To mark the sesquicentennial of Canada’s Confederation, the Toronto History Lecture has been expanded to a three-lecture series for August 2017. All lectures are free and open to the public, but space must be reserved online.
Wednesday, August 9, 7:30 p.m.
Reconstructing a Lost World From a Photograph: Agnes and Terauley, ca 1910
Standing in an upper window of a T. Eaton Co. warehouse in Toronto about 1910, photographer William James snapped a marvelous photograph of the northern “Ward” district, showing the Agnes-Terauley intersection (now Bay and Dundas) with the Ontario Legislature along the distant horizon. Buildings visible in this cluttered streetscape include churches, schools, a synagogue, police station, hospital, Yiddish theatre, the city poorhouse, a three-storey apartment block and many private homes, both poor and grand. Speaker Bill Gladstone will zoom in on these buildings and explore their connections to various personalities, issues and events of the era.
Wednesday, August 16, 7:30 p.m.
Forgetting and Remembering the Lakeshore Psychiatric Hospital Cemetery
A 125-year-old Etobicoke cemetery is a focal point for rethinking the city’s history, how we have treated marginalized populations, as well as contemporary heritage policies and concerns.
The Lakeshore Psychiatric Hospital Cemetery is the final resting place for more than 1,500 people buried between the 1890s and 1970s, most of them resident patients in a local psychiatric hospital, or children born to patients. Traditionally, psychiatric facilities have been regarded as marginal spaces for much of society, and less than 200 of the Lakeshore burials actually include headstone markers. Since the 1990s, and as public perceptions of mental health institutions have evolved, survivors, former hospital employees, and mental health advocates have worked to re-incorporate the site into community memory. Gregory Klages will shine a light on the hospital population and what their stories tell us about Toronto’s history.
Wednesday, August 23, 7:30 p.m.
Yorkville through a House’s Eyes
Sixty years after the founding of Yorkville, the village was beginning to show its age. Prominent houses along Bloor Street East, at the head of Jarvis Street, were maturing and so were their inhabitants. Joseph Bloor’s house sat vacant, overgrown with vines; his brewery was long gone. Yorkville, “that little offshoot of Toronto,” was no longer little. Joyce Munro will present the story of Yorkville in the 1890s, told through the eyes of one house—Bloorview—a spacious single-family home owned by the Thomas M. Thomson family, which, two decades later, was put to other uses. Photographs of Bloorview as it aged will serve as the backdrop for discussing changing times in Yorkville.
The City of Toronto Archives co-sponsors the Toronto History Lecture with the Ontario Genealogical Society Toronto Branch and has provided the venue for the event since its inception.
The Toronto History Lecture was inaugurated in 2011 in memory of well-known local and family historian Paul McGrath and his love for telling people about Toronto and its past. Mr. McGrath was chairman of the Ontario Genealogical Society Toronto Branch and host of the TV series, Ancestors in the Attic.
For information about the speakers and to reserve your space, visit the Toronto Branch website.
