When you think about student protest movements, you probably don’t think about the Victorian era. But maybe you should—because in 1895, University of Toronto students challenged the university’s administration by going on strike! In this episode, we discuss what led to this protest, what happened during the strike, and campus life/culture in the nineteenth century more broadly.

Here are some recommendations for further reading:

• Martin Friedland, The University of Toronto: A History, 2nd ed. (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2013).
• Robert Craig Brown, Arts and Science at Toronto: A History, 1827–1990 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2013).
• Keith Walden, “Respectable Hooligans: Male Toronto College Students Celebrate Hallowe’en, 1884–1910,” Canadian Historical Review 68, no. 1 (March 1987): 1–34.
• Caitlin Harvey, “University Land Grabs: Indigenous Dispossession and the Universities of Toronto and Manitoba,” Canadian Historical Review 104, no. 4 (December 2023): 467–93.

For anyone interested in what the University of Toronto was like in this period, also check out the university's calendar (essentially, its handbook) for the year of the strike—it's pretty interesting to flip through and compare to today! https://archive.org/details/uoftcalendar1894/

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Listening T.O. History is created and hosted by Steve Penfold and Louis Reed-Wood. Our artwork was made by Nethkaria, our intro music was recorded by the National Promenade Band, and our outro music was created by Holizna. Follow us on Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/listeningt.o.history) and Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/people/Listening-TO-History/61553456499160/) for additional content and announcements, and get in touch at listeningTOhistory[at]gmail.com!