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"Daughters of British Blood" Or "Hordes of Men of Alien Race" The Homesteads-For-Women Campaign In Western

Sarah Carter University of

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Carter, Sarah, ""Daughters of British Blood" Or "Hordes of Men of Alien Race" The Homesteads-For-Women Campaign In Western Canada" (2009). Great Plains Quarterly. 1267. https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/greatplainsquarterly/1267

This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Great Plains Studies, Center for at DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln. It has been accepted for inclusion in Great Plains Quarterly by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln. "DAUGHTERS OF BRITISH BLOOD" OR "HORDES OF MEN OF ALIEN RACE" THE HOMESTEADS,FO~WOMEN CAMPAIGN IN WESTERN CANADA

SARAH CARTER

In May 1910 Mildred Williams, a young and nights on the stairs. On the second day teacher in Saskatoon, , made she was challenged by a man who wanted the headlines across Western Canada for her pluck same property and who tried to push her off and stamina as she waited for twelve days and her chair, but her numerous supporters rushed nights on a chair on the stairs outside the to her assistance and "came near throwing him door of the land office in Saskatoon to claim down the stairs."2 Her vigil was worth the wait: a homestead (see Fig. 1).1 She was determined she successfully filed on land that she estimated to file on a half-section (320 acres) of valuable would be worth ten thousand dollars in three land near Kindersley. Williams put up with a years. great deal of inconvenience during her days On May 16 she emerged from the land office to hearty applause from her friends, and later that day took an auto drive about the city and was congratulated on all sides. Williams suc­ Key Words: ethnicity, first wave feminism, gender, homestead rights cessfully "proved up" on the land, earning her patent, or outright ownership, in 1914.3 What was most remarkable about her achievement Sarah Carter is professor and Henry Marshall Tory was that Williams was a single woman, and Chair in the Department of History and Classics, and single women were not permitted to homestead Faculty of Native Studies of the University of Alberta. under Canada's Lands Act. Her most recent book is The Importance of Being Mildred Williams was a celebrity not only Monogamous: Marriage and Nation Building in Western Canada to 1915. Current research projects among her Saskatoon friends but to a grow­ include a comparative and borderlands history of land ing contingent of supporters of "homesteads distribution laws and policies on the Great Plains of for women" in Western Canada. A homestead the U.S. and Canada, and a study of First Nations system patterned to a great extent on the agriculture in . 1862 U.S. Homestead Act permitted all males (except members of First Nations tribes) over [GPQ 29 (Fall 2009): 267-861 the age of twenty-one (later eighteen) to enter

267 268 GREAT PLAINS QUARTERLY, FALL 2009

FIG. ,1. These are the stairs Mildred Williams occupied for twelve days and nights. In 1910 the Dominion Land Office in Saskatoon was in this Masonic Temple. Courtesy of Saskatoon Public Library, Local History Room, LH-4255. Masonic Temple, Saskatoon. Photograph by Benjamin P. Skewis. on a homestead for a ten-dollar fee. Fulfillment land, after which they had to fulfill all the regu­ of residence and cultivation duties on the lar homestead duties.4 The scrip was originally homestead during a three-year "proving up" granted to volunteers who had served in the period earned the entrant the title or patent South African war, and if they declined the to the land. In both nations married women offer to homestead they sold their scrip, gener­ were prohibited from homesteading, but the ally through land agents. Canadian land laws departed from the u.s. Voices protesting the gendered injustices model in one important respect: single women of Canada's Dominion Lands Act began to were not eligible to homestead. Under the coalesce and gather momentum by 1908. u.s. Homestead Act of 1862, anyone (except Susan Jackel's excellent introduction to a 1979 enrolled Native Americans) who was the head reprint of Saskatchewan farmer Georgina of a family or over the age of twenty-one could Binnie-Clark's book Wheat and Woman (1914) homestead, regardless of gender. In Western remains the only study of the homesteads-for­ Canada, women were eligible only if they women campaign.5 Many dimensions remain qualified as a "sole" head of household with a unexplored, particularly how key supporters dependent child or children. Williams was one manipulated and reinforced ideas about racial of a small number of single women who home­ and ethnic "others" to gain support for the steaded in Canada's prairie provinces. She cause. Studies of female imperialists of the acquired her homestead land through purchas­ British empire, and histories that rethink cam­ ing South African scrip, a method available to paigns for women's suffrage in North America anyone who had the funds, regardless of gender and the British empire, provide a crucial and or marital status. South African scrip sold for broader context for understanding the cam­ eight hundred dollars in May 1910, entitling paign, which was in part inspired by promot­ the owner to file on 320 acres of homestead ers of opportunities for women farmers in the THE HOMESTEADS-FOR-WOMEN CAMPAIGN IN WESTERN CANADA 269 colonies of the British empire.6 The prospects posed antimonies-prejudice and exclusion."l0 for and accomplishments of women agricultur­ Similarly, in the U.S. West, racist and nativ­ alists were advertised in the Imperial Colonist, ist rationales surfaced in the rhetoric of some the "official organ of the British Women's Anglo-American suffrage activists who were Emigration Association and the South African hostile toward the "foreign," men "from the Colonization Society."7 The injustices of the slums of the Old World [who] walk out of the homestead laws in Western Canada were also steerage of the ships to become enfranchised heightened by the dramatically different situ­ citizens and ultimately to vote against giving ation in the u.S. West, where single women the suffrage to American-born women."ll This were permitted to homestead, and thousands elite strategy failed however, in the case of took advantage of the opportunity, including homesteads for women. The federal govern­ many women from Canada. A substantial and ment remained intransigent as long as they growing number of studies on women home­ were in control of crown or public lands (to steaders of the U.S. West also help provide con­ 1930), when there was little homestead land text for understanding the Western Canadian left. The imperial logic and elite strategy alien­ campaign.8 ated key constituencies, such as settlers from While supporters of homesteads for women the United States, who were accustomed to devised many arguments for the entitlement of single women having homestead rights and (some) women, they increasingly stressed the who expected the same privilege in Canada.12 logic of the rights of British and Canadian­ The singular and new contribution that this born women, in contrast to the dubious claims article makes is the argument that the manipu­ of "foreigners," both male and female. They lation of fears of racial and ethnic "others" called for justice and equality, but only for a was at the heart of "homesteads for women," privileged few. A petition submitted to the that this strategy must be understood within Canadian House of Commons in 1913 asked a larger British imperial context, and that this that the privilege of homesteading be granted narrow and elitist approach did not assist but to "all women of British birth who have resided rather hindered the initiative. No matter what in Canada for six months."9 Faced with a cli­ the strategy, however, there was little hope for mate inhospitable to the idea of women farm­ success in confronting deeply embedded views ers, landowners, and voters, and ultimately of women as unsuitable and incapable farmers with a completely intransigent federal govern­ and landowners. ment, supporters articulated an imperialist vision to gain acceptance, to show that they SHAPING "MANLY SPACE": CANADA'S could provide a solution to the problem of the HOMESTEAD LEGISLATION "foreign element," and to demonstrate their fitness for the privileges of citizenship that In Canada single women were deliberately were denied to them yet available to "foreign" excluded from homestead rights in 1876. The men. Disparaging the suitability of settlers of initial 1871 legislation had permitted "[a]ny "foreign" origin justified their own claims for person who is the head of a family, or has inclusion. Promoters of homesteads for women attained the age of twenty-one years, who is a manipulated ideas about racial and ethnic subject of Her Majesty by birth or naturaliza­ "others" in an effort to win elite support, while tion" to enter on a quarter section.13 This word­ at the same time appealing to an egalitarian ing was interpreted to include single women, code of fundamental justice. As Pamela Scully and from 1872 to 1876 there were approxi­ has observed about the rhetoric of race in the mately 150 women, some single, others widows, women's suffrage movement in South Africa, who filed on homesteads.14 But in 1876 the "liberal campaigns for civic rights and equality legislation was changed to "[a]ny person, male can in fact depend upon invocations of its sup- or female, who is the sole head of a family, or 270 .. GREAT PLAINS QUARTERLY, FALL 2009

