Charles Darwin in 1881
The History Department at Ohio State University produces a monthly podcast called Origins. Origins podcasts place a contemporary event in historical perspective. This month, they are looking at the reception of Darwin’s theories in the United States. The writer of this podcast was Prof. Steven Conn.
Paul Cowan’s feature-length documentary Paris 1919 combines archival footage and dramatic re-enactments to take viewers inside the peace talks that followed World War I.In this clip, the parties gather in Paris to draft the various parts of the peace treaty. John Maynard Keynes sets up the British Reparations Committee, which details the losses in France and Britain.
more about "Paris 1919 (Clip 1) by Paul Cowan – NFB", posted with vodpod
HIST 1407 (First-Year Canadian History Survey Course)
Lectures in this course fall into two categories: lectures on a short period of Canadian history (e.g., a decade) and lectures that trace a theme over a longer span of time. On Monday, I talked about Canada in the 1920s. I spoke about the Winnipeg General Strike, the Canadian economy, the growth of car and radio ownership, the King-Byng affair, the Balfour Declaration, the Halibut Treaty, the Chanak Crisis, and other incidents in Canada’ s diplomatic history. I worked some material about Mackenzie King’s private life into the lecture. I also mentioned Edwards v. Canada (Attorney General), the case that led to the appointment of the first woman to the Senate in 1930.
A major theme of my lecture on Monday was the role of third parties in Canadian politics in the 1920s. I showed this “heritage minute” in lecture, which generated a debate in the class about the role of the NDP in federal politics today. (Jack Layton visited our campus last week, which was a “teachable moment” for me).
Here are some of the pictures I found in preparing the powerpoints for my lecture.
Arthur Meighen
King and his dog Pat, 1924
King at the Imperial Conference in 1926, Fighting for Canada's Autonomy
Lord Byng, GG, and Lady Byng
King at the Canadian Legation in Washington, 1927
My lecture on Wednesday was about the history of alcohol in Canada. I spoke about whiskey traders and natives, the Canada Temperance Act, Ontario’s experiment with prohibition, smuggling, and the influence of religion on attitudes to drinking.
Police Raid on Illegal Bar, Elk River Ontario, 1925
LCBO Store, Late 1920s
LCBO Store, 1950s
Fourth-Year Seminar on Canada in the Confederation Period
Peter J. Smith, “The Ideological Origins of Canadian Confederation” Canadian Journal of Political Science 20, no. 1 (1987): 3-29; Arthur Silver, “Confederation and Quebec” The French Canadian Idea of Confederation, 1864-1900 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1997), 33-50 ;Paul Romney, chapter 7 “Confederation: the Untold Story” in Getting It Wrong: How Canadians Forgot Their Past and Imperilled Confederation (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1999).
HIST 5157
In my graduate level course, we discussed Alfred D. Chandler, Jr., The Visible Hand: the Managerial Revolution in American Business (Cambridge, Mass. : Belknap Press, 1977); R ichard John “Elaborations, Revisions, Dissents: Alfred D. Chandler, Jr.’s, The Visible Hand after Twenty Years,” Business History Review 71 (Summer 1997): 151-200. The students found Chandler’s book to be a difficult but rewarding read.
Amusing.
more about "Rough Cut Video Blog > Hilarious Gene…", posted with vodpod
YouTube Channel of the United States National Archives and Record Administration has recently uploaded some neat films from NARA’s vaults. Perhaps the most interesting of these archival materials is the WWII propaganda film “Why We Fight”.
Spaceflight junkies will like this video:
One hopes that Canadian archives will soon begin to upload their holdings of film to YouTube.
Next year the Third European Congress in World and Global History will be hosted by the Department of Economic History at LSE, on 14-17 April 2011. Though the congress is intended to cover the full breadth of world, global and transnational history, we hope that it will include plenty of economic history, as did the preceding conference in Dresden in 2008. The Call for PANELS is below; please note that the deadline is 28 February (this year).
14 – 17 (not 11-14) April 2011, London School of Economics & Political Science
THEME: CONNECTIONS AND COMPARISONS
Recent decades have seen the re-emergence and, on an unprecedented scale, the further development of various interacting strands of world, global and trans-national history, all sharing the aim of transcending national historiographies. Connections and comparisons have been central to these intellectual enterprises.
We cordially invite proposals for panels examining comparisons, connections and entanglements between polities, societies, communities and individuals situated in, or spanning, different regions of the world. The perspectives involved will range from interactions between humanity and the environment, including over the very long term, through the cultural and economic histories of material and social life, to empires, international organizations, oceans as spaces of sustained interaction between communities from different continents, the experience and consequences of migration, periods of ‘de-globalization’ and ‘globalization’, and the intercontinental sources and consequences of revolutions, whether political, technological, social or ideological. Not least, we encourage critical reflection on the methodological and conceptual issues involved in comparative, transnational and entangled histories: whether in general, or in relation to specific areas of historical inquiry, from religions to real wages, from diasporas to epistemic communities. We look forward to contributions from not only from scholars in various disciplines, based both in Europe and around the world. Conference languages will be English, French and German.
