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archival descriptions
Marj Storm - Tape 2
CA SVE SD-01-02-01-18-SD_WLHP_008 · Item · [198-] or [199-]
Part of Sara Diamond fonds

Marjorie Storm talks about actions by women for equal access to jobs; use of arbitration; the employers’ negative response to equal pay; pressure by women forestry workers for changes to the Human Rights Code and how, working through the union, changes were subsequently passed by the provincial NDP government. She also talks about how she got involved in the union in the 1950’s representing the 350 women working in the mill; locking down the plant to stop a foreman from taking workers’ jobs; negotiating on behalf of all workers at her plant.

Marj Storm - Tape 1
CA SVE SD-01-02-01-18-SD_WLHP_007 · Item · [198-] or [199-]
Part of Sara Diamond fonds

Marjorie Storm talks about her first job in Vancouver at Fraser Mills; sexual harassment in the workplace; working at Boeing main Sea Island plant as a riveter and fitter; her placement by National Selective Service at Pacific Veneer (now Canadian Forest Products) in 1946; how the I.W.A. defended the right of married women to work at her mill; attitudes of men on the job towards working women; wage differential between sexes and segregated seniority lists; increase in representation of women in the union; the winning fight for equal pay for equal work in 1966.

Sara Diamond fonds
CA SVE SD · Fonds · 1970s - 2000s

The contents of the Sara Diamond fonds spans her years in Vancouver as a member of the Revolutionary Workers League, Bread and Roses Collective, Amelia Productions, VIVO Media Arts Centre, and the Coalition for the Right To View. There are extensive materials related to Diamond’s Women’s Labour History Project, Code Zebra, curatorial projects, critical writing, educational materials, and independent video art.

Types of materials include photographic negatives (35mm) and prints, documents and publications (approx. 30m), audio recordings ( 200+ 1/4″ and compact cassette), video recordings (500+ 3/4″ Umatic, Betacam, Mini-DV), wearable art, and ephemera.

Sara Diamond
Renegade Library collection
CA SVE RL · Collection · 1996-1998

This box is the residue of mail art activity undertaken by Lois Klassen, during the years 1996-1998. In keeping with the project theme, all of the items meet two criteria: the creators identified them as "books" ; and, their creation was enabled by some kind of "collaborative" process. Each book item is labeled with a catalogue number that corresponds to information about it in the box's index, as well as in the original exhibition catalogue. The books found within the box are:

  1. Cobaterate This - E.F. Higgins III (USA)
  2. Song to the Spirit - Ruggero Maggi (Italy), Marilyn Dammann (USA), Keiichi Nakamura (Japan)
  3. A Book of Seals - Dottie (USA), Shmuel (USA)
  4. With You - Keiichi Nakamura (Japan), 82 artists from various countries
  5. Fertilized Eggs - David Dellafiora (USA), Keiichi Nakamura (Japan)
  6. Mail Art Scenarios for Possible Futures - Sophia Martinou (Greece), 96 artists from various countries
  7. Summer Rites - Guido Vermeulen (Belgium), Marilyn Dammann (USA), Richard Campbell (USA), Liza Leyla (Belgium)
  8. Workball - Serge Segay (Russia), John M. Bennett (USA)
  9. [Untitled] - Alfio Fiorentino (Italy), Anna Boschi (Italy)
  10. We Challenge You to Top This! - A1 Waste Paper Co. (England), Art Nahpro (England)
  11. A Little Book of Words and Pictures - Dotty Seiter (USA), Shmuel (USA)
  12. Madonna & Child - Elaine Rounds (Canada), Lois Klassen (Canada)
  13. [Untitled] - Baron (USA), John M. Bennett (USA), Robin Crozier (England), Fran Rutkovsky (USA)
  14. PIPS 1/98: Engelbox - Claudia Putz (Germany), 38 contributing artists from various countries
  15. The Little Book of Fruits and Vegetables - Rhonda (USA), Shmuel (USA)
  16. [Untitled] - David Cole (USA), Lavona Sherarts (USA)
  17. Books on Fire: the Documentation of the Renegade Library - Lois Klassen (Canada). Art Gallery of Southwestern Manitoba (Canada)
  18. Bar Stool - David Dellafiora (Australia), 38 additional mail art contributors (Australia)
  19. 21 Tulipa - Magda Lagerwerf (Netherlands), various other mail art contributors
  20. No Panic - Dietmar Vollmer (Germany)
  21. [Untitled] - Emily Joe (USA)
  22. VIDAL - Shmuel (USA), Hugo Rene Vidal (Argentina)
  23. Só Objetos de Uso Pessoal / Only Personal Things - José Roberto Sechi (Brazil), 355 listed participants
  24. Assembling Magazines - Stephen Perkins (USA), numerous contributors of publications in "assembling" format
  25. Draw - Marian Butler (Canada), Sylvia Legris (Canada), Judy Bowyer (Canada), Dena Decter (Canada), Lois Klassen (Canada), Jean Klimack (Canada), Catherine MacDonald (Canada), Vida Simon (Canada)
Renegade Library
Meg Torwl collection
CA SVE MT · Collection · 1984 - 2013

