More than a century before the global outbreak of Covid-19, another deadly disease struck Honolulu, one that ignited the tragic unfolding of many stories about public health, urban fires and social ...

This week I talk with Peter Fortna, author of The Fort McKay Métis Nation: A Community History. We talk about the origins of the Nation, which is located in northeastern Alberta, the community ...

Built on a 200-acre estate, von Fellenberg used schooling to reduce the cleavages between social classes. His curriculum balanced intellectual work with substantial periods – many hours of the day – ...

This week, I talk with Barbara Messamore, author of Times of Transformation: The 1921 Canadian General Election about one of Canada’s turning point elections. We discuss the post-war economy’s, ...

Active History is hiring a part-time site manager. Come work with us! Editorial meeting for “les pages féminines,” La Presse newsroom, 4 March 1969. Bibliothèque et Archives nationales du Québec. Site ...

As the 1930s unfolded, the soaring unemployment and general miseries of the Great Depression breathed new life into the Canadian left. Socialism began to take root in federal politics, a process ...

1. Toronto Central Library, 1920. The reading room was the heart of the library until it was renovated in 1930 to create a circulating library. Courtesy of Toronto Public Library.

Imagine being suddenly told that you cannot research online when writing history. No electronic journals, no ebooks, no Internet Archive, no Wikipedia, no search engines. You will instead be forced to ...

Black baseball clubs came into being across the Maritimes as early as the 1880s. Professor Colin Howell of Saint Mary’s University took a close look at their formation in his seminal work on sport ...

As summer winds down I have been slowly catching up on reading avoided while happily engaged elsewhere. This includes back copies of The Economist. As always reading The Economist prompts an ...

Thinking Historically for Canada’s Future is a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC)-funded Partnership Grant focused on K-12 history education in Canada. Led by Dr. Carla Peck at ...

In April and May of 1956, Lethbridge, Alberta, Social Credit MP John Blackmore gave two speeches over the radio to his constituents where he claimed that on recent versions of Canadian dollar bills, ...