Newsletter 2005
Letter from the Chair, 2004-2005
The year 2005 marks the 30th anniversary of the CCWH. It was important to mark this event and much of our work this year focused on organizing events for the CHA to be sure that we could celebrate it properly. In the background of this discussion, however, the themes of who we are and what we are doing and how do we increase membership and make young scholars feel that there is a place for them in this organization remained.
For the academic side of the celebration we are sponsoring three panels at the CHA: “Race and Gender in the Making of the Canadian Historical Profession”, “Great Books in Women's History”, and “Reflections: 30 Years of the Canadian Committee on Women's History”. Although the CHA almost coincides with the Berkshire Conference this year we hope for a good attendance nonetheless.
The social aspect of the celebration will be a reception which this year will replace the dinner. We hope to draw not only members but friends and supporters as well. Donations to the Barbara Roberts fund will be collected at the reception. We hope that this venue will provide more opportunity for networking and mixing between new and old members of the organization than the dinner has in the past.
Finally, we hope to have a web page for the 30 th anniversary which will showcase past chairs and founding members as well as activities of the CCWH over the years. If you have not sent material in – it is not too late. Send it to Christine Ferguson, our webmaster who will be working on the page.
Finally I have put some effort into understanding the current structure of the CCWH and will be bringing some suggestions for change to the annual meeting. Moving the secretary-treasurer every year has meant a real lack of continuity and time lost over moving our bank account every year. A more permanent secretary-treasurer would solve many of our problems, but in that case, that person should be a voting member of the executive. By making sure our web page is updated regularly and lists all of the executive, we should be able to keep in touch better and get an executive that works. A group email list has worked well for me this year and I hope that that practice continues. The feedback from the regional reps has been useful as we discussed various measures.
Happy 30th Anniversary!
Françoise Noël
Chair, 2004-2005
News from the Atlantic Region, Lisa Chilton, UPEI
Margaret Conrad, University of New Brunswick , was named an Officer of the Order of Canada (OC) in 2004.
In partnership with the Electronic Text Centre, UNB, Margaret Conrad is
currently constructing the Atlantic Canada Porta (http:atlanticportal.hil.unb.ca), a website to support research on the region. The Portal will be launched at the Atlantic Canada Studies Conference in May 2005. Included on the Portal is the Atlantic Canada Virtual Archives (ACVA), which showcases two archival collections from the Atlantic region: The Edward Winslow Letters, 1783-85, and the McQueen Family Letters,1866-1930 . The McQueen Family Letters are especially interesting to researchers in women's history, as six of the surviving McQueen children were girls, and five of them taught school at some point in their lives. Jean Barman has recently published an award-winning book on two of the siblings who taught in British Columbia : Sojourning Sisters: The Lives and Letters of Jessie and Annie McQueen ( Toronto : University of Toronto Press , 2003). The ACVA project was supported in part by a grant from the Canadian Culture Online Program of the Department of Canadian Heritage. The Portal also has a searchable database containing the bibliographies published in Acadiensis.
Over the course of the past year, the Inventory of The Loyalist Collection at Harriet Irving Library at UNB has been completed, and a revised Overview of the collection has been posted on the collection's website: http://www.lib.unb.ca/collections/loyalist/ . The Loyalist Collection contains microfilm of British, North American Colonial, and early Canadian primary sources from approximately1740-1870 , with the chief focus being the American Revolution and the early years of Loyalist settlement in British North America . This unique and comprehensive collection of Loyalist resources in one location has confirmed the position of the UNB Library as the principal Loyalist research centre in and for Canada . The collection now holds over 3400 reels of microfilm and 700 microfiche . The Loyalist Collection's Inventory, Database, Finding Aids and Classification Schedules were all designed and composed by Kathryn Hilder.
Nicole Lang and Linda Kealey, along with David Frank, Greg Kealey, Raymond Leger and Bill Parenteau, have been awarded a Community-University Research Alliance grant for “Re-Connecting with the History of Labour in New Brunswick: Historical Perspectives on Contemporary Issues.” This SSHRCC grant will provide funding for five years of work. The project addresses five themes: provincial solidarities; le travail en Acadie; contested territory: transformation of the woods; women's work; and labour landmarks. The project's partners include the Federation of Labour, CUPE, the New Brunswick Nurses Union and the Nurses Association of New Brunswick, the Provincial Archives of New Brunswick, the Saint John Museum , the francophone teachers' organization, Centre d'etude acadiennes, the Heritage Branch of New Brunswick's Culture and Sport Secretariat, and the New Brunswick Public Employees Association. The project will be able to fund a few graduate students at the Master's and Doctoral levels.
