One Hundred Years of Struggle: The History of Women and the Vote in Canada by Joan Sangster (review)

This is the first book in a series exploring the history of women's suffrage and struggle for political equality in Canada. Historian Joan Sangster highlights a cornerstone of women's rights and the foundation of political and social equality: the right to vote. She explores the history of the resistance in an all-encompassing account while paying particular attention to political, social, economic, racial, and ethnic inequalities that emerged before and after women received the vote. Her approach is a breath of fresh air in a field of study that often adopts a one-sided and narrow understanding of women's suffrage.

Sangster focuses on topics ranging from the privilege of property rights; race and political rights; feminist countercultures; the evolution of suffrage as a counterculture to popular culture; mock parliaments; literary activists and suffrage print culture; and suffrage in war and peace. One of Sangster's core strengths is her ability to move beyond the classic accounts of meritorious suffragists such as Emily Murphy and Nellie McClung. She provides an extensive depiction of the movement following other prominent women activists often neglected in politico-historical discourse, including African Canadian activist Mary Ann Shadd Cary; socialist newspaper editor Mary Cotton Wisdom; and journalist Flora McDonald Denison. This avenue of analysis shines a spotlight on narratives seldom taught, considering, for instance, race, ethnicity, and suffrage, exploring the role of the Indian Act and enfranchisement, 'a heavily loaded, negative term for Indigenous people' (p. 252). Her comprehensive accounts shed new light on Indigenous political inequality. For example, in the 1950s, Indigenous veterans and their wives signed away their tax exemptions in order to vote (p. 255).

Her examination on the rights of Japanese Canadians contributes to the scholarship on racist government policies and the struggle for recognition among Asian Canadians across Canada. Racist attitudes toward Japanese Canadians provide a stark juxtaposition of the political rights allotted to white women. White women were mostly successful in garnering support for political equality during the Second World War, while Japanese Canadians were shunned and treated as enemies of the state despite their ongoing efforts to declare their loyalty to Canada and to enlist in the armed forces (pp. 258–67). Moreover, the accounts of Hideko Hyoko and Muriel Kitagawa allow for the reader to explore a new hybrid for Canadian citizenship 'that drew on the best of two cultural worlds' (p. 264).

This book demonstrates the realities behind the complexity of the women's movement illustrating that suffrage is not as clear cut and one-dimensional as it is often expressed in popular culture. Her work comes as a commemorative piece in the recent 100th anniversary of women's enfranchisement. It is a worthy read for anyone interested in the history of social and political equality in Canada.