{"id":48164,"date":"2017-11-30T15:17:19","date_gmt":"2017-11-30T20:17:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/?p=48164"},"modified":"2017-11-30T15:17:19","modified_gmt":"2017-11-30T20:17:19","slug":"book-launch-to-be-held-for-newspaper-city","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/2017\/11\/book-launch-to-be-held-for-newspaper-city\/","title":{"rendered":"Book launch to be held for Newspaper City"},"content":{"rendered":"

Newspapers and the role they played in paving Toronto\u2019s streets will be at the heart of a public book launch held in downtown St. Catharines Saturday.<\/span><\/p>\n

Phillip Gordon Mackintosh, <\/span>of Brock\u2019s Department of Geography and Tourism Studies, will launch his latest book, <\/span>Newspaper City: Toronto\u2019s Street Surfaces and the Liberal Press, 1860\u20131935<\/span><\/em>,<\/em> at the event, which takes place from 3 to 5 p.m. at Mahtay Caf\u00e9 & Lounge.<\/span><\/p>\n

Funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council and<\/span> published by the University of Toronto Press in 2017, the book looks at the role of daily newspapers in the transformation of Toronto\u2019s urban landscape. It was recently reviewed by the\u00a0<\/span>Literary Review of Canada<\/span><\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

The book celebrates the completion of a <\/span>complex project<\/span><\/a> that examines Toronto\u2019s historical construction of public space, and in particular its streets and sidewalks, through the pages of local, liberal newspapers.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cNewspapers are, in many ways, a weak primary source,\u201d Mackintosh says. \u201cCity people, now and in the past, have had a vexed relationship with their newspapers, as have historical critics of newspapers and journalism. What happens when you write a book grounded in newspaper research?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The newspapers\u2019 \u201cflawed \u2018facts\u2019\u201d weren\u2019t Mackintosh\u2019s only challenge. He also had to spend a great deal of time with heartbreaking material.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cFor children, the street was a playground in cities that had few parks and no play spaces,\u201d Mackintosh explains. \u201cBy the end of the 1910s, however, municipal engineers and city councils had repurposed the street as a site of dedicated and segregated mobility. This put fast moving automobiles on slow moving streets, and people \u2014 especially children \u2014 died by the score.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cMonths spent researching the violent death of children, many only three years old, left me many nights sleepless and agitated,\u201d he says.<\/span><\/p>\n

Mackintosh noted that papers like Toronto\u2019s <\/span>Globe <\/span><\/i>acknowledged that the issue of paving streets for automobiles was one of competing public goods \u2014 child welfare versus mobility.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cYet, the <\/span>Globe<\/span><\/i> never used its pages to demand a municipal policy to restrict cars on the streets teeming with children and their play.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Saturday\u2019s book launch will feature live music and refreshments, and copies of the book will be available to purchase. Everyone is welcome to attend.<\/span><\/p>\n

Event details<\/strong><\/p>\n

What: Book launch for <\/span>Newspaper City: Toronto\u2019s Street Surfaces and the Liberal Press, 1860\u20131935.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

When: Saturday, Dec. 2 from 3 to 5 p.m.<\/span><\/p>\n

Where: Mahtay Caf\u00e9 & Lounge, 241 St. Paul St., St. Catharines.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Newspapers and the role they played in paving Toronto\u2019s streets will be at the heart of a public book launch held in downtown St. Catharines Saturday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":27,"featured_media":45654,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[7,1,4,5,38],"tags":[5014,522,6059,6058,3377],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48164"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/27"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=48164"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48164\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":48165,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48164\/revisions\/48165"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/45654"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=48164"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=48164"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=48164"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}