Canadian History

'Labour of love': U of T prof takes multifaceted approach to exploring Black history in Canada

Christopher.Sorensen — Fri, 04 Oct 2024 15:57:15 +0000

'Labour of love': U of T prof takes multifaceted approach to exploring Black history in Canada

Christopher.Sorensen Fri, 10/04/2024 - 11:57

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Afua Cooper, a U of T alumna and professor in U of T Scarborough’s department of historical and cultural studies, is an expert on Black Canadian slavery and Black Canadian studies (supplied image)

Noel Ransome

Topic

Our Community

Canadian History

Black

U of T Scarborough

Subheadline

Afua Cooper, an expert on Black Canadian slavery and Black Canadian studies, recently joined U of T Scarborough

Afua Cooper still vividly recalls being a recent immigrant to Canada in the 1980s and considering waitressing jobs at local restaurants in Toronto.

“You would walk into a place looking for work, and they wouldn’t even try to hide it,” she says. “The woman just looked at me and said, ‘I'm sorry, but we just don't want Jamaicans. You’re not the kind of people we want to hire.’”

During that time – and even today – Canada was considered by many to be what Cooper describes as “post-racial-nice,” having avoided the same depth and lasting racism found across the United States.

But the reality was often very different.

“These things still happened here – not that long ago and even today – though the language has changed so the actions don’t appear nearly as racist,” says Cooper, an expert on Black Canadian slavery and Black Canadian studies who recently joined the department of historical and cultural studies at the ��߲ݴ�ý Scarborough as a professor.

Cooper was raised in the Whithorn district of Westmoreland, Jamaica, in the post-independence era. Her parents, by comparison, had grown up under British colonialism.

“I guess the people at the Ministry of Education decided that little Black children should learn about themselves,” says Cooper, who later became a founding member of an African Studies Club at Camperdown High School in East Kingston. “So, I thankfully grew up with a strong notion of who I was.”

By late 1980, having migrated to Toronto to pursue higher education, Cooper was fully dedicated to exploring history and the African diaspora as a U of T undergraduate student – a time when the concept of Black studies was rare on Canadian university campuses.

"When I was a student, the university resisted Black-focused curricula, and hiring Black faculty therefore felt superficial,” says Cooper. “Now, with the Black Research Network, Black faculty caucus, and dedicated programs for Black students, the commitment to diversity feels genuine – and I’m glad to be a part of it.”

Cooper, a scholar fluent in different mediums, is an award-winning author who has published 13 books spanning genres that include history, poetry, children’s literature and fiction.

Cooper likens her educational approach to making gumbo: “I put everything into it – though as a vegan, it’s strictly plant-based – representing the Black diaspora,” she says. “Teaching isn’t a single trajectory, it’s about sharing the joys of Black culture and the multifaceted nature of our struggles.”

For example, in 2021 Cooper led a three-year project, A Black People’s History of Canada, that received over $1 million in grant funding from the Department of Canadian Heritage. The aim is to cover Black Canadian history from 1604 onward with the help of 13 researchers who have catalogued records across Canada, from British Columbia to Newfoundland.

"Teachers often say, 'I'd like to teach Black history, but I can't find anything,' which is frustrating," says Cooper. "Now there are no excuses; we're writing curricula and guides with school boards, and we've partnered with government agencies responsible for education. It’s been a true labour of love."

For Cooper, returning to U of T is as much an opportunity to share her work with like-minded visionaries as it is a homecoming.

“I went into labour twice at Robarts library, once with each of my daughters,” she says with a laugh.

“They both spent a lot of time there when they were younger, so I’m thrilled to be back to showcase a history of African and Black people that has been so trampled upon and denied. For me, this is my purpose – to restore and share that history.”

Uncovering untold stories: U of T course explores Black Canadian history

Christopher.Sorensen — Wed, 28 Feb 2024 19:01:44 +0000

Uncovering untold stories: U of T course explores Black Canadian history

Christopher.Sorensen Wed, 02/28/2024 - 14:01

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Archival photograph of the Emanuel African Methodist Church congregation, early 1920s, in Edmonton (photo by Glenbow Archives, University of Calgary, ND-3-1199, and via the research of Jennifer R. Kelly, professor emeritus, University of Alberta, for the Edmonton City as Museum Project)

Topic

Faculty of Arts & Science

History

St. Michael's College

Trinity College

How familiar are you with Black Canadian history?

“So many people educated in Canada, or external to Canada, don't know about the long-standing presence of Black people in this country,” says Funké Aladejebi, an assistant professor of history in the ��߲ݴ�ý’s Faculty of Arts & Science.

“This breadth of knowledge on Black Canadian history often gets ignored or is not often inserted into broader courses on Canadian history.”

Determined to change this, Aladejebi is teaching a year-long course titled “Black Canadian History.” It’s part of a new Certificate in Black Canadian Studies offered through University College and open to all students in the Faculty of Arts & Science.

“Many of the students in this class come from health and science, equity studies and Indigenous studies, and a lot of them like the idea of being able to say they have specific expertise on Black Canadian studies more broadly,” says Aladejebi.

