The Canadian Women's Movement, 1960-1990: A Guide to Archival Resources

Sharon P. Larade, formerly the reference archivist at the University of
Toronto Archives, is the regional archivist at the Region of Peel
Archives.

Karen L. Wagner is a staff archivist at the Region of Peel Archives.

This comprehensive national guide to primary sources for feminist
research brings new collections together in a single resource.
Accessible to a broad public, the guide provides details of more than
1000 collections held by archival institutions or organizations from
coast to coast. Many diverse forms of archival records are listed; in
addition, those that are in active or semiactive use by the
organizations themselves are also described. Focusing on the women’s
movement as a distinct aspect of women’s history, the guide fills the
gap between what records exist and what few materials had previously
been available.

Organized by geography, the guide has a comprehensive name and subject
index, which includes a plethora of organizational acronyms, earlier
names, and alternate forms of the name. In identifying records of both
organizations and archival repositories, the book furnishes concise
bibliographical citations reflective of archival and library sciences.
Entries are made by the latest name used by the organization during the
period covered by the records. Drawing on the work of the Canadian
Feminist Thesaurus, the guide utilizes a controlled vocabulary that
reflects the specialized language of the contemporary women’s
movement. Contact addresses for archival institutions are available in a
separate appendix; if an organization holds the records, its address is
included in the entry. Entries themselves are well laid out; brief
notations assure the user of either a box or file list.

In explaining the goals and methodology of the survey, the editors
assure readers of their focus on organizational records rather than on
records held by individual feminists. Their solid bilingual treatment of
the subject matter is more balanced than that of other national
inventories; if the records themselves exist in both languages, a
bilingual entry is provided. In their efforts to “reflect the
diversity of Canadian feminist organizing in terms of ideology, region,
race, ethnicity, religion, language, class and sexual orientation,”
the Canadian Women’s Movement Archives has produced a national
sourcebook of the highest quality that will serve the growing number of
both participants and researchers in the women’s movement.