Browse Exhibits (50 total)

Canada often appears as little more than a footnote to studies of the shifting international order between world war and Cold War. As an emerging middle power, Canada neither played nor had any expectations of playing a central role in world affairs. With Britain in decline and the United States on the rise, Canada sought to reconcile its increasing autonomy with persistent hemispherical and ideological polarization. Nonetheless, Canada quietly crafted its own identity in international affairs, albeit always cognizant that the Canadian position would bear some relation to the policies of the United States and United Kingdom. 

Relative to the historiography of British or American foreign policy in this era, the history of Canada’s early Cold War foreign policy is limited. This, in turn, might appear to indicate a lack of relevance and worth. This is not quite right, or not totally right. Part of it can be explained by the methods by which Canada practised its diplomacy in this period: by thoughtful and analytic observation. The Canadian Embassy in Kuibyshev, and later Moscow, sought to inform the Department of External Affairs (DEA) of what was happening in the Soviet Union, but also how other states approached the USSR.

It is well known that Canada maintained close relations with both the United States and the United Kingdom and was influenced by their respective Soviet policies. What this narrative implies, however, is that Canadian diplomats in Moscow blindly followed the dominant opinions propounded by their larger allies. The documents in this collection show that this is not the case. The Canadian dispatches from 1943-46, chiefly written by Dana L. Wilgress, demonstrate a distinct shift in policy recommendations throughout the period. Though initially opposed to the hardline American approach, when it came time to choose, the Canadians could no longer support their “firm yet fair” policy and instead had to join the “tough school.”[1] Though they were willing members of the Western camp, the Canadians were swept along with the commanding American current of Soviet policy as the Cold War took on a more tangible form. 

Studies of Canadian early Cold War policy and foreign relations have generally neglected to answer how Canadian diplomats perceived US and British policies toward the Soviet Union, and how these in turn influenced Canadian interpretations and policy recommendations. The story of Canadian diplomatic circles in the early Cold War is rich and sheds light on Canada’s development as an international power in the 1940s. 

The documents in this collection have been selected to demonstrate the shift in Canadian diplomats’ Soviet policy recommendations from 1943-46. The Canadian Embassy to the Soviet Union was established in Kuibyshev in 1943, headed by Dana L. Wilgress, Ambassador to the Soviet Union. From 1940-42, Canada relied on British documents to be informed of Soviet policy, and so there was little Canadian analysis on location in the Soviet Union in this period.[2] The most compelling documents of the collection are written by Wilgress, whose perceptive analyses and recommendations illuminate the shifting Canadian position on Soviet policy from 1943-46. Wilgress’ opinions were highly regarded in Ottawa,[3] and further, the DEA was virtually the only ministry that was well-informed about foreign policy.[4] Mackenzie King was focused on domestic policy,[5] and hence the Canadian Foreign Service in the Soviet Union was virtually the Canadian government’s only direct contact with the Soviets.[6] Primary documents are invaluable for understanding how Canadian diplomats in the field understood the nature of the unfolding conflict in relation to Canada’s increasing autonomy, restructured Anglo-American relations, and shifting Anglo-American perceptions and Soviet policy from 1943-46.

This exhibit explores the history of informal settlements in Toronto, beginning with those on Toronto Island in the late nineteenth century, moving to those in the Don Valley in the early twentieth century, and ending with the spread of tent cities in the twenty-first century.

Through a combination of text, YouTube videos, images from the city's archives, and newspaper clippings, visitors will gain insight into the lives of those who lived in these communities, and the struggles they faced in their quest for adequate housing and shelter.

The exhibit starts with a display of historical photos of Toronto Island in the late 1800s, when it was home to a community of squatters who built their homes from the materials they found on the island. Visitors will learn about the challenges that this community faced in establishing a settlement on land that was considered to be public property, and how the city eventually sought to remove them.

Moving forward in time, the exhibit will explore the history of informal settlements in the Don Valley during the early 1900s. Visitors will learn about the residents of this area, who built shacks and shanties in the valley in order to escape the high rents and poor conditions in the city's tenement housing. 

The final section of the exhibit focuses on the spread of tent cities in Toronto in the twenty-first century. Visitors will learn about the growing problem of homelessness in the city, and the ways in which people have come together to create their own communities in the absence of affordable housing. It will also focus on the more recent entwinement of encampments with protest movements, and the weaponizing of police violence to evict encampment residents, setting the stage for the Covid-19 encampment closures. 

Canada has long held an unusual position within NATO. At once strategically important due to its close proximity to the Arctic but also geographically isolated from Europe, historians and foreign policy experts continue to debate Canada’s role in NATO. Because Canada has neither the global reach of the United States nor the local considerations of European nations, some argue that Canada is uniquely positioned to be a mediating force within the North Atlantic Council.