Mt. Allison celebrated International Women's Week in 2005 with a variety of special events, including a number of film showings, meetings to discuss gender questions in international relations, gatherings to exchange cross-generational stories, and a lecture entitled “Addressing Gender and Women's Roles in Conflict and Peace-building,” by Rotary International World Peace Scholar Susan Stigant. Mt. Allison 's Women's Studies Department also hosted a student conference, “'We were here': Discovering Women's History and Archival Research at Mount Allison University ” on March 18, 2005 .
The Atlantic Canada Studies Conference, 12-14 May is in Fredericton this year, with the organizing committee led by Margaret Conrad. There will be two panels on women's topics at this conference: “Women's Organizing in the Maritimes”, to be chaired by Linda Kealey with panellists Judith Fingard and John Rutherford, Janet Guildford, Nancy Janovicek, and Marylea MacDonald; and “Diaries and the Contours of Life and Work in the Maritimes,” featuring papers by Gail Campbell, Bonnie Huskins and Robert MacKinnon.
Beverly Lemire is heading the organization of the Northeast American Society of Eighteenth-Century Studies conference [NEASECS] this year. Lianne McTavish is also on the conference's organizing committee. The conference is to be held at UNB from 31 September to 2 October, 2005 . The conference's central them is: “The Eighteenth-Century Everyday: Remembrance and Representation.” See http://www.unb.ca/conferences/neasecs/home.html for details.
The Second Symposium on Teaching Women's History at Atlantic Canadian Universities will be held at Acadia University on September 17, 2005 . This event is intended as a follow-up to the very successful symposium held in the Fall of 2003 at University of New Brunswick . This symposium will consist of a number of short presentations on the theme "Teaching Women's/Gender History: Problems, Methods, and Sources".
News from Quebec , Amélie Bourbeau
There were three meetings held in Québec this year, in three different universities. Last fall at Université du Québec à Montréal (UQÀM), faculty members and graduate students met to exchange thoughts on the subject of “Gender, identity and war”. In January at Université de Montréal, a discussion was held on the experience of motherhood and the growing place of medicine in it during the twentieth century. Finally, at McGill University in April, we met to talk about women who were “forgotten” by history and historians, especially women writers. Everyone attending these group discussions read articles or book chapters related to the subject of the meeting.
Aside from these meetings, many individuals published articles and gave talks in Canada , the United States and Europe . Especially worth mentioning, however, is the conference that was held in May at McGill University, organized by Magda Fahrni (UQÀM), Suzanne Morton (McGill) and Joan Sangster (Trent) : Feminism and the Making of Canada / Le féminisme et le façonnement du Canada . Specialists came from all over Canada and shared ideas for three days.
Recent publications :
Denyse Baillargeon, Un Québec en mal d'enfants. La médicalisation de la maternité, 1910-1970 (Remue-Ménage, 2004).
Micheline Dumont, Brève histoire des institutrices au Québec de la Nouvelle-France à nos jours (Boréal, 2004).
Andrée Lévesque, dir., Madeleine Parent Activist (Sumac Press, 2005), translation of the collection : Madeleine Parent militante (Remue-Ménage, 2003).
News from Ontario
Katrina Srigley
University of Toronto
katrina.srigley@utoronto.ca
First of all, on behalf of the CCWH I would like to thank Dianne Dodd from Parks Canada for her work on the Ontario Regional Report in previous years. This year Parks Canada continued their effort to commemorate women in the areas of suffrage, education, science and technology, work and healthcare. For more information on the program see the Parks Canada website at http://www.pc.gc.ca.
