Writing Women into British Columbia’s History GILLIAN MARIE Very little history has been written directly about women, other than a mention or two in passing. Past history ahs been a male construct,1 written by men, for men and about men from the viewpoint of the literate ruling class. Its subject matter has been limited to politics and work: “significant” work in the public and impersonal sphere. Women as a class were by law and social custom excluded from these types of activity. Their work place was largely the private sphere of the home, and housework, because of its nonproductive nature, ahs not been regarded of sufficient significance to be recorded by a society based on the profit motive. Hence, women’s work within the family and the larger society ahs gone unrecognized despite the fact that women were essential to the settling and establishing of social order. A further reason for women’s exclusion relates to the type of material sanctioned by historians as legitimate sources. The selected evidence of traditional history is from public records and documents, areas in which women historically have only been peripherally involved. This concept of legitimate sources, and “proper” research fields has meant that women, as well as visible minority groups, working people, and the poor have largely been ignored in the construction of history. For women this has had two effects. First, traditional records and much of written history have little relevance to women’s experience. Second, women’s identity has remained in the private domain of memory. Women’s experiences have been remembered only through the passage of skills and stories from mother to daughter. To obtain a public identity and to ensure no more of the past is lost,2 women must create their own history, asking new questions and writing from a new perspective. As we gain more knowledge and awareness of women’s role and work, both its timelessness and its dramatic changes, we will gain a sense of women’s history, which will provide us, as women, with a n historical identity. Historians have written about the suffrage movement, but in isolation, and not within the context of a wider social reform movement. This narrow focus gives the reader the false impression that suffrage is the sole story of women in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, that their only goal was the franchise, and that feminism died with the granting of the suffrage. This interpretation ignores women’s struggles for control of their own persons, their property, and their children. It also minimizes the impact of their demands for changes to the legal system and the educational system. Furthermore, it renders invisible the actual power structure of the family and of society. When historians connect the suffrage movement with the temperance movement, they deride those women who worked for the abolition of alcohol sales. In this way the goals of the vote and prohibition are dismissed. This interpretation fails to deal with the fact that liquor abuse directly affected women’s and children’s lives. Women could not vote and hence affect legislative change. Legally they were powerless, and could not exercise control of their own persons, children, or property. Thus, women argued, there was little they could do to change their material conditions or society generally until they In her Own Right had the franchise.3 But just as there is more to people’s history than political actions, so there is much more to women’s history than the struggle to win the right to vote. To be meaningful to more people, history must be more inclusive in its subject matter. Women’s work must include both paid and unpaid labour: work in the labour force, in the home, and volunteer activities outside the home. Some research source materials are women’s diaries and letters. Other items are household manuals, guides to household management, store catalogues, farm journals, and women’s magazines. The records and memoirs of women themselves will give glimpses of the reality of their living conditions. Traditional history does not describe what women were actually doing, but it gives information about what men, and society in general, considered to be women’s role. A women’s history of work would establish the real place of women in society. The function of her role as an individual or as a member of a group and its relationship to the socio-economic structure of society is thus explained. For example, the family was seen politically, economically and socially as the basic stabilizing institution of pioneer society. Within this institution a woman’s biological role was to produce children and her social role was to transmit the religious and educational values of society. The Corrective Collective in Never Done points out that women’s work was predominantly within the home: To the woman fell the labour of bringing children into the world and the work of caring for them. To this was