Piecing the Quilt: Sources for Women's History in the Saskatchewan Archives Board

Patricia Myers is a historian with the Historic Sites and Archives
Service, Alberta Community Development, and the author of Sky Riders: An
Illustrated History of Aviation in Alberta, 1906–1945.

“Women’s history has often been an invisible history” states this
book’s back-cover copy. Barbara Powell and Myrna Williams set out to
redress this imbalance as it applies to Saskatchewan by conducting a
painstaking search of collections currently held by the Saskatchewan
Archives Board in Regina and Saskatoon. Their aim was to “document all
nonrestricted collections containing women’s contributions.” Not
surprisingly, they turned up a great deal of material.

Each entry in this alphabetically arranged guide contains a sentence or
two describing the contents of the material. In the case of large
collections, the authors wisely direct researchers to the finding aids
already completed by the archives. Cross-references are used for
individuals whose papers are included in more than one collection.

Oral histories, pioneer stories, church histories, and such
organizations as the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union are all
represented. We learn that letters written by a servant girl at
Cannington Manor can be found in the Martha Morgan collection and that a
handmade sewing book survives in the Jacqueline Paton collection.

Useful and timely, this publication will be of particular relevance to
those interested in women’s studies or Saskatchewan history.