2013 Toronto History Lecture

Mary Mink: The Making of a Myth is the title for the 2013 Toronto History Lecture which will explore the sometimes blurred line between historical fact and historical fiction.
"James Mink was a successful Black businessman in Toronto in the 1840s and 1850s. His story is one of the best known tales of Black Torontonians in the 19th century, told and retold many times in newspapers and books. In the 1990s, his story was made into a TV movie, Captive Heart: the James Mink Story, which was broadcast in Canada and the United States. In the screen version of events, Mink arranges for a white man to marry his daughter Mary and then stages a daring rescue when her husband whisks her off to the American South and sells her into slavery. The movie is said to be “based on historical records”, but as Guylaine Pétrin found out through her research, records can lie."
The lecture is on Wednesday August 7, 2013 at 7:30 pm at the  City of Toronto Archives, 255 Spadina Road. Admission is free, reservation required from http://goo.gl/iAzW5