget to check back on Tuesday for a brand new blog post! See you then!
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