Reference no: EM132394442

Toronto Historical Labour Sites: Research Assignment

Part 2: Research Report

For this the second part of our Toronto Historical Labour Sites: Research Assignment you will need to hand in a well-researched project on a location in Toronto that is significant to labour history in Canada.

Assignment Guidelines -

This 4-6 page (minimum: 1500 words) double-spaced essay will describe the significance, the physical properties and specific location of a site of historical significance to the labour movement in Canada.

You will need to use 4 secondary resources for your essay, including 2 valid academic sources. This assignment emphasizes your relationship to the material history of the labour movement in Canada and should help to illustrate your own interconnectedness with that history, both as scholars of labour history and residents of Toronto.

You will need to visit the site of your choosing, and then photograph, videotape, illustrate, or otherwise visually represent that location and any commemorative plaques or monuments posted there (including Historical Toronto plaques, statuary, and [murmur] ears).

Your assignment should include a brief 250-word-plus account of that site: you should describe the site and provide an account of your response to the site in light of your research of it. Remember to include in your account why this site is of personal significance to you.

Tip: You may wish to present this assignment in two parts:

i. A field component, with your representation (i.e. photos, videos, drawings) of the site, and;

ii. The research component: your report on the history and significance of the site.

Topics -

Choose and locate one of the following Historical Toronto Sites or another site of your choosing (with your professor's permission):

• The Printers Strike of 1872
• The House of William Lyon Mackenzie King
• The Athenaeum Club
• James Simpson Park
• The Hoggs Hollow Tragedy plaque
• The Memorial to Commemorate the Chinese Railroad Workers in Canada
• The House of George Brown
• The Toronto Streetcar Railway Strike (see Missing Plaques Project)
• Women's Shoe Strike 1882 (see Missing Plaques Project)
• Lost Chinatown (see Missing Plaques Project)
• Gooderham & Worts Building
• Ireland Park
• Stanley C. Grizzle Parkette
• The House of James Shaver Wordsworth
• Injured Workers Monument
• Ontario Federation of Labour Monument
• Toronto Eaton's Centre Building (specifically it's organizing thrust)
• St Lawrence Hall (specifically in its use as the city stocks or as a venue for political speeches, i.e. George Brown's anti-abolition speech at that venue).
• United Steelworkers Hall
• The Labour Lyceum
• Downtown site of the G20 protests.

Research -

For this report, you will use at least two database articles (only one of them from a newspaper or magazine, and at least one from a scholarly/peer-reviewed journal), and at least one website.

Additional sources, such as books (or chapters in books) by labourhistorians (Greg Kealey, Desmond Morton, Brian Palmer, Joan Sangster, Julie White, Dionne Brand and more) are recommended but not required.

List all of the sources used in the course of your research on a Works Cited page at the end of your 4-6 page report. Be sure to also use in-text citation to indicate the sources for all direct quotations, facts and statistics used in your report.

Some questions your report might answer:

What does the site look like?

Where is it located? Explain in detail the event and its actors that make the physical location significant?

What is the historical significance of your site?: i.e., what happened there? Who was involved? What was the outcome?

If the event / person who is the object of the site is controversial, why?; i.e. some sites will honour a person who might not be completely praise-worthy; or, they may pay tribute to an event that does not deserve celebration. Make sure to include an account of this. Remember to continue to employ the rules of reading history critically, even (or, perhaps, especially) in this exercise.

How is this event / idea / person / change still of significance today?

If your subject is a person (a plaque or statue commemorating a person):

• Relate the site to the person: why is this site significant?
• What did this person do to change the situation of labour in Canadian history?
• Did she/he make changes for the better of for the worse?

If your subject is an event:

• What was this situation like prior to the unfolding of your event?
• What were some immediate outcomes?
• What were some long-term outcomes?

What feeling do you get standing where history unfolded? What connections did you make, or did anything become clearer to you standing on that physical site?

Why is this event or person personally significant to you?

Attachment:- Research Assignment Files.rar