The Unwritten Rules of History
Gertrude / Truth-Freedom-Virtue – these, dear child, have power— If rightly cherish’d, to uphold, sustain, And bless thy spirit in its darkest hour! A Christmas card from the Osborne Collection of Early Children’s Literature. 1910s. OSB-CARDS-0009. Public Domain.
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Do you know a Canadian historian? (::nods::) Are they impossible to shop for because they already own all the books? (::nods vigorously::) Then have we got just the thing for you!
Welcome to the Second Annual Unwritten Histories Holiday Gift Guide for Canadian Historians! Once again, I have compiled a list of gift suggestions for historians and other history professionals!
Some important caveats: this guide does not (with one exception) include books. However, if you do want some book suggestions, check out my previous blog posts on upcoming publications in Canadian history). If you are shopping for a history buff, I would highly recommend the 2017 Book and Gift Guide from Canada’s History.
Second, while I am Canadian, and many of the recommendations I’ve included down below are specific to Canadian history, this list should be helpful to history professionals no matter their country of origin or residence.
And third, I haven’t repeated any of my suggestions from last year, because well, where’s the fun in that? So, for even more suggestions, make sure to check out last year’s gift guide!
Without any further ado, let’s get brainstorming!
Woman (possibly Rosemary Gilliat Eaton) wearing a winter coat with a fur-trimmed hood and using photographic equipment to make images of frost on the windows. Shilly Shally Lodge, Gatineau Park. N.D. Rosemary Gilliat Eaton / Library and Archives Canada, No. R12438
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Hi everyone! Stephanie here. I recently had the chance to attend the Canada Before Confederation: An Exhibition of Maps conference. The conference itself was held at the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic in Halifax, Nova Scotia, and we were surrounded by large model ships (and a giant squid) for all of our talks – I can’t think of a more perfect setting, considering most of the talks featured early modern European explorers and mariners. Organized by Lauren Beck, associate professor of Hispanic Studies at Mount Allison and editor of Terrae Incognitae, and Chet Van Duzer of the Library of Congress in Washington DC, the conference itself was the culmination of an enormous effort that involved organizing pre-confederation map exhibits across Canada as part of Canada 150. These maps were included in a book written and edited by Lauren and Chet. The volume was published by Vernon Books and includes full-colour images of the maps, essays contextualizing them, and amazing bibliographies, all of which I can easily see using as a teaching tool in the future. Oh, and the best part – these books were handed out for free to conference attendees! Handing out free books with pretty pictures of old maps is definitely the best way to get my attention at a conference, it turns out. (If you’d like to check out the book for yourself you can find it here.)
Cover of the book written and edited to accompany the exhibit, Canada Before Confederation: Maps at the Exhibition. Vernon Press, 2017.
The conference was absolutely wonderful. But since most of you couldn’t be there with me, I put together this blog post so that you too can experience some of the fantastic presentations I saw! I’d like to thank Lauren Beck for going out of her way to invite me to this conference, Carolyn Prodruchny for sending me her and Alan’s paper, and Sarah Beanlands, for sending me her entire powerpoint presentation when I requested some images to include in this summary. This just proved once again how amazingly supportive the historical community can be! Finally, I’d especially like to think Elizabeth Mancke, my supervisor, for sponsoring my attendance at this conference. Ok, without any further ado, let’s get to the history!
Note: Except where noted, the images of this blog post are published with the permission of their creators. Please do not reproduce.
Three young women wearing knitted sweaters seated on a bench in the snow. Rosemary Gilliat Eaton in the middle. Shilly Shally Lodge, Gatineau Park. 1965. Rosemary Gilliat Eaton / Library and Archives Canada, No. R12438
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Welcome back to our monthly series, “Upcoming Publications in Canadian History,” where I’ve compiled information on all the upcoming releases for the following month in the field of Canadian history from every Canadian academic press, all in one place. This includes releases in both English and French. To see the releases from last month, click here.
***Please note that the cover images and book blurbs are used with permission from the publishers.***
N.B. This list only includes new releases, not rereleases in different formats.
Welcome back to our regular favourite series, Historians’ Histories! If you’d like to see more posts from this series, you can do so here. This week we have an interview with the lovely Michelle Desveaux, a fellow historians and lover of stories! Enjoy!
Michelle Desveaux is a PhD candidate in history at the University of Saskatchewan studying historical consciousness. She has previously published ““Twenty-First Century Indigenous Historiography: Twenty-Two Books That Need to be Read,” co-authored with Patrick Chassé, Glenn Iceton, Anne Janhunen, and Omeasoo Wāhpāsiw, in the Canadian Journal of History.
Harris, Ted. “She serves that men may fly: Enlist today in the R.C.A.F.” McGill Library Digital Collections Rare Books and Special Collections. WP2.R28.F5
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The maple tree that used to stand outside my parents’ place. Photo by author.
I recently re-read Pamela Sugiman’s wonderful article, “A Million Hearts from Here,” in preparation for a discussion group on WW2. If you haven’t read this piece yet, I highly recommend it. I often find myself rereading texts, whether they are academic articles or novels, and each time I do, I always find something new to think about. This time, I was particularly struck by Sugiman’s personal connection to her research. As the daughter and granddaughter of Japanese-Canadian internees, she is closely connected to her own research on this subject. And now, as a mother, she is an active “maker of memory” for her daughter.[1] As Sugiman was working on this project, her daughter also wrote a short story about a little girl who was interned. She selected the title, “A Million Hearts from Here,” explaining
“I called it “A Million Hearts from Here” because it is about a million people, well, a lot of people, that were interned. And they all had a heart somewhere. And “from here”? They were a long way away [from home]. And how would you feel if you were away, for about four years?”
Sugiman goes on to explain how her own research was in turn influenced by her grandmother, an internee, who, though she has passed, lives on in the memory of Sugiman’s daughter.
While Sugiman uses this story to set up her argument about “the ways in which our memories of historical injustices travel across generations and are strongly shaped by our most intimate relationships,”[2] to my mind it also speaks to an unspoken truth about much historical research: its personal connection to our own lives. So, in today’s blog post, I am going to share my own personal connection to my research, talk about subjectivity/objectivity and, and the importance of positionality.
Mike Eaton standing in the snow with a bird in each hand. Shilly Shally Lodge, Gatineau Park. November 1961. Rosemary Gilliat Eaton / Library and Archives Canada, No. R12438
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