Historicist

I am delighted to announce that I am going to be contributing historical articles on a regular basis to Torontoist, one of Toronto’s leading online media outlets.

If you are from Toronto and aren’t familiar with Torontoist, then you should know that it is one of several online, Toronto-themed websites that have emerged in the last decade.  It is difficult to pigeonhole these websites, as evidenced by Torontoist‘s own efforts to describe itself.

And, if you are reading this, are interested in Toronto history, and aren’t familiar with Torontoist, then I very much recommend having a look at their historical content (and the rest of the site, of course).  Torontoist covers a lot of issues related to Toronto and, like many of the newer Toronto media outlets, frequently runs historical interest pieces.  I’ve found that many older members of the city’s heritage community look at me blankly when I mention Torontoist, blogTO, or the Toronto Standard to them, and this is a shame because all of these sites are making great efforts to share Toronto’s history to their sizeable readership.

Much of Torontoist‘s  history-based content comes in the form of their Historicist column, which appears every Saturday at noon.  I am now the third regular member of this column’s team, and have started by writing a piece on how a professional matchmaker named Nelle Brooke Stull ran afoul of the Toronto law in 1936.  (I did, in fact, contribute twice to this column in 2011 as a guest contributor, with pieces on ice-cutting on Grenadier Pond and the unveiling of the new SickKids building in 1951.)

There are several reasons why I am excited about joining Torontoist, including the reputation that Historicist has developed for thorough, well-researched articles.  But one of the main things that excites me is getting to write for a broad audience of Torontonians.  In the past, most of the historical pieces I have written have been aimed at history or heritage-themed publications, where the readers self-identify as history fans and/or heritage professionals.  Torontoist is read by people who are simply interested in Toronto.

As such, I feel like I am writing about Toronto history for people who don’t necessarily go out of their way to read about such things.  I wouldn’t go so far as to say that people need to be “tricked” into reading about history, but I think it’s important to recognize that a lot of people will like history when it’s brought right to them, but for whatever reason aren’t going to seek it out.  I think it’s important to integrate historical content into other content about news, culture, or politics.  It is the same reason why we put plaques and sculptures in public places, instead of tucking them behind closed doors.  This is presumably true for many cities, but I feel it’s especially important in Toronto where, for years, there has been a popular attitude that our city doesn’t have any heritage worth preserving, and no history interesting or old enough to be worth telling.

While I believe that many young Toronto history fans are missing out by not supporting their local historical societies and learning about the city’s vast heritage community, I also believe the veterans are missing out by not knowing about the great work being done and published online.

And I am especially proud that my work will be on Historicist alongside that of Kevin Plummer and Jamie Bradburn, whose history pieces I have been reading and enjoying for the last few years.  These two historians have helped give Torontoist the solid reputation that it enjoys today, and deserve to be recognized for their efforts and achievements.

Book Review #1: The Natural City

The Natural City: Re-Envisioning the Built Environment
Edited by Ingrid Leman Stefanovic and Stephen Bede Scharper
University of Toronto Press, 2012

 

The Natural City explores, with particular attention to Toronto and its environs, the relationship between urban and so-called “natural” environments.  Structurally, it is a collection of eighteen essays, written by contributors whose areas of expertise include urban planning, environmental studies, philosophy, engineering, and theology.  Each essay uses a different perspective to explore an aspect of “nature” in cities.

Given my strong ties to heritage advocacy, the idea of nature and cities is one that I find quite interesting.  In Toronto, one often thinks of heritage as something which is limited to architecture (referred to as “built heritage”), but heritage is about all aspects of our shared cultural experiences, including natural elements.  Our notion of natural heritage is not limited to the elements of wilderness which pre-date European settlement, as evidenced by this heritage tree in Roncesvalles which is less than one hundred years old.

With all this in mind, I was hoping that The Natural City would include some good passages about the interconnectedness of built and natural heritage, and indeed, there are some excellent ideas to be found in this book.  Unfortunately, The Natural City also has some problems with it which make it difficult for me to recommend the book to others.

Many of the essays seem to be written in overly academic language.  It’s been seven years since I sat in a university classroom, and thus I don’t know what to do when confronted with this sentence, from the book’s first essay (by co-editor Ingrid Leman Stefanovic):

“Phenomenology has always aimed to avoid lapsing into a reified description of either a solipsistic subjective world or an apparently ‘objective’ reality that is said to subsist independently if interpretive structures of understanding.”

Here’s another sentence, taken from an essay by Robert Mugerauer:

“In fact, current research and reassessments in complexity theory, self-organization, phenomenology, and enactivist approaches to cognition correlate with Developmental System Theory (DST), constructivist interactionism, emergence, and co-evolution in their development of an epigenetic position, in contest with the performatist view (wherein development is understood to ‘be performed by genes’).”

The entire book is not this impenetrable, but there are considerable parts of The Natural City which go on like this.  And that’s too bad, because amongst these obtuse passages are some very interesting ideas (including many in Mugerauer’s own essay, which I otherwise quite enjoyed).

While I personally indulge in abstract thinking about what cities are and what nature actually is, I found the philosophy-themed essays – clustered together at the front of the book – the most difficult of all to make sense of.  These essays expect me to have a familiarity with concepts and vocabulary which, as a non-academic, I do not.  Anyone about to read The Natural City may want to skip over these, or to ease themselves into the book by reading essays out of sequence.

