This series comprises printed reference material, drafts of articles, correspondence, and other records created or accumulated by June Callwood on a variety of subjects of interest to her writing projects and social activism. The key themes documented in this series are children's welfare, women's rights, and freedom of expression; the records overlap naturally with the contents of the books, journalism, social activism and organizations series, which also hold documentation on these subjects. Her advocacy of freedom of speech and other civil liberties is represented by material on censorship, book banning, pornography, libel reform, freedom of information, Freedom to Read week, Amnesty International, her chapter in "Women Against Censorship" (1985), and Glad Day bookshop's dispute with Canada Customs. She supported the work of Mary Jo Leddy of Romero House for Refugees and the sanctuary movement in defence of the right of refugees to asylum in Canada.
Children's rights, poverty, and nutrition preoccupied Callwood for many years and are perhaps the most heavily documented theme in this series. Briefs and correspondence to the parliamentary special committee on child care are evidence of her and Polly Hill's campaign to lobby the federal government to create a Children's Ministry to focus on youth issues. The case Kashica Juste et al v. the Attorney General of Canada, in which she acted as litigation guardian on behalf of five children threatened with deportation, is well-documented in this series, as are her efforts on behalf of youth in conflict with the law. The latter files include correspondence with Margaret Day of Young People in Legal Difficulty, an organization helping youth in Kitchener-Waterloo, Ontario. There is also extensive material on child battering and child abuse, the needs of children and infants, youth drop-in centres, education, schools, sex education, safe sex, and drug use by children. Callwood's concern with women's rights and issues is reflected in general research files on the women's movement and more specifically by material on abortion and contraception, abortion laws, the Canadian Association for the Repeal of the Abortion Law and the Canadian Abortion Rights Action League (CARAL), the Pro-Choice Defence Fund, Dr. Henry Morgentaler, day care, prostitution, and prostitutes' rights.
This series also holds subject files for poverty, emotions, morality, religion, human sexuality, mental health, capital punishment, RCMP misconduct, the "Globe and Mail", immigration, dissent in society, the New Democratic Party and the Waffle movement, Dr. William T. Mustard, the restoration of St. Lawrence Hall in Toronto (including 3 photographs), and the Ted Pope memorial scholarship, created in 1960 by Trent Frayne, Gil Christie and Joyce Davidson for students in Radio and Television Arts at Ryerson Polytechnical Institute. The files on dissent in society encompass many areas of activism in the 1960s and 1970s, including the student movement, draft evasion and protest against the Vietnam war, Canadian independence, consumer boycotts in support of American farm workers, the civil rights movement in the United States, nuclear disarmament, and alternative theatre.
