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Desmond Morton fonds
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Personal and family files

This small series consists of material relating to Dr. Morton’s education, and to honours awarded him. It includes papers given at Oxford and the London School of Economics and Political Science, a small set of essays written for self-education while at the Royal Canadian Army Service Corps at Camp Borden, Ontario, and a paper prepared while in charge of the officer candidate program at the Officer Training Company of the RCASC College (1962). The series also contains three appointment calendars (1973, 1974, 1976), the survivors of the daily documentation of a busy life, and an extensive press clipping file (excluding book reviews) about Dr. Morton. The series concludes with an obituary of his father, press clippings about his late wife, Janet, and manuscripts of newspaper articles on the local history of the Peel Region written by her.

Manuscripts and publications

The files in this series contain materials relating to the research, writing and publishing of articles, chapters of books, and books by Professor Morton (applications for research grants and leaves of absence are documented in series 7). Most of the manuscripts have accompanying correspondence files, some voluminous, though there are a few manuscripts with no covering correspondence and some correspondence files for works for which the manuscripts have not survived. The manuscripts themselves
consist primarily of ‘clean’ typescripts, along with some annotated drafts, copyedited typescripts, and galley proofs. A few of the typescripts are annotated. Some typescripts are of writings that have not been published.

The supporting correspondence files document the interactions between Morton and his publishers.  It provides, in passing, interesting insights into the state of book publishing in Canada.  The files contain any or all of the following: correspondence, contracts, memoranda, notes, partial drafts of manuscripts, readers’ reports with comments thereon, reviews, addresses (generally at readings), and royalty statements.  For any particular work, the correspondence addresses issues arising from the writing of it, including the collection of research material, the hiring of research assistants, and the completion of drafts of the manuscript, publicity and financial matters. The files on books relating to World Wars I and II contain, in particular, extensive correspondence between the author and veterans or their offspring including, occasionally, original documents and a photograph or two.

In addition to his writings that were published in academic journals, by the NDP, and in journals devoted to military and political matters, and elsewhere, Dr. Morton served as a columnist for or had articles commissioned for a number of newspapers and magazines. These included the United Church Observer, Toronto Star, Ottawa Citizen, Globe and Mail, Mississauga Times, Mississauga News, Montreal Gazette, Maclean's Magazine, National Network News, National Post, Canadian Speeches, and Confluences.

Dr. Morton was also much sought after as a book reviewer, primarily for his expertise but also because he always responded promptly if he committed himself. His reviews have appeared in The American Historical Review, Armed Forces and Society,
Books in Canada, Business History Review, Canadian Defence Quarterly, Canadian Historical Review, Canadian Military History, Canadian Transport, Dalhousie Review, History and Social Science Teacher, International History Review, International
Journal, Labour and Industrial Relations Review, Labour/Le Travail, Literary Review of Canada, Military Affairs, Military History, National History, Ontario History, The Globe and Mail, The Montreal Gazette, The Toronto Star, Revue d'histoire de l'Amérique française, and the Canadian Association of Labour Media.

The series begins with number of files of general correspondence relating to Professor Morton’s publishing activities, followed by files on specific issues such as public lending rights, writings for magazines such as the National Network News and the United Church Observer, and for encyclopedias, yearbooks and other reference books. Next are a large number of files containing the articles and columns Dr. Morton wrote for the Toronto Star and the Ottawa Citizen, along with smaller files on his articles and letters in the Globe and Mail, the Winnipeg Free Press and several University of Toronto student newspapers.

Then come a number of files entitled ‘Political and academic manuscripts’, covering the years 1968 to 1973. At the beginning of each year there is a list of contents. These files contain typescripts of articles, chapters of books, whole books, book reviews, a few letters to the editor, scripts for media productions, political briefs and reports, and addresses, with the occasional offprint. Manuscripts that were eventually published are normally noted with an asterisk; those with more than one draft are likely to be spread over more than one year. The political writings relate primarily to current events at the federal level (e.g., the FLQ crisis of 1970), to social democracy generally, and the New Democratic Party in particular. The scripts for media productions include ones on the North-West Rebellion of 1885 and the Winnipeg general strike of 1919.

The arrangement of the ‘political and academic manuscripts’ files is generally chronological. There are variations within each year; for example, the scholarly papers tend to be grouped together. Covering correspondence for these typescripts may be found later in the series under the appropriate title of the work.

These files are followed by several files of book proposals and outlines. The remaining files, which form the bulk of this series, contain correspondence, drafts, and other information relating to specific manuscripts. They are grouped according to the format used in Dr. Morton’s curriculum vitae: scholarly and professional work – articles; scholarly and professional work – books and chapters/ articles in books; non-refereed publications; and book reviews. Many journal and newspaper articles and most pamphlets of a political nature are found in series 8. Some reports may be found in series 7. Media productions are filed in series 12.

As a part of his research, teaching, and writing activities, Dr. Morton has assembled a large and well-known collection of photographs and slides, most of which remain in his possession. Only a small number of photographs, relating largely to his political activities, are found in this fonds.

Addresses

This series consists of addresses and speeches (formal and otherwise) that are not included in files in other series, along with covering correspondence. The series begins with correspondence regarding speaking engagements (1971-1994), followed by the addresses themselves (1974-1994). Some of the addresses are academic in nature (the majority of these were delivered at Erindale College), while others were delivered to labour, military and service groups, with which Dr. Morton was involved or had an
interest. There is also the occasional radio talk. The file for 1982 (for example), which lists the public lectures and papers read for that year, provides an indication of Dr. Morton’s very active life as a public speaker.

The addresses are divided into two sections. The first consists of the covering correspondence and the addresses filed chronologically (one folder per year). These are followed by what Dr. Morton describes as ‘slide programme scripts’ – lists of slides, often described at some length, associated with lectures and addresses that he gave – and the texts of addresses that have been annotated with comments on accompanying slides (the slides themselves are not present). Texts for a few of the ‘slide programme scripts’ may be found with the ‘political and academic manuscripts’ in series 8.

Media productions

Dr. Morton early realized the potential of using the visual and sound media as a method of documenting historically significant events in Canadian history, which could then be used as teaching aids in the classroom, with possible distribution to a wider audience. The principal resource for these projects was a rapidly expanding collection of photographs and slides that he had been amassing for some years. Beginning in 1970, he began to meld the old technology of slide lectures, which had been in use at the University of Toronto since before the turn of the century, with the newer medium of television and the emerging one of video. The potential excited one film maker who wrote, “I think an excellent programme could be produced from your slide collection on the Northwest Rebellion…By throwing the slides up on a screen we would then be able to get slide animation, by using the television camera to pan from one part of the scene to another and zoom in on some detail, or incident.”

The old and the new technologies were used in tandem, as the video production, though relatively inexpensive to produce, cost much more than slides and took time to realize. For general classroom use, Dr. Morton created a series of slide programmes, accompanied by notes and, occasionally, scripts, on various aspects of Canadian history. The topics ranged from Canadian nationalism and imperialism, to the North-West Campaign of 1885, the Manitoba School Question, immigration during the two decades before World War I, and to working women in the post-Confederation era. Some of these themes were developed more fully in his moving image productions that also took shape during the decade.

Dr. Morton sought support and funds for his video projects primarily through officials at the University of Toronto, the principal division being the Instructional Media Centre, but also through educational and broadcasting channels outside the University. Officials early recognized the necessity of creating a product with an appeal beyond the confines of the University – the videos would fill an educational niche as “a medium for a kind of scholarly publication cum library or similar resource”. They were modestly successful in achieving that goal.

Dr. Morton’s first foray into the realm of video production was the 16-minute production on the ‘Winnipeg General Strike’ that appeared in 1973. Other productions followed in rapid succession over the next six years – (‘Canada's First War: The 1885 Rebellion’ (1974), ‘The Fourth Wave: Newcomers to Canada, 1896-1914’ (1974), ‘The Canadian General: Sir William Otter (1975), ‘The Splendid Dream: Canadian Labour and the Left’ (for Ontario Educational Communications Authority, 1975-6), ‘The Conscription Crisis, 1917’ (1977), ‘Bread and Roses: The Struggle of Canadian Working Women’ (1978), and, in 1979, four titles, two of which revisited old themes: ‘The Great Canadian Temperance Crusade’, ‘The Winnipeg General Strike, 1919’, ‘Saskatchewan, 1885’ , and ‘Struggle for Identity’. For ‘The Splendid Dream’, financial support was sought from the United Steelworkers of America and interviews were conducted with, amongst others, Tommy Douglas and David Lewis. Most of these videos are present in this series.

Dr. Morton’s involvement in moving image productions has continued since this auspicious beginning. In May of 1980, TV Ontario launched Canadians in Conflict, a six-part series “on major traumas in our history”. It was conceived by Dr. Morton who was also its on-air narrator. It incorporated several of his video productions, beginning with ‘Bread and Roses’ and ending with ‘Struggle for Identity’. In 1980 and 1981 he compiled tape-film strips for NC Multimedia on ‘Canada in the First World War’ and ‘Canada in the Twenties’. In 1983, he worked with an independent company on a filmstrip production entitled ‘The Canadian Constitution’, and on ‘Canada and World War I’, for which he was an advisor. In 1985 he revisited the North-West Rebellion for the third time in a production for the National Museum of Civilization that was, in 1993, converted to a new format, CD-ROM. In 1989, as a member of the advisory board of TV Ontario, he produced ‘Lift, right and centre: Party politics in Canada’. He also conducted a number of interviews for the program ‘TVO at 25’.

This series begins with a correspondence file on Dr. Morton’s sound and moving image productions generally, followed by files on specific productions, some of which are accompanied by videos. The correspondence files and videos are arranged by project date. These files are followed by others documenting Dr. Morton slide programmes, with accompanying notes and occasional scripts, for formal lectures at Erindale College and for public addresses outside the university. The textual records conclude with a file on a CBC radio interview. Accompanying these records are a number of audiotapes that Dr. Morton collected or recorded with an eye to future research use. These include a CBC production, ‘Project ’66: The frail revolutionary, J. S. Woodsworth’, and an interview he recorded with Tommy Douglas and his wife in 1984.

Desmond Morton fonds

  • UTA 1597
  • Fonds
  • 1898-2000 (predominant 1945-1998)

These records document the life and career of social and military historian, Professor Desmond Morton. They relate primarily to his research and writings; his administrative and teaching duties at Erindale College, University of Toronto; his political activities in the New Democratic Party; and his work as a consultant to the government of Ontario on educational matters and to the federal government, primarily with regard to defence issues.

Included is correspondence, both personal and professional; administrative files from his years at Erindale College; course and lecture notes and other teaching materials; research notes, drafts of manuscripts and publications (with covering correspondence), and copies of his newspaper columns, and radio and moving image scripts. There are extensive files relating to other professional activities, to political activities generally and to election campaigns in particular. There also files on his work as a consultant, primarily with the Department of National Defence and, in particular, with regard to the Somalia affair. Related to these textual records are photographs, posters, audiotapes and videotapes.

Morton, Desmond

Correspondence: personal

This series consists of personal correspondence, relating to primarily to family and business matters, friends, appraisals of manuscripts, and references. There is one file relating to donations, another to ‘history’, one to searches for employment, two to litigation, and another to politics (that is separate from his voluminous political correspondence in Series 7). The principal correspondents in the last category are Norman Allen and Jack Blyth, two individuals who also appear frequently in Series 3 and 7.

Correspondence: other

This correspondence files in this series consists principally of Dr. Morton’s correspondence with his fellow historians and relating to his historical research. There are also files relating to journalism, labour issues, the media, with (primarily) the Canadian War Museum, and with a veteran of World War I.

The focus of the correspondence in the majority of the files (‘history’ from 1972-1986 and ‘general – history’ from 1988-1994), is historical research generally and the problems (and pleasures) associated with doing it, advice to other researchers, and Morton’s own research and writings. Some of the letters provide illuminating insights on specific issues, particularly those associated with the First World War.

There follow two ‘journalism’ files (1979-1991) that consist principally of correspondence relating to Dr. Morton’s letters to the editor, opinion pieces in newspapers and non-academic journals, such as the United Church Observer. There are a few references to activities in other than the print medium, especially television.
Associated files are the general and topical correspondence files at the beginning of Series 10 (manuscripts and publications).

The next two files, on ‘labour’ (1977-1994), contain extensive correspondence between Dr. Morton and labour groups (with some correspondence with politicians such as Senator Eugene Forsey, and academics), principally on current labour-related issues. Dr. Morton was much in demand for writing articles and book reviews on
labour issues, also pamphlets and other documents. Some of the letters relate to his academic writings, especially Working People: An illustrated history of Canadian Labour.

