The Society in print elsewhere
← The Society · what newspapers, magazines, books and other archives printed about the Society
What others printed about the Society while it was active: trade papers, magazines, books, newspapers and the records of other bodies, each with the place it can be read. Newspaper reports about individual members are on those members’ own pages.
The first years, 1952–1953
Leather and Shoes, 14 June 1952, reported that the newly formed Society had launched a travelling exhibition of fifty handmade belts, wallets, gloves, writing cases, luggage and other leather goods, to be shown through Ontario and Quebec (<a href="https://archive.org/details/sim_leather-and-shoes_1952-06-14_123_23">Internet Archive</a>).
Foreign Trade, the Department of Trade and Commerce’s magazine, listed among Canadian exhibits abroad in 1952 a collection of hand-tooled shoes made by members of the Society, “an organization formed a short time ago” (<a href="https://archive.org/details/canada-commerce_july-december-1952_12">Internet Archive</a>).
Saturday Night, 24 January 1953, described Reta Larmour taking a travelling exhibit around the country for the Society, and her husband, Dr. R. K. Larmour, become practically an authority on dyeing leather (<a href="https://archive.org/details/sim_saturday-night_1953-01-24_68_16">Internet Archive</a>).
The Peterborough Examiner, 28 March 1953, announced the Society’s travelling exhibition, Canadian Handmades in Leather, at the Peterborough Public Library on 1 April, sponsored by the city’s Recreation Commission; its photograph of the show names Mrs. Rita Larmour of Toronto as the exhibition’s chairman (<a href="https://archive.org/details/1953-03-18-1953-04-10">Internet Archive, the paper of 18 March to 10 April 1953</a>).
The Whyte Museum of the Canadian Rockies, Banff, keeps a file of leathercraft correspondence, 1952–1953, in the Jim and Dorothy Boyce fonds (M250 / I / 78), about classes in Banff; it names the Society beside Mumart Studios of Creative Leathercraft and the Ontario Department of Education’s Community Programmes Branch (<a href="https://archives.whyte.org/en/permalink/descriptions23202">Whyte Museum</a>).
Library and Archives Canada holds a file headed “Canadian Society of Creative Leathercraft”, 1953–1956, in the fonds of the Canadian Conference of the Arts (MG28-I189, volume 27), open for consultation in Ottawa (<a href="https://recherche-collection-search.bac-lac.gc.ca/eng/Home/Record?app=fonandcol&IdNumber=4758087">Library and Archives Canada</a>).
In The Leather Craftsman, 1956–1961
The American magazine The Leather Craftsman listed the Society among the leathercraft guilds of North America in some twenty-five issues from its first, November–December 1956, as “a national association of local branches and individual members”. It also reported a return visit by the Society’s members to the Rochester Guild (<a href="https://archive.org/details/sim_make-it-with-leather_march-april-1957_1_3">March–April 1957</a>), the Society among the guilds at the third International Assembly of Leather Craftsmen (<a href="https://archive.org/details/sim_make-it-with-leather_july-august-1957_1_5">July–August 1957</a>), Robert Muma as one of its founders (<a href="https://archive.org/details/sim_make-it-with-leather_january-february-1958_2_2">January–February 1958</a>), Fred Brown as its President, in a Hamilton Spectator photograph (<a href="https://archive.org/details/sim_make-it-with-leather_july-august-1958_2_5">July–August 1958</a>), and a regional meeting at Vineland, Ontario, in the Society’s charge with the Hamilton Guild as host (<a href="https://archive.org/details/sim_make-it-with-leather_january-february-1961_5_2">January–February 1961</a>).
Books
The Arts in Canada (1958), in A. T. Galt Durnford’s pages on the crafts, says that the Society “has sought by exhibition and display to improve public taste”, and names Endel Ruberg among the craftsmen it drew in (p. 158).
A Heritage of Canadian Handicrafts (1967) reports from Mrs. Robert Muma, then the Society’s President, active guilds at Barrie, London, Hamilton, Belleville and Toronto (p. 141).
A Fine Line: studio crafts in Ontario from 1930 to the present (1998) dates the Society to 1950, its quarterly bulletin to the next year and its first travelling exhibition to the year after, and credits Robert Muma with forming it (pp. xii, 154).
Exhibitions, reports and grants
The Art Gallery of Ontario’s Circulating Exhibition Catalogue 1968–69 lists “Leather Today”, assembled by the Society with a grant from the Community Programs Division of the Ontario Department of Education (<a href="https://archive.org/details/circulatingexhibit00ago">Internet Archive</a>).
Ontario’s Select Committee on the Utilization of Educational Facilities named the Society’s London and Woodstock branches in its interim (1973) and final (1975) reports (<a href="https://archive.org/details/interimrepor00onta">interim report</a>; <a href="https://archive.org/details/finalreportofsel1975onta">final report</a>).
The Globe and Mail’s Diary of 3 July 1984 listed an exhibit by the Estonian Art Centre and the Society at the Scarborough Civic Centre, until August: the summer of Leather ’84.
