New Home for Archival Gold

Canada’s national repository of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender material, the Canadian Lesbian and Gay Archives (CLGA) is celebrating the grand opening of its new home on September 26, 2009. The CLGA will now be housed in a two-and-a-half storey Georgian-style house at 34 Isabella Street, generously made available by the City of Toronto and the CLGA’s neighbour, the Children’s Aid Society of Toronto.

34 Isabella Street features a research reading room, a gallery and other spaces to display museum, art, and archival collections, as well as a large reference library. The house not only provides a permanent physical location for the collection, preservation and exhibition of stories and histories from across the country, but also ensures that the CLGA can further establish itself as a virtual cultural institution offering online exhibitions and information.

The CLGA’s new facility consolidates the research and storage functions of the archives on the main floor and allows for the future development of fully networked research stations. Upstairs, the second floor has an exhibition space for works of art and other exhibitions from the CLGA and private collections, as well as other institutions and community organizations. Public programming such as lectures, tours, and panel discussions will be featured as a complement to the exhibitions. The third floor space is designed to facilitate readings, lectures, discussion groups, and other meetings. This room will also be available to the neighbourhood community.

The Archives houses many diverse treasures, from the typewriter that John Herbert used to write his famous play Fortune and Men’s Eyes, to the Canadian championship boxing belt won by Mark Leduc. Also included in the collections are paintings, photographs, posters, sound and moving image recordings, buttons, matchbook covers, t-shirts, leatherwear, and advertising. The CLGA has not only the largest collection of Canadian LGBT materials but also the largest collection of LGBT periodicals in the world. There are dozens of unique archival accessions of the papers of individuals and organizations. The CLGA’s vertical file collections, which have been gathered from a variety of sources and organized by knowledgeable volunteers over decades, are invaluable in that they allow easy access to information that is otherwise widely scattered. The CLGA’s website — www.clga.ca — includes searchable databases of a selection of holdings.

The CLGA was founded in 1973 as part of The Body Politic, Canada’s gay liberation newsmagazine of record during the 1970s and 1980s. It has grown from just a few boxes of material to become the second largest LGBT archive in the world. The CLGA is a world-class, community-based-and-supported collecting institution on par with the ONE National Gay and Lesbian Archives in Los Angeles, the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender Historical Society in San Francisco, and the IHLIA–Homodok in Amsterdam.

In 1998, the Archives established its National Portrait Collection of Canadians who have contributed to the growth and visibility of an out-and-proud community. The collection has grown to more than sixty portraits, including those of musicians k.d. lang and Carole Pope, authors Ann-Marie McDonald and Jane Rule, playwright - novelist Thomson Highway and politicians and activists such as George Hislop (community activist), Kyle Rae (Toronto city councillor), and Svend Robinson (former MP) .

In the fall of 2009, the CLGA will be launching a $1.5 million endowment campaign, for which the Honourable Bill Graham and Mr. Jaime Watt have generously volunteered to act as co-chairs. With funding for the capital renovation secure, the purpose of the endowment campaign will be to ensure the CLGA’s future through the stable funding of ongoing operational costs and further investment in data collection and management to make many of its historical documents, particularly the Canadian content, available online.

The building’s renovation was made possible by a grant from the Department of Canadian Heritage’s Cultural Spaces Canada Program, the Ontario Trillium Foundation, Cresford Developments, a bequest from the Estate of the late Roger Spalding, and many other generous gifts from private donors. The renovation was designed by ERA Architects and executed by Heritage Restoration Inc.

Canada has become a leader in human rights legislation relating to the LGBT community, and the CLGA has opened this new cultural space to further encourage the sharing of voices and expression of LGBT lives with the larger community.

For more information, contact Dennis Findlay or Martin Lanigan at 416-777-2755.

Grand Opening of the new home of the Canadian Lesbian & Gay Archives,
34 Isabella Street, Toronto
Saturday, September 26, 2009, 2:00-5:00 pm.
Reception in George Hislop Park, just west of the Children's Aid Society (30 Isabella)
Please RSVP to events@clga.ca or call 416-777-2755 before Friday, September 18, 2009.