The CHA in the City

The last time York University welcomed the “Learneds” was 1969, and at that point the institution was perched on the distant edge of urban life next to functioning farms. Thirty-seven years later the urban frontier has moved far further out into the Ontario farmland, and the university is now surrounded by dense housing developments and is only a quick ten-minute bus ride to the subway. It seemed appropriate, then, for the CHA to take up this year’s Congress theme of “The City.

We're on a roll - Let's keep it going

The pulse of the CHA is remarkably strong right now. New members have been pouring in, bringing new energy and commitment. Important new projects are unfolding. Our association has been rising to the many challenges facing historians and others in historical and cultural work. It has been an exhilarating time to be President

Harold, Marg, and the Boys: The Relevance of Class in Canadian History

Class has been a controversial category of historical analysis. Historians and social theorists have often attacked its relevance, but even those who find it a helpful way of understanding the past (and present) have had to deal with challenges from new theoretical perspectives, especially from those sensitive to gender and race. They have also had to recognize that there is no direct link between the material situation of members of a social class and their consciousness of their social situation. Diverse discourses emerge to give meaning to social experience, and are adopted, adapted, or rejected to varying degrees. This paper suggests that, after three decades of debate, we should now consider class formation as a fluid, dynamic process of social differentiation through which people’s lives are shaped by the pressures, constraints, and opportunities of their situation in relation to the means of production, the divisions of labour within patriarchy, and the racial distinctions in particular societies; but also one in which people negotiate their own understandings of the world and act on them. To illustrate this process at work, the paper discusses the lives of one working-class family in suburban Toronto from the 1940s to the 1970s and their engagement with new postwar social developments. They not only shaped distinctively working-class forms of gender, suburbanism, religion, ethnicity, citizenship, popular culture, meritocracy, and consumerism; but also wove all of those into a distinctively working-class identity.La notion de classe sociale a toujours été une catégorie controversée de l’analyse historique. Les historiens et les théoriciens de la société en ont souvent remis en question la pertinence, et même ceux qui la considèrent utile pour comprendre le passé (et le présent) ont été confrontés à de nouvelles perspectives théoriques, mettant notamment en jeu les problématiques hommes-femmes et celles liées à la race. Ces penseurs ont aussi eu à reconnaître l’absence de liens directs entre la situation matérielle des membres d’une classe sociale et la conscience qu’ils peuvent avoir de leur propre situation sociale. Pour donner un sens à l’expérience sociale, divers discours se dégagent, sont adoptés, adaptés ou rejetés à des degrés variables. Le présent article fait valoir qu’après trois décennies de débat, il est temps d’envisager la constitution de classes sociales comme un processus fluide et dynamique de différentiation sociale. D’une part, ce processus contribue à façonner la vie des gens sous l’effet des pressions, contraintes et perspectives d’avenir, contrebalancées par les moyens de production, la division du travail au sein du régime patriarcal et la spécificité raciale dans les sociétés. D’autre part, ce processus autorise les individus à élaborer leur propre compréhension du monde et à agir en conséquence. Pour illustrer ce processus à l’oeuvre, cet article se penche sur la vie d’une famille de la banlieue ouvrière de Toronto entre les années 1940 et 1970, et sur sa façon d’assimiler les progrès sociaux d’après-guerre. Les membres de cette famille façonnent des formes résolument ouvrières de rapports entre les sexes, de vie banlieusarde, de religion, d’appartenance ethnique, de citoyenneté, de culture populaire, de méritocratie et de consumérisme, au moyen desquelles ils tissent une identité ouvrière distincte

The Craftsmen's Spectacle: Labour Day Parades in Canada, the Early Years

Labour Day became a statutory holiday in Canada in 1894, but labour days and craftsmen’s parades had been summer events in several Canadian cities and towns for a number of years. Its creation as an official holiday responded to two demands: one for public recognition of organized labour and its important role, and another for release from the pressures of work in capitalist industry. It was up to unions, however, to produce the parades and shape the day’s events, and this task could prove to be too much for local workers’ movements with limited resources. The tension between celebration and leisure eventually undermined the original grand ideals, as wage-earners and their families began to spend Labour Day pursuing private pleasures rather than participating in a display of cultural solidarity.Lorsque la fête du Travail devint un jour férié au Canada en 1894, il y avait déjà plusieurs années que plusieurs villes et villages du Canada tenaient,l’été, des fêtes du travail et des parades d’artisans. La création d’une fête du Travail officielle répondait à deux demandes : la reconnaissance publique du syndicalisme et de son rôle important et l’allégement des pressions du travail en régime capitaliste. Il appartenait cependant aux syndicats d’organiser les parades et les activités de la journée, une tâche parfois trop lourde pour des syndicats locaux aux ressources limitées. La tension entre le goût de célébrer et celui de se divertir en vint à miner les grands idéaux de départ de la fête du Travail, les salariés et leurs familles commençant à consacrer ce congé à des activités de loisir privées plutôt qu’à une manifestation de solidarité

High Resolution Ocean Radar Observations in Ports and Harbours

Observations are shown from an ocean radar system which operates in the VHF frequency band (100-180 MHz) and produce surface current measurements on grid scales of 50-200m over ranges up to 6-10 km. This is a scale of operation that is well suited to measurement tasks in Ports, harbours and coastal zones. Ocean radars commonly used for mapping surface currents in coastal zones operate in the HF frequency band and measure currents on grid scales of 3-6 km over distances of 100-200km. The VHF ocean radar system consists of two stations which look at the same patch of ocean from different directions. Each station measures the radial component of the surface current at each grid point, and by combining data from both stations it is possible to produce maps of surface current vectors. Each station can cover a 60-degree sector of azimuth, and for wider coverage it is possible to use multiplexed receive antennas to double the size of the sector. The time to make the basic 60-degree sector for two stations is 10 minutes, and becomes 20 minutes for the wider 120 degree coverage. Results are shown for sheltered coastal waters and for open coast line where there are breaking waves. This methodology is particularly appropriate for monitoring currents in congested port areas where fixed moorings may be compromised