12: Your Basic, No Frills Edition of This Newsletter
A slew of articles and old ads for your reading pleasure.
Sometimes I come up with a grand topic to start off one of this newsletters. And sometimes I stall while trying to come up with a grand topic and derail anything resembling a regular schedule.
Without further delay, let’s just charge into some regular features.
What’s New?
John Street, Eldorado, Ontario, early 1900s. Community Archives of Belleville and Hastings County.
This edition spotlights a quartet of stories published by TVO for your reading pleasure. First up, a look at Ontario’s first gold boom, set in our own version of Eldorado in the mid-1860s. I intended to drive up to the Madoc area to see what was left, but time and one of our few blasts of normal winter weather scuttled those plans.
Evening Telegram, February 15, 1934.
Tale #2 tied into NHL All-Star Weekend in Toronto. I looked at the first gathering of the league’s finest when an all-star squad was assembled to take on the Maple Leafs in a February 1934 charity match to benefit injured Leaf star Ace Bailey. This was one of those stories where having a Newspapers.com subscription really pays, thanks to its easy access to the Boston Globe’s coverage of the incident which led up the game, as well as access to an influential column from the Ottawa Journal that suggested holding a special game.
(I keep crossing my fingers over tantalizing hints that maybe, someday, perhaps, the site will include an archive of the Toronto Telegram?)
To show how little I pay attention to the sports world these days: I didn’t even realize the All-Star Game and its related festivities were happening here until I saw plenty of lightpost banners along Dundas Street a couple of weeks before the game.
Buffalo Courier-Express, March 28, 1959.
Our third selection kicked off my Black History Month coverage with a look at an incident in 1959 where a group of Toronto teens ran into racism head-on while appearing on a Buffalo television dance show. What floored me when I researched the story was the lack of coverage in the Buffalo press - that one of the city’s major papers (the Evening News) only ran a tiny wire story about an incident that happened in Buffalo suggested to me both the racial divides in that city, and perhaps an unwillingness to rock the boat with a major advertiser?
The final selection of the quartet looks at one of the most controversial exhibits the Royal Ontario Museum ever mounted, Into the Heart of Africa (1989-1990). It was easy why this fiasco became a textbook example of how not to present a museum exhibit, with plenty of mistakes and stubbornness on the ROM’s part. Arguments from the exhibit’s fiercest defenders in the press heralded future battles over political correctness and wokeness.
This was one of those articles where I left a lot on the cutting room floor, especially well-written opinion pieces from both sides of the debate. This is a deep rabbit hole you could spend hours exploring, one that covers topics from the roles of museums to how communities should be considered when presenting potentially controversial topics.
Reading all the arguments reconfirmed my belief that gatekeeping arrogance is rarely a good thing. Whenever I tackle topics involving communities I have no part of, I strive to never sound like the expert who knows all and who knows better than the community in focus, and defer (unless they’re really out of whack) to first-person accounts and quotes whenever possible. It’s better to listen and observe than charge into an opinionated position.
Toronto Star, January 2, 1971.
One other piece that appeared in February was Spacing’s reprint of an old Torontoist story which looks at a 1971 Toronto Star feature that asked local dignitaries and politicians how they would make the city a more pleasant place to live. Let’s say there are more than a few suggestions to improve cycling and pedestrian infrastructure that too many generations of a certain strain of Toronto politician have resisted.
Curio Collection
One of my current distractions is browsing the Internet Archive’s collection of Broadcasting magazine from the 1930s and 1940s. I’ve collected ads for radio stations I grew up with, the odd story about the radio industry that may prove useful someday, and potential future clipart.
For example, here’s an early Second World War-era CBC ad touting its coverage across Ontario, part of a similar series covering different regions of the country.
These ads also answer some of the most burning historical questions out there, such as where did workers eat their candy bars in Second World War-era Chicago?
I’m currently at a point where manufacturers and broadcast networks were waiting for the war to end to dive headlong into the exciting new technology of television. Among the pioneers was DuMont, which would operate a TV network during the 1940s and 1950s and, through the tangled history of its assets, could be considered a distant ancestor of the Fox Network.
Hire Me
Seeking a writer/researcher/editor for your latest project? I am always taking on new work. Beyond my historical niche, which often leads in surprising directions, I want to expand my horizons and explore new ways of utilizing my skills. I am interested in working on general projects in the corporate, educational, and non-profit sectors where clear communication and presenting solid facts is a must. Privately message me at jamiebradburnwriting[AT]gmail.com if I can assist you.
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That’s it for now. See you next time!