A Path Not Strewn With Roses: One Hundred Years of Women at the University of Toronto 1884-1984 9781442657014

Citation preview

A PATH NOT S T R E W N W I T H R O S E S

ANNE ROCHON FORD

A path strewn with roses

ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF WOMEN AT THE UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO 1884-1984

This book is dedicated to the memory of Esther Marjorie Hill, the first woman to receive a degree in Architecture in Canada. She is shown in the cover photograph taken on 4 June 1920, the day she received her degree at the University of Toronto. She died on 7 January 1985. Her fighting spirit and enthusiasm were a source of inspiration throughout the course of my research.

The title is derived from a quote attributed to Augusta Stowe, the first woman to receive her medical training at a Canadian medical school. She wrote, 'The path of the female medical student is not one strewn with roses/ Anne Rochon Ford is a graduate in Women's Studies from the University of Toronto. Her most extensive area of research and writing is in the field of women's health. She is currently Executive Director of DES Action/Canada, a consumer health organization.

Women In Toronto

Women's Centenary Committee University of Toronto This book was designed by BETH EARL and produced by UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO PRESS © Governing Council University of Toronto 1985 iv

Contents Preface vi Acknowledgements viii The Historical Context: Women in Higher Education 3 HIGHER EDUCATION FOR WOMEN OUTSIDE CANADA

4

THE EMERGENCE OF HIGHER EDUCATION FOR WOMEN IN CANADA THE ADMISSION OF WOMEN INTO THE UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO WOMEN AT McGILL

I/

THE COEDUCATION 'EXPERIMENT' FEDERATION

5 6

l8

24

Women in the Federated Colleges 25 VICTORIA COLLEGE 25 TRINITY COLLEGE 30 ST. MICHAEL'S COLLEGE 34 Women in the Professions 36 MEDICINE 36 LAW 39 Coming into the Twentieth Century 42 PROPOSAL FOR A SEPARATE COLLEGE FOR WOMEN

42

Academic Progress of Women at U of T 46 WOMEN IN THE NONTRADITIONAL FIELDS 46 THE 'PROPER SPHERE' 50 Household Science 50 Nursing 53 Education 54 Physical and Occupational Therapy 55 Physical Education 55 Social Work 56 Library Science 57 Women as Faculty: Limited Progress 58 Nonacademic Staff: The Women Who Keep the Wheels Turning Extracurricular Life 65 HART HOUSE AND THE WOMEN'S BUILDING THAT NEVER WAS THE HART HOUSE SAGA CONTINUES

61

65

73

Making Their Presence Known: Women in the 19705 and 19805 75 Notes 78 Chronology So v

freface In the fall of 1983, members of the Women's Centenary Committee approached David Strangway, then President of the University of Toronto, to request funding to hire a researcher to study the history of women at the University. With the centenary of women's admission to what is now the largest university in Canada but a year away, the need for such research was quite obvious. Dr. Strangway was convinced and granted the funding from the Office of the President. That funding enabled me to pull together some of the pertinent facts relevant to women's first hundred years at the University. By early 1984,1 had compiled a slide presentation and talk on the subject which I have since shown on numerous occasions both on and off campus. Various University publications have excerpted sections of that talk throughout the centenary year. The final product of that research is this book. In the histories of the University of Toronto which have been written to date* women are conspicuous by their absence. We learn only that women were admitted into University College in 1884; we read about a few of the 'greats,' but we find no detail about the struggles before and after their entry, or the slow advancement of women faculty, or the long and arduous fight for a women's building comparable to Hart House. It must be stressed that the present book is not intended to stand as a full-scale history of women at the University of Toronto. It is, rather, a preliminary attempt to gather together some of the materials of fundamental significance to women's experience at this University. It could perhaps best be characterized as one of the histories that might be written. There are many fascinating stories which have not been included here owing to sheer lack of time and space; frequently, in an effort to give readers an overview of one hundred years of women's involvement with this University, anecdotal information has had to be sacrificed. Some of the information for this volume came in response to ^University of Toronto: the provincial university of Ontario: The First One Hundred Years, 1827-1927 (Toronto: 1927); W. Stewart Wallace, A History of the University of Toronto, 1827-1927 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1927). Professor Robin Harris has deposited files of information about the history of the University in the University Archives. These contain a sizeable amount of information about women.

vi

advertisements placed in alumni and campus papers, or was offered spontaneously by people who attended one of the many centenary events on campus throughout the year. A small woman in her eighties told me how the Dean of Medicine of her era routinely asked female medical students why they were not in nursing. Women recounted their experiences of discrimination in many forms, both subtle and overt. Many spoke of the important role played in their lives as students by the various Deans of Women - Mossie May Kirkwood, Jessie Macpherson, Margaret Addison, and Margaret Wrong, to name but a few - a role which has changed and diminished in the past twenty years. While these anecdotes do not always appear in direct quotation in this history, they have strongly coloured the tone of the writing. Despite what must have sometimes seemed like tremendous odds against them, many remarkable women have been intellectually nurtured at this institution. The University has produced a good number of Canadian female 'firsts/ whose stories have been incorporated into this history and whose accomplishments have been and will continue to be celebrated. But this should also be a time to celebrate the unsung heroines: the women students who came and went unnoticed, the women faculty who did not make it beyond the position of Lecturer or Assistant Professor, the secretaries and women in administration who have worked behind the scenes, without any of the glory, to keep the university functioning from day to day, from year to year, and now, from century to century. ANNE ROCHON FORD

