This fonds contains records related to Alan Sears’ personal thought and activism in socialist and 2SLGBTQIA+ circles during his early career, publications on those topics, and historical materials related to socialist politics in Windsor/Essex County.

Series I (Personal Files, 1982-1996) contains Sears’ personal notes, formal presentations, and article drafts, as well as agendas, membership lists, signed petitions, posters and flyers, a small amount of correspondence, and some research material in activist areas including socialism, labour, anti-racism and anti-apartheid, anti-war, Gay and Lesbian rights, AIDS, and funding for education. Most of the records relate to Windsor, with some Ottawa and Toronto items.

Series II (Publications, 1971-2002) contains periodicals and individual articles connected with Sears’ activist interests, and a history of Gay and Lesbian liberation written by Sears.

Series III (Scrapbooks & Ephemera, 1945; 1980s) includes two scrapbooks of press clippings from the 1945 Ontario provincial election, focused on the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation (CCF) party and Essex County, and stickers from a 1980s job action by postal workers.

Series IV (Photographs) contains images of t-shirts owned by Sears, highlighting slogans and images used in various activist causes.

This fonds consists of 31 student projects depicting historical and contemporary features of Southwestern Ontario (primarily Windsor/Essex County but also Sarnia/Lambton County), created by Bachelor of Education students in History or Social Studies courses in the 1980s. They take a variety of forms, including illustrated storybooks, scrapbooks, captioned photo albums, reports, lesson plans, activities, or fact sheets. The projects themselves are of variable quality, but the photographs and ephemera included in many projects provide valuable insight into local landmarks or industries in the 1980s. The collection has been arranged into six thematic series: Series I (Overviews by Geographic Area), Series II (Cultural Attractions), Series III (Sociocultural Groups and Histories), Series IV (Local Government), Series V (Business and Industry), Series VI (Transportation).

Warning: The N-word appears in a historical quotation in one project; stereotyped depictions of Indigenous peoples appear in another. See finding aid for details.

This fonds contains personal, professional, and domestic records from the life of Joan Somers Sullivan in the later-20th and early-21st centuries. Series I (Personal Records) includes reminiscences about Joan, medical information, clippings related to community activitism (including traffic problems in Old Sandwich), and personal journals. Series II (Professional Records) features her resumé and qualifications, as well as administrative records, correspondence, public talks, research material, clippings, and publications connected with her pioneering effort to unionize legal secretaries in Windsor, Ontario during the 1970s. This includes talks for events held by the Faculties of Law at the University of Windsor and the University of Western Ontario, and articles published in the Windsor Woman women’s liberation newspaper and The Oyez Windsor law students’ newspaper. Series III (Domestic Records) contains recipes and household hints used in her later-life personal housekeeping, as well as lists of her annual Christmas baking.

The fonds consists of original Windsor Star editorial cartoons drawn by Mike Graston that reflect local, provincial, national, and international public affairs of the period 1981-2016. The images have been arranged by date of creation. Politics and politicians figure prominently, at all four levels.

Municipal topics include mayors and city councillors, elections, public utilities and infrastructure, local Canada-US border crossings, automakers and other major local employers, unions and strikes, strip clubs, casinos, the downtown core, and riverfront development plans.

Provincial topics include premiers and Windsor/Essex members of provincial parliament, party leaders, economic policies, education, health care, and elections.

National topics include prime ministers and Windsor/Essex members of parliament, party leaders, economic policies, taxation, national defence, elections, same-sex marriage, Quebec separatism, Western alienation, and many political scandals.

International issues include wars in Iraq, war in Afghanistan, school shootings, the British Royal Family, American presidential politics, and Canadian-American relations.

Social issues are a secondary focus, with recurring themes of technological change, demographic change in Canada, Western popular culture (including television, sports, music, and celebrities), Remembrance Day, public health, and the environment.

A small amount of biographical information about Mike Graston and past exhibits of his work is also included in a textual file.

This fonds primarily contains personal papers, publications, and oral histories (ca. 1870-1984) relating to the Basilian Fathers who served as teaching staff for Assumption College and Assumption University. Included are diaries, notebooks, correspondence, memoirs, recorded interviews, memorials, manuscripts and published works. Of special note are the extensive papers of Bishop Leo C. Nelligan, records of O’Connor House, and a few records from Rev. Pierre Tourvieille. Secondarily, this fonds contains extensive administrative records documenting the history of Essex College, found in the papers of professor W.H. Arison.

This collection documents aspects of unionism and labour politics with a focus on Ontario and Windsor, during the mid-20th century. It is divided into two series.

Series I contains original issues of The Guardian newspaper, described as the “official voice of UAW Locals 195, 200, 240, 444, 1498 Windsor, Ontario,” covering labour news and opinion on local, provincial, national, and international issues. There is one issue from 1969 and multiple issues for succeeding years up to 1980.

Series II contains records related to the Waffle, a radical faction within the New Democratic Party (NDP) that existed 1969-1974. The Waffle’s emphasis on the role of the NDP as a social movement, not just a political party, and its advocacy of economic nationalism are reflected in the Waffle papers which include pamphlets, correspondence, meeting minutes, press releases, and news clippings. Specific files are devoted to the movement in Ontario, Saskatchewan, and Canada as a whole, as well as women, the 1972 federal election, and Waffle records in the CCF/NDP fonds at Library and Archives Canada. There is a single issue of Waffle Labour News produced for a convention (no date), and several issues of The Waffle News (1970-71).