What’s in a name? A historian might answer ‘a very great deal’. Names of organisations can be extraordinary signifiers of period, place, performance and personalities. The ‘Imperial Order of the Daughters of the Empire’ speaks volumes in its four principal words. It is redolent of an era, symbolising as it does not just a complete ideology but also a notable iconography. Cartoonists in the nineteenth century rejoiced in depicting Britannia as the imperial mother surrounded by her colonial daughters. The founders of the IODE (as it later became in an apparent acknowledgement of significant changes in resonance) must have been...

In 1978 the Imperial Order Daughters of the Empire, an organization of Canadian women founded in 1900 and still in existence, changed its name to ‘just IODE’, an often used informal abbreviation. As one member put it: ‘IODE really doesn’t stand for anything.’¹ That was the hope of publicity officers at national headquarters in Toronto, who initiated the name change keen to overcome what they perceived to be the unwelcome connotations of ‘empire’. The now peculiar and elusive name conjures up faint memories and suspected intrigue, with little actually known of the IODE and its vital place in twentieth-century imperial...

The IODE began as it would continue: on a footing of attack and defence, amid a climate of patriotism fuelled by the South Africa War (1899–1901). Margaret Clark Murray, a sometime journalist, philanthropist and wife of an influential McGill professor, returned to Montreal from London, where she had experienced much pro-war jingoism, and decided to act on the public outpourings of Anglo-Canadian patriotism that she sensed around her. Her intentions were to seek an opportunity to strengthen Canadian national ties as well as imperial connections, her imperialist outlook stemming, in part, from her upbringing in Scotland. Murray had ambitious...

From the beginning of the twentieth century, it was a common sight to see members of the IODE frequenting Canada’s major ports. Proudly pinned to their smartest clothes were their badges with Union Jack, crown and stars radiating outwards to the corners of the Empire. In a close working relationship with government, taking advantage of élite contacts and putting forward its maternal role, the IODE negotiated a position to welcome immigrants from many countries at ports of arrival. A 1904 article by Mabel Clint commented that at the Port of Quebec ‘[t]he wearers of the badge have been the only...

During the 1920s the IODE was heavily involved with immigration and the canadianization of immigrants. Ideally, canadianization involved assimilating all immigrants into the Canadian mainstream of the time. As canadianization was based upon mimicking Britain as much as possible, British people were considered the easiest to canadianize. A special interest was displayed in British single women, who the IODE hoped might migrate to Canada and there become wives and mothers. Well aware of the importance of mothers in passing on culture, the IODE performed a considerable amount of maternal work with new immigrants. It was the IODE members’ place to...

In the late summer of 1928, twenty-five young women aged 17–18 years, representatives of sixteen élite English public schools,¹ assembled with their parents on the departure platform at Euston Station in London, to begin a two-month tour of Canada. From London they took a train to Liverpool, and then went by sea to Canada. Figure 4.1 outlines the Canadian itinerary. The girls had been carefully selected. Nominated by their respective headmistresses, and having survived final selection by a sub-committee of the SOSBW, they were wishedBon Voyage!by no lesser a personage than Secretary of State for the Dominions...

During the Depression and the Second World War the IODE’s vision for Canada was influenced by Britain’s weakening position in relation to a strengthening Canada. Although the influence of investments and popular culture from the USA was increasing at that time, British immigrants were still valued as superior to those of other races and the IODE promoted its own version of British-influenced arts and culture. Through booklets, work in schools and radio broadcasts the IODE created heritage and tradition. Largely unaware of American or French Canadian presences, the IODE continued to negotiate access to spaces where it could reinforce its...

Through its war memorials, the IODE has used memory to produce identity, instilling a shared sense of the past and defining aspirations for the future.¹ In recent years historians have placed renewed emphasis on the role of memory in the making and re-making of history. Raphael Samuel’s innovative work has destabilized memory as fixed or singular, and has brought into question the structure of history as a discipline.² For my particular purposes, how war is remembered is important as it can reveal much about imperial and national identity, patriotism and citizenship.³ Whereas early work on war and memory, in particular...

In 1947 a Canadian cartoonist penned a cartoon during the IODE’s National Annual Meeting in Halifax. ‘Removing the Red stain – a noble work of mercy’ displayed a mother figure sweeping away Communism from her comfortable sphere of apron and broom. In the accompanying article, ‘The IODE fights Communism’, the national president of the IODE asked C. Bruce Hill of St Catharine’s, Ontario, president of the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, what women might do from their family position to fight war? In reply Hill suggested that women as mothers should exercise extreme care as to what their children were taught both...

The IODE’s most recent projects reflect an Anglo-Canadian identity which is much changed from what it had been in the early years of the twentieth century. The old racial categories have broken down, and new Canada-centered constructions of citizenship have emerged. Instead of concentrating on assimilating immigrants, the IODE has shifted focus, a shift that began during the Cold War, to a group of citizens who, although living within Canadian territory, were previously considered ‘foreign’. This shift represented the change in Canada’s identity from that of a dominion in the Empire, with an identity centred on Britain, to that of...

The IODE has played a key role in the making of Anglo-Canada in the image of Britain, and has been an important part of British imperial and Canadian national history. Due to gender-blind frameworks, however, historians have paid little attention to the IODE. Today, at a time when the countries are focusing on national, rather than imperial, histories, the IODE is mistakenly portrayed as British or ‘international’. There is a sense in which it is seen as old-fashioned and as part of the past. Throughout the twentieth century, the IODE did manifestly age. As the grey hairs multiplied there has...