viHistory.ca
Research and Teaching Potential
The viHistory.ca web site offers a research tool for myriad historical enquiries. As a teaching tool, it has tremendous potential. It can be used as an introduction to historical methods involving quantification and the analysis of statistical data. It can connect students to an array of primary documents and can demonstrate relationships between the documents.
Consider, example, traces of Broad Street, Victoria, in the early 1890s.
We could start with an archival photograph of the street, like the image on the left.
By examining the picture, we learn quite a bit about this particular street. We can see
how the street looked, how buildings were clustered on either side of it, and how businesses
announced their presence to passers-by.
We can learn more about the street by consulting a city directory for the period. And we can learn a great deal about the people who worked on this street by consulting the 1891 census. For an illustration of how documents relating to this particular street are connected, click here.
Student Research
Undergraduate students have already used material from viHistory.ca in innovative ways. Victoria in the Dawn of a New Century, 1901 is one of several projects linked to Victoria's Victoria, a show case for research by History students at the University of Victoria and Malaspina University-College. Nanaimo in the 1890s also features student research using viHistory.ca material.
Towards a GIS
The viHistory.ca web site functions on several levels. It's a dynamic integrated database. It's a portal to other web sites and internet resources. It's also intended to provide a foundation for an historical GIS [Geographic Information System] of Victoria and Vancouver Island.
To that end, we've focused on three temporal points —1881, 1891 & 1901. We have
compiled and assembled data that intersects with these points. The matrix we've created
includes spatial data —such as maps, photographs and legal descriptions of city
lots — and attribute data, derived from directories and census records. Spatial
data and attribute data are essential elements in a GIS application. If funds and other
resources become available, we may able to develop that application in the future.
In the meantime, Victoria and Nanaimo may be the best documented cities in Canada. We have 100% samples of census data from 1881, 1891 and 1901, plus street directories and tax assessment rolls for each decade. With an extraordinarily rich dataset like this one, the researach potential is unlimited.
Further Applications
The integrated databases on viHistory.ca are most directly relevant to the history of Vancouver Island. But our web site has a wider application. The primary material available here — census records, tax assessment rolls, street directories and maps — can be utilized to explore larger questions about Canada in the late Victorian era.
Patrick A. Dunae, Ph.D
viHistory editor & project director