The Last Suffragist Standing: The Life and Times of Laura Marshall Jamieson by Veronica Strong-Boag (review)

Veronica Strong-Boag's The Last Suffragist Standing is a prime example of how to write a biography of a woman who deserves one, but leaves few sources behind. Strong-Boag's work highlights the challenges of writing women's biographies and how we might overcome the lack of sources produced by and about women of earlier decades to examine their lives and impact. Using the sources that were available to her, Strong-Boag takes an approach that places Laura Marshall Jamieson within the context of the world she inhabited. Strong-Boag's biography of Jamieson is particularly relevant in today's age of feminist politics where few women leaders experience consecutive terms in office and male provincial leaders suggest that women are not experienced in tactical politics. It is striking how many of the challenges Jamieson faced continue to plague women's participation in organized politics.

Strong-Boag sets out to tell four broad stories, each of which is expertly woven throughout the book in order to explain how a radical woman picked her politics. The first focus centres on the evolution of Jamieson's political consciousness and seeks to establish the changing natures of political allegiances. Strong-Boag follows Jamieson's journey from an orphaned farm child raised by older siblings and relatives to her to her work as a school teacher in mining towns and her involvement with university women's groups. We see Jamieson's feminism broaden beyond educated middle-class white women as she moves with her husband, lawyer and juvenile court judge Jack Jamieson, to Burnaby and forms networks with other local feminist radicals. The personal experiences of Jamieson's married life, like the death of an infant child, her contraction of tuberculosis and stint in a sanitorium, and early widowhood, are peppered through Strong-Boag's narrative, although connections between these personal experiences and Jamieson's political evolution are hinted at, Strong-Boag seems to downplay the impact of these pivotal life events.

Strong-Boag's second goal situates Jamieson within the first women's movement and the continuation of the movement after the gaining the vote. She notes that Jamieson was critical of Nellie McClung for her narrowmindedness, and Emily Murphy for her senatorial ambitions. Jamieson found kindred spirits in other left-leaning feminists like Agnes Mcphail and the Woodsworth family. As one of the few suffragists in Canada who stood for elections after enfranchisement, Laura was in good company with several other British Columbia suffragists like Mary Ellen Smith and Helena Gutterigde who drew on their lasting networks to form strong political and social ties. Strong-Boag notes that Jamieson herself downplayed her own participation as a prominent women's suffrage promoter and challenges that by highlighting Jamieson's frequent public talks during her early years as a wife and mother. Jamieson's commitment to female equality did not end with suffrage; her commitment to the rights of women and children deepened as she participated in PTAs, the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom, and a number of women's political and educational organizations. Besides promoting equal pay and mothers' pensions, Jamieson advocated for access to birth control and sex education in schools. Strong-Boag clearly highlights Jamieson's continued commitment to women's equality and children's wellbeing throughout her life and her continued advocacy as an mla and city councillor.

The third aim of this biography examines the relationship between Canada's left, the labour movement, and feminism. Jamieson is portrayed throughout the book as an ardent feminist and ally to the working classes who was critical of her own middle class. Strong-Boag uses Jamieson's biography to draw attention to the gendered views of political parties, including the ccf who advocated for such things as equal pay in parliament but retained a gendered labour division internally. The exploration of women's roles, and the work of one woman, in party...