“It's trying to give students a broad overview of the movements and migrations of persons of African descent into the land that is now called Canada and thinking in complex ways about how people were living and existing in this country.”

Salt Spring Island's Central School, 1929 (photo courtesy of the Salt Spring Island Archives)

The course goes as far back as 1604, which marks the earliest records of persons of African descent in Canada. It also explores the experiences of Black Loyalists – people of African descent who sided with the British during the American Revolutionary War – passengers of the Underground Railroad, as well as lesser-known movements to the West Coast, the Prairies and Maritimes.

Funké Aladjebi (supplied image)

“We tend to forget about these regions where Black people resided in smaller numbers,” says Aladejebi. “But it's our responsibility as historians to show the breadth of where Black people have been and where they still are.”

For example, most Canadians are unfamiliar with the history of the Jamaican Maroons in Nova Scotia.

After a series of wars fighting for freedom from British control in Jamaica, more than 500 Maroons – men, women and children – were forcibly transported to Halifax in 1796.

Despite an inhospitable reception, the Maroons flourished and maintained a strong sense of community in exile, says Aladjebi, adding that they were connected to the city’s larger community, having been involved in the construction of the Halifax Citadel. However, many in the community spent years petitioning the colonial government to leave Nova Scotia, and in 1800, most of them left for the free Black colony of Sierra Leone in West Africa.

“But it’s widely believed some Maroons stayed behind and their continued presence is reflected in the surnames, accents, idioms, customs, oral histories and traditions of African Nova Scotians,” Aladejebi says.

The Halifax Citadel (photo by Ron Cogswell, CC BY 2.0)

The second half of the course dives into more contemporary issues such as racial violence, anti-Black racism, immigration trends, equity and inclusion for Black communities, and injustice in Canada.

“We never just stay in the history, we always bring it to the contemporary with these historical foundations and track why this continues to exist today,” says Aladejebi. “By the time we move through the course, students understand the roots of anti-Black racism in Canada, and they're able to navigate institutions in a clearer way.”

Aladejebi says she is intrigued by the range of emotions the students experience as she teaches the material.

“They move through emotional stages where they are surprised at first and then get frustrated because of what they didn't know,” says Aladejebi. “The Black students go through a variety of feelings, but at end of the class, they’re feeling like they know a little bit more about themselves and the experience of persons of African descent.

“Non-Black students also go through a series of emotions. They feel better equipped to talk about Black Canadian history, they’re able to better understand various social relationships that are part of Black experiences across the diaspora.”

There can be anxious moments.

“Students have to talk about, ‘What was my experience in school? What was my experience and engagement with policing and the judicial system?’ So we go through pockets where students are nervous about saying the right and wrong things.”

For many students, working through these tensions leads to knowledge and understanding.

“As a Black Canadian political science major pursuing a career as a policy analyst, the course’s material, conversations and activities are crucial to both my academic and professional development,” says Dacian Dawes, a third-year member of St. Michael’s College who is double majoring in political science and critical studies in equity and solidarity, with a minor in African studies and a certificate in Black Canadian history.

“It has increased my understanding of systemic inequalities, inspiring me to use this information to build on my political science studies and future career.”

Erinayo Adediwura Oyeladun, a second-year student in African studies and a member of Trinity College, says she has been empowered by studying the work of Black Canadian history scholars, and sees how historical understanding can be a powerful tool in creating change.

“The historians’ research teaches me the importance of situating your work as more than just an intellectual discovery. Your work should also represent your community and serve a broader purpose in making a positive impact for your community.”

For Aladejebi, teaching the course has been equally as energizing, with her students continually challenging the way she delivers – and receives – information.

“We all come with our limitations, biases and prejudices. This course is helping us to think about where they come from, why they exist, and how we can interpret them. It's about interrupting the cycles, unlearning what we thought we knew, and re-imagining something better.”

Students collect local stories as part of digital history project on Oshawa's 'Motor City'

Christopher.Sorensen — Mon, 18 Jul 2022 13:28:40 +0000

Students collect local stories as part of digital history project on Oshawa's 'Motor City'

Christopher.Sorensen Mon, 07/18/2022 - 09:28

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A man passes a GM mural in downtown Oshawa. Stock photos from GM Oshawa one day after the announcement of the closure of the auto plant. (photo by Rene Johnston/Toronto Star/Getty Images)

Sonja Johnston

Topic

Our Community

Canadian History

Faculty of Arts & Science

Humanities

Jackman Humanities Institute

For more than a century, the General Motors Co. plant in Oshawa – once one of the biggest automotive assembly plants in the world – has been the lifeblood of the community. A few years ago, GM workers successfully fought to keep the plant open as management threatened to close the site and several other locations in the U.S. in a bid to cut costs.

Dimitry Anastakis, a Jackman Humanities Institute faculty fellow and professor in the department of history in the Faculty of Arts & Science and Rotman School of Management, recently took an in-depth look at the history and significance of automotive manufacturing in Oshawa in a project done through the JHI Scholars-in-Residence (SiR) program.

