History News

This week the History Department congratulates Drs. Susannah Ferreira and Catherine Carstairs on winning Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council Standard Research Grants. Dr. Ferreira's research project is entitled, "New Christians in Portugal and the Process of Cultural Assimilation: 1497-1536"; Dr. Carstairs' project: "Communist Conspiracy, Rat Poison or Dental Miracle?: Water Fluoridation in the US and Canada."

The 2011 Scottish Studies Spring Colloquium will be held 9 April 2011, 9:30am to 3:30pm, at Knox College, University of Toronto. The program will centre on Scots in the Atlantic World and more...

The Department's 1891 Database is in the news for their work on the early history of Vancouver. (read the story...)
For more information on the Historical Data Research Unit visit http://www.hdru.ca/

The Centre for Scottish Studies invites you to visit our brand new photographic exhibition produced to mark Canada's Tartan Day and Scotland Week for 2011.

"This Is Who We Are, Part 2. The Diaspora Lines" - created by Graeme Murdoch of Cultural Connect Scotland

For four years, History Department docrtoral candidate Sharon Weaver and her husband lived in an old carriage shed on their 400-acre farm in Cape Breton. “You could see the stars through the walls,” she recalls. “In the winter, we’d be sleeping in the warmest down sleeping bags we could get, but in the morning our boots would be frozen to the floor and my husband’s moustache would be white with frost.” (Read more...)

Wednesday, March 23, the next Rural History Roundtable features Dr Rob Kristofferson, who will present a paper based on his co-authored, and soon-to-be published, book: More of a Man: The Diaries of Andrew McIlwraith, Canada West and New York City, 1857-1862. The title of his presentation: “Narrating the Known Story: Mid-Victorian Craftsworker Diaries as Tools of Masculine Self-actualization." The talk takes place in MacKinnon Room 311, 10:00am to 12:00noon in conjunction with Hist4620. There will also be a poster display of the farm diary work being done by the class. 

Historian Susan Nance writes about rodeo, and circus elephants as celebrities.
If you’re looking for a little entertainment today, you have hundreds of options: TV, movie theatres, the Internet, video games, radio and more. But in the 19^th century, entertainment was created much closer to home and often as an extension of everyday life. History professor Susan Nance says rodeo is a good example. “In western North America, it seems that animals often provided entertainment because they offered the raw energy of the unexpected,” says Nance.  (read more...)

On Tuesday, March 8, Dr. Margaret Derry presents some of her latest research at the Rural History Roundtable: "Art and Science in Breeding: Creating Better Livestock." Margaret Derry is a purebred breeder, artist, and historian of genetics and its relationship to culture. She is the author of: Horses in Society; Bred for Perfection: Shorthorn Cattle, Collies and Arabian Horses since 1800; Ontario's Cattle Kingdom; and the forthcoming volume Practice and Science in Livestock Breeding: Creating Better Chickens.

Dr. Dougls McCalla, recently retired as U of G’s Canada Research Chair in Rural History, examines Pre-Confederation trade to find early Canadians were not so self-sufficient as we might wish to believe. (read more...)