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Ontario History

One Hundred Years of Struggle: The History of Women and the Vote in by Joan Sangster Leah Wiener

Volume 111, Number 1, Spring 2019

URI: https://id.erudit.org/iderudit/1059977ar DOI: https://doi.org/10.7202/1059977ar

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Publisher(s) The Historical Society

ISSN 0030-2953 (print) 2371-4654 (digital)

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Cite this review Wiener, L. (2019). Review of [One Hundred Years of Struggle: The History of Women and the Vote in Canada by Joan Sangster]. Ontario History, 111(1), 115–117. https://doi.org/10.7202/1059977ar

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control of lands and resources and treaty worth noting that this book primarily in- rights promised to Indigenous groups. The terprets history through the lives of Euro- dictates of the Ontario Game and Fisher- Canadian citizens and how they viewed ies Act denied Indigenous groups the abil- or interacted with Indigenous groups, as ity to hunt commercially (only allowing opposed to focusing on the perspectives of subsistence hunting), failing to consider Indigenous citizens (as told by Indigenous that commercial hunting had long been a scholars). A stronger balance between vital part of Indigenous economic systems. these two approaches would provide inter- While challenged in legal cases, the Ontar- esting counterpoints. io Courts were often compliant with the Lastly, Cairns includes a problematic limitations brought about by provincial statement that implies Euro-Canadian legislation, which led to a “de facto refash- scholars are inherently in a difficult posi- ioning” of federal responsibility regarding tion when writing on Native-newcomer treaty rights (278). relations due to the rise of identity politics The conclusion by Alan C. Cairns that will find fault in most interpretations expresses how the rise of a politicized aca- (404). Cairns further states that “although demic field relating to Indigenous history the evidence is fragmentary, it appears that will often mean that a book “may not be there are tacit understandings that Indig- evaluated solely or primarily on its mer- enous scholars will not criticize each oth- its as a piece of academic research but in er,” a generalization that, even if based on a number of cases it will additionally be ‘fragmentary evidence,’ is highly doubtful viewed through a political lens” (404). As (418). Cairns concludes this book with a an academic work, Roots of Entanglement statement by J.R. Miller that says a balance provides several valuable case studies that needs to be met to neither underempha- show how Indigenous citizens worked size Indigenous agency or overemphasize within colonial systems to achieve their Indigenous victimhood. This collection own objectives, often on their own terms. achieves that goal. Cairns is correct that as a work of Indig- enous history, other factors should be con- Cody Groat, PhD Candidate sidered besides content. Therefore, it is Wilfrid Laurier University

One Hundred Years of Struggle The History of Women and the Vote in Canada By Joan Sangster Vancouver: UBC Press, 2018. 328 pages. $22.95 paper ISBN: 9780774835343, $27.95 hardcover ISBN: 9780774835336, $27.95 ePub ISBN: 9780774835367, $27.95 PDF ISBN: 9780774835350. (www.ubcpress.ca) s a historian with a strong feminist canonized history of women’s in Aeducation, I thought I already knew Canada and disrupts some of the myths a lot about the history of suffrage. Joan that many historians will have learned Sangster’s engaging text, however, il- from older studies. Sangster opens her lustrates how much is missing from the work with an introduction that highlights