The Ontario Arts Council’s annual reports record grants to the Society’s branches: to Woodstock, $3,500 in 1984–85, $2,250 in 1985–86 and $2,958 in 1986–87; to Hamilton, $3,000 in 1987–88 (<a href="https://archive.org/details/micro_IA40243210_0803">1984–85</a>; <a href="https://archive.org/details/micro_IA40243212_1970">1985–86</a>; <a href="https://archive.org/details/micro_IA40243217_0347">1986–87</a>; <a href="https://archive.org/details/micro_IA40243223_0020">1987–88</a>).
The Ontario Crafts Council’s annual report for 1987–88 names Madeleine Mitchell for the Society in its list of member organisations’ representatives (<a href="https://archive.org/details/micro_IA40243218_0372">Internet Archive</a>).
The Toronto Star’s listings of 12 March 1989 announced the Society’s annual general meeting, 5–7 May, at the Nottawasaga Inn near Alliston.
The Norland members in the Haliburton County Echo, 1978–1984
The Haliburton County Echo followed the Norland members: the new group’s affiliation with the Society (<a href="https://archive.org/details/Haliburton-County-Newspaper-Haliburton-County-Echo-1978-11-01.0045">1 November 1978</a>); a visit to the leathercraftsman Tom Spatfore at Coe Hill (<a href="https://archive.org/details/Haliburton-County-Newspaper-Haliburton-County-Echo-1978-11-22.0048">22 November 1978</a>); Hilda Chynoweth’s two craftsman awards at the Society’s convention in Belleville, 18–20 April 1980 (<a href="https://archive.org/details/Haliburton-County-Newspaper-Haliburton-County-Echo-1980-05-07.0019">7 May 1980</a>); Hope Drysdale, the Society’s President, teaching cuir bouilli at the Norland Community Hall (<a href="https://archive.org/details/Haliburton-County-Newspaper-Haliburton-County-Echo-1980-09-24.0039">24 September 1980</a>); a tea and bake sale (<a href="https://archive.org/details/Haliburton-County-Newspaper-Haliburton-County-Echo-1983-05-18.0070">18 May 1983</a>); and seven members at the 34th annual convention in Woodstock (<a href="https://archive.org/details/Haliburton-County-Newspaper-Haliburton-County-Echo-1984-04-25.0016">25 April 1984</a>).
Where the Society’s own newsletter is kept
Library and Archives Canada holds part of the run of Canadian Leathercraft: the issues of 2016 to 2023 online, and a catalogue record of the first issue, 1951. The whole surviving run is in this archive.
Lær, Sko og Skinn, Norway, 2009–2024
Lær, Sko og Skinn (“Leather, Shoe and Skin”), an independent Norwegian craft magazine, has followed the Society since 2009, mostly through its editor Alf Bjørnar Luneborg (a Member at Large) and the Society's own Madeleine Mitchell. Nine of its pages are set out in full: CSCL in Lær, Sko og Skinn, No. 1, 2015.
That issue's own visit to Canada (pages 8–9) found Tundra Leather Shop, Hamilton, Sean Dalgetty's boots (taught by Paul Kitchener), and, through Paul Kitchener, Nasser Vies's Bespoked Shoe workshop, where Eugene Pik joined the group; a leather-carved ship panel there by the Toronto artist Len Zinn; a ten-question interview with Rex Lingwood on his work in cuir bouilli (pages 14–15 and attachment); a necklace by Peter Main owned by Linda Courtney of Toronto (page 19); the Society's annual general meeting of 2 May 2015, recording Eugene Pik's advancement to Associated member (page 27); and a Garry Greenwood boot sculpture at the Bata Shoe Museum (page 28).
Alf Bjørnar Luneborg's own index of the magazine's coverage of the Society, 2000–2026 (private communication, 24 October 2026), lists further notices and articles the Society's own papers do not otherwise hold: a notice of its 60th anniversary (No. 2, 2009, and No. 1–2, 2010, text and photographs by Madeleine Mitchell); an article about the Society (No. 1, 2011, Madeleine Mitchell); notices (Nos. 1 and 2, 2012); the “Creative Versability” exhibition (No. 1, 2013, Madeleine Mitchell); the Annual Weekend (Nos. 1 and 2, 2014, Madeleine Mitchell); a review of the Society (No. 1, 2016); a notice of the Canadian Bookbinders and Book Artists' “Art of the Book” show (No. 1–2, Christmas 2017); the cancellation of the Society's 70th annual meeting for the coronavirus (No. 1–2, 2020); and the Society's annual virtual competition (No. 1, 2024, text and photographs by Lauch Harrison).
Published with the permission of Alf Bjørnar Luneborg, the magazine's editor and publisher, whose English-language site is <a href="http://www.euroleather.no">euroleather.no</a>.
Each entry names where it can be read. The archive has not reproduced these pages; short quotations only.