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Canadian History and Culture #1 -- Nellie McClung

© J. M. Bridgeman

On International Women's Day, a day to honour all women and their contributions, let's celebrate Nellie McClung, one Canadian who helped change the world.

When Nellie McClung was born, as Helen Letitia Mooney, in Chatsworth, Ontario, Canada, in 1873, she was not a person under Canadian law. Nor was her mother a person. Women were denied certain rights that men enjoyed, including the right to vote. In law, we were economically dependant on father or spouse. If we inherited property, our husbands owned it. If the husband died, the widow could be left penniless, to raise children in poverty. We were excluded from many careers, including politics, the law, or medicine. However, there was one woman doctor practicing in Ontario, without a licence. Thus Nellie Mooney was born into a world of inequity. But it was a world that some reformers were determined to change; and, they were willing to flout the law when the law was wrong.

The Mooney family emigrated from Ontario to the Canadian West in 1880 to homestead south of Brandon, Manitoba. Nellie attended school from age ten to fifteen. At age sixteen, in 1889, she completed Normal School (teacher training). When Nellie was hired to teach in the small town of Manitou in 1890, she boarded with the Methodist minister, Reverend James McClung and his wife Annie. Mrs. McClung, who was president of the local chapter of the Women's Christian Temperance Union, was at first a mentor and later, a mother-in-law. Nellie married Robert Wesley McClung in 1896.

Marriage, of course, ended Nellie's teaching career. In the first sixteen years of her marriage, Nellie bore five children and published, in 1908, her first novel. Sowing Seeds in Danny became a best-seller and launched Nellie's third career, as a writer. In 1911, when the McClung's moved to Winnipeg, Nellie joined the Women's Press Club. There she met like-minded women who organized themselves as the Political Equality League to lobby for women's suffrage. Nellie was active in the speakers bureau, travelling across Canada, the United States, and to Great Britain to lecture at rallies in support of social changes such as prohibition, property rights for wives and widows, access to education and careers, and better laws to regulate safety and working conditions.

Nellie McClung is best remembered in Winnipeg for her triumph in the Women's Parliament of 1914. The League staged a mock parliament where disenfranchised men petitioned women law-makers. With her powers of mimickry, Nellie, playing the Premier, brought down the house. The audience, through tears of laughter, was forced to see how ridiculous were the arguments against women's suffrage. Evolution, when blocked and suppressed, becomes revolution, Nellie warned. However, revolution was not required in this battle. The government resigned shortly after the show, over allegations of corruption, and was defeated in the election that followed in 1915. The world was already at war in Europe. The new legislature passed prohibition on a surge of patriotism. In January, 1916, women's suffrage also became law. Women in Manitoba were the first in Canada to achieve the right to vote and hold provincial office.