The digitization of this finding aid was made possible - in part or entirely - through the Canadian Culture Online Program of Canadian Heritage, the National Archives of Canada and the Canadian Council of Archives.
| Fonds/Collection Number: | F0293 |
| Title: | Ramsay Cook fonds |
| Dates: | 1952-2011 |
| Extent: | 10.5 m of textual records 12 reels of microfilm 10 photographs |
| Biographical Sketch/ Administrative History: | George Ramsay Cook (1931-2016), educator and author, was born in Alameda, Saskatchewan to a United Church minister and his wife. He earned his BA at the University of Manitoba (1954), his MA at Queen's University (1956), and his PhD at the University of Toronto (1960) with a dissertation on John W. Dafoe. Cook joined the History Department at York University in 1969 following ten years as a member of the History Department of the University of Toronto. He was a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, an Officer of the Order of Canada, and received the Governor General's Award for non-fiction in 1985. Among numerous other awards and recognition, in 2005 Cook was the recipient of the Molson Prize in the Social Sciences & Humanities. Cook authored several studies in the field of Canadian history including "The politics of John W. Dafoe and the Free press" (1963), "Canada and the French Canadian question" (1966), "The Maple leaf forever" (1971), "Canada 1896-1921: a nation transformed", with R.C. Brown, (1975), "The regenerators: social criticism in late Victorian Canada" (1985), "Canada, Quebec and the uses of nationalism" (1986), and several other books, articles and studies. Cook also played a part in Canadian politics, promoting a strong federal government. Cook and other academics publicly supported Pierre Elliott Trudeau's bid for the leadership of the Liberal Party of Canada in 1968. His last book was "The Teeth of Time" (2006), a memoir focussed on his friendship with Pierre Elliott Trudeau. From 1989 until 2006 he served as executive editor of the Dictionary of Canadian Biography/Dictionnaire biographique du Canada. |
| Scope and Content: |
The fonds documents the breadth of Cook's career as a student, academic and historian, and thinker. Records include curriculum vitae; personal and professional correspondence with his peers, colleagues and students (including noted fellow historians such as Michael Bliss, Donald Creighton, James Eayers, W.L. Morton, and Frank Underhill); lecture notes (both as student and professor); research files, clipping files, conference papers; book reviews; manuscripts and typescripts of his various monographs; printed material; copies of articles and essays by others arranged alphabetically by author; subject files; financial records, photographic material; index cards for his thesis; biographical material about, correspondence with, and speeches by Trudeau, as well as copies of Liberal Party material and material by Cook; appraisals and reviews of books, people and student work, as well as an appraisal of a Department of History in a Canadian university; and diaries, as well as other material. |
| Location of originals: | Material in some manuscript files consists of notes and photocopied reproductions of material from the Dafoe Papers, taken from microfilm in the National Archives of Canada (then Public Archives of Canada), from originals in the University of Manitoba Library; material from the Laurier Papers, the Geoge Munro Grant Papers, the J.S. Willison Papers and the Flavelle Papers, all from originals in the National Archives of Canada (then Public Archives of Canada). |
| Restrictions on Access and Use: | Some restrictions on access apply. In particular, records containing personal student information are restricted unless permission is obtained. Requests to view closed files must be directed to the Archivist, York University. |
| Finding Aid: | File lists available. |
| URL of Finding Aid: | http://archivesfa.library.yorku.ca/fonds/ON00370-f0000293.pdf |
| Accruals: | The fonds comprises the following accessions: 1988-009, 1993-036, 1994-005, 1996-013, 2001-045, 2003-021, 2005-035, 2010-011, 2012-028. Further accruals are expected. |
| 1988-009 1993-036 1994-005 1996-013 2001-045 2003-021 2005-035 2010-011 2012-028 |
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| Immediate source of acquisition: | Acquired from Ramsay Cook between 1988 to 2012. |
| Provenance Access Points: | Cook, Ramsay, 1931-2016 |
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Date of creation: 2002/04/04 Date of last revision: 2016/07/28 |
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