Vancouver Historical Society

Events

MAR 28 2024

“Little Othoa: The Gleam O’Hope Princess behind the founding of the Vancouver Crippled Children’s Hospital

7:00 PM     MoV   

Speakers: Tamara Myers and Megan Davies

Megan Davis & Tamara MyersOthoa Scott got a rough start in life. An accidental fall and spinal tuberculosis left her bed-ridden and isolated at the age of eight years. Relentless advocating by her stepmother mobilized the Women’s Institutes of BC and thus sowed the seeds of the Crippled Children’s Hospital in Vancouver and the Queen Alexandra Solarium for Crippled Children on Vancouver Island. Tonight’s presentation tells the tale of Othoa’s voyage from Hornby Island shut-in to the cheerful face of disability: Polly, the “Gleam O’ Hope Princess.”

APR 07 2024

Incorporation Day Event

12:00pm     Vancouver Club

Speaker: Michael Kluckner

Michael KlucknerJoin us for a wonderful luncheon celebrating Vancouver Incorporation Day!

The Vancouver Historical Society is co-hosting with the Vancouver Club a very special event to mark Vancouver’s 138th birthday. It includes a tour of the 1914 Sharp & Thompson building, an illustrated talk on the history of the club and its neighbourhood by writer/historian/artist Michael Kluckner, and a delicious lunch in the beautiful Vancouver Club Ballroom.

We’re delighted that tickets are selling so quickly! If you’re considering attending, we recommend purchasing your tickets soon. A link to Registration and ticket purchase is below.

We hope to see you for our first sit-down gathering since 2019.

APR 25 2024

You Got Trouble! Policing the Vancouver Waterfront in the Early Twentieth Century

7:00 PM     MoV   

Speaker: Madison Heslop, Assistant Professor of Canadian History, Western Washington University

Madison Heslop, Assistant Professor of Canadian history, Western Washington UniversityThe end of the “golden age” of shipping arrived at precisely the time when urban British Columbia and the Pacific Northwest began to thrive. Nevertheless, old negative attitudes about the urban waterfront and the people who lived there survived the transition into the twentieth century and continued to be fueled by local conditions in Vancouver, where the disruptions and displacements of colonialism, a mostly immigrant population, and volatile regional economy made the city a highly changeable place. By the start of the First World War, however, the Vancouver Police had begun turning the city’s dockside neighborhoods into closely monitored spaces that the city’s leaders and businessmen hoped might make Vancouver into Canada’s foremost Pacific port. This talk will dig into police records, maps, and newspapers of the era to sketch a picture of life in Vancouver’s urban waterfront at the start of the twentieth century, as well as the people and institutions who shaped it.

Madison Heslop is an Assistant Professor of Canadian history at Western Washington University. She received her PhD in History from the University of Washington, where she wrote her dissertation on the connected histories of the Seattle and Vancouver waterfronts.

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NOTE: We have returned to the Museum of Vancouver since the April lecture. For those not wishing to attend in person, the lectures will be broadcast live on the Vancouver Historical Society’s YouTube channel.