The collection consists of letters written by Charles Olson to five men who edited and published his works: Robin Blaser, Andrew Crozier, Barry Hall, LeRoi Jones, and Ed Sanders. Some of the letters were accompanied by manuscripts produce by Olson during the period 1965 to 1969. Collection includes a group of student assignments (mostly poetry) collected by Olson when he was in residence at University of British Columbia in 1963.
Olson, CharlesFonds consists of correspondence, handwritten poems, a newspaper clipping and an essay written by William Stafford and mailed to former SFU professor Frederick Candelaria. Photographs of manuscript pages are also included.
Stafford, WilliamThe collection offers insight into the imprisonment of the “Sons of Freedom” between 1932 and 1934 at Piers Island Penitentiary. The “Sons of Freedom” Doukhobors began as a small, radical movement to reinvigorate the faith, restore traditional Doukhobor values, and protest the sale of land, education, citizenship and registration of vital statistics. They would achieve infamy through civil disobedience, nude marches, and burnings. In 1932, over 600 Sons of Freedom protestors were convicted of public nudity. As B.C. Penitentiary was unable to handle such a rise in inmate population, a satellite prison under the authority of B.C. Penitentiary was constructed on Piers Island to house these prisoners. The records document how the prison was set up and run and the problems that the federal prison system encountered regarding both staff and prisoners. The correspondence and telegrams shed light on the internal discussions of senior officials concerning the management of the prison and its prisoners.
Fonds consists of correspondence, memoranda, telegrams, and other textual records pertaining to the Piers Island Penitentiary created or accumulated by H. W. Cooper during his career as the warden of B.C. Penitentiaries. The fonds also contains photographs which were all taken at Piers Island. The textual records predominantly consist of letters to and from H. W. Cooper regarding the penitentiary, staff, and prisoners. The records have been arranged into the following two series: Correspondence and other documents (1932-1934); and Photographs ([between 1932 and 1934]).
This collection consists of 15 photographs, as well as a postcard. Subject matter is pertaining to Japanese Canadians in the decades leading up to, and including, the Second World War. Content has been divided into 2 identifiable series: Photographs (ca.1925-1945?) and Correspondence (1908).
The collection reflects the many aspects of the Canadian Farmworkers Union’s organization and its actions, including unionizing workers and certifying workplaces, advocating for workers’ rights, providing ESL classes and other educational programs, and speaking out on behalf of other workers’ rights and social rights in Canada and around the world. Records include administrative documents, financial records, internal and external correspondence, reference material on a variety of subjects, publications, and numerous photographs of events and activities.
The majority of the material in the collection was created or received by the CFU in the course of its work, but some material, such as the Charan Gill photographs and Craig Berggold book research records, was created by others in relation to the CFU.
The collection has been arranged into nine series: Administrative records (1974-2010); Event photographs ([198--1985]); Union action records ([1978]-1997); Programming and project records ([1965]-Printed 2013 (originally created 1986)); Research and advocacy records ([197-]-2011); Deol Society records (1977-1998); Canadian Farmworkers Union Ontario photographs and administrative records ([1979?]-1983); Charan Gill photographs ([199-]); and Craig Berggold book research records ([201-]-2013).
Canadian Farmworkers UnionCollection consists of diaries, photographs, a passport, correspondence and an award issued to Allan Grant from the Saskatchewan Wheat Pool in 1974.
Grant, Ethel Moxon and Allan GarfieldThe collection consists of 115 handbills, and 78 posters (including 5 manuscript posters) collected by Robin Mathews in Paris during the student rebellion and general strike of May 1968.
Mathews, RobinCollection consists of photographs and an accompanying notebook documenting Chambers’ and the BCMC’s pioneering mountaineering activities and exploration during the period 1947 to 1968. Unlike the Rocky Mountains of Canada, the Coast Mountains were late in being explored by mountaineers. During the period recorded in these photographs, much of the region remained little visited, and the exploration lasted into the 1980s. As a result, the photographic record of mountain exploration in the Coast Mountain region is relatively poor and fragmentary, especially for the period from the late 1930s through the 1950s. The Chambers collection fills several gaps in this record.