vii

Akn owledgements Many people provided not only valuable information but the encouragement and support that was needed when this seemed, at times, like an insurmountable task. I would like to thank, in particular, Eila Ross for documents pertaining to William Houston; Marinell Ash for information regarding Sir Daniel Wilson; Donna Yavorsky Ronish and Alison Prentice for helping me understand the larger context of women in higher education; Robin Harris and Harold Averill for confirmation of countless facts on the general history of the University; Mary Gourlay for history about Ida Gertrude Eastwood and Henrietta Charles; Cynthia Eberts for information about Clara Benson; Edith Clement for details about Bessie Scott; Father Robert Scollard for the early history of women at St. Michael's College; Helen Gurney and Bruce Kidd for background on women in athletics and the women's building; David Rayside for details about Edith Catherine Rayside; Nancy Joy for the history of the Department of Art as Applied to Medicine; Nancy Kiefer for her Master's thesis work on women between the two world wars; Dana Rouillard for extensive details about women in the Modern Languages; Frances Dale for information about Louise Lavelle Ryckman; Lila Laakso and Anne Schultz for confirmation of facts about women at Victoria College and Henri Pilon for Trinity College; Theresa Roth and Roy Scheaffer of the Law Society of Upper Canada for information about Clara Brett Martin; Pat Staton for not letting me forget about women in nonacademic positions; and Ceta Ramkhalawansingh for her memories and memorabilia from the early days of the Women's Studies Programme. I would like to thank Nikki Crooke-Stephens for help with the glossary which could not be included in the book. Mary Nyquist, Sylvia Van Kirk, Jane Millgate, Elizabeth Wilson, Ann Hutchison, Alexandra Johnston, Rose Sheinen, Phyllis Grosskurth, and Lois Reimer provided editorial comments on the various drafts of this book, and I am grateful for their encouragement throughout its preparation. Doris Page and Valerie Read provided secretarial services; Beth Earl and Laurie Lewis, at the University of Toronto Press, as well as being members of the group who initiated the project, have seen it through the design and printing process to its completion. I offer a very special thanks to Helen Carmichael Porter and Bert Hansen for inspiration. A.R.F.

A PATH NOT S T R E W N WITH R O S E S

Flyer for an 1875 debate of the Literary and Scientific Society where the subject for debate was 'Is it advisable that women receive a University or Professional Education?' In 1889, the Society voted to limit membership to men only. Courtesy of the University of Toronto Archives

he Historical Context: TWomen in Higher Education Women's successful struggle for admission to University College in 1884 took place at a time when the question of whether or not women should obtain a higher education was being widely and heatedly debated. The debate was not taking place in isolation in Ontario, but was being conducted in most of the urban centres of Canada, the United States, and Great Britain. The subject was, of course, emotionally charged, and discussion tended to focus less on educational questions than on more general issues relating to 'woman's nature/ Women, some authorities claimed, were not constituted to handle the rigours of the academic life. At least one author attributed this directly to their biological cycles: At such times, women are unfit for any great mental or physical labour. They suffer under a langour and depression which disqualify them for thought or action, and render it extremely doubtful how far they can be considered responsible while the crisis lasts. Much of the inconsequent conduct of women, their petulance, caprice and irritability may be traced directly to this cause. ... In intellectual labour, man has surpassed, does now and always will surpass women, for the obvious reason that nature does not periodically interrupt his thought and application.1 Others feared that allowing women the opportunity of a higher education would make them less womanly and would confuse the natural order of things. The requirement that woman be man's helpmate and mother to future generations is a sentiment humorously expressed in the following poem: O pendants of these later days, who go on undiscerning To overload a woman's brain and cram our girls with learning You'll make a woman half a man, the souls of parents vexing, To find that all the gentle sex this process is unsexing. Leave one or two nice girls before the sex your system smothers, Or what on earth will poor men do for sweethearts, wives and mothers ?2 3

Still others argued that higher education for women would be acceptable provided that it be carried out separately from men, and that the subjects taught to women be suitable for their 'proper' roles as wives and mothers. One fear that was not always expressed openly was that moral breakdown would be the inevitable result of 'bringing scores ... of young men and women into intimate relations in the same institution at the excitable age of eighteen to twenty-two/3 This view was usually couched in euphemisms characteristic of the Victorian era, but it was a strong motivating factor behind the actions and decisions of one of the central figures in the story of women's admission to the University of Toronto, Sir Daniel Wilson, HIGHER EDUCATION FOR WOMEN OUTSIDE CANADA In Great Britain the issue of university education for women had received attention even earlier than the 18705. Through the persistent efforts of women like Emily Davis, a number of separate colleges for women had been established as early as the i86os. By 1873 two women's colleges in affiliation with Cambridge - Newnham and Girton - were in existence; these used Cambridge faculty to prepare women for university examinations. At Oxford, Lady Margaret Hall and Somerville College opened in 1879 to provide residences for women wishing to pursue higher education. These women were not officially enrolled at Oxford, but were allowed to attend some lectures there, accompanied by a chaperone. Examinations were open to women in 1894, but Oxford did not grant degrees to women until 1920. Cambridge did not bestow degrees upon women until 1948. By contrast, the University of London had opened all its degrees to women by 1878, and a series of women's colleges were established there in the 18705 and i88os. Higher education has an older and somewhat different tradition in the United States. Female seminaries, similar to today's high schools, trained girls for the duties of housewifery and, in some cases, for the profession of teaching. Such schools existed as early as 1821. The first American postsecondary institution to open its doors to women was Oberlin College in Ohio; founded in 1833, it began to admit women in 1837. Although women were allowed to attend Oberlin, they were also expected to carry out certain domestic duties at the College which the male students did not have to perform. Lawrence College in Wisconsin admitted women in 1847. Antioch College in Ohio accepted women on 4

a coeducational basis when it opened in 1853. With the exception of Cornell University, which admitted women in 1870, the large eastern schools in the United States did not admit women until the twentieth century. Private separate education for women from the upper classes became a reality in the nineteenth century, however, with the opening of Vassar College in New York in 1861. Before the turn of the century, the 'sister schools' of Smith, Wellesley, Radcliffe, Barnard, and Bryn Mawr were all established as private postsecondary institutions for women only. In some cases they were situated close to one of the Ivy League men's schools, allowing for some contact between women and men, but administration and instruction within the institutions remained separate. This form of higher education for women separate yet having some affiliation with an existing male college - was known as coordinate education. THE E M E R G E N C E OF HIGHER EDUCATION FOR WOMEN IN CANADA The University of Toronto was by no means in the forefront of the higher-education-for-women movement in Canada. This distinction belongs to Mount Allison University in Sackville, New Brunswick, which opened its doors to women on an equal footing with men in 1872. In 1875 Mount Allison granted a Bachelor of Science degree to Grace Annie Lockhart, bestowing upon her the honour of being the first woman to receive such a degree not only in Canada but in the entire British Empire. Acadia University admitted women on a coeducational basis in 1880 and Dalhousie did the same the following year. In 1882 Mount Allison granted the first Bachelor of Arts degree to a woman in Canada, Harriet Starr Stewart. In Ontario, when Upper Canada Academy in Cobourg began secondary school classes in 1836, both sexes were admitted. It was hoped that in a short time the Academy would obtain the status of a postsecondary institution with the power to grant degrees. It achieved this status in 1841, when Egerton Ryerson took over as Principal and its name was changed to Victoria College. Ryerson saw the presence of women at the Upper Canada Academy as 'a concession to modern and American usage/ and when he took office he had women excluded from the institution.4 With this move women lost their first chance at postsecondary education in Ontario. They were not officially readmitted to Victoria until almost 40 years later in the late 18705. In 1879 Augusta Stowe (later Augusta Stowe Gullen) was admitted to the 5

