The University of Manitoba campuses are located on original lands of Anishinaabeg, Cree, Ojibwe-Cree, Dakota, and Dene peoples, and on the National Homeland of the Red River Métis. More
Call Number: Mss 121, Pc 124 (A.96-38, A.96-99)
Title: Spencer Family fonds.
Dates: 1884-1973.
Extent: 0.64 m of textual records. -- 505 photographs.
Biographical sketch: Percy Spencer was born in England and came to Canada in the 1880s. He homesteaded in the Russell area, where he and his wife had seven children. One of his daughters, Lucy, became an R.N. in 1931. Her diaries are particularly interesting for what they reveal about women's education and careers in the first part of the twentieth century. Scholars in the fields of Women's Studies and History will find useful information in these diaries. Historians will also find the diaries kept by Percy Spencer himself very useful. He wrote consistently and over a long period of time on the difficulties of homesteading.
Custodial history: The fonds was donated to University of Manitoba Archives & Special Collections by Mr. and Mrs. Cliff Thacker in 1996.
Scope and content: The Spencer Family fonds consists of diaries, account books, photographs and ephemera depicting rural life near Russell, Manitoba. Percy Spencer wrote journal entries for thirty-five years, and his daughter, Lucy, intermittently kept a diary from 1920 to 1973. The fonds contains sixty diaries and five farm account books. The photographs are interesting because they depict rural life, but the accompanying documentation is fragmentary thus reducing the overall usefulness of the photograph collection.
Source of supplied title: Title based on contents of fonds.
Restrictions: There are no restrictions on this material.
Accruals: No further accruals are expected.
Finding aid: A printed finding aid is available in the Archives reading room and an on-line finding aid is available at the link below:
MSS 121, PC 124 (A.96-38, A.96-99).
Digitized Material
Archives of the Agricultural Experience