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The History of Women in Canada
Trent University, Department of History
Hist 316
Instructor: Tarah Brookfield
Email: tarahbrookfield@trentu.ca
Office: LEC S119.7
Office Phone: (705)748-1011 ext. 7846,
Office Hours: Mondays 1:00-1:50 or by appointment
Lecture: Mondays 11:00-12:50 (GCS 108)
Tutorials: 2:00-2:50, 3:00-3:50, 4:00-4:50 (OCA 206)
1. Description and Goals:
This course explores themes in the history of Canadian women from before European
occupation until the end of the twentieth century. It compares women’s diverse historic
experiences as mothers, wives, workers, activists, consumers, migrants, and citizens, and
examines how their history was shaped by social constructions of gender, class, sexuality,
race, ethnicity, age, religion, and region. The course also considers how historians have
developed the field of women’s and gender history and how this has shaped
understandings of Canadian History.
The course is divided into five sections:
 First Nations Women and Colonialism
 Women in Colonial, Pre-Industrial and Rural Canada
 Gender, Industry and Nation, 1860s-1945
 World War Two and Post-war Canada,1945-1960
 Activism, Feminism and Social Changes since the 1960s
2. Required Course Texts
1) Course Kit Fall
2) Course Kit Winter
3) Mona Gleason and Adele Perry, eds. Rethinking Canada: The Promise of Women’s
History, Fifth edition, (Don Mills, Ontario: Oxford University Press, 2006).
A copy of Rethinking Canada has been put on reserve at the library. Additionally, the
textbook Canadian Women: A History (2004) has been put on reserve for reference.
3. Evaluation
Tutorial Participation
Historica Minutes Analysis
20%
10%
September 29
2
Article Comparison
Mid-Term Exam
Paper Proposal
Research Paper
Final Exam
4. Assignments
15%
15%
5%
20%
15%
November 10
January 19
March 16
Participation (20%)
Tutorial discussion and the completion of any tutorial activities are the basis of your
participation grade. In tutorials you will discuss the weekly readings and relate them to
the course themes. You are expected to come to lectures and tutorials every week having
read the assigned primary sources and articles and be prepared to discuss them critically.
Your grade will be based in part on attendance (20%) and on the quality of your
participation in the tutorial discussions and activities (80%).
Historica Minutes Analysis (10%)
(4 pages)
Historia Minutes (www.histori.ca/minutes) are one minute movies produced by the
Historica Foundation of Canada to celebrate Canadian History. For this assignment you
must analyze First Nations’ women’s portrayal in the three films that document the era
“Pre-1600 to First Contact” entitled ‘Jacques Cartier,’ ‘Syrup,’ and ‘Peacemaker.’ Your
paper will develop a thesis and provide examples that answer the following questions
1.
2.
3.
4.
What are the goals of these minutes?
How are the women presented?
How does their portrayal compare and contrast with the readings from weeks 1-4.
Briefly describe a minute you would create that dramatizes an important story to
share about First Nations’ women’s experiences in this era?
Article Comparison (15%)
(4 pages)
The assignment’s goal is to demonstrate your comprehension and critical assessment of
how historians research and develop their arguments. Using the articles for week 9, you
will compare and contrast the different presentations of women’s work in and outside the
home during industrialization and develop your own thesis about the contributions
Bettina Bradbury and Joy Parr make to the field of women’s history. Your paper should
include the following points:
1. Identify and compare the authors’ arguments.
2. Identify and evaluate the authors’ evidence (primary and secondary sources) used
to build their arguments.
3. Consider if you find both articles equally relevant or if you believe one is more
convincing than the other. Why?
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Research Paper (25%)
1) Proposal (1 page, plus an annotated bibliography)
2) Final Paper (10-12 pages)
This paper will give you the opportunity to explore a topic and answer a question related
to Canadian women’s history. Your research will consist of at least four appropriate
secondary sources and one primary source.