Chambers was meticulous in recording the details of each image he captured with his Zeiss Ikon camera – every slide is identified with the location, names of individuals, and the date. An accompanying notebook lists the photographs taken on each roll of film and includes additional technical information. Further documentation of many of these trips is available in BCMC newsletters and issues of the Canadian Alpine Journal.
Chambers, Richard Harwood (Dick)Covering the time period from February 1942 to November 1943, the collection consists of records created or received by various staff of the Department of Mines and Resources, Surveys and Engineering Branch in the course of their activities establishing, administering and operating road work camps for evacuated male Japanese Canadian nationals along the proposed route of the Yellowhead Highway between Blue River, British Columbia and Jasper, Alberta. Also included among the files are some records of Department of Public Works staff pertaining to their role in the establishment of the camps, as well as a significant amount of correspondence with the British Columbia Security Commission (B.C.S.C) and related records. In addition to documenting the evacuation of Japanese Canadians from the B.C. coast to interior road work camps and other areas in early 1942, and many of the activities and events that occurred in the camps, the records also provide evidence of the economic and labour conditions in British Columbia during World War II.
Records within the collection pertain to the following road work camps: Albreda, Black Spur, Blacks Spit, Blue River, Gosnell, Grantbrook, Lampriere, Lucerne, Pratt, Pyramid, Rainbow, Red Pass, Red Sands, Tete Jaune / Yellowhead, and Thunder River in British Columbia, and Geikie, Jasper and Decoigne in Alberta. In addition, some records reference detention camps at Greenwood, Kaslo, Lemon Creek, New Denver, Roseberry, Sandon, and Slocan.
Record types include correspondence, reports, lists, nominal rolls, bills of lading, invoices, operational memos, purchase orders, and balance sheets. A significant number of records relate to the establishment and ongoing supply of the road work camps; these include supply orders and invoices, architectural plans for camp buildings, and status and other reports concerning the preparation of camps. Administrative personnel records document the hiring, management and activities of non-Japanese Canadian road camp workers, such as foremen, sub-foremen, and carpenters, and include information pertaining to the previous work and life experiences of these men, their age, ‘character,’ medical conditions, and home address, as well as positions and wages expected and received.
Many records within the fonds relate to the management of Japanese Canadian road camp workers, including the administration of pay, Workmens’ Compensation claims, and payment of assignment fees for dependents; medical and perceived psychological issues and the treatment of such issues; and the movement of Japanese Canadian men between camps and the policies and procedures governing these movements. This includes records pertaining to the granting of temporary leave, transfer to other camps or areas, family re-unification, the release of workers to private jobs, either within B.C. or in another province such as Ontario or Alberta, and the attitudes of certain communities towards Japanese Canadians. Correspondence in several files relates to supervisors’ attitudes towards road camp workers, including those identified as agitators or troublesome, and the methods used to deal with them, such as transfer out of camp and the censorship of Japanese Canadian mail. Included also are records relating to the organization and collective resistance of Japanese Canadian road camp workers, their demands, complaints and refusals to work, and the techniques identified to deal with these situations.
Several files include nominal roles and other lists of Japanese Canadian and other road camp workers, including some or all of the following personal information: name, registration number, occupation, previous work experience, age, place of birth, address, marital status, number of dependents, ‘physical defects’ and medical, dental or mental health issues. Some correspondence from Japanese Canadian road camp workers to camp administrators provides insight into their lives both in camp and prior to evacuation.
Canada. Department of Mines and Resources. Surveys and Engineering Branch.This collection consists of pen and brush drawings based on the flora (fungi, wildflowers, trees) and fauna (butterflies, owls, foxes, birds, and insects) of British Columbia. The representations are from different locations in B.C.: Bridge River, Williams Lake, Manning Park, and Vancouver. The records have been arranged in the following five series: Wildflowers of British Columbia: Bridge River (1959); Wildflowers of British Columbia: Williams Lake (1959); Wildflowers of British Columbia: Manning Park (1959); Wildflowers of British Columbia: Vancouver (1959); and Wildflowers of British Columbia: General (1959).
