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.

Helpless Vines

Everyone`s on the hammock this time.

So, in my last installment of Flo in the City (about a Canadian girl coming of age in the pivotal 1908-1913 era based on the letter of http://www.tighsolas.ca/ )I had Edith say to Flora that there was no reason for any woman to be a burden on her parents. I did a little MORE research. (Is this procrastination or due diligence?)

I wanted to find some book that someone (perhaps Edith) could give to Flora to help her out in her confusion about her future path.

I found this on Canadiana.org. Woman: her character, culture and calling. Published in Ontario. Fraces W. Willard, President of the Christian Temperance Union.

Now, people are products of their time (even iconoclasts) and Margaret and her three daughters lived in an interesting time, when women were told they could (finally!) have it all. (How did the 50′s ever happen?) Religious forces were at the fore-front of this movement. Read this bit from the book, written in 1890,if you don’t believe me!

“Hitherto, the education of boys and that of girls have proceeded upon an altogether different basis. Young women have been allowed to grow up without any practical education which they could turn to account in self-support, and sent out into life helpless dependents on the labour of others.

It seems to have been generally assumed that all young women would marry on the first favorable opportunity and that any kind of superficial training was good enough for those who were only charged with the work of home-building and housekeeping. Today, we have come to a profound conviction that thorough and practical education is important and necessary to makers and keepers of the home as it is to the professional, and with this in view, as well as for the purpose of self-support, every young woman should have the best, most practical culture and training.

The education of young women has been mainly literary in character, and in most cases, neither broad enough or deep enough to qualify them for teaching, while, within the last century, very few desired or received any practical training either for business or for an employment requiring trained or skilful service. Like plants, which cling for support to the strong oak, women, in vast numbers, have been taught to depend on characters stronger and better fitted to life’s stern battle.

It is hardly to be wondered at then, that when death or disaster removes the trusted support, women are thrown to the earth, like helpless trailing vines.”

Hmm. Margaret, born in 1854 was a brilliant homemaker, but she didn’t value her many useful skills. She wanted her children to have an education. She complained in 1912, when things were going terribly wrong, that “she couldn’t earn her own living.” Well, with many women thinking like this, the more conservative forces found a way to preserve the sanctity of the male workplace while giving women ‘what they wanted.’ They created the ‘new profession of home-making’ to enhance the status and perceived ability of homemakers(and to train servants). The only problem, in the case of homemakers, it was a profession with no pay, which is a contradition in terms.