Carling Marshall-Luymes

Tartan Roots?: Part 3

2007-12-01T20:27:00.000-05:00

Feeling pretty confident that the town's roots were firmly Scottish, I was surprised by the 1911 Census of Canada results for the Kincardine sub-district [28] of Bruce North [left] that revealed a larger percentage of the town's population claimed an Irish heritage than a Scottish heritage [1]. While 169 respondents noted their heritage as Scottish, 224 claimed their "racial origin" as Irish. This compared to 82 English, 33 German, and 5 Dutch responses.

My theory that the Irish comprised a larger population of the town than surrounding township proved false for the 1851 census, but may prove true for the 1911 population. This census data took into account a much smaller geographical area than the 1851 census.

Other census sub-districts took into account, for example, Bervie village, and even other areas of the town of Kincardine itself, which were included all on the same census in 1851. Is sub-district 28 representative of the entire town and township? Without being able to locate which area of town sub-district 28 has collected data from or without counting responses from at least 9 more census sub-districts, I'm not sure I'll find out.

[1] after tallying census column 14 "Racial or tribal origin"

Tartan Roots?: Part 2

2007-12-01T19:38:00.000-05:00

With Kincardine's town founders being half Scottish (i.e. Cameron but not Withers), did the ethnicity of the village follow suit? One of the town's most notable early settlers - businessman, politician and innkeeper Francis "Paddy" Walker - arrived in Kincardine in 1850 with his large Irish Protestant family, and I've always wondered how large Kincardine's Irish population was in the beginning.

The 1851 census of Kincardine village and township noted 352 settlers stating their place of birth as Scotland, and a mere 140 settlers born in Ireland. After reading that unlike the English and Scots, many Irish immigrants in the early 19th century took paying jobs rather than working the land as farmers [1], I wondered if Kincardine's Irish population was concentrated in the village, where Walker and his family built their Inn [above], while Scottish farmers dominated the township's farmland.

The non-farming population revealed on the 1851 census disproved this theory: only 32 of the 140 Irish settlers weren't farmers (23%), while 139 of the 352 Scots had non-farming jobs (40%). While Scots made up a large proportion of farmers in the township, it seems that they dominated the village population as well.

[1]Peter Toner, "Ethnic Groups: Irish" The Canadian Encyclopedia

How much tartan is in those roots?

2007-11-24T23:46:00.000-05:00

I've recently been compiling educational activities on the history of my fair home town, Kincardine. A town that not only marks its water tower with a piper, posts Gaelic inscriptions in its public parks, and boasts to tourists a phantom piper piping down the sun every summer's eve, but a town that, on a weekly basis every summer, shuts down its main street for a pipe band parade.

So I've been wondering about how Scottish our town's roots really are and wanted to confirm the Scottish heritage of our town founders. William Withers and Allan Cameron were dropped off on what is now Kincardine's Station beach, in the spring of 1848 - the first settler's in what became Kincardine and in the whole county of Bruce.

This task proved more challenging than I anticipated. While William Withers remained in the village, and recorded his birthplace on both the 1851 and 1871 census, Allan Cameron is nowhere to be found.

Looking for other sources who may make note of Cameron, I found Wib. McLeod's 1948 article "Lest We Forget" (published in the Kincardine News): "Allan Cameron had followed his chosen career as a business man and merchant and took a keen and active interest in the growth of the community he had helped found." It seems likely then that Cameron, known as "The Black Prince" because of his dark complexion*, stayed in the community (then called Penetangore) yet evaded the 1851 census takers.

I was excited to conclude that the town founders were half-Scot, when McLeod notes that "the dour and doughty Scot, Cameron" provided refuge and hospitality and the home and tavern he shared with Withers.

* Norman Robertson, History of the County of Bruce, 1906: 26.

Semi-public? - The Hoag Hanging, Walkerton - 1868

2007-08-11T21:33:00.000-04:00

As legislation mandating that executions move behind gaol walls came into effect 1 January 1870, I was researching under the assumption that most hangings before this date were outside gaol walls. I was interested to find The Globe article describing the 1868 hanging of John Hoag at the Walkerton gaol (Bruce County had only recently separated from Huron County, therefore this execution wasn't in Goderich), where the scaffold seems to have been built higher than the walls, but not allowing to see the convicted after he had dropped:

The Sheriff then examined the fatal apparatus; the masked executioner did his work; and the body dropped within the gaol wall, depriving the gaping and motley crowd, some of them women with children in their arms, of the awful spectacle of the body quivering on the rope for a few minutes, perhaps five of six. A number of people were inside the wall and saw the whole [The Globe, 16 December 1868].

At this point I was concerned that perhaps a the Melady hanging at our Huron County gaol may have also only been 'semi-public' and maybe not the last officially public hanging. I was found The Globe article on the Melady hanging [though blurry to read], which states that Melady was taken from " the northern exit of the prison, ascended a temporary staircase, and took his position on the scaffold, which was on a level with the prison wall" and suggests that the hanging was entirely public.

However, there is always the possibility that though Melady ascended the stairs to the gallows publicly, because the scaffold was level with the prison wall, the trap could have been on the opposite side of the wall, and he could have dropped out of public view. It seems unlikely however that, as I mentioned in a previous post, both the Seaforth Expositor and The Globe would have made reference to it as the last public hanging if it was only 'semi-public' like the Hoag hanging.

