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• ↓ An Anarchist Queen and Her Radiant Protégé: Marie Tiboldo and Emma Goldman in Toronto
• ↓ Sapphic Sanctuaries: Navigating and Creating Lesbian Spaces in Fredericton, New Brunswick, 1969-1995
• ↓ Teaching Against AI: Notes from the Field
• ↓ Active History – We’re Back!
• ↓ Repost: Rural Museums Matter: The Ross-Thomson House & Store
• ↓ Repost: The power of oral history in piecing together archival fragments documenting 2SLGBTQ+ community histories
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"In November 1926, Emma Goldman, then 57 and beginning a first period of exile in Toronto, enthused over a “radiant” young Italian woman seated at a welcoming dinner for Goldman organized by the city’s Jewish anarchist comrades.[1] Just over six months later, Goldman dubbed Marie Tiboldo “a terrible prude” who did “not feel anything deep enough, whether…for a man or ideas, to do anything worth while.” Tiboldo appears only fleetingly in Goldman’s estimated 200,000 letters, but her assessment of the young woman’s shortcomings aligns with Goldman’s pronounced tendency to go hot and cold with friends, comrades, and lovers. It’s not surprising, then, that Goldman also emphasized her continuing interest in “Marie,” writing that “I do not mean to give her up” and “I will certainly see much of her.”[2]"

"Marie Tiboldo (far right) at Bryn Mawr Summer School for Women Workers, 1929 (Julia Barnett Collection)"

"In 1979, lesbians in Fredericton, New Brunswick, found community not in a dedicated gay bar or a visible neighbourhood, but on the dance floor of the Cosmopolitan Club. On Thursday nights, women quietly gathered with friends, effectively “queering” a predominantly heterosexual venue. In a city without lesbian bars, bookstores, or formal organizations, even a dance floor could become a place of belonging. From 1979 to 1995, lesbians in Fredericton actively built and sustained physical and imagined queer spaces that fostered community, activism, and belonging. Whether through dances, newsletters, phone lines, private homes, or women-only organizing, these spaces reveal how meaningful lesbian community could flourish beyond Canada’s metropolitan centres. In recovering these histories, Fredericton’s lesbian spaces emerge not as exceptions to Canadian queer history, but as evidence that community has always existed."

"Queer history in Canada is often centred on the country’s largest urban centres: Toronto, Vancouver, and Montreal. Histories of queer activism have long focused on these cities, where visible institutions such as bars, bookstores, political organizations, and later gay villages left a stronger archival footprint. Much of the scholarship has similarly centred the experiences of urban gay men, tracing legal milestones such as decriminalization, police repression, and the rise of liberation movements. However, this focus overlooks the rich and varied experiences of lesbians in places like Fredericton, where queer history did not always take the form of visible institutions. Lesbian histories outside major cities challenge the assumption that queer communities depended on permanent spaces such as gay villages or commercial venues. Instead, many rural and small-city lesbians built networks through temporary gatherings, personal relationships, and community-based organizing."

Key Topics & Focus Areas for activehistory.ca:

An Anarchist Queen and Her Radiant Protégé: Marie Tiboldo and Emma Goldman in Toronto

Sapphic Sanctuaries: Navigating and Creating Lesbian Spaces in Fredericton, New Brunswick, 1969-1995

Teaching Against AI: Notes from the Field

Active History – We’re Back!

Repost: Rural Museums Matter: The Ross-Thomson House & Store

Repost: The power of oral history in piecing together archival fragments documenting 2SLGBTQ+ community histories