any male who has attained the age of eighteen in the West for their labor and to reproduce years."15 There were three significant changes the population, but in Canada the preferred to the earlier wording. The first was that the method of attracting women was through eligible male category was lowered from age domestic servant immigration programs and twenty-one to eighteen, greatly expanding the not through any windows of opportunity for number of potential male homesteaders. A single women to obtain land. second change was that a female was eligible Western Canada was deliberately shaped only if she was a head of a family, which was as "manly space," where the building block interpreted to mean that she had to have a and organizing principle was the authority minor child or children dependent upon her. of the white, property-holding male head of A third important change was the addition of householdY Control of land and therefore the modifier "sole," which was used to exclude wealth was not to be shared, nor were there to women whose husbands might be alive, be any hindrances for landowners who wanted although invalided or otherwise incapaci­ to sell or buy. This shaping of "manly space" tated, or a woman who had adopted or oth­ is illustrated in the homestead laws as well as erwise was responsible for a child or children in the abolition of women's dower rights in whose parent(s) were still alive. 1885 in Manitoba and 1886 in the Northwest Why was the 1876 change made to delib­ Territories, which meant that a husband erately exclude single women? Unfortunately could sell the family home without his wife's there is' no record of why this decision was consent, or entirely cut her out of his wilLIs made. Following a visit to Manitoba and the Shaping "manly space" also involved a con­ North-West Territories, Surveyor General J. S. certed campaign to impose the monogamous Dennis made the recommendation in October model of marriage on the diverse inhabitants.l9 1875 to "render females, not being heads of A national identity would be forged that families, ineligible to enter for homesteads."16 was distinct from the old First Nations and In 1875 plans for a prosperous agricultural mixed ancestry people and was distinct from West were in disarray because of an economic the United States. It would be based on the depression and grasshopper invasion that had "traditional" gender order of the obedient, sub­ destroyed the crops for the previous two years. missive wife and the provider, head-of-family There were a high number of cancellations husband. All this was fueled by an image of and abandonments. Perhaps Dennis believed the United States as a place of disrupted and women were not bona fide homesteaders, and dangerous alternatives to the "natural" gender that they were contributing to the economic order and by a determination that pristine and depression. He likely shared with other archi­ pure Canada would be kept free of the immoral tects of the Canadian West the idea, retained and corrupting influences from the south.20 and promoted over subsequent decades, that This was most clearly seen in condemnations women did not have the physical strength and of the loose and lax divorce laws, but another capacity to farm, and that good land was wasted indicator of a society that had run amuck was on them. Canadian federal officials consistently permitting women alternatives to marriage insisted that the goal of the homestead system such as acquiring homestead land for farming. was to make the land productive, and women The only women who qualified for home­ were not seen as capable of making the land stead land in Western Canada were those productive, despite all the work they did on the regarded as heads of families-mainly widows homesteads. Officials stressed that the goal of with minor children dependent upon them, the homestead system was to settle families or and in rare cases divorced or separated women, potential heads of families (understood to be but they too had to have a minor child or male) on the land. Women, preferably British children. A complicated welter of Department and British Canadian women, were needed of Interior and Department of Justice "rulings" THE HOMESTEADS-FOR-WOMEN CAMPAIGN IN WESTERN CANADA 271 and "opinions" governed which women could reinvigoration," addressing a perceived need for homestead. Individual cases were carefully "desirable white settlers."2S scrutinized by officials in Ottawa with the The US. IJgislation permitted a much wider overall goal of severely restricting the num­ diversity of women to acquire homestead land, bers of eligible women, making homesteading and overall there was a greater flexibility in the nearly impossible for women. Compared to interpretations of the regulations by officials the situation in the United States, much more of land offices and more acceptance of and paperwork and legal proof of divorce, separa­ assistance to women stigmatized in Canada tion, legal adoption, or legal guardianship had such as unwed mothers and divorced women. to be provided for permission to be obtained. Widows applying for homesteads did not need The files of the interior and justice depart­ to have minor children dependent on them for ments contain tortuous correspondence and support as in Canada. Single, unwed mothers memorandums on issues such as how to define were permitted to make entry, even if they were the term "the sole head of a family."2! "Sole" not yet twenty-one years of age. 26 Mormon was not used in the U.S. statutes. A separated women who were plural wives were permitted woman with a minor child or children could to enter for homesteads because their marriages "sometimes" be the sole head of a family if the were not recognized as legal. 27 Deserted and husband was presumed dead, or "where by a divorced women could homestead, and they did binding agreement or by the Courts she has been not have to have minor children dependent on given custody or control of the children.',zz them. In the United States an abandoned wife, By contrast, many thousands of solo women or "one whose husband is a confirmed drunk­ claimed and proved up on homesteads in the ard," was considered the head of a family.28 A US. West. There were decades of discussion married woman could make homestead entry and debate in Congress about the proper place if she had been "actually deserted" by her hus­ of female landowners in the West, and single band, of if her husband was in the penitentiary women were very deliberately included in the or "incapacitated by disease or otherwise from 1862 homestead legislation, just as they were earning a support for his family and the wife deliberately excluded in Canada in 1876. As is really the head and main support of the Tonia M. Compton has shown, this measure family."29 Most of this was clearly itemized in did not spring from confidence in the ability of the legislation, and available in the published women to farm; rather, white women were seen guides to prospective homesteaders. as key to the "civilization" and future population of the US. West, just as domestic servants from GALVANIZING THE CAMPAIGN AND A FIRST the British Isles were seen as key to the future PETITION of the "race" in Western Canada.23 U.S. sena­ tor William Dawson from Georgia for example In Canada, women who wanted to home­ argued that the homestead grant could serve stead or farm had several options. One option as a sort of dowry for single women, "inducing was to go the United States, and many did.3o some to unite with her."24 The argument was Another option was to purchase South African also made that if a woman "is unfettered by the scrip, as in the case of Mildred Williams. marriage ties she has the same natural right to Approximately 510 women (single, married, be provided a home from the public domain widowed, separated, etc.) homesteaded land that the unmarried man of the same age has." in Saskatchewan through purchasing South Katherine Benton-Cohen has recently argued African scrip.3! Prime agricultural land could be that in the early twentieth century, the promo­ purchased from the Canadian Pacific Railway, tion of homesteading for both single women and there were women who took advantage of and men was a means of advancing a "cultural this opportunity.32 They could also purchase agenda of racial improvement [and) national "improved" farms from vacating homesteaders, 2n GREAT PLAINS QUARTERLY, FALL 2009 as was the case with English writer Georgina boys?" Beveridge also knew of men with large Binnie-Clark, who bought a farm in 1905 near families of strong healthy girls in the Dakotas Fort Qu'Appelle, Saskatchewan, and wrote the and Minnesota who would come to Canada if book Wheat and Woman (1914) about her first their girls could homestead, but because they years of farming. could not, were moving to Montana instead. Another option was to organize, lobby, and Oliver replied that the matter had been petition for a change to Canada's federal home­ brought to his attention frequently, and his stead laws. A homesteads-for-women campaign answer was that women homesteaders were intersected and combined with the campaigns "not in the interest of the settlement of our for the reinstatement of dower in the prairie country." He was aware of the different land law provinces and for women's suffrage. Of these in the United States but was "not aware that it campaigns, homesteads for women was the is an advantageous law." Oliver explained that greatest flop. Legislators never wavered on the purpose of giving free land to homestead­ the issue-women never received the right to ers was to make the land productive, and that homestead in Western Canada, with the excep­ "in order that a homestead may be made fully tion of Alberta after 1930. When the prairie productive, there should be not a single woman provinces assumed control of public lands from upon it, nor even a single man, but there should the federal government in 1930, the right to be both the man and woman in order that homestead was abrogated entirely in Manitoba the homestead may be fully advantageous to and Saskatchewan, and in Alberta, where there the country. The idea of giving homesteads to was a little homestead land left, the provincial single women would tend directly against that government drew up regulations that permitted idea." He said that it was the job of the single every "person" to apply who was over seventeen, man "to get the woman, and for the woman had resided in the province for thtee years, and who wants to settle on land in the Northwest was either a British subject or had declared the to get the man, rather than that she shall have intention to become one. land of her own.... Our experience is entirely In April 1910, just a few weeks before against the idea of women homesteading." Mildred Williams's twelve-day vigil, editor of Oliver's response in the House of Commons the Edmonton Bulletin, member of Parliament helped galvanize the homesteads-for-women for Alberta, and minister of the interior (1905- campaign, which was also assisted by the 11) Frank Oliver articulated in the House of promoters of agriculture/horticulture as a Commons why he did not support homesteads vocation for British women in the British for women.J3 He was asked by W. J. Roche, empire, an initiative that was centered in member of Parliament for Manitoba (later also the journal The Imperial Colonist. Binnie­ to be minister of the interior), if his attention Clark, who split her time between her Cheyne had ever been called to the idea of allowing Walk flat in London and her farm at Fort women to homestead, and the letter of a rever­ Qu'Appelle, was the critical link between the end gentleman in Saskatchewan, published in a Edwardian women imperialists in the "mother Winnipeg newspaper, was read into the record. country" and the Canadian scene.34 In 1910 Reverend W. W. Beveridge recommended Binnie-Clark published a series of articles in allowing women over the age of eighteen to The Imperial Colonist entitled "Are Educated homestead as a means of addressing "a great Women Wanted in Canada?"35 The journal dearth of marriageable ladies" in the province. was mainly devoted to the recruitment of He claimed to know of parents of daughters who women as domestic servants to the colonies; refused to move west and asked "why that man its thinly disguised subtext was that they had not just as much right to homestead and would soon be married and helping to aug­ get a quarter section for each of those girls as ment the population of the empire. As the the man who happened to have four grown-up October 1911 editorial proclaimed, THE HOMESTEADS-FOR-WOMEN CAMPAIGN IN WESTERN CANADA 273

