Description
Book SynopsisThis authoritative biography of Mary Ellen Smith (1863–1933) – British Columbia’s first female MLA, the British Empire’s first female cabinet minister, and a BC suffragist – recovers from obscurity an audacious but imperfect champion in the struggle for greater democracy in early twentieth-century Canada.
Trade ReviewAs an acclaimed scholarly chronicler of Canadian, especially British Columbian, herstory, Veronica Strong-Boag is determined that Mary Ellen Spear Smith will not slip from recorded memory. -- Phyllis Reeve * The British Columbia Review *
Not quite a woman for her times, let alone ours, Smith seemed destined to disappear. Until, that is, Strong-Boag took on the task, uncovering both the good and the bad, using Smith as a lens onto gender relations and gender politics, British Columbia and Ottawa, and electoral politics and the power of connection. The result is a refreshingly complex picture of early twentieth-century Canada and of the crooked path to power.
-- P.E. Bryden, University of Victoria * BC Studies *
Table of ContentsIntroduction: Worker, Settler, Liberal, Feminist
1 Setting the Stage in British Mining Villages, to 1892
2 Replenishing the Empire, 1892–1900
3 From Nanaimo to Ottawa and Back Again, 1900–11
4 Boom, Bust, War, and Death, 1912–17
5 Independent Liberal Lady? 1917–20
6 From Hope to Disillusion, 1920–28
7 On the Margins, 1928–33
Conclusion: British Columbia’s Famous Pioneer
Politician: Making History
Notes; Index
