Good Will, Phil & Kate

On October 31, 1958 Prince Philip, the one and the same we know today, changed his plans and took a detour to Springhill, Nova Scotia to visit the scene of the mine disaster that had befallen the town but a week before.  The Washington Post reported: “Queen Elizabeth’s husband flew from Ottawa to Moncton, N.B. aboard a BOAC Comet […] Jet and motored the remaining 65 miles to Springhill.”

As the Ottawa Citizen reported the next day, “Informality was the keynote of the royal visit.”  The Prince met miners who had been in the mine when the bump occurred on October 23^rd including George Hayden who was still in hospital with a broken leg.  The Prince broke from tradition and signed a number of autographs during his visit, including one on Hayden’s cast.

On November 1^st the Halifax Chronicle Herald reported the people of Springhill as saying: “It’s nice of him to come,  - It was thoughtful – you know this wasn’t on his schedule at all.”

In July of 2011, during their first international official visit, Will and Kate, a.ka. the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, followed in his grandfather’s footsteps, and visited a small town ravaged by disaster.  The royal couple “specifically asked to visit the Alberta community of Slave Lake” reported the Toronto Sun on July 5.  On May 14, 2011 a wildfire started 15km east of the community.  Two days later 95% of the population had been safely evacuated.  They were allowed back beginning on May 27.  It is labeled as the second-costliest fire disaster in Canadian history.

Will and Kate’s visit is remembered by residents as uplifting, and the beginning of something new.  The couple spoke with families who had lost their homes, emergency responders and the public.  Slave Lake Mayor Karina Pillay-Kinnee described the couple’s visit to CBC: “They were very concerned, very caring.  Just wanted to reach out to the people of Slave Lake and we are just so grateful for them taking the time out of their day off to come touch our community.”

The parallels between Prince Philip’s informal visit to Springhill in 1958 and Will and Kate’s desire to meet with residents of Slave Lake in 2011 are strong and show a royal interest in not only the major players of Canadian society, but also in its most fragile and vulnerable people and places.

As this project wraps up I invite your comments and questions,

Best,

Rebecca

Women & the Mines

Although I’m a young woman I rarely look critically at an issue in the classroom from the perspective of a feminist, and I am almost never the first to consider the issue of gender when discussing whatever it is that grad students spend their time discussing.  That said, this blog post is all about the ladies.  Not just any ladies but the women of Springhill.  Aside from detailed reports from Springhill in the newspaper articles I read for my project, there was also a lot of description of those who awaited the men near the mine yard.  The women.

In the Ottawa Citizen on October 24^th, 1958 miner McManaman was quoted as saying that “It’s toughest on the women, the kids – it don’t bother them. They don’t realize yet what it’s all about.”

Women also figure prominently in Melissa Fay Greene’s “Last Man Out” – a novel-like storytelling of the disaster.  Many of the mentions of women in my tweets are thanks to her careful research for her book and I was able to gain insight into the lives of those affected by mining beyond the miners themselves.  This in depth look at the women of Springhill also painted a picture of the home lives of the miners as the women, particularly those with children, were often described in this setting.

The story of the young mulatto couple, Norma & Maurice Ruddick, with twelve children inspired me.  Having given birth shortly before the disaster, Norma was at home with twelve children while Maurice sat underground, toiled underground, sang underground, always with the hope of going home.  All the while Norma wouldn’t believe that God would leave her with those children and without him.  Norma Ruddick passed away in September 2012 and this news clip is worth a watch if you’d like to see some footage from the disaster as well as some kind words about the role Norma and other women play in the lives of miners, for the good and the bad.

The strength of the Springhill women is something I will comment on again through this blog and it’s almost unimaginable what they went through.  All of that said, these ladies were strong and the wives and families of miners continue to persevere through contemporary disasters.

Just last month there was a fire at a Potash mine in Saskatchewan.  Most workers were hastened into safe rooms to wait for the fire to be extinguished and the mine to be ventilated.  These safe rooms contained provisions and phones – so trapped miners were able to call their ‘womenfolk’ to let them know they were okay.  What a different world from that of Springhill 1958 eh?  And yet the women were still waiting at the mine entrance for their men to come up and go home at the end of their ordeal.

As usual, I'm keen to hear your thoughts!

Rebecca

In Other News...

As much as we like to think it’s all about us, the disaster at Springhill did not dominate the news from October 24^th – November 2^nd, 1958.  It was present, but cover stories varied and there were a lot of other really important things going on around the world and at home in North America.

Here are links to some of the more salient stories. If you’re interested in learning more about what was going on around the time of the disaster at Springhill take a look at the following links or research them yourselves.

Oct 25 An explosion rocks downtown Ottawa at the Jackson building on Bank street

Oct 27 Coal mine explosion in Bishop, Virgina (USA)

http://www3.gendisasters.com/virginia/5999/bishop-va-explosion-coal-mine-oct-1958

Oct 28 Election of John XXIII as Pope

http://clericalwhispers.blogspot.ca/2008/10/pope-john-xxiii-50-years-since-election.html

You can also read newspapers yourselves through a Google project.  There are not issues from all newspapers on all dates but you can get a good idea of what was in the news. Happy Reading!

http://news.google.com/newspapers

Rebecca

Reflections on Narration

Wikipedia tells me that a narrator is responsible for storytelling.  Wikipedia also informs me that as a narrator I can tell the story from my point of view or as if I am a character in the story.  I remember learning about omnipresent narrators in English class in high school and know that plays can have narrators.

But what about when it comes to the online narration of a historical event, in tweets over a one and a half week period?  What are the rules?  How do I narrate, create, respond, and live my own, separate life, at the same time?

My narration experience with this Twitter project is very different from the only other Twitter project like this that I’ve done.  In February 2012 I tweeted, in ‘real-time,’ the fire at the Parliament buildings in Ottawa.  I literally sat at my computer all evening and tweeted at the right time about what was happening in 1916.  Even as I prepare this blog post, well in advance of the day it will be posted online, most of the narration for this coming project is done.

With the advent of social media tools like Twitter complementary tools like Hootsuite and Tweetdeck have been developed to help users of social media tools manage their accounts including the ability to schedule tweets, Facebook posts etc well in advance of the post time.  For this particular project I have used Hootsuite as it is the tool with which I am the most familiar.  There are pros and cons to using such tools, for example, through Hootsuite I am only able to post tweets at times ending in 0 or 5.  Therefore if something happened at 3:44am, as it does in the upcoming days, it is going to be posted at 3:45am. 

Technically readers will not know the difference and the likelihood that readers are awake so late, or early, in anticipation of said post, is so unlikely that by the time they are reading it around 7am or perhaps even later in the day, the ‘approximately 4 hours ago’ timestamp still won’t give me away.

This was a hard decision as a narrator.  My research had yielded several un-Hootsuite-able times including those for which I would probably not even be awake to tweet myself.  I originally turned to Tweetdeck but was overwhelmed by the multitude of tools and decided that it was worth the white lie to use one tool rather than two.  You may be asking, why not choose Tweetdeck?  I had already invested quite a bit of time in crafting my narration and entered these tweets into the Hootsuite publisher so it was an easy decision for me.

I could probably reflect on narration all night long, but as it stands for now, the above reflection is probably the most relevant for this project.  That, and I can only do so much story telling!

Best,

Rebecca 

Canada in 1958

What do the Montreal Canadiens, John Diefenbaker and Terry Fox have in common besides being Canadian?  They're all significant to the year 1958 among others of course.  Lots was happening around the world in 1958, and lots was happening here at home in Canada too.

The Avro Arrow made its debut flight

The Montreal Canadiens won the Stanley Cup in 6 games against the Boston Bruins #GoHabsGo

The Governor General was Vincent Massey 

John Diefenbaker was Canada's Prime Minister and in 1958 he appointed Canada's first Aboriginal Senator, James Gladstone. 

Nova Scotia's premier was Robert Stanfield

Canada's first female ambassador was appointed (she was assigned to Israel)

The Winnipeg Blue Bombers won the Grey Cup over the Hamilton Tiger Cats

Born in 1958: Jean Charest and Terry Fox

Died in 1958: George Orton and Camillien Houde 

Hope you've enjoyed this insight into the world and Canada in 1958.  Tomorrow a return to the present!

Best,

Rebecca

·      

The World in 1958

You may wonder what My Fair Lady, Sputnik 1 and Brazil have in common?  Probably not much on the surface, but they're all featured in this blog post about the world in 1958.  What else was happening around the world while the people of Springhill worked away in their mine?

The European Economic Community was founded

Sputnik 1 fell to Earth

Queen Elizabeth gave her son Charles the title of the Prince of Wales

NASA was officially created

My Fair Lady opened in London with the lovely, talented Julie Andrews and Rex Harrison

Brazil won the world cup

Make sure to see tomorrow's blog post about what was going on in Canada in 1958!

Newspaper Coverage of the #SpringhillBump

To compile information for my project, I decided to rely mainly on newspaper accounts for the specific information that I would need to real-time tweet the events that took place in Springhill, Nova Scotia on October 23rd 1958 and in the days and weeks that followed.  As a result of my research and through course readings I have come across other courses, each with its own unique flavour and take on the events.  It is also important to note here in this blog post that the majority of blog posts were inspired by my reading of several newspapers over the course of my research rather than by ideas for separate blog posts at the outset of this project.  Various newspaper articles inspired me to delve deeper in terms of certain themes that I knew I might not be able to address as fully as I would like through Twitter.

I read approximately ten days worth of newspaper articles from the Toronto Star, the Ottawa Citizen, the Washington Post, the New York Times and of course, the Halifax Chronicle Herald.  From the range of locations represented in the list above it was obvious from the outset that the levels of coverage would vary as would attention to detail.  Based on my physical location, Ottawa, I ended up reading the Halifax Chronicle Herald, the paper closest in location to the disaster, last.  This provided me with really interesting insight as to how the coverage varied among the newspapers I consulted.  I also came to trust the Halifax Chronicle Herald more than the other newspapers due to its more extensive coverage which included photos.

The Halifax Chronicle Herald also provided more personal links to the disaster as it was, and still is, the provincial paper of Nova Scotia.  Links to other residents of the province, more personal coverage of the disaster and more photos than the four other newspapers combined convinced me that in this case quantity and quality resided with the Halifax paper rather than with the others.

I suspected that the American newspaper coverage would be very different from that in Canada.  Interestingly enough, the story of the #SpringhillBump was surprisingly central to their overall news coverage compared to my low expectations.  In addition, there was more Canadian news overall than I expected to find in the American papers.  I'm keen to know if any of my readers might have some insight into this?  My presumption is that seeing as other forms of media communication were not as prevalent as the newspaper, it had to include 'all' the news.

Overall I'm very happy with my decision to rely mainly on newspaper accounts for my tweets.  For a previous project I had only consulted one newspaper which at the time I saw as simplifying the data.  I The five newspapers consulted for this project all covered the disaster to varying degrees and it is interesting to be able to compare the stories of the disaster in each.  If you ever have a chance to read about an historical event in several different newspapers or other media sources it's a very interesting foray into perspective on historical events.

Best,

Rebecca

Who's Who?

There are a lot of names floating around in the tweets you’ve (hopefully) been reading and in those yet to come.  This is my feeble attempt to help you understand the web of names.  This list should also help if you choose to do any other reading on the subject.

NS Labor Minister: Stephen Pyke 

NS Minister of Mines: E. A. Mason

President of the Hawker-Siddeley group (owns Dominion Steel and Coal Co Ltd): Sir Roy Dobson

President of Dosco: Crawford Gordon

This link is Google’s first result to the search: Sir Roy Dobson.  Interestingly enough the photo is linked to the Avro Arrow, not the Springhill Disaster.

Vice-President of Dosco and General Manager of Cumberland Railway & Coal Co.: Harold Gordon, has been in this position since 1946 and has been working in the region since 1929.

Manager of the Mine: George S. Calder, since 1951. He had worked in the Springhill mines since 1929 with a few years of experience in Alberta beforehand.

Springhill Mayor: Ralph Gilroy

Nova Scotia Premier: Robert Stanfield 

Draegermen: Specially-trained mine rescue workers

Group of Seven: Alas, not the painters, but the group of seven men trapped together.  They are: Frank Hunter, Maurice Ruddick, Garnet Clarke, Doug Jewkes, Herb Pepperdine, Percy Rector, Currie Smith

I've indicated tweets about them with #Groupof7

Group of Twelve: Alas, again, not from a Christmas tune, but a group of twelve men who were trapped together at the 13,000 foot level.  They are: Levi Milley, Bowman Maddison, Caleb Rushton, Wilfred Hunter, Hugh Guthro, Fred Hunter, Harold Brine, Joseph Holloway, Gorley Kempt, Larry Leadbetter, Eldred Lowther, Joseph McDonald, and Ted Michniak

I've indicated tweets about them with #Groupof12