Hours: Tuesday to Thursday, 9:00am-3:00pm (Closed over the lunch hour from 12:00pm-1:00pm)
Location: Research & Collections Resource Facility – South Campus, 6304-115A Street NW, Edmonton, AB, T6G 2E1
Contact: archives@ualberta.ca; 780-248-1300
Access: Open to the public; By appointment only.
Website: https://library.ualberta.ca/archives
The University of Alberta Archives, home to 8,000 linear metres of records, houses university-related records as well as reports of local organizations. In addition to holdings on medical topics like pharmaceuticals, cancer, and surgery, the archive’s records cover a wide variety of topics related to botany, oil, agriculture, forestry, nuclear research, women, and military education.
The records of the University of Alberta include those of the Faculty of Agriculture and Forestry (1915-), Department of Agricultural Engineering (1920-1991), Department of Animal Science (1942-), Department of Food Science (1921-), Department of Forest Science (1970-), Department of Plant Science (1917-), and the Department of Soil Science (1917-), the Department of Geology (1912-), and the Interdisciplinary Committee on Environmental Quality (1970-74).
The University of Alberta Archives also houses records of local organizations like the Alberta Institute of Agrologists (1942-). Records specific to medicine include those of the Alberta Medical Association (1906-), College of Physicians and Surgeons of Alberta (1905-), Edmonton Academy of Medicine (1902-1978), Edmonton Board of Health Staff Nurses Association (1964-1986), and the Volunteer Overseas Medical Officers’ Association of Edmonton (1919-1972).
The private manuscript collection includes memoirs, talks, interviews, and correspondences of medical professionals like surgeons, pharmacists and pharmacologists, psychologists, psychiatrists, pathologists, dentists, nurses, as well as agronomists, foresters, marine biologists, plant biochemist, and botanists. This collection includes the papers of individuals like Peter Bowen, a medical geneticist who lived from 1932-1988, LeRoy Peter Vernon Johnson, a plant geneticist who chaired the Department of Genetics from 1969-1970, Mycologist Eleanor Silver Dowding who worked with the Provincial Laboratory of Public Health (1933-1954) and was a research associate with the Department of Genetics from 1962-1964. The holdings also include papers from other medical professionals like Michael Thomas Clandinin, a medical researcher (1943-?). There is one collection by a medical historian, Herber Carss Jamieson (1879-1962). The records of John Malcolm MacEachran, a philosopher and psychologist who participated in the Eugenics Board from 1929-1965 might be useful. In addition to the private manuscript collection, another collection of note is the Historical HIV/AIDS collection (1984-1995) with pamphlets and fliers prepared for the general public.
There are records related to the oil production in Alberta. Notable collections include 113 black and white photographs from Lloyd R. Champion, an Oil Sands Investor (1943-1949), the Karl Clark fonds (1893-1927) that includes 9.6 metres of text and 692 photographs of this Research Scientist and Oil Sands technologist, and the records of William Elmer Adkins, a petroleum engineer from 1915 to 1985. It carries the correspondences, speeches, and publications of Sidney Martin Blair (1895-1983), another Oil Sands Technologist. Fonds also extends to those of foresters such as Desmond Ivan Crossley (1910-1986).
There are also Aboriginal records, such as those of the Treaty 8 Tribal Association on the treaty between the Queen of Great Britain and Ireland and the chiefs of the Cree, Beaver, Chipewyan tribes (1973-1974). The archive also has the personal and professional papers and correspondences of Oliver Cromwell Edwards (1847-1911), a medical officer of the Indian Commission Party who was present at the signing of Treaty No. 8 in Fort Chipewyan, Alberta. There are Aboriginal records within larger collections, such as the Human Rights Institute of Canada records. These can be searched for here.
For further information, the university published a very useful guide to its holdings in 1992, entitled From the Past to the Future: A Guide to the Holdings of the University of Alberta Archives. The University of Alberta also has a rare book room within the Bruce Peel Special Collections and Archives.