The project, titled “Contesting Closure: Life Stories of Work and Community in Oshawa’s Motor City, 1980-2019,” led students to interview former GM employees, do primary research and visit the Oshawa Museum and Canadian Automotive Museum, also in the city about 60 kilometres east of downtown Toronto.

“This was a fantastic experience for myself and for the students, in that it allowed us to pursue research that they were genuinely interested in, and we also did some fantastic fieldwork and archival research,” Anastakis said. “The collaboration between myself, the students and the SiR program was really ideal, and we were able to advance the project significantly.”

In partnership with Ingenium-Canada’s Museum of Science and Innovation, the project helped train students to develop their historical research skills, oral history and interviewing skills and digital history skills with the aim of creating an interactive digital history exhibit documenting automobile production in Oshawa.

Students helped plan the design of the online exhibit about work at GM’s Oshawa plant and its meaning for the community, its workers, and the broader Canadian economy.

Dimitry Anastakis and Fiona McCrow (R) (photos courtesy of Anastakis and McCrow)

Fiona McCrow, an undergraduate student in Victoria College majoring in history with double minors in political science and environmental studies, was one of five SiR researchers on the project. “This involved a lot of primary source research, including combing through news articles, taking trips to archives such as the Canadian Automotive Museum, the Industrial Relations Library, and the Milt Harris Library and interviewing former General Motors employees,” she said.

“Professor Anastakis and our Ingenium collaborator Emily Gann had envisioned the oral interviews as the major component of our SiR experience. As a result, we also researched our interview subjects and prepared specific interview questions for them in tandem with the historical context related research.”

A four-week paid research fellowship, the SiR program provides students with an opportunity to collaborate with an interdisciplinary and intellectually vibrant community and to build relationships with peers, professors and researchers.

McCrow said the SIR program helped foster a sense of academic community among the researchers involved in the project, and gave her first-hand experience doing independent research.

“I felt that our team was very effective in capitalizing on our personal strengths to complement and amplify our collective productivity. Thanks to the freedom that Professor Anastakis and Emily gave to our team, we also felt a strong sense of ownership with this project, which in turn fostered a strong sense of pride in the work that we were doing,” she added.

One of the highlights of working on the project, she said, was gathering in Victoria College's Burwash Dining Hall, where scholars-in-residence would update each other on their progress. “It was fascinating to consider how so many ground-breaking projects across such a wide range of disciplines were happening simultaneously, right next to one another in the rooms of Northrop Frye Hall. Since we spent most of our day thinking about our own projects, reconnecting with the other scholars at the end of the day helped me find perspectives and approaches that I hadn't considered in my own project.”

McCrow said she recommends SiR to anyone considering research and graduate school, as it’s a great opportunity to figure out if research work is suited to them. “The way that the SiR program is structured – both in terms of the collaborative nature and the diverse ways in which research can be presented – reflects what research outside the classroom is often like.”

Through photos, recipes – even ghosts – U of T historian retraces Icelandic migration to North America

Christopher.Sorensen — Tue, 12 Jan 2021 19:45:14 +0000

Through photos, recipes – even ghosts – U of T historian retraces Icelandic migration to North America

Christopher.Sorensen Tue, 01/12/2021 - 14:45

Cutline

A photo of the east side of First Avenue in Gimli, Man. (photo courtesy of The New Iceland Heritage Museum)

Sean McNeely

Topic

Global Lens

Canadian History

Faculty of Arts & Science

History

L.K. Bertram recalls growing up in Manitoba and realizing not everyone was raised eating “vínarterta” or believing in ghosts.

But these traditions were common if your family came from Iceland.

Because of food shortages, climate shifts and poverty, almost a quarter of Iceland’s population migrated to North America between 1870 and 1914, forming small Icelandic communities in the United States and Canada. Intrigued by this migration and her own heritage, Bertram, an associate professor in the Faculty of Arts & Science’s department of history, wrote The Viking Immigrants: Icelandic North Americans.

“It's the history of an immigrant community and it just happens to be the community I come from,” says Bertram, whose family arrived and helped form an Icelandic colony along the west shore of Lake Winnipeg and an Icelandic immigrant neighbourhood in the city of Winnipeg in the late 19^th century.

“The book is for scholars of immigration and people interested in Canadian history,” she adds. “It's for Icelanders in Iceland to help them understand the significance of the immigration because fewer people there talk about it. It's also for anyone who wants to understand why we do these weird things in this particular way.”

Bertram brings immigrant history to life through rare photographs, interviews, artifacts and generations-old recipes, mapping the transformation and evolution of Icelandic North American culture over a century and a half.

Almost a quarter of the population of Iceland came to North America during the late 19th century, and many of them settled in Manitoba (photo courtesy of The New Iceland Heritage Museum)

“Growing up, I always noticed we did things a little differently,” says Bertram. “As I got older, I was interested in where these unusual traditions come from, the most common traditions that you would find in our community – and the secret history behind them.

