Post No Bills: Toronto Street Posters from the 1950s to 1990s

Posters collected by Alan and Thomas Suddon

Photo: by Boris Spremo, 1978. Toronto Star Photograph Archive.

Published: December 6, 2021
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Introduction

The internet and social media have become key ways that we share information with our communities. In the 20th century, artists, activists and business owners hit the streets of Toronto with stacks of posters to get the word out. It was a time when utility poles, newspaper boxes and construction sites were the billboards of the people. This exhibit showcases highlights of posters collected by Alan and Thomas Suddon from the late 1950s to the early 1990s.

Posters are cheap to make and easy to distribute. Before the internet, they gave a voice to those who couldn't afford or access space in newspapers, radio or television. Each poster is created with the goal of attracting the eye — and the time or money — of passersby. They reflect trends and changes in graphic design and printing techniques. Together, these posters are a record of Toronto’s shifting politics, businesses and cultures throughout the second half of the 20th century. Which ones do you remember?

An in-person version of this exhibit was on display from April 8 to June 25, 2023 in the TD Gallery at Toronto Reference Library.

In this exhibit

Postering in Toronto

View vintage cookbooks and appliance catalogues.

Protests, Rallies & Civic Engagement

Browse menus of Toronto food spots from the 1900s and 2000s.

Entertainment & Events

Posters for concerts, dance nights, plays and live sports.

Local Businesses

Flyers of lost Toronto cinemas, restaurants and shops.

Postering in Toronto

Street posters have been a controversial issue in Toronto and other cities. Some see them as clutter and a source of property damage like graffiti and vandalism. Others consider them a protected form of free speech. Posters offer an outlet for individual or community expression in contrast to corporate signage and advertising.

Local businesses, promoters and activists fought for their right to put up posters in public spaces. In 1993, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled that postering was protected under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

A by-law regulating where citizens can display posters in public was adopted by Toronto City Council in 2010. It banned posters on hydro poles, bus shelters and parking meters. With few exceptions, posters are only to be put up on official city message boards. Violators face fines of up to $5,000.

Street Poster Advocacy

Black and white poster says This is a Poster It Has a Right To be Here in bold font. The background mimics spray paint.

1989 / A poster from a Toronto group named Citizens for Freedom of Expression, formed in support of the right to put up posters in public areas.

Simple poster in black and white titled Rev Ken Postering Trial Defence Benefit

1971 / Peterborough musician “Reverend Ken” Ramsden received a fine for postering. In 1993, he challenged it all the way to the Supreme Court of Canada. The Court ruled that the city’s by-law prohibiting all postering on public property was an unconstitutional violation of the right to freedom of expression.

Protest, Rallies & Civic Engagement

Cheap and accessible, posters have been a powerful tool for grassroots political organizing. Posters advertise demonstrations. They draw attention to injustice. They create dialogue.

These posters reveal some of the issues important to Torontonians in the late 20th century, including urban planning, the environment, racial justice and 2SLGBTQ+ rights. Which posters are of their time? Which ones remain relevant today?

1960s

A poster featuring an illustration and shape of a tent

1968 / In September 1968, University of Toronto undergraduates erected a “Tent City” across from Hart House to protest a shortage of student housing. For 11 days, about 25 students camped out. In the end, they were provided with other accommodations and the encampment was dismantled.

Black text advertises March – End the War in Vietnam.

1967 / This “March to End the War in Vietnam” was held at 2 pm at the U.S. Consulate on Saturday April 15, 1967. It was one of many protests against the American involvement in the war. Thousands of US war resisters fled to Canada in the 1960s and 1970s.

A poster featuring illustrated scribbles around the title in red ink reading What to do About the Rent Gouge & Housing Crisis

1969 / This forum on the high cost of rent and housing crisis included Regula Modlich. Modlich was an urban planner for over 30 years and in 1995 was awarded the Constance Hamilton Award for Women’s Equality by the City of Toronto.

Poster featuring handwritten and typed text. Header reads “How can Blacks in Toronto Escape.”

