The Unwritten Rules of History
Woman dressed as a nineteenth century dairy farmer pours cream into a butter churn while a young boy watches as represented in the NFB production on the Canadian dairy industry. August 1950. Gar Lunney. Credit: Library and Archives Canada. Copyright: Expired
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I got a request to republish my recent Twitter thread here on the blog! Voila! I’ll do a revised and expanded version in a few weeks.
I know that lots of folks are getting academic rejections this week. As a hardened reject-ee, I just wanted to pass on some advice, for what it’s worth.
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 will be interviewing the fascinating Kathryn Magee Labelle. Enjoy!
Dr. Kathryn Labelle is an Associate Professor of Aboriginal history at the University of Saskatchewan and an adopted member of the Wyandot Nation of Kansas. Her research centres on the Wendat/Wyandot/Huron communities of North America with particular interest in settler colonialism, Indigenous identity and the experiences of women from the seventeenth century to the present. In addition to publishing articles on Wendat child-rearing, witchcraft, warfare, and leadership, Labelle is the author of the award-winning book Dispersed, But Not Destroyed: A History of the Seventeenth Century Wendat People (UBC Press, 2013). Her current research is a collaborative project with the Wendat Longhouse Women entitled Daughters of Aataentsic that explores the lives of seven Wendat women from the 17th-21stcenturies.
Theresa Billette, age 15, and her sister, Delia, aged five, stitching beads on moosehide moccasins. [They are from the Buffalo River Dene First Nation at Dillon, Saskatchewan.] March 19, 1955. Rosemary Gilliat Eaton / Library and Archives Canada / e010975232
Special thanks to Krystl Raven, Peter Scales, Tarisa Dawn Little, Jesse Thistle, Osgoode Society Oral History, Alexandra Giancarlo, Peter Anderson, Janis Thiessen, Shirley Tillotson, Alex Green, Andrea Blackman, Sandra (@khassl), and Terry Smyth for their recommendations and advice, and Jessica Knapp for her feedback on a draft of this blog post!
As you may remember from my interview with Katrina Srigley, Stacey Zembrzycki and Franca Iacovetta, I am an oral history devotee. I also used oral history extensively in my dissertation, thirty-five interviews in all. But as an oral historian, I have always had an uncomfortable relationship with transcripts and transcription. So today I thought I would unpack some of the existing discussion around transcription. Let’s get started!
A women seated typing on I.B.M. punch card machine. Montreal, Quebec. 1959. O. Buck. Library and Archives Canada. Copyright: Expired
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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.
What’s this? A surprise blog post on Thursday? We’re excited to announce that this is the first in a new occasional series entitled “Unearthed,” in cooperation with NiCHE and edited by Heather Green! The series will be a special version of Historians’ Histories, featuring emerging environmental historians discussing what brought them to the field, why they value environmental history, and how it connects with life outside of academia. You can see the full series here. Enjoy!
Judith Ellen Brunton is a doctoral candidate at the University of Toronto’s Department for the Study of Religion. Judith’s current project explores how legacies of oil extraction allow for specific contemporary imaginaries of the good life in Alberta. With case studies on: Imperial Oil’s publications on history and culture, Energy Heritage sites, The Calgary Stampede, and various corporate aspirational initiatives. Judith held a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council Doctoral Scholarship to pursue her research. She is currently a junior fellow at Victoria College and Massey College at the University of Toronto.
![Telephone operators wearing masks, High River, Alberta [ca. 1918-1919].](https://i0.wp.com/www.unwrittenhistories.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/52348516_300632070651733_4016322243175907328_n.jpg?resize=676%2C397)
Telephone operators wearing masks, High River, Alberta [ca. 1918-1919]. Courtesy of the Glenbow Archives
If you’ve been reading the roundup for a while, you are likely aware of Neil Orford and Blake Heathcote’s project, Defining Moments Canada. Defining Moments Canada is a digital storytelling platform dedicated to the development of crowd-sourced commemorative projects on a range of subjects. As part of this project, Defining Moments is working to empower Canadians to tell their own stories within their communities by providing them with the resources to do so. Not only does the website provide information on telling compelling and effective stories as well as advice on conducting reliable online research, but it also provides explanatory essays, images, and lesson plans on select topics to enhance and enrich these stories. As of this moment, Defining Moments Canada is completing their collection of material on the Spanish Flu pandemic, and beginning work on the 75th anniversary of the landing at Juno Beach.
For those who are unfamiliar with the Spanish Flu pandemic, also known known as the 1918 Influenza Pandemic, this term refers to the influenza pandemic that swept the globe between January 1918 and December 1920. Current estimates suggest that around 500 million people caught the disease, and somewhere between 50 to 100 million people died of it, which is equivalent to roughly three to five percent of the global population. While influenza was not a new disease at the time, the strain that caused the pandemic (H1N1) was particularly deadly and particularly virulent. It also disproportionately affected previously health young adults. For those of you who are (or were) Twilight fans, this was what killed Edward Cullen the first time around. And yes, I do teach the pandemic by making this reference.
Man and woman on ski lift, Mont Tremblant, P.Q. February 1961. Chris Lund. Credit: Library and Archives Canada. Copyright: Expired
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