Good evening everyone, my name is Charlie Twist, and I’m a third-year undergraduate history student from the University of Toronto. I would like to express my passion for history and explain how these archives are invaluable tools for students like myself. Personally, I chose to study history because as I graduated high school, I was ultimately interested in trying to piece together the impossibly complex question: “why is the world the way it is?” Engaging in both history and its sister discipline, sociology, I have had the opportunity to study important historical events, figures, and social patterns and how leaders have responded to them. Simultaneously, the skills I am developing such as learning how to conduct research, how to write effectively and think critically about what is happening today by looking to the past are invaluable tools that help drive my interest in history further.
Now, there’s a common trope that many of us history students study history because it was the only class that we enjoyed back in high school. I will admit, this may be true for some history students, but to me, what most history students really are, are idealists. Think about it, history can lead to many different career paths that can do amazing things in the world: law, archival work and librarianship, teachers and professors, and policy analysts are just a few roles that history students gravitate towards.
But we are not here to talk about these jobs, we are here to talk about the idealism in history students and these archives. As historians, we look to the past to draw upon the views and wisdom of those who made the world how it is today. We recognize both their successes and pitfalls, and build off of both to ensure that the future will be brighter. For many history students, including me, this is what drives our passion. We are here to build a better future using the lessons and wisdom of the past.
To effectively study history, we need to understand as many stories and perspectives as possible; we need to draw upon the lives of not only great kings and generals, but of otherwise ordinary people who have risen to prominence, too. History teaches us that anyone has the opportunity to become significant to humanity’s collective story. Each of us has the potential to leave our mark in the world. To me, this is what the Empire Club of Canada is hoping to teach us as they offer us access to their digital archives.
With 121 years of speeches from some of the most important historical figures across the world, the knowledge that is being given to us is nothing less than astonishing. History students across the University of Toronto will soon have access to some of the richest stories, ideas, and perspectives from truly remarkable people throughout history. These speakers have all come from a wide range of unique backgrounds and have each left an equally unique mark in the world, a mark that students can continue through the researching and understanding of their stories in further depth.
Furthermore, these archives are accessible in both French and English. The very idea that these archives are helping connect Canadian scholars who may only be able to speak one language is incredible, and inspiring to the future of academia in Canada. Canada’s multiculturalism and connection between languages is one of its greatest strengths, and the opportunity to understand these important speeches between Canada’s primary languages will contribute to Canadian scholars’ global understanding of the past by allowing for easier collaboration.
As we tend to draw upon the wisdom of those before us, the launch of the Empire Club of Canada’s digital archive offers new insights for us to use in research. These archives are not just a collection of speeches, but a trove of primary sources from the very people we look up to today. In my time as a history student so far, I can say for certain that one thing that my professors and TAs would always constantly ask for more of in our essays, are those very sources.
Primary sources are the types of sources that involve first-hand evidence. Rather than a book put together by a historian, primary sources involve information coming directly from those present at the specific time we want to study. Not only are historians dependent on primary sources to accurately study history, but the very discipline itself relies on them. What we don’t know of our history is because we lack the primary sources to know about them in the first place. As such, it is critical to history itself to preserve all instances of primary sources that we can, and these archives are doing just that. The speeches inside may reveal to us a lesser-seen side of very important historical figures and allow us to further understand them and their ideas.
With the importance of primary sources in the discipline of history and the rich information included in these archives, I can say for certain that I will be using them whenever possible. Thank you again to the Empire Club of Canada for offering us access to such incredible first hand accounts. I would like to encourage my fellow students to access these archives whenever possible as well, because with the combination of the diverse perspectives and wisdom they offer, we can further understand what it takes to help build a better future and contribute to humanity’s collective story ourselves.