Neptune Inn at the Foot of Mountain Street, Looking up Toward Parliament House. 1830. Credit: Library and Archives Canada, Acc. No. 1970-188-324 W.H. Coverdale Collection of Canadiana
Copyright: Expired.
Special thanks to Stephanie Pettigrew for her awesome research on the PRDH for this blog post!
If you know anything about women’s history, you’ve likely come across Laurel Thatcher Ulrich’s famous quote: “well-behaved women seldom make history.” My husband even gave me a bumper sticker with the quote (that hangs on my bulletin board, because we don’t have a car). Most people, including myself, believe that this is a call on women to “mis-behave” in order “make history,” to break boundaries and fight for women’s rights. But this is not actually correct. Rather, the quote calls on historians and the public to remember those women who were well-behaved, and, subsequently, did not make history: homemakers, domestic servants, factory workers, etc…
Obviously I agree with this statement. If you read the roundup, or happen to follow me on Twitter, you may have noticed that following the publication of an article about public knowledge about women’s history in Canada, I went on a mini-rant about the devaluation of women’s history in Canada and the focus on elite white women. Ordinary women are often ignored, and seldom named, despite the fact that they represent the vast majority of the female population.
However, I do have one big problem with this dichotomy — it leaves out women were not “well-behaved,” but didn’t make history: Black, Indigenous, and Women of Colour, women with disabilities, LGTBQ+ women, and women living in poverty. While it is easy, and in fact more comfortable, to ignore or erase these individuals and their lived experiences from the historical record, especially if they engaged in behaviours that we find less sympathetic, like the sex trade, crime, or violence. However, their histories are just as important when it comes to understanding the history of this place we currently call Canada as any other women or person. As historians, it is our responsibility to ensure that the histories that we teach are truly representative of the diversity of our past. This includes both women who triumphed, women who endured, and women who transgressed.
So, inspired by my Twitter rant, as well as Kathryn Magee Labelle’s fantastic blog post, Forgotten Figures: Early Canadian Biographies and Course Content,” I’ve decided to start what I hope will become a new series, where I share the stories of ordinary women, well-behaved or not, that I’ve encountered over the years. As a social historian, my favourite part about doing and reading history has always been the little stories that populate the archives and our publications. I just love reading these vignettes, and I know that a lot of other people do as well. And yet these stories are, by and large, unknown to the public. My goal here is three-fold: 1) share the stories of ordinary women who are traditionally left out of historical narratives 2) provide case studies that professors or teachers can incorporate into their course content, and 3) promote the work of Canadian historians of women and gender.
For our first story, I thought that it would be fitting to share one with you that has stayed with me for many years. I can’t remember when I first read Mary Anne Poutanen’s work, but her article, “Bonds of Friendship, Kinship, and Community: Gender, Homelessness, and Mutual Aid in Early Nineteenth-Century Montreal” has always been one of my favourites.[1] The fact that it is a social history of women in Montreal has nothing to do with that. 😛 I’ve always been touched and impressed by the care and compassion with which she has written about her historical subjects, and how she emphasizes their humanity even in the face of terrible circumstances. I think that this is why the story of Magdeleine McDonald has stayed with me for long. I only hope that I can do Mary Anne’s work justice in sharing her story with you: