The resurgence of feminism in the early 1970s created shock waves across Canadian society that can be felt to this day. One of its results was a growing interest in women’s history, which initially focused on the struggle of women around the turn of the century to gain the right to vote. As historians explored the development of the suffrage movement, they discovered a broad range of issues that had engaged the feminists of that period. The focus on suffrage contributed to the idea that these feminists had been involved in a worthy historical cause. But their ideas for improving...

In a 1909 article, “For Plain Women,” Mary Cotton Wisdom described a political meeting of four women from the Eastern Townships of Quebec; two were writers, one was a society woman and one a home body. Hinting at the tension they felt on becoming involved in political matters for the first time, Wisdom began with a vehement disclaimer, stating that they were not meeting to discuss styles, gossip, men, or each other’s clothes. As a measure of their serious-mindedness, Wisdom assured her readers, the ladies wore simple shirt waists, plain hats, and short skirts because of the rain. They earnestly...

A record of the political activities of leading socialist women, as described in the preceding chapter, is far easier to trace than the experiences of those who did not live in the limelight. Previous generations of scholars have thought it either unimportant or impossible to piece together an understanding of women’s activities from a historical record in which the women seldom spoke for themselves. But the task is neither impossible nor unimportant. As this chapter sketches a picture of socialist women’s activities, it draws on the same sources that other historians have used, at times reading against the grain and...

Household labour at the turn of the century was all in the woman’s domain. Bearing, feeding, clothing, nursing, and comforting children was often described as the central feature of this work. Without the benefits of modern inventions such as washing machines and vacuum cleaners, housekeeping was physically arduous and time-consuming. Although electricity and indoor plumbing were coming into use, many women in working-class and rural households laboured without these innovations until well into the twentieth century. Since domestic labour dominated women’s lives, it is understandable that images of household and maternal duties permeated socialist discourse as it permeated the feminist...

Although socialists were reluctant to place domestic labour on their agenda, they were eager to wrestle with one of the more startling social changes of the century – the increasing number of women entering the paid labour force.¹ A larger proportion of women were visible working in urban centres and industry, and the mounting concern about the impact of industrialization and urbanization often coalesced around images of women “taking men’s jobs” and abandoning their traditional place in the home.

In this context, it is important to remember that the vast majority of women were not engaged in paid labour outside the...

During the first two decades of the twentieth century in Canada and elsewhere, public debate raged over the problems of prostitution, the declining birth rate, sexual morality, white slavery, venereal disease, and the sexual customs that were thought to accompany these problems. Concern over the changing nature of sexual relations, known as the “sex question,” loomed large in the minds both of the public and of state officials. For some, these problems endangered their social values and customs. They formed purity leagues, organized social and moral reform societies, undertook investigations, and lobbied politicians to raise public awareness of these problems....

As demands for women’s suffrage grew,¹ the early socialist movement threw its support behind the cause. In the Maritimes, a Fabian society was formed in 1900, supported by a contingent of suffragists in Saint John, New Brunswick.² In Ontario, the Canadian Socialist League (CSL) featured the issue prominently in the provincial election of 1902., declaring that socialists were “the only advocates of woman suffrage.” The nomination of Margaret Haile as the CSL candidate in North Toronto demonstrated their “belief in the right of women to take part in the making of the laws under which they have to live.” They...

With the outbreak of World War I, events in Europe overwhelmed and transformed the agenda of the left.¹ Interest in women’s issues paled as war events and the repression of radicals dominated the headlines. When women’s issues did arise, they were recast in the light of the war and the Russian Revolution. After the events of August 1914, the SPC immediately took a strong antiwar stance and issued a manifesto stressing the need for workers to battle against class enemies, not one another. The SPC was against war because it served only imperialist and class-based interests.² Suspicious of all political...

Radicals, labourites, socialists, and women who had been active in, or influenced by, the women’s movement were all drawn to the early Canadian left. The Canadian Socialist League (CSL) was broad and flexible enough to embrace people from such disparate political circles. This flexibility worked to the advantage of women as they strove to make sense of capitalism’s impact on their lives. In developing their political voice, women drew on their domestic experience and religious convictions, on the socialist classics, and on the feminist ideas of the communitarian socialist movement. Strengthened by these and by the vitality of the women’s...