The last two essays in the book were, I think, my favourites.  Gaurav Kumar and Bryan W. Karney’s essay Natural Cities, Unnatural Energy? raises some fascinating points about energy and the difficulties that people today have in comprehending the scale of it use.  Sarah J. King and Ingrid Leman Stefanovic’s Children and Nature in the City describes a study in which Toronto children were observed interacting in a city park; of particular interest is the difference between what the children were observed to do and what the children made of their own experiences.  Other essays I particularly like are Richard Oddie’s regrettably brief essay on city sounds, and Trish Glazebrook’s Ecofeminist ‘Cityzenry.’ 

It is easy to dismiss my criticisms by saying that The Natural City is not aimed at me, but then, who is the intended audience?  It had a book launch at City Hall and was promoted on Metro Morning, suggesting that the editors hoped it would find its way to all interested Torontonians.  The objective of The Natural City seems to be to change or augment the reader’s perception of the relationship between cities and the natural environment, which is definitely something I want to read about.  And the back cover includes endorsements by David Miller and Jane Goodall, exactly the sort of people whose endorsements carry weight with me.  And yet I very nearly gave up on this book after fighting my way through the first three essays.

While some of the contributors define their unfamiliar vocabulary, many do not.  As such, I worry that this book may only be appreciated by a handful of people who are already engaged in the discussion.

The idea that civilization and nature are compatible and not competing ideologies is an important one, and one with nuances which I think are of growing interest to our society, and to Toronto in particular.  Reading about these subjects can help us change our whole way of thinking about nature and cities, and that doesn’t just mean looking at trees or putting stuff in the recycling bin.  Toronto has a tradition of seeing urbanization and nature as uneasy bedmates, a tradition which has included the burying of many of our rivers, hiding old farmhouses amid residential developments, and of course the perceived need for cottages away from the downtown bustle.

As our society continues to feel the effects of extreme specialization, however, I feel like it is more important than ever to take the excellent work being done by front-line academics, and to translate it into words that everyone else can understand.  The language used in much of this book suggests that the editors are not particularly interested in sharing their ideas with the general public, and I think this does their work a disservice.  Nearly every essay in The Natural City contains something which I think the average Torontonian can take on board and incorporate into how they understand their home city but I don’t know that, in this package, the rest of Toronto will get the opportunity to join in the discussion.

In Search of Music Recorded by Players for Toronto Sports Teams

Over the years, various professional athletes have made forays into popular music.  These musical efforts may be solo projects, or they may be larger endeavours produced by teams, with one or more star players singing (or rapping) about their team, sport, and/or city.  Particularly popular in the 1980s, these songs seem to be an extension of the role given to athletes who play team sports, that being a sort of cultural ambassador.  The key difference is that while the athlete (ideally) possesses some skill at their given sport, their musical talent tends to be meager (if it exists at all). 

One of the best-known examples of this kind of song is The Super Bowl Shuffle, recorded by the 1985 Chicago Bears shortly before their victory in Super Bowl XX.

Another example is the 1979 single Hockey Sock Rock, performed by John Davidson, Ron Duguay, Phil Esposito, Pat Hickey, and Dave Maloney of the New York Rangers, with the B-side Please Forgive My Misconduct Last Night by Marcel Dionne, Charlie Simmer, and Dave Taylor of the Los Angeles Kings.  (Both of these songs were apparently written by Alan Thicke.)  In this case the songs were done for charity, and while neither song is explicitly about the team, the lyrics are most definitely about hockey.  Excerpts from both songs can be found in the clip below:

The earliest song I know of recorded by a Toronto athlete is Honky the Christmas Goose, a 1965 Christmas single by Leafs star goalie Johnny Bower, although this song is not even about hockey, much less the Toronto Maple Leafs:

The year after Bower’s song, a group called Douglas Rankine and the Secrets released a song called Clear the Track, Here Comes Shack about popular Leafs’ forward Eddie Shack, although Shack does not perform on it:

The late 1980s saw The Ballad of Tom Henke, credited to the Section 15 Orchestra, written about the Blue Jays relief pitcher (nicknamed “Terminator”) although, again, the athlete does not appear on the recording:

Not quite in this category is Moxy Früvous’ re-working of The Association‘s “Windy,” with the words altered to make it about quarterback Doug Flutie.  Although Moxy Früvous was from the Toronto area, this was recorded after Flutie’s time with the Argos, when he was playing for the NFL’s Buffalo Bills:

In recent years, of course, several Toronto sports fans have written and presented their own songs about Toronto athletes and put them up on YouTube, although none seem to have captured much public attention.

In terms of songs actually recorded by athletes, there is La Playa, which features former Blue Jays pitcher Kelvim Escobar, albeit recorded after he had moved on to the Anaheim Angels.  I’m not really sure what this song is about, but the video suggests it’s neither about Toronto nor baseball:

Shaker’s Rap

To my delight, I finally found the sort of song I’ve been seeking: Shaker’s Rap, as performed by ’80s Blue Jays outfielder Lloyd Moseby:

This website indicates that it was released as a 12-inch single in 1986, and suggests that the record included a non-Blue Jays version of this song (?), an instrumental version, and an additional track called “Stick to It,” all apparently by Lloyd “Shaker” Moseby.  The record was reportedly distributed by RCA.  According to an article in the August 7, 1986 Toronto Star, “Stick to It” was actually considered to be the lead single when released on August 15, and according to Moseby “it’s about telling kids to stay away from drugs, stay in school, that scene.”  He told Sports Illustrated that “I wouldn’t have done it if not for the message.  I’m no singer; no way am I doing love songs or anything.”  So far I have not been able to track down a version.  

