About Canada: Women’s Rights by P.Mitchell: Chapter 6: The Inter-War Years

What is the difference in infant deaths in 1851 & 1920?

In 1920, there were 102 infant deaths per thousand births in Canada, a drop from 184 infant deaths per thou￾sand births in 1851

What year would there be a shift in home-births?

Most births still took place at home, although there would be a shift to hospitals by 1940

What is the average age of marriage for Canadian women in 1921?

24.3 years

By the inter-war period, what had most homes in large urban settings had?

• Running water and electricity; cleaning clothes no longer occupied two full days of work

• Improved sanitation also meant a reduced burden on women to care for sick family members

What “movement” finally came into effect in 1918?

The Prohibition many women supported came into effect as part of an effort to preserve grain resources, under the War Measures Act in 1918

In what year did liquor sales resume in most provinces?

Restrictions on liquor sales lasted only a few years in most jurisdictions and liquor sales resumed in most provinces by the late 1920s

What did Montreal restrict liquor for after the Federation nationale Saint-Jean-Baptiste women brought a petition bearing 60k signatures?

Quebec did not go dry, though Montreal restricted the number of permits it issued for “buvettes” (taprooms) after the Fédération nationale Saint-Jean-Baptiste women brought in a petition bearing sixty thousand signatures.’

Which places saw an increase crime as a result of rum-running, alcohol-related crimes?

Although some jurisdictions, such as Windsor, Ontario, saw increased crime as a result of rum-running, alcohol-related crimes reportedly fell overall by more than half during prohibition

What % did alcohol consumption drop during prohibition?

Alcohol consumption per capita dropped during prohibition by an estimated 40 %

When prohibition ended, the sale of alcohol was taxed by govern￾ment and new regulations meant tighter controls on the alcoholic content and on the availability of alcohol.

What was written about the single working women on the Caught: Montreal’s Modern Girls?

Single working women now spent their earnings at cinemas and at dance halls where live bands played. “Young people, be they English or French Canadian, Catholic, Protestant or Jewish, immigrants from Poland, Italy or Britain, moved together on the dance floor rewriting the social boundaries that constructed their daily lives’ (1869-1945)

What year did changes about segregation in clubs occurred?

Clubs were racially segregated, though some Montreal jazz clubs defied the taboo on racial mingling late in the 1930s

What year did women participate for the 1st time at the Olympics?

In 1928, women participated for the first time at the Olympic summer games, establishing Canadian women’s capability in competitive sports

Who won the silver medal at the Olympic games in 1928?

Bobby Rosenfeld won a silver medal in the 100-metre sprint and a gold medal as a member of the women’s relay team

What health services did women push for?

Due to women’ successful efforts, mother’s allowance programs to assist destitute women and their children had been enacted in most jurisdictions. Women pushed for expanded public health services, including well-baby clinics and in support of campaigns to reduce the spread of disease. Public health measures helped prove the effective￾ness of spending tax money on public health care, and the federal government had taken women’s advice and set up the Department of Health in 1919

What occurred between 1919 & 1936?

The federal government cracked down on leftist causes, strikes were broken by mounted police, and non-British labour agitators were deported

What is Quebec’s Padlock Law & in what year, also when was it ruled unconstitutional?

In 1937, Quebec Premier Maurice Duplessis’ Padlock Law became an effective tool to quell labour and social unrest in Quebec, until the law was ruled unconstitutional in 1957.

What year was the Chinese immigration curbed?

Chinese immigration was curbed by Prime Minister Mackenzie King under the 1923 Chinese Exclusion Act

What were Chinese labourers & men prohibited from?

Chinese labourers were prohibited from most jobs and white women were prohibited from working for “Asiatic” men, who were viewed as promulgators of the opium and prostitution trades

What did judge Helen Grehory MacGill tell Chatelaine magazine in 1928?

Speaking against such laws, B.C. judge Helen Gregory MacGill told Chatelaine magazine in 1928 that an employer's race was not the problem. “What is needed,’ she said, “is protection against recognized danger, not restriction directed against a race.”

What % of female workers aged 14 & older made up the paid workforce in 1921?

17%

What places of work was excluded from the reduction of economic exploitation of female workers?

Including domestic work, teaching and nursing. Also, few inspectors were hired to enforce labour laws

How much money was the minimum wage in Quebec?

As a result, pieceworkers in the garment trades regularly complained they were not receiving the minimum wage, and employer fines, as little as $50 in Quebec, were not high enough to serve as a deterrent.

By 1920, what % of domestic workers made up the female labour force?

20%

• Domestic workers’ work conditions had eased slightly as they were no longer required to live in their employers’ homes, and a number of maids’ organizations were formed

What % of female workers were unionized compared to male workers?

Male: 12%

Female: 1%

How much money would a female buttonhole maker be paid compared to a male workers per week?

Male: $36

Female: $22

• Most jobs in the garment industry remained segregated: men worked as higher paid cutters and pressers, and women did all of the work in between

What years did female members of the Industrial Union of Needle Trades Workers in Toronto & Montreal?

As a result of these and other inequities, thousands of female members of the Industrial Union of Needle Trades Workers struck in 1931 in Toronto and 1934 in Montreal

What % of the female workforce was made up of clerical workers?

18%

How many clerical workers were in 1921 Canada & how much was the increase in two decades?

There were 90,000 clerical workers in Canada in 1921, a jump of more than $5,000 in two decades

How many stenographers & secretaries did the Toronto chapter of the Council of Women study in 1929 to determine women’s motivations for working?

300

How many married women worked & how many of their husbands had steady jobs?

79% of the ones surveyed were married & 54% of the married women had husbands that have steady employment

What made up of most of the majority of women that were studied bu the Toronto chapter of the Council of Women?

A majority of women surveyed had children and 27 percent said they were working to pay off doctors’ bills. Interestingly, when asked how long they intended to work, $2 percent said indefinitely, or as long as they were able

How strict were department stores when it came to female employers?

Department stores and domestic employers kept a watchful eye on female employees, firing them if they stepped outside of acceptable boundaries of female behaviour

• Similarly, women applying for mother’s allowance were required to

  prove their worthiness and respectability

What organizations addressed low rates of pay?

Business and Professional Women’s Club, the Federation of Medical Women of Canada, the Federation of Women Teachers’ Associations of Ontario and the Canadian Nurses’ Association

What % of undergraduates & graduate students at Canadian universities were female?

23% - undergrad

35% - graduate students

What kind of jobs did women partake in to break the employment barriers?

Women began to break many employment barriers, becoming pilots, scientists, politicians and university professors,

What event in 1929 opposed women of holding jobs

The Great Depression

• At this time, the Council of Women antagonized many of its members when it distanced itself from backing women's right to work in all fields

What is the # of female nurses & female teachers in 1921?

Nurses: 21 000

Teachers: 50 000

What was the minimum annual salary for female teachers in rural schools?

For Quebec’s female teachers, discrimination was particularly acute. In 1935, the minimum annual salary for female teachers in rural schools was $300, and some were paid less. It was “a time when the average Canadian renter paid $366 a year for shelter.

What town north of Quebec city took cause of Quebec’s female teachers?

Laure Gaudreault of La Malbaie, a town north of Quebec City, took up the cause of Quebec's female teachers in her role as a newspaper columnist. Gaudreault promoted the Fédération catholique des institutrices rurales, becoming its organizer in 1937. ‘The organization slowly won pension increases and served as an inspiration for Quebec teachers’ organizing efforts

What provinces have women been elected to legislative assemblies?

By the early 1920s, women had been elected to legislative assemblies of B.C., Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba

• All of the women elected to provincial legislatures prior to the Second World War were from the western provinces

Who become Canada’s 1st female cabinet minister?

In 1921, Mary Ellen Smith became Canada's first female cabinet minister after she joined the B.C. Liberals. First elected as an inde￾pendent under the slogan “women and children first

In 1918, what is the name of the woman who won a by-election?

In 1918, Smith won a by-election ina Vancouver riding represented by her husband, Ralph Smith, until his death

Who introduced B.C.’s minimum wage law?

Although she was appointed a minister without portfolio, Smith introduced the province's first minimum wage law. Smith advocated for the appointment of women judges and supported measures to establish juvenile courts and welfare for deserted wives

What act prohibited the employment of women after childbirth?

The province's Maternity Protection Act of 1921 prohibited the employment of women for six weeks following childbirth and ensured women would not be fired during their leave.

Who became the second woman in Cabinet?

The United Farmers of Alberta (uFA ) formed the government in 1921, and Irene Parlby soon became the second female cabinet minister in Canada.

• Parlby, a former president of the United Farm Women of Alberta, was an articulate advocate for women’s legal and economic rights during her fourteen-year tenure as an MLA

How many bills did the UFA government introduce to improve the welfare of women & children?

18 bills

• included laws to improve women’s property

  rights, set minimum wages and protect children

Who in Alberta’s cabinet pushed for old-age pensions & more?

In Alberta's 1921 election, Nellie McClung was elected to the legislature as a Liberal. She pushed for old-age pensions, increased rights for widows and improved factory conditions.

What date was the election that women were allowed to vote as the same basis as men? Who was the first female member of Parliament?

The federal election of

December 6, 1921, the first in

which women voted on the same

basis as men, saw the election of

Agnes Macphail, the first female

member of Parliament, to the

House of Commons.

What is Macphail’s history?

Macphail, a former school teacher, was elected under the Progressive Party banner, a party affiliated with the United Farmers of Ontario. She represented the Ontario riding of Grey Southeast and was subsequently re-elected as a United Farmers of Ontario- NJ Labour Member of Parliament.

How was Macphail described by Susan E. Merritt in her book, Herstory: Women from Canada’s past"?

“a warm outgoing thirty-one-year-old” who liked to dance and had multiple suitors. But she was nonetheless characterized by the press as a “cantankerous old maid.” “Determined” might have been a more accurate way to describe the politician who, for fourteen of her nineteen years in Ottawa, remained Canada’s lone female mp. Like other female politicians of the era, Macphail fought for social and legal reforms to aid women and the underprivileged

What was Macphail’s concerns?

Her concerns included old-age pensions, increased funding for schools and public health care, the creation of unemployment insurance and programs in aid of farmers. “It is true that the farmers work hard,” Macphail once said, “it is true that their days are long and their pay is poor. But it is also infinitely true that the farm womans day is longer and her pay poorer.’

Who became the first Canadian woman to be appointed to the League of Nations in Geneva?

In 1929, Macphail became the first Canadian woman to be appointed

Who formed the Ginger Group?

In the mid 1920s, Macphail, along with other progressive-minded MPs, formed the Ginger Group, a coalition of labour, farm and independent MPs

From the Ginger Group, what did they also “found”?

They were among the founders of the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation in Calgary in 1932

What is one of the CCF’s goals?

One of the CCF’s goals was the creation of the modern welfare state, envisioned to include unemployment insurance, universal pensions and national health insurance (a pre￾cursor to medicare).

What is one of Macphails’s greatest passions?

Prison reform.

In the 1920s, shackling, beatings and long periods in solitary confinement were still common. Macphail successfully fought for the Archambault Royal Commission on Penal Reform in 1935, which investigated the conditions in Canada’s prisons. She then fought for the implementation of its recommendations and helped establish the Elizabeth FrySociety in aid of female prisoners.

• Her efforts further paid off when unemployment insurance and family allowances were introduced in 1940.

Who was Canada’s second female MP?

Martha Purdy Black, stepped into her ailing husband’s former House of Commons seat in the 1953 election

• Black had become a successful businesswoman during the Klondlike Gold Rush

  • An ardent proponent of improved pensions & measures to stem unemployment

Who became Canada’s 3rd female MP? What did she introduce?

Elected in a 1940 by-election

Dorise Nielsen, a United Progressive Party from MP from Saskatchewan

• “introduced important discussion on equal pay, the protection of

  motherhood and infant care,” according to Joan Sangster in Dreams

  of Equality: Women on the Canadian Left 1920-1950. An articulate

  speaker, Nielsen worked to bring attention to the plight of working

  women and farmers in the West. She also protested the internment

  of Japanese-Canadians and argued that Canada’s new family allow￾ance should be payable to the mother, not the father. Nielson, by

  then a single mother, frequently struggled to find suitable care for

  her children for the five years she sat in the Commons.

What did Quebec’s powerful bishops think of women voting?

The province’s powerful bishops held that there was no basis in “natural law” for women to vote or participate in public life.

What did an influential politician & founder of the Le Devoir newspaper had to say about women voting?

The influential politician and founder of Le Devoir newspaper, Henri Bourassa, was a staunch opponent of female suffrage. “[It is] the introduction of feminism under its most noxious guise: the voter-woman, who will soon spawn the man-woman, that hybrid and repugnant monster who will kill the mother-woman and the wife-woman,’ Bourassa claimed.

What new organization was headed by Marie Gerin-Lajoie alongside the Montreal Women’s Club Anna yman create?

The Comité provincial pour le suffrage féminin (Provincial Suffrage Committee), to coordinate the efforts of Quebec suffrage supporters.

The organization had two branches — one English, one French — and Lyman and Gérin-Lajoie were its co-presidents.

Thérése Casgrain, who would later lead the suffrage campaign in Quebec, was a founding member.

• Casgrain, McGill professor Carrie Derick and Idola Saint-Jean were among four hundred women at who travelled to Quebec City in 1922 to support a suffrage bill before government.

Who led the newly formed Alliance canadienne pour le vote des femmes au Quebec?

In 1927, Saint-Jean

She also wrote on suffrage for newspapers and magazines. Saint-Jean ran as an independent candidate in the 1930 federal election.

What was the difference in rights for Quebec women compared to the rest of Canada?

Compared to their counterparts in the rest of Canada, married women in Quebec at this time had fewer rights.

• A legal separation remained all but impossible for Quebec women.

• While a Quebec husband could obtain a legal separation if his wife

• was adulterous, a Quebec wife could only obtain a legal separation on

• the grounds of adultery if her husband's mistress resided in the family home

  • Under Quebec’s Civil Code, women did not have control over their own earnings or have a say regarding the sale or disposal of family property

Who assumed the leadership of the Provincial Suffrage Committee renamed the League for Women’s Rights in 1929?

Therese Casgrain

She led the group until 1942, its objectives included amending Quebec’s Civil Code to give women greater rights

What were the changes surrounding Women’s suffrage occured in the 1920s?

The 1920s saw most legislatures pass legislation to give mothers an equal right to the custody and control of their children upon divorce. Women also secured a legal right to a share of marital property upon divorce; however, they were not entitled to financial support if they were adulterers.

What did the 1930 Divorce Act of Ontario grant women?

The right to divorce on the same grounds as men — simple adultery. Previously, a woman could only obtain a divorce if her husband committed incestuous adultery, rape, sodomy, bestiality, bigamy or adultery coupled with cruelty or desertion

What jurisdictions were the exception that established provincial divorce courts during the 1920-30s?

Quebec & Newfoundland

• Canada would not have a uniform federal divorce law until 1968

What is the 1929 Doiron Commission?

A Quebec commission on women’ civil rights

• Including the right of women to keep their paycheques and maintain child custody upon separation. The commission concluded: “Women themselves have not really evolved. Created to be the companions of men, women are always, and above all else, wives and mothers.”

Who did the women of Quebec turn to for help for the Quenec Assembly?

Quebec women, who had repeatedly petitioned the Quebec Assembly for the vote, turned to King George Vin 1935 and to Ottawa in 1938 for support. On April 25, 1940, a bill for the enfranchisement of women was finally passed by Quebec's Liberal government

Who was the first female magistrate in Canada?

