The tradition or art of scrapbooking emerges from an inherent desire for individuals to leave a legacy. Tangible, but highly visual in nature, a scrapbook is a careful curation of images, clippings, and other ephemera that tells a story of someone’s life at a particular moment in time. Unlike a diary or journal, which are much more intimate and introspective, a scrapbook can be personal, but there is also a performative element of display, or presentation in the way each page is organized. Scrapbooks are curated with an audience in mind.
Museum Chat Live! E607 – The Howe Report Revisited
On this episode of Museum Chat Live! Sara and Adrian revisit their lecture on the Howe Report presented as a part of the Museum’s Virtual Museum Lecture Series in November of 2020. The lecture focussed on the Howe Report, or using it’s proper name, “The Refugees from Slavery in Canada West: a Report to the Freedman’s Inquiry Commission,” written by Dr. Samuel Gridley Howe after his visit to St. Catharines in 1863 to report on the condition of refugee Freedom Seekers to Congress. Howe’s interviews were transcribed and reveal a lot about our community in 1863.
Museum Chat Live! E604 – Victorian Tweets: Contradictions Performed
As modern, progressive people of the 21st century we enjoy a certain distance from the romanticized and contradictory Victorian period but are we really that different from our Victorian ancestors?
On this third and final episode of this special podcast series, we’ll finally tell you what we think about our post-modernist status as non-Victorians. Enjoy the episode.
Museum Chat Live! E603 – Victorian Tweets: Chronological Identity
As modern, progressive people of the 21st century we enjoy a certain distance from the romanticized and contradictory Victorian period but are we really that different from our Victorian ancestors?
On this second episode of the special podcast series, we’ll explore our chronological identity. Wait. What? Our chronological identity? Listen to the episode to find out more.
Museum Chat Live! E602 – Victorian Tweets: Who Were the Victorians?
As modern, progressive people of the 21st century we enjoy a certain distance from the romanticized and contradictory Victorian period but are we really that different from our Victorian ancestors?
On this first episode of the special podcast series, we’ll explore what it means to be Victorian. We’ll hear some of the tweets and their original sources on this podcast, read and recoded by some familiar voices of staff and volunteers.
One Hour in the Past E304 – Maps and Mapping
Have you ever noticed that a simple information search can lead you in strange and wonderful directions? As in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, historical research can lead you down a winding rabbit hole that might take you off your original path and lead you to new and amazing historical places!
Lego Challenge: Built Heritage Edition – Lincoln County Courthouse
Our final Lego Challenge this week is the Lincoln County Courthouse! The Courthouse was built in 1849, with the east wing added in 1865. It was in use as the Courthouse until 1981 when the new Courthouse was completed.
One Hour in the Past E302 – The Family Compact
On this episode of One Hour in the Past Kathleen and Adrian discuss their research into the secretive and mysterious Family Compact, which with their control of the governing Tory Party, concentrated power in their small group in Upper Canada between ~1800 and 1841.
Museum Classroom: Commemoration in Stamps
Learn about the importance of stamps and their role in the history of communication through this interactive activity of designing your own stamp.
Lego Challenge: Built Heritage Edition – Knox Presbyterian Church
We LOVE to build with Lego and now YOU can build along with us at home! Each week, Adrian will challenge you to build a different historic structure in St. Catharines using Lego and the
This week, we’re building Knox Presbyterian Church!
Lego Challenge: Built Heritage Edition – The Carnegie Library
We LOVE to build with Lego and now YOU can build along with us at home! Each week, Adrian will challenge you to build a different historic structure in St. Catharines using Lego and the photos we post as a template. This week, we’re building the Carnegie Library!
Museum Classroom: Photo Analysis
“Sara the farm cat isn’t sizing up dinner at Bert and Jennifer Dimmers’ poultry barn in Ridgeway yesterday. The eight-month-old feline is used to wandering through the different pens without harming the birds, including these one-week-old Muscovy ducks”
Museum Classroom: Letters to Harriet
Tubman’s connection to St. Catharines is significant. Tubman lived in St. Catharines and used the city as her base of operations from 1850-1857 and even attended the Salem Chapel – B.M.E. Church that still operates on Geneva Street. An important historical figure in both Canadian and American history, Harriet Tubman also worked for the Union Army during the American Civil War, serving as a cook, nurse and even a spy!
