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humanities 485 university of toronto quarterly, volume 72, number 1, winter 2002/3 western Canadian farm women who offered radical social critiques in the early twentieth century. Perhaps in future work she might extend her interest to rural Aboriginal women and immigrants and consider the role of religion in women=s understanding of their situation. It would also be interesting to have a few numbers: what proportion of farm women were feminists, and how many rural women supported the ideas of Hoodless? It is good to see a book which brings the study of feminism, and rural women, into the inter-war years and up to the 1970s. The concept of doldrums in women=s activism between 1920 and 1970 is looking increasingly anachronistic. (MARY KINNEAR) Bradford James Rennie. The Rise of Agrarian Democracy: The United Farmers and Farm Women of Alberta, 1909B1921 University of Toronto Press 2000. 282. $65.00 This book is a detailed study and cogent interpretation of the United Farmers and Farm Women of Alberta from 1909 to 1921. The core idea is that the organization constituted a >movement culture,= that is, >a group venture extending beyond a local community or a single event and involving a systemic effort to inaugurate changes in thought, behavior, and social relationships.= In addition to wanting better prices for their grain and lower freight rates, the UFA had a vision of a better way to live. Bradford James Rennie takes the focus off the leaders and places it on the rank-andfile membership, who are the heroes and heroines of his book. He believes that the role of the leaders in directing and shaping the organization B for example, the adoption of the group government concept B has been exaggerated. It was a mass democracy with grassroots involvement, and part of its legacy is the powerful populist tradition that continues in Alberta to this day. The book is divided into three sections. An introductory chapter covers the formation of the movement from 1879 to 1909, when the UFA formally came into existence. It is followed by a discussion of the building of the movement from 1909 to 1918, and, finally, the politicizing stage in the postwar period to 1921, the year the UFA took power in Alberta and elected all their candidates in the federal election. Interspersed among the chronological chapters are thematic chapters dealing with particular phases of the movement: the nature of the rural economy, co-operative enterprise, the role of education, and the building of community at the local level. The latter is especially interesting because on it hinges the success or failure of the author=s thesis. He describes the social activities of the locals B the concerts, dinners, sporting events, plays, and picnics B which were consciousness-raising events as well as entertainment (at the Roseview social >each child held a card with a letter of the two words AGrain Growers@ 486 letters in canada 2001 university of toronto quarterly, volume 72, number 1, winter 2002/3 printed on it and recited a verse suitable to the letter and the occasion=). Community members helped farmers who were ill or whose crop had failed, and neighbours pulled together to campaign for local improvements, such as school districts, telephone and medical service, post offices, and railway facilities. As Rennie rightly points out, the UFA rested on the bedrock of local community co-operation. From this base they expanded their vision to a broader critique of society in which they saw themselves as producers of the necessities of life who were exploited for the benefit of bigbusiness interests. The author also explores the limits of community. There were ideological differences between the radicals, who wanted a complete overhaul of the capitalist system and favoured a farmer/labour alliance to achieve this goal, and the liberals, who believed in the merits of competitive capitalism and were disinclined to unite with organized labour. Aboriginals were largely excluded (the agrarian myth assumed that non-farmers wasted land), though there was some Métis participation in UFA locals. Blacks and Asians were not welcome, but a successful effort was made to reach out to nonAnglo -Saxon European immigrants. There was a certain...

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