Emily Murphy (1916)

Presiding over an Edmonton court for women that she had lobbied to create

• It was her first day on the job and the defence counsel, Eardley Jackson, while defending his client on bootlegging charges, charged that Murphy was not qualified as a magistrate because women were not persons under the terms of the British North America Act.

How did the Alberta Court deal with Emily Murphy’s case?

An Alberta court ruled that there was no disqualification for women magistrates, and a few years after women won the right to vote and stand for election, Murphy started a lobby to end the all male Senate. The National Council of Women threw in its support.

At a conference of the Federated Women’s Institutes of Canada in 1919, presided over by Murphy, what did the delegates pass?

A resolution calling on the prime minister to appoint a female senator. Over the next few years, members of the National Council of Women wrote letters to Prime Minister Mackenzie King urging him to appoint Murphy to the Senate. However, each time a Senate seat became open, women's hopes were dashed as another male senator was appointed.

How did Murphy changer her tactics?

Murphy’s brother, a lawyer, advised her of a legal provision that would permit her to petition Ottawa to seek an Order in Council asking the Supreme Court for legal interpretation of the law as it is related to the appointment of senators

• Avoiding a costly court case & all that was required to initiate the process was five petitioners

• 4 women who joined Murphy’s quest were high-profile ALbera feminists who became known as the Famous Five

Who founded the Working Girls’ Association in Montreal?

Henrietta Muir Edwards (1875)

• Convenor of laws for the National Council of Women for 38 years

  • Nellie McClung, Louise McKinney and Irene Parlby were all former or present Alberta MLAs

What was the difference from the Murphy Case?

Mere formality

• Parliament considers women to be “qualified persons” under Section 41 of the BNA Act when it allowed them to run for, election to the House of Commons

  • HOWEVER, prime ministers Robert Borde, Arthur Meighen & William Lyon Mackenzie King declines to appoint a woman to the senate

What was the reasoning of the Justice Department that stops them from including women?

The original framers of section 24 of the BNA Act had not intended to include women in the eligibility criteria for the Senate, they were not eligible in the present day

Who in 1921 advised the government against women in the Senate?

In 1921, Edmund Newcombe, a Department of Justice official who was later appointed to the Supreme Court, advised government: “In the absence of any precise authority to the contrary, I hold they are not qualified. There is no Latin word to describe a Senatress.”

What year was the Person’s case launched?

1927

• Does the word “person” in section 24 of the British North America Act, 1867, include female persons?

  • Murphy initially opposed the Justice Department's focus on the definition of persons

  • She was all too aware that British common law held that women were persons in “matters of pains and penalties, but not in matters of rights and privileges.”

What did the Supreme Court of Canada decide about women being in the definition of what a “persons” is?

On April 28, 1928, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled unanimously that women were not qualified persons to be appointed to the Senate of Canada.

• Undaunted, Murphy immediately encouraged the deputy minister of Justice to appeal the case to the Judicial Committee of the British Privy Council. The case was represented by Newton Rowell, a former Ontario Liberal Mp in Robert Borden’s Union government. Rowell had also represented the female petitioners before the Supreme Court

  • His granddaughter, Nancy Ruth, would be appointed to the Senate in 2005S.

What did the British Prvy say about the case?

A year and a half later, on October 18, 1929, the British Privy Council ruled unanimously in the case officially known as Edwards v. Canada that women were persons according to the BNa Act and were therefore qualified to be appointed to the Senate of Canada.

Who was the ruling in the Persons Case written by?

Lord Chancellor John Sankey

• Sankey invoked the concept of a constitution as a “living tree” that

  grows with time to reflect social customs. It was this concept that,

  fifty years later, would inform the creation of Canada’s Charter of

  Rights and Freedoms.

What occurred in February 1930 four months following the Persons ruling?