Toronto Medical School through Victoria, and in the following year, Nellie Greenwood was admitted to courses towards the Bachelor of Science degree at Victoria. A battle which was receiving much more public attention around this time, however, was that which was being carried on at Queen's University in Kingston. As early as 1870 small numbers of women had been allowed to attend separate classes, and in 1878 Queen's officially threw open its doors to women on a coeducational basis alongside men. In the autumn of 1882, however, trouble began when male students in medical classes waged a strike against the presence of women. From that time on no more women were admitted into the Queen's Medical School (see 'Medicine'). The initial move to admit women to Queen's had been prompted by the efforts of the Principal of the University, George Grant, who published an impassioned defense of coeducation in 1879 in The Canadian Monthly and National Review. In it he asked, 'Why should not ladies, in search of a sound education, seek a regular college and university training?' He wished to 'throw no obstacle in the way of those women who seek to develop and cultivate to the utmost their highest nature, intellectual, emotional and moral,' and urged, 'let them know that all avenues, and all the pages of knowledge are open to them; and it is not unworthy of their sex to think and to hope/5 While Grant's defense represented a positive step for women seeking a higher education, a cjoser reading of this speech shows that his views were informed by a familiar bias: 'Woman should have every possible opportunity of obtaining a sound mental training because of her relation to man and the importance of her position as a possible wife and mother.'6 However discordant Grant's statement might seem to our contemporary ears, in the context of the time his thinking was, in fact, quite progressive. THE ADMISSION OF WOMEN INTO THE U N I V E R S I T Y OF TORONTO By the early i88os in Ontario, those interested in the higher education of women were turning their eyes towards the University of Toronto because of its strategic role as the provincial university. A brief summary of the development of the University of Toronto up to the i88os may help to set the question of women's admission in a clearer light. In 1827 the Reverend John Strachan (later Bishop of Toronto) obtained a royal charter for King's College in Toronto, and a site was 6

acquired at Queen's Park. Instruction was not offered at King's College until 1843. Although the College was supposed to be a provincial university, it had very strong ties with, and indeed was controlled by, the Church of England in Canada. This arrangement proved to be unacceptable to those of other denominations, and consequently the Province legislated the abolition of King's College on 31 December 1849. On i January 1850 a nondenominational University of Toronto was established to replace King's College. The University Act of 1853 established the University as a degree-granting institution (in Arts, Medicine, and Law) but instruction was to be carried out by the newly-formed nondenominational arts college, University College. Motivated by concern about the godlessness of this new institution, Bishop Strachan responded by founding the University of Trinity College in 1852, a Church of England institution with spacious quarters on Queen Street West. At the time it had no affiliation with the University of Toronto. Although there was no explicit exclusion of females written into the charters of either King's College or Trinity, we can only assume that their exclusion was understood and did not need to be recorded. In the context of the times this was not at all unusual, and for many years - until, in fact, the i8/os - no women presented themselves to challenge this rule. The University was considered to be a stepping stone from boyhood to manhood for well-to-do males of the Province. By the mid-iS/os an increasing number of young Ontario women were expressing an interest in pursuing their education beyond the secondary level. The successful completion of matriculation examinations was required of any applicant seeking admission to an institution of higher learning in Ontario at that time. In response to the demand from a number of female students from Ontario high schools and ladies' academies, the University of Toronto opened its matriculation examinations to women in 1877. Passing the matriculation examination meant that a student was, theoretically, ready to handle the curriculum of the University. Women were not, however, allowed to attend classes at University College. In principle, they had been admitted to the University, but nothing was done to resolve the paradox of their exclusion from the classroom. Not only were a number of women successfully completing the matriculation examinations, some were winning scholarships based on their performance. A few names in particular stand out: in 1880 Henrietta Charles of St. Catharines won the First-Year Scholarship in Modern Languages as well as the First-Year Proficiency Scholarship. 7

Henrietta Charles, B.A. 1888. Courtesy of Mrs. Mary Gourlay Eliza Balmer, in the first class of women to be admitted to the University, had reportedly attempted to sit in on classes at University College prior to 1884. She received her B.A. in 1886, and won numerous awards throughout her academic career. Courtesy of the University of Toronto Archives

Eliza Balmer of Toronto won the Matriculation Scholarship in Modern Languages in 1882. She won the same scholarship in 1883 along with the Second-Year General Proficiency Scholarship. Such success in the scholarship competition served to make university administrators aware of the academic capabilities of women, but since women were excluded from attending lectures the scholarships could not be used in any logical way, and thus they helped underline the absurdity of the situation. Unable to attend lectures, women students were forced to hire private tutors who provided them with an education somewhat comparable to that which was being offered to their male counterparts at University College. This arrangement was extremely restrictive in that it was an option only for those who could afford private tutoring, and it did not permit access to the University's resources, both material and human. Throughout the late 18703 and early 18803 a number of attempts were made by women to gain admission to University College. Henrietta Charles, one of the scholarship recipients, wrote a dramatic plea to the president of University College in 1881: 8

I beg to claim the right to attend lectures in University College for the remainder of the session of 1881-1882. This right has hitherto been denied to women. Permit me to ask if that is quite just? The examinations of the University are open to us, but at no other institution can we obtain tuition that will enable us to compete in those examinations beyond the first year; consequently, we have either to hire private tutors or trust to our own unaided exertions. Whatever rules and regulations may be imposed, I am perfectly willing to submit to. 7 One chapter in the story of women's attempts to gain admission to University College which would be worth exploring in greater detail concerns the role played by Eliza May Balmer. There are even reports suggesting that Balmer attempted to sit in on University College lectures prior to the official admission of women into the University, meeting with a very mixed response from lecturers and students. But these stories, along with the suggestion that as a consequence of the strain of the ordeal, Balmer suffered a serious collapse, are probably apocryphal.8 Nevertheless, as a former classmate noted, 'Miss Balrner was quite generally regarded as the leader, the pioneer of the movement.'9 Whatever the full story, Balmer's academic record both before and after women's admission to University College was nothing short of outstanding. In 1891 Balmer went on to teach at Harbord Collegiate in Toronto, one of the first women to obtain a teaching position there. The most significant university figure in the drama of women's admission to University College was undoubtedly Daniel Wilson, President of the College and of the University from 1880 to 1892. A Scotsman by birth, a distinguished ethnologist, and a man enjoying the highest respect of the academic community both in Britain and North America, Wilson had strong views about the higher education of women. He was decidedly uncomfortable with the idea of women's presence at the University of Toronto. A number of Wilson's statements on the matter indicate that he held deep-seated fears about the mingling of men and women on the University campus. To a group of male students reassuring him that women would be welcome at the University, Wilson replied: 'what I fear is that your reception will be too cordial.'10 In public Wilson expressed support for the general idea of higher education for women, but in his private journals he revealed a strong Q