added the job of keeping her home: cleaning, cooking, preserving food and the hundreds of other tasks of the household; as well as work outside, particularly when money was short.4 Whether women were rural or urban, whether they were middle- or working-class, their work was made up of those tasks that enabled people to live in a family situation, and that surely is “significant” work. The work of the hone and women’s role appears on the surface to be a changeless repetition of monotonous tasks. Yet there are technological changes that have brought about improvements in the ways in which those tasks were performed: from the boiling of linen and the hand scrubbing and hand wringing of clothes, to an agitating washing machine. Improvements in the technology of housework, largely due to the inventiveness of women, can be located and their development followed in advertisements in newspapers and store catalogues.5 In this way, the changes brought about by industrialization and urbanization can be identified both in the lives and working conditions of women and in the changing nature of family relationships. The effect of new technology on women and their work, as immense as its effect on the work of men, has yet to be recorded, and its consequences noted. Yet the “labour-saving” devices did not mean that less energy was spent on household tasks, because new standards of hygiene and cleanliness arose at the same time. Clothes now had to be whiter and changed for frequently. Although work within the home was a common feature of all women’s work, there were profound differences between the tasks of rural and urban women. A woman’s labour was of utmost importance in homesteading. Statistically, little evidence of this Writing Women into B.C. History work is available because she was unpaid and hence was not considered to be “gainfully employed”. Only the male members of the household were counted as workers in a family farm operation.6 Yet a farm, like other small business, depend on the labour and cooperation of the whole family. Farm households aimed at being selfsufficient so women worked long hours gardening, preserving, and canning. Women manufactured the family clothing, soap, and candles. They fished and hunted, baked bread, raised children, and took pride in their self-sufficiency. Often the only surplus produced (eggs, butter, vegetables) was the result of women’s labour.7 But within the family unit women had no legal rights to the fruits of farm labour.8 Novels written by pioneer women document both the isolation of these women and the variety of their daily tasks.9 Evidence of women’s daily life and activities, both in and out of the home, can be found in photographs. Mattie Gunterman left us a photographic record of pioneer life, work and play.10 There are photographs of her setting off to trap and hung; of her in the companionship of her family and friends; of her working in her own home and as cook and general clean-up at mining camps. The images she left are those of a woman of spirit, endurance and talent. These photographs were located in a shed at her son’s home. How many other records are hidden away in boxes, basements and attics? Pioneer society, marked by isolation, was a different experience from that of the later, more settled period. In increasing numbers, women worked together informally in “plucking bees” and “quilting bees”. These gatherings which filled both practical and social needs were the nucleus of more formal groups and associations which activated community-orientated projects. The histories of Women’s Institutes are a useful source of information regarding the collective concerns and interests of rural women. Gladys and Dinton Through the Years11 illustrates a variety of working activities for example: they were active supporters of the Red Cross; they raised funds, in imaginative ways, for the first community hall in Dinton; they presented plays, did social work and had demonstrations of new methods of fruit and vegetable canning. Reading about rural women, one is impressed with the collective nature their enterprises. This is not to assume that all rural women’s experiences were the same. Just as in urban areas, families of wealth could afford “hired help”, while others functioned with the assistance of an unmarried female relative, or orphan. The perennial problem for upper-class women living in Victoria and Vancouver was the getting and retaining of servants. The first hired domestics in British Columbia were Indian women, derogatorily “Klootchmen”. Considered inadequate workers by white employers, they were replaced by selected immigrant women. To the chagrin of employers who, in some cases, paid their fares, most of these women either married shortly after they arrived or found more lucrative and less binding employment. As a consequence, they too were considered an unreliable labour source. Chinese men who were next hired were paid lower wages than women