Guides: HIST 370: Canadian Left and Social Movements: Home

Getting Started

Canadian History
by Kristen Howard Last Updated Jan 6, 2025 134 views this year

Resources to create your podcast

Borrow Equipment
The Music Library lends high-quality portable audio recorders and microphones to McGill students. Advanced reservations (at least 2 days) are required for most items. Equipment is generally available for a loan period of 2 days plus one overnight, due at 5pm on the return date. To see what's available, follow the link above. To request equipment, use the reservation request form on the linked page.

Find Secondary Sources

Find books and eBooks

Library Catalogue

Find peer-reviewed articles

America: History and Life (EBSCO)
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Provides historical coverage of the United States and Canada from prehistory to the present. Includes information abstracted from over 2,000 journals published worldwide.
CBCA (Canadian Business & Current Affairs Database) (ProQuest)
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A longstanding, comprehensive Canadian periodical collection covering multiple subjects and topics, with millions of full-text records. Features scholarly journals as well as other resources, notably including radio and television transcripts.
Erudit
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Multidisciplinary social science and humanities publications containing journals and e-book collections from Quebec University Presses including: Presses de l'Université de Montréal, Presses de l'Université Laval, Publications du CRIR. Erudit Cultural Magazines collection is not included in McGill's subscription.

Find Primary Sources

Newspapers

Newspapers Guide
Find more newspapers (other than those hand-selected for this course) on the Newspapers Guide.

ProQuest Historical Newspapers: Leftist Newspapers and Periodicals (1845-2015)
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A collection of English-language publications (1845-2015) covering Communist, Socialist and Marxist thought, theory and practice. Issues covered include workers’ rights, organized labor, labor strikes, Nazi atrocities, McCarthyism’s rise after WWII, Civil Rights, and modern-day class struggles which give rise to renewed interest in alternative social organizations.
Includes one Canadian title:
-Spartacist Canada (Toronto), 1975-2012, English language newspaper of the Trotskyist League/Ligue trotskyste

National

Proquest Historical Newspapers: The Globe and Mail (ProQuest)
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Major Canadian newspaper; generally considered more conservative than the Star. Available from 1844-four years ago
Toronto Star (ProQuest)
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Major Canadian newspaper; generally considered more socially liberal than Globe and Mail. Available from 1894-3 years ago.

Local/regional

ProQuest Historical Newspapers: Victoria Times-Colonist
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Victoria, BC. Available from 1884-2010.
ProQuest Historical Newspapers: The Province (1894-2010)
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Victoria, BC. Available from 1894-2010.
ProQuest Historical Newspapers: Vancouver Sun (1912 - 2010)
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ProQuest Historical Newspapers: Edmonton Journal (1903 - 2010)
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ProQuest Historical Newspapers: Saskatoon Star-Phoenix (1902-2009)
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ProQuest Historical Newspapers: Ottawa Citizen (1845 - 2010 )
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McGill Student Publications
This link leads to all of McGill Student Publications from 1892 to 2020. Limit to specific years using the filter on the lefthand side.

Gazette (1857-2010); Montreal. (ProQuest)
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La Presse
Montreal, QC. Digitized issues from BAnQ. Coverage 1884-2017 (click on 'calendar' icon to choose date).
Le Devoir
Daily independent newspaper from Montreal founded by Henri Bourassa. Digitized issues from BANQ. Coverage 1920-2020 (click on 'calendar' icon to choose date).
Connecting Canadians
Collection of multicultural Canadian newspapers documenting the earliest years of immigrant experience in Canada. Includes Croatian, Estonian, Finnish, Hungarian, Polish, Serbian, Ukrainian, Serbo-Croatian, Latvian, and Lithuanian newspapers.

AV Sources

When considering using audio and video sources as primary sources, be sure to think critically about the creator, intended audience, and intended purpose of an item. Many sources, including those in the databases curated here, may better be thought of as secondary sources depending on your research topic.

NFB (National Film Board of Canada)
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Contains documentaries, animated films, interactive productions, and short films in English and French. Consider browsing the channel 'Work and Labour Relations in Canada', and searching for keywords such as 'protest' and narrowing to documentaries.

NFB Archives
Also try searching keywords in the NFB Archives.
SFU Digitized Collections
A wide range of digitized items from Simon Fraser University, including useful modules "Activism & Social Movements" and "Audio & Oral Histories". These collections specialize in items relating to immigration.
Film Reference Library
The Film Reference Library is dedicated to preserving Canadian cinema heritage and promoting cinema scholarship by collecting, preserving, and providing access to a comprehensive, non-circulating collection of reference resources, as well as film and archival materials — including the corporate archive for the Toronto International Film Festival.

Can-core
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Core curriculum content platform created for use in Canadian schools with resources that are relevant to teachers and K-12 students that emphasize ties to the curriculum. Contains documentaries, film shorts and television capsules covering Indigenous Studies, racism in Canada, science and the environment, among others.

