Bruce Peel Special Collections

This unique archive of local folklore and history from 1943–1945 was created by the Alberta Folklore and Local History Project which was established by the Department of Extension at the University of Alberta with the help of a grant from the Rockefeller Foundation (and directed by Robert Gard) to collect manuscripts, radioscripts, plays, stories, tall tales, reminiscences, poems, school yearbooks, newspapers, and photographs. Most of the materials were produced during the latter years of World War II, and their focus is consistently local. A product of its times, the collection offers a perspective which is largely male, and it only indirectly reflects the experiences of local Indigenous and non-English speaking immigrant communities. 

Getting started: Most student researchers will want to employ a series of keyword searches in the University of Alberta Library catalogue in order to find relevant published materials, in both print and digital formats, in all U of A library locations and collections. To explore the archival materials in this collection online, researchers can use the Internet Archive, which in this case also functions as a kind of a finding aid for those who wish to examine the print originals, though there is also a print finding aid available in several library locations. For more information about research in the Peel library, see Finding and Requesting Peel Library Materials.

Collection Formats: 20th Century, Ephemera, Manuscripts, Newspapers, Photographs -- click to see other collections with this format