Job Posting: Summer Student wanted for historic plaque project

The Heritage Foundation of Newfoundland and Labrador (HFNL) is a non-profit heritage organization dedicated to the conservation of historic structures. HFNL is currently looking for a summer student to work on a research project gathering information about the organization’s historic plaque program. For many years, HFNL has been placing historic plaques on registered heritage structures throughout the province. Many of those are missing, out of date, or in need of repair. The student will be conducting telephone interviews with property owners across the province to identify what buildings have historic plaques and what condition they are in, and compiling a spreadsheet and report on the state of the historic plaque program.

The student should have a background in history or folklore, with an excellent telephone manner, good organizational and computer skills, and an interest in heritage conservation. The position will be based in St. John’s.

Students must meet ALL these criteria:
- Must be a Canadian citizen, permanent resident or refugee under Immigration Refugee Protection Act; and
- Must be planning to attend a post-secondary institution on a full-time basis in the coming academic year; and
- Must have been registered as a full-time student in the previous academic year; and
- Must be between 15 and 30 years old (inclusive); and
- May NOT hold another full-time job (30 hours per week or more) while on the SWASP placement; and
- May NOT be attending classes full-time while on the SWASP placement.

This position is pending approval of funding. If approved, it will cover a 280-hour community service placement (normally over 8 weeks), and the student will:

- Receive a $1400 Tuition Voucher, redeemable at any recognized post-secondary institution upon completion of 280 hours; and
- Receive a $1400 stipend over the course of the placement.

Email your resume and cover letter to:

Mr. Dale Jarvis
Heritage Foundation of Newfoundland and Labrador
ich@heritagefoundation.ca

Deadline: Wednesday, May 2nd.

The Riddle of the Newfoundland and Labrador Fish Stage

The Newfoundland Historic Trust is holding its Annual General Meeting
Tuesday, April 17, 2012
7:00 pm
Hava Java Upstairs, Water Street

Followed by a presentation by Dr. Gerald Pocius
"The Riddle of the Newfoundland and Labrador Fish Stage"
7:30pm

Dr. Pocius is University Research Professor at Memorial University of Newfoundland, where he has taught since 1977. Among his many accomplishments, he has recently been named a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada. By looking at how everyday things are used Dr. Pocius has produced studies both sensitive and rigorous, earning him international standing as a scholar. His publications include A Place to Belong, Textile Traditions of Eastern Newfoundland, and A Field Guide to the Vernacular Architecture of St-Pierre et Miquelon.

All are welcome to attend - Please feel free to circulate

Deborah O'Rielly
Executive Director, Newfoundland Historic Trust
www.historictrust.ca
709.739.7870 Tel. 709.739.5413 Fax

Photo of Pete Porter's Stage, Change Islands, courtesy HFNL

Vintage sepia photos of a lost industrial Newfoundland

The United Church archives has recently scanned about 850 photos from the Max Dawe collection. Max Dawe was a United Church minister who travelled around Newfoundland in a small boat in the 1930s and 1940s.

"He took some great photos," says volunteer Linda White. "Most are identified. Many not."

The photos will eventually be posted on Memorial University's Digital Archives Initiative, but you get a sneak peak here, and can help in the identification process.

If you know anything about either of the two photographs posted here, send me an email at ich@heritagefoundation.ca.

Help unmask these accordion-playing Newfoundland Mummers

These two pictures were snapped by artist/photographer Dominique Hurley at the Mummers Parade, and I'm hoping some of you can help. She is looking for permission to use these images, and needs consent from the mummers themselves.

She writes:

"Do you, by any chance, know who these two accordion-playing mummers are? And if not, do you have a way of getting word out that I need help identifying uncovering their identity? If so, please ask people to contact me via my website at www.DominiqueHurley.com."

In which a folklorist spends his day off researching the history of spoons

Admire if you will, in their fitted red case, these 1912/13 silver Walker & Hall soup spoons. I love them. I appreciate a proper soup spoon, with a deep, rounded bowl. When I'm dining out, and someone serves me soup and then presents me with a tablespoon with which to eat it, I always feel slightly cheated. That happened to me earlier this week, at a higher-end restaurant in St. John's. The soup was lovely. The spoon left me cold.

