News

• Posted on
  May 14th 2012
  at 3:15pm
  

  Barbour & Lehr win 2011 Margaret McWilliams Awards!

  Last week, the Manitoba Historical Society announced that UMP authors had won awards in two Margaret McWilliams Awards categories!

  Dale Barbour’s Winnipeg Beach: Leisure and Courtship in a Resort Town, 1900-1967, tied with Ron Stevens’ Much Ado About Squat: Squatters and Homesteaders Ravage Riding Mountain Forest in the Local History category.

  Winnipeg Beach was also recently awarded a AMA Manitoba Day Award and was shortlisted in two categories at the Manitoba Book Awards, McNally Robinson Book of the Year Award and the Carol Shields Winnipeg Book Award.

  In addition, John C. Lehr’s Community and Frontier: A Ukrainian Settlement in the Canadian Parkland received the Margaret McWilliams Award in the Scholarly History category.

  Community and Frontier was also shortlisted for the Alexander Kennedy Isbister Award for Non-Fiction at the Manitoba Book Awards.

  Congratulations to both Dale and Jock!

• Posted on
  May 7th 2012
  at 10:49am
  

  Winnipeg Beach receives AMA Manitoba Day Award!

  Dale Barbour’s Winnipeg Beach: Leisure and Courtship in a Resort Town, 1900-1967 will be recognized at the 6th annual Manitoba Day Awards, presented by the Association for Manitoba Archives on May 10.

  The Manitoba Day Award was established by the Association in 2007 to recognize users of archives who have completed an original work of excellence which contributes to the understanding and celebration of Manitoba history.

  Thirteen awards will presented this year, including Danny Schur, John K. Sampson, and Sally Ito.

  Our thanks to the University of Manitoba Archives & Special Collections for nominating Dale!

  About Winnipeg Beach
  During the first half of the twentieth century, Winnipeg Beach proudly marketed itself as the Coney Island of the West. Located just north of Manitoba’s bustling capital, it drew 40,000 visitors a day and served as an important intersection point between classes, ethnic communities, and perhaps most importantly, between genders. In Winnipeg Beach, Dale Barbour takes us into the heart of this turn of the century resort area and introduces us to some of the people who worked, played and lived in the resort. Through photographs, interviews, and newspaper clippings he presents a lively history of this resort area and its surprising role in the evolution of local courtship and dating practices, from the commoditization of the courting experience by the CP Railway through their “Moonlight Specials,” through the development of an elaborate amusement area that encouraged public dating, and to its eventual demise amid the moral panic over sexual behavior during the 1950s and ’60s.

• Posted on
  April 30th 2012
  at 10:18am
  

  Seeing Red wins THREE awards!

  Mark Anderson and Carmen Robertson’s collaboration, Seeing Red: A History of Natives in Canadian Newspapers, took home three awards at the Saskatchewan Book Awards this past weekend!

  UMP would like to congratulate Carmen and Mark on their wins in the First Peoples’ Writing, Scholarly Writing Award, and Regina Book Award categories!

  We’d also like to extend our congratulations to all the other nominees and winners.

  More about Seeing Red:

  Seeing Red is a groundbreaking study of how Canadian English-language newspapers have portrayed Aboriginal peoples from 1869 to the present day. It assesses a wide range of publications on topics that include the sale of Rupert’s Land, the signing of Treaty 3, the North-West Rebellion and Louis Riel, the death of Pauline Johnson, the outing of Grey Owl, the discussions surrounding Bill C-31, the “Bended Elbow” standoff at Kenora, Ontario, and the Oka Crisis.

  The authors uncover overwhelming evidence that the colonial imaginary not only thrives, but dominates depictions of Aboriginal peoples in mainstream newspapers. The colonial constructs ingrained in the news media perpetuate an imagined Native inferiority that contributes significantly to the marginalization of Indigenous people in Canada. That such imagery persists to this day suggests strongly that our country lives in denial, failing to live up to its cultural mosaic boosterism.

• Posted on
  April 2nd 2012
  at 1:56pm
  

  Award Season Continues!

  University of Manitoba Press is pleased to announce that UMP titles have received multiple nominations for awards over the past few weeks.

  Dale Barbour’s debut, Winnipeg Beach: Leisure and Courtship in a Resort Town, 1900-1967, was recently nominated for the McNally Robinson Book of the Year Award and the Carol Shields Winnipeg Book Award at the Manitoba Book Awards.

  Winnipeg Beach was also nominated in the Local History category in the MHS’ Margaret McWilliams Awards.

  John C. Lehr’s Community and Frontier: A Ukrainian Settlement in the Canadian Parkland is also a dual citizen when it comes to awards.

  Lehr’s social and economic history of one of the oldest Ukrainian settlements in Western Canada was was nominated in the Scholarly History category in the McWilliams Awards and for the Alexander Kennedy Isbister Award for Non-Fiction at the Manitoba Book Awards.

  Finally, Howard Pawley’s Keep True: A Life in Politics was nominated in the Popular History category in the McWilliams Awards.

