Who’s Who in 1910, Woman-Wise in Canada (and US)

Emma LaJeunesse, opera singer, known as Madame Albani. She was French Canadian and world renown.

I found a copy of a 1910 Canadian Who’s Who online and on one of the first pages I saw Madame Albani, the opera star, otherwise known as Emma La Jeunesse so I decided to scan the book to see how many women were included.

I first went to see if Julia Grace Parker Drummond was listed there, and she was! Her husband wasn’t, as he had just died. She had a long entry. “One of the founders and first President of the Canadian Women’s Club of Montreal (Montreal Council of Women.) And then her many leadership positions are listed. Lady Drummond is featured in my story Threshold Girl  www.tighsolas.ca/page10.pdf.pdf
and she will be featured even more in the follow up, “Edith’s Story” tentatively called the 1912 Diary of a Confirmed Spinster, www.tighsolas.ca/page11.pdf.pdf

I then went to look for Carrie Derick, not expecting her to be there : but she was. In 1910, she is listed as Assistant Professor of Botany, McGill. Her many academic accomplishments are listed (Gold Medalist, first female faculty member, McGill 1891), and leaves out her McGill Normal School teaching work. (Now, THAT says something about how low in people’s esteem teaching was held. In fact there are no educators listed in this Who’s Who, despite the fact there were quite a few women in that field.)

Then I went through the entire book, start to finish to see how many other illustrious female figures are listed. NOT MANY.

In fact, it seems any journalistic credentials got a young woman into the Who’s Who. A few articles published, a few poems. Nellie McClung is listed, but only as a minor writer. Lucy Maude Montgomery, who published Anne of Green Gables in 1908, isn’t there.

For an actress to be listed, she has had to won international acclaim, or at least US acclaim. And that pretty well goes for the other females listed. Hence Madame Albani.

And there are not many society women listed, which surprises me. A Society Woman only got listed if she had something to do with good works on her local council of women.

Now, taking a rough guess, there is one woman listed for about every three pages of men listed, with about 10 listings to a page. So 1 in 30 on the 1910 Canadian Who’s Who is a woman. And often it’s a woman of little accomplishment like Mrs. Valance Patriarche, Newspaper articles, magazine stories and a few poems.

Mary Riter Hamilton, the impressionist painters, isn’t there, and only one other woman painter. Mary Ella Dingham. Education Paris, France and Italy. Exhibitor in many European and North American exhibitions. President of the Women’s Art Association of Canada. And, of course, Emily Carr isn’t there either.

One nurse, one professor of Philosophy at Wellesley College near Boston. Miss Eliza Richie, daughter of a Supreme Court Judge in Nova Scotia. One doctor I think and no lawyer, although there was one famous woman lawyer being written about in the era magazines, Mabel French. I’ve a post about her on this blog.

And a missionary, working with her (more famous) husband.

Also a couple of musicians who have performed internationally. Miss Evelyn Street, Second Violinist, American String Quartet of Boston.

And just like today, there are Canadian-born women who have made a mark entirely in the US. Miss Annie Diggs of London, Ontario, worker for temperance, chairman of D.C. People’s Party and a Suffragette in Kansas. Writer of short stories and a lecturer in sociology.

Why is this interesting in the context of my story? Because in 1910, it was widely believed that A YOUNG WOMAN COULD DO ANYTHING when it came to the professions (although most sensible women wanted to be mothers and wives). That all doors were open to women. That no more barriers existed to a woman’s career ambitions.

Magazine articles featured stories about women making, say, 10,ooo a year, when the ‘average’ salary for a man was 1,000 a year.

Actresses were often featured in magazines, but in real life they were both put on pedestals and villifed as one step above a prostitute.

The two women scientists I see here, Carrie Derick and another I can’t recall the name of, were both botanists. I suspect botany was considered a soft science, because of its association with flowers and art.

In Threshold Girl I bring this up…as Flora Nicholson likes to draw so does well in botany.

But Carrie Derick’s botany background gave her credibility in a very iffy area, eugenics. And that situation will be tackled in the continuation of Edith’s Story.

I think I will have Edith peruse this Who’s Who.

Hear ALL About It. Big Tater Dug out of Garden on Dufferin

Ok. The last clipping, posted on the previous blog, was heavy duty – and complex, from an historical perspective. Justifying war always is.

But not all of the Nicholson clippings, left behind with their letters in an old trunk, were about suffrage, or child-labour, or a king`s abdication, or war.

Take the clipping above.

It’s from the Social Notes section of the Richmond Times, date unknown, although it pre-dates 1911, as JC Sutherland sold his store to Bedard that year, before he went to work as Education Supervisor for the Province of Quebec. And it is after 1898 when Kodak started selling the folding pocket camera.

Still, there’s more than meets the eye here. I think the Nicholsons were making fun of the Social Scene, by putting in this notice about the GIANT 2 1/2 POTATO found by Norman in the Nicholson garden.

And J.C. Sutherland, why has he posted two notices about cameras available in his drug store? Shouldn’t he have taken out an advertisement.

(I guess the Nicholson bought their 5.00 Kodak in 1904 at Sutherland`s.)

If this column was free, then, I guess, it is savvy marketing on Sutherland`s part. Or maybe he felt that people would be inclined to purchase their first camera to preserve the memory of a special visit.

Whatever, there were few secrets in communities like Richmond back then. Notices like this, in local paper or the city paper, announced all the comings and goings of the more prominent citizens.

Marks from St. Francis College were posted in the paper every June and standings too. This must have made Flora Nicholson, who failed a few subjects, shrink a little to think the entire town knew about it. (I will have it so in my book, Flo in the City. Actually, I already do in my first chapter…)

And when Herb Nicholson leaves Richmond in disgrace, he begs his parents in a letter “to tell no one where I am.”

So no notice saying, “Herb Nicholson has left for Saskatoon, Saskatchewan to stay at Mr. Newall’s under a cloud of suspicion. ”