Research Guides: History: CRM406: Historical Criminology

CRM406: Historical Criminology

Welcome to this research guide for CRM406, Historical Criminology. Explore this site for contextual readings, resources, and tips for getting the most our of your research process. Try to make this guide part of all of your research processes this semester. Please do not hesitate to reach out for assistance on your research projects, after you have attempted your searches on our catalogue and in our databases.

Hart, E. I. Wake Up! Montreal! Commercialized Vice and Its Contributories. [Montreal]: The Witness Press, 1919.
Original pamphlet from the Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library, University of Toronto, via the Internet Archive.

Useful Resources

TMU Libraries subscribe to many databases ideal for historical analysis, which are accessible to the TMU Community.

Visit the Journals and Articles page for vital databases that contain information not available on Google or Omni.

The following databases may be of particular use for this course.

Criminal Justice Database
ProQuest Criminal Justice is a comprehensive database supporting research on crime, its causes and impacts, legal and social implications, as well as litigation and crime trends. As well as U.S. and international scholarly journals, it includes correctional and law enforcement trade publications, crime reports, crime blogs and other material relevant for researchers or those preparing for careers in criminal justice, law enforcement and related fields.
Criminal Justice & Criminology
The Criminal Justice & Criminology collection offers an historical overview of how criminal justice has changed in American and English law and the effect criminology has had in facilitating those changes. It collects government documents as well as rare or hard to find pamphlets, memoirs, and books written by ordinary law enforcement officers and not-so-famous criminals.

For help, refer to Criminal Justice & Criminology Libguide.
CriminalSource
CriminalSource is a WestLaw product. CriminalSource provides access to the largest collection of Canadian Criminal Cases and links directly to any section of the Criminal Code of Canada with CriminalSource™.
America : History & Life
America History and Life contains citations, with abstracts to social science and humanities literature on all aspects of U.S. and Canadian history, culture and current affairs from prehistoric times to the present.
Maximum of 6 simultaneous users.
Canadiana
Canadiana is a bilingual digital library of primary (source) documents of early Canadian printed publications including books, annuals and periodicals. Over 1,300 sources (including 350 titles from outside the U.S.) are indexed and abstracted. Of these, 600 are available in full text.

Formerly known as Early Canadiana Online.
Canadiana Heritage Project
The Héritage project is a 10-year initiative to digitize and make accessible online some of Canada’s most popular archival collections encompassing roughly 60 million pages of primary-source documents. Chronicling the country and its people from the 1600s to the mid-1900s, this collection represents a vast and unique resource for Canadian historians, students, and genealogists.
CPI.Q Canadian Periodicals Index
CPI.Q is Gale’s award-winning full-text resource specifically designed to provide instant access to the most requested Canadian reference materials. Covering a wide range of disciplines, CPI.Q is the perfect one-stop resource for researchers in need of information from Canadian-focused journals, magazines, newspapers and reference sources.

CPI.Q features a wealth of Canadian and international periodicals, Canada’s national newspaper The Globe and Mail, Maclean’s weekly magazine and Canadian News Facts as well as comprehensive encyclopedic reference material.
Canadian Business & Current Affairs Database (CBCA)
This database, with 600 full text titles, is the most comprehensive Canadian reference collection available today. Accessible to readers and researchers at every level, CBCA Complete features a highly-respected, diversified mix of publications, including scholarly journals, trade publications, dissertations, books, newspapers and magazines.

Archival and Current Newspapers (Canada focus)

ProQuest Historical Newspapers: Calgary Herald
The Calgary Herald is the largest and oldest daily newspaper in Alberta. Its first publication was as a mining and ranch weekly in 1883 at the height of Western Expansion and the Nation Building period. The coverage gives insight into Canadian history in the early 20th century and important reporting of international, national, provincial, and local events. Other notable coverage includes the first Calgary Stampede in 1912 and the development of the petroleum industry in Alberta and throughout Canada.
Coverage: 1883 - 2010
ProQuest Historical Newspapers: Globe and Mail
This historical newspaper provides genealogists, researchers and scholars with online, easily-searchable first-hand accounts and unparalleled coverage of the politics, society and events of the time.
Coverage: 1844 - 2021
ProQuest Historical Newspapers: Montreal Gazette
The Montreal Gazette is Montreal’s only surviving English language newspaper, as well as the oldest daily still in print in all of Canada. Originally founded as The Gazette, the paper offers much insight into Canadian history in the late 19th Century as well as important coverage of international, national, provincial, and local events. Coverage includes past events of current historical landmarks such as the Notre-Dame Basilica of Montreal, Saint Joseph’s Oratory of Mount Royal, and the Old Port of Montreal. The paper gives insight into the commercial, social, and cultural life of the future city of Montreal.
Coverage: 1785 - 2010
ProQuest Historical Newspapers: Toronto Star
This historical newspaper provides genealogists, researchers and scholars with online, easily-searchable first-hand accounts and unparalleled coverage of the politics, society and events of the time.
Coverage: 1894 - 2022
Canadian Newsstream
This database offers access to the full text of several Canadian newspapers from Canada's leading publishers. This full text database includes the complete available electronic backfile for most newspapers, providing full access to the articles, columns, editorials and features published in each. Some backfiles date as far back as the late 1970s.