In celebration of Women's History month in October, the Ontario Women's Network held their conference at Trent University in Peterborough . This years theme was “Repositioning Native Women in Canadian History: Enhancing Curriculum.” Keynote speaker Paula Sherman, spoke on “The Pochahontas Syndrome: Perceptions of Aboriginal Women in North America History.” The Ontario Women's Directorate, in connection with the Ontario Women's History Network and Ontario History and Social Sciences Teachers Association recognized Women's History month by developing a series of resources to be used with students aged eight to fourteen. This included sources like Yes, Women are Persons!/ Oui, les femmes sont les personnes, which commemorates the seventy-fifth anniversary of the Persons Case. In Sudbury , Laurentian University marked the occasion by inviting Ruth Roach Pierson to speak. During her “whirlwind” visit Pierson spoke to one hundred and fifty students and faculty members on “Post –Colonial Teaching and the Importance of Personal Positionality.” This event was followed by a public lecture titled “White Academic Women and Imperialist and Racist Knowledge Production,” which was well attended by members of the Sudbury community.
In recognition of International Women's Day, Nipissing University held a series of events over a one-week period that celebrated Aboriginal women. This included the screening of films such as Rabbit Proof Fence and Whale Rider as well as a celebration of Aboriginal music and dance. Anishinabek author and academic Ruby Slipperjack provided the keynote address titled “Why do we do the things we do? An Exploration of Ojibwa beliefs and superstitions.” Following this, Santee Smith (Six Nations) preformed excerpts from her dance production Kaha:wi. The University of Western Ontario and the Royal Military College (RMC) in Kingston also commemorated International Women's Day. At Western, an International Women's Day breakfast and Silent Auction was followed by a formal address given by Monda and Sonia Halpern on “Feminist Intuition.” In Kingston , RMC hosted a one-day conference. Jane Errington gave the keynote address titled “Who We Were and Who We Are: the Continuing Struggle.”
From September 29 th to October 2 nd 2005 the University of Toronto will host the conference Labouring Feminism and Feminist Working Class History in North America and Beyond ( http://www.utoronto.ca/csus/labourfem/ ). In order to create dialogue across boundaries - generational, national, theoretical - this exciting meeting will unite established academics and graduate students from Canada , the United States and Europe to deal with issues as diverse as sexuality, consumption, activism, labour feminism and race/ethnicity.
News from the Treasurer, Lara Campbell, Simon Fraser
This year, the CCWH was able to do a bit of fundraising after being
contacted by the University of Ottawa Press . With the upcoming publication of On all Frontiers: Four Centuries of Canadian Nursing, the CCWH was able to make ten dollars per advance copy of each book ordered. Due to the positive response of our members, we were able to take advantage of this offer, and the book will be delivered in late April of 2005.
This year, membership reminders were sent out to all members currently on the CCWH listserv, and I am currently working on creating an email database for all of our members. The response to the reminder has been wonderful, and we are in good financial health. Next, we plan to encourage all full-time faculty to sponsor a student for membership. At only ten dollars per student, this is a positive way for our current members to ensure the future health, diversity and energy of our organization.
Subcommittee News, Catherine Carstairs, Guelph
This sub-committee, composed largely of younger scholars, and chaired by Lisa Chilton and Catherine Carstairs, has been consideringissues related to the future of the CCWH. We have discussed the role that the CCWH might play in mentoring new scholars; how we might recruit andmake the organization more attractive to new members, especially graduate students, historians of colour and historians who work in French; and how the CCWH might take a more active political role in promoting women's history and feminist issues.
At the CHA this year, we will be circulating a questionnaire (which will also be available on the CCWH website) that will askmembers what they would like to see from the CCWH in the future. We willthen write a report to the Executive of the CCWH about our findings.
News from the Prairie Provinces
Prairie women historians have had another productive year.
Mary Jane McCallum, Graduate Student Representative on the CCWH executive, reports that history graduate students in Winnipeg have kept as busy as the professors this year. Students formed two reading groups, took part in a University of Manitoba/University of Winnipeg Graduate Student-Faculty Colloquium, and spoke at a number of graduate student conferences and lecture series both in Winnipeg and throughout Canada . A number of students defended their work, including most recently, Dr. Marion McKay, whose thesis is titled "Saints and Sanitarians: The Role of Women's Voluntary Agencies in the Development of Winnipeg's Public Health
System, 1882-1945." Winnipeg history students have also been representatives on faculty committees including the Department Council, the graduate executive committee and departmental hiring committees. Student input is crucial to the decisions made by our history departments. Student activism has reached outside of the departments as well, as a number of University of Manitoba history graduate students were involved in a struggle for better wages for UM grader/markers. The University of Manitoba department hired an African historian, Joyce
Chadya, which, along with two other hires in Aboriginal and Latin American history at University of Winnipeg and University of Manitoba respectively, continues our departments' commitment to offering students of diverse backgrounds a broad range of approaches and fields of history. Last but not least, we look forward to our third annual Fort Garry Lectures graduate student conference April 28-30, 2005.
