"AS WOMEN AND AS CITIZENS": CLUBWOMEN IN VANCOUVER 1910-1928 by GILLIAN WEISS B.A.(Hons.), University Of Adelaide, 1976 M.A.(Ed-), University Of British Columbia, 1979 A THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY in THE FACULTY OF GRADUATE STUDIES Department Of Social And Educational Studies We accept this thesis as conforming to the required standard THE UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA November 1983 © Gillian Weiss, 1983 In presenting this thesis in partial fulfilment of the requirements for an advanced degree at the University of British Columbia, I agree that the Library shall make it freely available for reference and study. I further agree that permission for extensive copying of this thesis for scholarly purposes may be granted by the Head of my Department or by his or her representatives. It is understood that copying or publication of this thesis for financial gain shall not be allowed without my written permission. Department of Department Of Social And Educational Studies The University of British Columbia 2075 Wesbrook Place Vancouver, Canada V6T 1W5 Date: November 1983 i i Abstract In the thirty years prior to 1910, an active minority of women, not only in British Columbia, but across Canada and in Britain and the United States, had increasingly used their organizations to move outside the traditional sphere of home and family and into a more public and political role. Con• currently, they developed and propounded a philosophy to support this move into public life. It was based on the notion of woman's traditional function of physical, emotional and spiritual nurture, but was widened to include not just the individual home but the entire community. Maternal feminists, as these women have recently been termed, were determined to use and extend their womanly skills and influence throughout society for what they perceived to be the betterment of all. By 1910, maternal feminist ideology had developed to a point where promotion of its tenets was no longer the major goal of organized clubwomen., These women now turned their attention to convincing society that their role was not simply as auxiliary workers i'n-reform but as full partners; not as mere helpers dispensing charity to those in need but as citizens influencing the working of society in much broader and deeper ways. In the eighteen years to 1928, their attention was concentrated on attempts to extend their citizenship powers, to gain both the right and the opportunity to influence legislation that would in turn convert the goals of maternal feminism into reality. In this they achieved a considerable amount of success. The winning of suffrage was followed by a spate of legislation that gave women greater control over their own lives and those of their chidren, more personal and financial autonomy within marriage, that affected their treatment in the work world and that provided health and support for themselves and their children in times of need. They also worked hard at educating themselves and their non-organized sisters in parliamentary procedure, public speaking and current events in order that they might have•the skill and confidence to adequately play the more public role that they envisioned for themselves. But within a few years of gaining the legislation they 1 sought the organizational momentum that had been building since the last decades of the previous century died away and clubwomen were left without any clearcu't goals to pursue and in a state of confusion as to why they found themselves in such a position. This thesis examines six Vancouver women's organizations which played a leading role in the quest for reform in British Columbia in the years from 1910 to 1928. It considers the structure and operational methods of each as well as their specific reform goals, with particular reference to mothers' pensions and minimum wage legislation. It clarifies the image and aspirations that Vancouver clubwomen had of and for themselves in their dual roles as women and as citizens. It examines in some detail the characteristics of rank and file clubmembers as well as a core of thirty-three women who are identified as forming a network of leadership within and between the five organizations during the period 1910-1928. Table of Contents Abstract ii List of Tables vi List of Figures vii List of Abbreviations viii 1 "SETTING THE CONTEXT": WOMEN AND REFORM IN BRITISH COLUMBIA 1 2 "AN INVESTMENT IN CIVIC WELFARE": VANCOUVER WOMEN'S CLUBS, 1910-1928 35 3 "WOMANHOOD AND CITIZENSHIP":VANCOUVER WOMEN'S PERCEPTIONS OF THEIR ROLE 105 4 "DECISIVE ACTION AND NOT EMPTY PROMISES": WOMEN AND SOCIAL LEGISLATION 1910-28 152 5 "THE SACREDNESS OF MOTHERHOOD": MOTHERS' PENSIONS LEGISLATION, 1919-25 -.207 6 '"THE BRIGHTEST WOMEN OF OUR LAND": CHARACTERISTICS OF VANCOUVER CLUBWOMEN" 243 7 "DRESSED UP WITH NO PLACE TO GO"?: THE