The series consists of Pamela Harris's records on her Faces of Feminism project.
Included is correspondence and memoranda, notes, manuscripts and typescripts, research material and printed material, including a copy of the book, Faces of Feminism (Toronto: Second Story Press, 1992).
The material begins with a copy of the exhibition catalogue for Image Nation Eleven: Photographs By Women About Women (Toronto, 1972), which was the precursor to the Faces of Feminism project. The first stage of the Faces of Feminism project was Harris's contribution to the Toronto Documentary Photography Project in 1984, Faces of Feminism/Toronto, and the early files include her statement explaining her intention, detailed notes on the layout of the exhibition at Harbourfront, and reference material collected about individual feminists and feminist groups in Toronto.
The files document the research for subjects to photograph for the cross-Canada Faces of Feminism project, including correspondence with prominent feminists. There are index cards recording the names of potential subjects. In general, the research correspondence includes letters from a wide cross-section of feminists, including scholars, teachers, civil servants, union workers, grassroots activists, writers, health care providers, native activists, etc. There is extensive correspondence with feminist scholar Angela Davis, who provided a preface for the eventual book. Among the many other correspondents are Dorothy Inglis, Diane Duggan, Beth Percival, Mary Sparling, Yvel Mazerolle, Shirley Bear, Corinne Gallant, Shirley Bohan, Dorothy Goldin Rosenberg, Greta Nemiroff, Micheline de Sève, Marguerite Anderson, Kay Macpherson, Margrit Eichler, Judy Marchand, Chris Clark, Nancy Poole, Myra Kostash, Gloria Greenfield, Jane Corcoran, and Rosemary Brown. Other correspondents are Sky Blue Mary Morin, Jillian Ridington, Pat Kippling, Bonnie Klein, Gerry Bailey, Joyce Stewart of the Raging Grannies, Vera Frenkel, Marie Laing, and Janick Belleau.
The material also includes the texts that Harris asked her subjects to write, to accompany the exhibition of photographs. These texts were to be statements about their life and work. The files include draft manuscript or typescript texts, along with supporting documentation and letters to Harris. The texts were then edited by Harris, or in same cases not used at all. They constitute valuable records for the study of any of the individual women's work, as brief memoirs, autobiographical notes, or statements of philosophy. Included in this material are texts by Cathy Jones, Helen Fogwill Porter, Joyce Hancock, Alice Crook, Norah Toole, Maxine Tynes, Muriel Duckworth, Mary MacPerson, Lea Robak, Kay Macpherson, Kay Hladly, and many others.
The files on touring the exhibition include correspondence with galleries - offering the exhibition, discussing the exhibition, making arrangements for the shipping of the exhibition, and reporting on responses to the exhibition. There is also correspondence on funding for the exhibition and copies of printed material in which images from the exhibition were reproduced. There is correspondence with publishers, trying to interest them in publishing a book based on the exhibition; and correspondence and manuscripts documenting the book's eventual publication by Second Story Press in Toronto, with financial support from Nancy Jackman.
Finally, the files include reference material Harris collected during the course of the Faces of Feminism project, which provide information on a variety of feminist organizations and activities across the country, organized by province.
Series also includes sound recordings, including a lecture given by Harris at the Canadian Museum of Contemporary Photography as part of the education programming for Faces of Feminism (1991), off-air recordings of excerpts from several interviews with Harris for programs including CBC's "Midday" with Kathryn O'Hara and CJRT's "On The Arts" with Jane Perdue, and two complete, wide-ranging interviews with Harris for CJRT's "On the Arts" with Tom Fulton, and CIUT's "By All Means" with host Kelly [Lettner], regarding the Faces of Feminism exhibition and book project.