Tamara Myers reports that on 15 April the Women's History Association of Manitoba (WHAM) gathered at U of Winnipeg to discuss Joan Scott's "Feminism's History". Darlene Abreu-Ferreira (U of Winnipeg) is working on a SSHRC-funded project to write a book on women, property, and inheritance in early modern Portugal and is currently the guest editor of the Portuguese Studies Review for a special issue on women in medieval and early modern Portugal . Jennifer Brown (U of Winnipeg) was awarded a Canada Research Chair (Aboriginal Peoples in an Urban and Regional Context). Tamara Myers (U of Winnipeg and Associate Chair, CCWH) is the chair of the Joint Master's Program at the Universities of Manitoba and Winnipeg and is working on a collaborative SSHRC project entitled "Montreal Modern". Mary Kinnear (U of Manitoba) is chair of the History Department and a member of the Royal Society. Her new book is Woman of the World: Mary McGeachy and International Co-operation (UTP, 2004). Sarah Elvins (U ofManitoba ) published Sales and Celebrations: Retailing and Regional Identity in Western New York State ,1920-1940 ( Ohio UP, 2003). Tina Chen (U of Manitoba) has published the following: "Female Icons, Feminist Iconography? Socialist Rhetoric and Women's Agency in 1950s
China", Gender & History 15.2 (August 2003): 268-295. Jean Friesen has returned to the U of Manitoba after more than 10 years in politics, some of them as deputy premier. Adele Perry holds a Canada Research Chair at U of Manitoba and published "The Autocracy of Love and the Legitimacy of Empire: Intimacy, Power and Scandal in Nineteenth-Century Metlakahtlah," Gender and History, 16: 2 (August 2004): 261-288.
At the University of Alberta Beverly Lemireformerly of the University of New Brunswick , has been appointed a Henry Marshall Tory Chair and is attached to the Department of History and Classics and the Department of Human Ecology. She has a book coming out in September: The Business of Everyday Life: Gender, Practice and Social Politics in England , c.1600-1900 (Manchester University Press, 2005).
At the University of Calgary , Nancy Janovicek was hired to replace Sarah Carter during her Killiam leave, which continues into 2005-06. Betsy Jameson is president of the Pacific Coast Branch-American Historical Association (PCB-AHA) this year. Betsy invites all CCWH members to a terrific conference in Corvallis , Oregon August 4-7 that will feature lots of great women's history. The conference theme is "Dancing on the Rim: Nations, Borderlands, and Identities." The program and registration information will be posted on the PCB website April 15 ( Sarah Carter reports that the PCB-AHA conference will include a panel, “Honoring Betsy Jameson,” with Susan Armitage, Benny Andres Jr., Sarah Carter, Jeremy Mouat, and Susan Johnson. Other CCWH members on the program include Cathy Cavanaugh and Sheila McManus.
The University of Calgary Press will be publishing the volume of papers from the 2002 conference "Unsettled Pasts: Reconceiving the West Through Women's History” later this year. It is edited by Sarah Carter, Lesley Erickson, Pat Roome and Char Smith. Sarah Carter also recently published a new edition, with a new introduction, of Amelia Paget's People of the Plains, (original 1909) with Regina : Canadian Plains Research Centre.
