Defining History

Candace, 30 May 2007, No comments
Categories: Academia, Canadiana, Culture, History, Language, Life

It’s all about perspective. My kids got a map in mail, a map of the area a bit north of here with points of interest marked to encourage daytripping over the summer. It’s a cool map with great photos of marinas, wetlands, artwork, theatres, kayaking, scuba diving, lighthouses — lots of different categories so that everyone is likely to find something that they’d want to do. It’s published by a new (to me anyway) organization called Waterfront Trail, a registered charity “committed to the completion, enhancement, and promotion of the [Lake Ontario] Waterfront Trail and Greenway.” I was browsing it while taking a water break from gardening.

I’ve always been a stickler for appropriate use of icons. They should be meaningful, clear, easy to interpret, simple, scalable, and non-discriminatory. Looking at this map I thought about “history” and how through my studies of social history, women’s history, history of technology, etc, I’ve really broadened my understanding of the field of history.

There are many records of our histories. Cookbooks, diaries, storybooks, medical charts, songs, clothing, artwork — these all tell stories of our past. History is more than just the records of battles, leaders, and number of wounded. In fact, this information doesn’t really give us information about how people lived. We should not neglect the histories of the many people who were not soldiers, and remember that these people also had full lives outside of who was killing who when. We can also study people who lived their lives in city or country or both (and why they moved), about how they fed themselves, how they grew up, how they grew old, how they celebrated, how they grieved — these pieces of history are rich.

This is how I think of history and how I will study it when I start the MA history program this fall. This is why I was surprised to see that historical places on the Waterfront map are represented by an icon with a cannon. I don’t think the acceptance of social histories in academia has made it that far into the general population just yet. It is just as relevant (and for most people probably much more engaging) when we consider the lived experiences of our histories. There are more and more historical fiction novels for kids (Dear Canada, and Royal Diaries come to mind. Maybe as these become more popular the next generation will grow up thinking history is more than war.

Comments

Leave a Reply:

Name *

Mail (hidden) *

Website