NOTE TO USERS This reproduction is the best copy available. UMI University of Alberta The LC.W.:A Study in Non-Formal Aduit Education Diane Mary Mirth O A thesis submitted to the Faculty of Graduate Studies and Research in partial fuifillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy History of Education Department of Educational Policy Sîudies Eâmonton, Alberta Fa11 1999. National Library Bibliothèque nationale 1+1 of Canada du Canada Acquisitions and Acquisitions et Bibtiographic Services services bibliographiques 395 Wellington Street 395. rue Wellington OttawaON K1A ON4 Onam ON K1A ON4 CaMda Canada The author has granted a non- L'auteur a accordé une licence non exclusive licence allowing the exclusive permettant a la National Library of Canada to Bibliothèque nationale du Canada de reproduce, loan, distribute or seii reproduire, prêter, distribuer ou copies of this thesis in microfom, vendre des copies de cette thèse sous paper or electronic formats. la forme de microfiche/film, de reproduction sur papier ou sur fomat 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 fiom 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. Behind every production there is a cast of special people helping to make it happen. I would like to thank my specid cast My Committee: Dr-Patricia Rooke, Dr-Paula Brook, Dr. Susan Jackel, and Dr. Nancy Langford. Thank you for your guidance, your comments, your recommendations and revisions, and your enthusiasm for the ladies of the LC. W. Thanks also to Dr. Beth Young and Dr. Sue Scott, for helping to make it happen. iMy Special Friends: Bev and Leighton, Judy, Marg, Irene, Lois, Peggy, and Gwen. Thank you for your encouragement, your interest, your faith in me, your willingness to listen and to walk or run that extra mile when 1 most needed it. My Colleagues: Mark and Colleen. Thank you for the moments of sanity and the coffee. My Funding: The research for this thesis was made possible in part by funds awarded by the Mary Louise Imrie Graduate Student Award, Faculty of Graduate Studies and Research, and the Vice-President (Research) of the University of Alberta and the Camrose Normal Schwl Mernorial Scholarship. My Family: Somy, Christen, Erin and Andrew. Thank you for your patience and your confidence that I could complete. You have helped make this all possible in ways that you may not even suspect. ABSTRACT nie following study of the international Council of Women (ICW) examines its educational agenda during the inter-war yean. It uses as the main body of evidence, the monthly organ, the Bulletin. which illustrates a concerted consciousness- raising effort to urge the translation of feminist knowledge and organizational skills into foms of practical politics. Several questions related to non-formal adult education for women frame the discussion-how the ICW disseminated its programs for the purposes of educating women in the processes which would lead to participatory democracy and how such programs were gender specific being among them. To illustrate the inquiry one aspect of the social and moral refom movement during this time pend has been analyzed-the Trafic in Women and Children-which had its historical antecedents in the social purity movement and the campaigns for an equal moral standard of the nineteenth-century. These issues are examined as discourse, and as implementation at the level of the national councils and on the international stage at the Leaye of Nations. Several historical constructs had heuristic value in understanding the distinctions and interdependence of printed materials as both education and propaganda as well as interpreting the phenomenon king analyzed . These include arguments about the practices and restrictions of social feminism when political and refom roles were circumscribed by this Iimited view of women's activism, the inter-section of the private and public spheres for female social action dunng the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and the triumph of a transnationalist perspective ('mothe~ng")in a male constructed and male dominated international forum. While dramatic world events fmstrated such efforts nonetheless a growing international movement of wornen's organisations and their consolidation of female non- formal education to which the ICW contributed substantially, laid the foundations for the emergence of the second wave feminist rnovement generally, and, in the structures that participated in the post-war, the United Nations specifically. TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION .................................................... 