At the University of Lethbridge , Amy Shaw began teaching in the history department in January. Lynn Kennedy, who joined the history department in July 2004, received the 2005 Lerner-Scott Prize for her dissertation, “Partus Sequitur Ventrum: Narratives of Childbirth and Motherhood in Antebellum South.” Kennedy accepted the prize at the annual meeting of the Organization of American Historians in San Jose . Carol Williams, who has been a member of the women's studies program since July 2003, won the Pacific Historical Association's Norris and Carol Hundley book award for the distinguished book of 2004 for her Framing the West: Race, Gender, and the Photographic Frontier in the Pacific Northwest (Oxford, 2003). Sonya Grypma, has been teaching part-time in the Faculty of Health Sciences since 1991 and in January began teaching full-time. Her doctoral research, completed in December 2004 at the U of Alberta, was on Canadian missionary nurses in China between 1888 and 1947. In July 2005 she will be taking up a SSHRC post doctoral fellowship at UBC on Canadian nurses interned under the Japanese in China , 1941 – 1945; her supervisor is Geertje Boschma. Lethbridge women historians were very pleased to host several prominent historians over the last year including, Sarah Carter, ( U of Calgary) Alice Dreger (Michigan State U), Beverly Lemire (U of Alberta), and Veronica Strong-Boag (U of British Columbia).
Submitted,
Heidi MacDonald
News from British Columbia
- Jenéa Tallentire [jltallen@interchange.ubc.ca]
(Thanks to Lara Campbell, Nikki Strong-Boag, Jean Barman, Jacqueline Gresko, Cheryl Krasnick Warsh, Bonnie Huskins, and Sylvie Murray for their contributions of news and publications.)
As of Fall 2004, Simon Fraser University has established a strong teaching and research presence in the field of Canadian women's history. The history department hired Elise Chenier and the women's studies department hired Lara Campbell in 2004, and the history department will add Wileen Keough and Andrea Geiger-Adams in 2005. These historians cover a wide-ranging number of topics in women's, gender and family history, including pre- and post-Confederation Canada, immigration, sexuality, social protest and state formation.
The British Columbia Women's History Network is growing in membership and activity. In October of 2005, it will host a two day conference entitled "Saints and Sinners" in Burnaby BC, and in the fall of 2004, it sponsored a conference on the history of women in BC communities - 2004 conference was on "Women, Home and Place in British Columbia" - featuring a performance by BC's own Raging Grannies. For more information please visit their website: http://www.members.shaw.ca/whnbc/
At the British Columbia Historical Federation Conference in
Nanaimo , BC , in May 2004, Jean Barman was awarded the Lieutenant Governor's Medal in the federation Writing Competition for her book, Sojourning Sisters ( University of Toronto Press , 2003). This book is based on the correspondence of the McQueen sisters, teachers in British Columbia , with their family in Nova Scotia . Sojourning Sisters is now available in paperback.
On March 18, 2005 , Mona Gleason , Kristina Llewellyn , Jan Hare , and Nikki Strong-Boag hosted 'BC and Beyond: A Conference Honoring Jean Barman.' Held at Green College, UBC, it assembled a range of interesting papers from former and present students and finished with a reception where various friends including Neil Sutherland, Nancy Sheehan, Cole Harris, and others spoke about Jean's multiple and diverse contributions to history and UBC. While she has formally retired from UBC faculty, there was, however, no doubt of her continuing contribution to the world of scholarship on BC, women, and First Nations.
Jean's forthcoming publications leave no doubt about this. Jean Barman [jean.barman@ubc.ca] published “Lost Nanaimo - taking back our past” in Shale 8 (June 2004): 16-26. She also has several publications forthcoming. Stanley Park 's Secret: The Forgotten Families of Whoi Whoi, Kanaka Ranch, and Brockton Point (Harbour) is now forthcoming fall 2005. Leaving Paradise : Indigenous Hawaiians in the Pacific Northwest , 1787-1898 , co-authored with Bruce Watson, is forthcoming from University of Hawai'i Press . “Aboriginal Women on the Streets of Victoria: Engendering transgressive sexuality during the gold rush,” is in press in Myra Rutherdale and Katie Pickles, eds., Embodied Contact: Women in Canada's Colonial Past (UBC Press). “Good Intentions Gone Awry: From protection to incarceration at Emma Crosby's Home for Girls, 1874-1897,” co-authored with Jan Hare, is in press in Celia Haig-Brown and David Nock, eds., Good Intentions: The Quest for "Fair Play" in Colonial Canada 's Aboriginal Relations (UBC Press). “‘An educator of modern views': The (Auto)biography of Margaret Ross, 1862-1943,” with Jack Little, is forthcoming in Historical Studies in Education 17, 1 (Spring 2005). She also has an “Introduction" to Constance Lindsay Skinner, The Birthright , forthcoming from Playwrights Canada Press.