Other suggested sources

Encyclopedias and dictionaries

These remain useful sources of quick information. In addition to free sources such as Wikipedia, consider some of our licensed electronic content from publishers such as Oxford University Press, as well as printed items.

Research Tip: When searching the online Dictionary of Canadian Biography, use the advanced search. Try searching distillers AND toronto; or, police AND toronto

Research Tip: When searching in the online Canadian Encyclopedia, you can discover articles about treatment of sexual minorities by searching: police raids

Sample searches:
drinking encyclopedias
canada biography dictionaries

Free Online Resources

Many books and journals that were published up to 1925 CE are in the public domain (no longer protected by local copyright laws) and available digitally from major sources such as the Internet Archive (https://archive.org/), the Hathi Trust, and from individual libraries, museums and archives via their digital collections.

Here is a sample search using the Internet Archive and keywords: prohibition ontario toronto
Sample search for a known title: The Black Candle by Emily F. Murphy (1922) Also available in reprint:

Here is a sample search using the Hathi Trust digital library, with parameters Full-text, and, Full view only and the search terms prostitution ontario toronto
The first result is this 1915 publication: Report of the Social survey commission, Toronto, presented to the City council, October 4th, 1915.

Useful Searches

An effective search can reduce stress and frustration, and will ensure you are able to get started on your reading and writing sooner.

For this course, you might think about the following searches to get you started. For guidance on using Omni, TMU's extensive catalogue, check out our 'starting your search' page. To find useful keywords, look for the terms used in some of the more prominent publications in the field. For example:

In his 1919 pamphlet Wake Up! Montreal!, author E.I. Hart identifies five "master evils."

The Cigarette
The Drug Habit (narcotics or "dope" such as opium and cocaine)
Gambling (including horse-racing, book-keeping, slot machines)
Drink (while acknowledging the legal sale of liquor and beer, also mentions boot-leggers and smuggling)
The Social Evil (prostitution and "white slavery"--what we today call human trafficking especially as applied to minors)

The author later comments on other matters: reformatories, penal institutions, and redemptive homes; dangers of public dance halls and movies; immodest dress.

Similarly, the author of The Report of the Social Survey Commission of Toronto (Toronto: Carswell, 1915) refers the the social evil in subcategories such as: houses of ill-fame, houses of assignation, prostitutes, prostitution, street soliciting, and massage parlors.
Other topics noted in the table of contents are: illicit sale of liquor, feeble-mindedness in relation to vice and recreational facilities, specifically dance halls, rinks, parks and summer amusement resorts, moving pictures, and theatres (burlesque houses, vaudeville houses, regular theatres).
These two publications give some suggestions for search terms that one might use in historic newspapers and other publications.

Some useful subject searches using Omni Browse Searching & Library of Congress Subject Heading:

Alcohol Law and legislation Canada History
Bars (Drinking establishments) Ontario
Canada Moral conditions [Omni, Advanced search, Subject contains ...]
Drinking of alcoholic beverages Ontario
Drug control Canada
Drug traffic Canada
Gambling Moral and ethical aspects Canada History
Gambling Ontario
Liquor laws Canada
Obscenity (Law) Canada
Police Ontario Toronto
Pornography Social aspects Canada
Prohibition Canada History
Prohibition Ontario History
Prostitution Ontario Toronto
Sex and law Canada
Sex and law Ontario Toronto
Social control Canada
Social legislation Canada History
Toronto (Ont.) Social conditions
Vice

Keyword search for name of a person

Topical searching using Omni, Advanced Search, Subject contains ...
illicit drugs canada
moral panic canada
prostitution history canada
vice control canada

Consider other additional keywords that might have been used in historic newspapers and other publications, and expand them using Boolean operators: obscene OR obscenity, gambling OR betting, prohibition OR illegal alcohol, arrest OR raid OR charge, "moral indignation" OR immorality, drugs OR narcotics, "vice squad".