| | LEVEL OF DESCRIPTION: | Fonds | | No.: | PR0904 | | TITLE: | Iris Allan fonds | | CREATOR: | Allan, Iris | | DATE RANGE: | 1935-1986 | | EXTENT: | 0.17 m of textual records. – 7 photographs. – 2 maps | | ADMINISTRATIVE | | HISTORY/BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH: | Iris Constance Allan was born in 1910 in Stratford, Ontario, the youngest daughter of Robert and Mabel (MacDonald) Sommerville, and sister to Winnipeg, Manitoba author Nan Shipley. She was primarily raised in Transcona, Manitoba, and later moved to Edmonton, Alberta. She married Robert Fredrick Allan. She wrote a column in the Edmonton Journal entitled “The Third Column,” and later wrote extensively about western Canadian history, which she primarily aimed at school-aged children. Her works include Boy in Buckskins: The Early Life of John McDougall (1959), John Rowand, fur trader: A Story of the Old Northwest (1963), Wop May: bush pilot (1966), Young Fur Trader (1966, for the Edmonton Public School Board), White Sioux: Major Walsh of the Mounted Police (1969), and Mother and her Family (1977). In 1979, Iris Allan received an Alberta Achievement Award for Literature. | | SCOPE AND CONTENT: | The fonds consists of the records regarding Iris Allan’s career as an author and includes draft manuscripts; scripts; research materials; articles; correspondence; scrapbooks of her writing, newspaper clippings, photographs and correspondence tracing her life and career; and two commemorative historical maps of Edmonton and Strathcona, Alberta. | | ARRANGEMENT NOTE: | Some of the records from PR1980.160 have been incorporated into the Information Files located in the Provincial Archives of Alberta Reference Library. See the Henry Bird Steinhauer Information file for the records. | | ASSOCIATED MATERIAL: | The records of Iris Allan’s sister, Nan Shipley, can be found at the University of Manitoba Archives & Special Collections, Winnipeg, Manitoba, and include the correspondence of the sisters. | | GENERAL NOTE: | Information for the biographical sketch is from the records and from Mother and her Family, which is located in the Provincial Archives of Alberta Reference Library, 920.72 AL52m.
One photograph can be found in the A file under the number A.12884.
| | RELATED ITEMS: | A12884 (Women authors)
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