The Empire's call to the women of our race woman working a farm, as "if they do not get is clear, urgent and inspiring: never before through as much work as a man in a day, they so insistent as it is today. Our young men will get through considerably more in a season." want mates of their blood in the great sunny Women would not "roam around during the uplands of the Empire .... The off-season" but would devote themselves to need wives, sisters, mothers, teachers, nurses, their farms and to building their communities. domestic helpers and home makers.36 Binnie-Clark recommended that the govern­ ment offer a limited number of homesteads to But increasing attention was paid to the oppor­ English women as an experiment, and she had tunities for single women with a little capital in mind women of education who possessed to invest in the establishment of poultry, dairy, some capital and who had training from an or fruit farms throughout the empire, includ­ agricultural college or on a dairy farm. The ing Canada. Negative coverage was given to answer she received from the superintendent the situation for single women in the United of immigration was brief and to the point.41 States, and readers were advised that U.S. Her arguments in favor of giving homesteads "alien laws" were rigidly enforced, that there to unmarried women were noted, "but unfor­ were no chaperones to meet women immi­ tunately the law does not allow this and the grants as in Canada and other colonies, and Department does not make a law and has no that there was danger of being lured away to power to alter it in this particular." This answer lives of "white slavery" and Mormon polygamy. made it clear that supporters of homesteads for Readers were advised that "anyone wishing to women had to lobby to have the federal legis la­ go to America [should] choose Canada under tion changed. our own flag."37 A few weeks after Mildred Williams's suc­ By 1910 articles in the Imperial Colonist cessful vigil in late May 1910, a petition to regularly noted opportunities for women agri­ minister of the interior Frank Oliver, originating culturalists in Western Canada. In May 1910, from Edmonton, was published in the Edmonton for example, it was reported that a colony of Bulletin, Oliver's own newspaper, under the head­ women poultry farmers was the latest scheme of line "Spinsters Want Homesteads."42 It asked the Canadian Pacific Railway.38 The proposal that homestead lands be available to any unmar­ was to divide land at Strathmore, Alberta, into ried woman in Canada over the age of thirty. small farms for the women, who would have a The central argument advanced in the petition ready-made market supplying eggs and poultry was that unmarried women were as deserving to the railway's hotels and dining cars. There and as desirable settlers as widows. The petition were advertisements for "colonial training" and declared it an injustice to favor widows only, as for horticultural colleges in England that pro­ they' often had an inheritance, while a "noble vided women and girls from across the empire class of women" were just as deserving. These with practical instruction in gardening, dairy­ were women who found themselves "at middle ing, and poultry. By 1910 Georgina Binnie­ age thrown out upon their own resources, the Clark was training young women from England majority of them having had to sacrifice opportu­ on her Fort Qu'Appelle farm, advertising in nities of marriage and competence for the sake of the Times of London for recruits, and taking in remaining at home with one or more aged parents students from the prestigious Roedean School to provide and care for them in their old age." near Brighton.39 The minor children of the widows permitted to In November 1908 Binnie-Clark wrote to homestead would become a financial asset to the the Department of the Interior, asking that mother, whereas those women who cared for par­ consideration be given to the idea of "Free ents had no one to provide for them. Signatures Homesteads for Women.''40 She argued that were to be collected from "the undersigned, there was no insurmountable obstacle to a unmarried women of Canada." 274 GREAT PLAINS QUARTERLY, FALL 2009

The context for the petition was explained single women should have the same rights as in a letter to the Manitoba Free Press, where the widows. The Grain Growers' Guide became petition was also published in mid-June 1910. the focus for the campaign, and women's page "M.S.T." wrote that a number of women in the editor Isabelle Beaton Graham ("Isobel" in her Edmonton district had asked her to organize a column ''Around the Fireside") was the main petition.43 She was from the United States and voice of the campaign. The Guide had a coop­ had moved to Alberta because of the advertise­ erative reform agenda, and it supported women's ments she had read about "free land." When suffrage from its first issue in 1908. Readers of she applied for a homestead, however, she was the Guide were asked to organize, agitate, and told she was ineligible. "Well, I was surprised, educate on the issues of homesteads for women just having refused to join another single and dower rights. Also supporting homesteads woman, who with her father was filing on 160 for women were the women's page editors of the acres of choice land in Arkansas." She argued Nor'West Farmer, Mary S. Mantle or Margaret that unmarried women who had cared for aged Freeston, and of the Manitoba Free Press, Lillian parents "should be rewarded, not looked down Laurie or Lillian Beynon Thomas. upon and called 'old maids' on the bargain Many arguments were advanced in favor of counter." She understood that because of the homesteads for women. Supporters pointed to "scarcity of white women ... good decent men the successes of Binnie-Clark and the South are degenerating and marrying squaws" and African scrip women homesteaders, but a much further argued that women were far more capa­ richer vein of evidence was found in the women ble of homesteading than the many "foreigners homesteaders of the U.S. West. A related argu­ who come to this country, men who have never ment was that Canada was losing girls and pursued agriculture in their home country and women to the homesteading opportunities know practically nothing about it." It was later south of the border. Influenced by the literature reported in the Free Press that' the author of celebrating the triumphs, pluck, and independ­ this first petition had returned to the United ence of women homesteaders, supporters made States.44 no mention of any difficulties, challenges, and disappointments that confronted U.S. women MARSHALLING THE ARGUMENTS FOR homesteaders. Samples of the work of literary WOMEN HOMESTEADERS homesteader accounts were republished in the Guide, such as "Woman on Forty Acres," by a It is unknown how many signatures this woman farmer in Montana who grew wheat, petition received, or whether it was ever sub­ oats, and sugar beets, raised poultry, and had mitted to Parliament. There were fundamental a comfortable home of six rooms.46 As a reader flaws, however, to the strategy embedded in wrote to the Nor'West Farmer, "if American the petition. It was organized by an American girls can do this, are we Canadian girls so far woman, and the petitioners were unmarried behind our American cousins that we can't?,>47 women, and of course, nonvoters, and thus Editor Margaret Freeston replied that she knew Canadian legislators could easily dismiss it. two girls who went to the Dakotas because Women reformers were divided about the they could not secure homesteads in Canada value of petitions, but most agreed that "peti­ and were "now the proud possessors of deeds tions signed by women are usually treated as to the land. What a pity that 'good stuff' like a joke by the electors," as prominent activist these girls were made of should be lost to Nellie McClung told a suffrage rally in 1912.45 us!'>48 A. H. Cunningham, from Ravine Bank, Although the petition was to become the main Saskatchewan, wrote to the Guide that tactic of the homesteads-for-women campaign, strategies changed considerably from the first, I have often thought it a shame that in the Edmonton-based petition that stressed that United States women could take land and THE HOMESTEADS-FOR-WOMEN CAMPAIGN IN WESTERN CANADA 275