Capital punishment: Huron County opinion in 1869

2007-08-11T20:57:00.000-04:00

Jesse Imeson was formally charged yesterday at the Goderich courthouse, about a two blocks away from where I was working at the Historic Gaol. By my lunch break, which I took at a shady picnic table on the courthouse grounds, the media circus had died down. Later, listening to the news, I was surprised to hear not that a crowd had gathered that morning by the courthouse, but that they had shouted at him and called out to reinstate the death penalty.

While researching the exhibit on public hanging, I was curious about what Huron County residents felt about the death penalty then, and I was surprised by a 11 Dec 1869 editorial in the Seaforth Expositor we had in our archives. The editor argued that public execution wasn't an effective deterrent against crime, and crude and rowdy crowds had become hardened by watching public executions.

On the Melady hanging, he wrote:

We hope in the name of God - in the name of humanity - that capital punishment may soon be abolished in this 'our Canada,' and placed where it ought to be, with the grim relics of barbarous times.

I was hoping for a variety of letters to the editor in response, but as they were uncommon in this paper at the time, there was only one that seems to favour the death penalty:

The man that violates the law is a criminal, and is a scoundrel of whom we should get rid of in the most available way.

Why did Canada abolish public hanging?

2007-07-20T12:38:00.000-04:00

Between the years of 1850 and 1870, public executions ended in countries such as the German states, the Netherlands, Austria, and Spain, as well as England and Canada.

The end of public hangings in Canada under Act 32-33 Victoria chapter 29 brought relief to the general public but I was surprised to find that this was not because they disagreed with the death penalty (though some did), but largely because of the crowds that came to watch the executions.

(above: The public hangings of Samuel Lount and Peter Mathews, King and Toronto Streets, Toronto, 1838 [from: James Edmund Jones, Pioneer Crimes and Punishment, Toronto: George N. Morang, 1924])

People argued that public hangings should end for many reasons, and the 'hanging crowd' was a significant reason. People complained about rowdy crowds that showed up to watch hangings. When public hangings ended in England, the Times of London reported:

We shall not in the future have to read how, the night before the execution, thousands of the worst characters in England, abandoned women and brutal men, met beneath the gallows to pass the night in drinking in buffoonery, in ruffianly swagger and obscene jest.

Many polite Victorians felt that ending public hangings would advance civilization and they themselves felt uncomfortable watching hangings; at the same time they found the rowdy crowds' fascination with death, obscene language and gestures, and disrespect for authority embarrassing.

Many also felt that death wasn't solemn enough: the carnival-like atmosphere among the crowds that watched the executions prevented people from being dettered to commit crimes. It was also argued that by watching hangings, people were familiar with death and would no longer value human life or feel compassion towards others.

What I was most surprised to find that was by ending public hangings, the perpetuation of the death penalty was actually ensured. If people did not have to deal with the crowd, they would no longer have a reason to protest hangings. By making the hangings private, the death penalty could continue.

Legislating the End to Public Hanging...A Clarification

2007-07-05T22:37:00.002-04:00

A clarification on the legislation abolishing public hanging in Canada... I initially made the same error that John Melady makes in Double Trapped and attributed the move of hangings behind prison walls to Order-in-Council 1021. Upon a careful reading of the Order-In-Council, which, after I came to understand the nature of Orders-In-Council more clearly, was in accordance with an act of Parliament, "Act 32-33 Victoria c. 29," I realized that the Order-In-Council was only supplementing the legislation by creating additional rules and regulations related to hanging, including:

Executions were to be carried out within the walls oft he prison in which the offender was confined at the time of execution
Executions should take place at 8 am
Hanging should continue to be the mode of execution
A black flag was to be raised after an execution and remain up for one hour
The prison bell (or the bell of a neighbouring church) was to ring for 15 minutes before and 15 minutes after an execution

After receiving a copy of "Act 32-33 Victoria c. 29" from the Library of Parliament it's clear that Section 109 of the Act, which went into effect 1 January 1870, is actually the legislation ending public hanging, declaring:

"Judgment of death to be executed on any prisoner after the coming into force of this Act, shall be carried into effect within the walls of the prison in which the offender is confined at the time of execution."

Canada's Last Public Hanging?

2007-06-21T22:17:00.000-04:00

Where was Canada's last public hanging? This is a question I've been trying to answer for our upcoming exhibit; but the answer has proven less straight forward than I anticipated. Yesterday, I was excited to find an An Order-in-Council, signed by John A MacDonald legislating the end of public hangings in Canada. Though hangings continued behind prison walls until 1962, was Canada's last public hanging at our Huron County Gaol?

The hanging of Patrick Whelan at the Carleton County Jail on February 11 1869 for the assassination of MP and Father of Confederation D'Arcy McGee [left] is mistakenly claimed to be the last public hanging in Canada. Ten months later, on December 7, 1869, Nicholas Melady was hanged in Goderich at the Huron District Gaol for the murder of his father and step-mother. A recently published book detailing the crime and hanging, by Melady's descendant John Melady, is titled Double Trapped: Canada's Last Public Hanging.

However - in 1869, Canada only included the provinces of Ontario, Quebec, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick. Hangings continued in public in areas that had not yet entered Confederation, such as the prairie provinces and BC.

While hangings were performed behind prison walls, the public was often still able to watch.

The Sheriff could and often did invite interested spectators and newspaper reporters.
Spectators were known to climb any nearby structure that would allow them to see into the yard. At the Montreal execution of Timothy Candy in 1910, dozens of people viewed the hanging from the roofs of adjoining houses. In this photo of the 1904 execution of Stanislau Lacroix in Hull, you can see the crowds on the nearby rooftops and telephone poles.

Crowds of excited spectators were hard to stop. In March 1899, 2,000 uninvited guests stormed a Montreal gaol to witness a hanging, joining the 200 witnesses already inside the prison yard.

