Active History

Silenced Histories: Accessing Abortion in Alberta, 1969 to 1988

January 26, 2017 1 Comment

By Shannon Ingram

Two years following the 100^th celebration of Canadian confederation in 1967, the Omnibus Criminal Law Amendment Act was passed on May 14^th, 1969 by Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau that partially lifted the strict criminal sanctions regarding abortion nationwide. [1] The decades that followed the passing of, what many deemed, “the monumental omnibus bill” was no more liberating for women’s bodily autonomy than prior to the passing of the bill.

Therapeutic Abortion Committees or TACs were established across Canada following the partial decriminalization of abortion in 1969. The TAC maintained that a minimum of three medical professionals had to be present to regulate the number of abortions performed on women in hospital settings. The Therapeutic Abortion Survey, conducted in 1969, showed evidence of this increased attention by medical professionals and government. Each therapeutic abortion required the woman to fill out a standardized individual report, including such information as, “[the woman’s] marital status, age, province of residence… [and recommendations for or against] sterilization.”[2] The Therapeutic Abortion Survey, initiated by the Federal Department of Justice and Welfare, was submitted by hospitals who both had accredited Therapeutic Abortion Committees and who performed therapeutic abortions. The criteria for sterilization or recommendations for other forms of birth control was left to the discretion of the referring doctor and the TACs, and in many cases, went against the woman’s wishes. And while the standardized individual report case forms estimated the number of women across Canada seeking abortion services, it also implicitly suggested that some women were suitable for motherhood and some women were not. Ultimately, this decision was more times than not left in the hands of government and medical professionals regulating and problematizing the female body, under the auspices of a more liberalized era of reproductive choice. Continue reading →

Firmly on the Left: ‘Ethnic Hall’ Socialist Women’s Activism and State Responses, 1919-1945

January 26, 2017 No Comments

By Rhonda Hinther

Authorities caught up with Regina Communist Party Activist Gladys Macdonald on June 3, 1940, along with two men, John Slavkowsky (whom the press identified as a Hungarian relief recipient) and Clifford Peet, another local Party organizer. According to news reports, the three, were “accused of printing a pamphlet known as the Saskatchewan Factory and Furrow, containing materials intended or likely to cause disaffection to His Majesty; likely or intended to interfere with the success of His Majesty’s forces and intended or likely to be prejudicial to the efficient prosecution of the war.” Her arrest was a serious blow to the party locally. Shortly after, an RCMP secret bulletin noted “The Communist Party of Canada in the Province of Saskatchewan appears to be seriously disorganized as a result of the outlawing of the Party and other left wing organizations and the arrests of Clifford Peet and Gladys McDonald, leading Communists.” Slavkowsky’s wife, Susie, was later charged and convicted with the trio, as the pamphlet’s printing allegedly took place in her home. Susie received a suspended sentence, while her husband and Peet received jail time of six months and one year respectively of hard labour served in Regina Jail.[1]

Apparently more dangerous, Macdonald was convicted and sentenced to double the time of Peet– she was ordered to a year of hard labour at Battleford Women’s Jail. Upon completion of her sentence on the morning of July 11, 1941, “she was informed that orders had been issued for her to be held in jail.” A short time later, “the RCMP [showed up] with an internment order on which no grounds [to hold her] were shown.” A week later, she was furnished with the particulars justifying her continued incarceration, and, over a month later on August 19, 1941, a government committee heard her appeal. Despite a host of positive character witnesses and McDonald’s own testimony that she now supported the war (in keeping with the Party’s then changed position), she did not fare well during the proceedings. By the next month, she found herself interned in Kingston Penitentiary.