aversion to its embodiment in the form of coeducation. He made no effort to offer an institutional alternative to the women who were seeking admission to University College, although for a number of years he offered private lectures ('lectures for ladies') to women outside the University walls. The issues of federation and the defense of nonsectarian education at University College were much higher on Wilson's agenda of priorities in the i88os, but he was eventually forced to confront head-on the issue of higher education for women. There were other key characters besides Daniel Wilson involved in the debate over the admission of women to University College. The provincial Minister of Education of the time, George Ross, was the spokesman for the government on all educational matters, and decisions respecting University College required his final approval. Ross held, therefore, considerable power over Daniel Wilson. Before entering political life Ross had been a teacher, and he was an advocate of higher education for women and, in particular, of coeducation. Fortunately for the women trying to gain admittance to University College, there were also allies to be found within the University.

Sir Daniel Wilson, President of University College and the University of Toronto from 1880 to 1892, was one of the leading protagonists in the story of women's admission to University College. Courtesy of the University of Toronto Archives William Houston, M.A., u. of T. 1874 and member of the Senate of the University, was a strong advocate of coeducation at the University. Courtesy of Eila Hopper Ross 1O

One of the most outstanding of these was William Houston, a Master of Arts graduate from the University of Toronto who served on the University Senate from 1882 to 1904. Houston was unusually progressive for his time. He was instrumental in helping women gain access to the municipal vote in Toronto and was an outspoken advocate of the liberalization of the Arts curriculum at the University. He was an unceasing supporter of higher education for women and did not hesitate to make his views known. Houston, as distinct from others in positions of some power at the University at the time, recognized that what women needed was not just public support for their cause, but an advocate from within who would help them to realize their dream. In an article in the University of Toronto newspaper, The Varsity, of 7 October 1880 Houston wrote, 'It is easy to see that it is only a question of time [until] female undergraduates will be knocking at the door of University College for admission. ... All friends of educational progress should hail such a movement with pleasure.' Another strong supporter of 'the women's cause' who did not shy away from making his views known was Andrew Stevenson, editor of The Varsity from 1880 to 1882. In a portrait of University College, Claude Bissell notes that 'no topic demanded more space in The Varsity, and inspired more devious arguments' than that of coeducation. Stevenson was, in part, responsible for this." Both in his capacity as editor and later in the form of letters to the editor, Stevenson argued strongly for coeducation, frequently citing the examples of Oberlin and the University of London to illustrate his point that coeducation was the best option for higher education for women. He took Daniel Wilson to task for the stand against coeducation which he had made public in Convocation addresses. With Stevenson's departure, The Varsity's policy changed to one more in keeping with Wilson's sentiments: that coeducation was not an appropriate solution. The controversy gained public interest as the pages of The Globe and The Mail (precursors of today's Globe and Mail) carried more articles and letters to the editor on the subject. The Globe's editor, George Brown, was the father of two daughters who were receiving private tutoring towards the University examinations and, not surprisingly, the editorial policy of the paper was decidedly in favour of coeducation. Wilson was a close personal friend of the Browns, and, reportedly, before women were admitted in 1884 he had promised, as part of a bet with one of the Brown daughters, that if she reached his own height he would let her attend his lectures. She did, indeed, reach his height and 11

as a concession Wilson allowed her to sit in his adjoining office with the door open when he was lecturing. She could thus hear the lectures without being seen by the male students. The debate was also fuelled by the keen interest of the Toronto Women's Suffrage Society (originally the Toronto Women's Literary Society). Under the direction of Emily Howard Stowe, who had been instrumental in opening the profession of medicine to women, the Women's Suffrage Society was committed to the belief that women should be free to pursue the profession of their choice. Stowe had returned to Canada from studying medicine in the United States and had encouraged her daughter, Augusta, to go to Victoria College (see 'Medicine'). The aim of the Women's Suffrage Society was to break down any barriers that kept women from reaching such goals. In 1882 the Society sent to the provincial legislature a petition asking that women be admitted to the University of Toronto. In September 1883 eleven women applied to the College Council of University College for permission to attend lectures. In his diary entry for 26 September of that year Daniel Wilson wrote: 'Posted today letters to five lady applicants demanding admission to the College. I say very decidedly no.' He continued to advocate that a separate ladies' college was the only answer for these women requesting admission, yet made no attempt to initiate the establishment of such a college. Rather than take any action on the issue, Wilson chose the path of 'steady passive resistance,' as he called it in his diary entry of the same day.12 Passive resistance, however, did not win out. Luckily for the women, there were a number of male allies in key positions of power. In January 1884 William Houston wrote to John Gibson - a member of the provincial Parliament and himself a University of Toronto graduate - regarding the admission of women to University College: 'What is needed is a good man to take note of the matter in the House and, in my opinion, you are just the man.'13 On 5 March 1884 John Gibson moved in the House that provision be made for the admission of women to University College. The motion was seconded by Richard Harcourt, a fellow progressive and University of Toronto graduate who also espoused 'the women's cause.' The motion was debated briefly in the House and declared carried. The ayes and nays were not called for. The power of Parliament had won out over the stubbornness of Daniel Wilson. But the battle was not finished. There ensued during the next six months a heated correspondence between Wilson and 12

