City of Toronto Archives

Hours: Monday–Friday 9:00am–4:30pm
Location: 255 Spadina Road, Toronto, ON M5R 2V3
Telephone: 416-397-0778
Email: archives@toronto.ca
Website address: https://www.toronto.ca/city-government/accountability-operations-customer-service/access-city-information-or-records/city-of-toronto-archives/

The City of Toronto Archives contains municipal government records, including the minutes, communications, letter books, and ephemera of the departments of public works, public housing, public health, and local boards of health (Scarborough, Weston, York, North York, East York, and the former City of Toronto) from the turn of the twentieth century to the present.  Within the public works records, researchers can find archival material related to water improvement, as well as photographs.  In addition, the Archives contain a strong collection of records of city welfare programs and social services, such as the Neighbourhood Workers’ Association and the Social Planning Council of Metropolitan Toronto, as well as the Metropolitan Toronto Community Services Department, Commissioners’ correspondence, which consists of 266 boxes of archival material.

Non-government records include the fonds of the Ontario Medical Library Association, the Toronto Medical Society, the Toronto Pathological Society, and the Toronto Clinical Society, broadly spanning the period 1878–1918.  The Archives also contains the fonds of the Academy of Medicine, Toronto, an important source for research on the history of the medical profession in Toronto.  It also holds the records, both textual and photographic, of The Alumnae Association, School of Nursing, Toronto General Hospital, 1892-2012.  Material from the Alumnae Association is also featured as a web exhibit titled “That I may be of service – The Alumnae Association of the School of Nurses.”

The Archives also offers web exhibits, including “An Infectious Idea: 125 Years of Public Health in Toronto,” which showcases archival photographs and documents from 1883 to the present related to all aspects of public health in Toronto.  Material included focuses on infectious diseases, clean water, nutritious food, hospitals and social services.