The collection consists of a selection of Meg Torwl's artworks, and the documentation of her artworks, including video and audio, writings (poetry, scripts, and essays), performances, and drawings/paintings. It also includes publicity, biographies, resumes, and proposals. The collection also consists of materials of commemoration, written by people close to Meg following her passing, along with documentation of the 2013 BOLD Fest Woman of the Year Award, bestowed upon Meg posthumously. Finally, the collection includes photographs, primarily snapshots of Meg throughout her life along with her partner Adrienne Bradley. The collection is divided into 6 series:

  1. Media
  2. Documents
  3. Performance Documentation
  4. Drawings and Paintings
  5. Personal Binders
  6. Photographs

Further information about individual items can be found at: http://www.vivomediaarts.com/the-meg-torwl-collection/.

Meg Torwl
Celebration '90 Gay Games
CA SVE MAM-MAM-GG · Series · 1990
Part of Mary Anne McEwen fonds

The series consists of moving images, textual records, and graphic materials from Mary Anne McEwen's documentation of The Gay Games 1990, held in Vancouver, B.C from August 4 through August 11th, 1990. McEwen production company, Forward Focus Productions, was the official videographer for the games.

John Grayson fonds
CA SVE JG · Fonds · 1884, 1957-1983

Fonds contains books from the personal library of John Grayson. The fonds contains 24 publications (primarily books and journals) on the topic of music theory, sound sculpture and soundscape, and unorthodox musical creations/instruments. The majority of the publications in the fonds were published by Grayson's organization The Aesthetic Research Centre. Some of the publications include sheet music, and one publication includes an accompanying musical recording on tape cassette. Titles and authors/editors are as follows:

  1. An Environment of Musical Sculpture - ed. John Grayson
  2. Biofeedback and the Arts: Results of Early Experiments - ed. David Rosenboom
  3. Computer Music Journal, Vol. 4, No. 2
  4. The UNESCO Courier, November 1976
  5. Cultures, Vol. 1, No. 1
  6. Desert Plants: Conversations with 23 American Musicians - Walter Zimmermann
  7. Environments of Musical Sculpture You Can Build - ed. John Grayson
  8. Five Village Soundscapes - R. Murray Schafer
  9. The Gitalamkara: L'ouvrage Original de Bharata sur la Musique
  10. Handbook for Acoustic Ecology - ed. Barry Truax
  11. Interval: Exploring the Sonic Spectrum, Fall 1983
  12. Journal of Experimental Aesthetics, Vol. 1, No. 1
  13. The Music of the Environment - ed. Murray Schafer
  14. La Musique du Cambodge et du Laos - Alain Danielou
  15. New Directions, Nos. 24 & 25
  16. Paysage Sonore Urbain: Deux Journees d'Exposition, d'Ecoute, et de Communications - Plan-Construction
  17. Pieces: An Anthology - ed. Michael Byron
  18. Recherches sur l'Histoire de la Gamme Arabe - J.P.N. Land
  19. Sound Sculpture - ed. John Grayson
  20. Sound/Sculpture - ed. John Grayson
  21. Sound : Space - Bernhard Leitner
  22. Soundings, Nos. 7 & 8
  23. Toning: The Creative Power of the Voice - Laurel Elizabeth Keyes
  24. Vibrations: Making Unorthodox Musical Instruments - David Sawyer
John Grayson
Gayblevision collection
CA SVE GBV · Collection · 1980 - 2017