domestics, although after the strike of Chinese house-boys in Victoria in 1872 it was more difficult to exploit them. However, restricted immigration and the head tax of $500.00 had the effect of diminishing this source of domestic servants. By the turn of the century, reliable white women were most desired, but in short supply. To provide day care for the children of the “daily help”, upper-class women in Vancouver established a crèche in 1910. it -3- In her Own Right doubled as an employment bureau where employers phoned if they had work. When the “dailies” were sent out their children were cared for in the crèche. Employment, being on a daily basis, was neither reliable nor well paid. The disproportionate ratio of women to men in British Columbia was a topic of much interest and action.12 Hearing that women were scarce in Vancouver in 1896, a selfconfessed Utah rustler offered to round up women at the city’s expense! A more socially accepted method of obtaining women for shipment to B.C. was through emigration societies. The first shipment of English female immigrants arrived in 1862 on the Tynemouth, referred to at the time as the “Bride Ship”. Later, in 1870, under the auspices of the Bishop of Columbia, between twenty and thirty additional young women arrived on the Alpha as part of another scheme to bring domestics to Vancouver Island. The Salvation Army sponsored similar projects before World War I. Around the same time the Queen Mary Coronation Hostel was established in Vancouver for distressed English gentlewomen who were seeking employment in B.C. The hostel provided accommodation for women, ran a three-month course in domestic work and service, located jobs, and, where possible, made a later follow-up.13 In Kelowna a similar hostel, the Joyce Hostel, served as a centre for women immigrating to the Okanagan district.14 With the industrialization of household tasks, such as canning and the production of soap and clothing, service industries opened up to working-class and immigrant women who provided a cheap source of labour. Thus women’s work changed, and we see the beginning of their double work day. Recent immigrants as well as rural and poor women worked as domestics for wealthy families. The work of these women and the mechanization of housework released “leisured” women from the arduous domestic tasks. They now had time and energy to organize the social services they considered necessary to reform and humanize the worst abuses visible to them in an increasingly urban society. But their sphere of influence narrowed, and their “proper place” became restrictively defined as that of “helpers” and “do-gooders”. The type of institutions founded by upper middleclass women reflect their class bias. These institutions, which were essentially service-oriented, acted as extensions of women’s traditional role in the family. The work was supportive, and concerned with children, the sick, the destitute, and the morally endangered. In Victoria and Vancouver, for instance, they founded orphanages in 1873 and 1892, respectively. Concern for the “moral decay” of young immigrant women attracted to B.C. by the Klondike gold rush led to the establishment of the Y.W.C.A. which initially provided accommodation and acted as an employment agency. The Victorian order of Nurses was established in 1898. Women’s auxiliaries to St. Paul, Vancouver General, and the Royal Jubilee Hospital in Victoria, raised funds to finance and provide essential hospital equipment. The University Women’s Club was instrumental in forming the first ParentTeacher’s Association in Vancouver, despite opposition from principals and teachers who perceived these university-educated women as desiring control of the school government.15 Women who also organized extensively within churches have left us church records which hold valuable information regarding their social concerns and attitudes. It is incorrect to assume that the functions and activities of volunteer organizations were the same in the past as they are today. For instance, a country garden club has Writing Women into B.C. History not always had the same social and ‘show” functions that it now has. In the past, when people often depend on the produce of their gardens for their daily sustenance, it had an educational significance. We need to be wary of taking the assumptions and attitudes of the present into the past. The content of a particular aspect of women’s history will vary according to social position, geography and time. However, in B.C., chronological time is of less importance than the stage of development of the community. The fact that the pioneer stage may occur in the nineteenth or early twentieth century is not of primary significance. Women, as pioneers, worked at the same type of jobs in similar conditions. For instance, Mattie Gunterman was recording her pioneer experiences through photographs in the Lardeau Valley after 1897, yet the work she did at