5. Submitting Assignments and Late Penalties
Assignments for this course are submitted on paper. They should be double-spaced and in
12-point font, with standard margins, and regular character spacing. All assignments
require a bibliography and footnotes that follow the Chicago Manual of Style. Sample
citations are found here: http://library.williams.edu/citing/styles/chicago1.php
Extensions are only issued under special circumstances (e.g. documented illness) and
only when the instructor is contacted at least three days before the assignment is due –
except in the case of an emergency.
Late assignments are penalized at the rate of 2 marks (“2%”), per weekday. If you are late
in handing in an assignment because of an emergency or sudden illness, no late marks
will be deducted; however, the instructor may require you to provide documentation
supporting your reason for handing in the assignment late.
On occasion your instructor may accept an assignment submitted as an email attachment.
You must first inform your instructor ahead of time of the reasons for submitting the
assignment by email and your instructor must agree to accept the assignment this way.
6. Academic Dishonesty
Academic dishonesty, which includes plagiarism and cheating, is an extremely serious
academic offense and carries penalties varying from failure in an assignment to
suspension from the University. Definitions, penalties, and procedures for dealing with
plagiarism and cheating are set out in Trent University’s Academic Dishonesty Policy
which is printed in the University Calendar and on the university web site at:
http://www.trentu.ca/deansoffice/policies_dishonesty.php.
7. Access to Instruction
It is Trent University’s intent to create an inclusive learning environment. If a student has
a disability and/or health consideration and feels that he/she may need accommodations
to succeed in this course, the student should contact the Disability Services Office (BL
Suite 109; 748-1281; disabilityservices@trentu.ca) as soon as possible.
8. Lecture Subjects and Weekly Readings
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* = Course Pack. The rest are found in Rethinking Canada: The Promise of Women’s
History. Primary sources will be handed out in class.
Week 1 -September 8
Introduction to Canadian Women’s History: Chronology, Issues, Ideas, Sources.
*Julie Cruikshank, “Introduction: Life History and Life Stories,” and Angela Sidney,
“My Stories are My Wealth,” In Julie Cruikshank with Angela Sidney, Kitty Smith and
Annie Ned, Life Lived Like a Story (Vancouver: UBC Press, 1990), 1-36, 66-72, 98-101,
111-116.
Part I – First Nations Women and Colonialism
Week 2 – September 15
Gender, Kinship and Power in First Nations Societies
Primary Source: “Iroquois - Earth Diver,” ed. James Axtell, The Indian Peoples of
Eastern America: A Documentary History of the Sexes, (1981).
*Karen Anderson, “A Gendered World: Women, Men and the Political Economy of the
Seventeenth-Century Huron,” in Heather Jon Maroney and Meg Luxton eds., Feminism
and Political Economy. Women’s Work, Women’s Struggles (Toronto: Methuen, 1987),
121-38.
*John Lutz, “Gender and Work in Lekwammen Families, 1843-1970,” in Kathryn
McPherson, Cecilia Morgan, and Nancy M. Forestell eds., Gendered Pasts. Historical
Essays in Femininity and Masculinity in Canada (Toronto: University of Toronto Press
Press, 1999), 80-105, 250-258.
Week 3 - September 22
Civilizing Projects: From Missionaries to the Indian Acts
Primary Source: Extract from Paul Le Jeune, Le Jeune’s Relation, 1636, from Rubin
Gold Thwaites, Jesuit Relations and Allied Documents.
*Eleanor Leacock, “Montagnais Women and the Jesuit Program for Colonization”, in
Mona Etienne and Eleanor Leacock eds., Women and Colonization: Anthropological
Perspectives (New York: Praeger, 1980), 25-42.
Nancy Shoemaker, “Kateri Tekakwitha’s Tortuous Path to Sainthood,” 1995, reprinted in
Gleason and Perry, Rethinking Canada, 2006, 10-25.
