The Past Speaks

An interview with Dominic Giroux, the President of Laurentian University (where I teach).

Vodpod videos no longer available.

Great interview!

Classes at this university resumed on 4 January.

On Monday, I met the students in my post-Confederation Canadian history survey course. Actually, many of them were in the pre-Confederation course before Christmas, but there were also some new faces in the lecture hall. My lecture on Monday mainly dealt with administrative issues, reviewing the course outline. The lecture on Wednesday was on Canadian political history from 1867 to 1878. I got to talk about the Pacific Scandal and the origins of the National Policy.

Honours Seminar

The students in my fourth-year seminar on British North America presented their research proposals to the class this week. Each student spoke for five minutes about their proposed essay topic. They also submitted written essay topic proposals and working bibliographies.

I’m really excited about the research projects. Some high quality essays are going to emerge from this seminar! The students’ research proposals show that they are interested in a diverse range of historical subjects. The most popular topic was the Fenian Raids. Undergraduates are always drawn to the Fenian Raids because they involved bloodshed. Moreover, one of my colleagues, the department specialist in military history, also teaches about Irish history, and our students are exposed to lots of information about the Irish nationalism. I think that may also have been a factor directing the attention of so many students to the Fenians. One student is looking at the 1868 assassination of T.D. McGee.

Fenian Raid Volunteers, Montreal, 1866

Someone else is looking at the impact of mineral development in the 1840s and 1850s on the Natives living north of Lakes Huron and Superior. His powerpoint presentation for class included a very cool photo of the mines on Silver Islet, a speck of land in Lake Superior that was developed in the pre-Confederation period.

One girl will be writing her essay on public executions in Canada in the 1860s. She is trying to find out why the Macdonald government ended public executions in 1870. She has found some excellent primary sources online, including a document in Macdonald’s handwriting. Abortion and the changes to Canada’s abortion law made in the 1840s is something one female student will be writing about. She has found some good primary sources. Another student, who hails from the town of Stratford, is examining the impact of railway construction in the 1850s on her hometown. She accessed some materials in a local archive over the Christmas break. A student of South Asian heritage has announced that his essay will be on Canadian reactions to the Indian Mutiny in 1857, which a great topic, especially since Canadians formed a regiment to help put down the rising. I’m also looking forward to reading the essay on Sir John A. Macdonald’s role in the negotiation of the Treaty of Washington.

Today, I met my graduate course. This is the first graduate-level course I have ever taught. Four of our MA students are in the class.   The course is structured around the records of a company named Montreal Telegraph, which was the dominant provider of telegraphy in central Canada in the 1850s and 1860s. Luckily for our purposes, its records were preserved in pristine condition in the national archives in Ottawa. Students in most graduate level courses focus on writing a research essay.

Telegram Carried by the Montreal Telegraph Company. This telegram was coded and carried military information regarding the Fenian Raids.

In this class, the students will be doing something very different, namely a group project related to the history of this company that will involve creating a website. This website, which shall explain the history of the company, will be left online for two years. The group project is designed to teach the students about the use of primary sources and new methods of presenting historical knowledge that go beyond the traditional essay. I am a great believer in teaching students digital humanities skills (e.g., how to create website and then promote it, how to register a domain name, etc). This course should advance this educational agenda. The other goals of the course are to teach the students about 19th century Canadian history, the social impact of the telecommunications revolution in nineteenth-century North America, and to introduce students to the vast literature on business history. I should mention that in addition to being a history of 19th century North America, I’m also a member of the Business History Conference.

The website on Montreal Telegraph will go live in April, at the end of the term. I shall keep blog readers posted.