Concordia Centre for Oral History and Storytelling Archives
COHDS is home to an archive containing over 1500 oral history interviews. Access must be approved by the Archivist after an Access Agreement is signed. Consult the collections descriptions and email cohds.chorn.archives@gmail.com to ask to access publicly accessible interviews.
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Several fonds/collections could be useful for research in this course. Read collections descriptions on the linked website, and email cohds.chorn.archives@gmail.com to ask if collections may bear on your research project (and if materials can be reproduced in your podcast).
BC Gay and Lesbian Archives
The B .C. Gay and Lesbian Archives was founded in 1976 with the task of collecting, preserving and making accessible research materials about the lives of British Columbia gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgendered and intersexual persons.
The link takes you directly to digital objects. To isolate AV materials, use the filter on the left to narrow your results to Video and/or Audio under 'Media Type'.
LGBTQ History Digital Collaboratory
This public DH research initiative preserves gay, queer, and trans life stories from Canada and abroad. See especially the tabs labeled "Projects" and "Oral History Hub."

Other primary source collections

Society, Culture & Politics in Canada: Canadiana Pamphlets, 1818-1929
This collection of pamphlets at McMaster University Library deal with many aspects of Canadian social history and political conditions. Included are pamphlets on peace movements and war service, Communism, local communities, and labor organizations. From Archives Unbound.

To best use the McMaster pamphlets collection, consider first exploring the associated Finding Aid. Tip: use ctrl or command + F to keyword search.

Note: after conducting an initial search within the collection, using the new Search box will search all of Archives Unbound rather than just the pamphlet collection. To more easily limit, use the 'Filter Your Results' option at the right to limit to McMaster University.

Madeleine Parent Fonds (at McGill University Archives)
Madeleine Parent (1918-2012) was an activist in Montreal focused on issues in labour, women's rights, and other social activism including nuclear disarmament, who left her personal papers to McGill.
If you are interested in accessing any items in this fonds, review the archival catalogue and contact the MUA at refdesk.archives@mcgill.ca.
Independent Voices
Independent Voices is an open access digital collection of alternative press newspapers, magazines and journals, drawn from the special collections of participating libraries. These periodicals were produced by feminists, dissident GIs, campus radicals, Native Americans, anti-war activists, Black Power advocates, Hispanics, LGBT activists, the extreme right-wing press and alternative literary magazines during the latter half of the 20th century.
Canadian content includes:
-Second Front (American war dissenters; published in Montreal)
-Branching Out (a feminist magazine published in Alberta)
-Agenutemagen (a magazine published by the Union of New Brunswick Indians in Fredericton)
Rise Up! Feminist Archive
The Rise Up! project aims to create a digital archive of original publications, documents, flyers, posters, and many other materials representing feminist activism from the 1970s to 1990s across Canada and Quebec.
Anarchist Archive
The Anarchist Archive at the University of Victoria is devoted to the study of anarchism, with a special focus on the history of the movement in Canada. Collections include documents on Indigenous struggles, anti-war activism, prison abolition, queer politics, and more.
The ArQuives
The ArQuives is one of the largest independent LGBTQ2+ archives in the world and the only archive in Canada with a mandate to collect at a national level. Its mandate is to safeguard the LGBTQ2+ history of Canada. The ArQuives preserves a wide range of material including personal and organizational papers, books, monographs, photographs, moving images, sound recordings, periodicals, artifacts (like buttons, board games, t-shirts, and banners), and other reference material.
Tip: try browsing the digital exhibits.
Transgender Archives (University of Victoria)
The Transgender Archives at the University of Victoria is committed to the preservation of the history of pioneering activists, community leaders, and researchers who have contributed to the betterment of Trans+ and other gender-diverse people.

Citations

History as a discipline uses the Chicago Manual of Style (18th edition) for citations, and usually the Notes-Bibliography form. This requires creating properly formatted footnotes footnotes and a Bibliography for your assignments. Resources to understand the Chicago style of citations are included below.

Note: Chicago Manual of Style updated to the 18th edition in September 2024.

HCS Guide to the Chicago Manual of Style
A guide to the Chicago Manual of Style developed for students in History and Classics (18th edition).

The Chicago Manual of Style, 18th Edition
Publication Date: 2024
A Manual for Writers of Research Papers, Theses, and Dissertations, Ninth Edition by Kate L. Turabian
Call Number: LB2369 T8 2018
Publication Date: 2018
A guide to Chicago Manual of Style with more information on hard-to-cite or unusual sources than the original manual. Note that this manual has not yet been updated to reflect the changes in the 18th edition of Chicago.

Guides

Chicago Manual of Style Citation Quick Guide
McGill Library Citation Subject Guide
Under "citation styles by subject", select "History" for more resources on Chicago style.

Library Support

Chicago Workshops
McGill Librarians offer virtual Chicago Citation Style workshops every term. Follow this link to find and register for upcoming workshops!
Citation Management
Attend a workshop to learn how to use Zotero or EndNote, useful citation management systems. Zotero is highly recommended for History students!

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