Newspaper articles are very useful sources for historical events and situations. They were often produced by reporters who had access to eyewitness accounts not otherwise accessible today.
Newspaper articles are usually not long nor are they published individually, but rather as part of an issue. This material is best found through searchable digitized archives. Newspapers have not always attempted the modern appearance of objectivity; hence comparing several accounts of the same occurrence in different newspapers may be both revealing and necessary.
In contrast to magazines, which appear weekly, monthly or quarterly, successive accounts in daily newspapers will often enable the historian to watch a story unfold, much as it would have appeared to the contemporary participant or onlooker.
Footnotes in modern secondary works, particularly in articles or sections of books dealing with contemporary social or political reactions to events, can be a useful source for finding references to historical newspaper articles.
While Canadian newspapers are the obvious target of this section, remember that not all Canadian history happened in Canada. For example, an article in the Times of London about Canadian involvement in a World War I battle in Belgium, or in the New York Times about the Fenian raids, might be very relevant.
Look in these indexes to find contemporary newspaper articles in electronic format:
Individual newspapers
National collections
Provincial collections
Other guides
Magazine articles are useful sources for historical events and situations. They were often produced by writers who had access to eyewitness accounts not otherwise accessible today.
While magazine articles may vary greatly in length, they are they rarely published individually or separately. Printed indexes created at the time allow you to find some of this material. Magazines have not always attempted the modern appearance of objectivity, hence comparing several accounts of the same occurrence in different magazines may be revealing.
In contrast to daily newspapers, magazines, which appear weekly, fortnightly, monthly or quarterly, will often present a synthesis of an event, as it would have appeared to the contemporary onlooker.
Footnotes in modern secondary works, particularly in articles or sections of books dealing with contemporary social or political reactions to events, are also a useful source for finding references to contemporary magazine articles.
The following indexes and databases will help you locate magazine articles:
Canadian Periodical Index
An Index to Saturday Night: the first fifty years
An Index to Maclean's Magazine
Reader's Guide to Periodical Literature
CBCA
Other Magazine Archives
The records left by a participant in an event (or by a close observer) are obviously of great interest to a historian. Sometimes these sources have been published (in which case it will be in the catalogue, like a book), otherwise it will unpublished in manuscript form. For this assignment, restrict your research to published sources.
Memoirs, diaries, etc. are rarely published in the time of the events they concern. (The most interesting ones probably couldn’t be published until well after the people they discuss have died.) Separately published memoirs, etc., are organized within in the catalogue under specific subject categories, known as Subject Headings that include the words “Diaries” or "Correspondence” (e.g., “Frye, Northrop Diaries”). To find diaries, memoirs, or correspond, try searching a person's name along with the words "diaries" or "correspondence" or "letters", etc.:
The Dictionary of Canadian Biography, which currently mainly covers people who died before 1930, is the most useful source to identify memoirs, diaries, and letters by individuals. Look for these in the bibliographies at the end of articles.
Modern secondary scholarly works, both books and articles, are often your best sources for published personal documents like these. If you do use modern secondary sources to identify this type of primary source, be sure that the sources you have identified are indeed published ones, not manuscript or archival records that may be inaccessible.
Parliamentary debates, which are verbatim accounts of what is said in a legislative body, are important records of historical events. They are sometimes referred to as "Hansard" after the name of the first official transcriber of debates in the British Parliament. Many debates record comments by firsthand participants in historical events. They also reveal attitudes toward the issues of the day while bills are being debated. Depending on the quality of the rhetoric, a heated debate can yield a pithy quote for your paper. Records of debates often contain references to related material such as Parliamentary reports or Royal Commissions.
The Canadian federal government started publishing its debates in 1867. The provinces were relative latecomers, following suit only in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Instead, each province published its Journals which recorded the activities in its legislature in a summary format, rather than as verbatim accounts. In recent years, some provinces, such as Quebec, have initiated projects to reconstruct their early debates based on newspaper accounts of the era.
The Government Documents collection on the 2nd floor of the McLennan Library Building has a strong collection of provincial Journals and Debates. These print volumes include indexes, usually one for each session, though the quality varies.
Several digitization projects have been undertaken, but depending on the time period and geographical aspect of your topic, you may need to rely on the original print editions.
Footnotes in modern secondary works, particularly in articles or sections of books dealing with contemporary political reactions to events, are also a useful source for finding references to debates.
Federal parliamentary debates
Provincial parliamentary debates
Reports commissioned by or produced by governments are important resources for historians. Many government reports, such as Royal Commissions, include testimony by first-hand participants in historical events.
The vast majority of federal government reports for the period before 1924 can be found in the Sessional Papers. This invaluable resource for historians represents all reports tabled in the House of Commons for each parliamentary session. The Sessional Papers include annual reports of the various governmental departments, Royal Commissions, statistical reports, and censuses, and represent a rich source of documentation about the activities of the Canadian government. The Sessional Papers cover a vast array of topics including among others foreign affairs, religion, law, Indigenous peoples, natural resources, finance, and communications. Comparable sets of Sessional Papers also exist for the provincial governments.
Another basic source of governmental report literature is the Canadian Parliament. Parliamentary Committees are assigned to investigate a wide range of topics, and issue both reports of their inquiries and minutes of their proceedings.
The individual reports which are included in the Sessional Papers do not appear in the catalogue. Nor do all Parliamentary Committee reports. To find out if there is a report on your topic, you will need to consult the printed indexes in the Government Documents Department of McLennan Library. Don't hesitate to contact your liaison librarian, Kristen Howard, or the Government Documents liaison, Eamon Duffy, for assistance.
The Chicago Manual of Style gives limited guidance on how to cite Canadian government documents. Refer instead to this guide from the SFU Library on citing Canadian government documents in Chicago style.
