stcmuseum podcasts

How does the mail get sorted? One of the first computerized and automated mail sorters was the Route Reference Computer. Despite its "state secret" level of confusing technical aspects, we learned a lot about the mail in this episode. Please visit stcatharinesmuseumblog.com for footnotes to this episode.

We're cracking open season 8 of One Hour in the Past with the history of the egg carton. The episode is filled with a surprising amount of unintended egg puns and lots of egg-sellent history. Enjoy the episode! For more info and the footnotes to this episode, visit stcatharinesmuseumblog.com

On this episode of Museum Chat Live! we're chatting local food history and baking as we wrap up our (now beloved) Food, Glorious Food Blog Series. The series was a chance for Abbey Stansfield (public programmer) and Kathleen Powell (curator) to explore local food history by baking through historic recipes in our collection. This bake-off was a way to explore food history in a first-hand way and draw attention to our temporary exhibit of the same name, on display at the Museum through the autumn of this year. Listen in for a chat about food history, writing a blog series together, challenges in baking historic recipes, the things we learned, and most importantly: our favourite desserts!

In this 3-episode series, host Sean Dineley lets a sampling of long-time St. Catharines residents do most of the talking. The people whose stories you will hear have all been participants in the museum’s StoryLab program. This ongoing oral history project is all about getting the diverse experiences and perspectives of real St. Catharinites into the museum’s collection. By conducting, recording, and transcribing interviews with local residents, we hope to learn more about the wide array of people and communities who call this city home as well as how it has evolved in their lifetimes. Ultimately, the project supports our mission to collect and present a more complete story of St. Catharines. This episode is the third and final part of this series. Parts one and two provided a glimpse into the significant waves of emigration caused by the totalitarian regimes, famines, genocides, and World Wars that ravaged Europe in the first half of the 20th century. Even before this period of turmoil the ethnic makeup of immigrants in Canada had been overwhelmingly European, but beginning in the 1960s, the trend started to change. Race-based selection criteria was removed from Canada’s Immigration Policy in 1962, and new schemes like the Seasonal Agricultural Worker Program and the Canadian Multiculturalism Policy helped sow the seeds for new cultural communities. Take a listen and share your thoughts with us! The views and opinions expressed on this podcast do not necessarily reflect the views and opinions of the St. Catharines Museum and Welland Canals Centre and the City of St. Catharines.

The 10th season of our Museum Chat Live! podcast is here! My, oh my, how time flies. It’s like one day you’re recording an episode about the Welland Canal and the next its… history… Anyway! Have a listen to this little preview to help set the stage for all the awesome things we have planned for the upcoming year on Museum Chat Live!

This podcast episode is in our Hearing History series, exploring local history through sound. Today’s sound is the film projector, which has been a constant feature of downtown St. Catharines for nearly 130 year! This episode follows the history of film and traces this medium’s presence in the Garden City, including cinemas, drive-in theatres, and our own home-grown stars of the silver screen! Grab some popcorn and enjoy the show! Take a listen and share your thoughts with us! The views and opinions expressed on this podcast do not necessarily reflect the views and opinions of the St. Catharines Museum and Welland Canals Centre and the City of St. Catharines.

We are thrilled to bring our hit Virtual Museum Lecture Series to the podcast. With over 40 lectures on Youtube, we’re so happy to bring the lecture audio to the podcast format so that more of you can enjoy these fascinating stories and join in on the historical adventures. On today’s episode we’re sharing "Ponderous Fraus, Mynheers, and Jaded Farm Horses, or Early St. Catharines Before the First Welland Canal" with special guest Brian Narhi. Special guest, local historian, and Chair of the City's Heritage Advisory Committee Brian Narhi joins the lecture series once again to deliver an exciting look at the earliest settlement activity in St. Catharines. This lecture was originally recorded on November 29, 2022.

We are thrilled to bring our hit Virtual Museum Lecture Series to the podcast. With over 40 lectures on Youtube, we’re so happy to bring the lecture audio to the podcast format so that more of you can enjoy these fascinating stories and join in on the historical adventures. On today’s episode we’re sharing "In the Public Interest: Public Works in St. Catharines" presented by Kathleen Powell. Museum Curator Kathleen Powell will deliver a talk about public works and early city services during the inter-war period, with special focus on the explosion of infrastructure projects taken on by municipalities at that time. This lecture was originally recorded on November 15, 2022.