The ‘media’ file (1979-1988) contains correspondence relating primarily to Dr. Morton’s involvement in radio and television programmes and in film productions. In addition to writing scripts for filmstrip and other programmes, Dr. Morton was a
frequent guest on radio and television programmes, especially with the CBC and TV Ontario. His expertise was also sought by producers, an example being the CBC TV’s two-part series on Sam Hughes in the early 1980s. This file should be read in conjunction with the files in Series 12 (media productions).

The series ends with a file on ‘museums’, mostly correspondence with the Canadian War Museum and another of correspondence with William B. Woods, a veteran of World War I. He and Dr. Morton exchanged a number of long, detailed letters between 1989 and 1991, occasioned by the latter’s book, Marching to Armageddon.

NDP party of Ontario

Consists of records relating to the New Democratic Party of Ontario. The first few folders document Dr. Morton’s official activities in the mid-1960s and in 1970. These are followed by his writings for the party, including pamphlets, articles, and policy papers which he wrote and newsletters in which he had a hand; then by files on Ontario provincial elections (arranged chronologically).

University of Toronto: administration

Most of Professor Morton’s files relating to his time as principal of Erindale College remain with the administrative records of the College. The files in this series contain additional material relating to his activities at Erindale, and to his activities elsewhere at the University of Toronto, particularly committee work. Records relating to his teaching activities are found in Series 5.

The arrangement of the files in this series moves from the general to the specific, beginning with Dr. Morton’s appointment files (1969-1993), to wider University matters and its committees, then to issues specific to Erindale College, to the Department of History and Dr. Morton’s work with his students. Of the numerous University committees of which Dr. Morton was a member, three are documented here: the Academic Affairs Committee of the Governing Council (1981-1983), the Presidential Advisory Committee on Instructional Media, which he chaired (1980-1982), and the Presidential Advisory Committee on Institutional Strategies (1982-1983). There are references to some of his other committee work in the general correspondence file on the University (1979-1992). There are also files of his letters-to-the-editor, newspaper articles on the University of Toronto and education, and on the curriculum at Erindale College.

The bulk of this series, however, consists of correspondence with students and former students (often relating to letters of reference), and there is a file of student exam results covering Dr. Morton’s teaching career at the University (1968-1974). There are also files on graduate students, particularly whose theses he supervised. These files provide insights into the problems faced by graduate students in the researching and writing of their research papers and theses, and into the role played by Dr. Morton in guiding them and ensuring that they completed their work.

An orientation address by Dr. Morton to new faculty members, accompanied by a large number of slides, has been removed from box 008, file 05 to Box 001P, file 01.

Lecture notes and other teaching materials

This series consists of material relating primarily to undergraduate and graduate history courses taught by Dr. Morton at the University of Toronto between the early 1970s and his departure for McGill in 1994. The non-U of T material consists of files on the history course he taught at the University of Western Ontario in 1975-1976 and
two courses on federal and municipal political campaigning at Sheridan College and elsewhere in 1972 and 1973.

Of the thirteen University of Toronto undergraduate history courses listed in Dr. Morton’s curriculum vitae, only one is not represented here – the history of Canadian labour (the files on this subject are also missing for the three graduate courses listed). He compiled careful typed lecture notes for his courses. They are accompanied by a shifting mixture of correspondence, memoranda, notes, course outlines, bibliographies, test and examination papers, and selected term essays.

The arrangement in this series is by course number and description, arranged in ascending order and chronologically within each course, except where the lecture notes relating to a particular course are spread over several years. Non-lecture material (where it exists) is interfiled with the accompanying lecture material

Local elections

Consists of files relating to local elections, especially the political arena in the Region of Peel and Mississauga where Dr. Morton lived and taught.

Professional associations

Dr. Morton has long been active in professional associations relating to his academic and military interests. He has been a member of the Canadian Commission on Military History (chairman, 1976-1984); the Canadian Historical Association (he sat on its council from 1974-1980 and served as president in 1978-1979); and the journal, History and Social Science Teacher (member of its executive board from 1978 to 1991). He has also been a member of the Inter-University Seminar on Armed Forces and Society since 1977; of the Royal Society of Canada, to which he was elected in 1985; of Canada’s National History Society (member of its executive board since 1994); and of the Association for Canadian Studies (also a member since 1994).