Week 4 – September 29
First Nations Women and European Men
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Primary Source: Extracts from Alexander MacKenzie, Journal of a Voyage through the
North-West Continent of America in the years 1789 and 1793.
Sylvia Van Kirk, “From Marrying-In to Marrying-Out: Changing Patterns of
Aboriginal/Non-aboriginal Marriage in Colonial Canada,” Rethinking Canada, 115-23.
*Constance Backhouse, “Ceremony of Marriage,” Petticoats and Prejudice: Women and
Law in Nineteenth-Century Canada (Toronto: Women’s Press, 1991), 9-39, 341-348.
Part II – Women in Colonial, Pre-Industrial and Rural Canada
Week 5 – October 6
New France: Special Possibilities for Women? Special Dangers?
Primary Source: extract from Joyce Marshall, ed., Word from New France: The Selected
Letters of Marie de l’Incarnation (1967).
*Jan Noel, “New France: Les Femmes Favorisées,” Atlantis: A Woman’ Studies Journal
6 (2) Spring 1981, 80-98.
Josette Brun, “Gender, Family, and Mutual Assistance in New France: Widows,
Widowers, and Orphans in Eighteenth-Century Quebec,” Rethinking Canada, 26-44.
Week 6 - October 20
Colonial Conflicts, Conquest, Migration and Women’s Lives
Primary Source: James E. Seaver, A Narrative of the Life of Mrs. Mary Jemison
(Canadaigua: Bemis and Co, 1824).
*Janice Potter, “Patriarchy and Paternalism: The Case of the Eastern Ontario Loyalist
Women,” Rethinking Canadian History, 3rd edition (1997), 58-69.
Maureen Elgersman Lee, “Slavery in Early Canada: Making Black Women Subject,”
Rethinking Canada, 45-60.
Week 7 – October 27
Politics, the Public and Gender in the early 19th Century
Primary Sources: Extracts from Quebec newspapers; The Quebec Mercury, La Minerve,
The Montreal Gazette; from the Debates, Lower Canada, House of Assembly.
Rusty Bitterman, “Women and the Escheat Movement: The Politics of Everyday Life on
Prince Edward Island,” Rethinking Canada, 115-23.
Bettina Bradbury, “Women at the Hustings: Gender, Citizenship and the Montreal By-
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Elections of 1832,” Rethinking Canada, 73-94.
Week 8 – November 3
Women in Rural and Small Town Canada
Primary Source: Extracts from Susanna Moodie, Roughing it in the Bush (1852, reprinted
1970), 81-2.
*Shirley Yee, “Gender Ideology and Black Women as Community Builders in Ontario,
1850-1870,” Canadian Historical Review, 75 (1994), 53-73.
*Marjorie Cohen, “The Decline of Women in Canadian Dairying,” Social History 17, 34
(November 1984), 307-34.
Part III – Gender, Industry and Nation, 1860s to 1950
Week 9 – November 10
Women, Work and Industrialization
Primary Source: The Royal Commission on the Relations between Labor and Capital,
Selected Evidence, Canada, 1889, 222-3.
*Bettina Bradbury, “Pigs, Cows and Boarders: Non-Wage Forms of Survival among
Montreal Families, 1861-1891,” Labour/Le Travail 14 (1984), 9-46.
*Joy Parr, “Rethinking Work and Kinship in a Canadian Hosiery Town, 1910-1950,”
Feminist Studies, 13, 1 (Spring 1987), 137-162.
Week 10 – November 17
Class, Religion and 19th Century Reform
Primary Source: Extract from Mrs. Addie Chisholm, President of Ontario WCTU, Why
and How: the Hand-Book for the Use of the W.C.T. Unions in Canada (Montreal, 1884).
Lynne Marks, ‘A Fragment of Heaven on Earth? Religion, Gender and Family in Turn of
the Century Canadian Church Periodicals,” Rethinking Canada, 124-143.
