Departments

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Canadian history

  • SOURCE: Black Perspectives
    9/22/2022

    Institutional Histories of Canadian Slavery

    by Melissa N. Shaw

    McGill University’s institutional history dramatically changes when it accounts for the fact that its founder, James McGill, was an enslaver and trader of enslaved Black and Indigenous people.

  • SOURCE: Made By History at the Washington Post
    6/27/2022

    A Guide from the Past for Travelers Seeking an Abortion

    by Sarah Elvins

    "Women traveling to procure abortions is nothing new. Before the 1973 Roe ruling, state-to-state travel existed, as did highly organized transnational networks to guide women across borders."

  • SOURCE: The Conversation
    5/31/2022

    The Asian-Canadian Gay Pioneer Theorist of Sexuality

    by Laurie Marhoefer

    Li Shiu Tong, the partner of better-known German sexologist Magnus Hirschfeld, was an important theorist and activist whose once-lost writings anticipated today's politics of gay rights and liberation. 

  • SOURCE: The Conversation
    4/8/2022

    What Does Pope Francis's Apology Mean to Indigenous Americans?

    by Annie Selak

    "Pope Francis apologized on April 1, 2022, to First Nations, Inuit and Métis delegations, acknowledging the harm done by residential schools in Canada and marking a crucial step in the church admitting its role in the abuse of Indigenous communities and children."

  • SOURCE: The Conversation
    10/11/2021

    Canada is Going through its Own History Wars

    by Ian Rocksborough-Smith

    "To what degree will well-established professional historians and scholars respond and engage with younger generations of activists, intellectuals and cultural workers adamant about centring the experiences of marginalized people?"

  • SOURCE: New York Times
    12/6/2020

    A Polarizing Documentary Spurs Debate Over a Violent Time in Quebec

    Canadians are debating whether a documentary released at the fiftieth anniversary of a campaign of political violence by Quebecois separatists valorizes terrorism and ignores peaceful progress toward a bicultural Canada; the filmmaker is the son of one of the convicted conspirators.

  • SOURCE: New York Times
    11/25/2020

    The Myth of North America, in One Painting

    Explore an immersive, interactive page that shows how "The Death of General Wolfe" by Benjamin West created a heroic myth of the British defeat of the French near Quebec, which helped decide the Seven Years War.

  • SOURCE: CBC
    10/17/2020

    Samuel L. Jackson's Enslaved and the Lost History of Canadian Slavery

    Canadian historian Charmaine Nelson says that many Canadians are overly accepting of the narrative of their nation as the endpoint of the Underground Railroad and unaware of the history of slavery in Canada. A new documentary by the famed actor highlights the need to push past comfortable understandings.

  • SOURCE: Toronto Globe and Mail
    8-16-13

    Totem pole celebrates Haida’s pact with Canada

    A new totem pole the height of a three-storey building now looms over the southern Haida Gwaii, carved with symbols to note the remote land is protected from ocean floor to mountaintop.Hundreds gathered in the Gwaii Haanas National Park Reserve to watch the nearly 3,000-kilogram pole raised using six ropes and sheer manpower, the first such raising in over a century. Spectators were dwarfed by the colourful and intricate pole, which took more than a year to carve and paint and represents Gwaii Haanas’ modern and ancient history....

  • SOURCE: Toronto Star
    7-19-13

    Storm knocks down tree tied to Canada's first unofficial national anthem

    A crowd gathered in front of a tree felled during Friday night’s thunderstorm to take pictures and collect a leaf or two as a memento and even mourn, for this was no ordinary tree.Perhaps 150 years old or more, the silver maple tucked away on Laing St. in Leslieville, is famous for being the inspiration of what used to be Canada’s unofficial anthem. Historians are dubious, but as the story goes, a persistent leaf from the tree stuck itself to poet Alexander Muir’s sleeve in the fall of 1867, serving as the inspiration for “The Maple Leaf Forever,” a poem-turned-song-turned-unofficial-anthem.But, “it’s not forever anymore,” said Julie Ritchie, watching the tree lying sprawled across the road from her front porch. “There was something really special about the tree, even though it was quite old and in bad shape.”...

  • SOURCE: National Post (Canada)
    5-27-13

    Canadian history on the block, cheap

    A huge cache of Canadian history, stored for 200 years in three wooden chests held at a British estate, is set to be auctioned next month in London — a possible test of whether the controversy-plagued, funding-challenged Library and Archives Canada is still in the business of acquiring newly available treasures of documentary heritage. An extensive and important collection of letters, maps and other original artifacts left to posterity by Sir John Coape Sherbrooke — the Nova Scotia governor who conquered Maine during the War of 1812 and later served as Canada’s governor general — is to be sold on June 19 as the showcase lot in a major Bonhams auction of rare books and manuscripts.A large, coloured and “exceptionally fine” map of the village of York and the Lake Ontario shoreline that was created for Sherbrooke in 1817 — showing the future Toronto in such minute detail that individual homes are depicted — is a highlight of the sale, appearing on the cover of the auction catalogue.