here in Canada where there is so much of wives for bachelors of the West. The result more land they are not allowed the privi­ would be "contented, prosperous homes, lege. I have seen women in the States that instead of a region of vacant farms, with only did their duties far better than the average the ruins of bachelors' shacks (monuments to a bachelor.49 short-sighted policy), to break the monotony of the view."53 "Canada has never shown any kindness to her A central argument advanced by many sup­ women that I ever could see," wrote a woman porters was that it was an injustice to award from Claresholm, Alberta, to the Guide in free land to families of boys, while those who 1912.50 "Her girls are just as bright and intel­ had girls were penalized. A family with four ligent as those in the United States. The latter boys could have five homesteads altogether, were allowed to homestead while Canadian while a family with all girls could only have girls were pushed behind the door." She knew one; the family of boys became wealthy while of women who had homesteaded in the States, the family of girls became poorer, as pointed sold out and bought land in Canada, and she out in an editorial in the Guide, which con­ also knew Canadian women going to Montana cluded, "Until the government of our land to homestead and asked, "Why could they not is entrusted with the power of ordaining the stay at home, as our land is just as good if not sex of children it does not seem fair that such better?" discrimination should be made as is done in Supporters of homesteads for women argued the case of our homestead laws."54 The issue that women had the physical strength and was interwoven with the dower campaign and capability to homestead, and that women were protests over inheritance patterns that favored proving this throughout the West by performing sons who were understood to have earned the homestead duties on the farms of spouses, broth­ land, while no value was attached to the work ers, or fathers. As "X.Y.Z." wrote to the Guide of daughters. in 1913, ''A wife who can rise at four and five A fundamental criticism of the homestead o'clock in the morning and wait on a lot of hired legislation was that women were just as deserv­ men, with the husband in bed, is quite capable ing of the grant of land. The land grant was of homesteading."51 Homesteading would keep cast as a birthright, or inheritance or reward, women on the land and away from the evils of that was owed to women as well as men. As one the city, offering them a healthy and invigorat­ supporter of the campaign wrote in the Guide: ing environment. Graham argued that it was "God put both Adam and Eve into the Garden unfortunate that a daughter raised on a farm had of Eden. Evidently Eve had as much right there to turn to teaching, dressmaking, or stenography and on the land as her husband."55 Women when she had all the necessary skills, and had also earned this birthright, as they were directly responsible for increased land values, all her soul [would] call aloud for the prairie, and this included married or deserted women. for the grating of the plow, for the swish of Mrs. ]. R. Long took this position in her letter the binder, and the hum of the threshing to the Nor'West Farmer on May 5, 1910: machine, never to mention old Brindle or Bess, or the little colt she had raised by There are millions of acres of land lying here hand .... [I]n the name of common sense waiting to be taken up-any male subject and common humanity give them a chance over eighteen years can come and have a to farm and live the life they love and are half section for the asking and the small suited for. 52 entry fee, but a woman who is forced into the world to earn a living for herself and Another widely shared rationale was that little family cannot have an acre unless her homesteads for women would provide a source husband is deceased. Is a deserted wife with a '1:76 GREAT PLAINS QUARTERLY, FALL 2009

family dependent upon her not more worthy It is painful to realize that our own Canadian of a homestead than perhaps her unworthy men-our fathers and our brothers-delib­ husband who may be in some other part of erately set us aside as undeserving of a share the country experiencing no difficulty in in our country . . . to bring in ignorant, securing a homestead? And is a widow who uncouth, lawless foreigners to occupy lands either has no family or a family all married that we desire, that we have labored for yet not worthy of some consideration? cannot have.

Although this argument was muted, sup­ In her next most sustained column on the issue, porters of homesteads for women linked home­ "Unearned Increments and Woman's Dower," stead and property rights to suffrage, arguing Graham wrote that the federal government that with homestead rights, women would preferred to dower the "unspeakable foreigner" be landowners and would therefore have to while denying to women the proceeds of their become voters. In a letter to the Free Press on own toi1.58 Other readers elaborated on this June 2, 1910, "Business Woman" wrote, argument. "Mother Scot" from Alberta com­ plained that they were surrounded by a "colony Why the Dominion government does not of aliens whose habits and ways of looking at grant a homestead to each and all of our things make them hopeless as neighbors," and Canadian women who want one bad enough to do all the homestead duties the same as I often think how unfair it is to give these a man, instead of importing foreigners from outlanders the privilege of homestead and all over Europe ... I cannot see, unless they deny that privilege to their own race and are afraid that with women landowners we blood, when it happens to be of the other would the sooner get the vote. sex. Is not the mother-actual or prospec­ tive-of sons and daughters of British blood HOMESTEADS FOR SOME WOMEN AND NOT at least as worthy of a share of God's free OTHERS gift as the hordes of men of alien race who are given free homesteads without a condi­ The rationale for homesteads for women tion.59 that increasingly held center stage was that land grants should be available to "daughters Graham and other supporters of homesteads of British blood," rather than to "hordes of for women manipulated fears of the "foreign" men of alien race." Similar arguments were or "alien" element that prevailed among the being made at this time by some supporters British Ontarian settlers. Intolerant attitudes of women's suffrage. E. A. Partridge, founder toward immigrants seen as undesirable, includ­ of the Guide and supporter of women's suf­ ing Mormons, Ukrainians, Jews, , frage, argued in a 1909 editorial that it was an and Asians, were stridently and widely broad­ "outrage to deny to the highest minded, most cast in the late nineteenth and early twentieth cultured native-born lady what is cheerfully century in Western Canada.60 Prominent news­ granted to the low browed, most imbruted papermen in the West such as Frank Oliver foreign hobo that chooses to visit our shores."56 and P. G. Laurie (of the Saskatchewan Herald in In the Guide Graham increasingly emphasized Battleford) took the lead in propagating these this argument for (some) women's homestead views.61 A 1906 editorial in the Indian Head rights. In her 1909 column that helped launch Vidette was typical, asking how Canada was to the campaign, under the subheading "Consider fashion an "intelligent, high-minded" body of the Douks," she protested the gift of homestead citizens out of this "heterogeneous conglomera­ land to the Doukhobors (settlers from Russia) tion" and "maintain in this new land, which we who "so scandalize civilization."57 She wrote, proudly call 'the Greater Britain Beyond the THE HOMESTEADS-FOR-WOMEN CAMPAIGN IN WESTERN CANADA 277

