During the past few months, Special Collections & Archives (SCA) has arranged and described new materials. Ranging from local to national scopes; extending from the World Wars to fashion studies; and portraying the lives of professors, journalists, and artists, the new collections not only add to the value of materials in SCA, but also provide new lenses and perspectives for the University of Waterloo community and beyond.
The collections include:
James “Jim” Walker joined Waterloo as a History professor in 1971. His research and teaching focused on the history of African-Canadians, human rights, racism and Race relations, immigration, the Holocaust, and civil society and public history. While at Waterloo, Walker helped create the first Canadian university-level course in African-Canadian History and the first Public History graduate program.
Walker’s fonds offers a glance at his student life at Waterloo and Dalhousie University, the courses he taught at Waterloo and the evolution of his teaching style and focus, his involvement in Waterloo’s administration, his writer and public speaker role, and some of the correspondence he received from colleagues and students.
Call number GA 475
Figure 1 - Map masters created by Jim Walker for his classes. File GA475-2-31.
Figure 2 - Materials used by Julia McCarthy during the public readings of her poems. From file GA472-3-58.
Award-winning poet Julia McCarthy took on many and varied endeavours during her life: teacher, potter, editor, and freelance writer. However, it was her poetry which really filled her life. Her fonds is a clear reflection of this. Focusing on her creative and book editing process, Julia McCarthy’s materials tell the story of a person determined to share her creative process. Including her personal journals, poem and book editions, submissions, awards, and her relationships with other authors, Julia McCarthy fonds is a fantastic example of the work, struggles, and rewards of an artistic life.
Call number GA 472
It is often that we see glimpses of the Third Reich and the Nazi regime. However, it is not as common to see the propaganda machine in action from the German side. Robert Kelp fonds provides us with exactly that: a first-person account of a young person growing up in Germany in the 1920s and 1930s, joining the Luftwaffe, and being captured by the Allies to spend three years as a prisoner. Robert Kelp fonds’ two items are a fascinating recount of these years and processes with the Nazi propaganda cigarette card album Kampf um's Dritte Reich : eine historische Bilderfolge (Battle for the Third Reich: a historical picture sequence) and Kelp's autobiography titled The Unconventional Years: a Prisoner of War Chronicle.
Call number GA 470
Figure 3 - Kampf um's Dritte Reich. File GA470-1
Figure 4 - Detail from Doris Schnelder's portfolio. File GA474-2.
Some of our new materials are fashion-focused too! SCA now holds two millinery design portfolios created by G. Stommel and Doris Schnelder, possibly as part of a sewing course in junior college or high school in the 1940s. The portfolios—which offer several similarities and important differences from each other—show a comprehensive display of different fashions and styles in headcover making, including manufacturing materials, techniques, and methods.
Call number GA 474
All new collections are now discoverable in SCA’s Archives Database and accessible to the public thanks to the work of Librarian Clara Giménez-Delgado and Archival Studies student Tenille Holm.