The Star‘s Peter Goddard wrote that Shaker’s Rap sounded like “a Japanese disco after midnight,” and that “[it] isn’t going to make anybody forget Michael Jackson.  Or, for that matter, it won’t make anybody forget Roy Lee Jackson, the last Blue Jay to sing in public.”  (Roy Lee Jackson was a pitcher with the Jays from 1981 to 1984, who on at least one ocassion sang the pre-game national anthems, an event immortalized on a baseball card the following season.)

Although “Shaker’s Rap (Blue Jays Version)” is a bit thin on lyrics, it is still, like all of these athlete-recordings, an interesting reflection of the time in which it was made, and an enjoyable piece of Toronto’s history.  I’m glad this recording was uploaded by Toronto blogger Toronto Mike, and encourage readers to explore some of the content uploaded to his Soundcloud page, as he has posted several other interesting songs about Blue Jays players, including a song about outfielder Mookie Wilson (with the team from 1989 to 1991) set to the music of the Beach Boys’ “Help Me, Rhonda.”

I assume that any other songs officially produced by Toronto sports teams would have surfaced by now and be staples of our popular culture, but given that it took a bit of effort for me, a Jays fan, to find evidence of Lloyd Moseby’s rapping career this may not be the case.  If you know of any other songs recorded by the Maple Leafs, Blue Jays, Argos, or Raptors, especially ones which are over ten years old, please leave a comment.  (Also, if you know of a video for “Shaker’s Rap.”)  We tend to forget about these sorts of things in Toronto, so it would be good to keep these songs in our collective consciousness.

In conclusion, allow me to present my favourite example of this genre, Get Metsmerized!, which features nine members of the 1986 New York Mets rapping as best they can about what it means to be a New York Met.

Update – rICK vAIVE & “Penalty Box Blues”

A nice gentleman with the Twitter handle @juicyjuicebob has alerted me to the existence of a 1984 recording by Maple Leafs forward Rick Vaive, called Penalty Box Blues.  So far I have not been able to locate a recording of it online.

Toronto Star headline, January 15, 1985.

Penalty Box Blues was actually part of a charity LP called Team Rock All Stars 84/85.  The album was put together by recording engineer Bob Leth and was an effort to raise funds for minor hockey teams.  According to an article in the January 15, 1985 Toronto Star, the album included contributions by noted folk singer John Allan Cameron, the Good Brothers, and noted session drummer Bernard Purdie, whose website bills him as “the world’s most recorded drummer.”  Other hockey players who reportedly recorded on the album were retired-Leaf (and City-TV sports reporter) Jim McKenny, Brian Glennie, and Doug Patey.  As of the time of this article, albums were being sold to minor hockey teams at low rates, who in turn were invited to re-sell the album for $10 (about average price for an LP in those days) and keep the profits.

Without an available audio sample, the only clue to the sound of Penalty Box Blues comes from Bob Leth, who told the Star that Vaive “does an Elvis-type song… he’s got a real rockabilly voice.”  Anyone have a copy of this album at home?

Jorge Luis Borges’ Message to Torontonians

Note the two updates to this post at the bottom.

I happened upon an interesting blog post on the Toronto Public Library website this afternoon.

The gist of it is that a staff person at the Agincourt branch of the TPL found a card inside an older edition Plato’s Republic.  (The blog writer actually says it was in Symposium, but shows a photo of Republic.)  The card appears to be a letter from 1978, signed by Argentinian writer Jorge Luis Borges (1899-1986), thanking the library for a pleasant reception.

According to “Louis,” the TPL staffer who found the card and who wrote the post about this letter, letters and numbers written below the signature correspond with Dewey numbers for three books: a collection of the writings of Arthur Schopenhauer, Thomas Carlyle‘s Sartor Resartus, and “books on axiomatic set theory.”

I spent about an hour this evening searching the Toronto Star and the Globe and Mail for any indication of Borges having been in Toronto in 1978, but to no avail.  I am not clear from the post by “Louis” whether this particular book has only ever been at the Agincourt branch, or if there is any chance that it could have been at another branch.  “Louis” assumes that the book has always been at Agincourt, although points out that in 1978 the Agincourt branch was located in the Agincourt Mall.  There is, of course, the possibility that Borges left the card somewhere else and that it was either deliberately or accidentally left in the book by somebody else; the alternative requires one to believe that nobody has read this book for thirty years, or that library patrons had seen this card in the book before but not bothered to remove it.  Assuming that Borges actually made the card, of course.  Although it appears to have his distinctive (but illegible) signature, it is worth mentioning that Borges went completely blind in the 1950s.

It seems that the mysteries here are numerous.  Why would anybody bother forging a banal card from Jorge Luis Borges and then hide it in a book in a Scarborough library branch where, even if discovered, it is unlikely that anybody would recognize the signature?  Was Jorge Luis Borges actually at a reception in the Agincourt Mall in 1978?  And if so, what is the meaning behind his cryptic message?   What was he trying to tell us?  Why did he want (Metro) Torontonians to learn about axiomatic set theory?

While my newspaper search revealed nothing, the Wikipedia page on Borges mentions his interest both in Schopenhauer and in Carlyle, with specific reference to Sartor Resartus.  The final paragraph on Borges’ Wikipedia page also mentions his familiarity with set theory, and refers to some of the principles of set theory being present in Borges’ 1975 story “The Book of Sand.”  At least within the context of Borges’ work, mentoning these three books make some sort of sense.

Hopefully, “Louis” will learn some more about this and provide an update.  In the meantime, though, if you recall seeing Jorge Luis Borges in Scarborough in 1978, why not get in touch with the Toronto Public Library?

UPDATE - 02/17/2012

This story has been picked up by the Toronto Star.  Near the bottom of this piece you’ll see some comments from me, which I gave to the reporter.

Although I definitely gave the quote included, I don’t know that I would say it is “probably not” a hoax; I am still not sure which way I am leaning in turns of this item being a genuine letter from Borges.  While it is indeed an odd thing to forge, the idea that it could have spent over thirty years undiscovered seems to me equally fantastic, not to mention the whole thing about a blind man choosing to write a letter in cursive, complete with a cartoon.  And if this letter was dictated, then his amanuensis had terrible penmanship.

I do find this to be a fascinating find, however, and I’m glad that more people are going to see it.

UPDATE - 02/19/2012

The Toronto Star is now reporting that Louis Choquette, the author of the initial post at the Toronto Public Library blog, made the whole thing up.  As I “quite reasonably” noted, “why would anybody bother to forge such an item?”

Well, people are strange.

According to the Star article, this was intended in the spirit of Borges and his love for blurring fact and fiction, although I’m not exactly sure in this case what the point was in doing this.  As a historian, I spend quite a bit of time trying to separate fact from fiction as I generally find the two to be extensively blurred already.  Of course, I get a kick out of historical fiction (our heritage is ours to use and manipulate, although I admit I get uneasy about works which use real people as major characters), and greatly appreciate hoaxes which make significant points, such as the work of the Yes Men.

This, maybe, proved to be more of an exercise in critical thinking.  Historians rely on primary sources all the time, and have to make critical judgements as to how reliable the available material is.  In this case there was very little to go on and, as indicated above, there were many reasons why this “discovery” looked suspicious.  The chief reason why I thought that it could possibly be real was that it seemed like such an obscure and unlikely thing to fake.

Still, then, I’m glad I didn’t come down too confidently on one side or the other until more information became available, which is essentially how history works (or is supposed to work).  And it’s nice to be reminded about the value of scepticism and critical thinking when doing research, as seemingly impartial librarians or archivists might have their own agendas!

Fire in the Junction

The Save & Secure Storage Facility at Pelham & Osler, early in the demolition proces, January 18, 2012.

Earlier this month, a major fire effectively destroyed the Save and Secure Self Storage building at Pelham Avenue and Osler Street.  While it is fortunate that nobody died in this fire (and to my knowledge, none of the local residents have permanently lost their homes), the building cannot be salvaged, and as such is being torn down.  Early estimates put the damage at $1 million, although it can be difficult to assign a definite value to the possessions and memories which were lost in the fire.

Forty-nine years ago, a fire struck the same neighbourhood with much more deadly consequences.

In the early morning of February 8, 1963, a fire broke out in a family home on Miller Street, which runs north-south, one block west of where the Save and Secure building barely still stands.

Headline from the front page of The Globe and Mail, February 8, 1963.

According to newspaper reports, the family’s children were asleep upstairs while their father waited downstairs for the mother to come home from work; she worked the night shift for the post office (presumably at the building on the west side of Keele Street, between Annette and Dundas Streets), and her husband ritually waited up for her and greeted her with a cup of tea when she came in the door.  That evening the father put the kettle on, but fell asleep on the couch.

This being 1963, the kettle was not an automatic kettle which switches itself off when it reaches boiling.  According to the Star, fire investigators concluded that “the kettle became red-hot when the water boiled away and ignited fat in the deep-fryer the youngsters had used earlier to make French fries.”

The father woke to find the house on fire and his children screaming for help from upstairs.  Despite valiant rescue attempts by the father, his neighbour, and local police officers, all eight children in the family perished, making it the largest known loss of life in a fire for a single family in Toronto history, according to the Toronto Star.  Although several nearby houses were also destroyed in the fire, the occupants were able to safely evacuate.  Two police constables were also taken to hospital where they were treated for smoke inhalation. 

By evening, the story was on the front page of the Toronto Star, noting that community residents were already organizing a “Miller St. Fire Victims’ Fund” through the Davenport Home and School Association.  By the next day, additional donation funds had been established, through the family’s church and through the father’s employer, Brewer’s Retail.

Headline from page 22 of the Toronto Star, February 12, 1963.

The fire remained a major news story in Toronto over the next few days.  The funeral for the eight children was held on February 11 at a Parkdale funeral chapel, and over 1,500 were reported in attendance, the crowd being a mixture of friends, neighbours, and Torontonians who were affected by the tragedy.

For those who lived in the area at the time, the memory of this event remains strong.  I have been asked about this particular fire by several neighbours as its fiftieth anniversary is approaching.  One of the people I have spoken with about it specifically remembers that after the fire, her family was not allowed to make french fries in the house again.

