Business Records: The Canadian Scene

Abstract

speaking of historical manuscripts I have used the term to include business records and the private papers of businessmen. Canada has not any great number of business records, though the importance of this type of material was recognized early by archivists. Historians in Canada, especially in the 19th century, were preoccupied with political history. The reason, no doubt, stems from the fact that few business records were available in 19th-century Canada. Not that there weren't businesses, for there were. But Canada's basic large businesses were shipping, shipbuilding, lumbering, milling, distilling, fishing, and banking. These firms were still growing, taking over small fry and in no mood to make public all the details of their business. At the local level were the blacksmith, the miller, the brickmaker, the shoemaker, the country store, the innkeeper. The records of such small trades were generally ignored by the historian and by the local historical society. Not until after the turn of the century was there rapid industrialization, and then it was concentrated in Ontario and Quebec. We get some inkling of an awakened interest in business records from the first report issued by the Bureau of Archives of Ontario for 1903. The Archivist writes :