Archives of Ontario

The Archives of Ontario is responsible for acquiring, preserving and making available to the public, records of historical value created by both the Ontario government and the private sector, including textual documents, photographs, maps, pictures, sound and moving image recordings, and digital records. The Archives also offers advice and assistance to ministries and government agencies on records management.

The Bureau of Archives, as it was originally known, was first located in the Ontario Legislative Building, under the leadership of Alexander Fraser (1860–1936), a Scottish-born Toronto journalist, academic and militia officer who held the position of Provincial Archivist from 1903 to 1935. During his tenure, Fraser remained a prolific author and amongst other things prepared annual reports for publication describing progress in making records available to the public, and presenting the full texts of major document collections. He summarized his vision for the scope and work of the Archives in a paper he presented to the American Historical Association at Buffalo in 1911. In it he described the popularity of the Archives annual report volumes amongst historians and members of the public.

...