Canadian Women in Print, 1750–1918

Carole Gerson

Description

Canadian Women in Print, 1750—1918 is the first historical examination of women’s engagement with multiple aspects of print over some two hundred years, from the settlers who wrote diaries and letters to the New Women who argued for ballots and equal rights. Considering women’s published writing as an intervention in the public sphere of national and material print culture, this book uses approaches from book history to address the working and living conditions of women who wrote in many genres and for many reasons.

This study situates English Canadian authors within an extensive framework that includes francophone writers as well as women’s work as compositors, bookbinders, and interveners in public access to print. Literary authorship is shown to be one point on a spectrum that ranges from missionary writing, temperance advocacy, and educational texts to journalism and travel accounts by New Woman adventurers. Familiar figures such as Susanna Moodie, L.M. Montgomery, Nellie McClung, Pauline Johnson, and Sara Jeannette Duncan are contextualized by writers whose names are less well known (such as Madge Macbeth and Agnes Laut) and by many others whose writings and biographies have vanished into the recesses of history.

Readers will learn of the surprising range of writing and publishing performed by early Canadian women under various ideological, biographical, and cultural motivations and circumstances. Some expressed reluctance while others eagerly sought literary careers. Together they did much more to shape Canada’s cultural history than has heretofore been recognized.

Sujets

• Literary criticism

Informations

• Publié par: Wilfrid Laurier University Press
• Date de parution: 25 juin 2010
• Nombre de lectures: 1
• EAN13: 9781554586882
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

Canadian Women in Print 1750-1918
Canadian Women in Print 1750-1918

CAROLE GERSON
This book has been published with the help of a grant from the Canadian Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences, through the Aid to Scholarly Publications Programme, using funds provided by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. We acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts for our publishing program. We acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Book Publishing Industry Development Program for our publishing activities.

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication
Gerson, Carole
Canadian women in print, 1750-1918 / Carole Gerson.
Includes bibliographical references and index. Issued also in electronic format. ISBN 978-1-55458-220-4 (cloth) ISBN 978-1-55458-304-1 (pbk.)
1. Canadian literature-Women authors-History and criticism. 2. Women and literature-Canada-History. 3. Women authors, Canadian-Social conditions. I. Title. (cloth)
PS 8089.5.W6G473 2010 C810.9 9287 c2010-900643-7
ISBN 978-1-55458-239-6 Electronic format.
1. Canadian literature-Women authors-History and criticism. 2. Women and literature-Canada-History. 3. Women authors, Canadian-Social conditions. I. Title.
PS 8089.5.W6G473 2010 C810.9 9287 c2010-900644-5
Cover image from iStockphoto. Cover design by Martyn Schmoll. Text design by Catharine Bonas-Taylor.
2010 Wilfrid Laurier University Press Waterloo, Ontario, Canada www.wlupress.wlu.ca
This book is printed on FSC recycled paper and is certified Ecologo. It is made from 100% post-consumer fibre, processed chlorine free, and manufactured using biogas energy.
Printed in Canada
Every reasonable effort has been made to acquire permission for copyright material used in this text, and to acknowledge all such indebtedness accurately. Any errors and omissions called to the publisher s attention will be corrected in future printings.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior written consent of the publisher or a licence from The Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency (Access Copyright). For an Access Copyright licence, visit www.access-copyright.ca or call toll free to 1-800-893-5777.
CONTENTS

List of Illustrations
Acknowledgements
Introduction
P ART A: C ONTEXTS : W OMEN AND P RINT IN C ANADA, TO 1918
1 Women and the Broader Contexts of Print
2 Beginnings to the 1850s
P ART B: W OMEN W RITERS AT W ORK
3 Strategies of Legitimation
4 The Business of a Woman s Life
5 Canadian Women and American Markets
P ART C: B REAKING N EW G ROUND AFTER 1875
6 Periodicals and Journalism
7 Stretching the Range: Secular Non-fiction
8 From Religion to Reform
9 The New Woman
10 Addressing the Margins of Race
Conclusion: Observations on the Canon
Notes
Selected Bibliography
Index
ILLUSTRATIONS

FIGURE 1.1 The composing room staff of the King s County Record , Sussex, New Brunswick, c. 1900 / 7
FIGURE 1.2 The staff of the Reference Library, Toronto Public Library, c. 1895 / 15
FIGURE 1.3 Anne Langton, self-portrait, 1840 / 18
FIGURE 2.1 Susanna Strickland Moodie, c. 1860 / 39
FIGURE 2.2 Catharine Parr Strickland Traill, c. early 1890s / 40
FIGURE 3.1 Jos phine Marchand Dandurand ( Josette ) / 55
FIGURE 3.2 Isabella Valancy Crawford / 58
FIGURE 4.1 L.M. Montgomery, c. 1940 / 87
FIGURE 4.2 Madge Macbeth, photographed by Yousuf Karsh, 1938 / 88
FIGURE 5.1 Marshall Saunders, 1920s / 99
FIGURE 5.2 Marjorie Pickthall, 1916 / 100
FIGURE 6.1 Robertine Barry ( Fran oise ) / 109
FIGURE 6.2 Ethelwyn Wetherald / 111
FIGURE 6.3 Founding members of the Canadian Women s Press Club, en route to the Saint-Louis Exhibition, June 1904 / 121
FIGURE 7.1 Carrie M. Derick / 130
FIGURE 7.2 Sarah Anne Curzon, 1891 / 136
FIGURE 8.1 Nellie McClung, c. 1914 / 152
FIGURE 8.2 Agnes Maule Machar distributing Humane Society literature, c. 1912 / 156
FIGURE 9.1 Sara Jeannette Duncan, 1890s / 160
FIGURE 9.2 Agnes C. Laut / 170
FIGURE 9.3 Agnes Deans Cameron, My Premier Moose and The First Type-writer on Great Slave Lake, 1908 / 172
FIGURE 9.4 Mina Hubbard, In the Heart of the Wilderness, With the Nascaupee Women, and On the Trail, 1905 / 175
FIGURE 10.1 E. Pauline Johnson, c. 1895 / 183
FIGURE 10.2 Winnifred Eaton ( Onoto Watanna ), c. 1902 / 190
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