Most people would just go home and forget about it, but material culture geek that I am, I realized that I had no idea why people insist on tablespoons over soup spoons, or why we even have something called a tablespoon at all. And that I truly needed to know.

So, I spent my holiday Friday drooling over websites like the California Academy of Sciences collection on the history of eating utensils and this silver collector's website on the history of spoons.  I read the Wikipedia articles on soup spoons, tablespoons, dessert spoons, and teaspoons. And I came to the realization that while I love spoons, and although I am a proud owner of all of the above (plus a couple of lovely serrated grapefruit spoons), that I am nowhere near as obsessed as this guy.

To save you the work of reading all of these sites, here it is, cutlery lovers, in a nutshell. 

Before about 1700, people generally brought their own spoons to the table. From about 1700 the place setting became popular, and along with it came new words: "table-spoon," "table-fork," and "table-knife." 

Tea drinking had been introduced to England around 1660. Because tea was rare and expensive, tea cups (and spoons) were small. Around 1710, the East India Company started importing tea from China, and as tea prices declined, the size of teacups and tea-spoons increased.

The 1700s saw the development of all kinds of spoons, including the coffee-spoon, and dessert-spoon (roughly equal to two tea-spoons, or half a table-spoon). By the time of the publication of the first Oxford English Dictionary in the mid 1800s,  the hyphen had been dropped, and "tablespoon" became the common spelling. Presumably the use of "table-forks" fell off the table at some point, so to speak.

By the end of the 19th century, the soup spoon had developed. The tablespoon, which had been used for eating soups and suchlike, was elongated and was thereafter primarily used for serving, rather than eating. In the UK, the dessert-spoon and soup-spoon began to displace the tablespoon as the primary implement for eating from a bowl, at which point the name "tablespoon" took on a secondary meaning as a much larger serving spoon.

At some point in history, the meaning of "tablespoon" diverged, depending on which side of the Atlantic you were on. By the end of the 20th century, in much of English-speaking North America, a tablespoon was the largest type of spoon used for eating from a bowl. In the UK and most Commonwealth countries, a tablespoon was still the type of large spoon usually used for serving. With the spread of American cooking books, and the typical use of tablespoon and teaspoon as a measurement system, the older meaning of tablespoon as an eating spoon is apparently enjoying a revival in the UK.

So why has the use of the soup spoon fallen out of favour in North America? I still don't know. But here, halfway down the page,  is a nice picture of an old teaspoon from a Beothuk site on the Exploits River to keep you busy, while I continue to investigate.

As for the spork? There I dare not go.

Video of Nova Scotia Mi'kmaw basketmaker Rita Smith

This past March, as part of our Rooted In History basketmaking forum, we were lucky enough to have Nova Scotia Mi'kmaw basket maker Della Maguire as a participant, who was in Corner Brook teaching an ash basket workshop along with Margaret Pelletier.

Della's parents, Abe and Rita Smith, shown above, were both noted basket makers (you can read more about them here and here) as well as being champions for Mi'kmaw culture. Della gave us a recording about her mother's basket making that was originally filmed for the children's television program Sesame Street, a recording which was then re-aired following her mother's death in 1996. We have Della's permission to post it here, and hope you enjoy!

Top four YouTube resources for oral history and folklore interviews

Over the past couple weeks, I've been doing a number of workshops introducing people to the art and techniques of doing oral history and folklore interviews. Along the way, I've shown a few YouTube videos to illustrate certain points.  For those of you who haven't been able to take in a workshop, I'm presenting my top four favourites below.

1) Why do Oral History?

The first is from the Minnesota Historical Society. Why is oral history important? What is oral history? How is it different than a simple interview? This is the first of a series of video podcasts prepared by the Society that addresses some of these issues.





2) How do you record an oral history interview?

Prepared by the East Midlands Oral History Archive based at the University of Leicester, I've used this video several times. I like how it presents the material in a "Do and Don't" fashion, which is great for a workshop.

3)  How do you get interesting answers?

In this video, Traditional Arts Indiana shares tips and suggestions for folklorists conducting fieldwork. The video discusses how to get complex answers instead of a yes/no response, an important trick for interviewers to know. I love the work that Traditional Arts Indiana is doing, and like the Minnesota Historical Society, they've produced a series of videos for folklore interviews.

4) What can I do with the information I collect?

This is one of my favourite YouTube videos that show what can be done with oral history material. Beautifully shot and edited, Jewish Care's Pearls of Wisdom campaign aims to highlight the value and importance of older people in today's ageing society. According to its YouTube page, it "challenges people, especially younger people, to alter their perceptions of this elder generation, presenting them as wise, funny and worthy of their attention."

In which a folklorist develops a fondness for vinyl siding.

In the heritage community in Newfoundland and Labrador, the general consensus is as follows: Vinyl Bad; Wood Good. We've seen a lot of fabulous heritage buildings in the province covered up with vinyl, resulting in a loss of heritage character and fine wooden detailing. Vinyl, to some architectural historians anyway, is The Enemy.

For every rule, there is an exception.  Today I opened an email from librarian Beverly Warford to find some pictures of vinyl siding that made me squeal with folkloric excitement. Yes. You read that right.

One of the things I love most about intangible cultural heritage is that it is in a constant state of evolution. Culture is not static; it is ever-changing. People adapt to changing times and materials, constantly. This is as true now as it was in the historical period. As a folklorist, it means there is always something new for me to study.

Over the past few months, followers of the ICH blog will know that we've been working on a project to highlight basket making traditions. In a sense, the culture of basket making in Newfoundland and Labrador is one of innovation. Mi'kmaw basket makers in Newfoundland were influenced by mainland Mi'kmaq, who in turn had been influenced by European settlers, as well as Black Loyalist and freed slave basket makers working out of African traditions. Mill workers in Corner Brook, Grand Falls-Windsor and other towns took English and American style baskets and made them their own, utilizing local materials. Inuit grass basket makers in Labrador were possibly influenced by Moravian craft traditions. The list goes on.

Mill lunch baskets were primarily made of woven wood, quite often birch, but Newfoundlanders, being Newfoundlanders, got creative with the materials they used. Once plastic salt-beef buckets were introduced in the later half of the 20th century, craftsmen started to cut strips of plastic for weaving. Others broke down hockey sticks to get the wood they needed.

And in the community of Pleasantview, near Point Leamington, the late Mr. Herbert Brett started using vinyl siding. His son, Rick, also carried on the tradition for a short time.

Mr. Brett's lunch basket is very similar in style to the wooden lunch baskets made by other Central Newfoundland basket makers like Angus Gunn and Alfred Menchenton, with the same curved wooden handles and hinged wooden lid. But instead of the baskets being fully wooden, Brett cut up different coloured vinyl siding into strips to weave the sides of the baskets, making baskets in a variety of styles: lunch baskets, round baskets, picnic baskets, even Easter baskets. We'll be adding all of these to our basket collection on Memorial University's Digital Archives Initiative. But for now, here are a few samples, with thanks to Bev and the Brett/Stuckless family for sharing! Love it or hate it, you'll never look at vinyl siding the same way again.

Capturing Craft Photo Contest deadline is March 30th. #nlcraft

The Craft Council of Newfoundland and Labrador invites people across the province to participate in a special craft event as part of their 40th Anniversary celebrations. The Capturing Craft Photo Contest is a province-wide event encouraging the public to take a photo of their favourite craft item, local craft shop or a craft they're making themselves and share it with the Craft Council.

Deadline for entries is 4pm, March 30th, 2012.

Says spokesperson Jennifer Barnable, "Craft is everywhere in Newfoundland and Labrador. Every household has it, whether it's the coffee mug you use in the morning, the scarf you wear on a wintry day, the art on your walls, or the mat you put your boots on. We encourage people across the province to share their love of craft with us as we celebrate craft."

Photos with brief descriptive captions can be e-mailed, Facebooked or Tweeted to the Craft Council until March 30th. Four fine craft prizes will be announced on April 2nd. For full contest details and rules are outlined at http://www.craftcouncil.nl.ca/news/capturing-craft-photo-contest/