Footnotes in modern secondary works, particularly in articles or sections of books dealing with contemporary political reactions to events, are also a useful source for finding references to Royal Commissions, reports and governmental studies, as is the Canadian Encyclopedia.
Statistics are useful background information to historical events and situations. They were often produced by knowledgeable researchers who had access to necessary raw data not easily accessible today, if at all.
The Historical Statistics of Canada contains over a thousand statistical tables on the social, economic, and institutional conditions of Canada from 1867 to the mid 1970s. The tables are arranged in sections with an introduction explaining the content of each section, the principal sources of data for each table, and general explanatory notes regarding the statistics.
Governments are notorious statistics gatherers and publish their findings in a variety of sources, the most basic of which is the census. The Government of Canada has been performing a census every 10 years since Confederation (1867), and the published statistical tables it yields provide historians with an overview of the population in terms of age, sex, marital status, occupation, religion, language, and ethnic background. Often these results are available not only for the country as a whole, but for provinces, counties, and cities as well. The Government Documents Collection on the second floor of the McLennan Library Building has a complete set of all Canadian censuses, beginning with the call number begin CA1 STC.
The reports included in the Sessional Papers represent another rich source of governmental statistical information. Until the government created an agency in 1918 with the responsibility for collecting and disseminating statistics (the ancestor of Statistics Canada), the reports within the Sessional Papers were the key sources of demographic, economic, and social statistics on the country. To locate these Sessional Papers, consult the pages on finding Government Reports above.
If you need assistance finding statistics in governmental sources, ask Eamon Duffy, the Government Documents liaison librarian.
Works need not actually have been published in the time of the event in order to contain appropriate historical statistics. Modern secondary scholarly works, both books and articles, are often your best sources for historical statistics.
The resources listed in the sections on finding contemporary newspaper and magazine articles will also locate statistical tables that accompanied contemporary articles.
Photographs are useful background information to historical events and situations. They are often revealing witnesses to the people and places involved -- but remember, photographs can be staged and manipulated, even in the years before Photoshop and filters.
Photographs are usually not large and are almost never published individually. This material is rarely indexed separately and is best found using secondary sources of logical inferences (i.e. where are photographs likely to occur?).
To use the Catalogue to find photographs of people in books, add "nt:ports” to your search terms. This asks the catalogue to identify resources with "portraits" (ports) in the "notes" (nt:) field. In books from the time period covered by this course, portraits will almost always be photographs.
The same methodology can be used with nt:illus to find illustrations, but these may be drawings or photographs. In either case, it is always necessary to look at the physical (or electronic) book to determine whether you have actually found historical photographs.
The work need not actually have been published in the time of the event in order to contain appropriate historical photographs. Modern secondary works, both books and articles, are often your best sources for historical photographs, and popular ones are usually better than scholarly ones.
The resources listed in the sections on finding contemporary newspaper and magazine articles will also locate photographs that accompanied contemporary articles. Government reports, in particular Sessional Papers, sometimes contain photographs. Indexing of government documents has varied over the years.
Several online collections of historical photographs are also available, especially from museums, provincial archives, and even public libraries.
Of course, you can also try one of the image search engines on the web, such as Google Images.
Contemporary literary materials (such as plays, poetry, fiction, films, etc.) are useful sources for revealing popular reactions to historical events and situations.
While novels can usually be located much like other books, poems, short stories, and plays are usually shorter works and they were rarely published individually. Films are very difficult to identify. Appropriate material other than book-length fiction is rarely indexed anywhere and is best found using secondary sources such as biographies of the participants, histories of the event, or secondary works on the social or cultural milieu in which the event unfolded.
Separately published material (books, plays) can be found in the Catalogue with subject subheading su:fiction, su:poetry, su:drama, and even su:film (e.g., “Red River Rebellion" su:fiction; or "Red River Rebellion" su:poetry).
The indexes listed in the sections on finding contemporary newspaper and magazine articles will also locate poems and short fiction about contemporary events. Add “poetry” or “stories” to your search terms. Exact vocabulary will vary from one index to the next.
The Dictionary of Canadian Biography, which currently covers people who died before 1930, is a useful source for literary material by and about individuals. In the Advanced Search, you can select appropriate occupations to identify authors.
Canadiana includes a large amount of Canadian fiction in multiple languages, but is not easy to browse.
References in modern secondary works, particularly in articles or chapters of books dealing with contemporary reactions to events are also a useful source for finding literary works.
Check the catalogue to find out if the item is in the library. Remember; if it is a smaller thing in a larger thing (e.g. a poem in a collection, or an story in a magazine), look for the larger thing (i.e. the collection or the magazine) in the Catalogue.
Some other resources for identifying Canadian literary works are included below.
Contains documentaries, animated films, interactive productions, and short films in English and French. McGill subscription to NFB includes films marked 'Campus' as well as those accessible to the general public. Some films are not available through the streaming service. Unlimited simultaneous users.
Maps are useful background information to historical events and situations. They were often produced by knowledgeable cartographers who had access to necessary raw data and descriptions not easily accessible today, if at all.
While maps can be large and published separately, they can also be small and hidden within other publications. This material is rarely indexed separately and is best found using secondary sources or logical inferences (i.e., where are maps likely to occur?).
To use the Catalogue to find maps in books, add "nt:maps" to your search terms.
It is always necessary to look at the physical or electronic book to determine whether you have actually found a meaningful map.
Government reports sometimes contain maps. Consult the section on finding Canadian government reports.
The map collection in Rare Books and Special Collections on the fourth floor of McLennan Library Building has one of the largest collections of Canadian maps in the country. Contact a Rare Books Librarian at rarebooks.library@mcgill.ca.
There are also digitized collections of maps available for browsing.
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