Berlin was in many ways the powder keg of the Cold War and it seemed, during multiple crises after 1945, that the United States and the Soviet Union might go to war over their respective rights in the city. During the Second Berlin Crisis (1958–1962) the Soviet leader, Nikita Khrushchev, demanded that the United States, along with the British and French, pull all forces from the city, which they refused to do. At the same time, Khrushchev was offering to sign a peace treaty with the German Democratic Republic and hand over responsibility for the border.

During the Second Berlin Crisis, the Western allies created contingency plans for the possibility of full-scale war. The contingency plans were made by two separate commands: the Tripartite (American-British-French) LIVE OAK and NATO itself, which later developed its own Berlin-contingency plans (BERCONs).

In 1959, the Americans, British, and French established the Tripartite Ambassadorial Group in order to streamline the contingency-planning process and keep it contained amongst themselves. They also established an individual command called LIVE OAK that was separate from NATO. President John F. Kennedy’s administration wanted close coordination of planning between LIVE OAK and NATO. In September of 1961, General Lauris Norstad (Supreme Allied Commander Europe) briefed the North Atlantic Council on LIVE OAK and began an effort to develop NATO contingency plans that would build on LIVE OAK. What resulted was a months-long debate on the merits of the new NATO plans, with Canada’s ambassador Jules Léger expressing specific and significant concern about the inclusion of the demonstrative use of nuclear weapons. He worried that the inclusion of nuclear weapons in any military plans would increase the likelihood of a full-scale nuclear exchange.

In 1962, the North Atlantic Council considered NATO’s own contingency plans.  While LIVE OAK plans were primarily defensive in nature, NATO’s BERCON was intended to “provide a demonstration of intent to go further.” Once again, the Canadian delegation, now led by Ambassador George Ignatieff, were the primary dissenters. The major issues continued to be political authority and nuclear weapons. Ignatieff stalled the planning for many months, but this had virtually no effect on the final plans. The Canadians were not viewed as a mediating force, but rather an “obstacle” to the Council, disrupting what was otherwise a consensus. Further, although they initially planned to make a reservation to the inclusion of nuclear weapons in the plans and thus take a controversial stance, Prime Minister Diefenbaker edited Ignatieff’s instructions at the last minute to include only an approval of the BERCON plans.

The compiled files offer an overview of this process from the Canadian perspective and allow us to examine and question Canada’s role within NATO. Did the Canadian delegation have an effect on American or NATO decision-making? Why might Canada feel more comfortable prolonging NATO decision-making than the European members?

"Discrimination on the basis of class, race, ethnic origin and sex," writes legal historian Constance Backhouse, has been "a hallmark of the Canadian legal response to prostitution." Long before the Canadian government's passage of Bill C-36 in 2014, numerous laws have attempted to end "the world's oldest profession" in Canada. Beyond stopping the exchange of money for sex, however, these laws have also frequently been used to police a range of communities based on hierarchies of race, class, gender and sexuality.

Moral reformer (right) harassing a sex worker (left) in a red light district

This digital exhibit complements and expands upon the exhibition, Canada's Oldest Profession: Sex Work and Bawdy House Legislation, on display in Robarts Library, 1st floor exhibition space, from March 8th to June 1st, 2016. It includes material featured in the exhibit and additional information related to the topic of the history of sex work and bawdy house legislation in Canada. The exhibit is sponsored by the University of Toronto Libraries, the Departments of History, and Sexual Diversity Studies. 

The University of Toronto Music Library's Canadian Sheet Music Collection highlights the Toronto music publishers’ responses to the Great War. The sheet music included in this exhibit comes straight from our archival vault and was published between 1914 and 1918.

The incredible cover art and inset photos of military personnel aside, the intense and frequently heartfelt lyric of these pieces speak to the ways in which everyday people on the home front responded to the war, whether through wholehearted support, or recognition of longing, loss and death. The outpouring of human emotion imbued in these texts provides a direct window into the mindset of people from 100 years ago, when considerable anxiety gripped the public at large as everyday people struggled with the personal costs brought about through the wholescale devastation and slaughter.

The Dentistry Library celebrates its 125th year in 2022.

This exhibit was created in 2017 to celebrate the 120th year and has been updated in 2022 to celebrate another milestone, the 125th anniversary. 

The Dentistry Library offers a unique look at the profession through its collections and history. In this space you will information on the growth of our collection over time, changes in our physical space and brief biographies of the faculty and librarians in charge of overseeing the library's collections from inception to present.  