1969 / This rally was in support of the "Sir George Williams Affair." Six Black students accused a professor at Sir George Williams University in Montreal of discrimination. A campus building was occupied by 200 students in protest of administrative inaction. Police intervened forcefully and the building was set on fire. 97 people were arrested.

Poster includes text in both English and Chinese. with title reading Help Save Chinatown

1969 / The Save Chinatown Committee was led by Jean Lumb who successfully opposed efforts to tear down the neighbourhood and replace it with high-rise apartments and office buildings. This flyer asks local residents and supporters to attend a Toronto City Council meeting.

1970s

A poster featuring an illustrated carved pumpkin and large blocks of text

1977 / Operation Jack O’ Lantern was a support and protection group for Toronto’s gay community formed in 1979. It countered violence during popular Halloween drag balls. Teams of volunteers patrolled the area, escorted people at risk of violence and handed out educational leaflets.

A poster featuring a white police officer holding a gun. A Black man with a target on his back faces a wall.

1975 / This poster highlights the issues of police brutality and anti-Black racism.

A typewritten poster with handwritten title featuring an illustrated symbol for male and female.

1972 / The C.H.A.T. (Community Homophile Association of Toronto) Centre opened in 1972. This poster advertises the semi-annual Transsexual Seminar organized by The Association for Canadian Transsexuals. C.H.A.T. disbanded in 1977, but a number of LBTQ2S+ rights groups were formed in its wake, including Toronto Gay Action and the Lesbian Organization of Toronto.

A poster advertising a “Public Meeting” features a photograph of Denis Banks holding a rifle.

1975 / Dennis Banks (1937–2017; Ojibway name: Nowacumig) was a Native American activist who helped lead an armed occupation of Wounded Knee, South Dakota in 1973 to protest treaties broken by the American government. In 1975, he spoke at University of Toronto about a similar occupation of Anicinabe Park, near Kenora, Ontario.

Poster features a modified illustration of a queen of hearts playing card.

1979 / International Women’s Day was marked in Toronto in 1979 by a rally and demonstration between Convocation Hall at University of Toronto and City Hall, and a celebration at St. Paul's Avenue Road United Church.

1980s

A poster with illustrations of people with sunglasses that read "Choice."

1983 / This Right to Choose Rally at City Hall featured guest speaker Dr. Henry Morgentaler. Morgentaler (1923–2013) was a Canadian doctor and advocate for birth control and abortion rights. In 1988 he successfully challenged the constitutionality of the federal abortion law at the Supreme Court of Canada.

A poster with an illustration of a pixelated dinosaur and text reading Screw this Death Trip Interested in Nonviolent Change Step into the Green Future

1987 / This leaflet encourages people to get involved with a network of environmental and pacifist groups named Green Future.

A poster featuring a stencil of a fist in black, brown, red and yellow and text reading Unity wears many colours, racism wears sheets ban the klan

1981 / This poster may have been related to actions taken that year by the Riverdale Action Committee Against Racism. The group sought to drive the Ku Klux Klan, the white supremacist hate group, out of Toronto. They organized a march and rally past the Klan’s offices on Dundas Street East

A poster with an illustration of a band playing in hazmat suits with a nuclear power plant in the background and text reading the April 26 Coalition for a Sane Energy Future Anti-Nuke benefit concert

1980 / Environmental groups have opposed nuclear power plants and the radioactive waste they produce since they were first built in the 1950s. This 1980 concert may have been in opposition to Darlington Nuclear Generating Station, which began construction in 1981.

1990s

A hand-written poster featuring photos of James Brown.

1990 / Singer James Brown (1933–2006) was sentenced to six years in prison in 1988. He was arrested after refusing to stop his car for police and ramming two of their cars during the chase that followed. He was paroled in 1991 and pardoned by the state of South Carolina in 2003.