Minister of Education George Ross. Wilson continued to insist that coeducation was not the route to take. While his diary indicates that he was ultimately prepared to acquiesce in a decision made by Parliament and confirmed by an Order-in-Council, he was stalling in his application of that decision. In a familiar gesture of resistance, he raised concerns about the physical problems that women's presence on campus would entail - the need for a women's lavatory and gymnasium, and for a superintendent for the women students. Throughout the summer of 1884 it was not completely clear to those concerned that Wilson had accepted the decision to admit women. In June, William Houston wrote to Wilson: 'I think it only fair to inform you that insofar as the young ladies and their friends are concerned, the matter will not be allowed to drift. ... The ladies have been advised that they have legal rights and some of them are not merely willing but ready to enforce them, if that can be done in Court. Steps to this end will therefore be taken if a favourable response to the applications is not received very soon, for if the University College will not receive them and cannot be compelled to do so, they will, in some cases, go elsewhere/14 As one final delaying tactic, Wilson consulted Oliver Mowat, Premier and Attorney-General of the province, who confirmed that an Order-in-Council from the government would be required to make the

Croft House, King's College Circle, just after the turn of the century. From postcard belonging to the author

*3

government's decision final and valid (since the change had not been enacted by an Act of Parliament). Wilson reminded Ross of this fact in correspondence with him at the end of the summer. He also indicated to Ross that some of the expenses that would be incurred by the admission of women could not be sustained by the University's budget - in particular, the salary for a 'Lady Superintendent/ When classes began on i October 1884 Wilson had still not given the go-ahead to admit women. Fees which had accompanied the formal applications of women were returned to them. However, on Ross's initiative possibly sparked by a recent editorial on this question in the Globe the Order-in-Council was approved by the Lieutenant-Governor of the province on 2 October and provisions were made to cover the salary of a 'Lady Superintendent.' Wilson had no more excuses. With the passing of the Order-in-Council, women were officially admitted to University College. Following a delay of a few days to allow for some last-minute preparations, three women began attending classes at University College on 6 October. Three more women joined them within a week, and by the end of the academic year a total of nine women were in attendance: May Bald, Eliza Balmer, Caroline Fair, Ella Gardiner, Alice Jones, Margaret Langley, Mary Lennox, Nellie Spence, and Jennie Stork. The Brown sisters, Margaret and Catherine, never attended lectures even after women were admitted, but continued to receive private tutoring and graduated with other Fourth-Year students at the convocation of 1885. Letitia Catherine Salter was hired as the first 'Lady Superintendent'; her salary of $500 per annum was paid by the government until 1905, and thereafter by the University until her retirement in 1916. In 1895 Salter approached President William Mulock about the possibility of a raise. He wrote to Ross on this subject: T pay my coachman $520.00 a year for looking after a few horses. You pay less than this for attendance on nearly 200 young ladies. Cannot you do a little better?'15 Of Letitia Salter, Nellie Spence later wrote, 'She was in every way qualified to be a wise counsellor and good friend to the girls, and her memory is cherished to this day.'16 (It is not known whether Salter's request for a raise was ever granted.)

*4

Ella Gardiner (centre) was one of the first nine women admitted to the University in 1884, and in the first graduating class of women in 1885. She is shown here in a staff photo from Albert College in Belleville where she taught for over forty years. Courtesy of Albert College Archives, Belleville

The class of 1885, including three of the first five women to graduate from University College. The three women in the bottom row are (1. to r.) Margaret Langley, May Bell Bald, and Ella Gardiner. Absent are the Brown sisters, Margaret and Catherine. Courtesy of University College Archives 1(-

Jennie Stork, one of the first nine women admitted to the University in 1884. She received her B.A. in 1890 and taught for a number of years before completing her M.A. at the University of Alberta in 1911. Courtesy of Esther Marjorie Hill

Henrietta Charles (I.)/ B.A. 1888, and Ida Gertrude Eastwood (r.)/ B.A. 1888, close friends while at the University of Toronto, both went on to teach at Humberside Collegiate in Toronto. Courtesy of Mrs. Mary Gourlay

Ida Gertrude Eastwood, B.A. 1888. Courtesy of Mrs. Mary Gourlay 16

WOMEN AT McGILL While women were struggling to gain admission to the University of Toronto, an uncannily similar chapter of history was being written at McGill University in Montreal. Like that of Toronto, McGilPs original charter made no provision for the inclusion of women, but by 1877 (the same year as Toronto) enough interest had been generated to open matriculation examinations to women. The Principal of McGill at the time, William Dawson, had much in common with his Toronto colleague, Daniel Wilson: he too was Scots educated, liberal-minded, but with conservative tendencies. Like Wilson, he offered 'Lectures for Ladies' under the auspices of the Montreal Ladies' Educational Association. He was supportive of higher education for women, but did not believe it should be identical with that for men. Daniel Wilson had his William Houston; the thorn in Dawson's side took the shape of J. Clark Murray, a McGill professor who in 1882 put forward a proposal recommending that the Faculty of Arts be opened to women. Considerable disagreement surfaced within the University over whether education for women should be separate or coeducational. Murray favoured coeducation while most of his colleagues were opposed to it. A decision about women's admission was consequently postponed. A small group of women seeking admission to McGill put pressure on Dawson to make a decision, but he claimed that the institution lacked the funds to support such a move. Up to this point, the parallels between the events at McGill and those at the University of Toronto are evident, but here the similarities end. Dawson put out a call for funds to the community, not expecting to get a sufficient response, for a decision had still not been made by the Corporation of McGill about the question of separate as opposed to coeducation. To the surprise of many, a donor came forward with the generous offer of $50,000 towards classes for women at McGill, with the stipulation that the conditions be set by him. Donald Smith, later Lord Strathcona, was a wealthy Montreal businessman with no apparent connection to McGill University. Through his donation the Donalda Course for Women was made possible, and on 6 October 1884, the same day women were admitted into the University of Toronto, nine women undergraduates began separate classes at McGill. Initially, women's classes remained distinct from those for men and were held in a designated building on the McGill campus. Smith later donated more money, and by 1899 the Royal Victoria College on the campus of McGill was completed. The College 17

contained residences, a gymnasium, lecture rooms, a library, and extensive facilities for the female students. Most classes for women were taught at the College. Slowly over the years, however, fewer classes for women were taught separately at the Royal Victoria College. In spite of Smith's stipulation for a separate education for women, financial pressures made a certain amount of coeducation inevitable in the upper years. By the 1950$ full coeducation had become the norm at McGill. Although different forms of higher education for women were adopted at the two universities in 1884 - coeducation at the University of Toronto and coordinate education at McGill - the issue was forced in both cases by outside factors. At McGill, it took the donation of a wealthy citizen, and at Toronto, the enactment of provincial legislation to make higher education for women possible. Louise Lavelle Ryckman, B.A. 1890, recipient of the Silver Medal for extremely high standing in the Arts (1888) and the Governor General's Gold Medal. Courtesy of Ms. Frances Dale

