The series consists of textual documentation on William J. Stapleton's war service, art exhibitions, political and arts activism, publishing and other projects. The documents include correspondence, notes, manuscripts, and printed ephemera, exhibition catalogues and clippings.
The material on Stapleton's war service includes Flt/Lieut. William J. Stapleton's pilot's flying logbook from his RCAF service 1942-1945 (as a bomber pilot with 1000 flying hours, attached to 418 Squadron after 2 years in England as a staff pilot).
The material on Stapleton's exhibitions includes a copy the Canadian Armed Forces Art Exhibition (Hart House, Nov. 1942) exhibition catalogue; the 19-page illustrated booklet, Art as Tool and Weapon [1985], which gives an account of Stapleton's life and work and was produced to accompany an exhibition of his work created during a trip to Nicaragua; notices and flyers for various exhibitions, many of them benefits to raise money for various causes; and some reviews.
His involvement with activist groups is documented in a file on the Arts for Peace movement, an anti-nuclear organization which he co-founded and whose membership included Margaret Laurence, Don Francks and Milton Acorn; the file includes a proposal for an international festival for peace, flyers, and a copy of Arts for Peace/Les Artistes Pour la Paix News Bulletin Winter 1985. There is correspondence, 1984-1985, regarding Stapleton's efforts to help Guatemalan refugees in Mexico and Nicaraguan earthquake victims, including correspondence with the Comite de Ayuda a Refugiados Guatemaltecos (personal letters from Belgian nun Luci Morren) and the Central American Solidarity Network, and with the CBC and the Canadian press trying to raise interest in the issues; manuscript diary notes on Stapleton's trips to Chiapas 1984 and Nicaragua 1985 have been filed along with flyers and circulars in the files on Guatemala and Nicaragua. There is also correspondence regarding Stapleton's involvement with aboriginal groups, including correspondence from the Innu community of Sheshatshit 1989 and correspondence regarding Bear Island Art Auction [1990]. The correspondence documents his connections to organized labour, including letters from the United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of Canada, regarding a Stapleton painting on loan 1987, and from the Labourers' International Union of North American, regarding a portrait commission for the Canadian Labour Hall of Fame 1991. His political engagement is documented in the files on the Canada-USSR Association (which includes a copy of its newsletter Focus on Friendship, vol. 5, no. 6, Nov. 1986), in the files on the communist newspaper, The Canadian Tribune, which used his illustrations and auctioned his work as fund-raisers, and Northstar Compass (published by Concerned Friends of Soviet People), which also used his illustrations (included is an issue, Vol. 2, No,. 5, Dec. 1993). The correspondence includes a letter from Stapleton, 1985, complaining to the CBC about its anti-Soviet reporting. There is a file on the Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion, recording Stapleton's efforts to get it official recognition and including drafts of a poem he wrote about it. There are posters for a May Day Rally (featuring a Stapleton drawing) and for the Young Communists League of Canada, both undated.
The correspondence documenting Stapleton's publishing and other projects includes a copy of a letter from Stapleton to Franz the trapper regarding a project to document the Jackfish area of northern Ontario 1968; a copy of CORE: stories and poems celebrating the lives of ordinary people..., collected by Ruth Johnson & edited by Enid Lee (Toronto: The author, ca. 1982), autographed by Stapleton, who contributed an essay as well as illustrations, and by Ruth Johnson and other contributors including David Tipi, Nancy Chong Johnson, Peter Scriver; letters from John Spotton, National Film Board, and Collins Publishers regarding Stapleton's proposal for a documentary on the Trans-Canada Highway 1984-1985; correspondence regarding Stapleton's autobiography (eventually published in 1992 as People in Struggle: the Life and Art of Bill Stapleton), including a partial letter 1988 from Malcolm Ross regarding helping Stapleton find a publisher for his memoirs, from Steel Rail Press and Prentice-Hall 1988; and from Terry Binnersley, formerly of Steel Rail Press, discussing the book published by Penumbra 1992; and correspondence regarding the CBC documentary, Bill Stapleton: the Art of Protest 1994.
There are some miscellaneous notes and manuscripts, including a note about a portrait of Paul Robeson by Stapleton. There are files relating to Stapleton's advertising business, Stapleton Advertising, including samples of work done for clients and copies of the Bill Stapleton Report, which feature his portrait sketches of figures in Canadian advertising.
