The Woman’s Page: Journalism and Rhetoric in Early Canada (review)

The Woman’s Page is essential reading for anyone interested in feminism, social activism, journalism, and English-Canadian cultural histories between 1875 and 1915. Literary scholar Janice Fiamengo offers an exceptionally sophisticated analysis of the motivating forces that drove six English-Canadian female journalists and fiction writers Agnes Maule Machar, Sara Jeannette Duncan, Pauline Johnson, Kit Coleman, Flora MacDonald Denison, and Nellie McClung to create distinctive public voices and literary personae. Those familiar with first-wave feminist histories, and with late-nineteenth / early-twentieth-century work on the social gospel and activism, will be familiar with the individuals included in this collection. Initially, in the scholarship of the seventies and eighties these women (albeit to varying degrees) were revered as icons of women’s ‘herstory,’ as women who forged unconventional career paths and received widespread public acclaim. Within the past fifteen years that view has been displaced, as we’ve become increasingly familiarized with the darker side of these formerly uncomplicated icons of first-wave suffrage and activism. Appropriately tough questions have been raised about their imperial, religious, and class-based motivations for national transformation. Now, in this new work, Janice Fiamengo asks that we once again reconsider these women’s accomplishments and take a middle path between these two schools of thought.

While Fiamengo acknowledges the significant work of Canadian gender and social historians (and in particular the interest in the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth-century religiously inspired social and political activism), she indicates that substantial work remains to be done if we are ever to comprehend the ideological diversity and goals of this ‘generation’ of activists. In particular, though many of the authors she analyzes have been the beneficiaries of dedicated biographies (notably Coleman, Johnson, and McClung), she laments the insufficient attention paid to their work. Thus, Fiamengo’s aim in this monograph is to offer a detailed appraisal of their work, one that pays particularly close attention to their religious, social, and political world views, and then to assess why works by these authors were so popularly received. In successive chapters, each woman receives a dedicated analysis of her magazine and newspaper publications. The range of materials collected, many of which have been astonishingly erased from our memory despite their popularity at the time, demonstrates the tremendous diversity and vitality of much of this writing. Some real gems have been uncovered here, and in the published excerpts the women’s writing fairly leaps off the page, at turns humorous, provocative, scholarly, or heart-rendering. Fiamengo is a skilled writer, and her ear for the cadences of the women’s writing, combined with a shrewd assessment of what will capture a modern reader’s attention, makes for a lively book. For example, readers are treated to excerpts from Sara Jeannette Duncan’s scathing social commentaries on Toronto ‘society,’ to flashes of Kit Coleman’s wit and intelligence as she rebukes the more clueless of her readers, and, finally, to glimpses of Nellie McClung’s evident joy at skewering the pomposity of male politicians.

However, The Woman’s Page is not content merely to restore and analyze the women’s journalistic output; instead the book illustrates the interactions among the authors, texts, and reading audiences. In so doing, it moves us beyond the usual academic specialized reading, providing glimpses into the real world experience of reading these ‘women’s pages.’ It is clear that the most skilful writers really connected with their audiences, became well-loved public figures (particularly Coleman and McClung), and very cleverly knew how to translate their own religious, political, and social views into eagerly consumed texts. In only one case, the chapter on Flora MacDonald Denison, does Fiamengo showcase a writer whose literary skills lagged behind her message of radical suffrage goals, with the result that Denison’s columns were more leaden than those of the other writers. Given the muted engagement with readers (no such evidence...