Une collègue, mentore et amie, Andrée Lévesque, vient de faire paraître chez les Éditions du remue-ménage une monographie d'histoire que j'ai bien hâte à lire : Les filles de Jeanne : Histoires de vies anonymes, 1658-1915 @histodons
Héritage Canadiana, a large repository of digitized microfilm reels from Library and Archives Canada, has quietly begun rolling out full-text-searchable transcriptions (now mostly OCR on typed archival docs, but #Transkribus generated transcriptions on manuscript sources are on their way). The search engine is awful - you can't search only transcribed sources - but the collection is already impressive and promises to get better fast. @histodons
Allan Greer on historians and the recent and impending changes at Library and Archives Canada. @histodons
LAC's "Vision 2030 expresses eagerness to attract more uninitiated users, but it has little to say about how they will 'connect with their history and culture.' It is as though archival materials were unproblematic and transparent and as though they automatically yielded knowledge and enlightenment to the most casual investigator...."
The University of Alberta is offering a new free online course to highlight the history and accomplishments of Black Canadians.
Called Black Canadians: History, Presence, and Anti-Racist Futures, the course will explore topics like systemic racism and unconscious racial bias in Canadian institutions.
Journalist: The last time I spoke with Brian Mulroney, I asked him about his legacy. He told me that was for historians to judge now. So how would you, a political scientist, judge his legacy?
I'm not an historian of Canadian federal politics in the 1980s and 1990s, but I know several other historians who are. They're not hard to find. Do you f'in homework CBC. @histodons
In my Canadian survey course tomorrow, I'll also briefly mention the projection into the country of the political project of race and memory that was the Lost Cause of the Confederacy via this French-language plaque erected in 1957 by the United Daughters of the Confederacy in Montreal "à la mémoire de Jefferson Davis." A victim of the woke mind virus avant la lettre, it was removed from the wall of the Bay Building on Union Avenue in 2017.
If you're in Toronto, join us on Jan. 24 for the launch of Catherine Larochelle's excellent School of Racism, translated from the original French. @histodons
The library at the University of Toronto has been digitizing its collection - now at 41,107 documents - of publications from the governments of Canada and Ontario. This is very much a goldmine, though one that is not currently well organized. Use full-text search and find whatever interests you, from 1841 to 2023. @histodons
Since many seem to have only just discovered Mrs. Brady (who we now know is named Kathy!), a bit of historical context. When she filmed this pilot for the CBC in 1957, pizza was anything but commonplace in Canada. It's easy to chuckle at Kathy Brady's pronunciation and what would be the several faux pas in her recipe if she were preparing it today, but the fact is pizza was entirely novel in the country in the 1950s. 1/
An interesting reflection on the #history of transportation and #colonialism in #Canada. I would add that in #Québec and #Ontario, not only did transportation infrastructure contribute to dispossessing and marginalizing Indigenous peoples, but funds held in trust by the Crown for First Nations helped build this infrastructure.
Jaimy Fischer, "Transportation Paved the Way for Colonization — It Can Also Support Reconciliation"
I haven't seen any interviews with her, but #media / #journalists should really be speaking with Kassandra Luciuk about the SS veteran invited to Parliament. Luciuk is a historian (Dalhousie) of the Ukrainian community in 20th-century #Canada. She demonstrates that some Cold-War Canadian officials were quite happy for right-wing Ukrainian migrants to use violence against communist labour leaders, also from Ukraine, already in the country. #CdnPoli#CdnHist#histodons
The number of works in #CdnHist that pretend that French Canada doesn't exist always blows my mind. This morning this means an article placing the origins of public markets in the country in England, the 13 colonies, or anywhere really that's not Quebec. Wild. #histodons
People get so upset about pineapple on #pizza. Whatever your take, Hawaiian pizza is a perfect expression of postwar #Canada - produced by migration, consumer society, and new foodways, esp. the rise of restaurants and the turn towards the "exotic" in suburban kitchens. Pizza was virtually unknown in the country prior to the late 1940s.
She takes a while to get there, but in the closing paragraph of the last chapter of her ambitious and deeply erudite "Civilization: From Enlightenment Philosophy to Canadian History," Elsbeth Heaman makes a pithy and, in my view, wholly convincing argument that in #Canada (and, I would say, in many other places) we need more #history. #histodons#CdnHist@histodons
This dense and remarkably ambitious book was brand new and in perfect condition when I started reading it a few months back. With a little luck, I'll finish my review next week and my copy will earn a respite from my less than gentle attentions. #histodons#CdnHist@histodons
If you happen to be in Toronto tomorrow morning, come and hear me speak about the creation and early history of the Indian Fund - monies held in trust for First Nations by the Crown. Stick around for Maggie Jones (w/ Feir & Scoones) on Indian Missions in the US and Rob Gillezeau (w/ Feir & Jones) on the causes and effects of treaty-making in Canada. The rest of the program looks great too.