AGQ-F0055

Fonds Bruce Garside. – February 1962-[after 21 January 1981]. – 12 cm of textual records.

 

 

Biographical sketch:

 

Bruce Garside (28 November 1940–29 June 2024) was one of the co-founders of the Androgyny bookstore. Before becoming a bookseller, he was a philosophy professor at McGill. Encouraged to leave the university because of the publication of an article and his homosexuality, and finding the conditions favourable, Garside accepted the salary allowance that enabled him to found the bookstore. He sold the bookstore some time later for a token sum to the collective to which Barbara Scales, who had joined the collective, belonged.

 

After studying social work at McGill University, he joined the Centre de services sociaux Ville-Marie and founded the city’s first professional counselling service for LGBTQ people. Throughout his life, he was involved in numerous projects, including the Gay Line (now Interligne), the creation of Gay McGill (now Queer McGill) in 1972, and for several years with the Montreal Council to Aid War Resisters.

 

 

Scope and content:

 

The fonds contains a number of documents and pamphlets relating to homosexuality, (the lack of) health care specifically for homosexuals, the person of Bruce Garside and the activities of the Montreal Council to Aid War Resisters / Comité de Montréal d’aide aux objecteurs de conscience.

 

The fonds contains archives relating to photocopied publications or pamphlets, the Centre de services sociaux du Montréal Métropolitain (CSSMM), press cuttings mentioning or written by Bruce Garside and numerous letters, typescripts, communications, documents and publications relating to the Montreal Council to Aid War Resisters / Comité de Montréal d’aide aux objecteurs de conscience.

 

The fonds contains the following series:

 

  • AGQ-F0055/S1. Documents relating to the gay and lesbian liberation movement
  • AGQ-F0051/S2. Montreal Council to Aid War Resisters

 

 

Notes:

 

Source of title proper: Title based on the contents of the fonds.

 

Immediate source of acquisition: The fonds was transferred to the AGQ in 1995 by Miriam Green (acquisition 1995-21) and in 2024 by Laura Madokoro concerning the Montreal Council to Aid War Resisters (acquisition 2024-048).

 

Language: The files are in French and English.

 

Instrument de recherche : Inventaire numérique du fonds sous forme de fichier Excel.

 

Related groups of records in different fonds external to the unit being described: The AGQ holds the Librairie L’Androgyne/Androgyny Bookstore fonds (AGQ-F0005) and documents relating to the Montreal Council to Aid War Resisters (AGQ-F0107/S1 Fonds Michael Hendricks/René LeBoeuf).

 

 

Bibliography:

 

Burnett, Richard. “Héros et héroïnes disparu.e.s en 2024”. Fugues. 5 décembre 2024. Online.

 

Elawani, Ralph. “L’Androgyne: a gay place to be”. Lettres québécoises vol.178, p.40-42. [Interview with Bruce Garside and Will Aitken]. Online.

 

Obituaries. “Bruce Garside”. The Gazette. July 2, 2024. Online.

 

 

 

 

 

            Dernière modification : 2025-04-16