A groundbreaking multi-year Indigenous history project undertaken at The University of Winnipeg has won a 2024 Manitoba Day Award from the Association for Manitoba Archives (AMA).
The Manitoba Indigenous Tuberculosis History Project (MITHP), led by Dr. Mary Jane McCallum, Professor of History and Canada Research Chair in Indigenous People, History and Archives, won the Resources and Educational Materials Award for its Missing Patient Research Guide and Video Modules.
“This recognition by the AMA is very meaningful for the project, especially given the central importance of archival research in the work of locating the final resting places of missing patients,” Dr. McCallum said.
Sharing in the award are Dr. Erin Millions, Assistant Professor of History; Dr. Anne Lindsay, Riley Postdoctoral Fellow and Adjunct Professor of History; and Research Director Kathryn Boschmann. Erin Acland, Keeper of the United Church of Canada Archives at UWinnipeg provides an overview of the Archives, including where they are located and the types of records that help to locate missing patients of tuberculosis sanatoriums. UWinnipeg student research assistants on the project include Jasmine Parisian and Chloe McLeod. Sandy Tolman, UWinnipeg History Department Administrator, provided invaluable support throughout.
This year’s Manitoba Day Awards ceremony took place June 4 at the University of Manitoba. The AMA is an organization that supports archivists, archives, and those committed to the preservation of archival records in Manitoba.
The AMA created the new award category of Resources and Educational Materials to recognize the MITHP Guide, launched last year, and Videos, launched in April, to assist families and communities searching for loved ones who were sent to hospitals and sanatoriums in Manitoba and never returned.
Those who nominated the MITHP for the award called it an “exceptional” collection of resources that “performs an essential service for researchers”. The videos were praised for their approachability and for demystifying some of the perceived barriers associated with archival research.
Dr. Mary Jane McCallum
Dr. McCallum and Dr. Millions also won a Manitoba Day Award in 2021 for their drop-in series, “Indigenous Afternoons in the Archives,” initiated as part of the MITHP. Dr. McCallum also won a Manitoba Day Award in 2016.
In 2023, Dr. McCallum was honoured with a Public History Prize from the Canadian Historical Association. Last fall, her 2022 book, Nii Ndahlohke: Boys’ and Girls’ Work at Mount Elgin Industrial School, was shortlisted for an Indigenous Literature Award.
About the MITHP
The Manitoba Indigenous Tuberculosis History Project is an Indigenous-led and community-engaged Indigenous health history research project devoted to sharing and recovering histories of Indigenous tuberculosis in Manitoba from the 1930s to 1970s. The team, led by Dr. McCallum, studies the history of tuberculosis experience and management, a history that has been long hidden from view. This work serves tuberculosis patients, descendants, families, communities, and organizations; it also implicates non-Indigenous people and both federal and provincial health and education systems.
Aspects of the project include historical photographs of Indigenous patients and staff; the analysis of the social, administrative, and medical history of tuberculosis control in Manitoba; accessing and preserving records relating to tuberculosis history; and helping families and communities locate missing patients. To learn more about the project, visit the MITHP website.
Two other UWinnipeg-affiliated projects won a 2024 Manitoba Day Award. UWinnipeg alum Maureen Twovoice (Binesi Ikwe) (BA 16, MA 22) wrote the afterword to Douglas Sanderson (Amo Binashii) and Andrew Stobo Sniderman’s 2022 book, Valley of the Birdtail: An Indian Reserve, a White Town, and the Road to Reconciliation, which won the Popular Publication award. The Art of Ectoplasm: Encounters with Winnipeg’s Ghost Photographs, edited by UWinnipeg’s Dr. Serena Keshavjee, took home the Scholarly Publication award.
