Searching for Heroines: Black Women and Community in 19th Century Hamilton-Wentworth

Searching for Heroines needs a brief description.  This talk took place on January 31, 2012, at St. Lawrence Hall.

Adrienne Shadd is a researcher, historian and author of several books on the history of Black people and communities in Canada. Her latest book, The Journey from Tollgate to Parkway: African Canadians in Hamilton was published by Dundurn Press.

St. Lawrence Hall was built in 1850 as a space for public meetings, concerts, and exhibitions.  The City of Toronto restored the hall in 1967 to mark the national Centennial.  For more information visit St. Lawrence Hall.

Use it in the classroom

• Historical Thinking Concepts & Critical Thinking Challenges
• Concepts de la pensée historique et défis de pensée critique

Learn more

• Archives of Ontario: Black history online exhibitions
• Breaking the Chains: A New Narrative for Canada’s Role in the Underground Railroad (York University’s online exhibition aimed at K-12 curriculum concepts; includes links to biographies, primary sources, and lesson plans.)

Suggested bibliography

• The Journey from Tollgate to Parkway: African Canadians in Hamilton, by Adrienne Shadd (Hamilton: Dundurn Press, 2010)
  
• “We’re Rooted Here and They Can’t Pull Us Up”: Essays in African Canadian Women’s History, coordinator Peggy Bristow (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1994)