V ERY FEW BOOKS ARE CREATED by just one person, and this one owes its existence to the assistance of many. Over the years I have gratefully drawn on the research of other scholars, including Gwendolyn Davies groundbreaking work on Maritime women writers, Michael A. Peterman s extensive knowledge of the Strickland family, Marjory Lang s fabulous book on Canada s first female journalists, Mary Rubio s expertise on L.M. Montgomery, and Veronica Strong-Boag s ongoing collaboration on Pauline Johnson. Other researchers have participated as students and as colleagues, beginning in the 1980s and 1990s when Carol McIvor, Marjory Lang, Deborah Blacklock, Sandra Even, and Katrina Harack helped to locate and record information on little-known writers for the database, Canada s Early Women Writers. I m indebted to eagle-eyed Janet B. Friskney for sending me many details regarding Canada s literary history that I otherwise would not have found. As this book neared completion, Lian Beveridge pored over microfiche and Alison McDonald organized the bibliography. Many others have contributed directly or indirectly through numerous modes of academic discourse, ranging from informal conversations and email queries to invitations to contribute to conferences and publications. I m grateful to David Bentley, Diana Brydon, Sandra Campbell, Mary Chapman, Leith Davis, Misao Dean, Nancy Earle, Michael Everton, Janice Fiamengo, Irene Gammel, Greg Gatenby, Sherrill Grace, Leslie Howsam, Karyn Huenemann, Peggy Kelly, Eve-Marie Kroller, Tracy Kulba, Benjamin Lefebvre, Mary Lu MacDonald, the late Lorraine McMullen, Heather Murray, W.H. New, Ruth Panofsky, George L. Parker, Betty Schellenberg, Christl Verduyn, Tom Vincent, and Gillian Whitlock for their ongoing generosity in providing insights, answering questions, and sharing information. This book owes much of its scholarly perspective to my editorial colleagues in the History of the Book in Canada project: Fiona A. Black, Judy Donnelly, Patricia Fleming, Yvan Lamonde, and Jacques Michon, who educated me about the wider field of print culture. I would like to thank SSHRC (the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council) for several decades of continuing research support and the Killam program of the Canada Council for the Research Fellowship, which gave me the time to pull it all together.
Research for this book was enabled by the assiduous interlibrary loan staff at Simon Fraser University and by librarians and archivists across Canada, beginning with those who responded to my first queries more than twenty-five years ago. Grateful thanks are due to Anne Goddard and Linda Hoad at what is now Library and Archives Canada, Sandra Alston and Rachel Grover at the University of Toronto, Susan Saunders Bellingham at the University of Waterloo, Apollonia Steele and Joanne Henning at the University of Calgary, Nancy Sadek at the University of Guelph, Cheryl Ennals at Mount Alison, Mary Flagg at the University of New Brunswick, Carl Spadoni at McMaster, Patricia Townsend at Acadia University, Karen Smith at Dalhousie, Nellie Reiss and Richard Virr at McGill, Leon Warmski at the Archives of Ontario, and Kenneth G. Aitken at the Regina Public Library. I regret that I have not recorded the names of the staff who assisted at many additional institutional and public libraries, large and small, and at most of Canada s provincial archives, from Nova Scotia to British Columbia.
Some of the material in this book first saw the light of day in my contributions to proceedings of the conferences of HOLIC/HILAC (History of the Literary Institution in Canada/Histoire de l Institution Litt raire au Canada) at the University of Alberta, Context North America: Canadian-US Literary Relations (Ottawa: University of Ottawa Press, 1994), and the first two volumes of the History of the Book in Canada , as well as in my monograph, Canada s Early Women Writers: Texts in English to 1859 (Ottawa: CRIAW, 1994).
Abundant thanks to all my family for their continuous support, and to Martin for his patient assistance with the evolving technology of scholarly communication. This book is dedicated to my mother, who reads everything, and to my granddaughter, who has yet to learn to read.
INTRODUCTION

M OST BOOKS ABOUT THE LITERARY past focus on selected major authors and the contents of their works, examining their sources, topics, styles, influences, reception, and canonization. Some sections of Canadian Women in Print cover such ground, but in general my primary focus is the context in which writers worked, rather than detailed analysis of their words. Considering women s published writing as an intervention in the public sphere of national and material print culture, this book traces the broad field of publication by early Canadian women by calling attention to the various social, cultural, and material conditions that propelled them onto the printed page, whether they were professional writers or one-time authors. While I cannot claim complete linguistic inclusiveness, I pay some attention to women who wrote in French and note those who published i