York U. Historians Shift Their Gaze to CBC Version of Canadian History

TORONTO, October 20, 2000 -- When the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation launches its long-awaited television series, Canada: A People's History, this Sunday, October 22, historians at York University will be watching to see how well the public broadcaster's national narrative succeeds in capturing the imagination of the audience. They will also be assessing whether it presents any new interpretations of the events of Canadian history, or simply employs all the old icons in its popularization of Canada's past.

York's history department itself has a distinguished history of teaching, research and innovation that has attracted world class scholars to its ranks. The following Canadian history specialists, some of whom were consulted for the series, can discuss and interpret the story as it unfolds:

Irving Abella is a professor of Canadian History and a past president of the Canadian Historical Association. His research interests are: labour, immigration and Canadian social history; ethnicity in Canada; North American Jewish history. Publications include: A Coat of Many Colours: Two Centuries of Jewish Life in Canada; and None is Too Many: Nationalism, Communism and Canadian Labour on Strike. He can be reached at home at (416) 487-9924.

Christopher Armstrong is a professor of 20th century Canadian History whose research interests include: the evolution of securities markets in Canada from 1940 to 1980; the development of modernist ideas in Canadian architecture from 1900 to 1970; the environmental history of Alberta's Bow River Valley. Recent publications include Blue Skies and Boiler Rooms: Buying and Selling Securities in Canada, 1870-1940 (University of Toronto Press, 1997). Armstrong can be reached at (416) 736-5123.

Bettina Bradbury, director of the graduate program in History in the Faculty of Arts, specializes in Canadian family history and the 19th century. Recent publications include: Debating Dower: Patriarchy, Capitalism and Widow's Rights in Lower Canada, in Tamara Myers, Kate Bower, et. al. eds. Power, Place and Identity: Historical Studies of Social and Legal Regulation in Quebec (Montreal History Group, 1998). Bradbury is the recipient of the prestigious Sir John A. Macdonald prize for the best book in Canadian history in 1993, for Working Families: Age, Gender and Daily Survival in Industrializing Montreal (Canadian Social History Series, McClelland and Stewart, 1993). She can be reached at (416) 736-2100, ext. 66982, or 736-5127.

Yves Frenette is a professor of North American history specializing in North American immigration and ethnic history, Canadian-American relations, French Canada, and French Canadians living outside of Quebec. He is also a public historian who has contributed to historical exhibitions and films, and is creating a Web site on the history of Francophone Canadians. His most recent publication is BrĖve histoire des Canadiens franĮais (MontrČal, BorČal, 1998). He can be reached at (416) 736-2100, ext. 88598, or at home, (416) 698-7804.

Craig Heron is chair of the Social Science division in the Faculty of Arts, and a professor of Canadian History specializing in labour history. Recent publications include: The Workers' Revolt in Canada, 1917-1925 (University of Toronto Press, 1998); The Craftsmen's Spectacle: Labour Day Parades in Canada, the Early Years (Histoire sociale/Social History, 58, Nov. 1996) with Steve Penfold; The Canadian Labour Movement: A Short History (2nd ed., Toronto, James Lorimer, 1996). Heron is vice-chair of the Ontario Heritage Foundation and past chair of the Ontario Workers Arts and Heritage Centre, where he was curator for a number of public exhibitions on Canadian labour history. He can be reached at (416) 736-5056, or 736-2100, ext. 77812.

Michiel Horn, recently appointed York University's official historian, is a professor of Canadian History specializing in the depression era and the Second World War, the history of taxation in Canada, and Canadian university history. Recent publications include: Academic Freedom in Canada: A History (University of Toronto Press, 2000); and Becoming Canadian: Memoirs of an Invisible Immigrant (University of Toronto Press, 1997). He can be reached at (416) 736-2100, ext. 88254.

Eric Koch, a 35-year veteran of the CBC, is a professor in the Communications Studies program at York, specializing in the politics of Canadian broadcasting. He is author of numerous books including, Inside Seven Days (Prentice Hall, 1986), which is about the popular 1960s current affairs program, This Hour Has Seven Days, and most recently, The Man Who Knew Charlie Chaplin (Mosaic, 2000), a novel about the Weimar Republic. He can be reached at home at (416) 923-5347.