Macdonald’s story is part of a larger project I’m researching on the political incarceration of leftists during WWII. Then, the Canadian government imprisoned, in jails and internment camps, hundreds of far left activists. Their detention was part of a broader climate of repression, intimidation, and fear that hung over many leftists in wartime Canada. Authorities here, like other western powers, used the war as excuse to criminalize radical activism, involvement in a host of leftist ‘ethnic hall’ socialist organizations, and support of the Communist Party of Canada (CPC), which, at the time, had grown to considerable strength thanks to its Depression-era activism among the working class and unemployed. The state took aim at these radicals, focussing on the CPC’s antiwar position adopted following the German-Soviet Pact in August of 1939. Fearing disruption to the war effort and seizing the opportunity to silence Canadian radical groups (a constant thorn in the government’s side), Prime Minister Mackenzie King in the spring of 1940 banned a number of organizations linked to and including the CPC, granting state authorities the right to confiscate these groups’ property and arrest the leadership.

I’m especially interested in how gender shaped wartime political incarceration. The vast majority of the men rounded up (some 120 or so) were interned, typically serving out their time together in one of three camps across Canada. Most of the women I’m finding (currently numbering around ten and growing as my research continues) were formally charged, convicted, and served jail time.

Gladys MacDonald enjoys the dubious honour of being the only leftist woman internee. She was finally released, along with many of the male leftists internees then held in Hull Jail, in the fall of 1942. And after that, she seems to disappear from the record. It’s possible her name changed through marriage, and that this is making it difficult to locate further sources on her. It’s possible she may have left the movement entirely – wartime was obviously traumatic and lonely for her. I’m hoping some additional sources I’m planning to examine over the coming months will help shed light on her life and activism following her incarceration. I welcome any help Active History readers can offer.

As this and the other posts in this series demonstrate, women’s political and social activism in Western Canada was complicated and complex. And it was not without danger, as Gladys MacDonald’s story underscores, especially when it was perceived as a direct challenge to the authority of the state. Wartime, in MacDonald’s case, provided the government with the perfect excuse to silence her and others who dared to contest the lot of the working class.

Rhonda L. Hinther is an Associate Professor of History at Brandon University (BU). Her research and teaching interests include public history, oral history, gender and women’s history, migration and labour history, and radical and social justice activism in Canada. She is the author of the forthcoming book, Perogies and Politics: Radical Ukrainians in Canada, 1918-1991 (University of Toronto Press, 2016) and the co-editor of Re-imagining Ukrainian-Canadians: History, Politics, and Identity (University of Toronto Press, 2011).

[1] “4 Persons Rounded Up In Regina Raid,” Medicine Hat News, June 6, 1940; “Sask. Trio Held Under War Act,” Winnipeg Free Press, June 3, 1940; “War Act Violators Sentenced to Jail,” Winnipeg Free Press, September 12, 1940; Joan Sangster includes some discussion of Macdonald and several of the other leftist women arrested at this time – see Joan Sangster, Dreams of Equality: Women on the Canadian Left, 1920-1950 (Toronto, Ont.: McClelland & Stewart, 1989). For more information on women internees and other women (of varying circumstances and political stripes) rounded up seemingly without rhyme or reason under the DOC Regulations, see Michelle McBride’s path breaking article, “The Curious Case of Female Internees,” in Enemies within Italian and Other Internees in Canada and Abroad, ed. Franca Iacovetta, Roberto Perin, and Angelo Principe (Toronto; Buffalo: University of Toronto Press, 2000), 128–47. On page 164, McBride provides important commentary on McDonald’s wartime circumstances.

Rethinking the Contributions of Union Activist Ethel Wilson Within the Postwar Context of Alberta’s Male-Dominated Industrial Complex

January 25, 2017 1 Comment

By Cynthia Loch-Drake

Struggling to make ends meet in 1934 while raising three small children after her husband deserted their family, Ethel Wilson took a job as seamstress in one of Edmonton’s major meatpacking plants. During WWII she became a union organizer and in the postwar era entered community politics, rising to become a cabinet minister in the Social Credit government from 1963 to 1972.[1] Despite this remarkable trajectory, critics have written off Wilson for her limited impact as a progressive politician. The labour movement judged her harshly for supporting Alberta’s most anti-union government, and Wilson is portrayed as no friend of working women because of the ineffectual provincial Women’s Bureau that she established during her tenure as cabinet minister.[2]

Ethel Wilson, 1957, Courtesy of City of Edmonton Archive (EA-10-2934-5).