BHM: The Howe Report Part 4
The picture of Canada and of St. Catharines I had in my head was one that was a ‘safe haven’ for Freedom Seekers. Technically true: legal freedom was available to Freedom Seekers. But St. Catharines wasn’t much of a ‘promised land’ afterall. Understandably, it is difficult to reconcile this information found in the testimonies of the Howe Commission, into the established picture we have of St. Catharines.
BHM: The Howe Report Part 3
St. Catharines in this period was truly the industrial hub of Niagara. Agriculture and shipbuilding – the largest employers – dominated the landscape. The Welland Canal brought innovation, wealth, technology, and tourists to St. Catharines. It was dirty – animals had the run of downtown, but it was also clean – Victorian tourists swept into the city at this time to take advantage of all the recreational opportunities available.
Guided Spirit Walks 2019 Behind-the-Scenes: RESEARCH
Welcome to a behind-the-scenes look at our research and writing process, rehearsals, costumes, and much more for this year’s Guided Spirit Walks, with some sneak peeks of what is coming in September!
Yearbook Flip: The Revolutionary Sixties
How did teenagers in St. Catharines respond to the social and cultural revolution of the Sixties? Student yearbooks are a great way to explore how students reacted to the world around them.
Museum Chat Live! E310 – The Fallen Workers Part 5
This is Part 5 in a Museum Chat Live! podcast mini-series detailing the Fallen Workers of the Welland Canal. Click […]
Museum Chat Live! E309 – We Did Our Bit: Closing our WWI Exhibit
Our very popular WWI exhibition, Doing Our Bit: St. Catharines to the Western Front is officially closing its doors at […]
Museum Chat Live! E308 – The Fallen Workers Part 4
This is Part 4 in a Museum Chat Live! podcast mini-series detailing the Fallen Workers of the Welland Canal. Click […]
We Did Our Bit: WWI Exhibition Favourites Part 3 – Bessie Beyer’s Uniform
This is the third installment of the We Did Our Bit series. Click to read earlier posts in the series here. This post […]
Museum Chat Live! E307 – The Fallen Workers Part 3
This is Part 3 in a Museum Chat Live! podcast mini-series detailing the Fallen Workers of the Welland Canal. Click […]
Museum Chat Live! E306 – The Fallen Workers Part 2
This is Part 2 in a Museum Chat Live! mini-series detailing the Fallen Workers of the Welland Canal. Click here […]
One Hour in the Past E103 – Soda Water
When our exhibit focused on objects found in attics and walls, titled Lost & Found, was coming together, Kathleen became intrigued with the soda water bottle that was to be included in the exhibit, and the history surrounding it. And that’s where our conversation picks up on the podcast for this episode: the history of Soda Water (and the history of Soda Water in St. Catharines).
At War’s End: Behind-the-Scenes Part 1
Those who served in the Great War, both domestically and overseas, deserve our respect and recognition. I am honoured to be part of the process of creating the St. Catharines Museum’s 2018 Guided Spirit Walks because it means that I get to help share the stories of these heroic individuals. As the programming assistant I am helping to conduct research on our characters, to create the script, and to facilitate rehearsals. Jack Hardy acquired some valuable wisdom from his experiences and emerged from the war grateful for his successes. It is my hope that we will all be able to learn similar insight from the stories of Hardy and a variety of others who were affected by the war that ended one hundred years ago this November.
Museum Chat Live! E305 – The Fallen Workers (Mini-Series): Introduction
E305 This is the first in a series of episodes that details the Fallen Workers of the Welland Canal. Over […]
One Hour in the Past E102 – Rowing
Rowing has been a popular sport in the community for more than 100 years! As host to the Royal Canadian Henley Race Course, the community has been lucky to host many world class regattas showcasing rowing’s best! Our community has also trained some of the best rowers in the world.