Seas,' those principles and usages and ideals tion in Western Canada. Graham's columns in that have made Great Britain so strong and the Guide were among the most racist, strident, prosperous and influential?"62 A further "out­ and alarmist, containing utterly fabricated alle­ rage" was that these "aliens" could vote, "men gations. Her column "The Negro," of May 3, who have just emerged from serfdom ... who 1911, began, are ignorant of the very alphabet of the public life of Canada." Fireside would like well to know what the Proponents of homesteads for women capi­ people, especially the country women of talized on fears of the "foreigner" to connect the west think about the negro invasion themselves to issues of national and imperial that is now pouring into the Canadian west importance to which they could offer solutions. and receiving free land grants from the They were asking for equal treatment, but only Dominion government, and farming large for those British and Canadian-born women settlements contiguous to and among the who were qualified for inclusion. Like suffra­ whites. There can scarcely be anyone who gists in the U.S. West and in other colonial set­ is not aware of the atrocities committed by tings, they "manipulated ideas about racial and members of these terrible communities, the ethnic 'Others,' usually reinforcing contempo­ only corresponding punishment for which is rary racialist and racist attitudes, particularly the lawless lynching, and even burning at the those linking race, sex and 'civilization."'63 In stake. Already it is reported that three white Western Canada however, supporters of home­ women in the Edmonton and Peace River steads for women could not claim superiority districts have been victims of these outrages by virtue of their "whiteness," as the "foreign" accomplished in peculiarly fiendish abandon. women they wanted to exclude from the privi­ Where will the end be? . . . How many of lege of homesteading were phenotypically simi­ these industrious, courageous, unprotected, lar. It was not particularly clear just who was country women must be sacrificed to the hor­ "white" in Western Canada. As Catherine Hall rors of negro attack before the slow and rusty has observed, the question was seldom straight­ machinery that drives the engine of state can forward in the colonies of the British empire.64 be induced to erect a barricade against so Instead of whiteness, Britishness became the dreadful an evi1?67 marker of privilege in Western Canada, and a British Canadian elite dominated business, Although it seems like an odd leap to politics, law, and education.65 Leaders of the make after pointing out the vulnerability of homesteads-for-women campaign decided to women alone on homesteads, the main point align themselves and identify with this elite, of Graham's column on "The Negro" was that arguing that they would help maintain the {some} women should be given the right to hegemony of the group. homestead. She concluded, "It should be pos­ The manipulation of fears of racial and ethnic sible for Canadian women to secure from the "others" among some supporters of homesteads government of their fathers, husbands, brothers for women reached a new level in 1911 when and sons at least an equal share with the foreign the likelihood loomed of a sizeable migration of negro, in the rich heritage of the Dominion's African Americans from Oklahoma to Alberta homestead lands." This was Graham's first and Saskatchewan.66 They had begun to appear column to clearly articulate that homesteaders in small numbers in 1905, increasing after 1907 should not be "foreign" women who did not when Oklahoma became a state and the first know the "rigors of the country, and who are state legislature passed "Jim Crow" legislation, bound to fail through the discouragements of and again in 1910 when Oklahoma Democrats unexpected hardships. In their interest it is wise moved to disenfranchise African Americans. to hinder them at the start until fully assured There was a strong reaction against this migra- that they understand the undertaking." 2}8 GREAT PLAINS QUARTERLY, FALL 2009

THE SECOND PETITION: HOMESTEADS FOR has made the Western homestead taste as a "ALL WOMEN OF BRITISH BIRTH" sweet morsel in the mouth of the Easterner, and who most merits a homestead.69 A second homesteads-for-women petition, prepared by Graham, was announced in the There was some debate and uncertainty May 24, 1911, issue of the Guide (see Fig. 2).68 about whose signatures should be obtained for The arguments set forth in the petition were the petition. Initially Graham thought there that widows had made successful and desirable should be separate petitions, one for men and settlers; that many others, including unmarried one for women, "so that it could easily be ascer­ women and widows without young children, tained which are the voters and how many, and desired to homestead; that these women would which are the non-voters."70 Only women over foster education and health and encourage a the age of twenty-one were to sign. But this "better class of male settlers"; that the home­ strategy was shelved when it was later decided stead laws discriminated against families with that only the signatures of voters (men) should daughters; that women contributed their share be obtained. Graham explained that "it will to the growth and prosperity of the nation and be taken for granted that all women desire had helped to make Dominion lands valu­ the homestead privilege for their sisters even able; and that the privilege of homesteading though they do not intend to take advantage of would afford women a healthy and economic it themselves."7l method of securing an independent livelihood Many letters requesting petitions soon and would ease congestion in towns and cities appeared in the Guide. Supporters sought sig­ by drawing the population back to the land. natures at summer agricultural fairs and events It then asked that the such as Dominion Day and Orangemen's pic­ to grant the privilege of homesteading to "all nics.72 Other tactics included postcards and women of British birth who have resided in letters sent directly to officials in Ottawa (see Canada for six months, and if residing with Fig. 3). In 1913 J. H. Perra of Winnipeg wrote their father or mother or a near relative, are of to the minister of the interior, the age of eighteen years, or if otherwise, are of the age of twenty-one years." On the strength of the success that the The wording of the petition was deliberately women of the States have made in home­ vague on the issue of the marital status of the steading and that which the Canadian would-be woman homesteader. It could be women are making on scrip which they have understood to include both single and married bought, can you not see your way to intro­ women. In answer to a reader who wrote that duce a bill to give the women of Canada the she would support the petition if it meant mar­ right to homestead. We women of the west ried women as well as single, Graham wrote, "It feel that our rightful inheritance is wrested is certainly intended that any woman, married away from us and given to strangers and or single, of British birth shall be eligible to all because we have committed the sin of homestead," but that it was "not thought advis­ belonging to the 'female species.>73 able to flaunt the married woman's claim before 'the powers that be.''' She explained that mar­ But before long fissures appeared that weak­ ried women were not specifically mentioned in ened and undermined the campaign. Readers the petition repeatedly asked Graham why American women were excluded under the wording of in the hope that thereby she might pass in the petition. As E. L. Stow, born in the United unobserved, as it were, but she is certainly States but resident in Saskatchewan, wrote, there, and who has a better right? It is the "I do not see why I have not as much right to married woman, NOT the single man, who homestead as a woman of British birth. I am THE HOMESTEADS-FOR-WOMEN CAMPAIGN IN WESTERN CANADA 279

m..., ••• it The Dominion Lands Act provides that a~y ~~nwho istht\ , , age of eighteen years. may homestl'ad a quarteiSl'etion of availAble Dc~minioln ',1, " -:- --', -1-':;; -, :",.'~ • , -' -~ -: - . ' -,- ,<:,.-; <,'-:';: anb lIDbrrtrul only women who are widows .. \lid wh~ have infant children living may secu;" hOllle-

anb lIDbtrtall experience I; .... shown that widows have mnde suc;,e~ul and desirable s~ttlers; 4. an'll ro"trta'·mn~y woinen.including widows 'IO;thout infant chi~ and unmarrk-d. ~omen •. .,·":both Can~dian born nnd British, possessing' means. ,are most desirous of. and ~ould take advantage of the :~'>'iri&~~ttho~~t~~; . . ;... . ." ..:'(', .. ' . .' II. . anbllD!Jrnall the countrY' would be greatly benefited thereby through .the fostering of education ; of health through the ordinary grace. of living; and the greater encouragement of a better class of male settlt'r.; , -. c -~_. " -- ~ -, . :~ - " -- >

'<.: ,- '-' > -j ~- , -~' - '- : . - .- - • • ;iI. anb.lID!Jtrtlill the HomestendLaw discriminates ngninst the man having daughters, providing a birthright,dow~y only for the homes tender whose children are sons, and nOlle for the homesteader whllse children are daughters. and the lIcciden t of Sl'X thereby enriches one family Ilnd impoverishes the other; {:anb W!Jtrtall many of the wome~ of Canada. although ~nable to homestead have entered canini. where they d'; ~ecure their own livelihood, Ilnd have thereby contributed their sha"" to the growth and pros­ perity of the country. it is reasonable to nssume tIlnt, given the homestead privilege. their consequent ncHon will justify this expansion. of favors; " '.' ., .' .. . . ~ 8. anb t19btl'tU such women have to bear their 'share of the cost of government, and have largely helped to make Dominion lands valuable, but are neverthelessrdenied any heritage in them;

9. anbt19!Jtrtu the privilege of homesteading would afford them an easY. healtMul and "";~omic method of securing an independent livelihood;

10. anb \19IJtrtall the trend of population i. flowing. injuriously to Canada, toward conge~tion in towns and cities;' and all over North America the great cry i., "Get back to the land ";

n. anb t19!Jtrtall homesteads to. women would draw the population back to the land.

