History to Knowledge

What Is Trans History? | Perspectives on History | AHA Features What Is Trans History? From Activist and Academic Roots, a Field Takes Shape Kritika Agarwal | May 1, 2018 W By necessity, she turned to writing about transgender history: “I did it out of formal academic training, and I did it strategically an...

https://activehistory.ca/blog/2024/02/20/36961/?fbclid=IwAR1mNARSLPWED5mm9b-fGBl2MuHKdH6azjQTu0iVpvkljJjQpMHRQ-kLd4c

Trauma-Informed Teaching: Creating Classrooms that support Learning In recent years, teachers and heritage professionals have wrestled with the question of when and how to provide alerts about materials that students or users might find difficult to navigate. This …

50 years ago, teenagers partied in the Bronx — and gave rise to hip-hop In August 1973, an 18-year-old DJ Kool Herc played his sister's back-to-school fundraiser in the rec room of their apartment building. But he and his friends sparked something much bigger.

We are so happy to be part of this collaboration with the Manitoba Crafts Museum and Library! THREADS: Clothing with Handwork will run from July 7- Sept 1 and we’re showing some gorgeous examples of hand embellished and decorated garments. Don’t miss this amazing exhibit!

Happy International Archives Week! In celebration of this year's theme, , our Public Awareness and Advocacy Committee has coordinated with Canadian provincial archival associations to present a special series of blog posts. Every day this week, In the Field: the ACA blog will publish a new article featuring a different association. The goal of this series is to uplift the work of our colleagues across Canada by showcasing new initiatives, providing transparent solutions to key issues, and identifying exciting opportunities for collaboration. Check in here and at https://archivists.ca/Blog every day this week to learn about what archivists in your province and across the country are working on!

Alt text: Yellow and pink gradient background. Dark blue text reads "In the Field presents / Archives United: A series featuring provincial archival associations from across Canada / Stay tuned this week!" At the bottom are the logos for the ACA and International Archives Week 2023.

Artificial Intelligence and Teaching | Canadian Historical Association | Société historique du Canada Artificial Intelligence and Teaching “There is no escaping it: generative AI like ChatGPT is the future of information processing and analysis, and it will change the teaching and practice of history.” [1] Over the past six months, it’s unlikely that you could have missed news about generative...

May is Jewish Heritage Month!

While for us at the Archives, every Month is Jewish Heritage Month, we decided to showcase some deeper history on some of the places, people, and businesses in Ottawa’s Jewish past that you may not hear about as often. Stay tuned for a month-long deep dive into Ottawa’s Jewish history and celebration of our heritage!

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Share your ideas and solutions! The new policy will allow us to:
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Fill out the online survey before April 22. 💬

🔗: https://pch.survey-sondage.ca/f/l/a548vc?lang=EN

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The forgotten medieval habit of 'two sleeps'

February 14, 2023 (Tuesday)

On Valentine’s Day in 1884, Theodore Roosevelt lost both his wife and his mother.

Four years before, Roosevelt could not have imagined the tragedy that would stun him in 1884. February 14, 1880, marked one of the happiest days of his life. He and the woman he had courted for more than a year, Alice Hathaway Lee, had just announced their engagement. Roosevelt was over the moon: “I can scarcely realize that I can hold her in my arms and kiss her and caress her and love her as much as I choose,” he recorded in his diary. What followed were, according to Roosevelt, “three years of happiness greater and more unalloyed than I have ever known fall to the lot of others.”

After they married in fall 1880, the Roosevelts moved into the home of Theodore’s mother, Martha Bulloch Roosevelt, in New York City. There they lived the life of wealthy young socialites, going to fancy parties and the opera and traveling to Europe. When Roosevelt was elected to the New York State Assembly in 1881, they moved to the bustling town of Albany, where the state’s political wire-pullers worked their magic. Roosevelt’s machine politician colleagues derided the rich, Harvard-educated young man as a “dude,” and they tried to ignore his irritating interest in reforming society.

In the summer of 1883, Alice discovered that she was pregnant, and that fall she moved back to New York City to live with her mother-in-law. There she awaited the birth of the child who Theodore was certain would arrive on February 14.

As headstrong as her father, Roosevelt’s daughter beat her father’s prediction by two days. On February 12, Alice gave birth to the couple’s first child, who would be named after her. Roosevelt was at work in Albany and learned the happy news by telegram. But Alice was only “fairly well,” Roosevelt noted. She soon began sliding downhill. She did not recover from the birth; she was suffering from something at the time called “Bright’s Disease,” an unspecified kidney illness.

Roosevelt rushed back to New York City, but by the time he got there at midnight on February 13, Alice was slipping into a coma. Distraught, he held her until he received word that his mother was dangerously ill downstairs. For more than a week, “Mittie” Roosevelt had been sick with typhoid. Roosevelt ran down to her room, where she died shortly after her son got to her bedside. With his mother gone, Roosevelt hurried back to Alice. Only hours later she, too, died.

On February 14, 1884, Roosevelt slashed a heavy black X in his diary and wrote “The light has gone out of my life.” He refused ever to mention Alice again.