SUCCESS AND FAILURE OF THE EARLY TWENTIETH CENTURY WOMEN'S MOVEMENT 279 BIBLIOGRAPHY 296 APPENDIX A: NCWC WOMEN'S PLATFORM 1920 314 APPENDIX B: MARY ELLEN SMITH'S PLATFORM 1918 317 APPENDIX C: OCCUPATIONAL CLASSIFICATIONS 319 v i List of Tables 1. Women School Trustees Prior to 1930 in Victoria and Vancouver i 38 2. Membership of Victoria and Vancouver LCW 1897-1932 45 3. LCW Members who were Officers of and Delegates from Affiliated Societies 191 0, 1915, 1920, 1925 47 4. LCW Standing Committees 1914 51 5. UWC Standing Committees, 1911-1925 65 6. Vancouver NEL, Committees and Convenors 1921 .76 7. Provincial NEL Standing Committees and Convenors, 1925- 27 76 8. WF Standing Committees, 1917-21 .".91 9. Types of Shareholders in Women's Building 1912-23 ....97 10. Individual Shareholders Women's Building 1912-23 97 11. Corporate Shareholders Women's Building 1912-1923 ....99 12. Percent of the Male and Female Population 10 Years of Age and Over, Employed in Gainful Occupations, by Provinces, for Census Years 1881-1921 172 13. Number of Women Employed in Various Occupations in Vancouver, Victoria, Toronto and Montreal 1921 ...176 14. Percent of the Female Work Force in Selected Cities and Occupational Categories, 1921 177 15. Percent of the Female Work Force in Selected Cities and Occupations, 1921 179 16. Cost of Living Calculation for Mercantile' Occupations 1919 188 17. Cost of Living Calculation for Laundry, Dyeing and Dry Cleaning Occupations 1 91 9 191 18. Minimum Wage Board Rulings 1918-19 192 19. Mothers* Pensions Delegation March 21, 1918 217 20. Mothers' Pensions Delegation January 14, 1919 221 21. Combined Delegation to Mothers' Pensions Commission January 20, 1920 222 22. Mothers' Pensions in Selected Provinces Compared 1921 231 vi i List of Figures 1. Levels of membership within the Vancouver Local Council of Women 1914 52 2. The Vancouver Women's Building, 752 Thurlow St. - 1928 101 3. Local Area Boundaries, Vancouver 262 v i i i List of Abbreviations BPL British Progressive League CCF Commonwealth Cooperative Federation CPMA Civilian Pensioned Mothers' Association HBC Hudson's Bay Company IODE Imperial Order of Daughters of the Empire LCW Local Council of Women MWB Minimum Wage Board MWL Minimum Wage League NCWC National Council of Women of Canada NEL New Era League PABC Provincial Archives of British Columbia Sp. Coll. Special Collections Division, The Library, University of British Columbia TLC Trades and Labour Council UWC University Women's Club VCA Vancouver City Archives VON Victorian Order of Nurses WBAM Women's Benefit Association of the Maccabees WCB Workers' Compensation Board WCTU Woman's Christian Temperance Union WILPF Women's International League for Peace and Freedom WF Women's Forum YWCA Young Women's Christian Association 1 Chapter 1 "SETTING THE CONTEXT": WOMEN AND REFORM IN BRITISH COLUMBIA The idea of a Women's Building, a clubroom, meeting and workspace for all the women's groups in Vancouver, was conceived in 1911. From that year until 1927 when the Vancouver Women's Building was opened in the city's West End to the accompaniment of much pomp and ceremony and a great feeling of pride and achievement, hundreds of Vancouver women from a variety of women's clubs worked indefatigably to raise public consciousness of their goal, to gain support from the male business community and to amass the tens of thousands of dollars needed to turn their dream into bricks and mortar. Their Building was to be a visible sign of the new woman of the twentieth century and her expanded role in modern society. Within its halls and boardrooms they would develop the strategies and programs by which a renewed society would be built - a society in which justice and equality for themselves and their children would result in justice and a better life for all. The Building was a decade and a half in the creation, and during this time the campaign for the renewal of society was carried on with equal fervor. Midway through the period the female franchise was won and this was followed in rapid succession by a multitude of other legislative reforms. Ironically, by 1927 when the Building was at last open and ready to house its busy workers they had already achieved most of 2 their reform goals. For the next dozen years it stood, increasingly under-utilized and expensive to run while clubwomen cast around almost aimlessly to recapture the reformist spirit and optimism of earlier years and a reform goal as clear cut and pressing as that which had motivated them two decades earlier. But there was none. Like the Women's Building which had outlived its usefulness by the time it was finally constructed, the women's movement of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries succeeded so well in its efforts to extend female influence into the public sphere that it made continued activity virtually impossible.