Canadian History Roundup – Week of May 12, 2019

Penfield, Edward, Artist. Harper’s May / Edward Penfield. , 1896. Illustration.

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

• The most commonly used words in #envhist last week, according to Jessica DeWitt, were: ‘Nuclear,’ ‘Chicago,’ and ‘Also.’
• This week on NiCHE, Tina Adcock and Edward Jones-Imhotep introduced their latest book, Made Modern.
• Also on NiCHE this week, Hereward Longley examined the long-term impacts of the Alberta oil sands industry, going back to the 1960s.
• The latest set of comps notes from Jessica DeWitt was for George F.G. Stanley’s The Birth of Western Canada: A History of the Riel Rebellions.

Military History

• Seth Feldman wrote a guest blog post for the University of Toronto Press Journals blog, about the 1916 film, Battle of the Somme, and what audiences of the time would have experienced watching it.
• Eric Story, Brittany Dunn, and Alexander Maavara published a new piece on Active History, part of the Canada’s First World War series, on recent historiographical developments and the new focus on local and transnational impacts of WW1.
• This week also kicked off the first post in a series published by Active History and Juno Beach Centre commemorating the 75^th anniversary of D-Day. The first post, by Anne Gafiuk, focused on her interview of Typhoon pilot, Flight Lieutenant Harry Hardy.
• Gail Dever profiled the Canadian Military Lost and Found Facebook book, and their work identifying unknown individuals in historical photographs of military personnel.
• The latest blog post from LAC is all about their collections relating to the Women’s Royal Canadian Naval Service, with information on how members of the public can access information about specific individuals.

Archaeology

• There were three new blog posts on the Seymour Valley Archaeological Project blog this week, including
  • One on clearing the path to the site itself.
  • One on how students were assigned specific projects.
  • And one on their surface survey.
• Find out how scholars like Darlene Weston are working to decolonize the field of anthropology.
• And how Karen Rose Thomas (Tsleil-Waututh Nation) is working to decolonize the field of archaeology.
• Another example of how climate change is impacting archaeological work: the low water levels in the Yukon River are exposing historical objects and structures.
• Ongoing excavations on Parliament Hill have uncovered 19th century barracks built for Rideau Canal workers.

History Education

• Check out this great thread started by Heather Green on using podcasts as assignments for students.
• This week on the CHA Learning and Teaching blog, Rusty Bitterman how he became a professor.

Race, Ethnicity, and Immigration History

• This is another fantastic piece on the problems with the Ancestry.com ads that whitewashed slavery, by Adam H. Domby over on Black Perspectives.
• And on a related note, Whitney Stewart has a great post, also on Black Perspectives, on how enslaved individuals and their descendants created their own family trees.
• Definitely check out this fantastic thread by Natasha Henry about silencing the past and the voices of enslaved Blacks in Canada.
• Nicholas Keung spoke with William Ging Wee Dere about his research on the history of the Chinese head-tax, and his awareness of his identity as a racialized Canadian.
• The Canadian Encyclopedia published a new entry on William White, a prominent member of the African Nova Scotian community and the only Black officer to serve in the Canadian Expeditionary Force in WW1.
• I’m not sure if this is new, but this is super cool. Check out this map from the Montreal Holocaust Museum tracking where Jewish refugees and Holocaust survivors settled in Canada between 1933 and 1955.
• This week TVO looked back at the Irish Potato Famine and the many immigrants who came to Canada as a result.

Indigenous History

• This week CBC did a special feature on the history of Indian day schools in Kahnawake Mohawk Territory, and spoke with a number of survivors, including Kenneth Deer and Dennis Diabo. Content warning: descriptions of experiences at residential schools.
• CBC spoke with two Inuuk from Igloolik, Nunvaut, Paul Quassa and Lazarie Uttak, about medical tests (including skin grafts) performed on them from the late 1960s to the early 1970s. Content warning: descriptions of medical testing on Indigenous peoples.
• Find out about the cool work being done by Celeste Pedri-Spade (Anishinabekwe from northwestern Ontario (Lac Des Mille Lacs First Nation)) to repatriate artwork created by First Nations children at residential schools in Anishinaabe and Algonquin territories.
• Robin Howse is doing a super cool project, creating a website mapping the Indigenous history of sites on the University of Alberta north campus. You can see the website, called Pîtos-Mâmitoneyihtamowin (Reimagine) UAlberta, itself here.
• The Saskatchewan NDP apologized for the Sixties Scoop this week. As usual, there was no information about work to recognize survivors and increase public awareness, provide assistance in tracing adoption records, or anything else really.
• The Tyee spoke with Kwakwaka’wakw artist Carey Newman (Ha-yalth-kingeme) about the Witness Blanket art installation mentioned in a previous roundup.
• The South Peace Regional Archives have created a small database containing records in their holdings related to Indigenous peoples and communities. They are looking for help identifying the names of individuals in the photographs that were uncovered, and for any stories relating to Indigenous farm labour, Indigenous women’s labour, and the use/creation of moss bags.
• As Adele Perry has pointed out, thanks to the tireless work of many, especially Indigenous scholars and advocates, the Canadian Museum for Human Rights recognized the treatment of Indigenous peoples in Canada as genocide. Previously, they only used the term “cultural genocide.”