THE COEDUCATION 'EXPERIMENT' In each successive year after their first admission in 1884, the number of women who entered the University increased. But coed life created a very tricky situation for women. If they were too 'bluestocking' and serious in their studies, they were often viewed as being not feminine enough. On the other hand, if they were too involved in extracurricu18

Adelaide Clayton of Listowel, Ontario, was one of the youngest women to be admitted to the University in its early years. Graduating in 1889 at the age of twenty, she went on to found the Junior Red Cross in Canada. Courtesy of Stratford-Perth Archives, Listowel

lar nonacademic activities, they were seen as not taking higher education seriously. Although probably intended in a good-natured spirit, joking on the part of male students undoubtedly contributed to the sense of not quite belonging reported by the women students. In her diary, one young student wrote in 1890: The boys reserve the front rows of benches for their sister students who often march down the aisle to the classic strains of "Where are you going my pretty maid?" or in tones of deepest pathos, "You are lost and gone forever, oh my darling Clementine." '17 Whatever the welcome they were receiving, the women students did not socialize a great deal with the men and rarely joined in the extracurricular activities that were open to them. Instead, they established their own clubs and societies, and even their own newspaper, Sesame, which first appeared in 1897 and ceased publication in 1901. One society of particular importance was the Women's Literary Society of University College. This was formed in 1891 and provided an avenue for dramatic and musical presentations by the women. Later it was linked with debating societies within the University and by the turn of the century was holding debates against the women of St. Hilda's and Victoria Colleges. Also at the beginning of the 18908, a Women's Residence 19

Coeds, 1911. Courtesy of the City of Toronto Archives, James Collection #jo$D

Committee was formed to encourage the construction of separate residences for University College women on campus. The question of women's residences was a significant one, since a good deal of female social activity centered on residence life. At a time when males greatly outnumbered females at the University, such social activity, with the sense of sisterhood it engendered, was essential.

Eastern entrance to the University with University College in the background, just after the turn of the century. From postcard belonging to the author 20

For the first twenty years after women were admitted into University College, most women were housed off-campus in boarding houses on Bloor Street and in the nearby Annex neighbourhood. This was felt to be a rather undesirable situation for the many University College women students who were from out of town. Bessie Scott, who was the first woman from Ottawa to attend a Canadian university, wrote in her diary in 1889 of 'the direful necessity of hunting for a boarding house.' She continued, 'Sometimes when cold weather comes on, overshoes and mittens are necessary additives during study hours. We look longingly over at Cornell with their beautiful residence on university campus and wish some rich friends of Varsity would die and leave (or leave without dying) a bequest to enable us to make at least a beginning of such a thing in Toronto/18 Bessie Scott, the first woman from Ottawa to attend a Canadian university, entered the University of Toronto in 1889. Courtesy of Edith Clement

The struggle for a women's residence at University College was almost as great as the struggle to have women admitted to the College. In 1905 the University acquired Queen's Hall, former home of the Rowland family, at the corner of Queen's Park and College Street. It was soon filled to capacity as a women's residence. Through the untiring efforts of Margaret Wrong, who came to the University in 1914 as Secretary of the YWCA and then became Dean of Women from 1916 to 1921, four houses in all were acquired for University College women before 1930: the Women's Union Building in 1916, Argyll House (site of the Royal Ontario Museum) in 1918, and Hutton House (site of the Sidney Smith Building) in 1919. It wasn't until 1931 that Whitney Hall was constructed on campus as a purpose-built residence for the women students of University College. 21

Above: common room at Queen's Hall, one of University College's residences for women, 1905-1931. Below: single room at Queen's Hall. Both photos courtesy of the University of Toronto Archives

Painting of Queen's Hall, a University College residence for women from 1905 to Painting Queen'swas Hall, University College from 1905 to alsoa the temporary homeresidence of the U.forofwomen T. School of Nursing 1931. Theofbuilding 1931.1931. The Painting building by wasMarlene also theJofriet. temporary homeofofthetheUniversity U. of T. School of Nursing after Courtesy of Toronto Archives aften931. Painting by Marlene Jofriet. Courtesy of the University of Toronto Archives

University College after reconstruction, following the fire of 1890. From postcard belonging to the author 23

FEDERATION A significant event in the history of the University of Toronto occurred in the same decade in which women were admitted to University College. In 1887 the University of Toronto Federation Act was passed, changing the University's status from a degree-granting body to a teaching institution. The Act authorized any university in Ontario to enter into federation with the University of Toronto, under specified conditions. By federating with the University these individual institutions would relinquish their power to confer degrees in any subject field other than theology. The Act also provided for federated theological colleges, and three of the University's affiliates - Knox, Wycliffe, and St. Michael's - entered under this category. (Later, St. Michael's also became a fully federated arts college.)

24

W

omen in the federated Colleges

VICTORIA COLLEGE By the middle of the nineteenth century, increasing financial priority was being given by the provincial government to institutions of higher learning which did not have a religious affiliation - in particular, University College at the University of Toronto. Colleges with some religious affiliation, such as Victoria, which had been established by the Methodists, suffered from this change and many resented it. Because of increasing financial hardship and a shift in population from eastern to western Ontario, Victoria chose to federate with the University of Toronto in 1889 when the Federation Act was put into effect. It became the first college to federate alongside University College, and relocated in Toronto from Cobourg in 1892. In the history of women in higher education in Ontario Victoria's mark had, of course, already been made before women were admitted to the University of Toronto. Victoria affirmed its commitment to

Victoria College after it moved to the University of Toronto. From postcard belonging to the author

25

coeducation in 1877 when it admitted Barbara Foote to its Arts programme. Although Foote did not graduate, she had the distinction of being the first woman to receive a secondary-school teacher's certificate in Ontario.

