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.

I give myself permission to write the worst first draft in history!

Marion, Flo’s boffo older sister, circa 1900, taking tea at Tighsolas in her white dress.

Flora in the City: Chapter 1 on pdf. www.tighsolas.ca/page10.pdf.pdf

Where 19 year old Flora Nicholson learns about the Child Labour Problem and the relation it has to her love of clothing.

As the centenary of 1910 approaches I am determined to start on my middle school novel Flo in the City, based on the letters of Tighsolas, my social studies website.

I thought I might do it in a blog. Why not?
It might prove excellent motivation and a platform for thinking things out.

When I first stumbled upon the Nicholson letters, I was overwhelmed. I did not quite know what to do with them.

When I approached a literary agent, he told me letters were boring but he’d like to work with me on something else.

I could see his point. But these letters, written at such a pivotal time in history, were significant, I felt.

They just needed to be worked upon. A formula had to be found.

But instead of writing a book, I transcribed 300 of the letters, from 1908-1913, and posted them on a website. Then I wrote essays around the events of the letters and added a great deal of background from the public domain.

The expert in Canadian Family history said the letters on the website were rare and worthy of being compiled in a scholarly book. The material on my website was all I needed.

I didn’t do it. I knew I had to write something more accessible and for young people.

Today, 3000 people a month come to the site. (People, not crawlers)

Many visitors are obviously students.The most popular pages are fashion, transportation, cost of living, suffrage, and entertainment.It is rare that visitors read the letters. But it happens.

The School of Education at McGill has used the story of the Nicholsons as a preparation for when the teachers go on their work stages. They like Flo’s story, as she ‘is an ordinary student.’

Today, inspired by the book Nella Last’s War, created from a diary and the Writing the Century series of BBC Radio Four, a historical program assembled from diaries and letters, I have decided to write this book.

All from the point of view of a young woman coming of age during 6 of the most pivotal years in history.

I am determined to find the perfect setting for these letters that will illuminate their universal themes and showcase interesting facts about life 100 years ago.

A few years ago I contacted one of Canada’s foremost writers of historical fiction for young people. She advised me to go for the story and forget about the finer points of the history.

I don’t want to do that.

I know my subject, that’s for sure. All I need to do is give myself permission to write the worst first draft in history. Playwright Marcy Kahan had one of her characters say that in a BBC Four play.

Just a Change of Colour….that will be the title of my first chapter. That’s a start, isn’t it?