Poster features text only. with title 14 Women Massacred in Montreal

1990 / In 1989, 14 women were murdered by a gunman at École Polytechnique during what has become known as the Montreal Massacre. The organization Women Won’t Forget continues to commemorate their memory and protest male violence against women during annual Days of Action and Remembrance.

A poster featuring a Nazi symbol within a circle-backslash symbol and the title Confront the Heritage Front

1993 / The Heritage Front (HF) was a Canadian neo-Nazi hate group founded in 1989 and disbanded in 2005. In 1993 members of the Toronto branch of Anti-Racist Action (ARA) protested outside the home of a HF spokesperson, which was followed by an attack on ARA members outside Toronto bar and concert venue Sneaky Dee’s.

A poster with an illustration of people in an upside-down triangle shattering another surface.

1992 / On November 29, 1992, Yves Lalonde was murdered in Montreal by four neo-Nazi skinheads. His killing followed the murders of at least 14 gay men during the previous four years. It led to protests throughout Canada against homophobia and highlighted the Montreal police department’s failure to solve many of the crimes.

Entertainment & Events

Toronto's many cultural events start to fade from memory after they are over. Bands disappear. Venues close. Posters are a physical record of these otherwise ephemeral performances and spaces. For the city's vibrant independent music, theatre and arts communities, posters were a low-cost way of getting the word out. Pre-internet, posters were how you found out what was happening.

The Suddon Collection documents a huge range of concerts, dance nights, plays, sporting events and spectacles. Did you attend any of these events?

Concerts & Nightlife

Poster is a minimalist playbill advertising “R&B Dance” for “Exclusive Teen and Twenty Club” in a bold red font.

1964 / The Matador was an after-hours club which originally opened in 1964. It hosted live concerts every weekend from 1:30 to 5: am. k.d. lang and Leonard Cohen (whose song “Closing Time” was a tribute to the club) both filmed music videos there. The Matador closed in 2010.

Poster features a psychedelic illustration of a train traveling down railway tracks, with the name of artists performing below.

1970 / The Transcontinental Pop Festival was staged in three Canadian cities (Toronto, Winnipeg and Calgary) during the summer of 1970. Many of the musical acts on the bill traveled across the country on a chartered Canadian National Railroad train, as documented in the 2003 film Festival Express.

Poster includes an illustration of a wolf walking in the snow below a night sky and the Nothern Lights. Header at top reads “Benefit Concert” with the names of performers Willie Dunn, Jay Mason, Shingoose, Paul Ritchie and Dan Commanda listed below.

1969 / Willie Dunn (1941–2003) was a Canadian singer-songwriter and activist of mixed Mi’kmaq and Scottish/Irish ancestry. He used his music to call attention to Indigenous issues, including performing at this 1969 event in support of the North American Indian Movement.

Poster shows two men and a woman playing the guitar, djembe and tambourine

1987 / The BamBoo restaurant and nightclub was a linchpin of the flourishing Queen West arts and music scene during the 1980s and 1990s. Toronto artist Barbara Klunder designed many of the club’s posters, murals and artwork which helped shape its distinctive and eclectic visual identity.

Poster has a photograph of a man in a suit wearing a fedora and holding a submachine gun kicking down a door. The band name, concert details and venue name appear handwritten in black marker.

1980 / Queen Street’s Horseshoe Tavern has been a live music mainstay since 1947. Stark Naked and The Fleshtones were one of the city’s top punk acts before they broke up in 1985. In 2011, two of the original members reformed the band and released their first (and only) album.

Poster for “M.C. Rap Contest” includes a variety of font styles in bright green along with a photograph of the rap group Run D.M.C.

1987 / Long before Drake or The Weeknd became international stars, Toronto’s hip-hop scene was more underground. This 1986 open mike challenge took place in Parkdale. New York City’s Run D.M.C., rap’s first superstars, were featured on the poster but not at the concert.

Photocopied poster for benefit event shows 5 people from the back, waist-down. They are wearing fishnets, torn jeans, and stockings.

1991 / Denise Benson is a DJ, radio host and author of the 2015 book Then & Now: Toronto Nightlife History. The Boom Boom Room was a notoriously decadent Queen West club which featured cages and a hot tub on the dance floor.

Arts & Culture

Poster for the Village Revue features an illustration of a person's face superimposed over an atomic blast.

1962 / The Bohemian Embassy was one of Toronto’s hippie and beatnik-era coffee houses. It featured poetry readings, concerts and theatre productions, including popular annual “Village Revues.” Sylia Fricker, later one-half of the Canadian country and folk music duo Ian & Sylvia, got her start at the Bohemian Embassy.

Poster for “Psychodelia ‘67” features photobooth pictures of three men posing individually and in pairs. Details for “the soul a go-go show of the year” appear at bottom.

1967 / El Matador was another Toronto coffee house. It was favoured by members of the Vagabonds biker gang, who coexisted uneasily with the more bohemian Yorkville crowd. El Matador was also a popular spot for LSD dealers, folk singers and others with an anti-establishment attitude.

Poster for “Evening in Trinidad & Tobago” includes a photograph of La Petite Musicale, and lists other events details in bold red font.

1969 / The Caribbean musical group La Petite Musicale of Toronto celebrated its 50th anniversary in 2019. Some in the group had been members of the original La Petite Musicale in Trinidad & Tobago before immigrating to Canada.

Poster with a photograph of four women holding torches in front of a black backdrop.

1976 / The Torch Showcase was a performance of 14 songs by Carole Pope, Brenda Donahue, Dianne Lawrence and Suzette Couture. It was curated by Robert Handforth, artistic director of Toronto gallery A Space. Carole Pope later became famous as half of the new wave rock group Rough Trade.

Poster features name of festival in bold back text over a background photograph of naked people walking through snow.

1972 / Meskanow was a festival of free music, film, theatre, lectures and a craft and food market at University of Toronto financed by a grant project named Opportunities for Youth. Critics called it “Son Of Wacheea,” after a controversial tent city project from the previous year ended with the university calling the police to remove “squatters” from the site.

Poster for “One Eye Love” features psychedelic patterns in a spectrum of colours.

1968 / Victor Coleman is a Toronto-born poet who is considered a key figure in the rise of Canadian small-press publishing during the 20th century. He was also the first head editor of Coach House Press, which was founded in 1965 and continues to publish innovative print books.

Poster for “Women of Substance (A Satirical Fight Back by Big Women)” includes halftone photographs of members of the Thunder Thigh Review and Lillian Allen printed on yellow paper.

1987 / Prolific dub poet, musician, activist and writer Lillian Allen was born in Jamaica in 1951 and moved to Canada in 1969. After settling in Toronto she released her first recording in 1983. She continues to perform, lecture and lead workshops about culture, diversity and artistic collaboration around the world.

Poster is shaped like a triangle and printed on bright pink paper. It features people posing within the letters "QUEER".

1991 / Buddies In Bad Times was founded in 1979. It is recognized as the largest and longest-running queer theatre company in the world. Queer Culture was a 1991 programming series incorporating theatre, dance and art and photography exhibits.

Arts & Culture

Poster features photographs of six of the boxers who fought in this event. Fighters' names and event details appear in red and black text.

1977 / This Canadian Heavyweight Championship fight between Toronto’s George Chuvalo and "Cowboy" Earl McLeay only lasted two minutes and 44 seconds. It ended with a knockout: Chuvalo punching McLeay through the ropes. Chuvalo fought Muhammad Ali twice and lost both times, but Ali called him “the toughest guy I ever fought.”

Poster for “Double Connection” features an illustration of a spaceship and photographs of “The Broadway Dancer” and the McNamara brothers.

1981 / Mick and Martin McNamara were identical twins and martial artists who aspired to become Canada’s first kung fu movie stars. In 1986 they starred inTwin Dragon Encounter. They also owned and operated a number of martial arts schools across Ontario and promoted professional kickboxing competitions.