the turn of the century was similar to that of earlier pioneer women on Vancouver Island and the lower mainland. Photographs like those of Mattie Gunterman provide visual images of women’s surroundings, hit at the position women held in society and illustrate their work and its social value. There are sufficient numbers of old photographs in archives and in private collections for many research projects. There is a photograph in the Vancouver City Archives which shows two women preparing to play tennis. They are wearing long full dresses completely covering their bodies; not even an ankle is shown. Their clothing reflects the restricted position of middle-class women in British Columbia at the turn of the century. Many of the surviving written records of women were left by articulate, married, middle-class, white women. It is very tempting to generalize from their experiences. But the experiences of woemn in the paid labour force are obviously different from those of “leisured” women, who were, in fact, a minority. What of the lives of women who were sole supporters of their families? What of single women? Business women? Non-white women? Or women who set up homes together? Their experiences do not fit the white middle-class model. Yet they, too, are important and their histories require telling. The role of native women in early B.C. has gone unrecognized, despite the fact that the earliest “women of the Fort” in Victoria were of native Indian descent: Amelia Connolly (Mrs. James Douglas); Isabella Melvill (Mrs. Charles Ross); and Suzette Lagace (Mrs. John Work). In the fur trade period, a Native woman’s knowledge and connections were essential for the fur trader’s survival, for through his Indian wife he secured his food as well as the trade and protection of her tribe. Indian women interpreted for traders, were expert in fishing, hunting, food gathering and food preparation. Being adept in the preparation of herbal medicine and at midwifery, they were often the sole healers. This is a mid-century account of an Indian woman amputating a limb successfully.16 But as white settlement increased, the role of native women changed to that of cheap transient worker. Indian women were employed on farms as home helps and general farm hands; they picked hops on Lord Aberdeen’s ranch at the beginning of the century. Hired in the early fish canning industry to wash and clean fish and fill cans, native women were replaced in the 1870’s by Japanese and Chinese women. Yet there are no published accounts of the effect of white contact on B.C. native women, other than brief mentions of the degrading influence of alcohol and prostitution. Nor are there accounts of the effect of white attitudes and values on women’s place in Indian society.17 -5- In her Own Right Picture Writing Women into B.C. History Minority ethnic women also experienced dislocation when confronted with the dominant, white culture of B.C. The identity and position a woman held in the society from which se emigrated was often very different from her new reality. Some of the functions she performed in her own culture were not taken out of her hands. No longer having the contacts and support of an extended family, she suffered from isolation. A woman of this group was further alienated from the community because of her lack of English language skills. Her isolation was reinforced when her own family learned the language, skills and social customs of an alien society. Because of her lack of English, jobs open to her in the paid labour force were either unskilled or exploitive piecemeal work.18 The story of working-class women in British Columbia is in large part the story of exploited labour. In adequate day care facilities were a particular problem for working women. Photos taken at the fish canneries show Japanese and Chinese women working with babies on their backs and young children around their feet. Women, single and married, worked for wages where they could find employment: in the canneries; in the logging and mining camps; and in factories, restaurants, laundries and offices. They worked as seamstresses, shop clerks and telephone operators and, less frequently, as domestics. As a result of the World War I economy, jobs opened to them which formerly had been defined as men’s jobs. Women were employed as stenographers, and sometimes as bank tellers. After 1916, women were employed in munitions factories where they received equal pay for equal work.19 The stories of women’s struggles for unionization, improved working conditions, more pay and better jobs have yet to be written.20 Historians of the working-class have ignored women demonstrating solidarity in strike action, and winning recognition of their unions and wage claims. Helena Gutteridge, an active trade unionist, organized the garment workers in Vancouver, and fought for better working conditions for woemn in other industries. The information about her in traditional historical