I expect to continue to collect information on this fire over the next few months, and will likely write a feature article on it for an upcoming issue of The Leader & Recorder, the quarterly newsletter of the West Toronto Junction Historical Society.

Summer of ’36

Ad for Burroughes Furniture Co., Ltd., advising you to buy a couch so you can "sleep in the cool downstairs." Toronto Star, July 10, 1936, page 5.

If you missed it, I did a series of articles for Heritage Toronto a few weeks ago on a few interconnected subjects relating to Toronto in the summer of 1936.

The first looks at Toronto’s experience during the major North American heat wave of that summer.  In the early summer, some aspects of city life seem to have shut down while various laws were relaxed; at least 225 people died from the heat.

While looking in old newspapers for articles connected to the heat wave, I found several articles concerned with what men were and were not allowed to wear on Toronto beaches, thus spawning an article on the city’s bathing suit regulations.

This being 1936, all this transpired during the great depression.  My third article looks at some of the unemployment problems in what was then York Township (essentially what later became the City of York in the 1960s and then acquired by Toronto in the 1998 amalgamation).  During the height of the heat wave, tensions boiled in Toronto’s suburban regions over how governments should distribute financial relief to the needy.  While this article deals with York Township, similar unrest was happening in Etobicoke in 1936, which I wrote about on this very blog.  With these protests flaring at the height of the heat wave, it is tempting to think that the excessive temperatures caused frustration to boil over, as it seemingly does in Spike Lee’s Do The Right Thing.

Headline from the Globe, July 10, 1936.

While I enjoy researching and writing on a variety of topics, I like doing these clusters of related historical articles.  Often, while researching a specific subject, I encounter interesting tangents and side issues which I am tempted to cram into my copy.  When I try to share all of these delightful details, my articles grow too long, and I  find myself forced to omit some of the bits which I think are the most intriguing.

Doing these clusters of articles permits me to provide additional context for the readers, juxtaposing events with parallel issues in Toronto’s history, and providing a more nuanced account of the city’s past.

In a previous cycle of articles for Heritage Toronto, I described an incident with a “gypsy” group in North Toronto, both from the perspective of the people in the camp as well as from the perspective of the camp’s bears.

In creating these clusters of related articles, my hope is to present Toronto’s complicated history in a spirit similar to that of the classic PBS miniseries Connections, hosted by James Burke.  Burke tells the history of science from a strong perspective of inter-connectedness.  He generally starts at one specific invention or discovery, and then follows that thread through history, touching on many events, people, and discoveries along the way, all the while reminding viewers this is just one of an infinite number of paths available to explore.

Toronto’s history, like all history, is similarly complex.  While it is a historian’s duty to provide necessary context, there are many choices that a historian faces as to what to include.  By grouping some of these related articles together, I feel I am reminding readers that no person, building, or event is isolated, and that all of Toronto’s history is linked by time, place, people, and/or thematic subject matter.

My hope is to work on a few similar clusters in the new year.  They tend to involve considerably more research than a “one-off” article, but I feel that the end result is worth it.

Talkin’ ‘Bout My Generation: Part 2 – How Young People Can Join a Community Historical Society or Heritage Group

If you haven’t seen my previous post on the generation gap in Toronto’s heritage community, I suggest you read it first before continuing: http://davidwencer.wordpress.com/2011/12/01/talkin-bout-my-generation-part-1/

This piece was originally going to be an attempt to persuade young Torontonians to join their local historical society. However, based on the feedback I got from my previous post on bridging the generation gap in Toronto’s heritage community, it seems that there are a lot of young history and heritage fans out there who already want to be more involved, but who either do not know where to start or who have had a hard time finding volunteer opportunities.

As this strikes me as a more pressing concern, this post draws upon my own experiences with my local historical society and offers some tips for people (especially young people) looking for volunteer opportunities with community-level heritage organizations. I have kept my advice fairly general so that it might equally aid aspiring historians, people who are more interested in heritage preservation, and people with a less-defined desire to contribute to their community.

HISTORICAL SOCIETIES

In Toronto, historical societies are volunteer groups which collect information about a community and promote local heritage through a variety of activities. Although many historical societies are registered with umbrella organizations such as the Ontario Historical Society, there is no official system which mandates that every Toronto community has a historical society. Indeed, some communities may be served by multiple groups.  Some Toronto neighbourhoods have no official historical society at all, save for city-wide organizations or groups which concentrate on a specific subject or theme, as opposed to a physical boundary.

If you’re looking for a list of Toronto historical societies and heritage groups, there is one on the Heritage Toronto website: http://www.heritagetoronto.org/find-out-more/heritage-community/toronto-groups (Note that some of these groups do not have websites. I’ll touch on that later.)

A HISTORICAL SOCIETY MAY NOT BE WHAT YOU THINK IT IS

When I first visited the archives of the West Toronto Junction Historical Society (WTJHS), the group with which I am now most active, I think I was expecting the people there to be old-fashioned folk who were only interested in nostalgically recollecting the “good old days.”

Many others seem to assume the opposite. The WTJHS sometimes gets formal applications and resumes from people expecting paid employment or to be delegated tasks specific to their field of study.