The law was not always followed.

The hanging scaffold was sometimes built taller than the prison walls to allow for public viewing.

An elderly museum patron noted several years earlier that he recalls watching gallows being built in public in Hamilton while riding the streetcar. Was this a case where the gallows were built higher than the prison walls to allow curious spectators a view? or was the law simply ignored? I'm not sure I can claim for certain that the hanging of Melady in Dec. 1869 was the last public hanging even in the provinces within Confederation at the time.

The executioner

2007-06-07T22:13:00.000-04:00

I've begun my internship at the Huron County Museum and Historic Gaol and I'm currently researching public hangings in (Upper and Lower) Canada for an upcoming exhibit. Three men were hanged at the Gaol in Goderich (1861, 1861 and 1911), all for murder; the first two were public hangings. I've set out to answer, among other things, why people were hanged, why such large crowds of spectators came out to watch hangings and why public hangings. These began as easy questions, to which I expected to find straight forward answers, but their answers are proving less simple than I had anticipated and I intend to shift the nature of my blog by writing about my research.

I work where Steven Truscott was incarcerated at age 14 during his 1959 trial for the rape and murder of schoolmate, 12 year old Lynne Harper, and became the youngest Canadian sentenced to death before his sentence was commuted to life imprisonment. Thinking about Steven Truscott everyday and seeing the emotional response visitors have to his case, my assumption was that capital punishment (both public and behind prison walls) was abolished on the basis of humanity towards the convicted; but my research as opened my eyes to a lot of arguments for the abolishment of capital punishment.

John Radclive, Canada's first professional hangman was appointed in 1892 after carrying out several successful hangings for various Ontario sheriffs. Most career hangmen were destroyed by their profession and Radclive was no exception. During his career Radclive began a ritual of finishing a full bottle of brandy after each execution; he drank excessively both before and after hangings. In a Star interview in Dec. 1906, Radclive spoke of himself: "I am a sick man, too sick to talk," he said. "I have been sick a long time, very sick." He died in February 1911, at 55, of cirrhosis of the liver at home in Toronto.

There seems to be some similarity between Radclive and the hangman hired by the Huron District gaol governor Robertson - alcoholism. In a telegram discussing the hangman's journey from Toronto to Goderich, Robertson is warned that the hangman is an unreliable drunkard, and a turn-key is thus being sent with him.

In an interview with psychologist Rachel MacNair, Radclive described his internal torment:
"Now at night when I lie down," he said, "I start up with a roar as victim after victim comes up before me. I can see them on the trap, waiting a second before they meet their Maker. They haunt me and taunt me until I am nearly crazy with an unearthly fear."

Public attitudes towards the hangman must have furthered his torment. In 1900 the Star wrote of Radclive: "If he were a man of delicate sensibilities he would not be the hangman. He is a necessity in our system, but he should be treated as if he is the hole in the floor of the gallows." At the same time, a 1910 Globe editorial wrote on the role of the hangman: "It is an unpleasant subject, but it is a public question, and it is a public function for which all are reposnsible." At a time when the population supported capital punishment I find it ironic that the they were so repulsed by the man carrying out their will. Countless people have to be involved in an execution by the state, directly or indirectly and in addition to the hangman, and I've realized the significance of acknowledging the psychological stress on these men and women as part of the case against capital punishment.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - -- - - - -- - - - - - - - -- - - - - - - - - - - - -

The agony of the executioner; How a Parkdale man became our first official hangman and was destroyed by it. By Patrick Cain; [ONT Edition]
PATRICK CAIN Patrick Cain. Toronto Star. Toronto, Ont.: May 20, 2007. pg. D.4

Capital Punishment in Canada. Department of Justice http://www.justice.gc.ca/en/news/fs/2003/doc_30896.html

Visiting the Canadian War Museum

2007-05-01T14:23:00.000-04:00

My weekend Ottawa trip also included my first visit to the Canadian War Museum. I really enjoyed my visit, even though it was rushed, and I learned a lot, but there was something that I found consistently problematic from exhibit to exhibit.

While one of the "big ideas" conveyed throughout the museum was the significant cost of war. What I found interesting was that this wasn't balanced with much detailed description on the causes of each war and really detracted from the overall effectiveness of the exhibits. The temporary exhibit is currently on the war in Afghanistan, which had - from what I saw - the largest amount of exhibit space devoted to the reason for the war, as it dealt with the terrorist attacks of September 11th before dealing with the role of Canada in Afghanistan. [The exhibit includes a military jeep damaged by an improvised explosive device: right]

While I understand that exploring the deep roots of the causation of wars is both complex and would require a lot of space, it seems overly simplistic not to discuss much of Afghanistan's history before 2001; more disappointingly was the even smaller discussion of the causes of the first and second World Wars which, if it was more than a sentence or two, I didn't find. In the end, this situation meant that the museum's message that is being conveyed is that war is costly and also pointless.

I did enjoy my visit, but my other disappointment was the treatment of the air war. My grandfather's brother flew with 6 Group in Bomber Command before being shot down and killed over Berlin, and I was looking forward to exhibit material on the subject. I was surprised that there was very little discussion of it at all, and while I realize that the role of Bomber Command is controversial, the best way of dealing with doesn't seem like ignoring it - this send a message that 6 Group's contribution was not only of little importance, but also that we should be ashamed of it. [Above: this cartoon story of a WW1 pilot's role in the war I found out of place - it was unlike the rest of the exhibit in glorifying a pilot like a comic book superhero]

de(re)construction

2007-05-01T13:46:00.000-04:00

I travelled to Ottawa with my family this past weekend to see the contemporary conceptual art exhibit, de(re)construction, that my sister's graduating visual art class at the University of Ottawa put on [I've posted images of some of the work in her installation]. I felt like that any minute the building's "boring and conservative historian" radar might identify me and kick me out onto the street (my disappointment at the lack of interpretive text might have given me away).