Kuthan, GeorgeThe collection consists of records associated to the Occupy Vancouver movement covering the years 2011 and 2012. It comprises records related to Occupy Vancouver Committees (General Assembly, Volunteer Coordinating Committee, Info Tent), photographs of activists and objects (teddy bear, pins, flags). The collection includes records associated with the court case between the City of Vancouver and Sean O’Flynn-Magee, Jane Doe, John Doe and other unknown persons. The records have been arranged in the following six series: Committee records (2011); Court case records (2011); Photographs and moving images (2011); Notebooks (2011); Publications (2012); Adbusters ([2011-2012]).
Occupy VancouverCollection consists of records created or accumulated by Roger Stonebanks over the course of, and following, his research for the book “Fighting for Dignity: The Ginger Goodwin Story,” published in 2004, as well as for numerous newspaper articles about Goodwin, mining, and labour history in British Columbia. Records include interview notes, correspondence, photographs and other graphic material, audio cassette tapes containing interview recordings and radio broadcasts, research records from various sources, and Stonebanks’ notes about sources consulted. Research records are primarily reproductions from sources such as museums and archives, and include records such as birth, death and marriage certificates, photographs, and newspaper articles. Some records date past 2004, after the publication of Stonebanks’ books, and thus were not used as research sources. The collection also contains various articles reviewing and publicizing Stonebanks’ book.
Collection has been arranged into the following four series: Correspondence (1985-2004); Subject files (1908-2011); General clippings and publicity (1990-2010); and Photographs (1909-2004).
Stonebanks, RogerThe Pacific Socialist Education Association’s Pacific Tribune Photograph Collection comprises over 40,000 35-mm images taken for the weekly Vancouver labour newspaper Pacific Tribune. The images cover a twenty-year period, from 1972 to 1992, one of the most active periods in British Columbia’s labour history.
Included in the collection are images from some of the most tumultuous events involving British Columbia’s labour movements:
- the province-wide campaign against insurance rate increases introduced by the new Social Credit government in 1976
- the opposition to federal wage controls that culminated in a one-day national work stoppage in 1976
- the historic Solidarity movement in 1983
- labour’s campaign — that also included a one-day work stoppage in 1987 — against government legislation that severely curtailed the right to organize unions and bargain collectively
The collection is also a rich source of images from political and other social movements, including:
- rallies and campaigns for human rights
- internationally recognized Vancouver walks for peace during the mid-1980s
- anti-poverty and housing movements
- womens' rights
- First Nations' movements
- environmental campaigns
The collection consists of photographic images and printed materials relating to the life and death of E. Pauline Johnson. Some of the material is associated with her sister, Evelyn Johnson, but the provenance and nature of compilation is largely unknown.
Johnson, E. PaulineCollection consists of research material gathered by Johnston for his book "The Voyage of the Komagata Maru: The Sikh Challenge to Canada's Colour Bar" (1979; 1989) and subsequent articles and books about Sikhs in Canada, including (with Tara Singh Bains) "The Four Quarters of the Night: The Life-Journey of an Emigrant Sikh" (1995) and "Jewels of the Qila: The Remarkable Story of an Indo-Canadian Family" (2011). Records in the collection are primarily of photocopied and microfilmed material from archival material held by institutions, newspapers and journals, and notes and drafts.
Collection is divided into the following eleven series: Articles (1988–2016); "The voyage of the Komagata Maru" draft manuscripts (1977–1978); Finding aids, bibliography and essays on sources (1975–1991); Archival documents and research notes ([197-–before 2011]); Official sources files ([1975–after 1996]); Biographical and autobiographical sources files ([197-–198-?]); Individual files (1988–1993); Research studies files ([ca. 1980]–1988); Scholarly articles ([197-]–2000); Periodicals and pamphlets ([198-?]–2014); and Newspaper clippings ([197-]–2014).