I argue that as a white, Anglo-Celtic woman in a region shaped by recent colonization, Ethel Wilson’s abilities and privilege allowed her to be a more effective unionist and advocate for women workers in the 1940s than has been recognized. Her impact, however, was constrained by moralistic middle-class notions of female sexuality and her religious convictions, which fostered an individualistic approach to activism. More fundamentally, though, her career demonstrates that the male-dominated system of packinghouses, unions, and governments in postwar Alberta was a more significant barrier to Wilson’s activism, shutting her out of positions of real power due to her gender. Continue reading →

The Voice of Women Against Chemical Weapons

January 25, 2017 No Comments

By Susan L. Smith

On August 20, 1988, over one hundred peace activists, environmentalists, and concerned citizens from Alberta and Saskatchewan gathered at Suffield, a military research facility in southern Alberta. The protest was led by the Alberta Branch of the Canadian Voice of Women for Peace.[1] The Voice of Women was an organization of peace activists founded in 1960 to demonstrate women’s discontent with Cold War politics and the nuclear arms race. However, in the 1960s and 1980s, women in Alberta expanded their peace activism to include opposition to Canadian chemical weapons research. Peace activists played an important role in the history of Western Canadian women’s political activism.

Women’s opposition to military research at Suffield was part of the long history of women’s international peace and disarmament efforts. For example, during the First World War, the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom was founded by women from warring and neutral nations in order to halt the war. Several decades later, women’s opposition to the nuclear arms race between the United States and the Soviet Union led to the creation of the Canadian Voice of Women for Peace by a group of women in Toronto. Women from across Canada soon organized local branches of the Voice of Women, including one in Alberta, which existed from 1960 to 1994. Continue reading →

Black Settlers of Alberta and Saskatchewan Historical Society

January 24, 2017 Comments Off

By Debbie Beaver

As a women of color a question that I have been asked numerous times in my life is “Where are you from?” My response is I was born in Barrhead, Alberta and raised on a farm in Tiger Lily, Alberta. Next question is “Where is your family from; “your parents”? “My response is “my father was born in Campsie, Alberta and my mother was born in Maidstone, Saskatchewan.’ This is still not sufficient for some, so I explain that my Grandparents were both born in the US and came here as children when their parents left the southern US in 1912 or 1913 due to racial segregation. This answer seems to satisfy those curious minds, surprisingly many people are unaware that black families settled in Alberta a century ago.

The Black Settlers of Alberta and Saskatchewan Historical Society (BSAS) is a non-profit organization that was started by four women who are all descendants of the black settlers that came to Alberta and Saskatchewan from the United States between 1905-1911. These settlers migrated from the rural South via Oklahoma to escape racial oppression and Jim Crow laws.

We developed a research plan and applied for funding to begin an oral history project titled “In their Own Words”. The scope of our project is to collect oral histories from elderly descendants (80 +years of age) of the pioneering Black Settlers. The majority settled in one of five areas: Campsie, Junkins (now Wildwood), Keystone (now Breton), Pine Creek (now Amber Valley) in Alberta and Maidstone, Saskatchewan. Maidstone has been included in our research because all the settlements are connected in some way, be it shared farm work, working on the railroad, social events or marriage. Many also settled in Edmonton and Calgary. Continue reading →

Theme Week Introduction: Women’s Social and Political Activism in the Canadian West

January 23, 2017 1 Comment

Introduction by Nanci Langford with Sarah Carter. Theme week edited by Sarah Carter, Erika Dyck and Nanci Langford.