Jaolu. Therefore. Your Petitioners Humbly Pray: That as soon as possible a Bill may be introduced by your Government and enacted by the Parliament of Canada, providing that all women of British birth who have resided in Canada fo~ one year and if residing wi~h their father or mother or a near relative and are of the age of eighteen years, or if other,,;se, are of the age of twenty-one years, shallhe granted the privilege of homesteading. .

, anb your bf'itiL,ner3 as in duty bound ~. P~ . Dated this",L;?.~,." .. ,,, .... ,: .... ,.,,...... ,.,,,day ot:c"C:/... f},,,,: .... :,,, ..A..D .• 1911, ~. 7-' ~ Ai AnDRE88. . ." 'OCCUPATION'

~. .

FIG. 2. The second (1911) petition, submitted to the Canadian Parliament in 1913. File 2876596, pL 2, vol. 1105, Record Group 15, Records of the Department of the Interior, Library and Archives Canada. 280 GREAT PLAINS QUARTERLY, FALL 2009

and women who are unlikely to be anything but c ''''', ' ' a drawback to the progress of Canadian institu­ '- 0 , ~ . tions for years to come."77 No one could object, '';- .. J: ~ however, to "an influx of law-abiding, industri­ C (\I; JI; ".1 .. ' 1·.· .. ("£ A DDREI ous, refined and patriotic gentlewomen with C r, (;" ,~ctzf.t. "',~ some means into the bleak and bare stretches O"lh-w-

Disappointed in this as well as the dower cam­ heads of families. In a 1928 Department of paign, organized women focused attention on the Interior memorandum other reasons were the vote as a means of achieving their goals. elaborated, including that The turning point came in 1913, when the votes for women cause became a live issue. a single woman is unfitted for a great many The petition remained the main strategy, and reasons for the lonely and isolated life led the one presented to the premier of Manitoba by the majority of homesteaders on prairie in 1915 had 39,584 signatures (indicating how farms. Even if this concession were granted I comparatively few supporters there were for think that very few women would be willing homesteads for British women).90 World War to face the loneliness and hard work entailed I also diverted attention away from issues such by taking up a free homestead. There is also as homesteads for women. Binnie-Clark's 1914 the financial end of the matter, which I book Wheat and Woman, in which she stressed think would prove a considerable handicap, the obstacles faced by the woman farmer in as unlike men they would be unable to go Western Canada, and the injustices of the land out and work in the bush during the winter, laws that permitted all her male neighbors to or in lumber mills, or work out during receive their farms virtually for free, could not threshing season, in order to earn additional have been published at a more inopportune money to develop their homesteads.93 time. Even Binnie-Clark herself deserted the cause, returned to England for many years, It was further noted that despite the "tre­ and turned her attention to other, war-related mendous change in the 'sphere of women' I issues. do not believe that the Department would There was a mild revival of interest after be warranted in changing its present policy." the war. At the 1919 convention of the United They were free to purchase land that was near Farmers of Alberta and United Farm Women to markets and churches, and "the capital of Alberta a resolution was passed asking required for homesteading is not very much that homesteading privileges be extended to less than what would buy a farm." Binnie­ women on an equal footing with men, stating Clark, who purchased her farm, would have that "we feel that any natural resources that disagreed, but she had long since turned to the Government has to put at the disposal of other causes. its citizens should be free to all, irrespective of In 1929 resolutions were passed at the United gender."91 The reply from the Department of Farmers of Alberta convention and by the the Interior was that there was no reason why Canadian Council of Agriculture at Winnipeg, the policy should be changed, that homestead asking that homesteads be granted to women land was getting scarce, and that remaining on the same terms as men.94 These were the homestead land was reserved for soldier set­ last gasps of the homesteads-for-women cam­ tlers. Homesteading was also thought not to be paign. M. L. Burbank of Carman, Manitoba, in the interests of women, as it would mean iso­ wrote to the Western Producer in February 1929 lation from markets and medical attention.92 that she held out little hope for the resolution, Still, the homesteads-for-women campaign as she had recently written to the Department did not disappear entirely. Throughout the of the Interior and had received the standard 1920s the Department of the Interior contin­ reply that departure from the present practice ued to receive many letters of inquiry from was not deemed advisable.95 She wrote, individuals and organizations. The replies were similar, that the free homestead policy was As I see it, this reply simply means that, designed to attract settlers who intended to in the opinion of the government, land is farm, and it had never been the policy to grant much too valuable to be giving it away to homesteads to other than heads or potential women, and that securing homesteads for THE HOMESTEADS-FOR-WOMEN CAMPAIGN IN WESTERN CANADA 283

women in Canada looks rather hopeless sion of land."96 Women could be permitted to as long as there are any homesteads worth do the work, but not to own the land. Nellie having.... It is truly amazing that anyone McClung wrote in 1916, can claim that women are not quite as valu­ able 'heads of families' as men are, or that a Women are doing homestead duties wher­ new country does not need women quite as ever homestead duties are being done. . . . much as it does men. No person objects to the homesteader's wife having to get out wood, or break up Burbank pointed out the fallacy in the argu­ scrub land, or drive oxen, so long as she is ment that few women would be interested; If not doing these things for herself and has that were correct, she wrote, then little home­ no legal claim on the result of her labour. stead land would be "wasted," and that, on Working for someone else is very sweet and the other hand, if "free homesteads attracted womanly, and most commendable. What any considerable number of women surely the a neat blending there is of kindness and country would not suffer from settlers of this cruelty in the complacent utterances of type. In any event it would not seem that the the armchair philosophers who tell us that privilege of homesteading, with its hard work women have not the physical strength to do and deprivations, is an unreasonable 'favor' to the hard tasks of life.97 ask." That women did not have homestead rights These views of the "armchair philosophers" in Western Canada until 1930 when there was were so deeply embedded that even the tactic of almost no homestead land left reflects the goals allying with the cause of bolstering the British of the architects of the Canadian West who fabric of the West did not advance homesteads imagined and fashioned the region as an exten­ for women. But there was more involved than sion of the British empire, distinct from their a challenge to the cherished ideals of feminin­ neighbors to the south. In Canada the "tradi­ ity. Architects of the West knew that women tional" and "natural" gender order was to be were capable of the hard work and deprivation preserved. White women, preferably of British required of homesteaders, but it was useful ancestry, were viewed as the key to order and to insist that they were not, just as the skills civilization, and to the agrarian ideal, but only of Aboriginal farmers were deprecated.98 It if they were firmly tied to the home and domes­ would mean having to share legal claims to tic sphere. Importing young women as domestic the most valuable resource of the West: land. servants rather than holding out the hope of Improvement of the land and profits from the landownership and possible independence land were to remain a white male preserve. from marriage best served these goals. Promoters of agriculture as a suitable occu­ ACKNOWLEDGMENTS pation for women in the pages of the Imperial Colonist made little impact, nor did the example The author thanks the Social Sciences of the women homesteaders of the u.s. West. and Humanities Research Council of Canada Ownership of land (although not work on the and the Killam Trust for the Killam Research land of their spouses, fathers, or brothers) dis­ Fellowship that supported this research. rupted cherished ideals of British femininity. Thanks to researchers Gretchen Albers, As Kate Hunter has written about Australia, Corinne George,·Leslie Hall, Pernille Jakobson, "mo accept the possibility of women involved Michel Hogue, Amy McKinney, and Catherine in cultivation would have meant a subver­ Ulmer; to the organizers of the "Homesteading sion of heterosexuality, particularly when the Revisited" conference at the Center for Great women involved were single and childless. This Plains Studies of the University of Nebraska­ would constitute a most inappropriate posses- Lincoln in 2007, where an earlier version of 284 GREAT PLAINS QUARTERLY, FALL 2009

