McGill Library
McLennan Library Building3459 rue McTavish
Montreal, Quebec
H3A 0C9
Sophy L. Elliott Fonds
Fonds
1.7 m of textual records
170 sketches
3 scrapbooks
170 photographs
120 negatives
Sophy L. Elliott, a well known Montreal writer, artist, lecturer, radio commentator and community activist, was born in Montreal in 1881 or 1882, and lived in the city most of her life. She studied music, however due to an illness, she turned to painting, and after a number of her paintings were exhibited in the Gallery of the Montreal Art Association. Her acquaintances included Mona Elliott, who served as a nurse in World War One. She was on the executive board of the Canadian Author’s Association and worked for fifteen years as newspaper person. She wrote for various magazines in Montreal and in England, authored historical articles, commentaries, and was also the fashion editor of the Montreal Star. While studying Canadian history she became interested in the role of women in the period of the French settlement along the St. Lawrence River. For example, she was the author and illustrator of the book Women Pioneers of North America (1941). Mrs. Elliott was the founder of the Canadian Women’s Army Corps during World War II. She died in 1963 in Montreal.
The fonds documents the role of an active, involved community leader, specifically with a focus in Montreal. The fonds consists of correspondence (1901-1962); undated manuscripts, poems and other writings; drafts of articles (including ‘Women Pioneers of North America’, ‘Saints, Sinners and Settlers’, ‘The Mock Marriage’); sketch books and loose sketches (charcoal, pencil, ink, and watercolor); newspaper clippings, scrapbooks, historical notes and Elliot’s collections of religious and tourism brochures and postcards. Significant is Sophy’s correspondence with her sister Mona Elliott, a nurse serving in a British unit during World War I and largely unidentified photographs of Mona Elliot of WWI hospital staff. Also included are volumes of The Beaver (“Canada’s Magazine of the North”).
The scrapbooks illustrate the emergence of the Women’s Volunteer Reserve Corps (known as the Canadian Beavers) in Montreal and Sophy Elliot’s association as acting commanding officer with the organization’s rank of major in 1940.
Photographs (portraits) of Sophy Elliot have been described as part of the University Archives photograph collection. Photographs of Elliot family and Mona Elliot’s WWI hospital remain with the textual records.
Accession 1992-0066 was transferred from Queen's University Archives on 9 October 1992. Accession 2006-0089 was transferred from the National Archive of Quebec on 17 May 2006.
Box Listing available
Handwritten and typescript