Title and statement of responsibility area
Title proper
General material designation
- Photographic materials
Parallel title
Other title information
Title statements of responsibility
Title notes
Level of description
Reference code
Edition area
Edition statement
Edition statement of responsibility
Class of material specific details area
Statement of scale (cartographic)
Statement of projection (cartographic)
Statement of coordinates (cartographic)
Statement of scale (architectural)
Issuing jurisdiction and denomination (philatelic)
Dates of creation area
Date(s)
-
1972-1992 (Creation)
- Creator
- Pacific Tribune
Physical description area
Physical description
40,000 35-mm photographs: negatives
709 photographs : b&w prints
5 photographs: colour prints
1 optical disc
Publisher's series area
Title proper of publisher's series
Parallel titles of publisher's series
Other title information of publisher's series
Statement of responsibility relating to publisher's series
Numbering within publisher's series
Note on publisher's series
Archival description area
Name of creator
Administrative history
Originally established by the Communist Party of Canada as the B.C. Workers’ News in 1935, the newspaper began publishing weekly under the name Pacific Tribune in 1946. Pacific Tribune was owned by the Tribune Publishing Company and widely known in the province as “B.C.’s only labour weekly.” For most of the paper's history, it relied on photographs borrowed from other publications for illustration. 1972 marked the first time that staff was specifically assigned to photography. Associate editor, and later editor, Sean Griffin shot photographs for the paper throughout the twenty years, and he was later joined on staff by another writer-photographer Dan Keeton, who began work in 1982. Tribune Publishing became part of the Pacific Socialist Education Association (PSEA) in 1992, and Pacific Tribune ceased publishing.
Custodial history
Records were in the custody of the Pacific Socialist Education Association (PSEA) prior to their acquisition by Simon Fraser University Library Special Collections and Rare Books.
Scope and content
The 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
Notes area
Physical condition
Immediate source of acquisition
Arrangement
Language of material
Script of material
Location of originals
Availability of other formats
Digitized materials are available for research in SFU Digitized Collections: https://digital.lib.sfu.ca/pt-collection/pacific-tribune-photograph-collection
Restrictions on access
Terms governing use, reproduction, and publication
Finding aids
Generated finding aid
Associated materials
Accruals
Alternative identifier(s)
Standard number
Standard number
Access points
Subject access points
Place access points
Name access points
- Pacific Tribune (Subject)
- Griffin, Sean (Subject)
- Keeton, Dan (Subject)
Genre access points
Control area
Description record identifier
Institution identifier
Rules or conventions
Rules for Archival Description
Status
Level of detail
Dates of creation, revision and deletion
Created January 20, 2016. SS
Photograph prints described by Kayla Gourlay (December 2023)