sources is brief. To research women in the labour force will take perseverance, patience and detective work. Oral history is the most likely way of rediscovering the past of labouring women. Women who participated in and organized strikes are the best source of information and they may provide further sources. If women were not organizing in their own right, then as wives of union men they have organized for strike support. They have picketed, boycotted stores and formed broom brigades to tackle scabs.21 They too fought for equitable settlements and improvement of wages and working conditions.22 Of course there is no reason to limit historical research to the distant past. The thirties and forties are equally necessary to understanding the role of women’s work in an industrial society. What changes occurred in women’s sphere because of the Depression? Were women visible victims, as some suggest, or was there a variety of individual and organizational strategies? What history of women’s work in this period lies in family mythologies? The ways in which women participated in World War II and in British Columbian society afterwards would be useful to know especially because of the nature of the regional wartime economy and because many women throughout B.C. were members of the British Columbia Women’s Services Corps under the command of Joan B. (Mrs. -7- In her Own Right Norman R.) Kennedy who later became a prominent wartime figure as a result of organizing a national women’s paramilitary organization. To write only of women’s oppression is to ignore the struggles women actively made to change their position and condition, and reinforces the image of woemn as passive beings. In the discussion on women’s activities outside the hone I have focused attention on their collective nature: the organizing of unions and strikes, and the social service associations of country women and urban women. Yet, there is also a history of a more individualistic type which Barbara Todd calls inspirational history. Traditional history has given us a few images of exceptional women who succeeded in positions or fields of work traditionally the province of men.23 But there are dangers in this type of history. These women are few in number. By dealing only with these exceptional women, the changes in the role and status of women in general become invisible. Needless to say, accounting for the changes becomes impossible. Strong images of women are essential in providing a sense of our historical identity, yet traditional historical categories of success are not applicable to the lives of most women. We need to expand the definitions of success and achievement set by our culture. We must redefine what kinds of women’s achievements are inspirational. For instance, the account of a woman who was supporting both her husband and her child by singing and playing the piano in Vancouver cafes, and the story of another woman who supported her family by cleaning the Empress Theatre, are inspiring.24 They destroy the myth of women as passive dependent consumers, unable to fend for themselves or their families, and illustrate yet again, the cheap reserve supply of labour that women comprise. Women’s history is part of the new economic and social history yet to be written, a history that includes you, your family, your local area, the employment and industry in your town, local institutions and social, political and educational organizations. Women’s history must be more than the unique stories of outstanding women. After it has described the sequence of events in a particular area and time, it should establish the relationship between regional events and national or international ones. An understanding of the social, political and economic milieu is essential so that an event can be shown in its context. A few hints may help you with your research.25 Choose a topic of manageable size. The availability of primary sources will be a limiting factor since this material will be of the greatest use. Use Linda Hale’s Selected Bibliography of Manuscripts and Pamphlets Pertaining to Women Held…in British Columbia. Try to locate people who took part in and remember the event you are researching. With a tape recorder, hear their version of the story, and ask for their assistance in locating other participants. Descendants may have relevant papers, photographs and other records. Radio stations often assist in finding specific material, too. Use your local historical society, archivist or museum curator. Talk to the older women in your community, your local non-professional historians, and women’s studies department. Look under all possible subject headings in library card indexes. Sometimes valuable information is catalogued in family collections of papers. Newspapers, city hall correspondence, minutes of meetings, court records, papers of institutions such as hospitals, schools, businesses and churches, may provide you with additional