Sonia Halpern – Biography

Sonia Halpern has taught at Western University for over 35 years and presently holds the position of a Senior Writing Advisor at Western’s Writing Support Centre. In addition to academic articles, Sonia, an Art Historian, has authored a humorous book of poetry, entitled The Life and Times of Transition Girl (and the revised and expanded edition). She is also a favourite speaker of numerous community organizations to whom she has delivered a multitude of art history courses and talks.

Abstract of “Digging Deeper: How My Civic Engagement with a Cemetery Inspired Research about Morro Castle Victim Eva Hoffman“

In 2019, my civic engagement with Or Shalom Cemetery led to a 6-month independent historical-research journey. Or Shalom Cemetery, one of only two Jewish cemeteries in London, Ontario, facilitates Jews being buried according to Jewish burial rites, one of Judaism’s most important religious observances. My role, specifically, required that I input data from a burial spreadsheet to a modern digital program for cemeteries, which records and organizes the names, locations, relatives, and other pertinent information, of the buried. In performing this work, I encountered the name Eva Hoffman (1908-34); Eva’s young age and unusual cause of death captured my attention: “age 26; died in Morro Castle Disaster,” facts that appear on the gravestone itself. Within a year, I reconstructed her connection to the fated cruise liner where, on September 8 1934, fire, caused by suspected arson, resulted in the ship’s harrowing and final voyage from Cuba to New York; unfortunately, Londoner Eva Hoffman earned the moniker as the only Canadian passenger to die in this key event in American marine history. This presentation will discuss how my involvement with a Jewish cemetery stimulated the discovery of information that would have otherwise stayed buried.

Sarah Kittilsen – Bio

Sarah Kittilsen is a Masters of Arts student at McGill University, where she works under the supervision of Edward Dunsworth and Jodey Nurse. She earned a Bachelor of Arts in History and Political Science from McGill University in 2024. Raised on a honeybee farm, Sarah is interested in rural society and its transformations. Her SSHRC-funded thesis project, tentatively titled “4-H in Nova Scotia, 1922-1982,” examines the relationship between 4-H (and its precursors) and modernity in Nova Scotia. She is also engaged in public history initiatives and currently serves as a Junior Fellow for the popular blog site Active History (activehistory.ca). You can reach her by email at: sarah.kittilsen@mail.mcgill.ca

Abstract of “A Small Contribution to Speeding the Victory: Rural Women and Girls in Wartime Boys’ and Girls’ Clubs, Nova Scotia, 1940–45“.

This paper examines how and why the Nova Scotia provincial government mobilized Boys’ and Girls’ Clubs to encourage rural women and girls to contribute to the war effort in the early 1940s. Introduced to the province in 1922, Boys’ and Girls’ Clubs—the precursor to the 4-H program—sought to use practical instruction, competition, and recreation to prevent rural depopulation and promote agricultural modernization in the Canadian countryside. By the early 1940s, women and girls participated in Boys’ and Girls’ Clubs as members, volunteers, parents, wives, teachers, and state employees. Through critically analyzing the Nova Scotia Boys’ and Girls’ Club Bulletins, this paper argues that the state believed that Boys’ and Girls’ Clubs provided a space for girls to learn how to economize the rural home and uphold the tenets of respectable, middle-class womanhood. Yet, through sifting the sources to recover the voices of ordinary women and girls, it acknowledges that they also used club work to extend their influence beyond the domestic sphere. By way of conclusion, it determines that this participation was compatible with the aims of the state and the historical experience of rural women in Canada, encouraging historians of civic engagement to consider how and why the state sanctioned youth clubs that circumvented the public-private divide in innocuous ways. This “middle history” of Boys’ and Girls’ Clubs, then, amplifies the complexities of gender and state formation in rural Canada, while also contributing to an understanding of how the state and civilians came together in adult-led youth programs to negotiate gender and citizenship during the Second World War.