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Ursula Martius Franklin fonds
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Ursula Martius Franklin fonds

  • UTA 1287
  • Fonds
  • 1934-2014 [predominant 1945-2014]

Fonds consists of records documenting the personal, professional, and public life of Dr. Ursula Franklin, physicist, engineer, materials scientists, pacifist and feminist. Records document Dr. Franklin’s early life and career, later employment by the University of Toronto, awards and honorary degrees, teaching, research process and output, publishing activities, travel, service on national scientific boards, work with the CBC, peace work with the Quakers and Voice of Women, as well as other advocacy and activism.

A series of chronological files documents Dr. Franklin’s speeches, talks and attendance at a variety of academic and community events. Fonds also includes a significant amount of correspondence with colleagues, family, friends, fellow activists and ordinary citizens, as well as electronic copies of more than 575 pages of surveillance of Dr. Franklin by the RCMP. One series also documents a wide range of matters at the University of Toronto relating to Massey College, Museum Studies, the SLOWPOKE Reactor, and other matters. Yet another series documents Dr. Franklin’s involvement with the Ursula Franklin Academy.

Records include day planners, notebooks, correspondence, publications, news clippings, reports, drafts, research data and notes, background material, photographs, sound and moving image recordings and some copies of government documents and records.

See series and subseries descriptions for more detail.

Franklin, Ursula Martius

Research

Series consists of records documenting Dr. Franklin’s research activities in physics, materials science, archaeometry, and museums. See subseries for more information.

General research files

Subseries consists of general research files that lack a definite connection to the particular roles/projects represented in the other subseries. These include references and experimental work related to the earliest occurrences of copper, experimental work on beads from the Negev and related correspondence with Prof. Oren of the University of the Negev. Also included are translations of Russian articles on copper finds in the Caucasus.

Early family life and letters

Subseries consists of records documenting Dr. Franklin’s family and early life. The first file is a scrapbook on the history of the Martius family, dating back to the 15th century. The scrapbook includes a long paper, in German, on the history of the family, as well as captioned photographs and postcards. Series also includes a diary, written in German, from 1945. The bulk of the subseries consists of correspondence sent to and from Dr. Franklin, primarily after she moved to Canada. There are many letters between Dr. Franklin and her family in Germany, as well as letters to friends and colleagues.

The subseries concludes with records documenting Dr. Franklin’s attempts to sponsor her mother’s immigration to Canada in 1949.

Personal and biographical

Series consists of records relating to Dr. Franklin’s personal and academic life in Germany and Canada. See subseries descriptions for more detailed information.

German academic life

Subseries consists of records relating to Dr. Franklin’s early academic life (as Ursula Maria Martius) when she was studying experimental physics at the Technical University of Berlin. Records include academic correspondence, drafts of her PhD thesis, “Die Anregung von Leuchtstoffen mit Gammastrahlen und Röntgenstrahlen verschiedener Wellenlänge” (1948), as well as the academic work of some of her colleagues, including Immanuel Broser, Hartmut Kallmann and R. Warminsky.

Quakers: General

Subseries documents Dr. Franklin’s involvement with the Quaker community, as a member of Toronto Monthly Meeting and as a clerk of the Peace Committee of the Canadian Friends Service Committee (CFSC).

Activities documented include campaigns for disarmament, the Cruise Missile Conversion Project, attempts to set up a Quaker Study Centre at King City, demonstrations at the radar base of La Macaza, briefing the Lamarsh Commission, and many more. Records include minutes from the General Meetings and Peace Committees, material related to various CFSC conferences, gatherings, and institutes, papers and reports, media coverage, public education literature, briefs, newsletters, and correspondence.

The series also includes records relating to the operation by Canadian Quakers of the Peace Centre on Grindstone Island in the Rideau Lakes. This includes documents internal to the Quaker operation and the work of the peace education secretary Murray Thomson. According to Dr. Franklin, much of the work around the Grindstone Island programs was controversial, not only with respect to Canadian public opinion, but also within certain more traditional elements of the Quaker community. Records relating to Grindstone Island include minutes, internal documents, reports, programs and photographs. Included is also Thirty-one Hours, the printed transcript of the 1965 Summer Institute on Non-Violence, which was an exercise in non-violence. The transcript is an important original document of the responses of a pacifist community to a real and life-threatening attack.

Peace work

Series consists of records relating to Dr. Franklin’s pacifism and peace work, including her work as a Quaker, a key member of Voice of Women, and in other capacities. This series provides excellent documentation of segments of the Canadian peace movement, especially from the 1960s through to the 1980s. See subseries descriptions for more detail.

Publications

Series consists of records relating to Dr. Franklin’s publishing activities. See subseries descriptions for more information.

Papers

Subseries consists of papers written by Dr. Franklin for academic journals, magazines and books on a wide range of subjects, including physics, materials science, engineering, pacifism, politics, technology, feminism and education. Also includes some editorials written for newspapers. A list of publications (1950-1980) can be found in file B2015-0005/034(06). Files consist primarily of final copies of articles, although a few files do contain drafts and correspondence.

Ontario Research Foundation and the Royal Ontario Museum

Subseries consists of records pertaining to Dr. Franklin’s work with the Ontario Research Foundation (ORF), primarily for the Royal Ontario Museum. Dr. Franklin worked at the Ontario Research Foundation from 1951-1967, first as a Research Fellow and later as a Senior Research Scientist Her work there centered on the use of microscopic and x-ray data to reveal new information about museum objects. Records include data, micrographs, reports, papers, and correspondence. Papers and research pertain to dating museum objects by metallurgical means, Indian pigments, Chinese pigments and bronzes, and arrowheads.

Subseries also includes 2 photographs of the ORF staff, ca. 1954.

RCMP files

In 2013, a researcher studying the Voice of Women requested the RCMP files of many of the women involved in the group, including Dr. Franklin. Redacted copies of the files were supplied by Library and Archives Canada and subsequently shared with Dr. Franklin. Subseries consists of 5 PDF files (577 pages) documenting the extensive file the RCMP kept on Dr. Franklin from 1949-1984. It is presumed that more recent records were withheld for privacy reasons.

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