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
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