Museum Chat Live! E304 – Gender, Class & Social Control in Alias Grace
E304 As a podcast companion to our next Books & Brews read, Margaret Atwood’s Alias Grace, we interview Dr. Linda […]
BHM Part 4: How to Reconcile the Good and Bad Parts of Our History
Stories like the establishment of the Refugee Slaves Friends Society here in St. Catharines, or the popular Emancipation Day Picnic, held at Lakeside Park from the 1920s to the 1950s to celebrate the 1833 Act for the Abolition of Slavery, are enjoyable to share and to consume because they can help us to feel better about ourselves and our past while living in troubling times. Unfortunately, history is messy. We love organization and labels as much as you do, but history is complex and accurately telling stories includes acknowledging the bad parts too. Recognizing messy histories can actually help to clean up and heal the impacts that history has on our community today. Reconciling the good with the bad parts of our history can help us to move forward.
Museum Chat Live! E301 – Company Town
In this podcast study guide (to go along with your reading of the book) we take a look at the idea of Merritton, one of the 4 former cities that amalgamated into St. Catharines, and it’s development as a ‘company town’ alongside the historic Welland Canals. Of course, the history of Merritton, and the history of any place, is far more complex than could possibly be analysed in a brief study-guide podcast, and so this episdoe should not be considered a complete history of the town, but rather the presentation of one idea as a just one part of explaining its rich history.
Museum Chat Live! E206 – The Mitten Tree
The holidays are an exciting time of year but for many people in our community who find themselves in a place of need, it can be a cold, uncomfortable, and lonely time.
Museum Chat Live! E204 – Spooky Halloween Episode
It’s the spookiest time of year! In the haunted spirit of Halloween, we’ve dedicate this episode of Museum Chat Live! to some of the creepiest and eeriest stories in St. Catharines’ history. You might want to listen with the lights on…
Museum Chat Live! E202 – The Monuments
How do we deal with monuments that commemorate problematic histories and problematic historical figures? It’s a debate that has gotten quite heated in recent weeks, and as museum professionals, the Museum Chat Live! podcast team thought we’d weight in.
Fire Insurance Plans Print Series
The plans continue to remain an important resource in my work as a public historian at the Museum today. I often find myself considering research questions by first checking the city’s business directories spanning the last 150 years, and the fire insurance plans. They aren’t perfect – they are static and only cover certain geography – but the visuals are priceless.
And that’s why we just couldn’t keep these plans to ourselves.
Museum Chat Live! E201 – Green Grass, Running Water
We’re kicking off Museum Chat Live! with an episode dedicated to our Books & Brews Book Club with a discussion of our first book, set for September 19, of Green Grass, Running Water.
A Walk Around Town Walk O – Junius Predicts the Future of St. Catharines
Excerpt from “Walk O” in “St. Catharines A-Z” by Junius, originally published in the St. Catharines Journal on August 14th, […]
One Dominion: On the Path to Confederation
In our research, we found a handful of St. Catharines politicians and businessmen whom were adamantly against Confederation. These men were part of a movement usually referred to as the Anti-Confederate movement. Plenty of politicians across the new Dominion, now vilified by time and memory, were against a political union for a surprisingly wide variety of reasons.
Books & Brews 150
Our Fall 2017 Books & Brews series opens space for the voices of Indigenous, female, and French-Canadian authors to consider the impacts of colonization on what it means to be Canadian. The books we have selected explore Canadian-ness and the Canadian experience through the intersections of race, class, culture and identity.
Museum Chat Live E108 – The Fallen Workers
A staggering 137 men lost their lives as a result of accidents that occurred during the construction of the Welland Ship Canal. This number is shockingly high. To our knowledge, it is the largest loss of life in the history of Canadian government infrastructure projects.
Museum Chat Live! E107
Happy Victoria Day, everyone! We love this May-long weekend for so many reasons – it signals the beginning of warm weather in Canada, and it is steeped with history that still impacts our lives today.