The exhibit's paintings, photographs, scuptures, installations and interdisciplinary media works addressed issues of gender and cultural roles, human responsibility for natural and urban environments, and the relationship of the individual to society - and often did so in graphic and shocking ways (my invitation came with a long parental advisory warning).

While I think there's a thing or two that the contemporary art exhibit could borrow from a history exhibit (while asking for interpretive text might be too much, but I think if every artist at least provided an artist's statement, the concept of conceptual art could at least be more widely understood), the same applies the other way around. Like de(re)construction, our history exhibits seek to convey an idea, tell a story, and often interact with its audience. And, like visual art, historians and museum staff are faced with limited budgets, shrinking funding, and small staff. What I took from the exhibit was that as historians, if our exhibits are going to focus not on telling stories but act as (borrowing Molly's term) weapons of mass enlightenment, we need to be bolder, even shocking, and passionate in the exhibits that we mount. (But we can add interpretive text.) Why spend so much time and effort at something for so little money if we're not going to be bold and passionate about our subject material? Let's get people talking.

Fun With Dead People

2007-05-01T11:35:00.000-04:00

About a week before I moved from London I took an afternoon walk through Mt. Pleasant Cemetery, not far from where I had lived for the past 8 months. I was really stricken by the sense of the history of London that I got from the visit. The various inscriptions, the notation of birth place, life span, family size, and occasional note on the causation of death illustrated a lot about life in London in the past. I wished that before working on so much local history over the past year - from inventions and innovations in London, to early schooling in the area for Fanshawe Pioneer Village, to the history of Storybook Gardens and Springbank Park - that I had made this visit back in September.

Two summers ago, working at a heritage house in Kincardine, one of the programs I developed was a walking tour at the oldest section of the Kincardine cemetery, and we (mostly children, and I in costume) visited the resting places of some of Kincardine's most famous citizens of the past. [Yes, there are several famous citizens of Kincardine - see Sir Alexander Mackenzie] It was an interesting, and I think overall successful way of getting young people interested in the town's history. But now that I think about it, what would have made a better tour (or a series of tours) would have been just to visit various regular tombstones (as opposed to the fancy monuments of more famous citizens) and use them to illustrate a tour of Kincardine's history.

It ended up being a successful day and I think that there's perhaps a bigger market for both kinds of these cemetery tours. At the same time, I realize that there are some problems with running programming in such a sacred space (especially as in some cases much older tombstones were not too far from much more recent tombstones and the program could have been dropped the morning of if a funeral ended up being booked at the last minute; there was also a push that I resisted to increase the program's publicity by calling it "Fun with Dead People"); but I think there's something to be said for a good tour that respects the space (and has a respectful audience) and uses various memorials to illustrate the history of a community.

History At Storybook

2007-05-01T10:50:00.001-04:00

While I was researching the history of London's Storybook Gardens for its upcoming 50th anniversary, I was really excited to find out that Storybook is part of the history of a much larger trend in park development. After WW2, the tourism industry responded to the baby boom by developing attractions for children [1]. Old fairytales were not copyrighted and from approximately the mid-1950s to the early 1960s over 25 fairytale-themed children’s parks were constructed as family tourist destinations across the United States (and also in Canada) [I've mapped many that I found below - the red markers indicate parks that are still running or parks that I don't know if they're still running; blue marks parks that have closed; green marks parks that opened before WW2].

Many fairytale parks developed similar exhibits and attractions as those of London’s Storybook Gardens, including petting zoos, indigenous animals, pumpkin shaped concession stands, large Old Woman’s Shoes, Humpty Dumpty and other fairytale sculptured figures, whale slides and castle-front entrances [below are photos of Oakland California's Children's Fairyland, which served as inspiration to London's Storybook Gardens - many of the attractions are strikingly similar].

After researching some of Storybook's more recent past, I discovered that many patrons were nostalgic for the old attractions of Storybook and disappointed when visiting the newly redeveloped Storybook (after 2003). Given these two points (other fairytale parks and nostalgia for the old Storybook), the significance of conducting local history research and/or corporate history of Storybook is really highlighted.

First, as many fairytale parks were developed around the same time, they each shared similar problems beginning in the late 1970s when they all struggled to remain relevant and attractive in an age where patrons expected something bigger and better after bigger themeparks became more accessible. Each park had to struggle to adapt on its own, when it was likely unaware that there were many other places having exactly the same problems - while London's Storybook has done relatively well in adapting, I think there was a real opportunity here to network, connect, and share resources and ideas, between all of these parks. I think had more research on the history of the development of these parks been done, they may have been more aware of the existence of so many other similar attractions.

A second realization has been that given the nostalgia for the old Storybook Gardens at a time when the park has been almost entirely redeveloped, there's a market to attract visitors to the park with the park's history - hopefully an exhibit. Not only will the exhibit on Storybook's history commemorate it's 50th anniversary, but it will be a good attraction itself to the park, especially among older generations who recall visiting the park in their youth and visitors who are nostalgic for the Storybook that's no longer there [below: c. 1960s Storybook Gardens].