1988 / In 1988, a bobsled team from Jamaica qualified for the Winter Olympics for the first time. Their underdog status led to a great deal of interest and popularity, including this benefit concert at Toronto’s El Mocambo.

Poster features photographs of Dave Saunders performing a number of different magic tricks.

1978 / David “The Wizard of Ott” Saunders was an Ottawa-area magician and teacher who performed for audiences across Canada for many years. He mentored aspiring magicians and was a member of several international magician organizations.

Local Businesses

Postering is a cheap and effective way to promote sales and store openings. Many small Toronto businesses can't afford a television spot or a billboard. But they can blanket their neighbourhoods with posters and flyers. Local and targeted, posters reach potential customers where they live and work.

The Suddon Collection includes flyers for lost Toronto cinemas, restaurants and retail shops.

Movie Theatres

Poster for “Special Saturday Midnite Show” of “An Evening with Karloff” features an illustration of the head of Boris Karloff as Frankenstein.

1971 / In 1919, the Allen chain of movie theatres opened a hall at 147 Danforth Avenue. In 1929, it became known as the Century, and in 1970, it was renamed the Titania. The Titania featured a mix of B-movies and horror films. Today it is the site of the Danforth Music Hall.

Poster for I'll Kill Him and Return Alone with portrait of a man with a gun and a western scene of men on horseback. Text is in Italian.

1971 / Radio City opened near Bathurst and St. Clair Avenue West in 1936. It featured a mix of English and Italian movies and live theatre. Radio City had seating for up to 836. It was demolished in 1975.

Poster for the Snuff Bottle Connection features people in different fighting stances.

1978 / The Standard, opened at Dundas and Spadina in 1921, was Toronto’s main Yiddish theatre. In 1961 it became the Victory, a concert venue and Toronto’s last burlesque theatre. In 1975 it changed to the Golden Harvest, which featured Chinese-language films until it closed in 1994.

Books & Record Stores

A poster featuring lettering in black ink on a white background.

1979 / Honest Ed’s, a Toronto institution from 1948 to 2016, was well known for its discount housewares, toys and groceries. In the 1970s it also had a record department. This flyer features the distinctive handwritten font and puns of Honest Ed’s advertising.

A poster with an illustration of a person holding a vinyl record, while a line of floating records disappears into a celestial background in the figure’s head.

1968 / Advertising often reflects the spirit of the times. This 1968 poster for the opening of A New Record Store on Mount Pleasant Road evokes the psychedelic, mind-expanding vibe of the hippie era.

A poster with an illustration of a spacecraft.

1973 / Bakka (now known as Bakka-Phoenix) Books opened on Queen Street West in 1972. It is Canada’s oldest bookshop dedicated to fantasy and science fiction literature. It also originally stocked comic books, but that part of the business separated and became another Toronto retail institution: The Silver Snail.

A poster featuring an illustration of a phoenix rising from the flames.

1983 / Until its closure in 2012, the Toronto Women’s Bookstore was Canada’s largest non-profit, feminist bookstore. In 1983 it was damaged when anti-abortion terrorists attempted to firebomb Henry Morgentaler’s clinic located next door. This fire sale raised enough money to keep it in business and re-open on Harbord Street.

Restaurants

A poster for Tiger’s restaurant in Kensington Market featuring an illustration of a man wearing a hat.

1983 / This popular Kensington spot known for cheap piña coladas was opened by Eric Vernon (Tiger) Armstrong Jr. in 1976. Tiger had previously opened the city’s first calypso club in 1960 where he performed under the name Lord Power.

A poster featuring an illustration of a streetcar named Desire and a frying pan below it.

1978 / When the Toronto Transit Commission started retiring the streetcar fleet which had been in service since 1938, La Pentola bought one of them and converted it into a dining lounge. It was complete with velvet curtains and a cocktail bar replacing the spot where the driver originally sat

A poster features a listing of menu items from Mothers with lavish illustrations of palm trees, men, women and cherubs.

