Textbook: Ch. 9 – FILUMENA LASSANDRO, EXECUTED, EDMONTON WOMEN, THE ROARING TWENTIES, AND THE LAW

  1. Summary:

   -Filumena Lassandro was born in Italy in 1900 and immigrated to Canada in 1909 with her family.

   -She married at age 14 to a man named Carlo Sanfidele, and they settled in Blairmore, Alberta, where her husband worked as a chauffeur to local businessman Emilio Picariello.

   -Picariello was involved in bootlegging, and Lassandro became his driver.

   -In 1922, Lassandro and Picariello were arrested and charged with the murder of a police officer during a botched robbery.

   -Lassandro was controversially executed at the age of 22, and her story ignited a national debate about women's place in modern society.

History

-In 2003, an opera called "Filumena" was created to tell her tale.

-The 1920s were marked by prohibition, and Lassandro's involvement in bootlegging and crime personifies the era.

-Canada was experiencing a large immigration boom during this time, with many people from various countries looking to make a better life for themselves.

-The "Laurier Boom" period of prosperity was particularly good in the West, and the region was thriving in industries such as coal mining, lumber, and the railway.

  • The arrival of cars in Canada in the 1920s led to a newfound modernity and freedom.
  • Women's rights were expanding in Canada in the 1920s, and driving was just one of the

  ways they were breaking down barriers.

  • Prior to the First World War, women had the status of second-class citizens in Canada.
  • Women had been fighting for the right to vote for decades, and in 1916 Manitoba women became the first in Canada to win the right to vote and to hold provincial office, followed that year by Saskatchewan and Alberta.
  • In 1918, the Women’s Franchise Act gave all women who were British subjects age 21 or over the right to vote in federal elections.
  • By 1922, all the provinces had also given women the right to vote, save for Quebec, which held out until 1940.
  • The women’s rights issue was still largely a concern for middle- and upper-class women in the 1920s.
  • In the 1920s, Filumena Lassandro and Emilio Picariello were charged with the murder of a police officer, and Filumena was convicted, even though her lawyer argued that any evidence linking her to the fatal shot was circumstantial.
  • Women in Canada were not considered "persons" under the law in the 1920s, and were not allowed to be appointed to the Senate.
  • Nellie McClung and her group, the "Famous Five," challenged this idea, and in 1929, the JCPC in Britain decided that women were indeed persons under the law.
  • Filumena Lassandro was executed in 1923, and her case raised issues about the role of women, prohibition, fast cars, and capital punishment. She is the only woman ever executed in Alberta.

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