[1] Tim Hollis, Dixie Before Disney: 100 Years of Roadside Fun (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1999), 89-90 - Hollis' chapter on “Fantasy Lands” is the only source I've been able to find on the trend of develping fairytale themed children's parks; he introduces the reader to fantasy-lands that developed in the 1950s and 1960s, including fairytale parks like Storybook Gardens. What tipped me off to this trend in park development was Debra Jane Seltzer's website "Roadside Architecture" and it's extensive collection of fairytale amusement park photographs: http://www.agilitynut.com/fairyparks/main.html

Bass Pro Mills Drive

2007-04-11T18:49:00.000-04:00

I drove past Bass Pro Mills Drive on the 400 over the weekend, en route to Easter with my grandparents, and have been thinking again about Bryan's presentation that expressed concern over corporate street names such as Tartan Drive and Kellogg Lane in London (after the 3M Corporation and Kelloggs), and Bass Pro Mills Drive (after Outdoor World, run by the Bass Pro Mills company, in Vaughan). How do I feel about it? I think what's important is that there's a difference between Kellogg Lane and Bass Pro Mills Drive. While the Kellogg's factory is an important part of the history of east London's manufacturing industry and our Invention2Innovation exhibit highlights the significance of 3M in London, Outdoor World is has arguably no historical significance and is regular run-of-the-mill chain store. "Bass Pro Mills Drive" is inappropriate corporate advertising, no different than, say, a Walmart Boulevard, Canadian Tire Road, or Wendy's Way.

In many cases, streets are named after those, such as veterans, who have had less of a direct impact on their community than companies or factories in that community. In Newmarket, Haines Road is named after my grandmother's great grandfather, Israel Haines, a pioneer farmer, whose family farm was located near where the current Haines Road is. Although he was an early member of the community, his historical significance seems less that that of, for example, a business that operated in the community for many years and had a greater impact on the community. In this sense, it would be hypocritical to protest to names such as Tartan Drive and Kellogg Lane, but it's also important to prevent "Bass Pro Mills Drives" of the future, where street signage has inappropriately become corporate advertising.

The rough endoplasmic retiulum?

2007-04-11T17:33:00.000-04:00

It has concerned me recently to hear secondary school history teachers and their curriculum coming under attack for producing a generation of young people uninformed about Canada's history. There's a couple of reasons that this has rubbed me the wrong way. I'm a graduate history student and I'll admit that I don't remember very much of what I learned in high school history class. Louis Riel, the response of the federal government to the 1930s depression, the GATT? It's all a bit fuzzy by now.

That being said, I was fortunate in highschool and had great history teachers. Did they fail because I don't remember the significance of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade? My high school history teachers fostered my interest in history in general, taught critical thinking skills and effective writing techniques. And these skills that we hopefully take away from secondary school are ultimately what's more important. While I can't remember much about Riel, I know how where to look and how to think critically about what I'm looking at (thanks Mr. Carver and Ms. Knox).

Historical knowledge seems to be deemed of importance to remember from high school above other subjects, and while this seems obvious to expect from historians, the expectations aren't limited just to us; nobody cares if we can't remember cellular mitosis from biology class or trigonometry from calculus class (though it's arguable that I didn't know very much about trigonometry even when I was in calculus class).

But history is still one of many subjects busy secondary school students take at one time, and though we'd like to think, as historians, that it's the most important, lets be realistic about what we expect from our history teachers. How much do you remember about a cell's rough endoplasmic retiulum?

In many cases students don't need to think much about history, or many of the subjects they've studied in school, after graduation. I've already mentioned the importance of the skills they take away as well, but what's more important, where we should be concerned and go to work as public historians, is making a change in the world students encounter after highschool, making people think about history after Grade 10.

Ontario's high school Canada and World Studies curriculum is available from: http://www.edu.gov.on.ca/eng/curriculum/secondary/canworld910curr.pdf

Top 10 Rejected Storybook Themes and History Highlights for Exhibit

2007-03-31T22:11:00.000-04:00

Part of my prepatory work for an exhibit on Storybook Gardens has been to identify important themes and highlights in the park's history. The child-friendly exhibit will be installed in the Children's Chapel at Storybook Gardens. The commemmorative nature of the exhibit and its audience will largely influence its content. The top 10 rejected exhibit themes and historical highlights to date:

- Springbank park was a popular destination for Londoners by riverboat until the 1881 sinking of the “Victoria” killed 182 people

- intruders club Storybook rabbit to death

- sea otter attacks London boy

- vandals kill Storybook deer in the night

- sea otters disappeared into thin air: reports PUC parks director

- rejected Storybook Gardens names include Puck’s Forest (given Storybook’s history of vandalism, probably a wise choice by the PUC)

- sea lion autopsy reveals several dollars in loose change

- Air Canada flight suffocates sea lions en route to Storybook: arrive at Toronto airport dead

- vandals bludgeon Storybook flamingo to death with rocks

- romantic tryst at Storybook playground after-hours starts fire: teenagers’ candle causes $600 000 damage

Lessons and Inspiration from the Heart of Africa

2007-03-31T21:27:00.000-04:00

ROM founder Charles Currelly’s African collection, including art and textiles donated by Canadian missionaries who had worked in Africa, was in the museum’s basement prior to being removed from the public view during extensive renovations in the late 1970s [158]. In 1987, Jeanne Cannizzo learned of the collection and developed the controversial Into the Heart of Africa exhibit for the ROM. The exhibit’s original intention was to be a meditation on the circulation of cultural artefacts and illustrate how the meaning of artefacts was acquired, changed and altered. Her exhibit began with the unique intent of being partly about the exhibition of artefacts. [1] Motivated by a desire to show these hidden-away pieces of the ROM collection, Cannizzo’s exhibit has had me reflecting on the relationship museum exhibits and museum collections.