• Posted on
  February 23rd 2012
  at 1:10pm
  

  Seeing Red up for FOUR awards!

  Mark Anderson and Carmen Robertson’s Seeing Red: A History of Natives in Canadian Newspapers received four nominations for the 2011 Saskatchewan Book Awards!

  Seeing Red was nominated in the Scholarly Writing Award, First Peoples’ Writing Award, Regina Book Award and Non-Fiction Award categories.

  “It was very nice to see the number of First Nations and Métis authors and books being recognized across the board on the shortlist this year. The diversity of the authors, in addition to the tried and true greats, is going to make this year especially interesting,” says Stacy Riggs, Director of the Saskatchewan Book Awards.

  Award winners will be announced on Saturday, April 28, 2012 at the Saskatchewan Book Awards Gala at the Conexus Arts Centre.

• Posted on
  February 20th 2012
  at 2:28pm
  

  Winnipeg Beach Podcasted

  Dale Barbour will be featured on Episode 28: Winnipeg Beach of Sean Kheraj’s Nature’s Past podcast.

  Broadcast on the NICHE (Network in Canadian History & Environment) website, Nature’s Past is a monthly discussion about the environmental history community and research in Canada moderated by Kheraj, a member of the History Department at York University.

  Here’s the episode description:

  “In the late decades of the nineteenth century, urban North Americans sought refuge from congestion, noise, and pollution. As the environmental problems of industrial cities grew worse, city councils across the continent established urban parks while federal governments in both Canada and the United States developed national parks systems. Parks, as constructed natural spaces, were just one option for city-dwellers seeking relief from polluted urban environments. Many flocked to the shores of oceans, lakes, and rivers where beach side resorts emerged as yet another recreational destination. At the beginning of the twentieth century, Winnipeggers turned to the shores of Lake Winnipeg to the north of the city in the hopes of finding an outlet for their leisure time. There the Canadian Pacific Railway established the beachside resort community of Winnipeg Beach. For more than half a century, Winnipeg Beach was one of the most popular recreational retreats for Manitoba’s urban population. Thousands of people enjoyed the lake views and boardwalk entertainments of Winnipeg Beach for many years until the community went into decline by the end of the 1960s.”

  Dale Barbour grew up on a farm in Balmoral, Manitoba and made a few trips of his own to Winnipeg Beach as a youth. A former journalist, he is currently completing a PhD in history at the University of Toronto. Dale’s first book, Winnipeg Beach: Leisure and Courtship in a Resort Town, 1900-1967, has recently been released through the University of Manitoba Press.

• Posted on
  February 15th 2012
  at 2:45pm
  

  Jennifer Reid interviewed for Louis Riel Day

  Arielle Godbout interviewed Jennifer Reid, author of Louis Riel and the Creation of Modern Canada for the February 15 issue of The Lance:

  A book about the father of Manitoba and his role in the Canadian identity is coming home.

  University of Maine professor Jennifer Reid’s book, Louis Riel and the Creation of Modern Canada, was first published in the United States in 2008 and was recently picked up for reprinting by University of Manitoba Press.

  The book will be released on Mon., Feb. 20, Louis Riel Day.

  “I’m really happy,” said Reid, a Canadian who grew up in Arnprior, Ont.

  Reid said she initially wanted to have her book published in Canada, but couldn’t find a publisher and settled for release in the United States.

  To have the University of Manitoba Press republish her book brings it full-circle, she said.

  “It’s the audience it was intended for,” Reid said.

  Glenn Bergen, managing editor of University of Manitoba Press, said it only made sense to reprint Reid’s book.

  “It’s our story, it’s a Manitoban story, and it was one that we felt should reach a wider audience in Canada,” he said.

  Reid’s book examines the plight of modern countries as they grapple with identity, an age-old issue that is growing as immigration levels continue to climb, she said.

  Canada has dealt with its diversity better than most countries, Reid said.

  “Riel is important because he’s a symbol of that,” she explained.

  Since his execution, Reid said, Riel has been used by almost everyone — historians, politicians, musicians and even the creator of a graphic novel — to represent their own agendas.

  “In Riel, you can find anything you want in terms of Canadian issues,” said Reid, adding she believes it demonstrates the desire of Canadians to make peace with the diverse identities within the country.

  “We keep going back to this person who brings together all these dichotomies to make into a hero.”

  Meanwhile, she said, other countries are struggling because they feel they need a single identity to define everything.

  While Reid’s book has yet to be published in Canada, she said Canadians have been reading it. Despite the fact it’s an academic work, it is reaching a wider audience, she added.

  “I’ve had a lot of non-academics tell me they enjoyed it,” she said.

• Posted on
  January 24th 2012
  at 9:57am
  

  Favourite Foote Photos: David Carr

  As a part of our search for the ‘lost’ photographs of L.B. Foote, U of M Press is asking artists and historians and photographers and politicians and art historians and journalists to tell us about their favourite Foote photo. We’re documenting this search on a blog called Lost Foote Photos.

