Explore Our Exhibits

The Women Unite exhibit is an oral history initiative documenting key “moments” of activism in the women’s movement in Toronto from the 1970s to the 1990s. With financial support from the Department of Heritage and Community Programs, we have conducted over 25 video interviews with activists, adding new depth to the publications, documents, posters, buttons, photos, films and songs already in the Rise Up archive. The videos enrich our existing archival collection by giving users the opportunity to put faces to names as well as to hear about key moments in feminist history from the activists who made it happen. 

Through this exhibition of archival materials, you can explore the history of international solidarity in Canada’s feminist movement. The timeline highlights just some of the many events, organizations, and issues pertaining to international solidarity organizing within intersecting movement spaces from the 1970s to 1990s — from the Indochinese Women’s Conferences in 1971, to solidarity with South African women under apartheid, to local organizing by diasporic women.

Though the feminist movement is not often seen as having environmental justice as its top priority, there has been significant overlap between feminist activism and environmental activism, as well as Indigenous land defense struggles. In their campaigns for gender equity, peace, and women’s health and safety, feminists have undertaken environmental justice issues. This exhibition pulls together some of the materials in our archive that speak to this theme.

This exhibit gathers a selection of materials related to women’s experiences of and activism around disability and health, including items on the advocacy group DisAbled Women’s Network (DAWN) and the feminist periodical Healthsharing. The exhibit aims to create a space on Rise Up!’s archive to easily access some of these materials and to highlight the women’s disability activism that took place between the 1970s-1990s in Canada. 

This exhibit features items documenting women’s influence and involvement in labour movement — one of the most prominent themes in our collection. We offer union magazines; working women’s groups magazines; posters and documents from the Canadian Autoworkers, the Canadian Labour Congress and other labour bodies; and more. Also included in this exhibit are materials pertaining to specific strike actions like the Eaton’s Strike and the Fleck strike.

This exhibit features a few highlights from our many archival materials on the movement for abortion and reproductive rights in Canada throughout the 70s, 80s, and 90s. The items chart the successful decriminalization of abortion and subsequent battles for funding, access, and constitutional rights.

This exhibit includes select items representing Black feminist activism from the 1970s to 1990s, shedding light on the beginnings of several prominent Black women’s organizations in Canada. The materials in this collection also reflect emerging approaches to intersectionality during this era.

This exhibit features a selection of documents, films, posters, and buttons regarding violence against women as well as anti-violence organizing across multiple communities.