Listening to Women's History
In 2024, the Archives received a donation of 70 audio cassettes, containing oral history recordings made almost 50 years ago by the Northwestern Ontario Women's Decade Council. The researchers, as part of this Herstory project, travelled to small towns around the region to interview women from a variety of walks of life. Over 100 women’s stories are represented in the collection. A unique historical record was gathered, but access to this work has been limited to date.
Now, 50 years after the recordings were made, we are asking for your financial support so these tapes can be professionally digitized, indexed, and digitally preserved in the Archives. A contribution of $50 will cover the costs of caring for one interview recording, preserving one woman's story well into the future!
Many of the interviews were transcribed, and can now be read at the Lakehead University Archives. But much more work remains to be done. We hope to digitize and share the transcripts, the recordings, and photographs associated with the project. In the few cases where the interviewed women didn't provide consent to have the recordings shared, we will digitize the recordings for preservation purposes only. We will also work to contact family members and others, to connect these stories with the people who will treasure them the most.
Listen to the stories of:
- Elizabeth Almos
- Helen Atkinson
- Gertrude Dyke
- Jean Forester
- Caroline Jacobson
- Hilja Lange
- Grace Pelletier
- Michalena Stepanik
- Kathleen Stevenson
Want to see what other recordings we have? You can view a preliminary chart of interviewees, tapes, and consent forms.
To donate to the project, please visit the Lakehead Giving fundraiser page. Donations are tax-deductible, and receipts will be provided for any donation over $20.
Updates on the project will be shared on this page, and on the Archives' Instagram.
Work to date:
October 2025: Visit our display on the main floor of the Chancellor Paterson Library, right next to the services desk. This exhibit includes quotes from interviews, photographs, and links to more information. We have now digitized 30 cassette tapes, holding 27 women's stories. We will still need lots more support in the fundraiser in order to complete this stage of the work.
September 2025: Recordings are popping up online! They're shared on this page. You can also listen to all available recordings as a set. LU History students have been helping out with the cataloguing. The archivist got a chance to talk about this project on CBC's Superior Morning. And we've received over 1/4 of the funds we've asked for in the fundraiser.
August 2025: Our first 10 tapes have been digitized and the audio is even better than expected! Recordings will be shared in the coming weeks. A second set of 10 tapes have been dropped off for digitization.
July 2025: Thanks to the fundraiser being off to a good start, we have sent the first 10 tapes for digitization. Each of those interviews was with a woman who signed a consent form, so when that work is done we will be able to share their stories.
Geographic Scope:
Interviews were held with women from across Northwestern Ontario:
