The fond consists predominantly of correspondence, reports, newsletters, minutes of meetings and other documentation relating to the history of the Gays of Ottawa during 1971-1986. The materials reflect the political action under taken by the organization on a local and national level. Materials al…
The office in which Gays of Ottawa housed their documents experienced a fire in February of 1979. The documents that survived were those stored in filing cabinets that crashed through the floor and into the basement. Due to this, some records do have burn marks and water stains. Many of the records also show general wear and tear from their use by the organization.
History / Biographical
The Gays of Ottawa (GO) was founded September 14, 1971 by Maurice Boulanger, Michael Black, Charles Hill, Philip Bianco, Jacques Hoffman, Reg Turcotte, and Terrence Reichey. The organization set out to educate Ottawa on homosexuality through group discussions, publications, and public speaking. They worked to support the gay community through social events, counseling, a drop-in centre, and a crisis line. The group took political action not only on issues at the local level, but on a provincial and national scale, partially fueled by their location in the capital of Canada. Their work served both the Anglophone and Francophone communities. The membership and board was largely male throughout the 1970’s before writing gender parity on the board of directors into the constitution in 1983. On June 27, 1989 the name Gays of Ottawa was changed to the Association of Lesbians and Gays of Ottawa (ALGO).
Scope and Content
The fond consists predominantly of correspondence, reports, newsletters, minutes of meetings and other documentation relating to the history of the Gays of Ottawa during 1971-1986. The materials reflect the political action under taken by the organization on a local and national level. Materials also include those of the National Gay Rights Coalition (NGRC) of which Gays of Ottawa served as the national coordinating office during the mid 1970’s. Gays of Ottawa’s involvement with the Coalition for Gay Rights in Ontario (CGRO) is also shown through the number of documents held relating to the provincial group.
All staples and metal paper clips have been removed from the records.
Arrangement
In the custodial history section done by the previous archivist, it was noted that most records were kept in their original order, except for the ones which had an arrangement imposed upon them. In processing the records, original order was kept where possible. Some arrangement was imposed on records in which too many doubles appeared in various folders. Duplicates of files were removed.
The records were arranged into six series:
1-Governance
2-Political and Activist Action
3-Correspondence Files
4-Pamplets, Publications, Posters
5-National Gay Rights Coalition and
6-Coalition for Gay Rights in Ontario
