Nellie McClung, born Nellie Letitia Mooney (20 October 1873 1 September 1951), was a
CanadianCanada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
feministFeminism is a collection of movements aimed at defining, establishing, and defending equal political, economic, and social rights and equal opportunities for women. Its concepts overlap with those of women's rights...
, politician, and social activist. She was a part of the social and moral reform movements prevalent in Western Canada in the early 1900s. In 1927, McClung and four other women: Henrietta Muir Edwards,
Emily MurphyEmily Murphy was a Canadian women's rights activist, jurist, and author. In 1916, she became the first woman magistrate in Canada, and in the British Empire...
,
Louise McKinneyLouise McKinney née Crummy was a provincial politician and women's rights activist from Alberta, Canada. She was the first woman sworn in to the Legislative Assembly of Alberta and the first woman elected to a legislature in Canada and in the British Empire...
and
Irene ParlbyIrene Parlby was a Canadian women's farm leader, activist and politician.Born in London, England, Parlby came to Canada in 1896. In 1913, Parlby helped to found the first women's local of the United Farmers of Alberta. In 1921, she was elected to the Alberta Legislature for the riding of Lacombe,...
, who together came to be known as "
The Famous FiveThe Famous Five or The Valiant Five were five Canadian women who asked the Supreme Court of Canada to answer the question, "Does the word 'Persons' in Section 24 of the British North America Act, 1867, include female persons?" in the case Edwards v...
" (also called "The Valiant Five"), launched the "
Persons CaseEdwards v. Canada [1930] A.C. 124 – also known as the Persons Case – is a famous Canadian and British constitutional case where it was first decided that women were eligible to sit in the Canadian Senate...
," contending that women could be "qualified persons" eligible to sit in the Senate. The
Supreme Court of CanadaThe Supreme Court of Canada is the highest court of Canada and is the final court of appeals in the Canadian justice system. The court grants permission to between 40 and 75 litigants each year to appeal decisions rendered by provincial, territorial and federal appellate courts, and its decisions...
ruled that current law did not recognize them as such. However, the case was won upon appeal to the
Judicial Committee of the British Privy CouncilThe Judicial Committee of the Privy Council is one of the highest courts in the United Kingdom. Established by the Judicial Committee Act 1833 to hear appeals formerly heard by the King in Council The Judicial Committee of the Privy Council (JCPC) is one of the highest courts in the United...
—the court of last resort for Canada at that time.
Biography
Born in
Chatsworth, OntarioChatsworth is a township in south-western Ontario, Canada, in Grey County, located at the headwaters of the Styx River, the Saugeen River, the Sauble River, the Bighead River, the Spey River, and the Sydenham River....
in 1873, she later moved with her family to a homestead in the Souris Valley of
ManitobaManitoba is a Canadian prairie province with an area of . The province has over 110,000 lakes and has a largely continental climate because of its flat topography. Agriculture, mostly concentrated in the fertile southern and western parts of the province, is vital to the province's economy; other...
. Between 1904 and 1911, Nellie McClung, her husband Wesley (a druggist) and their five children resided in Winnipeg, Manitoba. The
women’s rights movementWomen's rights are entitlements and freedoms claimed for women and girls of all ages in many societies.In some places these rights are institutionalized or supported by law, local custom, and behaviour, whereas in others they may be ignored or suppressed...
in Winnipeg embraced her. An effective speaker with a sense of humour, she played a leading role in the successful
LiberalThe Liberal Party of Canada , colloquially known as the Grits, is the oldest federally registered party in Canada. In the conventional political spectrum, the party sits between the centre and the centre-left. Historically the Liberal Party has positioned itself to the left of the Conservative...
campaign in 1914. She lived in the West for the rest of her life in [Manitoba], Winnipeg, Edmonton,
CalgaryCalgary is a city in the Province of Alberta, Canada. It is located in the south of the province, in an area of foothills and prairie, approximately east of the front ranges of the Canadian Rockies...
and
VictoriaVictoria is the capital city of British Columbia, Canada and is located on the southern tip of Vancouver Island off Canada's Pacific coast. The city has a population of about 78,000 within the metropolitan area of Greater Victoria, which has a population of 360,063, the 15th most populous Canadian...
. McClung was the grandmother of outspoken
AlbertaAlberta is a province of Canada. It had an estimated population of 3.7 million in 2010 making it the most populous of Canada's three prairie provinces...
judge
John McClungJohn Wesley "Buzz" McClung was a historian, lawyer, jurist, and a judge of the Alberta Court of Appeal.-Early life:...
. The Manitou house in which McClung and her family lived has been re-located to the Archibald Historical Museum in
La Rivière, ManitobaLa Rivière is a community in Manitoba, Canada, just west of the town of Manitou on Highway 3. It is located in the Rural Municipality of Pembina....
where it has been restored. The house is open to the public.
McClung once said "Why are pencils equipped with erasers if not to correct mistakes?", when arguing for the support of equitable divorce laws, of which she was a long time supporter.
