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.

Shirtwaists and Social Studies

Shirtwaists. 1909 Delineator. The Nicholson women made their own shirtwaists, but the Sears and Eaton’s Catalogues were filled with ready-made ones. In 1911, the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory in New Jersey burned down, killing many workers, many of these young girls. This spurred the union movement in the United States. (YouTube has a piece on the event.)

As I continue with Flo in the City, my novel in progress about the coming of age of a girl in the pivotal 1908-1913 era, based on the letters of http://www.tighsolas.ca/ I feel energized, a bit, by something I discovered yesterday.

I know that some scholars appreciate the work I did with http://www.tighsolas.ca/ , a rather humble social studies website, with letters from the 1910 era. I also know that over the years many schools have visited the site, especially in BC and in the Catholic sector of Ontario. (Not many schools in Quebec come to my site, which is sad.)

Anyway, yesterday, I found evidence that the website is being used to good purpose in some classrooms. A social studies teacher posted an assignment asking his students to examine http://www.tigholas.ca/ and write about 1) what things have changed 2) what things have stayed the same 3) and what family letters can teach us about history.

The students’ answers were very interesting. In fact, THEY GOT IT! They saw that people back then were no different from people today, although their lives were a bit different. “They wrote letters. They had no email or text messaging.” The students were particulary struck by the fact that some kids dropped out of school in the elementary grades and that grown women couldn’t live on their own or with other women. And, of course, they were struck by the fact women covered their entire bodies in cloth. One student remarked that they had social classes back then.

Another student observed that people gossiped a lot back then. So right! In fact, gossip is a major feature of my story, Flo in the City.

So, now I will continue with this exericise, writing my first draft of Flo in the City buoyed by the fact that students today can, indeed, learn something useful (and original) from this story.