*Marta Danylewycz, “Changing Relationships: Nuns and Feminists in Montreal, 18901925” in Alison Prentice and Susan Mann Trofimenkoff’s The Neglected Majority:
Essays in Canadian Women’s History (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1985), 122143.
Week 11 – November 24
Settling/Unsettling the West
Primary Source: Extracts from interviews in Eliane Leslau Silverman, The Last Best
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West, 1880-1930, 87-90.
*Royden K. Loewen, “The Children, the Cows, My Dear Man, and My Sister: The
Transplanted Lives of Mennonite Farm Women, 1874-1900,” Canadian Historical
Review, 73, 3 (September 1992), 344-73.
*Sarah Carter, “Categories and Terrains of Exclusions: Constructing the ‘Indian Woman’
in Early Settlement Era in Western Canada, Great Plains Quarterly 1993 13(3): 147-161
Week 12 – December 1
Midterm Conclusion/Review
Week 13 – January 5
Claiming Citizenship - the Woman’s Movement and its Legacies
Primary Source: Selected Extracts: Canada House of Commons Debate, 1885.
*Wayne Roberts, “Rocking the Cradle for the World’: The New Woman and Maternal
Feminism, Toronto, 1877-1914,” Linda Kealey ed., A Not Unreasonable Claim. Women
and Reform in Canada, 1880s - 1920s (Toronto: The Women’s Press, 1979), 15-46, 204210.
Janice Fiamengo, “Rediscovering our Foremothers Again: Racial Ideas of Canada’s Early
Feminists, 1885-1945,” Rethinking Canada, 144-63.
Week 14 – January 12
Denying Citizenship - Race, Racism, Eugenics and Gender
Primary Source: Extracts from British Columbia, Report &Evidence, Royal Commission
on Chinese Immigration (1885), ix, x, viii and Canada, Report of the Royal Commission
on Chinese and Japanese Immigration, 1902, 171.
Margaret Hillyard Little, “Claiming a Unique Place: The Introduction of Mother’s
Pensions in British Columbia,” Rethinking Canada, 163-78.
*Michiko Midge Ayukawa, “Good Wives and Wise Mothers: Japanese Picture Brides in
Early Twentieth Century British Columbia” BC Studies (Spring/Summer 1995), 103-18.
Week 15 – January 19
Bodies, Sex and Sexualities
Primary Sources: Extracts from Emma F. Angell Drake, M.D. What a Young Wife Ought
to Know (Toronto, 1897, Purity and Truth, Self and Sex Series), 88-89; Marie Stopes,
Married Love. A New Contribution to the Solution of Sex Difficulties (Toronto: 1920),
16-17, 50-54.
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*Karen Duder, “Public Acts and Private Languages: Bisexuality and the Multiple
Discourses of Constance Grey Swartz,” BC Studies, 136 (Winter 2002-3), 3-24.
*Wendy Mitchinson, “Three Mysteries: Puberty, Menstruation, and Menopause,” The
Nature of Their Bodies: Women and Their Doctors in Victorian Canada, (Toronto:
University of Toronto Press, 1991), 77-98, 388-392.
Week 16 – January 26
Women and the Great Depression
Primary Source: “Baby Death Rate Terrible, Birth Control Trial Told,” Toronto Daily
Star, 3 November 1836, 2.
*Margaret Hobbs, “Equality and Difference: Feminism and the Defence of Women
Workers During the Great Depression,” Labour/Le Travail, 32 (Fall 1993), 201-23.
Denyse Baillargeon, “Indispensable but not a Citizen: The Housewife in the Great
Depression,” 2002, Rethinking Canada, 179-94.
Part IV- World War and Post War Canada, 1945-60
Week 17 – February 2
What Difference Did World War Two Make?
Primary Source: Canadian Army Anti VD Posters, 2nd world war.
*Ruth Pierson, “Women’s Emancipation and the Recruitment of Women into the Labour
Force in World War II,” Susan Mann Trofimenkoff et.al. ed., The Neglected Majority.
