Fonds RC0918 - Judith Robinson fonds

Title and statement of responsibility area

Title proper

Judith Robinson fonds

General material designation

  • Textual record

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Title notes

Level of description

Fonds

Reference code

RC0918

Edition area

Edition statement

Edition statement of responsibility

Class of material specific details area

Statement of scale (cartographic)

Statement of projection (cartographic)

Statement of coordinates (cartographic)

Statement of scale (architectural)

Issuing jurisdiction and denomination (philatelic)

Dates of creation area

Date(s)

  • 1913-2000, predominantly 1928-1961 (Creation)
    Creator
    Robinson, Judith

Physical description area

Physical description

4.67 m of textual records
53 photographs (b&w : 25.5 x 32 cm and smaller)

Publisher's series area

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Archival description area

Name of creator

(1899-1961)

Biographical history

Judith Robinson was born in Toronto, Ont. on Victoria Street on April 6, 1899. She was the daughter of Jessie and John Robinson Robinson (nicknamed “Black Jack Robinson”), who was the editor of the Toronto Telegram until his death in 1929. She attended Toronto Model School until age 12, when she contracted a childhood illness which stopped her schooling. Self-taught in journalism and literature, she also developed an interest in architecture.

Known as ‘Brad’ to her friends, Robinson became a reporter at the Toronto Globe in 1929. Under Globe President George McCullagh, she wrote a Page One feature column daily beginning in 1936. She resigned in 1940 over a political disagreement with the Globe’s coverage of World War II. With her brother John and Oakley Dalgleish, she clandestinely printed advertisements under the name “Canada Calling,” criticizing Mackenzie King government’s slow response to the war effort. In May 1941, she and Dalgleish founded NEWS, a national weekly newspaper whose editorial office was her home at 63 Wellesley St. NEWS closed in 1946. During the war she was also was active in the Women’s Emergency Committee which petitioned the Canadian government to close the Christie Street Veteran’s Hospital in Toronto. Those efforts helped result in the opening of Sunnybrook Military Hospital in 1946. Beginning in 1953, she wrote a daily column for the Toronto Telegram until her death on December 17, 1961.

Robinson authored three non-fiction books: Tom Cullen of Baltimore (1949), As We Came By (1951), and This Is On the House (1957). She edited John Farthing’s political treatise, Freedom Wears a Crown, and helped publish the medical memoir Days of Living: The Journal of Martin Roher, for which she wrote the introduction.

Custodial history

Scope and content

Fonds consists of Judith Robinson’s correspondence; clippings of her newspaper writings; drafts, notes, and research files; working records of NEWS; personal material; petitions and other material related to the Christie Street Hospital campaign; manuscripts and writing related to her books, published and unpublished; and manuscripts and writing by her friends sent to her for editing.

Notes area

Physical condition

Immediate source of acquisition

The material has been in the custody of the creator’s niece, Gillian (Robinson) Watt, since 1974. She donated the first accrual to McMaster University in 2017, and the second accrual in 2022.

Arrangement

The first accrual is arranged within the following series:

  1. Correspondence. Boxes 1-9
  2. Articles, clippings. Boxes 10-15.
  3. Articles, research. Boxes 16-18
  4. “Calling Canada” / NEWS. Boxes 19-25.
  5. Invoices and personal material. Box 26.
  6. Christie St. Hospital. Box 27.
  7. Manuscripts and writing. Boxes 28-33.
  8. Work by other authors. Boxes 34-38.
  9. Oversized material. Boxes 39-40.

The second accrual (Box 41) consists of miscellaneous material including juvenilia, some correspondence, clippings, and other material.

Language of material

    Script of material

      Location of originals

      Availability of other formats

      Restrictions on access

      No restrictions on access.

      Terms governing use, reproduction, and publication

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      Related materials

      Accruals

      No further accruals are expected.

      Alternative identifier(s)

      Standard number

      Standard number

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      Control area

      Description record identifier

      RC0918

      Institution identifier

      Rules or conventions

      Status

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      Dates of creation, revision and deletion

      C. Long, 1st accrual, 2020.
      C. Long, 2nd accrual, 2022.

      Language of description

        Script of description

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          Accession area