On Thursday night, I gave a lecture entitled “Precious Objects: The Material Culture of Nineteenth-Century Child Performers” at Dalhousie as part of the MacKay Lecture series. The audience seemed quite receptive (perhaps it was the slide with images from Us Weekly’s “Stars – They’re Just Like Us” pages) and I received some really excellent questions from students and faculty afterwards. I owe a huge debt of gratitude to my dear colleague Roberta Barker for inviting me to be part of this year’s series, with its focus on “Performance Across Boundaries.”

The day after the talk, I was invited to go and speak with CBC Halifax’s Information Morning radio show. The host Don Connolly interviewed me for about ten minutes on my research, focusing primarily on the phenomenon of child celebrity in the nineteenth century. The interview was in a beautiful old studio on the third floor of the CBC building, with rounded windows a view of the Citadel. In a week the crew is moving out of the building and it’s going to be demolished (or remodeled?) to make way for condos, etc. So I felt especially privileged to be interviewed in that space. The interview is apparently going to air during the holiday season (perhaps with connections to Shirley Temple, Tiny Tim, and Natalie Wood), so I’ll certainly include a link once it’s up…

Needless to say, my trip to Halifax was one to remember!