1972 / Mothers Sandwich Shop specialized in Italian-style subs and hoagies. They offered delivery by a luxuriously remodeled Volkswagen Beetle to promote the restaurant’s claim that it sold “The Rolls-Royce of Submarines.” The original sign from the restaurant was still visible outside the building as late as 2019.

Retail & Curious Companies

A poster titled “Crazy David for Mayor” with a photograph of a man with long hair and beard.

1971 / “Crazy” David Keller was a member of a rock band from Alabama named The Preachers before he opened this shop in Yorkville. He later opened a t-shirt store on Yonge Street which by 1973 was making over four million dollars a year in sales.

A poster for Joyce’s West Indies Food advertising “the largest stock of West Indian Foods in Ontario”. It features a black and white portrait of a woman and is printed on blue paper.

1974 / Carmel Elias and Joyce Shoucair moved to Canada from Jamaica during the 1960s. The couple ran this grocery store across from Bathurst Station specializing in Jamaican food and wares. It was a meeting place and hub for the Jamaican-Canadian community in Toronto until Joyce’s death in 2007.

A poster for Toxic featuring a monkey wearing a scuba suit and strapped to a chair. Text reads “What type of people shop at Toxic?”

1980 / During the late 1970s and early 1980s, Queen St. West was the centre of Toronto’s punk, goth and new wave scenes. This 1980 poster for a store named Toxic reflects this offbeat, alternative spirit.

A poster featuring instruments around a family crest or coat of arms. Printed on yellow paper.

1981 / John Ferth opened the Recorder Centre in 1976. It specialized in the medieval wind instrument that many Canadian children learned in school. The Recorder Center operated for over 35 years. After Ferth’s retirement in 2013, two classically-trained musicians took over the shop and moved it to Quebec.

A poster for the Toronto Ride Centre asks “Tired of hitchhiking? Flying too expensive? We have an alternative.” It is illustrated with a car full of luggage.

1975 / It might be hard to believe now, but hitchhiking was once a very popular way for people to get around. Sort of like an early Uber, this 1975 poster offered customers a car-pooling alternative to hitchhiking and air travel to anywhere in North America.

A poster for Home Video Delivery featuring an illustration of a house and video reel tape.

1983 / Today streaming services allow customers to watch movies on demand without leaving their homes. This 1983 poster advertises a new delivery business for customers who wanted to avoid the hassle of traveling to the video store. There was at least one other movie delivery company in Toronto, named Video-Van-Gogh.

About the Alan and Thomas Suddon Collection

Alan Suddon and his son Thomas wandered the streets of Toronto, focusing on the downtown core and the Annex neighbourhood, in search of posters to add to their collection. The Suddons would carefully remove and store each one. Many are rare. Ephemeral in nature, if not preserved, the posters would otherwise be covered up by other posters, or torn down and thrown in the trash.

Alan Suddon worked for Toronto Public Library for 45 years before retiring in 1987. He also collected historic clothing and was the head of the Costume Society of Ontario. Thomas Suddon, a researcher who worked at Maclean’s magazine, CBC, and TVO, passed away in 1992.

Alan’s widow Mary donated the collection of approximately 5,000 posters to Toronto Public Library shortly after Alan’s death in 2000. The collection is now housed at Toronto Reference Library in our Baldwin Collection of Canadiana and can be accessed in person by appointment.

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Post No Bills: Toronto Street Posters from the 1950s to 1990s

Introduction

In this exhibit

Postering in Toronto

Protests, Rallies & Civic Engagement

Entertainment & Events

Local Businesses

Postering in Toronto

Street Poster Advocacy

Protest, Rallies & Civic Engagement

1960s

1970s

1980s

1990s

Entertainment & Events

Concerts & Nightlife

Arts & Culture

Arts & Culture

Local Businesses

Movie Theatres

Books & Record Stores

Restaurants

Retail & Curious Companies

About the Alan and Thomas Suddon Collection

More posters from the Suddon Collection

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Copyright & feedback

About the Library

Governance, Strategy & Accountability

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