Proposals: We invite proposals for panels comprising 3-6 participants. In addition to the names, affiliations and email and snailmail addresses of the participants, proposals should include titles and abstracts of the panel as a whole (200-600 words) and of each individual paper (100-300 words). Please note that, at this stage, it is only proposals for panels, rather than for isolated papers, that are sought. However, panel proposers are welcome to leave one or two spaces for further papers. After the Steering Committee has selected panels, in April 2010, there will be a second Call, inviting proposals for individual papers to take up any vacant slots in the already-accepted panels.
Proposals should be submitted as email attachments to Katja Naumann at: headquarters@eniugh.org
HIST 1407: Canadian History Since 1867
I devoted two lectures to the First World War. Monday’s lecture focused more on events overseas (European diplomacy, alliances, living conditions in the trenches, key battles), while the lecture on Wednesday was mainly about events in Canada (the politics of war, conscription, Regulation 17, war production, profiteering, income tax, railway nationalization).
Teaching about the First World War is a treat because it allows me to use fantastic images from the LAC collection as part of my Powerpoint. Here are some examples of the images I used.
German and Canadian Soldiers Working Together to Remove Wounded From Vimy Ridge
Here is another good image, taken on the same day:
Wounded at Vimy
Munitions Factory
Consider this photo of a woman participating in the war economy:
Or this great photo:
Anti-Conscription Protest, Victoria Square, Montreal, 1917
I was also able to show lots of great war time propaganda posters. The LAC some great items in their collection, including:
and
and
and
4th Year Seminar on British North America and the Age of Confederation
Our focus this week was on BNA reactions to the Civil War. Our readings were: S.F. Wise, “The Annexation Movement and Its Effect on Canadian Opinion, 1837-67” in Canada views the United States : nineteenth-century political attitudes, edited by S.F. Wise and Robert Craig Brown (Seattle : University of Washington Press, 1967); Robin Winks, Canada and the United States: the Civil War Years (Baltimore : Johns Hopkins Press, 1960), chp. 2, 3. We also listened to two excellent student presentations on the lives of Sir Charles Hastings Doyle and Garnet Joseph Wolseley.
Wolseley
In seminar, I had my students take 15 minutes to read two primary sources.
The first was Lincoln’s famous 1862 letter to the New York Tribune newspaper.
Lincoln
Source: The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln edited by Roy P. Basler, vol. 5, “Letter to Horace Greeley” (August 22, 1862), p. 388.
“Executive Mansion,
Washington, August 22, 1862.
Hon. Horace Greeley:
Dear Sir.
I have just read yours of the 19th. addressed to myself through the New-York Tribune. If there be in it any statements, or assumptions of fact, which I may know to be erroneous, I do not, now and here, controvert them. If there be in it any inferences which I may believe to be falsely drawn, I do not now and here, argue against them. If there be perceptable in it an impatient and dictatorial tone, I waive it in deference to an old friend, whose heart I have always supposed to be right.
As to the policy I “seem to be pursuing” as you say, I have not meant to leave any one in doubt.
I would save the Union. I would save it the shortest way under the Constitution. The sooner the national authority can be restored; the nearer the Union will be “the Union as it was.” If there be those who would not save the Union, unless they could at the same time save slavery, I do not agree with them. If there be those who would not save the Union unless they could at the same time destroy slavery, I do not agree with them. My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that. What I do about slavery, and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save the Union; and what I forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it would help to save the Union. I shall do less whenever I shall believe what I am doing hurts the cause, and I shall do more whenever I shall believe doing more will help the cause. I shall try to correct errors when shown to be errors; and I shall adopt new views so fast as they shall appear to be true views.
I have here stated my purpose according to my view of official duty; and I intend no modification of my oft-expressed personal wish that all men every where could be free.
Yours,
A. Lincoln.”
I then had the students read an editorial about Lincoln’s letter to Greeley that appeared in the Toronto Globe, 28 August 1862.
This generated a good discussion of Canadian attitudes to the Civil War.
Yesterday’s FT had a review of The Enlightened Economy: An Economic History of Britain 1700-1850 by Joel Mokyr
(Yale University Press). You can buy the book from Amazon.ca, as I just did. I expect that this book will inspire Canadian historians to look at similar themes as they relate to our history.
February is Black History Month in Canada and the United States. Black History Month opens with the production of a new play in Ottawa, William Hall. Hall was a Black Nova Scotian who won the Victoria Cross for his efforts in helping to put down the Indian Mutiny in 1857. I hope to have the chance to see this play at some point. I will also be interested to see the reaction of the Indo-Canadian community to this play.
