Spencer Family fonds, 1884-1973

MSS 121, PC 124

64 cm of textual records. -- 505 photographs.

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 a 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 of kept by Percy Spencer himself very useful. He wrote consistently and over a long period of time on the difficulties of homesteading.

Donated to the University of Manitoba Archives & Special Collections in 1996

The Spencer collection 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 kept a diary from 1920 - 1926, 1944, and from 1946 - 1959 and 1961 - 1973. The collection 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 photos

Title based upon contents of the fonds

There are no restrictions on this material

No further accruals are expected

Finding aid available