New France/British North America

• J.M. Opal explained why the Portuguese Restoration of 1640 matters when it comes to the history of American slavery.
• Nick Draper shared some of his recent talk on slavery and British infrastructure at the National Infrastructure Commission’s secretariat.

Political History

• With the CHA annual meeting in two weeks (eeek!), Active History premiered a new series with short descriptions of papers and panels from the conference. The first looks at “Conversations about Inequality and Homelessness in Canada,” featuring Ben Isitt, Eion Kelley, and Eric Sager.
• In the latest post on the Canadian International History Committee, Asa McKercher looked back at the relationship between Brian Mulroney and George H.W. Bush.

Winnipeg General Strike

• Allan Levine wrote an op-ed for The Globe and Mail providing background information on the Strike.
• CBC put together an entire News Interactives feature on the Winnipeg Strike, with tons of cool primary sources.
• They also created a really neat timeline of events relating to the Strike.
• And spoke with Sid Ryan about what workers today can learn from the Strike.
  • The full The Current episode on the Strike also featured interviews with Greg Kealey, Michael Dupis, and Julie Guard.
• And CBC devoted an entire episode of Ideas to the strike, featuring interviews with Nolan Reilly, James Naylor, Esyllt Jones, Janis Thiessen, and Sharon Reilly.
• Niigaan Sinclair (Anishinaabe (St. Peter’s/Little Peguis)) explored the racism inherent in the Winnipeg Strike, and how labour victories often came at the expense of Indigenous peoples.
• Heritage Winnipeg posted the latest entry in their series on the Strike, detailing the Strike itself.
• Radio-Canada produced a mini-documentary on the Strike.
• The Canadian Centre for the Great War looked at the Strike as a by-product of WW1.

Social History

• Kesia Kvill was back with another historical recipe. This time she tried a wartime chocolate cake from the Canada Good Board Recipe pamphlet from August 1918. This pamphlet was all about substitutes for glucose.
• I’m kinda in love with this butter stamp.

The History of Gender and Sexuality

• CBC spoke with members of the New Brunswick Queer Heritage initiative, including Meredith Batt and Dusty Green, about the problematic celebration of the supposed “decriminalization” of homosexuality in the Omnibus Bill in 1969.
• The Arquives just received a donation of material from Inside Out, one of Canada’s premiere queer media festivals.
• Camille Robert appeared on tv this week, talking about the history of women’s work.

Local History

• Vintage Everyday posted some really cool photos from the construction of Habitat 67.
• The Toronto Public Library shared images of dogs from their collection on the blog. Where are the kitty pictures???
• This week Whistorical looked at their George Benjamin photographic collection of candid images of Whistler.
• The Research Centre for the Study of Music, Media, and Place at Memorial is looking for help identifying folks in images relating to folksongs collected by MacEdward Leach between 1949 and 1951.
• Does anyone know the history of the Tam-Tams festivals?
• The Vancouver Sun looked back at the history of the Vancouver Buddhist Temple this week, as they celebrated their 115^th anniversary.
• I don’t normally include all of the articles about heritage designations/news in the roundup, simply because they are so many. But this one, about a historical paddle wheeler, is just too adorable to leave out. And I also found this story, about designating a historical building relating to the Winnipeg General Strike, which is currently a strip club, to be equally fascinating.
• This week on Spacings, Kate Nelischer looked back at the history of purpose-built apartments for women in Toronto.
• The Tyee also commemorated the work of Yucho Chow this week.
• The latest biography from The Dictionary of Canadian Biography is for Montreal engineer Sifroy-Joseph Fortin.
• Do you know the history of Vancouver’s Old Residence?