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on race early in the text, Sangster intro- duces the mid-nineteenth-century work of Mary Ann Shadd Cary, a black anti- slavery advocate in what became Ontario, before studying the efforts of many of the white, middle-class suffragists who have been more recognized and mythologized in popular histories of suffrage. Similarly, Sangster’s final chapter opens with the sto- ry of Hideko Hyodo, a Japanese-Canadian woman who advocated for Japanese-Cana- dian franchise in 1936. This organization of chapters bolsters Sangster’s arguments about the diversity of the movement. I noticed, however, that outside of the two chapters that emphasized race, Sangster’s study predominantly focused on white suffragists. I would have appreciated less segmentation between chapters, as in the remaining chapters race appeared to be a backdrop or foil for the actions of white suffragists, rather than a central category of analysis. One unique element of this book is a chapter on anti-suffragists. By examining the diversity of the suffrage movement: opposition to suffrage, Sangster shows the rather than a single movement spearhead- intersections between critical issues in the ed by prominent feminists, suffrage was suffrage movement. This chapter illustrates the product of the fractured and contest- how similar rhetoric could produce signifi- ed efforts of an array of women and their cant ideological divergences. For instance, allies. It was also, she argues, complicated while suffragists used maternalist ideas to by ideas about land ownership in a settler- underpin their arguments, Clementina colonial context. Fessenden, a Hamilton anti-suffrage ad- Sangster approaches this study the- vocate, objected to suffrage partly based matically while maintaining a chrono- on maternalist grounds, believing that suf- logical thread between her chapters. Her frage would interfere with the “near divini- earlier chapters overlap chronologically, as ty” of motherhood (128-29). By including she examines efforts to achieve the vote in the stories of anti-suffrage women in this the context of race and socialism. Most of chapter, alongside that of prominent male Sangster’s chapters open with a short por- antis such as Stephen Leacock, Sangster re- trait of a suffragist—or, in one case, an an- minds us that suffrage was not a universal ti-suffragist—using this as a springboard movement among women. to discuss the broader thematic concerns As Sangster notes, many historically of the chapter. By positioning a chapter prominent suffragists are those who left -ro

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bust written records, particularly autobiog- rhetoric about land and race were central raphies. For this reason, the “Famous Five” in suffrage history. women involved in the Persons Case often In her effort to address persistent become representative of suffrage history myths in the history of suffrage, Sangster as a whole. Instead of emphasizing their presents a nuanced portrayal of Nellie Mc- stories, Sangster examined a broader array Clung’s legacy. After being taught as a child of women, showing the regional diversity to valorize the Famous Five and later on to of suffrage efforts.Ontario History read- lionize them for the racist ideologies some ers will appreciate learning about many suffragists espoused, I particularly appreci- Ontario-based suffragists. In addition to ated Sangster’s reminders that a belief in Shadd Cary, Sangster provides readers eugenics was not universal amongst suffra- with glimpses into the work of numerous gists. In a political climate that is seeking other suffragists, including Laura James, to re-evaluate the legacies of key figures in and Adeline Hughes; Emily Stowe and Canadian history, Sangster aptly remarks, Augusta Stowe-Gullen; and Flora Mac- “there are no unambiguous heroines in suf- donald Denison. While Denison did not frage history, only reminders that we our- leave an autobiography, and thus has been selves need to exercise both humility in the overshadowed in suffrage history, Sangster present and vigilance in our efforts to re- devotes attention to Denison’s newspaper examine the evidence of the past, wherever columns to portray a woman who strategi- it may lead us” (274). cally “injected political commentary” into Reflecting Sangster’s assertion that a feminized section of the World publishing political cartoons was a key newspaper, and whose published writings strategy for suffragists, she has illustrated illustrate the ambivalence that many suf- 100 Years of Struggle with these evocative fragists felt towards the First World War cartoons. Sangster has drawn extensively (145, 147). from published and unpublished print For those interested in the politics of sources, including a handful of personal commemoration, Sangster offers an in- papers of suffragists. As Sangster notes, the sightful discussion of the mythologizing of absence of a unified suffrage organization the suffrage movement and its purported means that records of the suffrage move- heroines. For instance, rather than repeat- ment are scattered. As such, she drew from ing the claim that women’s work during newspapers, the writings of suffragists and the First World War led to them achiev- anti-suffragists, and government docu- ing suffrage, Sangster points to the signifi- ments, alongside a comprehensive selec- cant fragmentation that the war caused in tion of secondary sources. The breadth of an already diverse, conflicted movement. Sangster’s research here enables her com- Critically, Sangster’s analysis does not end prehensive and nuanced portrayal of the with the achievement of suffrage for most multifaceted suffrage movement. Overall, women in 1918. Instead, she devotes her this work is an informative and engaging penultimate chapter to inter-war femi- read, suitable for leisure readers, historians, nist organizing, and a final chapter to the and instructors in women’s history. struggles of racialized women seeking the vote in the post-Second World War era. In Leah Wiener, PhD Candidate this manner, she strengthens her claim that Simon Fraser University

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