information. Some archives, museums, and libraries have collections of Writing Women into B.C. History newspaper cuttings catalogued by subject. This may save you hours of microfilm work. The large newspapers in B.C. are in the process of being indexed, along with a few of the smaller newspapers. Enquire at your local library or museum. Do not be overwhelmed by a mass of information and detail. It is necessary to place your primary source material within a historical context. Local histories will aid you at this stage. Locate the causes and the consequences of the event you have researched, so that you explain as well as describe a phenomenon. Lack of information may cause your conclusions to be tenuous. If this is the case, say so, but do attempt to include your topic within a wider setting. Acquire a sense of the period about which you are writing by reading novels of the period, and looking at old photographs. Imagine what it was like to live as a woman, working at a particular job, using the information you have gleaned regarding society, its institutions, and the resources available to her. Keep talking to older women who will give added colour and life to the picture you are creating. Finally, when you have completed your writing, make it public. You will have become a valuable resource person in your area. This paper was written for the Local History Project under the Professions for Tomorrow Program, Department of labour, July, 1975. Subsequently it has been edited but not extensively revised for In Her Own Right. -9- In her Own Right Footnotes 1 Dorothy E. Smith, “An Analysis of ideological Structures and How Women are Excluded: Considerations for Women’s Studies”. Paper presented at the Conference on Women’s Studies in Higher Education, University of Calgary, May, 1975. 2 Barbara Todd, “Women in Canadian history. Who Besides Laura Secord?”. A lecture presented at U.B.C. Women’s Studies course, Fall, 1972. 3 Doreen M. Weppler, “Early Forms of Political Activity Among White Women in British Columbia, 1880 – 1920”, unpublished M.A. thesis, S.F.U., 1971. 4 Corrective Collective, Never Done, Canadian Women’s Educational Press, Toronto, 1974. 5 The first mail order Eaton’s catalogue was published in 1884, and was illustrated from 1887. The Sear’s catalogues were first published in 1894. 6 From an unpublished paper by Barbara Roberts, History Department, during her time at Simon Fraser University. 7 Mary Gartrell Orr, “Pioneer Housekeeping”, Okanagan Historical Society. 28 Report. 1964. pp. 85 – 89. 8 This is the case even today. The recent case of Murdoch vs. Murdoch (1974) 41 D.I.R. (3d) p 367 (S.C.C.), showed that although Mrs. Murdoch had contributed both financially and in work and time to the family farm, on the dissolution of the marriage she received no beneficial interest because land title was in her husband’s name. Unless there is a written agreement of ownership between husband and wife, or clear legal intention for her to have an interest in the property, the wife is not entitled to an interest. N.B. 1980: The new Family Relations Act, which came into effect April 1, 1979, recognizes the economic value of women’s work done in the home at marriage break-up. All property obtained during the marriage is considered to be the joint property of both spouses, on the dissolution of the marriage. See “The B.C. Family Relations Act: The Complete Laywoman’s Guide” in Kinesis, July 1980 (available at Vancouver Status of Women office). 9 Mary Gartrell Orr, “A Tribute to a Pioneer Woman”. Okanagan Historical Society, 27 Report, 1963. pp. 155 – 157. 10 Marion Bancroft, “Mattie Gunterman-Pioneer Life in the Lardeau”. Vancouver Public Library, Historical Photographic Section. Slide catalogue no. 14. These slides can only be viewed in the library, although copies can be purchased. See also Eight Women Photographers of British Columbia, 1860 – 1978, written by Myrna Cobb and Sher Morgan, and Canadian Women’s Studies Journal, Vol. II, No. 3, 1980. 11 Gladys and Dinton Through the years, A History of the Gladys and Dinton Districts and the Biographies of the Men and Women who Pioneered the Area. Compiled by the Dinton Women’s Institute and the Gladys Women’s Institute. Calgary. 1965. 12 “There is an absolute and great disproportion between sexes in this country. There is a want of good steady industrious girls to furnish virtuous wives for our men and make them something else than the reckless restless mortals so numerous on this coast. To supply this want must be one of the objects of any measure of the encouragement to emigration.” Colonist, August 14, 1863. 13 Vancouver City Archives, Add. Mss. 55. The collection includes the extensive correspondence which eventually led to the hostel’s establishment. This was largely due to the work and persistence of May Fitzgibbon. It also contains the names of assisted women, the jobs they gained and sometimes their salaries and the later follow-up as to their whereabouts. 