“When you study where they come from, you understand how the community has evolved over the past 150 years. And a lot of what I talk about in the book, you can still find in the community today.”

One of those traditions is an Icelander’s passion for coffee.

“When people first came here, everyone was drinking tea because of the British,” says Bertram. But Icelanders were devoted coffee drinkers, so they developed their own bustling coffee markets, including lively coffee houses that were important social hubs.”

One coffee house even has a little-known connection to Hollywood.

“There was a famous Disney cartoonist who was Icelandic,” says Bertram. He fell in love with a coffee house waitress in Winnipeg’s Icelandic neighborhood. According to Bertram, he tried to convince her to come to Hollywood with him, but she declined.

“He said he was working on a big Disney movie and that she was his model.” That movie was Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Bertram says.

Another tradition Bertram explores is vínarterta, a traditional Icelandic cake that remains an obsession in the community. Often served during celebrations or holidays, the multi-layered torte is flavoured with almonds and cardamom.

Vínarterta is a layered Icelandic cake often served at celebrations and holidays (photo via Wikimedia Commons/Navaro - Own work,  CC BY-SA 3.0)

“The trick with this cake is that you're never supposed to change the recipe,” says Bertram. “It's like a time capsule of something that was eaten at the time of migration. People still make it today.”

In addition to exploring the history of the delicacy, Bertram’s book also offers six vínarterta recipes, some which date back to the 1790s.

Also relatively unchanged is the prominence of Viking statues, art and imagery across the Canadian Prairies and the American Midwest, where Icelandic and Scandinavian immigrants settled.

Bertram also explores superstition and belief in ghosts.

“There is a larger, older spiritual culture in Iceland with important roots from the pre-Christian world and it's a distinctive way in which we have traditionally thought about our relationship to land, history and other people,” says Bertram. “Ghost stories are so often dismissed in historical study, but I believe they function as important texts that can tell us a lot about how everyday people discussed critical issues like inequality and power.

“What was most meaningful for me was to be able to connect with these much older voices,” says Bertram. “My grandmother, like a lot of people in her generation, were encouraged to speak only English so we didn't learn Icelandic at all.

“I knew a couple of words, but that was it. So learning the language and then going into these archives and listening to these voices from 150 years ago, I could feel the sense of familiarity. It was so nice to be able to step into that old world.”

U of T's Dimitry Anastakis makes history 'tangible and real for students'

noreen.rasbach — Thu, 03 Oct 2019 20:00:00 +0000

U of T's Dimitry Anastakis makes history 'tangible and real for students'

noreen.rasbach Thu, 10/03/2019 - 16:00

Cutline

“A lot of my courses are around destroying the myth that Canadian history is boring," says Dimitry Anastakis, a professor of history at U of T (photo by Diana Tyszko)

Alexa Zulak

Topic

Our Community

Canadian History

Faculty of Arts & Science

History

Humanities

Rotman School of Management

Dimitry Anastakis is searching for diamonds on Amazon Prime.

Actually, he's looking for cubic zirconia that he can pass off as diamonds to his class later this week.

The professor in the ��߲ݴ�ý's department of history, who specializes in the intersection of business, the state, politics and globalization in post-1945 Canada, is teaching a course on commodities called Going Global from Coffee, Rubber, Diamonds and Furs to Oil.

“You’ve got to make it tangible and real for students,” says Anastakis, who joined the Faculty of Arts & Science as the newly appointed L.R. Wilson/R.J. Currie Chair in Canadian Business History earlier this summer and is cross-appointed to the Rotman School of Management. “It’s not all about some guy in front of them talking.”

Anastakis has been bringing something tactile to class each week to complement his lecture on that commodity’s connection to Canadian history.

So far, his students have seen a 100-year-old beaver fur top hat – a status symbol for the young up-and-coming businessmen of the 18^th and 19^th centuries – that has now found a home on one of his jam-packed bookshelves.

He also has a Hudson's Bay Company point blanket stashed under his desk. He brings it out and quickly indicates that the black lines – or points – stitched into the blanket once signified how much it was worth in beaver pelts.

It’s all about making history accessible to his students.

“The one remark I get far more often from students is that they didn't realize how interesting Canadian history was,” says Anastakis. “A lot of my courses are around destroying the myth that Canadian history is boring.

“When you shift your perspective and look at Canadian history in an interesting and engaging way, you realize it's actually fascinating.”

Anastakis’s own interest in Canadian history started at an early age. He says being the child of Greek immigrants made him look at Canada differently.

“I was always interested in how it functioned and why it functioned. I wanted to understand Canada better because I saw it through the eyes of a newcomer.”

And while some told him he should be focusing on Greek history instead, it simply didn’t interest him as much as the Canadian story.

“I always felt, not that Canadian history was neglected, but that there was enough history of the rest of the world,” says Anastakis. “So maybe we should all chip in on this stuff.”

Chipping in has led to Anastakis publishing nine books and edited collections about Canadian history, including three on the Canadian automotive industry, which he says is funny since he’s not all that interested in cars.