The reality is that a historical society is a volunteer organization made up of a collection of individuals with a shared interest in their community. Many groups have members with professional backgrounds in planning, or architecture, or academia, but I have found that many active members are people who are simply interested in history and their community’s heritage.

As such, while a community heritage organization works on specific projects or initiatives, it may not always speak with a unified voice, and it may not have a sophisticated structure which makes it easy to delegate tasks to newcomers.

Therefore, a community group may not know how to best use a new volunteer, and this new volunteer may not know, at least not at first, the best way that they can contribute to the organization. In fact, if a prospective volunteer starts by sending an e-mail which goes into too much detail about their professional qualifications, the historical society might not respond, as they may think that the volunteer wants a specific experience which they, as a group, cannot readily provide.

The activities of a community heritage group depend on the interests and strengths of their members. Often the members will have their own independent projects, and will work with the organization to pool resources and exchange information. Usually there are some collective projects of mutual interest to the active members of the group.

Some organizations focus heavily on development issues, such as heritage designations and conservation districts, but other groups do considerably less of this, focussing more on publicizing the history of their community. Some groups place a greater emphasis on producing publications, or on booking engaging speakers, or on erecting plaques, or on leading tours.

BE PREPARED TO PHYSICALLY GO TO EVENTS AND TALK TO PEOPLE IN PERSON

I cannot stress this enough.

One of the big complaints against much of the established heritage community is the lack of an online presence. This criticism is, in my opinion, quite a valid one, but standing there with your hands on your hips, waiting for a historical society to improve their website or respond from an irregularly-checked e-mail account is not going to solve the problem. When I first offered to volunteer at the WTJHS, I left my phone number at their office and wasn’t called back for several months. Does this sound familiar to anyone?

Historical society veterans have Toronto’s history inside their brains, and are eager to share their knowledge with others. If you want to get access to a heritage group, and if that heritage group isn’t making itself available online where you expect it to be, then it is your responsibility to go to it.

Honestly, the best way to penetrate the heritage community is to talk to people in person. Most heritage groups have public meetings, perhaps every month or every other month. In my experience, these meetings are filled with a diverse group of people with interesting insights, memories and experiences. The best way to find out about an organization is to go to these meetings, introduce yourself, and start asking questions. Explain a bit about your background, about what you already know and what you like to learn about. Jane Jacobs wrote that to know your city, “you’ve got to get out and walk.” The interactive experience is also important if you want to get to know your community’s history and heritage.

Walking tours can be an excellent place to meet local heritage veterans - they're often the ones leading them.

If the scheduled meetings conflict with another commitment of yours, there are usually other options. Some historical societies have an archives which they open up to the public. Most groups do some form of public programming, such as walking tours. You can feel a bit foolish or pretentious introducing yourself to the walk leaders (or to other people on the tour), but it is well worth doing. Talk to them about history and heritage, and ask if there are ways that you can contribute or join their group as a member. Once you start to get to know people you can obviously progress to phone numbers and e-mail addresses, but I think that direct communication is an essential starting point.

This idea can extend beyond the historical society. It is worth doing the same thing at a meeting of your local Residents Association, or to talk to local business owners. You can learn a lot about your community’s history by talking to your neighbours. One of the ways I first contributed to the WTJHS was to unofficially report on historical society activities at meetings of the Junction Residents Association, and vice versa. By taking on this role I began to meet people, and people began to associate me with being someone either who knew information, or who knew how to get it.

This is, incidentally, another good reason to start with a historical society which is local to you.  Going to meetings and talking to people will be far simpler if they are geographically convenient.  If your immediate community does not appear to have a local historical society, ask about heritage at a local Residents Association or Ratepayers Group, as it’s possible that this is where the local heritage experts are.  Of course some groups, such as the North York Historical Society or Scarborough Historical Society, have very large catchment areas.

IF YOU WANT TO BE VERY ACTIVELY INVOLVED, LET YOUR GROUP KNOW

Having talked about this with people from other historical societies, I find some veterans are surprised to learn that there are young people who wish to actively contribute. While help is (hopefully) always welcomed, this is not necessarily the kind of volunteer they are expecting.

A major concern with historical societies right now is dwindling membership. While historical societies are always thrilled to have new people who can contribute to the organization and to the group’s specific community, they also wish to see people attending their meetings and paying membership dues. Not only is the money important in order to help keep the group functional, but being able to boast of a high membership total gives the group clout when they take on an advocacy role.

As such, when a new young person shows up, the group doesn’t necessarily expect them to be dynamic right away. If you are looking to be “put to work,” make this clear when you talk to the active members, because otherwise they think you have lost interest if you don’t take out a membership or show up to the next meeting.

If you are looking for a temporary assignment, some historical societies apply for grants which allow them to hire a student to work on a specific project. The WTJHS, and I assume this is true of other groups, is then happy to provide references for the students who contribute. That said, however…

BE PREPARED TO MAKE A LONG-TERM COMMITMENT

One problem which discourages historical societies is that volunteers will arrive, do some work for two months, and are then never heard from again. Part of the point of heritage is keeping knowledge and information alive in perpetuity. Heritage veterans are looking for people in whom they can cultivate knowledge about certain places, buildings, people, streets, and landscapes.  People who can one day assume the reins.

When a young volunteer leaves after only a few months, members of the historical society may feel that they have failed as a group to install a passion for the community in their volunteer, or that the volunteer was, from the group’s perspective, a wasted investment. This may make the group wary of taking on young volunteers in the future.