Cannizzo had an idea that she wanted to convey and a story that she wanted to tell using the ROM collection. The Storybook Gardens exhibit that I’m working on for my public history essay, however, has a story in mind, and a collection will be acquired accordingly. This has left me wondering how often museums are in the ideal situation where an idea inspires an exhibit and the artefacts are acquired as necessary; or is it more common for the planning to work the other way around – a museum is forced to develop and present an idea based on artefacts they have to work with?

It seems obvious that this is a matter of money; museums with bigger budgets can afford to convey a broader range of messages and tell a larger number of stories because they can borrow artefacts as necessary. This potential seems diminished for smaller institutions, who, in displaying limited collections, have to take on more of a role as a ‘cabinet of curiosities’ more than they would wish. In addition to the importance of community consultation, large interpretive text and a clear exhibit focus, smaller museums can be inspired by Cannizzo’s unique intent with the Into the Heart of Africa exhibit to be innovative while working within the confines of a defined collection .

[1]Robyn Gillam, “Fear and Loathing at Bloor and Avenue Road”
Hall of Mirrors: Museums and the Canadian Public (Banff: Banff Centre Press, 2001), pp.155-201.

Lessons from National Geographic

2007-03-28T19:48:00.000-04:00

Growing up I didn't have cable TV and my sisters and I watched a lot of TVO, and I recall watching a fair bit of National Geographic. I still get excited when I here all of the percussion in National Geographic's opening music. Last night I watched a National Geographic single [episode], Hippo: Africa's River Beast, and in addition to learning a lot about really amazing research on the hippopotamus, there's a few things that we as public historians can borrow from National Geographic.

The first thing that I found interesting, aside from the hippos themselves, was that the episode wasn't about hippos, but it was about current scientific research being done on hippos. This extra layer of information was what partly what made the episode so interesting. I think there's room here for history programming to develop similarly, to create programming that's not just another biography of an important person or a chronology of an important event, but an episode about what and how and why research is being done on the topic. I'm not certain that this isn't something that the History Channel already does (I don't have the channel myself), but it isn't the sort of historical programming I've seen before.

Did you know that the hippopotamus may be the only animal that can communicate both underwater and on land? Something else that struck me while I was watching the program was how upfront the episode was about what scientists were currently investigating and didn't know for sure. There were a lot of things that were being hypothesized but weren't proven for certainty and the episode was really upfront about this. The result that this had for me was that I became interested in following the research that is currently being done and I'll be interested in the future on hearing more about the hippopotamus. I think that if more history programming on television, and even in text books, could be more clear about where the research on a subject currently is, where it's going, and controversy that exists that this would ultimately result in people developing more genuine and engaged interest in historical topics.

[the next National Geographic single, Gorilla Wild, is next Tuesday at 10, on TVO, Rogers Channel 2 ]

Douglas Point on Display

2007-03-04T16:07:00.000-05:00

This coming week it's my turn to put together a display on a historical topic in the history display case. The topic I chose was the Douglas Point Nuclear Generating Station and I have been thinking for a few days about how effective the display will be. I had fun putting the display together and while I was planning the display I had some key concerns on my mind: the text should be succinct and easy to understand, the display should be visually appealing and the display should be interesting.

The text: I tried in such a small space to only communicate the most important points of history and my interpretive text focuses largely on the historical significance of the station and includes only a very basic chronology of its history. Each interpretive block of text and photo can stand on its own, so that you don't have to read the previous labels or interpretive text to understand the later ones.

Also, I tried and found it difficult to convey the significance of the station without being too technical. I hope that the significance is clear, but to someone interested in more technical aspects of the station can glean from the photo labels some more detail. In this sense, I was hoping the display could be educational on three levels: the history of the site, the significance of the site, and how it made electricity- without being too much to read. I put it to what I felt would be the ulitmate test, my mother, who really doesn't like reading much at museums and she gave it a thumbs up. I think that the photo labels maybe should have been in a bigger font, but I really wanted to have the labels be informative, and then contain a little extra detail if someone was interested.

Is it visually appealing? I tried to keep the display at eye level, attain a good balance of colour and black and white photos, and graphics that weren't photos. While I had a lot of photos, I only had a visitors centre pamphlet from the 1960s and commemorative stamp to display, but I felt the photos told a more important story. If I had a larger display space I would have kept the interpretive text largely the same (except for some additional detail on the uniqueness of the CANDU reactors) and made the photos larger. The 1960s visitors centre pamphlet was a last minute addition because I had the space; I'm glad I got to display it because I think it's really cool, but I don't want it to deter people from the display because it has a lot of text - it's important as an artefact and not as a document that needs to be read for the display.

Is the display interesting? Of course I think it is, but if people aren't interested in nuclear history I hope the photos grab people's attention, and I added some 'human interest' photos to increase the display's general appeal, including the worker in the radiation suit, and Trudeau touring the site.

There isn't a peer review component to the assignment, but I'd like any feedback/suggestions that people have about the display.

Invitation to Invention to Innovation

2007-02-28T23:45:00.000-05:00

The Invention to Innovation: Alive in London exhibit, produced in partnership between Museum London and UWO's Public History programme is now open and on display until August at Museum London! Check out some strange inventions, such as the permanent wave machine [left], and learn more about the spirit of ingenuity that has been embraced by Londoners of today and yesterday. Find out more about the artefacts on display at our online exhibit.

