Creating This Place: Women, Family, and Class in St John’s, 1900–1950 ed. by Linda Cullum and Marilyn Porter (review)

All nine chapters of this well-crafted edited collection play a vital role in uncovering the history of Newfoundland. By focusing on the daily lives, roles, and activities of middle-and upper-class women in St John’s, the collection makes a significant contribution to the historiography of women in Newfoundland. Bonnie Morgan begins with a chapter on women’s church work at two of the city’s Anglican congregations, arguing that gender and secular class differences shaped the social relations that existed within the religious institutions. Turning to the literary space, Vicki Hallett examines poet Phebe Florence Miller, her writings, and her creation of an informal literary salon. Hallett’s chapter provides a unique framework for conceptualising space as she demonstrates Miller’s role in creating real and imagined spaces. Helen Woodrow considers the history of the social gospel movement in North America and argues that Julia Salter Earle’s involvement in the industrial union movement was rooted in a desire to help the working class. Linda Cullum’s chapter ‘Below Stairs’ investigates female domestic servants in St John’s between 1900 and 1950. In Chapter 5, Margot Duley examines the life of Armine Nutting Gosling, who held an important role in the campaign for women’s suffrage and animal and child welfare. Marilyn Porter’s focus on three ‘elite’ girls’ schools, drawing on records from teachers and girls, demonstrates that the social elite wanted their daughters to be provided with ‘correct’ gender and class identity. Linda Cullum next examines the Jubilee Guilds of Newfoundland, a voluntary organisation in which prominent women facilitated educational programmes for rural working-class women so that Newfoundland could be rebuilt as a ‘strong nation’. Karen Stanbridge and Jonathan Luedee argue that Junior Thrift Clubs were cast, with patriotism and nationalism, as an opportunity for children to foster ‘good’ savings practices. ‘Children’, however, refers to both genders, a use which may veer away from the collection’s theme. Finally, Sonja Boon uses letters written to the province’s premier, J.R. Smallwood, by women inquiring about work-related issues. The action of letter writing, Boon argues, meant that women utilised their own authority to penetrate the political sphere. Although this collection covers a 50-year period of great change for Newfoundland, the chapters are interwoven with themes of gender, class, citizenship, nation-building, and space. The wide variety of sources illuminate gender and class boundaries but also depict women as agents of social and political change in Newfoundland. This collection will be of interest to Canadian historians as well as those who study gender, childhood, class, state formation, agency, and urban spaces.