Augusta Stowe Gullen, the first woman to enter and graduate from a Canadian medical college (1883). She was the daughter of one of the first women to practise medicine in Canada, Emily Howard Stowe. Both were active in the women's suffrage movement. Courtesy of Victoria College Archives Nellie C. Greenwood, the first woman to complete a Bachelor's degree at Victoria College in Cobourg (1884), prior to its federation with the University of Toronto. Courtesy of Victoria College Archives

The woman who is generally seen as breaking new ground in the admission of women to Victoria is Augusta Stowe. Inspired by her mother, Emily Howard Stowe, Augusta determined that she, too, would become a medical doctor. In spite of the fact that women had been denied access to the examinations of the Ontario College of Physicians and Surgeons earlier in the century, Stowe prepared herself for that College's matriculation examinations in 1878. She successfully completed the examinations the following year, and then sought 26

admission to an Ontario medical school. In view of her mother's unhappy experience with the University of Toronto (see 'Medicine'), Augusta applied to the Victoria College Medical School (with classes held at the Toronto Medical School). Principal Samuel Nelles, a close friend of the Stowe family, granted her permission to attend classes. The path she had chosen as the lone woman amongst many male students was, as she would write later, 'not [one] strewn with roses./I9 But with the courage she had inherited from her mother, Augusta held her ground in her determination to be a doctor and graduated from Victoria in 1883, earning the distinction of being the first woman to earn a medical degree at a Canadian university. The first woman to complete her Bachelor of Science degree at Victoria College was Nellie Greenwood, who was admitted in 1880. Greenwood, who kept memoirs of her period at Victoria, wrote of her first year: 'I must confess that Freshman Greenwood ... found that first year rather a lonesome one as she came and went alone to classes and sat out spare periods in solitary state in Dr. Haanel's outer office very much like the proverbial good child - seen but not heard/20 Greenwood received her degree in 1884, making her the first woman in Ontario and the second woman in Canada to hold such a degree. With each succeeding year more women entered Victoria; fourteen women were registered and in attendance in 1892 when Victoria moved from Cobourg to Toronto. In the 1903 issue of Ada Victoriana, Victoria College's literary publication, a sentiment regarding women's supposed vulnerability and need for protection was expressed: 'A young man of ordinary strength and good morals may be sent forth alone from the parental roof without apprehension, and generally the change is beneficial. But with a young woman, it is different, she cannot rough it like a man. There is a natural reticence peculiar to the sex which, if shown by a youth, would provoke derision, but which coming from a young woman evokes commendation. ... A residence meets the needs and minimizes the dangers incidental to life away from home, and does so much better than any other means of accommodation. '21 Margaret Burwash, wife of Victoria's Chancellor, Margaret Addison, and the daughters of the Massey family were instrumental in making known the need for a women's residence at Victoria. Thanks to the generous financial help of the Massey family, the Annesley Hall residence for women - named after Susannah Annesley, the 'mother of Wesleyan Methodism' - opened in 1903. Margaret Addison was appointed Dean of Annesley Hall. (She had herself graduated from 27

Victoria in 1889 and would later become the first Dean of Women of Victoria University in 1920.) It has been recorded that Addison was offered $500 a year for the position, but held out until she managed to convince the administration that she was worth $700!

Residents at Annesley Hall, Victoria College residence for women, 1907. Courtesy of Victoria College Archives

With its strong Methodist tradition, Victoria University attracted the children of church members from all over the province. The population at Victoria rose rapidly and by 1906, only three years after the opening of Annesley Hall, it was necessary to create an annex to the women's residence. Margaret Addison had her hands full and in 1911 had to respond to Chancellor Burwash's concerns that residence rules were too lax; women students were staying out too late and going unchaperoned to dances 'the character of which we know nothing/ In Burwash's view these were 'matters which, if mooted abroad, would destroy the value of our residence for young women in the eyes of our Methodist people, and, apart altogether from public opinion/ were 'things which should not be allowed in a well-regulated college/22 Addison defended the students' right to decide appropriate rules for Annesley Hall residents and was given a vote of confidence by the Committee of Management and the Board of Regents. Burwash found this unacceptable and the issue ultimately contributed to his decision to resign from his post as Chancellor of Victoria. 28

Margaret Addison, an early female graduate from Victoria College (1889) is shown in both photos above. She was the first Dean of Annesley Hall (1903-1931), and the first Dean of Women at Victoria College (1920-1931). Courtesy of Victoria College Archives

Annesley Hall, Victoria College, date unknown. Courtesy of Victoria College Archives 29

Trinity College in its original location on Queen Street near Strachan Avenue. From postcard belonging to the author

TRINITY COLLEGE In 1852 Trinity College, 'a University for the Church of England in Canada/ was built at the corner of Queen Street and Strachan Avenue, a location at that time outside of Toronto's boundaries. There was a reason for building Trinity so far from the University of Toronto campus: the College wished to maintain a very separate identity, quite distinct from the institution which represented nonsectarian education in Ontario. By the i88os women's agitation for the right to higher education was being felt at Trinity. This was due in large part to the efforts of one particular young woman, Helen Gregory. The gifted granddaughter of an influential Hamilton judge, Gregory was an excellent musician, and was determined to enter the Bachelor of Music programme at Trinity in 1883. Upon presenting herself, she learned that women might sit for the necessary examinations, but would be eligible only for certificates, not degrees. Just prior to Gregory's attempt at gaining admission, it was discovered that she was not the first woman to present herself for the same degree at Trinity. Evidently, a woman who may have been disguised as a man, E. (Emma) Stanton Mellish, had tried to enter Trinity, but was refused when her true sex was revealed. Elsie Gregory MacGill noted in a biography of her mother, Helen Gregory, that one professor of Classics at Trinity went so far as 'to declare he would resign if [women] were accepted as undergraduates/23 Gregory persisted just the same, and with the help of pressure 30

applied by her grandfather the Corporation of Trinity College was compelled to admit women to degrees in all faculties on equal terms with men in December 1885. With eleven other candidates Gregory sat for the examinations for the musical baccalaureate. Only three successfully completed the testing, and two of the three were women - Helen Gregory and Emma Stanton Mellish. In November of 1886 a special convocation was held to confer the first Bachelor's degrees in Music to be awarded at Trinity, and, since two of the graduands were Gregory and Mellish, the first Trinity degrees awarded to women. That same year Helen Gregory embarked on studies for a Bachelor of Arts degree, which she completed in 1889, graduating cum laude. She later went on to complete her Master's degree in 1890 at Trinity; again she was the first woman to do so. This appears from the records to be the first M.A. degree awarded to a woman at any one of the soon-to-be federated colleges of the University of Toronto; Madge Robertson of University College was the first to receive the degree from the University of Toronto in 1890. Once Helen Gregory had done the difficult work of opening Trinity degrees to women, a number of others followed in her path. As more women applied for admission, Trinity recognized the need to accommodate them at the College. In 1888, the year that four women received Bachelor's degrees from Trinity College, a small rented house First class of women to graduate from St. Hilda's, 1888, including Mabel Cartwright, seated right. Courtesy of Trinity College Archives

