Governor General’s Award Winner Karolyn Smardz Frost to speak at OGS Conference 2010 Banquet

Posted by conference on October 8, 2009 under Blog: New Postings, Speakers and Program, Tours and Events | Be the First to Comment

We are delighted to announce that Governor General’s Award winner, Karolyn Smardz Frost, PhD, will speak at the Ontario Genealogical Society’s Conference 2010 banquet on Saturday, May 15.

Karolyn is an author, historian and archaeologist. (For 10 years she was Canada’s representative to the World Archaeological Congress!) She holds a BA in Archaeology, a master’s in Classical Studies and a PhD in Canadian History (Race and Slavery) and has won many research fellowships in both Canada and the US. She describes one of her greatest honours as presenting Canada’s Underground Railroad story at Robben Island, South Africa, where Nelson Mandela was a prisoner for so long, on behalf of UNESCO in 1998.

We know her best as the person who spent more than 20 years piecing together the stories of Thornton and Lucie Blackburn. Starting with the 1985 excavation of the Blackburn site, she poured another 20 years of historical detective work into researching her account of the fugitive slave couple’s dramatic and precedent-setting escape to Canada via the Underground Railroad. The resulting 2007 book, I’ve Got a Home in Glory Land: A Lost Tale of the Underground Railroad, was the first original fugitive-slave biography published since the 19th century and won not only the Governor General’s Award for Non-Fiction, Canada’s top literary prize, but numerous other accolades.

Among Karolyn’s most memorable accomplishments was the founding of Toronto’s Archaeological Resource Centre. For a decade, this unique facility provided hands-on excavation and educational opportunities for more than 100,000 schoolchildren, tourists and volunteers. She is a founding member of the education committees of the Society for American Archaeology and the Society for Historical Archaeology and has served on many other committees to further the cause of heritage education.

Formerly the executive director of the Ontario Historical Society and a past vice-chair of the Toronto Historical Board, Karolyn has lectured around the world.  She is currently a Research Associate with the York Centre for Education and Community, Faculty of Education, York University, where she has also taught night school courses on primary research for Toronto’s 19th century history and African Canadian history.