Roosevelt’s profound personal tragedy turned out to have national significance. The diseases that killed his wife and mother were diseases of filth and crowding—the hallmarks of the growing Gilded Age American cities. Mittie contracted typhoid from either food or water that had been contaminated by sewage, since New York City did not yet treat or manage either sewage or drinking water. Alice’s disease was probably caused by a strep infection, which incubated in the teeming city’s tenements, where immigrants, whose wages barely kept food on the table, crowded together.

Roosevelt had been interested in urban reform because he worried that incessant work and unhealthy living conditions threatened the ability of young workers to become good citizens. Now, though, it was clear that he, and other rich New Yorkers, had a personal stake in cleaning up the cities and making sure employers paid workers a living wage.

The tragedy gave him a new political identity that enabled him to do just that. Ridiculed as a “dude” in his early career, Roosevelt changed his image in the wake of the events of February 1884. Desperate to bury his feelings for Alice along with her, Roosevelt left his baby daughter with his sister and escaped to Dakota Territory, to a ranch in which he had invested the previous year. There he rode horses, roped cattle, and toyed with the idea of spending the rest of his life as a western rancher. The brutal winter of 1886–1887 changed his mind. Months of blizzards and temperatures as low as –41 degrees killed off 80% of the Dakota cattle herds. More than half of Roosevelt’s cattle died.

Roosevelt decided to go back to eastern politics, but this time, no one would be able to make fun of him as a “dude.” In an era when the independent American cowboy dominated the popular imagination, Roosevelt now had credentials as a westerner. He ran for political office as a western cowboy taking on corruption in the East. And, with that cowboy image, he overtook his eastern rivals.

Eventually, Roosevelt’s successes made establishment politicians so nervous they tried to bury him in what was then seen as the graveyard of the vice presidency. Then, in 1901, an unemployed steelworker assassinated President William McKinley and put Roosevelt—“that damned cowboy,” as one of McKinley’s advisers called him—into the White House.

Once there, he worked to clean up the cities and stop the exploitation of workers, backing the urban reforms that were the hallmark of the Progressive Era.

[Photo of Theodore Roosevelt's diary, Library of Congress.]

SUNDAY is the Full “Snow Blinding” Moon—Apuknajit. Few of us may see it, as it will be largely overcast in Mi'kma'ki tonight.

Who’s going to feed Grandmother Moon? This tradition varies from clan to clan and family to family. Cathy's family observes it on the Full "Snow Blinding" Moon. What is your tradition?

Apuknajit—A HOLLY AND AUNTIE STORY

One sunny day in late winter, Auntie drove to Holly’s house.

“Let’s go for a walk in the woods. Bundle up well, because it’s cold.”

“Ok, I’ll wear the scarf you knit for me.”

“And you’ll need sunglasses, it’s bright out.”

“Why? Are we going to the beach? It’s winter!”

“Winter or not, you’ll need them!”

As they drove to the special place they liked to walk, Auntie told Holly a story: “This reminds me of the time I was on the long drive home from work, and my friend Dave called me to talk about our Moon project. Of course, I was using my hands-free phone. I was just leaving work when he called, and I had to make him wait while I looked for my sunglasses. The Sun was low in the sky, and its light was glinting off the snow all around. I could hardly see. Dave said to me ‘Well, you know what Moon Time it is, don’t you?’ I had to think about it, but then it hit me.
‘It’s Apuknajit, the Snow-Blinding Time!’ We had been talking about all the Moon times through the year, but that was the first time I really felt it. I was so excited!”

“Is it blinding at night, when the Moon is out?"

“The snow does make the night brighter, by reflecting the moonlight, and you can see a lot better at night, but it is not blinding like the sunlight during the day. The Sun is so bright compared to the Moon.”

Holly thought for a minute. “I remember going out with you one cold night in winter to see the Full Moon. You took a plate of stew and a mug of tea. I thought you were a bit crazy to eat outside, but you left the food out on a stump. You said you were feeding Grandmother Moon.”

“Yes, Holly, that was the Full Moon of Apuknajit. Our ancestors fed Grandmother Moon, to give thanks for the food and drink that Mother Earth provides our people. Do you remember sharing that with Grandpa as well?”

“Yes, I do, Auntie, but why do we feed Grandmother Moon in winter when it’s cold outside?”

“Because the end of winter is the most difficult, when our stored food is running out. We give thanks and look forward to the return of spring, when the animals return and wild plants begin to grow.”

“So, do all Mi’kmaq feed Grandmother Moon?”

“Some do, some don’t, it depends on the family. Others may even feed Grandmother Moon on another date, but our family does it on the Full Moon of Apuknajit.”

“Auntie, we should feed Grandmother Moon, and include the whole family. Can we do that?”

“We sure can, Holly, let’s do that.”

Apuknajit is pronounced ah-boo-ga-na-jit, let Curtis teach you: https://youtu.be/H8JRIFvCM3I

[art by Loretta Gould] Buy our book! https://linktr.ee/mikmawmoons