The collection consists of episodes, specials, and much of the surviving raw footage from the 1980s TV series Gayblevision. The collection also contains writing and photographs documenting the history of Gayblevision. Gayblevision was Canada’s first TV series produced “by gay people for gay people”. It was broadcast on Vancouver Cable 10 through its West End Neighbourhood production centre (located in the West End Community Centre) between 1980 and 1986. Gayblevision is a priceless window into Vancouver’s LGBTQ communities during years of tremendous growth and upheaval, documenting the LGTBQ people, organizations, businesses and events that defined Vancouver West End’s Davie Village in the early 1980s. The series aired monthly on the first and third Tuesday of the month. In addition to regular episodes, Gayblevision also produced a series of in-depth specials.

The collection is divided into 3 series:

  1. Episodes and specials
  2. Textual records and graphic materials
  3. Oral histories
Gayblevision
CA SVE FNVC · Fonds · 1990-1999

Fonds consists of administrative records, collective meeting minutes, event documentation and outreach, program planning, publicity, as well as contact and correspondence files created by the First Nations Video Collective. Records primarily relate to special projects and initiatives carried out when San Dee Doxtdator was the coordinator for the Collective. Materials also include photographs and videos produced during the course the 1997 First Nations Intensive Video Production Course.

First Nations Video Collective
CURRENT Symposium fonds
CA SVE CS · Fonds · 11 Jun. 2017 - 17 Sep. 2017

Fonds consists of administrative records, event documentation (photographic and moving images), artist information, and publicity created by CURRENT organizers and volunteers, from June to August 2017.

CURRENT Symposium
Godfrey, Lil and June Olson
CA SVE SD-01-02-01-21 · File · Sep. 6, 1989
Part of Sara Diamond fonds

File consists of video interviews with Lil Godfrey and June Olson. Subjects include: How their mothers supported them as children; seasonal employment; IWA Women’s Auxiliary and the 1946 strike; red baiting; forming a community co-op grocery and credit union; organizing between communities.

Biographical sketches of Lil Godfrey and June Olson can be found in the descriptions for files containing their individual interviews.

Tagashira, Masue
CA SVE SD-01-02-01-20 · File · [198-] or [199-]
Part of Sara Diamond fonds

File consists of video interviews with Masue Tagashira. Subjects include: Village life in 1920s Japan; immigration experience; logging camp at Stave Lake; domestic work; language challenges for immigrant women; exploitation of women’s labour; Vancouver’s “Japantown”.

Masue (1908-1992) was one of nine children born to a farming family in the village of Mitsuse Kanazaki, Saga-Ken, Japan. Masue married her first husband, Shigeo, there in 1927, following him to Stave Falls, B.C., where he had been working as a logger and shingle maker. They had two children: Donald (Masayuki) born in the camp, and daughter, Aiko, born Vancouver. They had moved to the city in 1930 after Shigeo suffered serious work injury resulting in the loss of an eye . Unable to support his family and deeply depressed, Shigeo was admitted to Essondale Hospital where he committed suicide in 1931. Masue, without much English and only rudimentary skills, placed her children in a Victoria church-run orphanage. She struggled in subsistence jobs and married twice more: the first short-lived, and then finally, in 1938, to Rinkichi Tagashira (1887-1973) owner of Heatley Trading Co. Ltd. Masue’ children came to live with them near Rinkichi’s warehouse in “Japantown”, Vancouver’s east side immigrant neighbourhood. In 1942, the Tagashiras, like 20,000 other Japanese Canadians in B.C., had their assets seized and were interned in the province interior: Rinkichi to Tashme and Masue, Donald and Aiko to Slocan. They eventually returned to their old neighbourhood in 1949 where they operated a rooming house. Masue was an active member of the JCCA Redress Committee.

Sufrin, Eileen
CA SVE SD-01-02-01-19 · File · May 1989
Part of Sara Diamond fonds

File consists of video interviews with Eileen Sufrin. Subjects include: WWII attitudes towards unions; Cooperative Commonwealth Federation; moving from Ontario to BC; labour movement factionalization; unions and women’s issues; white collar unionism; organizing Eatons.