14 An excellent book which gives the British background to such emigration schemes as New Horizons: A Hundred Years of Women’s Migration. Woman’s Migration and Overseas Appointments Society, 1963. 15 The Helen Gregory MacGill Manuscript collection contains a manuscript of “The Story of Vancouver’s Social Service” which is a good starting point for this category of women’s history. Add. Mss. 270. Vancouver City Archives. 16 Anne Hogan, “Women on the Frontier – the role of women in B.C. to 1914”, Vancouver Public Library, Historical Photographic Section, Slide catalogue no. 31. This is an excellent introduction which includes a useful printed guide to the slides. There is an account of an Indian midwife delivering a white child in Marguerite West, “The Papoose Basket”, Westworld, vol 1, no. 5 (September – October, 1975), pp. 42 – 46. 17 S. Van Kirk, “Women in the Fur Trade”, The beaver, Winter, 1972, p. 4. This article discusses the role and importance of native women to the fur trade in Rupert’s Land. Subsequently published in The Neglected Majority, ed. Trofimenkoff and Prentice. 18 Elizabeth Fortes, Immigrant Women in the Labour Force. A study done in 1974 under a LIP grant. Available through the Branch and Area Department of the YWCA. Although this is a contemporary study, the ideas and experiences contained within it are relevant to the historical research of immigrant women in the labour force. 19 Anne Hogan, “Women on the Frontier”, op. cit. 20 For further information contact: Women’s History Project, Women’s Auxiliary of the United Fishermen and Allied Workers’ Union, and the Labour History Project at Simon Fraser University where Elaine Bernard, Sara Diamond and Star Rosenthal are doing graduate work. 21 From a conversation, regarding events and the role of women in the 1912 – 1914 miners’ strike in Nanaimo, with Janice Hewison, a worker on the women’s history project under the auspices of the Women’s Auxiliary of the United Fishermen and Allied Workers’ Union. Writing Women into B.C. History 22 Julia Ruuttila, “Women in Organized Labour” at the Northwest History of Labour conference, U.B.C., Institute of Industrial Relations, May, 1975. This lecture recounted a women’s march of several thousand for relief and to have the water, gas and electricity reconnected after the company had shut these services off. Their march was successful. Although this occurred in Washington State, you may expect to find similar occurrences in B.C. See for British Columbia during the thirties, Irene Baird’s Waste Heritage. 23 e.g., Elsie MacGill, My Mother, the Judge, Ryerson Press, Toronto, 1955. I am indebted to Barbara Todd’s lecture for many of the ideas contained in this paragraph. 24 “The Children’s Crèche”, Vancouver City Archives, Add. Mss. 124. 25 Many of the ideas contained here are from the “Research Guide” in Women at Work. Ontario 1850 – 1930. eds., Janice Acton, Penny Goldsmith and Bonnie Shepard, Canadian Women’s Educational Press. Toronto. 1974. Bibliography Bibliographical Note: Since this paper was written, there have been completed some exciting new research on British Columbian women, examples of which make up this publication. Elsewhere, some has been published in journals such as Atlantis, B.C. Studies, the Canadian Women’s Studies Journal, and the Journal of Canadian Studies, but much is still in unpublished papers. Reprints like Margaret McNaughton’s Overland to Cariboo have been published recently, and several edited versions of pioneer women’s journals are available. Public libraries have published bibliographies which contain references to recent published work on British Columbian women. Needless to say, the references used in the following essays will provide specific sources which have not been touched upon here. Books Alton, Janice, Penny Goldsmith, Bonnie Shepard. Women at Work. Ontario, 1850 – 1930. Canadian Women’s Educational Press, Toronto, 1974. Baird, Irene. Waste Heritage. Toronto, 1939. Baillie-Grohman, W.A. Fifteen Years, Sport and Life in the Hunting Grounds of Western America and British Columbia. London, Horace Cox, 1900. (Chapter XV by Mrs. Baillie-Grohman is on the servant problem in Victoria) Berton, Laura B. I Married the Klondike. Toronto, 1954. Brett, Katherine Beatrice M. Women’s Costume in Ontario, 1867 – 1907. Royal Ontario Museum Series. Public Archives of British Columbia (PABC) Cameron, Agnes Deans. The New North. New York, 1910. Carnegie, David. The History of Munitions Supply in Canada, 1914 – 1918. London: Longmans and Green, 1925. (See especially, Chapter 26.) - 11 - In her Own Right Carr, M. Emily. The Book of Small. Toronto, 1942. - Growing Pains. Toronto, 1946. - Heart of a Peacock. Toronto, 1953 - House of All Sorts. Toronto, 1944. - Hundreds and Thousands. Toronto, 1966. - Klee Wyck. Toronto, 1941. Cavers, Anne Sutherland. Our School of Nursing. 1899 – 1947. Vancouver: Ward and Philipps, 1949. Cleverdon, Catherine Lyle. The Woman’s Suffrage Movement in Canada. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1950. Corrective Collective. Never Done. Three Centuries of Women’s Work in Canada. Toronto: Canadian Women’s Educational Press, 1974. - She Named it Canada. Vancouver: Press Gang Publishers, 1973. Cran, Mrs. George. A Woman in Canada. London: Ham-Smith, 1911. Down, Sister Mary Margaret. A Century of Service. Victoria, 1966. Forbes, Elizabeth. Wild Roses at Their Feet: Pioneer Women of Vancouver Island. Vancouver: Evergreen Press, 1971. French, Doris Faith. Sweat and Politics: The early trade union movement in Canada. Toronto: McLelland and Stewart, 1962. Gibbon, J.M. Three Centuries of Canadian Nursing. Toronto: MacMillan, 1947. Gilroy, Marion and Samuel Rothstein. As We Remember It: Interviews with Pioneering Librarians of British Columbia. Vancouver, 1970. Herring, Francis E. Among the People of British Columbia. London: T. Fisher Unwin, 1903. (U.B.C.) Knight, Ralph. A Very Ordinary Life. Vancouver: Newstar, 1975. Lamb, Mrs. A. “Reminiscences of WCTU in B.C”. (n.d.) Vancouver City Archives (VCA). Lugrin, Nancy de Bertrand. Pioneer Women of Vancouver Island. Victoria: Women’s Canadian Club, 1928. MacGill, Elsie Gregory. My Mother, the Judge: A biography of Judge Helen Gregory MacGill. Toronto: Ryerson Press, 1955. MacGill, Helen Gregory. Laws for Women and Children in B.C. Vancouver Branch of the B.C. Equality League, 1925. VCA. Mitchell, Dorothea. Lady Lumberjack. Vancouver, 1967. Nelson, Lillian. “The Crèche” (n.p., n.d.) VCA. - “Vancouver’s Early Days and the Development of her Social Services”, 1934. VCA. New Horizons: A Hundred Years of Women’s Migration. London: Woman’s Migration and Overseas Appointments Society, 1963. O’Meara, Walter. Daughters of the Country. The Woemn of the Fur Traders and Mountain Men. New York: Harcourt, Brace and World, Inc., 1968. Ormsby, Margaret. British Columbia: A History. Vancouver: MacMillan co. of Canada, 1064. - A Pioneer Gentlewoman in British Columbia. Vancouver, 1976. Paterson, Edith. “Women – think constructively”. Vancouver Federation of Trade and Industry, 1945. VCA. Ravenhill, Alice. Memories of an Educational Pioneer. Vancouver, 1953. Writing Women into B.C. History Schwesinger, Gladys C. Recollections of Early Vancouver in my Childhood. 1893 – 1912. Vancouver: Brock Webber. 196-. Shaw, Rosa. Proud Heritage: A History of the National Council of Woemn of Canada. Toronto: Ryerson Press, 1957. Street, Margaret M. Watch-fires on the mountains: the life and writings of Ethel Johns. Toronto, 1973. Sykes, Ella C. A Home Help in Canada. London: Smith, Elder and Col, 1912. PABC. Victoria Day Dress Information. The Fashionable Victorian Lady. (n.p., n.d.) PABC. V.W.F. Vancouver Through the Eyes of a Hobo. Vancouver, 1934. Articles Banks, Della Murray. “Klondike Gold Fever”, Alaska Sportsman, vol. 11, 1945. PABC Bliss, Michael, “Neglected Radicals”, Canadian Forum, 50 (April-May, 1970), pp. 16 – 17 (on the W.C.T.U.). Branham, Bud. “Gold rush Mother”, Alaska Sportsman (August, 1940). PABC. Brier, Warren Judson. “Tilting Skirts and Hurdy-Gurdies: A Commentary of Gold Rush Women”, Magazine of Western History, vol. 19, no. 4 (October, 1969). Campbell, Marjorie Wilkins. “Her Ladyship My Squaw”, Beaver (Autumn, 1954), pp. 14 – 17 Durham, Mabel. “British Columbia’s Patriotic Women”, The Canadian Magazine, no. 2 (June, 1917), pp. 93 – 100. Gillis, Francis. “The Lady Went North in ‘98”, Alaska Sportsman (February, 1948), pp. 12 – 13, 30 – 32. Gordon, W.R. “Industrial Vancouver”, B.C. Magazine (1911), pp. 626 – 629. Orr, Mary Gartrell. “A Tribute to a Pioneer Woman”, Okanagan Historical Society, 27 Report, 1963. pp. 155 – 157. Vancouver Public library (VPL). - “Pioneer Housekeeping”, Okanagan Historical Society. 28 Report, 1964, pp. 85 – 89. VPL. “Single Women on Relief”, Canadian Forum, 16 (March, 1937), p. 5. Stoddard, Ethel C. “The Feminine Side of the Western West”, B.C. Magazine (1910), pp. 1070 – 1077. VPL. “Women of Canada, British Columbia”, Chatelaine, 14 (February, 1968), pp. 32 – 37. “The Waitress Question”, Colonist, July 12, 1864. Photographic Resources Slide Collections, Historical Photographic Section of Vancouver Public Library: Marion Bancroft, Mattie Gunterman: Pioneer Life in the Lardeau, no. 16. - 13 - In her Own Right Anne Hogan, Women on the Frontier: The Role of Women in British Columbia to 1914, no. 3 - History of Women’s Work, 1914 – 1950, no. 35. Videotape Joanne Drake. “A Matter of Doing Something to Live: Some Herstories From the Thompson/Nicola Region of British Columbia” B/W ¾” cassette (Women in Focus). Other Resources Vancouver Status of Women, 103 – 1090 West 7th Avenue, Vancouver, B.C., V6H 1B3. Vancouver Women in Focus Society, 6 – 45 Kingsway, Vancouver, B.C., V5T 3H7. Women’s Research Centre, 517 East Broadway, Vancouver, B.C., V5T 1X4. Women’s Studies Association of British Columbia, P.O. box 69315, Station K, Vancouver, B.C., V5K 4W5.