“I’m not a gearhead or anything,” says Anastakis. “Like, if your car breaks down on the side of the highway, don’t call me.”

But the issues around public policy, political economy and the intersection of the state, business and industry drew him to the Canada-U.S. Auto Pact of 1965 when he started working on his PhD, kickstarting his career as an expert on the Canadian automotive industry and the impact of cars on Canadian life.

It’s a field that has seen a lot of change over the years as Canadian auto manufacturing plants have begun to shutter throughout the country in the transition from the third industrial revolution to the fourth – that is, a shift towards artificial intelligence, robotics and automation.

But Anastakis says it’s not all bad. “I don't want to be all doom and gloom about the auto industry, because while it's challenged, there's still a really large footprint here. And it's such an important footprint that as long as Canadians, Canadian policy-makers and the auto companies themselves recognize the importance of the industry for Canada, it will maintain itself in Canada to some degree,” says Anastakis.

Anastakis’s research into the Canadian auto industry will continue during his time at U of T as he works to finish a book he’s been writing about New Brunswick’s infamous Bricklin SV-1 – a two-seater sports car known for its DeLorean-like gull-wing doors. In the 1970s, the New Brunswick government lost $25 million as a result of its support for the Bricklin.

After that, he’ll take on two new projects.

One will explore the emergence of neoliberalism in Canada, specifically free trade from the election of 1911 to the Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement in the 1980s. The other will build upon his existing work to examine the last 30 years of the Canadian auto industry – its evolution from free trade to the present.

Beyond his own research, Anastakis will also take on the mandate of advancing Canadian business history as the newly appointed L.R. Wilson/R.J. Currie Chair in Canadian Business History.

Working with the Canadian Business History Association, an organization he helped create in 2015, Anastakis is planning business history conferences, launching a book series exploring themes in business and society and working to promote other projects like the Canadian Business History Association Book Prize.

“It's all about advancing Canadian business history and getting academics and scholars, especially historians who don't think of themselves as business historians, to think of themselves in some way as business historians,” says Anastakis. “Because everything deals with business.”

“It’s important to get people to realize that business history really touches upon all kinds of different aspects within the historical community.”

As for what Anastakis hopes students take away from his classes, it’s simple: the importance of history.

“History gets a bad rap. It's always Professor Binns, the ghost at Hogwarts teaching history,” says Anastakis of the history of magic professor from the Harry Potter series known for his less-than-thrilling lectures. “But in fact, that's the exact opposite of what history is all about. History is about the now and it's really about the future as well. It’s about understanding the world and the context of the world right now.

“And history is the best tool to do so.”

Desmond Morton – historian, author and former U of T principal – 'was everything a public intellectual should be'

noreen.rasbach — Fri, 27 Sep 2019 04:00:00 +0000

Desmond Morton – historian, author and former U of T principal – 'was everything a public intellectual should be'

noreen.rasbach Fri, 09/27/2019 - 00:00

Cutline

Desmond Morton was principal of the former Erindale College – now U of T Mississauga – from 1986 to 1994 (photo by Steve Jaunzems)

Topic

Desmond Morton was a teacher, author and rigorous academic, but also a brilliant communicator who brought history to life for the Canadian public.

Morton was a soldier and political organizer before joining the ��߲ݴ�ý, where he spent 25 years of his career at Erindale College, now U of T Mississauga. His energy and enthusiasm boosted Erindale’s reputation, and as principal from 1986 to 1994 he helped expand the campus and cement ties with the community.

He died on Sept. 4 at the age of 81.

Morton brought a “sense of place” to Erindale, both as part of U of T and as an important contributor to Mississauga and the Peel region, said Ian Orchard, acting vice-president and principal of U of T Mississauga. Because of Morton, “it is in the DNA of UTM that it is a community itself, but also contributes to the broader community.”

Morton lived near the campus in Streetsville (now part of Mississauga), was engaged in local politics, and encouraged students to study local history.

While at U of T, and later at McGill University, Morton was a prolific and high-profile commentator on Canadian military, labour and political history. Over the years he wrote dozens of op-ed pieces and was interviewed often in print, radio and television.

Morton was a central player in the revitalized public interest in Canadian history that exploded in the 1980s and 1990s, said historian Paul W. Bennett, a long-time colleague and friend who is now director of Schoolhouse Consulting in Halifax. “He popularized Canadian history and did so in a way that paid respect for scholarship. He combined serious research, exquisite writing and very refined communication skills.”

Desmond Morton speaks at an Ontario Federation of Labour conference in the late 1980s or early 1990s (photo by Steve Jaunzems)

Through a series of national history conferences, Morton brought together historians with radically different views, Bennett said. “He was a bridge builder [and] he just loved raising the level of discussion.” He was highly supportive of teaching at all levels, and was involved in presenting awards to the top history teachers across the country.

A quintessential absent-minded professor, Morton could be forgetful. He sometimes locked his keys in his car, left his glasses behind, or could be seen with his pant leg tucked into his sock. “He was a brilliant man who was so consumed by his thoughts and ideas, that the mundane and routine were not bothered with,” Bennett said.