In response to the growing threat of nuclear war, the Canadian government needed to prepare for a Soviet attack. Although the government already had a paper detailing the strategy for the immediate aftermath of a nuclear war, it required a blueprint for operations after this initial phase.

The Joint Planning Committee (JPC), a subcommittee of the Chiefs of Staff Committee (CSC), wrote a persuasive paper addressing this concern, initially titled the “Concept of Operations Following the Initial Phase of Hostilities.” The paper (referred to in this briefing book as the “Concept document”) outlined the main threats faced by Canada in case of nuclear war and the roles each branch of the military would play should a nuclear war take place.

As the CSC considered and edited the paper, content was added, documents were merged, and contentious debates took place. One of these earlier debates concerned the threat of intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs). While earlier drafts of the Concept document stated that ICBMs would “not be in use operationally by either side,” this position was reversed after additional information was passed along by the Defence Research Board (DRB) and further discussions took place on the topic within the CSC.

Over two years after the first draft of the Concept document, the JPC set up a Working Group to revise the paper. The JPC and the working group resolved to rewrite the former paper as a CSC Directive, including new content such as “Emergency Defence and Survival.” Like its predecessor, the lengthy document raised issues for debate within the government. The working group and the JPC disagreed about the predictability of nuclear war—the JPC argued that predictions could be made about the nature of nuclear war, while the working group did not. This culminated in the group at one point ignoring JPC’s direction to revise a section on the unpredictability of war. Eventually, this tension was resolved and a final draft was reached after another round of edits.

The Concept document offers interesting insight into Canadian plans in the case of “unlimited nuclear war,” and the urgency with which Canadian officials grappled with this concept is shown in these documents. To prepare for the “panic, looting, rioting, apathy, and even anarchy” that would ensue in a nuclear war, officials wanted the Concept document to be completed in short order and kept up to date as the nuclear threat evolved.

The year 2016 marked the 150th anniversary of the publication of Fyodor M. Dostoevsky’s seminal novel, Crime and Punishment (1866). A revelation when it first appeared in Moscow on the pages of the journal Russian Messenger, it continues to provide readers unparalleled insight into the individual’s role and moral responsibility in society. Following the murderous aspirations of the novel’s protagonist, former student Raskolnikov, we are confronted with the struggle of reconciling rationalist action with the human conscience, and witness one of Russia’s greatest artists at the peak of his success.

To commemorate Crime and Punishment’s resounding triumph and influence, a two month exhibition was held at John P. Robarts Research Library, University of Toronto, from October 3-November 30, 2016. Through the theme of “Global Contexts” it sought to celebrate the novel’s international reception and propagation, highlighting the rich variety of the collection held by the University of Toronto Libraries and the relevance of the holdings to interdisciplinary research and teaching.

This online exhibition offers an interactive platform through which to engage with the materials showcased, and support the continuing study of the novel across the boundaries of nation, language, and media. Over twenty countries are represented, and each category of materials offers a different genre in which to appreciate the novel: translation; art and illustration; belles-lettres and popular fiction; film, stage, and music; and literary criticism. Each item symbolizes the interminable relevance of Dostoevsky’s work, and emphasizes key threads of his thought that hold special significance for the development of culture world-wide.

The Robarts Library exhibition formed part of a SSHRC funded outreach project, Crime and Punishment at 150. Sponsors include the Petro Jacyk Central & East European Resource Centre, and the Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures. The original exhibition was curated by Professor Kate Holland and Ph.D. candidate Barnabas Kirk. This online platform was developed by Barnabas Kirk in conjunction with University of Toronto Libraries.

The curators would like to thank the following individuals at the University of Toronto Libraries for their cooperation: Ksenya Kiebuzinski for coordinating the planning, installation, and publicity for the exhibition; Jack Leong and members of the International and Community Outreach Coordinating Group for logistical support; Maureen Morin for creating the exhibition poster; Fabiano Rocha, Hana Kim, Miguel Torrens, Jihae Chun, Helen Tang, and Alex Averbuch for acquiring and/or describing several items on display; Wasyl Sydorenko for editorial and design assistance; Leslie Barnes for her technical assistance with the virtual display; and Megan Campbell and Milena Djokic for organizing the opening reception. Particular thanks is also owed to Dostoevsky scholars from across the globe for their valuable guidance, including Stefano Aloe (University of Verona, Italy), Sharon Lubkemann Allen (State University of New York, USA), and Bruno Barreto Gomide (University of São Paulo, Brazil)

This exhibit is an introduction to the collection of medieval manuscript fragments housed at the Robertson Davies Library at Massey College. Please use the menu at left to navigate through the exhibit.