Digital and Public History

• CTV profiled the new Early Modern Maritime Recipes database.
• BAnQ announced this week that it will allow the free and unrestricted use of more than 100,000 public domain photographs and images that are available on their website. Gail Dever provides information on how to find the images at the link above. Omg.
• The Digital Museum of Greek Immigration of Canada will launch on May 24^th.
• Public consultations about the fate of the Edward Cornwallis statue in Halifax will begin next month.
• Chief and Tribal Chair of the Tsilhqot’in First Nation, Joe Alphonse, is calling on the city of Bakerville to sit down with Tsilhqot’in First Nation to talk about including First Nations perspectives on the history of Begbie and the Chilcotin War. The big shocker is that apparently Barkerville is open to this.
• This is a fabulous public history project for high school students, where students created plaques for the homes of former veterans.
• This also sounds like a super cool project: a hobby horse workshop as part of a SSHRC Conference on Makerspaces and Digital Literatures, including information on the tradition of hobby horses.
• Lauren Markewicz visited the Elk Island National Park’s New Visitor Centre, and shared her experiences.
• Do you remember that postcard project from the Juno Beach Centre I mentioned last week? Here is a story about how one postcard was received.

Museum Week

• This week was Museum Week, and several Canadian institutions participated! This year’s theme was ‘Women in Culture.’
• The St. Catharines Museum featured images of working women.
• The official Museums Week Twitter account published a list of the five most popular threads from various Canadian institutions.
• Is this Canadian? No. Do I care? No. It’s historical images of cats that are free to use!!!! Eeeeeeee

Doing History

• LAC has launched a new initiative providing funding for the digitization of Indigenous cultural and language recordings on cassette and VHS tapes.
• Also on Active History this week was a new post by Arpita Bajpeyi and Sinead Cox about the New Histories/Old Roots performances at the Livery Theatre, on histories of homes that were “lost, found, stolen, divided, and remembered.”
• Patrick Lacroix published a new blog post this week on finding xenophobia and bigotry in the archives, and why history matters in contemporary discussions about immigration and religion.
• LAC put together a Twitter thread with information on how you can explore your family’s history.
• I think this is new, but regardless, check out this amazing bibliography of historical work by Indigenous scholars on Indigenous histories in Turtle Island over on Shekon Neechie, produced with the assistance of Erin Millions. What a fabulous resource!
• Ryerson Archives and Special Collections published a new blog post on photographic equipment in their collection.You know, back when we took pictures with cameras instead of phones. IE, the dark ages.
• Amélie Grenier published a new blog post on Histoire Engagée this week about her research on the LAC archival fonds RG29 and RG18, relating to international drug trafficking from 1920 to 1946.
• This week on Unwritten Histories, Krista McCracken and I published a beginner’s guide to live-tweeting academic conferences and events, based on our experiences!

Podcasts

• Steph Halmhofer was interviewed about her work on bioarchaeology and glass bead archaeology on The Arch and Anth Podcast!
• Patrick Lacroix was interviewed on the French-Canadian Legacy podcast about Quebec in the 1840s and the mass migration of French-Canadians to the United States.
• Sean Graham posted the latest episode of the History Slam podcast, featuring a talk with Sheldon Krasowski on his book, No Surrender: The Land Remains Indigenous.
• LAC has a new podcast episode out, on the UFOs at Falcon Lake Incident. This is the first of a two-part series.
• Jennifer Bonnell spoke with the Prof Talks podcast this week on the environmental history of Toronto.
• Marilou Tanguay produced a podcast for Radio-Canada on the life work of journalist Judith Jasmin.
• Matthew Hayday spoke with Patrice Dutil about his ongoing research on Joe Clark, this week on the Witness to Yesterday podcast.
• David Camfield and Christo Aivalis were interviewed on the Alberta Advantage podcast about the Winnipeg General Strike.
• The latest Museum Chat Live podcast episode dropped this week, on the new Interpretive Plan at the St. Catharines Museum.

Calls for Papers

• Greg Kennedy, Lee Windsor, and Elizabeth Mancke have issued a CFP for an edited collection (and accompanying workshop), on “Military Service, Citizenship, and Political Culture: Militia Studies in Atlantic Canada, 1700-2000.” Proposals are due August 31, 2019.

Can you tell I like cats? Unfortunately, our apartment does not allow them. 🙁 In any case, I hope you enjoyed this week’s blog post. 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 CHA-annual-meeting-related blog post! See you then!

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