Master's of History student Matthew McKeown (Traill College) started his research with a list of boxers from early 1900s Winnipeg. As a fitness enthusiast and gym owner, this topic had a natural draw. At the Archives of Manitoba, he used the list as a means for digging further into the Winnipeg boxing clubs at that time and made a discovery that surprised both him and his supervisor, Trent history professor Dr. David Sheinin. 

McKeown’s initial goal was to understand the social and ethnic dynamics in Winnipeg’s boxing community, which led him to explore the archives at the Winnipeg Library. He was intrigued by the presence of Jewish members in the YMCA, a firmly Christian organization at that time. This curiosity drove him to investigate further into the ethnic and religious backgrounds of the boxers, spanning from the late 1800s to the 1930s. 

“I started really getting interested when I spotted records of Jewish members at the YMCA,” said McKeown. “This went against everything I’d understood about the YMCA up to that point. At that time, in the early 1900s, Jewish men in North America had set up the Young Hebrew Men’s Association because they weren’t allowed to join the YMCA. So that finding spurred me to start looking at the ethnic and religious backgrounds of the fighters in Winnipeg at that time.” 

The research journey

McKeown was advised by a friend that speaking with a Trent librarian would benefit his research, so he set up a meeting with James Watson, the subject librarian for history students. He wasn’t disappointed: when he arrived at the meeting, Watson had a list of over 50 books and articles prepared for McKeown to consider. As they discussed the project and the wealth of location-based information he’d found in the Winnipeg Archives – the names, residences, club locations, and ethnicities of fighters – Watson suggested that McKeown get in touch with the library’s Maps, Data, Government Information Centre (MaDGIC) unit to investigate the possibility of using their mapping resources to deepen his understanding of the data he had collected. 

“It was nice to be able to help someone in the humanities work with archival data,” said Kate Hodge, data visualization & statistical support specialist at MaDGIC. We get a lot of environmental science and business students, but the software and data access we can provide is useful for students in almost every discipline. For Matthew, we were able to create a visual survey of boxing in Winnipeg during that period so he could better see relationships in the data.” 

McKeown learned how to clean up his data using advanced Excel functions before inputting it into ArcGIS Pro for mapping and data analysis. This allowed him to map out where boxers and gyms were located, and search for spatial relationships using attributes such as religion, ethnicity, and gym membership.  

McKeown plans to create a StoryMap using the specialized software he discovered while working at MaDGIC. ArcGIS StoryMaps is a web-based application allowing researchers to make their findings more accessible by creating interactive websites that integrate maps, narrative text, images, videos, and other media.  

Discovering one of Winnipeg’s “third spaces” 

By visualizing the data he had collected, McKeown discovered that in the 1900s, boxing gyms were important “third spaces” – public spaces that are neither home nor work but serve as gathering places where people can socialize and connect with others. This finding shows that boxing, despite societal divisions at the time, managed to bring people of diverse backgrounds together, offering a new perspective on Winnipeg's boxing history. 

Library resources were key to McKeown's research, providing tools and data that helped bring Winnipeg's boxing community's diversity to life. 

“My advice to Trent students: book an appointment with your subject librarian,” McKeown said. “They are going to help you figure out which direction to take your research, give you new insights, and point you to the best information.”