Varpu Lindstrom is chair of the School of Women's Studies at York, and professor of History in the Atkinson Faculty of Liberal and Professional Studies, specializing in North American social history, immigration and women. Recent publications include: Defiant Sisters: A Social History of Finnish Immigrant Women in Canada 1890-1930 and the Finns in Canada. Prof. Lindstrom can be reached at (416) 736-2100, ext. 60545.

Marcel Martel is a professor of Canadian History specializing in political history, minority rights, and public policy in 20th century Canada, particularly in the post-confederation and post-World War II periods. Recent publications include: Nation, Ideas, Identities: Essays in Honour of Ramsay Cook (Oxford University Press, 2000) co-edited with Michael D. Behiels; and French Canada: An Account of its Creation and Break-up, 1850-1967, Canada's Ethnic Group Series, Booklet No. 24 (Ottawa, The Canadian Historical Association, 1998). Prof. Martel can be reached at (416) 736-2100, ext. 30429, or at home (416) 588-0622.

H. Vivian Nelles is a professor of Canadian History specializing in political economy and public memory. He is the recipient this year of both the Prix Clio and the Sir John A. Macdonald Prize for best book on Canadian history for his work, The Art of Nation Building: Pageantry and Spectacle at Quebec's Tercentenary (University of Toronto Press, 1999). He has recently returned from two terms at Cambridge University where he is an overseas Fellow of Churchill College. He has authored or co-authored: The Philosophy of Railroads (1972); The Politics of Development (1974); The Revenge of the Methodist Bicycle Company (1977); Monopoly's Moment: The Organization and Regulation of Canadian Utilities, 1800-1930; Southern Exposure: Canadian Promoters in Latin America and the Caribbean, 1896-1930. He is currently collaborating on a research project on an environmental history of the Bow River in Alberta, and directing a small team of researchers studying earthquakes in 19th century Ontario. He can be reached at (416) 736-5123.

Peter Oliver is a professor of Canadian history specializing in the political, social and legal history of Ontario in the 19th and 20th centuries, as well as Correctional history and Penology. Recent publications include: Terror to Evil-Doers: Prisons and Punishment in Nineteenth Century Ontario (University of Toronto Press, 1998). Oliver is the 1997 recipient of the Guthrie Medal from the Law Foundation of Ontario for his contribution to furthering legal education and research in Ontario. He can be reached at the Osgoode Society at (416) 947-3321.

Roberto Perin is a professor of Canadian history specializing in immigration, Quebec, and intellectual history in the 19th and 20th centuries. Recent publications include: Enemies Within: Italian and Other Internees in Canada and Abroad, ed. with Franca Iacovetta and Angelo Principe (University of Toronto Press, 2000); and The Immigrants' Church: The Third Force in Canadian Catholicism, 1880-1920, Canada's Ethnic Group Series Booklet No. 25 (Ottawa, Canadian Historical Association, 1998). Perin can be reached at (416) 736-2100, ext. 88249, or ext. 30422.

Marlene Shore, professor and incoming chair of the Department of History, was co-host of York University's international conference in April on the mission of history in the 21st century -- Historians And Their Audiences: Mobilizing History for the Millennium. Shore is a specialist in cultural and intellectual history. Her article in the 75th anniversary issue of The Canadian Historical Review (September, 1995), "Remember the Future: The Canadian Historical Review and the Discipline of History, 1920-95, is the basis of an edited volume on historical writing to be published by University of Toronto Press. She is currently writing a book on psychology and the culture of modernism. She can be reached at (416) 736-5123 (messages) or at home (416) 604-7414.

William Wicken is a professor of Canadian History specializing in Aboriginal history in Ontario, Quebec, and the Atlantic provinces. He has done extensive research on the Mi'Kmaq treaties and was an expert witness in the case of Regina vs. Donald Marshall Jr. in 1999 on Mi'Kmaq rights to the commercial fishery in Atlantic Canada. He has recently completed a series of articles on the subject entitled, History, Land and Donald Marshall Junior, to be published this year by University of Toronto Press. Wicken can be reached at (416) 736-2100, ext. 66963.

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For further information, please contact:

Susan Bigelow
Media Relations
York University
(416) 736-2100, ext. 22091
sbigelow@yorku.ca
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