.this paper was presented; and to the Western Quarterly 36, no. 4 (2005): 429-52; Dee Garceau, History Reading Group of the University of "Single Women Homesteaders and the Meaning of Independence: Places on the Map, Places in Alberta for thoughtful and helpful comments. the Mind," Frontiers: A Journal of Women's Studies 15, no. 3 (1995): 1-26; Sheryll Patterson-Black, NOTES "Women Homesteaders on the Great Plains Fron­ tier," Frontiers: A Journal of Women's Studies 1, no. 1. Manitoba Free Press, May 17, 1910, 1; Saskatoon 2 (Spring 1976): 67-88; Sherry L. Smith, "Single Daily Phoenix, May 16, 1910, 1; Regina Morning Women Homesteaders: The Perplexing Case of Leader, May 17, 1910, 1. Elinore Pruitt Stewart," Western Historical Quarterly 2. Manitoba Free Press, May 17, 1910, 1. 22, no. 2 (May 1991): 163-83. 3. N. O. Cote to Mildred Catherine Williams, 9. Records of the Department of the Interior, February 3, 1914, homestead file 1915194, Sas­ Record Group 15 (RG 15), D-II-1, vol. 1105, file katchewan Archives Board. 2876595, pt. 1, Library and Archives Canada 4. Manitoba Free Press, May 20, 1910, 11. (LAC). 5. Susan Jackel, introduction to Wheat and 10. Pamela Scully, "White Maternity and Black Woman, by Georgina Binnie-Clark (1914: reprint, Infancy: The Rhetoric of Race in the South Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1979), xx­ African Women's Suffrage Movement, 1895-1930," xxxii. in Fletcher, Mayhall, and Levine, Women's Suffrage 6. On female imperialists see Katie Pickles, in the British Empire, 70. See also Uday S. Mehta, Female Imperialism and National Identity: Imperial "Liberal Strategies of Exclusion," in Tensions of Order Daughters of the Empire (Manchester: Man­ Empire: Colonial Cultures in a Bourgeois World, ed. chester University Press, 2002); Lisa Chilton, Frederick Cooper and Ann Laura Stoler (Berkeley: Agents of Empire: British Female Migration to Canada University of California Press, 1997). and Australia, 1860s-1930 (Toronto: University of 11. Quoted in Patricia Grimshaw, "Suffragists Toronto Press, 2007); Julia Bush, Edwardian Ladies Representing Race and Gender in the American and Imperial Power (London: Leicester University West: The Case of Colorado," in Dealing with Press, 2000). On recent approaches to women's suf­ Difference: Essays in Gender, Culture, and frage see Rebecca J. Mead, How the Vote Was Won: History," ed. Patricia Grimshaw and Diane Woman Suffrage in the Western United States, 1868- Kirkby (Melbourne: History Department, Uni­ 1914 (New York: New York University Press, 2004); versity of Melbourne, 1997), 88. Tracy Kulba and Victoria Lamont, "The Periodical 12. On American immigration to Western Canada, Press and Western Woman's Suffrage Movements see Harold Martin Troper, Only Farmers Need Apply: in Canada and the United States: A Comparative Official Canadian Government Encouragement of Study," Women's Studies International Forum 29, Immigration from the United States, 1896-1911 (Toronto: no. 3 (May-June 2006): 265-78; Alison L. Sneider, Griffin House, 1972). Suffragists in an Imperial Age: U.S. Expansion and 13. "Memorandum on the Subject of the Public the Woman Question, 1870-1929 (New York: Oxford Lands of Manitoba" (approved by the governor University Press, 2008); Ian Christopher Fletcher, general in council on April 15, 1871), Records of the Laura E. Nym Mayhall, and Philippa Levine, eds., Department of the Interior, RG 15, D-II-1, vol. 228, Women's Suffrage in the British Empire: Citizenship, file 798 (1872), LAC. Nation, and Race (London: Routledge, 2000). 14. Homestead Land Registers from 1872 (reel 7. Lisa Chilton, "A New Class of Women T2), RG 15, LAC. Thanks to Leslie Hall for her for the Colonies: The Imperial Colonist and the research on and analysis of the homestead land Construction of Empire," in The British World: registers. Diaspora, Culture, and Identity, ed. Carl Bridge and 15. "Provisions Respecting Dominion Public Kent Fedorowich, special issue of the Journal of Lands, Homestead Rights and Forest Tree Culture," Imperial and Commonwealth History 31, no. 2 (May 1876, RG 15, D-II-1, vol. 228, file 4730, LAC. 2003): 36-56. 16. Surveyor General J. S. Dennis to Minister of 8. Examples of studies of women homestead­ the Interior David Laird, October 31, 1875, "Annual ers of the U.S. West include H. Elaine Lindgren, Report of the Department of the Interior for the Land in Her Own Name: Women as Homesteaders Year Ended June 30, 1875," Canada, Sessional Papers, in North Dakota (Norman: University of Oklahoma 1876, no. 9, part III, no. 7, 6. Press, 1991); Katherine Benton-Cohen, "Common 17. Catherine Cavanaugh, "'No Place for a Purposes, Worlds Apart: Mexican-American, Woman': Engendering Western Canadian Settle­ Mormon and Midwestern Women Homesteaders ment," Western Historical Quarterly 28, no. 3 in Cochise County, Arizona," Western Historical (Winter 1997): 493-518. THE HOMESTEADS-FOR-WOMEN CAMPAIGN IN WESTERN CANADA 285