Born Blanche Eileen Tallman in Montreal, Quebec (1913-1999). She was raised in Toronto where her father worked as a travelling salesman. After graduating head of her class from Vaughan Road Collegiate, she eschewed university, instead joining other unemployed activists in the Co-operative Commonwealth Youth Movement. When her father died in 1938, her mother took an underpaid job at Eaton’s to raise her three children. That experience would inform her organizing effort on behalf of Eaton workers (1948-1952), one of the longest organizing campaigns in Canadian labour history. Eileen spent 19 years organizing women in union movements in Ontario and BC, unionizing 15,000 women. She met her husband, Bernard “Bert” Sufrin (1916-1995) while working at the Saskatchewan government finance office. Bert was an economist and fellow CCF worker. They moved to Ottawa in 1964 where Bert worked for the Labour Department of the Women’s Bureau. They retired to White Rock, BC, by 1972, where she was active in the NDP and founded a local branch of the Choice of Dying Society. Eileen received many honours over her lifetime including a Governor-General’s medal on the 50th anniversary of women winning the right to vote.

Storm, Marjorie
CA SVE SD-01-02-01-18 · File · [198-] or [199-]
Part of Sara Diamond fonds

File consists of video interviews with Marjorie Storm. Subjects include: Fraser Mills; sexual harassment; National Selective Service; Pacific Veneer, Canadian Forest Products; equa pay and access; New Democratic Party; domestic challenges; IWA Women’s Auxiliary; 1970’s women’s movement.

Marjorie Cynthia Storm nee Smart (1921-2007) was born in Glamorgan, Wales. She joined her father in Canada in 1931, living for a short time in Calgary, then moving to Vancouver by 1932. She married salesman William Storm. In 1942, when her daughter was nine-months-old and after her husband had enlisted, she joined the workforce. She subsequently worked 37 years in the forestry industry taking on many roles including shop steward, secretary of the grievance committee, plant chairperson, safety committee member, recording secretary on the women’s committee of the BC Federation of Labour, and member of the human rights branch. In the 1970’s became politically active and rose to Vice-President of the BC NDP in 1973.

Shiels, Jean
CA SVE SD-01-02-01-17 · File · [198-] or [199-]
Part of Sara Diamond fonds

File consists of video interviews with Jean Shiels. Subjects include: Relief in the 1930’s; Women’s Unity League; the single unemployed; On to Ottawa trek; Mother’s Council; peace movement; League Against the War on Fascism; support for Spain in the 1930’s; Young Pioneers.

Jean Stewart Evans (1927-1995) was born in Vancouver, BC, second child of Ethel, and well-known labour rights organizer, Arthur “Slim” Evans. She recalls a childhood home always open to organizers and labourers in need, and impacted by her father’s arrests and short-term imprisonments. After high school, Jean took a variety of jobs including as an attendant on Canadian Pacific Railroad steamships, server, sales clerk, and bakeries manager for a grocery chain. In 1944, her father died three weeks after being struck by a car while crossing the street. Jean married Seaman Leslie Arthur Sheils of Hornby Island in 1947 and they had two children. Les became a Master of deep-sea towing vessels and worked internationally, and in later years, worked for BC Ferries. Jean devoted her adult life to fighting for fair work and wages; was a founding member of the On-to-Ottawa Trek Committee (1985); and co-wrote an account of her father’s life (1977). She volunteered in the Hornby Island community; serving on the Co-op and ratepayer boards, and with the Hornby Recycling Depot. Jean passed away in Comox in 1995.

Seed, Irene
CA SVE SD-01-02-01-16 · File · [198-] or [199-]
Part of Sara Diamond fonds

File consists of video interviews with Irene Seed. Subjects include: Youbou, BC; 1930s; nursing; life with a child in rural Vancouver Island; racial segregation in the forestry industry; Women’s Auxiliary; mill safety; Youbou loggers; widow’s pension.

Irene Isabel Seed, nee Powell, (1909-2004) was born in Vancouver, BC, the eldest of five sisters. Her father worked as a foundry moulder. She graduated a nurse from Vancouver General Hospital in 1931. She met her husband Frank (1907-1963), a salesman, at a United Church Young People’s Church meeting. They married in 1934. By 1939, they had moved to a Vancouver Island mill town, Youbou, on Lake Cowichan, where they raised five children. Frank worked as a millwright for Industrial Timber Mills and Irene was active in the Women’s Auxiliary.

