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 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).