There are no files in this series on Canada’s National History Society, or the Association for Canadian Studies (they date from Dr. Morton’s departure for Montreal). Most of the files relate to Dr. Morton’s involvement with the Canadian Historical Association and History and Social Science Teacher. The files of the former contain, in part, correspondence and a brief (which Dr. Morton drafted) relating to attempts between 1979 and 1981 to pass a federal freedom of information act.

Other professional and community activities

In spite of his busy academic and administrative schedules, Professor Morton has made time for what he termed ‘community service’ activities, usually in the form of committee work. His interests are focussed on educational, historical, military and community matters. Those documented as discrete entities in their own files are described forthwith.

Military interests include membership in the regimental senate of the Fort Garry Horse, the tank regiment that his father had commanded during World War II. In 1992 Dr. Morton became a founding member of the Canadian Battle of Normandy Foundation, established to help commemorate the 50th anniversary of ‘D’ Day. He is also a member of the Canadian Committee for the History of the Second World War,
and has been a member of the Canadian War Museum Advisory Committee of the Canadian Museum of Civilization since 1992.

In 1979 Dr. Morton began delivering a series of lectures at the Canadian Forces (later the Canadian Forces Command and) Staff College in Toronto. One series (given in conjunction chiefly with Jack Granatstein) was on ‘Canada as an Ally’; another, principally with the demographer, David Foot, was on Canada’s labour market. These continued until shortly after Dr. Morton moved to Montreal. In 1982 he started a
lecture series on Quebec-Canada relations and regionalism for the Canadian Forces
Staff School, also in Toronto, which he continued until the Staff College was closed in 1994. Only the correspondence relating to these lectures survives in this series.

Dr. Morton has also been a frequent consultant to the Department of National Defence. He chaired the Department of National Defence’s Advisory Group on Political Activity in Defence Establishments, which produced a report in 1987. From 1991 to 1994 he sat on its Advisory Committee on Social Change in the Canadian Forces. In January of 1997, Douglas Young, the Minister of National Defence, established a committee, the Special Advisory Group of Military Justice and Military Police Investigation Services, to advise the Ministry on the restructuring of the military. This was done in the wake of and a week after he had pulled the plug on the Somalia inquiry. Members of this committee included Dr. Morton, historians Jack Granatstein and David Bercuson, and retired army Lieutenant-Colonel General Charles Belzile. Brian Dickson, former chief justice of the Supreme Court of Canada, headed a separate inquiry into the military justice system. Both groups were to submit their reports by the end of February.

This series contains general correspondence relating to Dr. Morton’s relationship with the Department of National Defence, and correspondence, reports and other material relating to the specific military activities mentioned above. These records are located in B1999-0023, except for the following: DND affairs generally from 1994 on and specifically to the 1997 Special Advisory Group, and the Canadian Committee for the History of the Second World War, which are located in B2000-0010.

The federal government also benefitted from Dr. Morton’s interest and experience in political matters. From 1991 to 1994 he was a member of the management committee of the Cooperative Security Competition Program in the Department of External Affairs and International Trade. In 1992 his vigorous support of the ‘Yes Canada Campaign’ resulted in an extensive file in his papers.

Dr. Morton also maintained an active interest in labour issues. He periodically served as an expert witness in court cases, the affidavits from two of which (from the mid-1980s) are represented in this series. He sat on the board of directors of the Canadian Labour Hall of Fame from 1990 to 1994.

Dr. Morton’s interest in a variety of educational issues is reflected in the number of such organizations that he joined and in his work as a consultant. From 1981 to 1983, he was a member of the History Subject Advisory Group of the Ontario Assessment Instrument Pool. In 1984-1985 he served on the advisory committee to Ontario Commission on Private Schools (the Shapiro Commission). His commitment to public education led, at the end of the 1980s, to his opposition to the Coalition of Free-Standing University-Level Institutions which advocated the establishment of private universities in Ontario (the Ontario Council on University Affairs had released a discussion paper on the issue), in particular the proposed Wolfe University. In 1993 he conducted an appraisal of the Department of History at the University of Western Ontario for the Ontario Council of Graduate Studies. Beginning in 1981, Dr. Morton acted as a consultant to Grolier Ltd., first in relation to their ‘Century of Canada Series’ and then their ‘Focus Series’. In the mid-1980s, he acted as a consultant to Cross Canada Books as it tried to attract American customers. All of these activities are described in this series.