Morton described himself as a political, military and industrial relations historian, noting that this “really adds up to the single specialty of human conflict, both violent and otherwise.” He wrote 40 books, including his seminal A Short History of Canada. First published in 1983, its seventh edition was released in 2017 and soon made it back on the bestseller lists.

“He had the ability to write straight-laced scholarly history with the best of them, but he also had a gift for a story and an eye for detail,” said historian Jonathan Vance, a professor of history at the University of Western Ontario. “He never forgot that history was ultimately about people.”

Morton was Vance’s external examiner for his PhD, and later became a friend and colleague. As a person, Morton “had an acerbic wit, but at heart was a kind and genial fellow,” Vance said.

Long-time colleague Robert Johnson, Professor Emeritus of history at U of T Mississauga, said Morton challenged established ideas and respectfully looked for weaknesses in people’s arguments. “He was a thoughtful, independent, contrarian voice that was profoundly important in public discourse,” Johnson said. “He was everything a public intellectual should be. He wasn’t somebody who was on a soapbox or riding a hobby horse. He asked important questions and poked holes in everybody’s dogmas.”

Desmond Dillon Paul Morton was born in 1937 in Calgary. His mother was from New Brunswick and his father, from Toronto, was an officer in the Canadian armed forces. Morton and his mother and sister moved to New Brunswick to stay with his grandparents while his father was away fighting during the Second World War.

In an autobiographical essay written in 2011 for the Canadian Historical Review, Morton said that his initial knowledge of history was gleaned from his grandfather’s Book of Knowledge encyclopedia, and faded British history books. He avoided athletic pursuits as much as possible, but learned – from a retired sea captain – how to build model wooden ships. He kept up that hobby for the rest of his life.

Former Governor General David Johnston (right) presented Morton with the Pierre Berton Award for teaching Canadian history in 2010 (photo by MCpl Dany Veillette/Rideau Hall)

After his father returned from the war, Morton and his family moved to Barrie, Ont., then to Regina. In Saskatchewan he was first exposed to political debate, when leaders such as Louis St. Laurent, C.D. Howe, Tommy Douglas, M.J. Coldwell and George Drew came to town to campaign. It was also while he was in Regina that his byline first appeared, after he wrote a letter to the CBC Times magazine. When his letter appeared in the publication, “my ego exploded,” he wrote in his memoir. “I have never quite forgotten the absurd ecstasy of seeing my name and words in print.”

In 1949 the family moved to Winnipeg, and Morton was enrolled in a private boys’ school. It was there that he started his own military career, joining the school’s cadet corps. But soon the family was off again, this time to Kingston, Ont., where Morton went to high school and joined the army reserves. His father was then transferred to Tokyo as a military attaché during the Korean War. In his summer breaks in Japan, Morton worked for a Canadian army administrative unit, and when the family returned to Canada he decided the military was where he wanted to make his career. He enrolled at College Militaire Royal de Saint-Jean, south of Montreal, then after three years continued his education and training at Royal Military College in Kingston.

Morton was awarded a Rhodes Scholarship, and studied for two years at Oxford, but returned to Canada to perform his military service training officer-cadets, then moved to the army’s historical section. By this time his interest in politics had deepened, and he was persuaded by then Ontario New Democratic Party MPP Stephen Lewis to become assistant provincial secretary of the NDP. He was responsible for membership and fundraising. “I never worked harder or more happily,” he wrote. “My recreation was producing what political parties call ‘literature,’ a stream of pamphlets on issues, organization, or anything I wanted to discuss.”

After a brief stint working on a PhD at the London School of Economics, he returned to Canada, got married in 1967 to Janet Smith, and in 1970 published his thesis as his first book, Ministers and Generals, about British army officers’ attempts to command the Canadian militia.

Former Mississauga Mayor Hazel McCallion with Morton at his installation as principal in 1986 (photo by Steve Jaunzems)

In 1969 Morton accepted a job teaching history at Erindale. He thrived in the fast-growing, diverse community of Mississauga, and participated in local politics, including working on two early campaigns of long-time mayor Hazel McCallion.

“He was incredibly efficient and productive,” said Catherine Rubincam, Associate Professor Emeritus at U of T Mississauga. “He published at a ferocious rate and he taught with great energy.”

Morton was an expert at multi-tasking, Rubincam said. He would open his mail while attending long meetings, she said, but still manage to listen and participate in the proceedings.

At U of T he had the flexibility to work on a wide range of historical subjects, although his core interest was military history which he saw as “the study of people under deadly stress, making decisions and suffering from the decisions of others.”

In the early 1980s Morton was contacted by Edmonton publisher Mel Hurtig and asked to write a history of Canada that was “short enough to be bought in the Edmonton airport and finished before the buyer landed in Toronto.” Hurtig’s further instructions, Morton said, were that it had to include women, begin with First Nations and not Confederation, and not shun controversy. The result was the wildly popular A Short History of Canada. The book, as a Toronto Star reviewer said, cemented Morton’s reputation as a “first-rate storyteller” as well as a consummate historian.