When building your CV, it can look good to say that you had a placement with a historical society and completed one or two specific projects. It can look just as good, if not better, to say that you are a member of your local historical society, and that your association with this group is an active one.

If you are working or seeking to work full-time, being a member need not be a major commitment. The amount of time which you can contribute will be influenced by other personal, family, and professional commitments. Depending on your interest and your professional skills, membership may involve attending a few events throughout the year, contributing to a newsletter, and/or simply interacting with the other members of your organization.

Membership with a heritage organization indicates a dedication to your community and an appreciation that heritage is not a fleeting, short-term commitment, but rather something which holds your interest.

BE PREPARED TO DO THINGS OUTSIDE YOUR AREAS OF EXPERTISE

When we get new volunteers at the WTJHS, we try our best to match an activity appropriate to the person’s specific interests, but this is not always easy.

This is me, in the spring of 2008, playing "The Maple Leaf Forever" at the launch of the 2008 Junction Centennial. Credit: David Bridge

Groups need volunteers to do a variety of things. Even though my background is in archives, I have done research, writing, editing, AV assistance, manning the group’s booth at events, speaking at local schools, and playing “The Maple Leaf Forever” on the tuba while wearing historical dress. Currently I am the corresponding secretary of the WTJHS, meaning that I sit on the executive (I suspect I may be the only person under 30 to be on a Toronto historical society’s executive) and handle much of the e-mail and media communication, despite having no professional background in this kind of work.  I’ve been able to get to this point because I have done a wide variety of tasks for the group.  Through these tasks, I have come to learn a little bit about many different aspects of my community’s history, and have acquired a good sense as to how the organization works, which of our members are the experts on which topics, and the scope of the material in our archives.

A historical society also needs people to generate displays, and to balance the cheque book, and to keep track of memberships. These are excellent activities for people who wish to volunteer with their local group but don’t yet know the history of the neighbourhood or know how they can contribute.  Once you get to know your community group there is no reason why you cannot also work on a project more specific to your interests, but tasks like this give you that first “in.”  It may be seem like grunt work, but it’s work that needs to be done, and it genuinely helps acquaint you with the organization.  (If you’re unemployed and poor, it is also a way that you can contribute if you can’t afford the membership, although most annual memberships to community historical societies are fairly low.)

You may find that your group has a primitive website, or no website at all, and, as you are young, the veterans with the group may ask if you can help with this. If you feel that you can take this on, this is another way to familiarize yourself with a community heritage group and its local history. You need not have extensive experience with web design in order to take this on.  The WTJHS, the Scarborough Historical Society, and the Riverdale Historical Society have recently switched to WordPress, resulting in simple but effective websites (although there may be room for improvement, of course).

I should also add that moving outside your area of specialization can also be a way to meet people at larger organizations. This past year I volunteered with Heritage Toronto through Doors Open Toronto, where I was a tour shepherd at the Toronto Dominion Centre.  I got to spend a few hours on the executive level, guiding groups of visitors from station to station.  Not only was I there far longer there than the visitors who had waited in line for the privilege, I got to listen to multiple tours (each of which was a little bit different than the previous one) and talk with the other volunteers. And I knew next to nothing about the TD Centre when I agreed to do it.

BE PATIENT

It can be frustrating when you want to contribute but don’t know how. This initial frustration can increase if the group does not seem to have specific tasks for which they need your help. This is one of the biggest problems I’ve seen with trying to get new volunteers integrated with a historical society.

In my experience, once you start getting a feel for the local history of your community and, more importantly, how your group functions (or doesn’t function, as the case may be), you can better identify ways that you can assist.

If there isn’t something specific for you to do, a simple option is to start asking questions. If you want to know about specific people or buildings or other aspects of your community’s history and heritage, the veterans should be able to refer you to the appropriate source. When you reach the limit of pre-existing material, you may have hit upon a specific subject which warrants further research, and thus you may have found a way to contribute.

If you don’t already know a lot about your community’s history, you may find it daunting to be in a room full of older people who seem to know far more than you do.  There is no magic bullet for learning neighbourhood history. If you really want to know your community’s history, you will have to be prepared to do a variety of activities over a period of time. The longer you are exposed to and work with your community’s heritage the more you will come to actually know it.

As an extra tip here, not every group is lucky enough to have an archives of old photos and material, but most groups do have old newsletters and publications which they have made. These can be an excellent source of information about both the history of the community and about the history of the organization. I have learned quite a lot by going through old WTJHS newsletters from before I joined the group, not only about the history of my neighbourhood, but also about how this historical knowledge was acquired and what heritage issues my community has faced over the years.

YOU CAN HELP SHAPE THE DIRECTION OF THE GROUP

A historical society chooses its activities and programming based on what it perceives to be the interests of its members and its constituency. If you find that you aren’t interested in your group’s current projects, or want them to focus on a different aspect of heritage, speak up and offer to help work on it.

For example, after spending several months with the WTJHS doing a variety of tasks, I noticed that, in comparison to other years, the group was mostly concerned with public history education, and less involved with planning and nominating buildings for heritage protection.