Essays in Canadian Women’s History (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1977), 125145.
Pam Sugiman, “Passing Time, Moving Memories: Interpreting Wartime Narratives of
Japanese Canadian Women,” Rethinking Canada, 242-63.
Donald F. Davis and Barbara Lorenzkowski, “A Platform for Gender Tensions: Women
Working and Riding on Canadian Urban Transit in the 1940s,” Rethinking Canada, 224241.
Week 18 – February 9
Sex, War and Reconstruction - the 1950s
Primary Source: “Don’t let your girlfriend ruin your marriage”, Chatelaine, Oct. 1954.
*Veronica Strong-Boag, “Home Dreams: Women and the Suburban Experiment in
Canada, 1945-1960,” Canadian Historical Review, 72 (1991), 471-504.
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Sheila L. Cavanagh, “The Heterosexualization of the Ontario Woman Teacher in the
Postwar Period,” Rethinking Canada, 278-86.
Week 19 – February 23
Migration, Race and Citizenship in Post-War Canada
Primary Source: Please consult the Pier 21 website, http://www.pier21.ca/ .Choose
stories, then select a particular category of immigrant that interests you, and find a story
about migrating to Canada after World War II.
Marlene Epp, “Victims of the Times, Heroes of Their Lives: Five Mennonite Refugee
Women” (1997), Rethinking Canada, 287-300.
Franca Iacovetta, “Recipes for Democracy? Gender, Family, and Making Female
Citizens in Cold War Canada,” Rethinking Canada, 264-277.
Week 20 – March 2
Women Fighting for Changes
Primary Source: “More Digging into the Wages of Telephone Girls,” Toronto Daily Star,
8 February, 1907, 6.
*Constance Backhouse, “‘Bitterly Disappointed’ at the Spread of ‘Colour-Bar Tactics’:
Viola Desmond’s Challenge to Racial Segregation, Nova Scotia, 1946”, in her ColourCoded: A Legal History of Racism in Canada, 1900-1950 (1999), 226-271, 402-431.
*Julie Guard, “Fair Play or Fair Pay? Gender Relations, Class Consciousness, and Union
Solidarity in the Canadian UE,” Labour/Le Travail, 37 (Spring 1997), 149-77.
Part V- Activism, Feminism, and Social Changes since the 1960s
Week 21 – March 9
New Waves of Feminism
Primary Source: Song from the Women’s Movement, typed, no source, no date.
*Nancy Adamson, “Feminists, Libbers, Lefties, and Radicals: The Emergence of the
Women’s Liberation Movement,” in Joy Parr ed., A Diversity of Women. Ontario 19451980 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1995), 252-280.
*Lorna Weir, “Left Popular Politics in Canadian Feminist Abortion Organizing, 19821991,” Feminist Studies 1994 20(2): 249-274.
Week 22 – March 16
Women, Work and Families: Transformations and Challenges
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Primary Source: “A weekly schedule for 1929 in Flin Flon, Manitoba,” and “A daily
schedule for 1929,” from Meg Luxton, More than a Labour of Love (1980), 120.
Jane Jenson, “Against the Current: Child Care and Family Policy in Quebec,” Rethinking
Canada, 344-64.
Glynis George, “Violence and Poverty on the ‘Rock’: Can Feminists Make a
Difference?” Rethinking Canada, 336-43.
Week 23 – March 23
Continuing Challenges: Colonialism, Class, Race and Gender past and present
Primary Source: Marc Lépine, “Last Words From a Woman Hater,” Globe and Mail 27
November 1990.
Patricia Jasen, “Race, Culture, and the Colonization of Childbirth in Northern Canada,”
Rethinking Canada, 323-335.
Mary-Jo Nadeau, “Who is Canadian Now?: Feminism and the Politics of Nation after
September 11,” Rethinking Canada, 381-393.
Week 24 - March 30
Canadian Women’s Histories: Review, Overview.