Morton took on an administrative role at Erindale, as vice-principal of humanities. Then in 1986 he was named principal. He didn’t move into the opulent principal’s residence, however, as his wife Janet was confined to a wheelchair with complications from diabetes, and he wanted to stay in the house they had adapted to her needs.

Morton was an energetic and efficient administrator, said Rubincam. “He sized up situations very fast,” and then made decisions quickly.

Morton shakes hands with Ignat Kaneff as he receives an honorary degree (photo by Steve Jaunzems)

One of his major successes was the construction of the Kaneff Centre to house the social sciences faculty as well as a lecture hall and a gallery. A local donor – Ignat Kaneff, a Bulgarian immigrant who had become a successful builder in Mississauga – funded the project. Morton also spearheaded two innovative joint programs with Sheridan College.

Morton’s wife Janet died in 1990, and in 1993 he was approached by McGill University to help launch their new Institute For the Study of Canada. He decided to go, and it was in Montreal that he met his second wife Gael Eakin, whom he married in 1999.

Morton’s reputation continued to flourish at McGill, where he maintained his prolific production of textbooks, essays, newspaper articles and public appearances. He retired from teaching at McGill in 2006, but continued to write and comment on history and public affairs.

He leaves his wife Gael, children David and Marion, a granddaughter, four stepchildren and four step-grandchildren.

Doing the devil’s work: How U of T's Elizabeth Bagshaw became a pioneer in women's health

Christopher.Sorensen — Tue, 20 Aug 2019 16:35:49 +0000

Doing the devil’s work: How U of T's Elizabeth Bagshaw became a pioneer in women's health

Christopher.Sorensen Tue, 08/20/2019 - 12:35

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Dr. Elizabeth Bagshaw packs her medical bag before making house calls in Hamilton in 1976 (photo by the Hamilton Spectator, courtesy of the Hamilton Historical Collection)

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The local bishop called her a heretic. The Criminal Code deemed her work illegal. But Dr. Bagshaw was more concerned with helping women at Canada's first birth control centre.

In September of 1901, 19-year-old Elizabeth Bagshaw came to the ��߲ݴ�ý to register for studies in medicine. She had just arrived in the city the day before from her family farm near Cannington, Ont. When she entered the registration area, she noticed most of the women were in the line to enrol for arts courses. She joined the queue that was almost entirely men – to register for medicine. One young man tried to redirect her. I’ll stay here, she said. The reaction of the men was one of amused disbelief.

“They just laughed,” Bagshaw said in the National Film Board of Canada movie Doctor Woman: The Life and Times of Dr. Elizabeth Bagshaw.

It was the beginning of a life of defying expectations for Bagshaw who, after earning her medical degree from U of T in 1905, would set up a successful practice – exceedingly rare for a woman in the early 20th century. She became medical director of Canada’s first and illegal birth control clinic in 1932 and spent more than three decades at the centre empowering women to control their reproductive health and plan the size of their own families.

During her years at U of T, Bagshaw thrived under the challenge of medical school. Many of her classes were held at the Ontario Medical College for Women and she was particularly adept at dissection – her professor praised her proficiency at dissecting cadavers – likely due to her steady, level-headed nature and ambidexterity. She and the other women did, of course, face gender discrimination: classes such as obstetrics and dissection were segregated, teasing from male classmates occurred and women were pushed into the field of obstetrics or pediatrics.

“I’d [have] liked to have gone through for a surgeon, but in those days there was no chance,” she said in Doctor Woman. “They wouldn’t have trusted a woman in those days to be a surgeon.”

After moving to Hamilton, Ont., to begin her career, Bagshaw (photo, right, courtesy U of T Archives) found that maternity work was the mainstay of her practice. Many of her patients were recent immigrants, often Italian, raised in the tradition of midwifery – and this made them much more comfortable with a female doctor. In the early days, Bagshaw rented a horse and buggy from a livery to make house calls during the day; at night, she would bike to homes to deliver babies. So successful was she at maternity work that for three years in a row she signed more birth certificates than any other doctor in Hamilton.

Like every doctor of the time, she also ministered to patients suffering from life-threatening illnesses such as tuberculosis, smallpox and typhoid – in the days before the necessary antibiotics and immunizations existed. Bagshaw herself caught the Spanish flu – which killed tens of millions throughout the world from 1918 to 1920 – but made a full recovery. It was not possible, however, to make a full recovery from her personal losses: In the summer before her final year of medical school, her father had died in an accident on the farm, falling off a ladder and breaking his neck. Then, during the First World War, her suitor, Lou Honey, was killed in the line of duty. Before he had enlisted as a soldier, Honey had given her a diamond ring. He died in 1915. For many years, a picture of him in uniform remained on Bagshaw’s wall.

It was against the hardscrabble backdrop of the Great Depression that Bagshaw’s pioneering work with Canada’s first birth control clinic began. One day in 1932, a woman named Mary Hawkins paid a visit to her office. Hawkins – who did much volunteer work with women and children – had opened the clinic on March 3, 1932, to offer contraceptives and information on family planning. However, the doctor they hired resigned three weeks in, and Hawkins had come to implore Bagshaw to sign on as medical director.