Johnston, HughIn September of 1974, 12 members of the SFU Geography Department voted to form a Vancouver chapter of the Union of Socialist Geographers (USG). For the first few years this chapter, comprised of both faculty and graduate students, was responsible for collecting, editing and publishing content for issues of the USG newsletter. Eventually, volumes comprised of multiple issues of newsletters were produced and the first few of these were also published from SFU. By 1978, however, support from the Geography department at the University was waning. M. E. Eliot Hurst, a key founding member of the USG, was replaced as Chair of the Department of Geography and graduate students were leaving, so the Minnesota chapter stepped in to become the principle organizing and publishing collective for volumes 5 and 6.
Superseded by a splinter group, the USG fizzled out of existence around 1981. In the years since, several original members of the Union have worked to collect and digitize original published content, though it remains incomplete. SFU Special Collections and Rare Books holds 17 issues of the USG newsletter, representing volumes 1-4 in their entirety and portions of volumes 5 & 6. A few more issues can be found at the website for the Antipode foundation (https://antipodefoundation.org/2017/06/28/usg-newsletter-archive/).
This collection is comprised of miscellaneous contextual records that serve to illustrate some of the atmosphere and attitudes towards socialist geography that existed at SFU in the 1970’s. There are source project reports that clearly inspired SFU students to develop their own geography project in Vancouver; notes and memos from within the SFU Department of Geography discussing the relative merits of a socialist geography course or agenda; a compilation of collaborative papers generated by USG members for presentation at a conference; and minutes from meetings of the Vancouver chapter of the Union of Socialist Geographers.
The fonds consists of 16 audio cassette tapes, with a total of 10 interviews, conducted by poet Barry McKinnon of Prince George B.C. for a special issue of the Toronto magazine Open Letter on B.C. Poets and Print. The fonds also contains word-for-word interview transcriptions and transcriptions that have been edited for publication. Fonds also contains a grant proposal, correspondence, notes, drafts, and layouts related to producing the work. B.C. Poets and Print appeared in Open Letter (Seventh series, nos. 2-3) in 1988.
B.C. Poets & PrintThis collection contains 18 cassettes (approximately 27 hours) representing 10 interviews compiled for the oral history project that resulted in "Tides of Men: A Documentary on the Lives of Gay Men in British Columbia, 1936 to the Present.". The interviews are narratives of gay life in Vancouver, compiled approximately between 1995-1996 by Robert Rothon and Myron Plett.
The Readings in British Columbia collection consists of poetry readings and lectures on poetry that took place and were recorded in the province of British Columbia between 1965 and 2009.
Collection includes artefacts, textual records, and photographs that document labour history in British Columbia, across Canada, and internationally. Types of artefacts include ribbons, membership and memorial pins, dues buttons, delegate badges, and medals. Textual records include copies of collective bargaining agreements, shop cards, and union constitutions and bylaws. These materials document this history of Canadian and international labour organizations, including the International Typographical Union (the earliest to organize in North America), United Auto Workers, bricklayers, painters, metalworkers, and many others.
The collection consists of copies and a small number of photographs of political cartoons dealing with Canadian and international events that took place from 1759 to 2006. Canadian topics include conscription, immigration, French-language rights, native self-government, imperialism, nationalism, labour conditions, women’s suffrage, and prohibition. The cartoons deal with, among many other topics, the Sino-Japanese War of 1894, the French conquest of Algeria, the Cold War, the war in Vietnam, and World Wars I and II. Publication dates of the newspapers and magazines from which the collection was copied range from 1846 to 2006. Dates of the events covered by the cartoons range from the mid-eighteenth century to 2006.
This collection contains records of the British Columbia Social Credit Party, predominantly in relation to the operations of Burnaby-Edmonds constituency. The collection includes records relating to other selected ridings where by-elections took place and party wide records relating to provincial elections. A considerable amount of records relates to the Social Credit Party leadership campaigns, party annual conventions and BC Young Socred organization. The majority of records cover period between 1978 and 1996, but some records reach as far as 1950 and 2005.