  David Carr, U of M Press’ director, contributed this piece about Foote’s photograph entitled Elks at the Promenade of Progress, September 1921:

  “It’s almost impossible to pick just one Foote photograph to write about. Foote had an enormous and diverse range and any single photo seems to ignore the many other themes and styles that weave through his fifty years of photo taking.

  /images/books/SIS_N2832_Elks.jpeg

  Chose one of the great historical images (the North End slum photos for instance) and you seem to forget about the beautifully glossy portraits, such as the young Duke of Windsor standing, looking quite bored, next to a brilliantly polished black locomotive. Chose one of the portraits, and you‘re missing the powerful emotive images of ‘everyday’ family and private life.

  I’ve chosen a photo that doesn’t seem to have any of these characteristics. It’s a long, overhead shot of the Elks (Winnipeg Lodge No. 10) marching up Main Street as part of something called “The Promenade of Progress.” “Marching” is perhaps not the right way to describe a group of men dressed in white pants and beanies carrying striped umbrellas at the end of September, although its probably unfair to call it “sashaying” either. It is, nevertheless, one of those strikingly incongruous images that run through Foote’s work.

  It is this kind of photo, like the banquet in the sewer or the crew tasting the ice on the Red River, that always makes Foote seem like the artistic grandfather of Guy Maddin. What in the world could these men, dressed for some sort of odd Sunday outing, have to do with anyone’s idea of “progress?”

  But the date and place put this strange little parade into another context. The “Promenade” took place September 28, 1921. Just a little more than two years before, only a few hundred feet further north on Main Street, Winnipeg’s working class had tried its hand at a very different and much more serious movement towards progress. No one, of course, would have know this better than Foote himself, who had famously recorded those events of the 1919 General Strike in very nearly the same spot.

  Throughout the first part of the last century, this stretch of Main Street between the CNR Station and City Hall was the city’s ceremonial centre, certainly as chronicled by Foote himself. Every type of parade or procession went this route, and it may be adding too much symbolic weight to the crossing paths on Main Street of the strikers and the Elks. Nevertheless, its hard not to think that striped umbrellas and beanies in tight formation are exactly what Winnipeg’s city fathers thought was just what was needed to help erase memories of those nasty events two years before. And L.B. Foote was, as always, there to record it.”

• Posted on
  January 9th 2012
  at 11:48am
  

  University of Manitoba Press Seeks LOST Foote Photos!

  Next fall, University of Manitoba Press will publish a new book of photos by Winnipeg’s most famous photographer, L.B. Foote (1873-1957), prepared and introduced by award-winning historian Esyllt Jones.

  From the 1919 Winnipeg General Strike to Winnipeg Beach in its heyday, from nurses in the North End to construction workers on top of the Fort Garry Hotel, the Newfoundland-born Foote shot it all.

  “Many of us have seen Foote photographs, whether or not we are aware of their origins. For at least thirty years, since the creation of the Foote archive at the Manitoba Archives in the early 1970s, these photographs have been used to tell the story of Winnipeg’s past,” says Jones, author of Influenza 1918: Disease, Death, and Struggle in Winnipeg. “They have been used to illustrate everything from academic histories to posters for rock concerts.”

  There are approximately 3,000 images at the Manitoba Archives but that’s just a fraction of the photographs Foote took in the more than five decades that he documented Winnipeg and parts of Manitoba outside the perimeter.

  University of Manitoba Press is looking for some of the lost Foote photos and is hoping that Winnipeggers are willing to rummage through their attics and photo albums.

  “Even though Foote’s most famous work is of princes and processions, his bread and butter was shots of weddings, funerals and Winnipeg’s small businesses,” says David Carr, Director of University of Manitoba Press. “And that’s what we’d like to see and possibly share with a wider audience.”

  People with photos to share can contact UMP Promotions/Editorial Assistant Ariel Gordon at (204) 474-8408 or gordoajd@cc.umanitoba.ca. (We’ve also launched a blog to document this process: Lost Foote Photos.)

• Posted on
  November 21st 2011
  at 4:31pm
  

  Larry Krotz: Three events in three days!

  UMP author Larry Krotz has three events scheduled for the first week of December.

  In fact, he has three events in three days!

  Krotz will be reading from The Uncertain Business of Doing Good: Outsiders in Africa and speaking about his upcoming UMP book, Piecing the Puzzle: The Genesis of AIDS Research in Africa (due in spring 2012) at events on December 3 and 5th.

  In between the readings, he’s leading a non-fiction masterclass December 4.

  Here are the details:

  Larry Krotz: Speaking & Signing
  McNally Robinson Booksellers: Grant Park in the Atrium
  Saturday December 3, 2:00 pm

  A Non-Fiction Masterclass with Larry Krotz
  Manitoba Writers’ Guild: 218-100 Arthur St.
  Sunday, December 4, 9:30 am – 4:30 pm

  In Dialogue: The MWG Reading Series
  Larry Krotz & Mike McIntyre
  Winnipeg Free Press News Cafe: 237 McDermot Ave.
  Monday, December 5, 7:30 pm