King appointed Cairine Wilson to the Red Chamber. Canada’s first

female senator had been active in the Victorian Order of Nurses, the

Young Women’s Christian Association and the National Federation

of Liberal Women of Canada. Wilson took up the cause of divorce

liberalization and, in 1938, spoke out against the Munich Agreements

appeasement of German Chancellor Adolph Hitler. Wilson was one

of the few Canadian politicians (Agnes Macphail was another) who

protested Canada’s restrictive immigration policies that prevented

Jews fleeing persecution from entering Canada.

Who is Canada’s first female delegate to the United Nations General Assembl?y

Cairene WIlson

What occurred in the 15th anniversary of the Persons Case in 1979?

Governor General Ed Schreyer created the Governor General's Awards in Commemoration of the Persons Case to recognize individuals who have made a long-standing contribution to the equality of women in Canada

• A monument of the Famous Five stands on Parliament Hill

What was thought of Murphy?

Murphy, a life-long conservative, did not realize her dream of becoming a Senator. It was not only her political ties that were held against her. King had once commented that Murphy was “a little too masculine and perhaps a bit too flamboyant.’

How was Murphy a controversial figure?

Due to her support for eugenics, a philosophy that billed itself as the science for improving

the human race through controlled breeding. Eugenics was a popular

idea, even among progressives, in the early twentieth century and

many countries had sterilization programs. It was believed by eugenics

supporters that if the family size of those with the lowest intelligence

were limited, the overall intelligence of society would rise. Such

arguments were also used to gain support for legalized birth control,

since reducing the family size of the poor was seen as a way to reduce

“mental defectiveness,” which was believed to be hereditary. Some

eugenics supporters cast issues like sexually transmitted diseases,

prostitution, delinquency and unwed pregnancy as primarily mat￾ters of “moral laxity.”

What was introduced in 1928 by the United Farmers of Alberta government?

Endorsed Alberta's sterilization program for the “feeble-minded”

• Died in 1933, the year Tommy Douglas’s master’s thesis, entitled “The Problems of the Subnormal Family,” outlined a national eugenics program under which couples would need to be declared morally and mentally fit before marrying

What did Saskatchewan’s premier imagined program for it to be?

Under the future Saskatchewan premier’s imagined program, those with low intelligence or moral laxity would be sent to state-run farms to be reformed, while those found to be mentally defective would be sterilized

• Eugenics lost its favour among social progressives, including Douglas, after German Chancellor Adolph Hitler adopted the idea of improving the human race through selective breeding

How many total of women & men in Alberta were subjected to coerced & forced sterilization?

A total of 2,822 women and men in Alberta; most of them were female residents in institutions for the mentally ill

• Many women in B.C. and Ontario were also sterilized without their consent and Aboriginal women were disproportionately sterilized.

What were the cases for the abortion & sterilization?

In some cases, poor women seeking abortions in Canada were asked by doctors if they would agree to be sterilized if granted an abortion.

Who was one of the victims for sterilization?

The most vociferous opponents of forced sterilizations were women, including Leilani Muir, who won a landmark legal case in 1996 for wrongful sterilization and confinement in Alberta, where the practice ended in 1972.

What year did the new Department of Health been established?

In 1919, to emphasize sanitation, vaccination, disease control, & the development of healthy children + # of reform-minded MPs also elected

What was the result of the new Department of Health?

Increased demands for greater public aid for the elderly & disabled, ,war widows, the unemployed, the sick & the destitute were heard in the House of Commons

What did the Liberal Leader in 1925 in exchange of the Progressive Party promise to introduce>

Legislation on old-age pensions

• In 1927, the Old Age Pension Act was first introdiced

  • MP Agnes Macphail was among the first to draft the bill

    • At first, pensions provided $20 per month to those over seventy years of age who had lived in Canada for twenty or more years, were British subjects and passed

      a means test

Was they seperate courts & jails for juveniles & wayward juveniles?

yes to both

What were juvenile courts created to do?

To discipline delinquent minors and keep them out of adult prisons. Young women found working in prostitution were usually sent to a training or reform school.

• In Montreal, there were separate juvenile delinquency institutions for French Canadians, English Quebeckers and delinquent Jewish girls