The stakes for those involved in the clinic were extremely high: It was an indictable offence – liable to two years in prison – to sell or advertise contraceptives or to instruct people on how to use them. One clause in the code offered hope: if one could prove “public good” was served by their actions, they could avoid conviction. But no one wanted to be put in the position of a long, expensive trial or risk being jailed.

Bagshaw initially turned down the position of medical director. It was not out of legal concerns: She was not one to back away from a fight. But she was time-constrained as a doctor with a thriving practice and a young adopted son to raise.

Then, she changed her mind. As a physician, she had borne witness to the hardships that many large families faced, and the physical problems women suffered from bearing many children. Now, in addition, there was the relentless poverty caused by the Great Depression: husbands on relief, great numbers of children that couldn’t be fed or cared for. In the 1930s, the maternal death rate in Canada was high. Many women also died trying to perform abortions on themselves, or while undergoing the procedure illegally. Bagshaw believed informing and helping women in the arena of family planning was the right thing to do – for them and their families. “I had so many patients who were having babies nearly every year or two years, and their husbands were out of work, and they hadn’t enough to eat. Why should they go on having more children?” she said, pragmatically, in the book Elizabeth Bagshaw, by Marjorie Wild.

And so, almost every Friday afternoon for the next 34 years, Bagshaw would work in the clinic: She would fit women for diaphragms, instruct them on the proper use and then have them come in for a followup. She did not receive a salary – only a small honorarium fluctuating between $100 and $200 a year. The number of women who sought her help was well beyond the clinic’s predictions: In the first year, they expected about 60 women. Almost 400 came.

Dr. Elizabeth Bagshaw, CM, receiving the Governor General's award for the Persons Case (photo courtesy of the Government of Canada)

In retrospect, this likely didn’t shock them. The clinic provided the first opportunity most women ever had to learn about their own bodies and control their reproductive destinies. Prior to the clinic, men were the gatekeepers to women’s health in Canada. Men headed the educational and medical systems that controlled knowledge about birth control. They helmed the pulpits that made the religious creeds against using contraceptives. They ran the courts that judged birth control as unlawful, and spoke loudest in the court of public opinion that deemed it immoral. The women who ran the clinic cut through this socially constructed shame, countering that birth control was “about as immoral as a good day’s washing is immoral.”

“The challenges that [Bagshaw] faced during the Depression are similar to challenges that doctors in many countries face today, whether it is in countries where bias against women prevails or in countries where sexuality is not understood as a natural and important part of life,” says U of T’s Rebecca Cook, a professor emerita at U of T’s Faculty of Law and co-director of the Reproductive and Sexual Health Law Program. “Her legacy continues to motivate doctors today. She understood that neglecting health care that only women need contributes to their subordination.”

One of the clinic’s staunchest opposers was the Roman Catholic Church. Bishop J.T. McNally of Hamilton incessantly attacked Hawkins and Bagshaw at the pulpit, referring to them as “devils and whores,” and birth control policies as “blasphemous, degrading, dehumanizing.”

“The bishop always warned the [nursing] graduates not to come near the [clinic] because it was run by heretics and devils,” said Bagshaw in Doctor Woman. “I was the devil. I didn’t worry about it.”

“It was the best advertising we had,” she added. “It was against the law to advertise, therefore we couldn’t say anything, but he advertised it – then I’d tell the nurses, ‘Be sure to be on time, don’t be late at the next two or three clinics because we’ll have a number of Roman Catholics there.’ And we always did.”

In September 1936, a trial brought the issue of the legality of distributing and advising on birth control to a head. Dorothea Palmer, a nurse with the Parents’ Information Bureau in Ottawa, was charged with advertising birth control after visiting women in their homes to teach them about family planning. After a tense 20 days of trial, a verdict was reached: she was not guilty. The magistrate found that Palmer had, indeed, acted for the “public good.” The case was appealed. She won again.

After that, the most stressful, worrisome years were over for the clinic. The fear of being charged or imprisoned had dissipated. But it wasn’t until 1969 – three years after Bagshaw retired from the clinic, that the birth control law was officially changed.

Bagshaw didn’t retire from her own practice until the age of 95 in 1976, which made her the oldest physician practising in Canada. (At that time, she had about 50 patients all over the age of 80.) She died at the age of 100. For her pioneering work, she had been inducted into the Canadian Medical Hall of Fame, invested into the Order of Canada and had an elementary school in Hamilton named in her honour. Bagshaw had greatly advanced the concept of health-care equality: Regardless of what opinions one held, society was not entitled to impose them in a way that impeded the health of another.

“In addition to her courage in facing prejudice and stigma, her work contributed to our understanding of health equity. She understood that health-care services need to be provided in an equitable way to all women, in a way that attends to their sex-specific health-care needs,” says Cook. “Now, international human rights law recognizes that for women to be equal, in fact, their sex-specific health-care needs have to be accommodated.”