“If I didn’t do something, my spirit would die…”
Senator Thelma Chalifoux, 2006

This quote forms the title of Corinne George’s study of the history of Indigenous women activists of Alberta that she drew on for her presentation at the October 2016 conference on the History of Women’s Social and Political Activism in the Canadian West held at University of Alberta in Edmonton.[i] Corinne’s paper had a focus on Cree Elder, activist and conference participant Lillian Shirt, and was the topic of an Active History post in December, 2016.[ii] The six articles in this series showcase some of the other papers presented at this conference.

The centenary of the achievement of suffrage for (some) women in the prairie provinces prompted conference organizers Sarah Carter, Nanci Langford and Claire Thomson to provide a forum for recent research on prairie women’s activism in the last century.[iii] In particular we wanted to feature new scholarship being undertaken in diverse communities that reflect the struggles women have been engaged in during the last fifty years.

Prairie women have always been involved in community development and lobbied for public measures that would improve the lives of women and children. The challenges and conditions of the settlement years in the west demanded action from women and men in both settler and Indigenous communities to build secure lives for themselves and their children, and that action started at their front doors and extended to communities, districts and to provincial politics. Moving beyond those years, women of all backgrounds and cultures were and continue to be engaged in political activities to address personal and community needs, to confront unfair practices or unsafe conditions, to change the political agenda, or to demand equity. To carry out these activities they spoke out individually or formed organizations and committees, joined political parties and ran for political office. Continue reading →

Trumpism, Fascism, and the Lessons of History

January 20, 2017 No Comments

By Geoff Read, Cheryl Koos, and Samuel Kalman

The 45th President of the United States

Many articles have appeared in the past year debating whether or not Donald Trump is a fascist.[1] Although some of these pieces are mere exercises in name calling, others offer political, social, and historical analysis. Just prior to the US presidential election, for example, Kevin Passmore, an eminent scholar of the French far right, took up this question in the Guardian and reached similar conclusions as previous commentators: that fascism is a difficult concept to nail down, that so-called fascists were a diverse group, and that the label “fascist” may not be helpful for understanding Trump and the movement (let’s call it “Trumpism”) that he has inspired.

We don’t argue with the thrust of the first two conclusions. However, unlike Passmore and others, we do think that comparing historical forms of fascism to Trumpism can be a useful exercise. Moreover, the day of Trump’s inauguration is the right moment to revisit this question from a different angle. It strikes us that asking whether or not Trump is a fascist misses the point. The logic of the comparison is as follows: that the majority of rational people can agree that fascism was dangerous and thus if a political movement resembles it, it must be strongly opposed. Surely, therefore, the important question to focus on is what similarities Trumpism shares with the fascists of the past. Pursuing this line of inquiry allows us to see many disturbing points of convergence between Trumpism and fascism without falling into the trap of a semantic debate and does in fact help identify the danger that Trumpism represents. It is not necessary that Donald Trump or his movement be fascist for these similarities to alarm us.

Focusing on the fascists of western Europe between 1919 and 1945, then, what similarities did those movements and governments share with Donald Trump and his followers? Continue reading →

The Historical is Personal: Learning and Teaching Traumatic Histories

January 19, 2017 2 Comments

Andrea Eidinger

Learning and teaching history is hard work. The physical, mental, and emotional toll can be high, for both educators and learners. This is especially the case when it comes to traumatic histories. For educators, it is difficult to balance the desire to make an emotional impact on your students without inflicting (further) trauma. For learners, it is difficult to balance curiosity with respect. We are often implored to “never forget,” but we seldom take a moment to talk about what and how we are supposed to remember.

All of us come to the field of history from different backgrounds, and the ways in which we interact with history as educators and learners are shaped by these early experiences. But, with certain exceptions, it remains rare for anyone to talk about this, especially when it comes to teaching. So in this blog post, I wanted to take the opportunity to talk about my personal experiences learning and teaching about traumatic histories and specifically how my experiences as a Jewish-Canadian woman who was taught about the Holocaust as a child shaped my approach to teaching first-year university students about residential schools. Continue reading →

Last »