History and Film

2007-02-28T23:40:00.000-05:00

Roy Rosenzweig and David Thelen argue that history professionals need to do a better job “listening to and recognizing the many ways popular history makers traverse the terrain of the past.” [1] Not often do I finish reading and feel refreshed, but I really found this refreshing. I like the idea of finishing our public history year feeling confident in how to communicate history to the public with different mediums and not just knowing how to criticize how other people communicate history, so I enjoyed Marnie Hughes-Warrington’s History Goes to the Movies: Studying History on Film. Historical film isn’t just a form of practicing history but is also history itself and Hughes-Warrington calls for an expanded and more historically embedded notion of ‘history on film.’ What I liked (and found refreshing) was her refute of many of the criticisms made against filmic history - such as its emotionality, false historicity, simplicity, and small information load- by written history and the notion of looking at film and criticizing it as film, not as one would criticize written history.[2]

It was her conclusion, though, left me feeling really invigorated, excited about all of the creative possibilities to communicate history with the public: “…I believe there is no ‘history’ apart from historical practices. Nor, in consequence, is there any logical, universal or unchanging reason to talk of one practice as ‘more historical’ than another.” At a time where we’re starting to feel bogged down as public history students thinking about internships and employment, compiling resumes and composing cover letters on top of our schoolwork, Hughes-Warrington gave me a bit of energy to think creatively about future job and employment opportunities; hopefully she inspired you in the same way.

[1] as quoted in Marnie Hughes-Warrington, “Introduction” History Goes to the Movies: Studying History on Film (London and New York: Routledge, 2007) p. 1
[2] Hughes-Warrington, “Words and Images, Images and Words” Hughes-Warrington, “Introduction” History Goes to the Movies: Studying History on Film (London and New York: Routledge, 2007)
[3] Ibid, p. 32

The historian and the genealogist..

2007-02-28T22:13:00.000-05:00

While some historians confess that indulging in historical fiction is a guilty pleasure, I’ll confess that mine is genealogical research. And I’ve confessed to this publicly for some time now (as I’m sure my archives classmates know). But my real confession is that it’s never been something that I’ve felt guilty about until recently. (Like reading historical fiction, genealogy seems to be regarded as a frivolous pastime for historian by their peers). Really, it always felt complimentary to my interests as a historian and I hadn’t really considered that it would be scoffed at by fellow historians. I’m okay with being scoffed at – I put up with scoffing and a lot of people put up with listening to how excited I get when I find out great great great great great aunt so-and-so was half Delaware Indian, or find by grandmother's uncle's Boer war service file, or that I suspect a genealogical connection to a rebellious Mayflower passenger.**

As Margaret Atwood mentions in her 1996 Bronfman lecture, the lure of time travel and great fun in snooping [1]. It’s a great hobby, and I enjoy the hunt for interesting tidbits, missing facts, sorting out siblings, looking for connections and putting all of the pieces together as a detective of sorts. Anyway, back to the complimentary relationship between history and genealogy. It may be obvious, but connecting family back to different times and different places fuels my interest in related historical periods and events. To be honest I’ve really never been interested in what was going on in Pennsylvania at the beginning of the 19th century. Or what was happening in the Greenock swamp in the middle of the 19th century, or who was fighting where in South Africa at the turn of the century. Not until I found someone that I’m connected to someone that was there.

While I think that people’s interests in different historical subjects can come about in a lot of ways, a family connection is probably the easiest way to make a connection. In describing the lure of the past, Atwood also discusses today’s culture and the demographic significance of the baby-boomer – whose interests make a substantial impact on the economy. As public historians we would be doing ourselves a disservice by scoffing at the genealogist in front of us in line at the archives, someone who is developing an interest in the field that we’re employed by, maybe someone who will attend our public lectures, buy our books, check out our blogs or read our articles.

[1] Margaret Atwood, “In Search of Alias Grace: On Writing Canadian Historical Fiction,” American Historical Review 103 no.5 (Dec. 1998), pp.1513

** my grandmother's paternal relatives seem to have descended from Mayflower passenger Stephen Hopkins, although I haven't been able to verify it. Hopkins was one of only a few passengers on the Mayflower to have made a prior trip to America. He came in 1609 on the Sea Venture headed for Jamestown, Virginia. But instead, they were marooned on an island following a hurricane, and the 150 passengers were stranded for nine months. Hopkins led an uprising, challenging the governor's authority, and was sentenced to death. But he begged and moaned about the ruin of his wife and children, and so was pardoned out of sympathy. The company eventually managed to build a ship, and escaped the island.... who wouldn't want to know that about their family?

History and Fiction

2007-02-28T21:57:00.000-05:00

Is there room for fiction in communicating history with the public? Undoubtedly yes: it’s popular and powerful, so even if, as public historians, we believe there isn’t room, it wouldn’t matter, because the public disagrees. So I think a more important and more difficult question is how to communicate history with the public through literature the most effectively. The readings on history and fiction left us with important suggestions to consider in improving our writing as public historians. First, John Demos raises two significant points: historians can benefit from the same “how to store parsnips” attention to detail that novelists do to give stories from the past texture, and, historians need to aspire to a similar range of emotions – love, forgiveness, charity, suffering etc. – that novelists do [1].

Two books of historical non-fiction which borrow a style of narrative from fiction and also pay attention to detail and human nature are Robert Massie’s Nicholas and Alexandra (about the Tsar Nicholas II of Russia) and Christopher Browning’s Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland. They’re popular books, easy to read but also informative, and I feel that they serve as a good model for historians trying to reach to wider audiences in their writing. More importantly, they illustrate to us as public historians that writing non-fiction can compel audiences, convey emotion, and tell detailed and interesting stories as well as fiction.