Scott, Jean
CA SVE SD-01-02-01-15 · File · [198-] or [199-]
Part of Sara Diamond fonds

File consists of video interviews with Jean Scott. Subjects include: Prairie life; domestic work; country hospital work; WWII; domestic abuse; Canadian Air Force; CCF; Political Action Committee; Canadian Congress of Labour; International Woodworkers Association; the International.

Born Dorothy Jean Mathie (1912-2015) in Brandon, Manitoba. Her father was a retail grocer. Jean spent several years nursing her mother and helping with her siblings. At 20 she moved to Saskatchewan, married, and lived on her in-law’s farm. She left her husband early on because he was physically abusive; an experience that influenced her future activism. She worked as a domestic and nurse to survive the separation, eventually joining her married brother in Calgary around 1940. Determined to be self-sufficient, she continued housekeeping while attending business school. Jean took an office job at No 2 Wireless & Gunner School during the war. By the mid-40’s Jean and other family members relocated to Vancouver. She used her secretarial skills at a number of trade unions including the I.W.A and United Steel Workers of America. Later she married widower Francis Baldwin Scott (1911-2000). Jean remained an activist and earned numerous honours from their Chilliwack community. She was 90-years old when she received a doctorate from the University of the Fraser Valley. She was awarded a Governor General Person Case Medal (1990) and wrote her biography “Brown Sugar and a Bone In The Throat” (2005). Jean lived to be 102.

Rankin, Jonnie
CA SVE SD-01-02-01-14 · File · Aug. 31, 1987
Part of Sara Diamond fonds

File consists of video interviews with Jonnie Rankin. Subjects include: Vancouver during the Great Depression; WWII shipyard work; status of women in the Boilermakers Union; child care; equal pay; restaurant work; Labour Theatre Guild; Hotel and Restaurant Employees Union.

Born Jeannette Tonge (1916-2004) in Sausalito, California. She married Ontario-born Jack S.F. Ottewell (1915-1992) in 1938 in California. They had three children by the time they moved to Vancouver, BC. They later divorced and Jonnie married Vancouver labour activist, controversial city councillor, and a C.O.P.E. founder, Harry Rankin (1920-2002), in 1948. The Rankins had two children. The couple separated in 1985. From the time of her working years in the Vancouver shipyards, Jonnie supported trade union issues, the peace movement, community concerns, and the advance of socialism.

Person, Alice
CA SVE SD-01-02-01-13 · File · 1987
Part of Sara Diamond fonds

File consists of video interviews with Alice Person. Subjects include: Arrival in BC; family living on welfare; working conditions and segregation on hop farms; domestic work; women’s rights; changes in employment with the outbreak of WWII.

Alice Person was raised on a family farm in Alberta. When it was foreclosed on in the Depression, her parents separated. Alice, her siblings, and mother came to BC to make a living fruit farming; an occupation being promoted by governments at the time just as homesteading had been on the Prairies two decades earlier. They settled near Websters Corners in Haney, 50km east of Vancouver, but had little luck being self-sufficient. Their mother fought for the right to collect welfare and the children helped with odd jobs. When the war started Alice found employment in the forestry industry. She and her sister were in the first group of women to be hired on at Hammond Cedar in 1942. Equal pay as a woman’s right was her primary motivation to join the union. Mrs. Person served as a steward and a warden on the executive.

Olson, June
CA SVE SD-01-02-01-12 · File · Sep. 1989
Part of Sara Diamond fonds

File consists of video interviews with June Olson. Subjects include: History of Lake Cowichan mill town; growing up in a logging family; forestry industry conditions during the Great Depression and war years; forestry industry safety issues; IWA Women’s Auxiliary.

June Isobel Olson, nee Eckert, (1927-2006) became a lifelong resident of Lake Cowichan, Vancouver Island, at 3 months old. Her father worked in the logging industry there. In 1945, she married Nels Olson (1927-2018) on his return from service in the RCAF. His parents had emigrated to Canada around 1924; moving to Lake Cowichan shortly after Nels’ birth. Nels spent many years working as a tree feller. June was an active member of the IWA Women’s Auxiliary and raised their four children. Between 1961 and 1974, June and Nels were co-owners of the Castaway Resort.