The collection contains administrative and day to day operations records such as memos, correspondence, membership list, contact lists, organizational constitution and by-laws, statements, committees’ minutes, and messages. In addition, the collection contains handbooks, manuals, reports and informational booklets intended to instruct candidates and volunteers on campaigning methods and strategies. Many of these records provide insight into shaping and evolving of the policies and electoral platforms of the Social Credit Party. In addition, the collection contains provincial election and party leadership campaign managing records that include candidate profiles and lists, internal correspondence and memos, and external use records intended for the promotion of the Social Credit Party and its candidates. The collection also includes a number of newspaper clippings, party newsletters, articles, posters, photographs, campaign buttons, video and sound recordings of events and promotional material.
The collection is arranged into to eight series: 1. Assembled books; 2. Government publications; 3. General documents; 4. Newspaper clippings and party newsletters; 5. Photographs; 6. Posters; 7. Buttons; 8. Audio and video recordings.
Keenleyside, PaulCollection consists of records such as press releases and publications that document activities of the Gay Alliance Toward Equality (GATE). It includes copies and drafts of A Guide for the Naive Homosexual (called the "Blurb"). The collection also includes photographs of various GATE boycotts or protests and personal photographs of Roedy Green, some of which include members of GATE.
Collection consists of letters written to and from Wil Hudson, his personal photographs and negatives, and type blocks used during his work as a printer. Collection also includes tributes to Wil Hudson written after his death in 2014.
Hudson, WilThis collection consists of records created, collected and commissioned by Terry Hunter and Savannah Walling co-founders of creative collaboration known as the Vancouver Moving Theatre. The records in this collection document the history of Hunter and Walling’s artistic collaborations beginning in 1978.
Terry Hunter and Savannah Walling Collection consists of visual and audio recordings of performances of the Vancouver Moving Theatre from 1978-2007. It also contains textual records documenting promotional material and publications created to publicize and to review activities of the Vancouver Moving Theatre. These records covering activity period from 1983-2022 include ephemera, excerpts of serial publications, newspaper articles and special publications that document the VMT projects in detail. Part of the textual records contains financial statements of the VMT and educational resources created to aid in development of children and adult art projects. The educational resources were developed over the years and were based on the individual performance prepared by the VMT.
The negatives depict Hudson in his shops in Vancouver (Cambie Street and later Marine Drive), as manager of the Kingait print cooperative at Kinngait (previously Cape Dorest), and socializing in Vancouver, Burnaby and Powell River.
The individuals depicted in the photos, sometimes identified by first name in the file titles, include:
Wil Hudson
Keith, Betty and Brendan Shields
Fritz Jacobsen
Bill Shoebotham
Harold Johnston
Frances Johnston
Sean Johnston
The collection includes 18 annual diaries written by John Dunlop Reid. These diaries span the years 1887-1897, 1900, 1902-1907, 1912. The collection also includes correspondence among members of the Dunlop Reid family, including John Dunlop Reid, his parents and siblings, his spouse Roberta Reid, her parents, cousins, and friends, John and Roberta's children, Fergus Reid and Kenneth Reid, and their children, grandchildren, other relatives, and friends.
Reid familyThe collection reflects Rimmer’s career as a designer, illustrator, printer, and publisher, and his involvement with members of the printing community and various associations. Records document Rimmer’s graphic design, typeface design and printing processes and accomplishments, and the publication activities of Pie Tree Press. The extensive graphic material within the collection includes sketches, drawings and prints. Also included are Rimmer’s linocut and woodcut blocks, as well as master patterns, specimen castings, matrices, lead working patterns, and cast metal sorts for many of his metal typefaces. The collection is arranged into nine series: Correspondence (1930-2010, predominant 1978-2010); Subject files (1938, 1956-[2009?]); Pie Tree Press publications and related material ([ca. 1978-2009]); Typeface design ([1971-2010]); Commercial work (1960-2009); Art prints and illustrations ([1970-2010]); Promotional and advertisement material ([197-?]-2008); Works by others regarding Jim Rimmer (1982-2012); and General photographs (1961-2002).
Rimmer, Jim