200 Annette Street, being converted into residential units this past summer.

At the same time, I noticed a For Sale sign outside a small Junction church. Although the building was at this time listed on Toronto’s heritage inventory, it was not designated under the Ontario Heritage Act. Finding that the WTJHS had far less information about it in their archives compared with other neighbourhood churches, I began talking to some of the group’s members about it and starting building a more complete file for the society’s records. I talked to a local resident who keeps a blog about neighbourhood development issues, and the two of us went to the Canadian Baptist Archives at McMaster Divinity College on a research trip.

Several members of the WTJHS offered assistance, ranging from personal memories to artifacts connected to the church.  After talking to as many people and collecting as much information as I could, I decided that the property was worth nominating for designation, and submitted the paperwork through the Etobicoke York Community Preservation Panel, securing the endorsement of the WTJHS.  I am happy to say that, this past winter, the city completed the designation [pdf]. This was my first foray into heritage advocacy through the WTJHS, and the information I collected is now in the society’s archives.

IT CAN BE A FORUM FOR WORK YOU ARE DOING ANYWAY

If you are already interested in being active in a historical society, there is a good chance that you are already researching or doing work on your own, outside of the organization.  Even if you’re not a professional, there is a good chance you are monitoring planning decisions at city hall, or researching old buildings which interest you.  If nothing else, you are probably reading about Toronto’s history, or learning how to identify different architectural styles.

This is the sort of knowledge that you will want to exchange with other members of your heritage group, even if it does not have an immediate application.  Community groups tend to be fairly small, and can only put on a few projects each year in order not to spread themselves thin.  While working on their chosen projects, however, they are amassing information which can be used in future years.

For young historians, either academic or popular/free-lance, a historical society is a way to share your information with the local community. The people who attend meetings or who read the newsletters are exactly the sort of people who will want to learn about what you do or what you know. If you’re a person with historical knowledge or ideas about heritage, a community heritage group thrives on your contributions.

Baby boomers and seniors may dominate many historical societies, but they tend to be dynamic people who are active in their community and seeking to enrich their knowledge. I find that (most) people who attend historical society meetings are unified by their willingness to learn. I see a historical society as a collection of everything that a community has learned about itself, so if people with knowledge do not contribute to it, it fails. Heritage can become lost because if a historical society doesn’t gather the information and integrate it into their community’s narrative, nobody else will.

A young historian may assume that the relevant historical society already knows about his/her work, but this may not be the case. Don’t be shy about contacting a community heritage organization if you have done some research relevant to their community. They may be interested in spreading word of your work amongst their members.

Publishing, I also find, can act as a form research. Sometimes I have proudly announced a “discovery” at a historical society meeting, only to find that one or more people present know even more about the subject, and can add to what I already have. I have had similar experiences when publishing articles in the WTJHS newsletter. It is tempting to not publish something until it is “done,” but in history it seems that there is always more that can be added, and new points to make. Sharing your work with a local historical society can help make your work better.

pitch your own project

It’s not always obvious what “needs” to be done in the heritage community.  There isn’t always somebody out there with a list of activities for young people to do, and you may have to suggest your own projects.  If there is something specific that you want the group to do, you may have to make that opportunity happen yourself.

In the summer of 2008, an old cornerstone was found in the Junction, which the WTJHS determined had once been part of a demolished post office.  I asked people at the historical society what they knew about this post office and then did what additional research I could.  Having now compiled all this information, I asked if I could write an account of the cornerstone for the WTJHS’ quarterly newsletter.  It wasn’t a particularly fancy article, and the newsletter has a fairly limited circulation, but it nevertheless made me a published historian.

Following a few similar experiences, my popular history writing skills had improved, and I responded to a request from Heritage Toronto, who at the time wanted writers for their website.  Not only did I now have a small portfolio, but I also had the endorsement of respected members of my local historical society.

While veterans of historical societies may not be able to fact-check every aspect of your research, they can certainly help you present and format your ideas, or put them into context.  If you join a historical society with an idea for the sort of work you want to do, or if you get an idea after you’ve learned a bit about your organization, ask the other members about this, and find out who can help you. My first research and writing efforts came across like university essays, and with the help of my local historical society, I like to think that I’ve improved. (I’m still making adjustments, of course, and still solicit feedback.)

FURTHER THOUGHTS

Getting involved with a community heritage group can seem like an overwhelming experience when you first start out. When I first started I knew very little about my neighbourhood’s history and had no conception as to how heritage worked at city hall. I expected my volunteering at the WTJHS would be temporary, and I certainly was not expecting to become a member, much less serve on its executive.

One of the key things I have grown to realize, however, is that like heritage itself, local historical societies are based on a strong sense of inter-connectedness. You can’t really spend a few weeks “doing heritage stuff” and then move on.  Being involved with heritage isn’t about a temporary interest.  It’s something which you cultivate and which hopefully lasts through a lifetime. It involves a continuous learning process, a perpetual exchange of information, and finding new ways to enhance your community.

These ideas are hardly complete.  I am sure that others have further suggestions, or disagree with part (or all) of what I have written.  I am not so arrogant as to assume that I know it all, or that my experiences with volunteer historical societies have been universal.  My primary goal in writing these particular entries is to foster conversation.  (This is an example of publishing acting as a form of research!)

To reiterate from my initial post on this subject, I also believe that historical societies can be doing significantly more to attract and assist younger members, and hope to have my thoughts on this subject collected and posted here soon.