- Bargain Brides Before online dating websites like Tinder or Match.com, how did our lonely ancestors find love? They placed advertisements in Matrimonial Journals, in newspapers and sometimes even wrote away to officials in far away places looking for bargain brides. Matrimonial Journals Published in Toronto, the Anglo-American Matrimonial Journal took advertisements from lonely men and women looking for […]
- The Mysterious Christmas Card from the Isle of Wight Tucked away in Tyler Jacques’ family memorabilia was a yellowed Christmas card from the Isle of Wight dated 1932. The card was from Mr and Mrs H L Williams and had an embossed address of 75 Church Street, Ryde, Isle of Wight in the bottom left-hand corner but no one in the family knew who […]
- Murderer Weds Victim’s Daughter On the afternoon of Sunday, November 24, 1895, in a jealous rage, William Royce shot his former lover, Nellie Patton, killing her with two shots. Nellie, a divorcee who had recently left Royce for a bartender by the name of Walsh, was living in a house of assignation in Sioux City run by Billy Nead. […]
- The Past and the Present What is perhaps the biggest challenge for social historians is to wrap our heads around the continuum of time: around the past and the present. We study the past even as we live in the present and we struggle to imagine what it was like when our ancestors walked the earth. Think about that for […]
- 10 Examples of Fake News from History This month, Facebook began prompting users in fourteen countries to read a guide on the fake news phenomenon, with a list of tips that included being sceptical about headlines and checking the source of the story. ‘False news is harmful to our community, it makes the world less informed, and it erodes trust,’ Facebook’s Adam Mosseri […]
- Crowds Flock to Sunnyside Beach in 1922 Crowds flocked to Sunnyside Beach in 1922 when the new park opened, lured by the modern new bathing pavilion and the miles of parklands, boardwalks and beaches near Humber Bay. The newly formed Toronto Harbour Commission reclaimed land by dredging the bottom of Lake Ontario and placing over 3 million cubic yards of fill along the […]
- Sears Roebuck Mail Order Catalogue Long before the internet and online ordering, mail order catalogues were one of the only ways that the American rural population had to buy a variety of merchandise for themselves and their homes. Before the advent of mail order catalogues, people in isolated communities throughout the United States purchased from general stores, often from a […]
- Part Five: James and Laura Mackie I have recently broken through a brick wall in my genealogical research and have found out what happened to my great-grand aunt, Laura Jane Williams. Join me in the final chapter, Part Five: James and Laura Mackie as I research the social history of the Mackie family and uncover the breakdown of the Mackie family and Laura’s […]
- Women’s Occupations Women’s Occupations in the Early Twentieth Century The logical starting place to learn about what occupational opportunities were available for women in the early twentieth century is by referring to the data collected during the 1900, 1910 and 1920 Federal Census. For that reason, I turned to the report, Women in Gainful Occupations, 1870-1920: A […]
- Hurricane Hazel They said it might rain; they said it might be windy; but they never really thought that Hurricane Hazel would hit Toronto. Protection of the Alleghenies On Friday, 15 October, 1954, Torontonians were feeling the effects of Hurricane Hazel which had just hit land in the Carolinas as more than one inch of rain fell […]