18. Catherine Cavanaugh, "The Limitations of the Bureau of Land Management Web site, http:// the Pioneering Partnership: The Alberta Campaign www.glorecords.blm.gov/PatentSearch/Default. for Homestead Dower, 1909-1925," in Making asp?Tab1=2&f1=MT&f2=&f3=, and other sources. Western Canada: Essays on European Colonization For examples see Sarah Carter, "Transnational and Settlement, ed. Catherine Cavanaugh and Jeremy Perspectives on the History of Great Plains Women: Mouat (Toronto: Garamond Press, 1996): 186-214; Gender, Race, Nations and the Forty-ninth Parallel," R. E. Hawkins, "Lillian Beynon Thomas, Woman's American Review of Canadian Studies 33, no. 4 Suffrage, and the Return of Dower to Manitoba," (Winter 2003): 590. Manitoba Law lournal27, no. 1 (1999-2000): 45-114; 31. Thanks to researcher Catherine Ulmer Margaret McCallum, "Prairie Women and the for this tally, working with the homestead files Struggle for a Dower Law, 1905-1920," Prairie Forum and Saskatchewan Homestead Index of the Sas­ 18, no. 1 (Spring 1993): 19-34. katchewan Archives Board available at http://www. 19. Sarah Carter, The Importance of Being Monog­ saskhomesteads.com. amous: Marriage and Nation Building in Western 32. Canadian Pacific Railway land records data­ Canada to 1915 (Edmonton: Athabasca University base, Glenbow Archives, http://ww2.glenbow.org/ Press and University of Alberta Press, 2008). lasearch/cpr.htm. 20. Ibid., 56-57. 33. Canada, House of Commons Debates, April 21. Memorandum, November 8, 1894, in the file 30, 1910, 8488-90. "Circumstances under which married woman or 34. See Sarah Carter, introduction to Wheat and widow may obtain a homestead entry," Department Woman, by Georgina Binnie-Clark (1914; reprint, of Justice, Record Group 13 (RG 13), vol. 2247, file Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2007), i-Ixvi. Int 25, 74/1896, LAC. 35. Georgina Binnie-Clark, "Are Educated 22. Ruling no. 167, p. 53, Rulings of the Depart­ Women Wanted in Canada?" Imperial Colonist ment of Justice, RG 15, vol. 2108, LAC. 8, no. 98 (February 1910): 22-24; no. 99 (March 23. Tonia M. Compton, '''They Have as Much 1910): 39-42; no. 100 (April 1910): 52-57. See also Right There as Bachelors': Provisions for Female Susan Jackel, ed., A Flannel Shirt and Liberty: British Landowners in Nineteenth-Century Homestead Emigrant Gentlewomen in the Canadian West, 1880- Legislation" (paper presented to the Western 1914 (Vancouver: University of History Association, Oklahoma City, November Press, 1982). 2007). 36. Editorial, Imperial Colonist 9, no. 118 (October 24. Quoted in Ibid., 7. 1911): 377. 25. Benton-Cohen, "Common Purposes, Worlds 37. Imperial Colonist 2, no. 5 (June 1903): 70. Apart," 433-36. 38. "Poultry Farms for Women," [Canadian 26. James Muhn, "Women and the Homestead Gazette, n.d.], Imperial Colonist 8, no. 101 (May Act: Land Department Administration of a Legal 1910): 66. Imbroglio, 1863-1934," Western Legal History, 7, no. 39. See Carter, introduction to Wheat and 2 (Summer/Fall 1994): 286. Woman, xiii. 27. Muhn, in "Women and the Homestead Act," 40. Letter, G. Binnie-Clark to Department of 290-91, indicates that Mormon women involved in the Interior, November 17, 1908, RG 15, D-II-1, vol. plural marriages were able to file on homesteads 1039, file 1713679, LAC. until 1878, when the General Land Office ruled that 41. Letter, W. D. Scott to G. Binnie-Clark, they would no longer be permitted to do so; Benton­ November 12, 1908. (It is not clear why the letter in Cohen, in "Common Purposes, Worlds Apart," reply to Binnie-Clark is dated earlier.) however, found that Mormon women "finessed 42. Edmonton Bulletin, May 21, 1910. homesteading law to accommodate plural marriage 43'. Manitoba Free Press, May 24, 1910. or to help children born in Mormon colonies in 44. Ibid., June 18, 1910. Mexico to obtain land in the United States" (431). 45. Quoted in Hawkins, "Lillian Beynon Thomas, 28. Memorandum, November 8, 1894, Depart­ Woman's Suffrage, and the Return of Dower," 76. ment ofJustice, RG 13, vol. 2247, file Int 25, 74/1896, 46. Grain Growers' Guide, October 25, 1911, 244. LAC. 47. Nor'West Farmer, February 21, 1910, 230. 29. Montana 1909 (Helena: Independent Pub­ 48. Ibid. lishing Co., 1909): 48. 49. Grain Growers' Guide, July 5, 1911, 17. 30. In Valley County, Montana, for exam­ 50. Ibid., March 27, 1912, 24. ple, there were twenty women homesteaders 51. Ibid., August 27, 1913,9. from Canada. Thanks to Amy McKinney and 52. Ibid., December 13, 1911, 10. Gretchen Albers for their research on Valley 53. Ibid., 9. County women homesteaders from census data, 54. Ibid., June 8, 1910, 24. }S6 GREAT PLAINS QUARTERLY, FALL 2009

55. Ibid., December 13, 1911, 9. 81. Ibid., July 6, 1911. 56. Quoted in Kulba and Lamont, "The Periodical 82. Letter, V. C. Bedier to the Department of the Press and Western Woman's Suffrage Movements," 24. Interior, March 25, 1913, RG 15, D-II-1, vol. 1105, 57. Isabelle Beaton Graham, "Homesteads for file 2876596, LAC. Women: A Western Woman's View of Man's Duty," 83. Ramsay Cook, "Frances Marion Beynon and clipping in RG 15, D-II-l, vol. 1062, file 2029532, the Crisis of Christian Reformism," in The West n.d.,n.p. and the Nation: Essays in Honour of W. L. Morton, 58. Grain Growers' Guide, July 6, 1910, 23. ed. Carl Berger and Ramsay Cook (Toronto: 59. Ibid., May 15, 1912, 13, fol. 4, no. 42. McClelland and Stewart, 1976). 60. Howard Palmer, Patterns of Prejudice: A 84. Janice Fiamengo, "Rediscovering Our Fore­ History of Nativism in Alberta (Toronto: McClelland mothers Again: Racial Ideas of Canada's Early and Stewart, 1982). Feminists, 1885-1945," in Rethinking Canada: The 61. Walter Hildebrandt, "The Aspirations of Promise of Women's History, 5th ed., ed. Mona a Western Enthusiast: P. G. Laurie and the Sas­ Gleason and Adele Perry (Don Mills: Oxford katchewan Herald" (master's thesis, University of University Press, 2006), 155. Saskatchewan), 1978. 85. Ibid. 62. Indian Head Vidette, February 14, 1906. 86. Quoted in Carol Lee Bacchi, Liberation 63. Mead, How the Vote Was Won, 7. Deferred: The Ideas of the English Canadian Suf­ 64. Catherine Hall, "Of Gender and Empire: fragists, 1877-1918 (Toronto: University of Toronto Reflections on the Nineteenth Century," in Gender Press, 1983),53-54. and Empire, ed. Philippa Levine (Oxford: Oxford 87. Nor'West Farmer, September 5, 1912, 1142. University Press, 2004), 49. 88. Jackel, introduction to Wheat and Woman, 65. \ Sarah Carter, "Britishness, 'Foreignness: xxviii. Women and Land in Western Canada, 1890s-1920s," 89. Ibid. Humanities Research (Australian National Univer­ 90. Hawkins, "Lillian Beynon Thomas, Woman's sity) 13, no. 1 (2006): 43-60. See also Pickles, Female Suffrage, and the Return of Dower," 97. Imperialism and National Identity. 91. "Homesteads for Women" resolution passed 66. R. Bruce Shepard, Deemed {Jnsuitable: Blacks by annual conventions United Farmers of Alberta From Oklahoma Move to the in and United Farm Women of Alberta, 1919, RG 15, Search of Equality in the Early 20th Century Only to D-II-l, vol. 1105, file 2876596, pt. 2, LAC. Find Racism in Their New Home (Toronto: Umbrella 92. Memorandum, C. Harris to Mr. Hume, March Press, 1997). 26, 1919; Ibid. 67. Grain Growers' Guide, May 3, 1911, 4. 93. Memorandum to Mr. Hume, February 7, 1928, 68. Ibid., May 24, 1911, 25. RG 15, Dominion Lands Rulings, 7201-7400, vol. 69. Ibid., June 14, 1911, 21. 1984, 6750, LAC. 70. Ibid. 94. Memorandum to Mr. Perrin, April 17, 1929, 71. Ibid., May 24, 1911, 25. RG 15, Dominion Lands Rulings, 7201-7400, vol. 72. Ibid., August 16, 1911, 20. 1987, 7261, LAC. 73. Letter, J. H. Perra to J. M. Crother, April 29, 95. Western Producer, February 14, 1929, 10. 1913, RG 15, D-II-1, vol. 1105, file 287659, pt. 2, 96. Kate Hunter, "The Big Picture Problem: Race LAC. and Gender in the Histories of Single Farming 74. Grain Growers' Guide, October 11, 1911, 18. Women in Victoria, 1880-1930," in Grimshaw and 75. Ibid., June 21, 1911, 21. Kirkby, Dealing with Difference, 60. 76. Ibid., August 16, 1911, 20. 97. Nellie McClung, "Speaking of Women," 17. Ibid., July 19, 1911, 18. Macleans, May 10, 1916. 78. Ibid., August 16, 1911, 20. 98. Sarah Carter, Lost Harvests: Prairie Indian 79. Ibid. Reserve Farmers and Government Policy (Montreal: 80. Ibid., July 26, 1911, 17. McGill-Queen's Press, 1990).