Old Brewery Mission: A card from the Nicholson Collection. 1912
(She mentions two pamphlets (on these two subjects) by an influential Canadian ‘pundit’ of the times which I immediately searched for and found them on archive.org. More reading for me.
Now, Valverde says in her book,published in 1991, that this ‘immigration/racism/social purity’ issue has been covered by Canadian historians; she says she just clearly connects the dots between gender/race/class and Canadian Immigration Policy of the 1910 era.
But, frankly, this social purity/eugenics issue hasn’t filtered down into the consciousnes of Canadians, or into the high school history books, so it all still is effectively censored.
I think, anyway.
Case in point, In 2007, I attended a workshop given by the Quebec Anglo Heritage Network, where experts in the history of Montreal’s Chinese, Black, Italian and Native Communities gave talks about their people’s place within Quebec, and no one mentioned the social purity thing. The woman representing the Chinese Community mentioned the head tax, and that Chinese immigrants (men) who were decontaminted upon their arrival in Canada and the Aboriginal representative said that Native history has effectively been erased from Quebec culture despite earlier friendlier connections between the French and the natives, and the Black Historian told how their men only could work as porters and their women as maids. But that’s it.
No mention of the White Slavery hysteria or the eugenics movement or that dark subject underlying slum social work: suspicion of incest.
So with these two chapters, I have gained even more insight into the Nicholson experience, although it is not an especially pleasant insight. Tighsolas: House of Light, indeed. Were the Nicholsons racist? Most probably, since the Presbyterians Ministers were racist and the Nicholsons dutifully attended sermons, sometimes twice day. And Margaret was a member of the Missionary Society of her church, although she did not like the work or the Missionary Ladies. (They shunned her actually… Maybe because she was vain and loved to look good and wear nice dresses. A love of finery was considered a sin among the more conservative church types.)
The 1908-1913 letters reveal little racism against immigrants: the Nicholsons saved their ire for Englishmen (loathed and despised because they got the top jobs on the railway) and Methodists, (on occasion) and Conservatives, especially relations who voted Conservative, because these relations were likely more well off than they were.
And of course, in 1913, Marion Nicholson married Hugh Blair who had Cree blood and he looked it too. He also had a French Canadian mother. (Norman Nicholson mentions natives a few times in his letters from the bush, and he clearly admires them. And Herb Nicholson says this in a 1915 letter from out west “Sometimes I think we should never have taken the land away from the Indians. ” This is quite heretical as the fact the Indians were here first was generally ignored in the era. Natives were discussed in the same breath as new immigrants.
And Valverde mentions how the Methodists tried (usually in vain) to convert RC Italians to their faith. Well, when Edith worked at Ecole Methodiste Westmount in 1912, she was successful in converting at least one Italian boy, because this man, Pascal Diflorio, kept a journal and his descendant has created a blog around it. Diflorio wrote he did try to resist, but that Edith’s arguments were too powerful, but in a good way.