Jacqueline Gresko [greskoj@douglas.bc.ca] notes: As president of the British Columbia Historical Federation, now comprising member societies 104 societies with over 10,000 individual members, I am working with the Women's History Network of British Columbia on an advocacy session for the federation conference in Kelowna BC in May 2005 which will include discussion of nomination of women from British Columbia as historically significant persons to the Historic Sites and Monuments Board of Canada. The British Columbia Historical Federation and the Okanagan Historical Society have nominated Susan Allison and the Women's History Network has nominated Mary Ellen Smith. We hope to encourage member societies across the province to nominate significant women or women's history events or sites. You can find out more about the British Columbia Historical Federation and the Kelowna conference on the federation website: http://www.bchistory.ca
Jacqueline has also presented the following papers: "O'Melia San and the Japanese Catholic Mission, Vancouver, Canada" at the American Catholic Historical Association/American Historical Association, Seattle, January 2005; "Recognizing Women from Christian Religious Communities for Educational Work with Japanese Canadians" at the Historic Sites and Monuments Board, British Columbia workshop on Commemoration of Women's History in Canada, Vancouver, March 7, 2005; and "Those Who Would Not Teach Wrote History. Reflections on the Lives and Writings of Adrien-Gabriel Morice O.M.I. and Sister Mary Theodore S.S.A." Paper for Presentation at the BC and Beyond Conference Honouring Jean Barman on her retirement from the University of British Columbia , March 18, 2005 .
Cheryl Krasnick Warsh [warshc@mala.bc.ca] is the Editor-in-Chief, Canadian Bulletin of Medical History, which has an upcoming issue on women's health in 2006. She has recently published Children's Health in History: International Perspectives , co-edited by Veronica Strong-Boag (Wilfrid Laurier Press, 2005). Recent articles include: “The Case for Chaos: Menstruation, Menopause and the Poverty of Linear Medical Models,” in Mental Health and Canadian Society: Historical Perspectives , eds. James Moran and David Wright (Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press, 2005) and “In Vogue: North American and British Representations of Women Smokers in Vogue , 1920s-1960s,” co-written by Penny Tinkler, in Conference Proceedings of the International Conference on Alcohol and Drug History, Canadian Bulletin of Medical History/ Bulletin canadien d'histoire de la medecine , forthcoming.
Cheryl also has a new online course on the Social History of Nursing, sponsored by BC Campus, team taught by Cheryl Krasnick Warsh, Stephanie Buckingham, Sheila Rankin Zerr, Peggy Scaia and Laurie Meijer-Drees.
Bonnie Huskins [Bonnie.Huskins@ucfv.ca] will be presenting "`Just the Usual Work': Domestic Labour, Longshoring and Family Economy in the Diaries of Ida Martin (nee Friars), 1945-92" at The Atlantic Canada Studies Conference in Fredericton in May. Bonnie also has a research note in forthcoming in the next issue of Acadiensis called "`Daily Allowances': Literary Conventions and Daily Life in the Diaries of Ida Martin, Saint John, 1945-92."
Sylvie Murray [Sylvie.Murray@ucfv.ca] has been awarded a SSHRC Standard Research Grant for “Women, Amateurs, and Politicians: The Volunteers for Stevenson, the Citizens for Eisenhower, and grassroots participation in the American presidential campaigns of 1952 and 1956.”
Jenéa Tallentire [jltallen@interchange.ubc.ca] is currently working with Dianne Newell (UBC) on the auto/biographical work of Judith Merril, American-Canadian science fiction author/editor/critic. One forthcoming publication of this work is “Co-Writing a Life in Science Fiction: Judith Merril as a Theorist of Autobiography” in the Proceedings of the Academic Canadian Conference on Science Fiction and Fantasy, August 2003.
Jenéa is also the co-founder and co-editor of thirdspace , the premier journal for emerging feminist scholars (http://www.thirdpace.ca). thirdspace is entirely run by and for emerging scholars: senior PhD candidates, postdoctoral fellows, new independent scholars, and junior professionals (within 5 years of completing PhD). As chief editor I am especially looking for historical pieces for the journal, so please pass on our site to your students and junior colleagues.