In Margaret Atwood’s 1996 Bronfman Lecture In Search of Alias Grace: On Writing Canadian Historical Fiction one thought that has stuck with me, that I also took away from the reading with a commitment to as a public historian, was her talk about paper: “The past is made of paper … Sometimes, there’s a building or a picture or a grave, but mostly it’s paper. Paper must be taken care of [2].” For background or for inspiration of both fiction and non-fiction we have a duty to take care of paper records- stories from the past- for writers of the future, as there are just as many interesting stories to write from history as can be conceived of by fiction authors.

[1] John Demos, “In Search of Reasons for Historians to Read Novels….” American Historical Review 103 no.5 (Dec. 1998), pp.1526-9.

[2]Margaret Atwood, “In Search of Alias Grace: On Writing Canadian Historical Fiction,” American Historical Review 103 no.5 (Dec. 1998), pp.1503-16.

Canadian Museum for Human Rights

2007-02-09T19:31:00.000-05:00

Something caught my eye on the back of my dad's Princess Auto car parts catalogue. It caught my eye not just because it wasn't anything related to auto parts, but because it was truely one of the most unique, elaborately modern and really just cool looking buildings I'd ever seen. And this is when I found out that Canada, Winnipeg more specifically, is getting a museum for human rights. The catalogue described the museum as a "beacon for the world" and as having the goal to protect and promote human rights to create a world of tolerance and inclusion. (I think it would fit well with Molly's 'weapons of mass enlightenment' series). It's projected that the proposed national museum will open in 2010 (although the construction is projected to begin only in the last half of 2007).

I was intrigued and went online to find out more about what the museum will really entail and was disappointed to find a lot of grand visions, purposes and goals, and not a lot of substance about what the museum's content will be. There is a lot of info available, however, on the museum's architecture and the surrounding design contest. So I was left a little irritated, a bit about the lack of information available on what the museum would actually exhibit, but mostly about how ridiculously elaborate and modern the building's architecture will be, and I was left asking why? The architect's website explains the design and begins:

The abstract ephemeral wings of a white dove embrace a mythic stone mountain of 450 million year old Tyndall limestone in the creation of a unifying and timeless landmark for all nations and cultures of the world. The Journey through the museum parallels an epic journey through life...The journey begins with a descent into the earth, a symbolic recognition of the earth as the spiritual center for many indigenous cultures.

Give me a break. I understand that a museum environment should be conducive to learning and strive to make the experience memorable, but shouldn't what people take away from the experience be about what they actually learned and not about how cool the building was? And I'm doubtful that many people really consider and learn from what the museum's architecture is supposed to represent and think beyond, "that's cool" or "that must have been expensive to build" or "I'm glad I don't have to pay that heating bill." How many kids will return from a class trip to the Canadian Museum of Human Rights and write in their journals, "The archaeologically rich void of the Great Hall really evoked the memory of ancient gatherings at the Forks of First Nations peoples, settlers and immigrants." I don't think the meager message that people will walk away with from the museum's architecture will justify its enormous cost.

Wouldn't that money, time and energy be better spent planning its content or something else that's really more worthwhile (at the museum or elsewhere in society) than just the building's appearance. I thought maybe there would be a lesson learned from the Museum of Civilization, that no matter how cool the building looks, if it costs too much the rest of the museum's budget will shrink and it will ultimately take away from the quality of whatever is on the museum's insides. I think as public historians we should be concerned that the big deal about museums should be what they teach, exhibit, preserve and promote - and not about how they look.

Read more about the proposed Canadian Museum for Human Rights:

Canadian Museum for Human Rights

http://www.canadianmuseumforhumanrights.com/index.cfm?pageID=24

The architectural designer's webpage about their winning design http://www.predock.com/NEWSCANADA.html

Wikipedia's article

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_Museum_for_Human_Rights

Dear Canada...

2007-01-29T00:04:00.000-05:00

This blog entry is inspired partly out of jealousy towards my youngest sister. Not because she got birthday parties at Storybook Gardens and I didn’t, but because there’s some pretty good historical fiction for kids on the market right now. I’m was also partly inspired to write because I’ve been working on my museum studies novel review, on the children’s book From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, about two children who run away to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, and set about solving a mystery once they’re there. I wish I could say that some special experience in my childhood, maybe like reading From the Mixed-Up Files, inspired me to study history, and then public history – but I can’t. (One of my childhood friends did remind me over the holidays that I tried to start a small natural history museum in my attic, though). I hated history in elementary school, I thought New France was the least interesting thing imaginable and I was far more interested in cloning dinosaurs, and it wasn’t until I had some really good high school history teachers that the interest developed.

Anyway, my point is that it’s exciting that there are popular books out there, at least for the junior and intermediate reader, about history and getting kids interested in history – Canadian and otherwise. My sister has devoured two series in particular (Dear Canada, and Royal Diaries), both series of fictional diaries of young girls in historical settings with titles like Dear Canada: If I Die Before I Wake: The Flu Epidemic Diary Of Fiona Macgregor, Dear Canada: Footsteps in the Snow -- The Red River Diary of Isobel Scott, Rupert's Land, 1815, and Royal Diaries: Catherine, The Great Journey, Russia, 1743. And she knows an awful lot more history than I did when I was 12.

Our public history class guest speakers have got me thinking about new avenues where we could practice public history and this seems like a valuable one. It’s also interesting to note that both series are written about and geared towards young girls, and I’m unaware of parallel series’ with male characters, there’s certainly opportunity to develop something there.