During the 1970s and 1980s, the MHSO amassed a vast collection of personal and institutional textual records related to the histories of migration and ethnicity. Fifty-five ethnocultural communities are represented in the archival materials it gathered. The Society deposited the majority of the records – 170 metres and 1,446 microfilm reels of textual records – in the Archives of Ontario (AO) where the collection is identified as the Multicultural History Society of Ontario fonds. This collection is composed of personal papers, documents, scrapbooks, and unpublished diaries and memoirs, as well as the records of cultural organizations, social clubs, religious institutions, relief and mutual aid societies, benevolent associations, labour groups, and nationalist and political organizations. The scope of the collection is enormous. Armenian Georgetown Boys, Greek communal schools, the International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union, and Mennonite churches are among the many subjects it addresses. The AO has significant additional holdings for organizations whose records were donated as a result of the Society’s efforts – for instance, the Sudbury Finnish Canadian Historical Society (18.5 metres and 35 microfilm reels of textual records) and COSTI or Centro Organizzativo Scuole Tecniche Italiane (15.3 metres of textual records). After the large-scale transfer of records to the AO, the MHSO acquired further materials. They include Chinese Head Tax certificates and materials related to Caribana. These textual records are housed in its archives.
The MHSO retained copies of many of the microfilm reels deposited in the AO. This inventory provides a complete list of the microfilm holdings in the MHSO Archives.
Contact the MHSO by email at info@mhso.ca or by phone at (416) 979-2973 for information about accessing our collections.