Dr. Morton’s concern for and involvement in community matters is reflected in a wide variety of activities concentrated in the Region of Peel where he lived and worked. He sat on the Peel Cheshire Home, on the Peel Police Community Race Relations Committee (for which he produced a report), was a member of the Peel Literary Guild, and acted as an advisor to Distress Line Peel Inc. He wrote a column in the Mississauga News for several years, and also wrote about local history, as did his wife, Janet. Some of his writings can be found in series 8 and 10; hers are located in series 1

Political activities

Dr. Morton has always had a deep interest in the political process in Canada, viewed from the left of the political spectrum. This interest translated for twenty years into an active involvement in the New Democratic Party, which he joined in 1961, at the federal and provincial levels, and also in local politics. While sometimes quite critical of his party and individuals in it, Dr. Morton was, from the mid-1960s, active in the development of policies for all levels of the NDP.

Professor Morton first got involved in politics in a direct way as a boy in 1948 when he distributed leaflets for the Saskatchewan CCF. His got his first taste of political organizing in 1962 while trying, as he put it, ‘to unearth New Democrats in the wilds of Dufferin Simcoe’ (letter to Donald C. MacDonald of 28 June 1970). In 1964 he accepted the position of assistant provincial secretary to the party where he did everything from helping formulate policies to writing speeches and the texts of brochures and pamphlets. He was also deeply involved in committee work (especially regarding the issue of bilingualism and biculturalism) and helped organize local election campaigns. Dr. Morton held this post until mid-1966 when he resigned to take up post-graduate work at the London School of Economics.

Dr. Morton’s political activities also spilled over to the federal level. During the 1965 federal election he acted as a speechwriter for Tommy Douglas; these speeches have survived in this series. After his return to Canada in 1968, Dr. Morton initially lived in Ottawa, providing an opportunity to become immersed in federal politics while continuing his involvement at the provincial level. He apparently found politics at the federal level to be less satisfying than at the provincial, for a factor in his move to Toronto in 1969 was his desire ‘to resume a closer and more effective conjunction with politics’ (letter to Rita Hindon, 9 January, 1970). Once settled in, he became a member of the provincial executive of the NDP and its Policy Review Committee (which he chaired from December 1969 to the end of 1972). He was also assigned onerous duties associated with membership and finance, which he did not care for, his principal interest being policy development and public relations. He therefore continued to chair the publications committee, which gave him the freedom to write pamphlets, campaign literature, and press releases (he even designed desk calendars), and to give speeches as requested. In 1970 he was selected as the provincial executive representative in a number of constituencies to the west of Toronto in what is now known as the ‘905 area’. Dr. Morton also played an active role in the 1971 provincial election campaign.

Beginning in 1973, Dr. Morton reduced his active involvement in the Ontario NDP – he stayed on as a member of the Policy Review Committee for a time – but was always available to give and advice and often speeches. He remained active in elections in local provincial ridings; serving, for example, in 1975 as campaign chair for David Busby’s campaign in Mississauga North. At the same time, his wife, Janet, was also active in the local ridings in the Region of Peel. In 1977, they both worked hard in a nearly successful attempt to get Busby elected in his second try in the constituency.

After his return from England in the fall of 1968, Dr. Morton took up an assistant professorship at the University of Ottawa for a year. He was shortly afterwards elected to the federal council of the NDP that October as a delegate from the Ontario party, a position he held until 1972. He wrote policy documents for the national conference held in Winnipeg in 1970 and campaign pamphlets for the federal party over several years thereafter. He was deeply involved in the 1972 federal election and was a candidate in Mississauga North constituency for the anticipated 1978 federal election, but had to withdraw because of other commitments when it was not called. He continued his involvement at the constituency level, however, designing and writing campaign literature and writing speeches for the NDP candidates in Mississauga North in the 1979, 1980 and 1984 federal elections. In other ways, he was also available to provide advice to the federal party, serving, for example, as a consultant on defence policy in the mid-1980s.

At the municipal level Dr. Morton’s principal involvement was with politics in Mississauga. He was a supporter of Hazel McCallion during her successful campaign for mayor of that city in 1978, and was an active member of successive re-election committees through 1985, serving variously as secretary and in charge of publicity. (This support was returned in kind as Mayor McCallion was a forceful booster of Erindale College during Dr. Morton’s years as vice-principal academic and as principal.) In Toronto, he actively supported the campaign of Karl Jaffray during the 1972 municipal elections.

