Woman of the World: Mary McGeachy and International Cooperation (review)

Historian Mary Kinnear's study of Canadian internationalist Mary (Craig) McGeachy (1901–91) is an extremely well-researched and intelligent narrative of a life in international politics and public service that spanned over half of the twentieth century. Kinnear pursues themes raised in her previous books, which include an excellent study of the role of gender in Western women's history, as well as a study of professional women in later-nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century Canada, and a biographical study of interwar feminist Margaret Macmillan. In the current work, Kinnear presents a 'historical biography,' following a chronological narrative of McGeachy's life and career as a diplomat, internationalist, and humanitarian beginning in the decade of the 1920s and continuing until the mid-1980s.

Kinnear describes McGeachy's career from her start as an assistant in the Information Department of the League of Nations (1928–40), to work in the Public Relations Department of the British Ministry of Economic Warfare. This led to her being appointed first secretary at the British Embassy in Washington, DC (1942–4) before becoming director of welfare in the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (1944–6). A Canadian who always travelled on a British passport, she was the first woman to be given British diplomatic rank. Married in England in 1944 to Erwin Schuller, a Viennese-born émigré banker in a family of Jewish heritage, she retained McGeachy as her professional name.

Kinnear explores the strategies, aims, and limitations of McGeachy's career in international diplomacy. In a profession short of female role models, McGeachy was both pioneer and frequently lone or 'statutory' female on committees. Kinnear excels in describing McGeachy's skill, dedication, and ambition, in spite of gender-bias – the 'glass' or 'pink' ceiling that thwarted those rare women who ventured into diplomatic waters.

Born in Sarnia, ON, in 1901, the daughter of Ontario-Scottish parents, McGeachy studied English and history (with Lester B. Pearson, a lifelong friend) in the University of Toronto, graduating with a first-class degree in 1924. Active in the Student Christian Movement, she worked as editor of an international student Christian magazine in Geneva, leaving in 1928 for a position as an assistant in the Information Department of the League of Nations, which she served until its demise in the shadow of the Second World War.

In a chapter entitled 'Geneva,' Kinnear describes McGeachy's work as the League's liaison to the myriad strands of 'feminine organizations' – including female representatives of the International Council of Women, founded in 1888; the International Alliance for Women's Suffrage, established in 1904; and the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom. Kinnear describes McGeachy's role in finding a diplomatic path away from a public display of conflicting aims between various feminist groups with regard to a proposal for an equal rights treaty at the League in 1935. Her intervention appears to have helped to create a League enquiry into the juridical status of women in member states.

McGeachy enjoyed friendship with female political activists from several nations. She shared 'talks and walks' with Britain's Labour MP Mary Agnes Hamilton, in Geneva as a substitute delegate of the British government to the League, providing a link to Labour politicians Hugh Dalton and Philip Noel-Baker, who were also delegates. She was a friend of Charlotte Whitton, the well-known social worker active in the work of the League's Child Welfare committee. McGeachy travelled frequently between Geneva and Canada throughout the 1930s, hoping to increase Canadian involvement in international affairs, calling attention to the League's function as a forum for negotiation and discussion.

Kinnear offers a wealth of information on McGeachy's encounters with voluntary, governmental, and non-governmental organizations at work for internationalist peace, before and after the two world wars. Students of international politics and historians will learn much from this carefully constructed study, which joins recent discussions by Leila J. Rupp, Carol Miller, Karen Offen...