Special Collections
Labour Archive Fund
The Purchase Of A Library Collection:
Through the fund raising initiatives of the Institute for the Humanities at Simon Fraser University, and the Margaret and Lefty Endowment Fund, we have acquired a library collection of the history of Western Canadian labour and social movements, including that of the CCF (Cooperative Commonwealth Federation) and the NDP (New Democratic Party).
The collection includes the following materials:
Selections from the Archives of the Western Canadian Labour And Socialist Party, 1895-1930. These focus on BC and features material on the Vancouver Island coal-mining industry and its industrial disputes, the One Big Union and the Winnipeg General Strike of 1919, the Social Gospel on the Prairies, and the early lumber industry in BC. Most of the collection consists of Socialist Party of Canada pamphlets and newspapers including The Western Clarion, The Red Flag, the Indicator, and The Strike Bulletin from the 1919 Vancouver General Strike. The collection now also includes the Archive of one of the leaders of the Socialist Party of Canada, James Hawthornthwaite, Nanaimo MLA 1901-08 and 1909-12.
Selections from the Archives of the CCF-NDP
These are pamphlets, leaflets, convention documents, periodicals and minute books, mostly from B.C. with some materials from Saskatchewan and Alberta. Most of them date from the 1930's and 1940's. Included are: the Rev. Robert Connell Papers (early B.C. CCF Leader who left to form the B.C. Constructivists), CCF Club of North Vancouver Record Books (1930s), B.C. CCF Convention Reports, Memoirs and Biographies of key Figures, runs of News Comment, Saskatchewan CCF Research Bureau, CCF Challenge (the F.R. Scott set), selected posters.
For more information contact Eric Swanick, Head of Special Collections at the SFU Library, at 778.782.4626 or eswanick@sfu.ca
