Series 9 - Research files

1.23 m of textual records

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.

The arrangement of the files on labour and socialism is by topic and chronologically within each.

1969-1984: B1999-0023/026(14)–(18)
1919-1987: B1999-0023/027(24)–(31)
1898-1992: B1999-0023/028(01)–(17)
1913-1982: B1999-0023/030(01)–(17)
1977-1987: B1999-0023/029(01)–(05)
B1999-0030/031 [card indices]

Oversized material has been removed from the following files and filed separately as indicated:

From ==> To
B1999-0023/028(07) ==> B1999-0023/027(24)
B1999-0023/028(08) ==> B1999-0023/027(25)
B1999-0023/028(14) ==> B1999-0023/027(26)
B1999-0023/029(04) ==> B1999-0023/027(27)
B1999-0023/029(14) ==> B1999-0023/027(28)
B1999-0023/029(17) ==> B1999-0023/027(29)
B1999-0023/030(01) ==> B1999-0023/027(29)
B1999-0023/030(04) ==> B1999-0023/027(30)
B1999-0023/030(05) ==> B1999-0023/027(31)