Her great causes were
women's suffrageWomen's suffrage or woman suffrage is the right of women to vote and to run for office. The expression is also used for the economic and political reform movement aimed at extending these rights to women and without any restrictions or qualifications such as property ownership, payment of tax, or...
and the
temperanceA temperance movement is a social movement urging reduced use of alcoholic beverages. Temperance movements may criticize excessive alcohol use, promote complete abstinence , or pressure the government to enact anti-alcohol legislation or complete prohibition of alcohol.-Temperance movement by...
. She understood that the First World War had played an important role in broadening the appeal of women's suffrage because the manpower shortages required widespread female employment, making the image of the sheltered female more obviously inapplicable to Canadian circumstances. It was largely through her efforts that in 1916
ManitobaManitoba is a Canadian prairie province with an area of . The province has over 110,000 lakes and has a largely continental climate because of its flat topography. Agriculture, mostly concentrated in the fertile southern and western parts of the province, is vital to the province's economy; other...
became the first province to give women the right to vote and to run for public office. The
Government of CanadaThe Government of Canada, formally Her Majesty's Government, is the system whereby the federation of Canada is administered by a common authority; in Canadian English, the term can mean either the collective set of institutions or specifically the Queen-in-Council...
followed suit that same year. After moving to Edmonton, she continued the campaign for suffrage. She championed dental and medical care for school children, property rights for married women, mothers' allowances, factory safety legislation and many other reforms. McClung was a supporter of the then popular social philosophy of
eugenicsEugenics is the "applied science or the bio-social movement which advocates the use of practices aimed at improving the genetic composition of a population", usually referring to human populations. The origins of the concept of eugenics began with certain interpretations of Mendelian inheritance,...
and campaigned for the sterilization of those considered "simple-minded". Her promotion of the benefits of sterilization contributed to the passage of eugenics legislation in Alberta.
She published her first novel Sowing Seeds in Danny in 1908. A national bestseller, it was succeeded by short stories and articles in several Canadian and American magazines. She served as a Liberal member of the
Legislative Assembly of AlbertaThe Legislative Assembly of Alberta is one of two components of the Legislature of Alberta, the other being the Queen, represented by the Lieutenant-Governor of Alberta. The Alberta legislature meets in the Alberta Legislature Building in the provincial capital, Edmonton...
from 1921 to 1926. As an opposition member, her opportunity to press for women's rights was limited, because women were not taken seriously
She was one of
The Famous FiveThe Famous Five or The Valiant Five were five Canadian women who asked the Supreme Court of Canada to answer the question, "Does the word 'Persons' in Section 24 of the British North America Act, 1867, include female persons?" in the case Edwards v...
(also called The Valiant Five), with
Irene ParlbyIrene Parlby was a Canadian women's farm leader, activist and politician.Born in London, England, Parlby came to Canada in 1896. In 1913, Parlby helped to found the first women's local of the United Farmers of Alberta. In 1921, she was elected to the Alberta Legislature for the riding of Lacombe,...
, Henrietta Muir Edwards,
Emily MurphyEmily Murphy was a Canadian women's rights activist, jurist, and author. In 1916, she became the first woman magistrate in Canada, and in the British Empire...
and
Louise McKinneyLouise McKinney née Crummy was a provincial politician and women's rights activist from Alberta, Canada. She was the first woman sworn in to the Legislative Assembly of Alberta and the first woman elected to a legislature in Canada and in the British Empire...
. The five put forward a petition, in 1927, to clarify the term "Persons" in Section 24 of the British North America Act 1867. This section had served to exclude women from political office. The petition was successful, clearing the way for women to enter politics in Canada.
Among other honours, in October 2009, the Senate voted to name McClung and the rest of the Five Canada's first "honorary senators."
Fiction
- Sowing Seeds in Danny (1908)
- The Second Chance (1910)
- The Black Creek Stopping House and Other Stories (1912)
- Purple Springs (1921)
- When Christmas Crossed 'The Peace (1923)
- Painted Fires (1925)
- All We Like Sheep (1926)
- Be Good to Yourself (1930)
- Flowers for the Living (1931)
Non-Fiction
- In Times Like These (1915)
- The Next of Kin (1917)
- Three Times and Out (1918)
- Clearing in the West (1935)
- Leaves from Lantern Lane (1936)
- More Leaves from Lantern Lane (1937)
- The Stream Runs Fast (1945)
- The Morning After Dawn (1950)
See also
- History of feminism
The history of feminism involves the story of feminist movements and of feminist thinkers. Depending on time, culture and country, feminists around the world have sometimes had different causes and goals...
- List of suffragists and suffragettes
- Suffragette
"Suffragette" is a term coined by the Daily Mail newspaper as a derogatory label for members of the late 19th and early 20th century movement for women's suffrage in the United Kingdom, in particular members of the Women's Social and Political Union...
- Women's Social and Political Union
The Women's Social and Political Union was the leading militant organisation campaigning for Women's suffrage in the United Kingdom...
- Women's suffrage in the United Kingdom
Women's suffrage in the United Kingdom as a national movement began in 1872. Women were not prohibited from voting in the United Kingdom until the 1832 Reform Act and the 1835 Municipal Corporations Act...
External links