1 CHAPTER I THE SILENT EDUCATlONAL SYSTEM ....................... 13 WOMEN'S VOLUNTARY ASSOCIATION ........................... 13 THE 'COUNCIL IDW .......................................... 16 SURVEYOF THE LITERATURE .................................. 26 FEMINISM: IDEOLOGY AND STRATEGY ........................... 30 THE TROPE OF SEPARATE SPHERES ............................ 35 INSTlTUTlON BUILDING ........................................ 38 RELATE0 WORKS ............................................ 39 CHAPTER 2 THE POLlCtNG OF THE BODY ............................. 47 THE HlSTORlCAL ANTECEDENTS TO THE TRAFFIC ................ 48 DISEASE AS METAPHOR ....................................... 52 WOMEN'S RESPONSE ......................................... 55 SOILEO DOVES AND SlNS OF SCARLET: SOCIAL PURITY 1870-191 8 ... 56 THE EQUAL MORAL STANDARD ................................. 60 CHAPTER 3 A COMMUNllY OF PRlNT ................................. 80 THE NATIONAL COUNCILS ..................................... 80 SOCIAL MOVEMENT-WHAT IS IT? ............................... 83 COLLECTIVE CHALLENGE ...................................... 85 CONSTRUCTING THE 'WE' OF COLLECTIVE IDENTITY .............. 86 THE MEANS OF SUSTAlNlNG COLLECTE IDENTITY ............... 99 PRlNT AND ASSOCIATION ...................................... 100 PRlNTANDSOLlDARITY ...................................... 105 CWPTER 4 PRINT AND ROLE MODELS .............................. 112 THE FUNCTION OF ROLE MODELS ............................. 115 MORAL FAITH ............................................... 117 SAINTS OF A LESSER KlND .................................... 128 WOMEN OF DISTINCTION ..................................... 131 EXCEPTIONALISM ........................................... 136 COLLECTIVE ACTION ......................................... 139 CHAPTER 5 INTERNATIONALIZINGA POLITIC OF THE BODY ............. 146 THE ERA OF INTERNATIONALISM .............................. 148 THE STUOlES ............................................... 156 INTERNATIONALCONVENTIONS ............................... 164 EDUCATION AND PROPAGANOA ............................... 172 CHAPTER 6 CONCLUSION ......................................... 189 BIBLlOGRAPHY ................................................... 208 PRIMARY SOURCES ............................. 208 ARTICLES .................................................. 211 BOOKS .................................................... 234 THESES, PAPERS AND REPORTS .............................. 235 APPENDIX I CONSTITUTION OF THE ICW ............................. 239 APPENDIX II RETURN OF BR01HELS AND PROSTITUTES ............... 240 APPENDIX III SELECT EO SAMPLE OF WOMEN WORTHIES' FROM NOTES AND NEWS ..................................................... 241 APPENDIX IV SELECTED SAMPLE OF INSTITUTIONAL ROLE MOOELS FROM NOTESANDNEWS ........................................... 247 INTRODUCTION Few Victorian stereotypes have endured as successfully as that of the middle- class club woman who joined voluntary organisations like the International Council of Women-elite do-gooders in white gloves.' Current scholarship has al1 too readily dismissed these women as " hited in oütloolq idle and dependent on men for their livelihood and status in society."' This study concentrates on the ICW, a middletlass women's voluntary organisation founded in 1888, and the programs of non-formal education it delivered through the Bulletin to its female members It does this in an attempt to expand our understanding and introduce a Merrefinement to an area that has been overlooked or ignored by many. Mainstrearn histones have given scant attention to women's educational history and feminist historians, in their attempt to include al1 women, have been quick to dismiss the topic of middle-class women. Meanwhile, both educational history and the historical scholarship of aduit education have sidestepped the area of women's organizations. Consequently, female "adult education" in a broader global context has been somewhat overlooked, Whinick's study on the International Alliance of Women (IAW), Woman Into Citizen. king an exception? Many histories have studied the various institutional apparatuses of women's organisations and the large-scale educational agendas and prograrns they offered to the public, to children, and to members. However, none to date have isolated, focused, and elaborated the educational agenda directed specifically at the adult membership that this study highlights. This snidy aims to help fiil this void and -7 expand the knowledge of the historical development of femaie adult education. It is the fint major interpretation of the ICW