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RE-VISIONING the ROLES of WOMEN, the Llfe and WORK of MARGARET WADE LABARGE. Heather Waldorf Macdona

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RE-VISIONING the ROLES of WOMEN, the Llfe and WORK of MARGARET WADE LABARGE. Heather Waldorf Macdona PUSHING THE ICEBERG UPHILL: RE-VISIONING THE ROLES OF WOMEN, THE LlFE AND WORK OF MARGARET WADE LABARGE. Heather Waldorf Macdonald, B.A., B. Ed. A thesis submitted to the Faculty of Graduate Studies and Research in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in Canadian Studies Carleton University OTTAWA, Ontario August 2000 National Library Bibliothèque nationale ($1 of Canada du Canada Acquisitions and Acquisitions et Bibliographic Services seivices bibliographiques 395 Wellington Street 395. rue Wellington Ottawa ON KIA ON4 OnawaON K1AON4 Canada Canada The author has granted a non- L'auteur a accordé une licence non exclusive licence allowing the exclusive permettant à la National Library of Canada to Bibliothèque nationale du Canada de reproduce, loan, distribute or sel1 reproduire, prêter, distribuer ou copies of this thesis in microfonn, vendre des copies de cette thèse sous paper or electronic formats. la forme de microfiche/film, de reproduction sur papier ou sur format électronique. The author retains ownership of the L'auteur conserve la propriété du copyright in this thesis. Neither the droit d'auteur qui protège cette thèse. thesis nor substantial extracts fkom it Ni la thèse ni des extraits substantiels may be printed or otherwise de celle-ci ne doivent être imprimés reproduced without the author's ou autrement reproduits sans son permission. autorisation. TABLE OF CONTENTS iii 1 Chapter 1: Feminist Biography: Linking Theory and Experience ---- Chapter 4: Scholarship: Recovering Women's History ----------------- 147 Margaret Wade Labarge, a distinguished Canadian Medieval historian, donated her papers to the Carleton University Archives in the summer of 1998. Examining these documents and Labarge's published work reveals some aspects of the life of an exceptional woman who was able to create an expanded female role for herself because of a distinctive pattern of socialization, her material circumstances, and the way in which she responded to those circumstances. Labarge, a deeply reiigious wornan, accepted much of the traditional Catholic framework of beliefs, but she combined her belief with an enlightened version of women's roles and their importance to society. This feminist study of Labarge's life and work demonstrates how she shaped her own role in life, and how she sought to recover and re-evaluate the roles played by women throughout history, most particularly within the Medieval period. In the summer of 1998, Margaret Wade Labarge donated her papers to the Carleton University Archives. Labarge, a respected historian, had sifted through the lives of many medieval characters to produce her excellent historical studies, and she had, many times, wished for more information on the lives she investigated, especially women's lives, where research has long been hampered by a lack of documentation. By donating her papers, Labarge was undoubtedly conscious of performing an historically significant act: not only would her published work be accessible to researchers, but additional, somewhat more personal, information would be added to the historical record, and thus, one more woman's life would become available to future scholars who sought to understand women's lives and women's work. The material donated by Labarge is by no means comprehensive. Labarge has not written any autobiographical work; there is no personal correspondence included. The Labarge Fonds contain documents that outline, for the rnost part, the public persona of Margaret Labarge, and it is the public representation that I have examined. I have not delved into the "personal" life of Labarge except in so far as it is revealed in her published works, the archival 2 documents and in the interview that she granted.' A more complete biography wouid necessarily entail years of deeper investigation into personal sources along with the public archival documents. However, the available material provides a fascinating glimpse of an exceptional woman who created a life in which a kind of intellectual androgyny CO- existed with an acceptance of traditional views about the role of women. 1 have based the approach for this study on three premises: that women's history has brought about essential and ongoing changes in traditional history; that biography is a justifiable and effective format for women's history, and that feminist biography has distinctive characteristics that set it apart from traditional history. These three premises are examined in the first chapter. Margaret Wade Labarge is a respected Canadian medievalist and an Adjunct Research Professor at Carleton University. She has been a visiting scholar at universities across Canada and the United States. She is an esteemed author who has written nine books on the medieval world and its personalities, as well as chapters for medieval compilations, encyclopaedia entries, and magazine articles. 'Margaret Labarge, interview by author, August 3, 1999, Ottawa, Canada. Tape recording and transcripts. The provenance is the Heather Macdonald collection in the Carleton Archives. The accession number for the interview is 2000-10. The cassettes are located in CAS-05 and the transcript in A 265. My sincere thanks b Dr. Labarge for graciously agreeing to an interview, the parameters of which were established by Dr. Labarge. 3 Throughout her career she has been the recipient of awards and honours, receiving two honorary doctorates, one from Carleton University in 1976, and one frorn the University of Waterloo in 1993. In addition to her work as teacher, writer and historian, she has been active in community groups and associations, and was inducted into the Order of Canada in 1982 because of her outstanding contributions. In 1988, she was appointed a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada where she was acknowledged in her citation as "One of the most widely read (and readable) historians of medieval history in the world."* In 1993 she was elected President of the Canadian Society of Medievalists. When looking at the life of an exceptionally successful woman several questions come to mind. How did she do it? What factors allowed her to deviate from the most common path for women of her generation? What empowered her to develop independent and creative work? This study points to several distinguishing factors in her life. The circumstances of her personal life reveal common threads with many other women achievers of this era: she was supported and encouraged by her father. His expectations for her were not confined to typical fernale roles, and Labarge's evident intellectual talent, it will be seen, was cultivated by a privileged education at single sex schools that produced a high-level of cornpetence and self-esteem. While her Naomi Griffiths, "Introduction, in Labarge, Margaret, A Medieval Miscellany (Ottawa: Carleton University Press, 1997) 13. 4 father's wealth and expectations provided the foundations for Labarge's intellectual life, the other dominating factor in her life, her faith, was greatly influenced by her mother's religious beliefs and guidance. Labarge's religious training and her early schooling up to university were firmly grounded in the Roman Catholic tradition, and this has remained an integral part of her life and outlook which is reflected in her public speeches to community and school groups. The, at times, paradoxical combination of Labarge's intellectual independence and religious commitment helps to explain her unique approach to Iife. In the 1950s and 1960s when Labarge was involved in raising her family, teaching part-time at university, and writing the first of her nine books, investigation will show that public discourse, especially in Canada, idealized the women whose lives focused solely on home and family. An examination of Labarge's actions and the writings that outline her vision of wornen's roles reveal the two quite different perspectives that guided her life. Labarge was adamant that women's intellectual capacities were equal to those of men, and that a woman should strive to move beyond the home to fulfill her intellectual potential and utilize her talents for the good of society. At the same time, Labarge adhered to a traditional view of female roles within the family. An analysis of Labarge's writings and actions dunng this period 5 reflects generational patterns that link her experience with larger changes in the social order; this study identifies Labarge's role in heiping to change attitudes towards women's abilities and activities as well as identifying the smaller modifications she thought desirable within the traditional domestic ideology of the nuclear family. Because this is a feminist undertaking, I also seek to understand, throughout the thesis, Labarge's resistance to, or acceptance of, feminist ideas. Labarge's scholarship has been widely admired and praised. Her impeccable historical research based on a meticulous synthesis of primary and secondary sources, and her readable style garnered for her a secure, scholarly reputation. After tier book A Baronial Household of the Thirteenth Century was reprinted in 1980, The Times of London judged it to be "a firmly establi:shed c~assic."~Reviews of other books have praised her for her "accurate and enthralling narratives."' Her last and most well-known book A Small Sound of the Trumpet elicited words of praise frorn that most prestigious arbiter of merit The New York Review of Books. In analyzing Labarge's historical work on wornen, it becomes clear that her primary motivation in writing
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