The records in this series document his activities in considerable detail and provide much information about the decision making process within the NDP at the federal and provincial levels. There is extensive correspondence, particularly for the years 1969 to 1972, after which date the volume decreases somewhat, though still a steady, respectable level. His early correspondents were often with the most senior party politicians and officials, including Donald C. MacDonald and David and Stephen Lewis. He also maintained a lively exchange of letters with party officials from other provinces (Walter Ross in British Columbia, Doug Rowland from Manitoba, and Laurier Lapierre and Raymond Laliberté from Quebec are examples) and with union officials. Later correspondents included Michael Cassidy, Ed Broadbent, and individuals with broad political interests such as Eugene Forsey and Mel Hurtig. Attached to this correspondence is a plethora of speeches, radio scripts, and reports.

Many, but not all, of the political pamphlets and some of the political articles Dr. Morton wrote are filed after the general correspondence, in chronological order.

Next are extensive files on the federal elections between 1966 and 1984, provincial elections between 1963 and 1985, and on local political contests, especially in the Region of Peel/Mississauga areas. These files contain any or all of the following: campaign literature, press coverage, posters, and photographs. More specifically, for example, the files for the federal campaigns between 1979 and 1984 contain, amongst other items, mockups for campaign leaflets, drafts of speeches, press releases, and (for the 1984 election) radio scripts for Morton’s ‘Election Talk’ series on the Toronto radio station CFRB. In addition to writing pamphlets, Morton designed some of the brochures and wrote extensively in the Mississauga press about local politics.

Research files

This series contains applications for research grants and research leave, along with a selection of Dr. Morton’s research files (the results of his research are documented in series 10). In part, this series documents the problems that academics face in finding the resources to undertake research and the time to write and find publishers for their works. Dr. Morton was more successful than most; he received eighteen major research awards between 1970 and 1994 (two were declined). His research fields were war and Canadian society, returned soldiers and civil re-establishment, Canadian military history, nationalism in Canada, Canadian labour and industrial relations history, Canadian social policy, and Ontario history and politics.

The applications are primarily for Canada Council, Killam Fellowships and SSHRC grants. Dr. Morton’s first Canada Council grant, for example, enabled him to research and publish A Peculiar Kind of Politics: Canada’s Overseas Ministry in the First World War (1982). A combination of grants from University of Toronto, the federal Department of Labour, the Killam Foundation (1983-1984) and SSHRC provided him with the resources and leave time to research and write Winning the Second Battle: Canadian Veterans and the Return to Civilian Life, 1915-1930 that was published to much acclaim in 1987. These applications and others are represented in this series. Some information on research grants may also be found in series 10.

The series also contains a collection of original documents and publications, consisting mostly of pamphlets, but including some articles, flyers, correspondence, minutes, radio scripts, research papers, discussion papers, and reports that Dr. Morton assembled during his research on the labour movement in Canada and on socialism. The material on labour, which begins with a report by Mackenzie King in 1898, covers the principal events in labour history in Canada over the next eighty years, ranging from the Knights of Labour at the turn of the century, to the ‘one big union’ movement in the teens, to repressive labour legislation in the 1930s, to wage controls and the emergence of Canadian unions in the 1970s and the 1980s.

The research material on socialism covers the broader aspects of the topic, then communism, and moves on to the Canadian Commonwealth Federation from its founding in the 1930s, to its evolution into the New Democratic Party in 1971 and more recent events. The files on the CCF include some original correspondence, excerpts from Mackenzie King’s diaries, and a large collection of pamphlets and brochures. There is a good collection of pamphlets and articles on the founding of the NDP and its later activities (some written by Morton). There are also files on the activities of the NDP federal council from 1977 to 1979, the national convention in 1987 in Montreal and on the Quebec wing of the party.

Over the years, amid research for many publications, Dr. Morton compiled a massive volume of research, primarily on 5” x 8” cards, only a small portion of which was retained by the University of Toronto Archives [see box 031]. Some of the cards retained contain research undertaken for articles on non-military themes, particularly local history. The bulk, however, relates to research on the South African War, on which Dr. Morton penned a couple of articles but never the comprehensive history of Canada’s involvement in that conflict that he was encouraged to write but never found the time to produce.

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