Joan Sangster

One Hundred Years of Canadian Feminism

Demanding Equality

Recent archaeological discoveries in the polar region have reanimated stock images of the intrepid explorer who braves the elements to bring modernity to a frigid northern wasteland. The Iconic North reveals that ideological assumptions, economic priorities, and a shift in government strategy in the postwar era all influenced how northern culture was represented in popular Canadian imagery. Whether it was film, television, or women’s autobiographies, the “primitive” North was often portrayed as the mirror opposite to the “modern” South. In crisp and elegant prose, Joan Sangster redirects current debates about the geopolitical prospects of the North by addressing how women and gender relations have played a key role in the history of northern development.Drawing on archival and cultural sources, Sangster shows how gender, race, and colonialism shape our understanding of northern peoples, economies, and government policy. This work reveals how assumptions about both Indigenous and non-Indigenous women shaped gender, class, and political relationships in the circumpolar north – a region now commanding more of the world’s attention.

Cultural Constructions of Aboriginal Life in Postwar Canada

The Iconic North

Bryan D. Palmer

Labouring Canada: Class, Gender, and Race in Canadian Working-Class History is a collection of 28 classic and contemporary essays exploring the complex interactions of class, gender, and race in the working lives of Canadians from the late eighteenth century to the present. The older classics lay the groundwork for the field of labour history in general, while the more recent contributions focus more specifically on issues of race, class, and gender. The range of topics examined is broad: from class relations in the fur trade, Aboriginal longshoremen in British Columbia, and racial discrimination against CNR porters to the negotiation of class in mid-1800s Nova Scotia, the Montreal teachers' strike of 1949, burlesque workers in 1970s BC, and the nature of the unpaid work performed by women in the home. Designed as a core text for undergraduate courses in labour history, this diverse collection provides an engaging and comprehensive introduction to the field. Readings are organized chronologically and thematically in eleven sections. Each section begins with an introduction that outlines the necessary historical context. Each section introduction includes a list of related resources. All essays have been edited and abridged to make them more accessible to undergraduate readers. Book jacket.

Class, Gender, and Race in Canadian Working-class History

Labouring Canada

Women's Suffrage and the Struggle for Democracy

The History of Women and the Vote in Canada

One Hundred Years of Struggle

Margaret Helen Hobbs

Canadian Committee on Labour History

Comprised of articles from the original periodical, Woman worker.

The Woman Worker, 1926-1929

The achievement of the vote in 1918 is often celebrated as a triumphant moment in the onward, upward advancement of Canadian women. Acclaimed historian Joan Sangster looks beyond the shiny rhetoric of anniversary celebrations and Heritage Minutes to show that the struggle for equality included gains and losses, inclusions and exclusions, depending on a woman’s race, class, and location within the nation. She travels back in time to tell a new, more inclusive story for a new generation and exposes not only the fissures of inequality that cut deep into our country’s past but also their weaknesses in the face of resistance, optimism, and protest – an inspiring legacy that resonates to this day.

`This is a beautifully conceived and revealing book. Joan Sangster lucidly explores and explains an astonishing array of complex material to reveal how women in the post-war period became full-fledged members of the labour force. Transforming labour offers such a rich variety of ancedotal evidence that it will benefit students of women's work from all over the world.' Alice Kessler-Harris, author of in Pursuit of Equity: Women, Men and the Quest for Economic Citizenship in 20th-Century America

Women and Work in Post-war Canada

Transforming Labour

Female Delinquency in English Canada

Girl Trouble

For one hundred years women fashioned different dreams of equality, autonomy, and dignity; yet what is Canadian feminism? In Demanding Equality, Joan Sangster explores feminist thought and organizing from mid-nineteenth-century, Enlightenment-inspired writing to the multi-issue movement of the 1980s.She broadens our definition of feminism, and – recognizing that its political, cultural, and social dimensions are entangled – builds a picture of a heterogeneous movement often characterized by fierce internal debates. This comprehensive rear-view look at feminism in all its political guises encourages a wider public conversation about what Canadian feminism has been, is, and should be.

Joan Sangster

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