Hours: Monday–Friday 8:30am–5:00pm; Saturday 10:00am–4:00pm; Occasional extended hours, see website for details
Location: 134 Ian Macdonald Boulevard, Toronto, ON M7A 2C5
Telephone: 1-800-668-9933 (toll free within Ontario)
Email: reference@ontario.ca
Website address: http://www.archives.gov.on.ca/
The Archives of Ontario collection holds a wide range of health-related records from a variety of sources, including papers on health-care providers, hospital records, newspaper article drawings, photographs, films, and files from many different government offices. Particular strengths include government records, including correspondence, pamphlets, photographs, and other publications, of the: Ontario Ministry of Health (1882–present), Ministry of the Environment (1956–present), and the Department of Public Works (1841–present) and their subordinate agencies; public health nursing historical files (1893–1980); tuberculosis reports (1939–1974); and files of the Mental Health Foundation (1961–), Ontario Dietetic Association (1929–1998), and Community Health Protection Branch (1973–).
The Archive is also home to private papers of physicians, such as: Dr. James Miles Langstaff (1825–1889); Dr. Thomas Millman (1869–1921); the psychiatrists Dr. Richard Maurice Burke (1869–1921) and Dr. William Metcalf (1847–1885); and the noted eugenicist Dr. Lionel Sharples Penrose. Other material includes: files on the Anti-Vaccination League in the Attorney General’s Department; correspondence on the 1840s typhus and cholera epidemics; records of mental health institutions (including the Hamilton, London, and Lakeshore Psychiatric Hospitals, the Kingston Asylum, the Toronto Hospital for the Insane, and the Brockville, Goderich, Lakehead, Langstaff, North Bay, St. Thomas, and Whitby institutions); as well as Fonds of the National Sanitarium Association of Canada (1897–1960).
Other potentially useful material includes vital statistic information, such as historical registrations of births, marriages, and deaths, immigration records, and a large government art collection. Visitors must register upon arrival at the archives with one piece of government-issued photo identification. (A provincial health card will not be accepted.) The electronic records available online include public health inquiries that may be of interest to students of the History of Medicine.