Ellen Patteson Rigby, the first 'Lady Principal' of St. Hilda's College, from 1885-1903. Courtesy of Trinity College Archives Students of St. Hilda's College at Trinity College, prior to the turn of the century. Courtesy of Trinity College Archives

The first St. Hilda's College on Shaw Street. Courtesy of Trinity College Archives 32

on Euclid Avenue was designated St. Hilda's College, with two women students and a 'Lady Principal/ Ellen Patteson, in residence. Although it was initially intended that St. Hilda's would be a complete women's college like those at Oxford and Cambridge, finances did not ultimately permit it to be anything more than a women's residence at Trinity College. At first, a system of separate lectures for men and women was in effect at St. Hilda's and Trinity, with the pass course being taught at the former and the honours course at the latter, but this system was eventually phased out because it was considered to be uneconomical. The accommodation at St. Hilda's soon proved to be inadequate, and the female students and Patteson moved to a larger site on Shaw Street. Two different buildings were occupied in the space of a few years until a new St. Hilda's College building was built on the campus grounds of Trinity in 1899. In 1903 Mabel Cartwright replaced Patteson as 'Lady Principal,' with responsibility for twenty women in residence. In that same year Trinity federated with the University of Toronto after extensive debate and deliberation, which continued long after the step was taken. It remained in its premises on Queen Street until the 19205 when the College moved to a newly-constructed building on the St. George campus in 1925. Until the present-day St. Hilda's was constructed on Devonshire Place in 1937, St. Hilda's students lived in several houses on St. George Street.

Mabel Cartwright, a member of the first graduating class at St. Hilda's and Dean of Women from 1903 to 1936. Courtesy of Trinity College Archives Ethel B. Ridley, a Trinity graduate who served as an overseas nurse in World War i and was awarded the Order of the British Empire. Courtesy of Trinity College Archives

33

ST. MICHAEL'S COLLEGE When the Federation Act was passed in 1887, St. Michael's College had been an affiliated theological college of the University of Toronto for six years. This meant that St. Michael's students wishing to pursue a general university education would enrol in University College for their regular programme and have the option of taking philosophy and history at St. Michael's. Ultimately they would graduate from University College. At that time St. Michael's concentrated on preparing young men for the Roman Catholic priesthood; it had little if any interest in the higher education of women. The history of women at St. Michael's College is inseparably related to the history of St. Joseph's and Loretto schools. Catholic sisters began these two high schools for girls in the mid-nineteenth century in Toronto. A Catholic girl wishing to continue her education after high school was forced to forego the religious component of her education and enrol at the University through University College. An official from St. Michael's is quoted as having said just after the turn of the century that 'The question of higher education for women is not a vital one for the College nor of interest to the Canadian hierarchy.'24 This situation did not change even when, in 1910, St. Michael's College became a fully federated arts college within the University of Toronto alongside Trinity, Victoria, and University colleges. The sisters of St. Joseph's and Loretto wanted the same privileges for female students, and were supported in this by Catholic women enrolled at University College. It is reported that, at the beginning of the 1910-11 academic year, five women from University College turned up at the philosophy lecture offered by Father Henry Carr at St. Michael's;25 they were presumably Catholic women students who were boarders at St. Joseph's or Loretto. Historian Father Laurence Shook (President of St. Michael's College from 1954 to 1958) notes that 'Carr was surprised, even embarrassed by their presence but allowed them to remain until the lecture was over. For the rest of the year he took the five girls twice a week in a special group in the priests' community room.'26 Around the same time, two sisters from St. Joseph's approached University of Toronto President Robert Falconer to request federation with the University. Falconer was not in favour of the idea, but suggested as an alternative that St. Michael's be asked to enrol women so that they might graduate through St. Michael's. An agreement to 34

this effect was reached between St. Michael's and St. Joseph's and Loretto in 1911. From that point on women could receive their degrees from the University of Toronto through St. Michael's. Part of the agreement was, however, that classes be segregated, with the religious sisters teaching the women and the staff at St. Michael's teaching the men. University courses which were taken at the University proper with students from other colleges were, of course, taught in mixed classes. The first woman to graduate under this new arrangement was Agnes Murphy (later Sister Mary Agnes) who received her degree from St. Michael's College in 1914. The presence of segregated classes was an indication that the concept of coeducation was not fully acceptable to the administration and staff of St. Michael's College. And this remained the case until the 1950$ when, after a reassessment of the arrangements, it was found to be more economically sound to combine the classes of male and female students. The change was made in 1952, the year in which St. Michael's celebrated its centenary. Father Shock's comment on the role of women at St. Michael's College is worth quoting: The fact remains that every time a major concession was made towards the fuller integration of women into the college, a distinct advance in academic excellence followed.'27

35

/omen in the Professions

(^ MEDICINE

The system of medical education in Ontario before 1887 - the time of the University of Toronto Federation Act - was extremely complex. The Act made possible the creation of a Faculty of Medicine at the University, absorbing faculty and students from the Toronto School of Medicine. (The Trinity Medical School was later absorbed by the Faculty of Medicine when Trinity federated with the University of Toronto.) When Emily Howard Stowe requested permission to attend lectures at the Toronto School of Medicine more than a decade earlier, her request was flatly denied. She was the first to challenge the all-male institution; when refused, she applied to the New York Medical College for Women and was accepted. At the same time, another Toronto woman, Jennie Trout, had begun medical training at the Women's Medical College of Pennsylvania. The two women returned to Toronto when their schooling was completed and applied for licensing from the Council of the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario. Both were refused on the grounds that a graduate

The original Medical Building at the University of Toronto. Women gained admittance to the Faculty of Medicine in 1906. From postcard belonging to the author

36

from an American medical college must attend one session of lectures at an accredited Ontario medical school - a possibility from which, as women, they were explicitly excluded. After considerable persistence, the two women were eventually allowed to take their obligatory one session at the Toronto School of Medicine, where it is recorded that they were treated with a good deal of hostility by both faculty and students. Their admission was seen as an exception and they were not registered on the regular students' roll. Trout received her licence to practice in 1875 and Stowe in 1880. As with the question of women in higher education generally, that of the role of women in Medicine was under serious review in Ontario in the i88os. Medical journals of the day carried articles and editorials which questioned the appropriateness of women's desire to enter the profession, and suggested that their energies might better be spent bearing and nurturing children. Attempts by women to enter medicine in Ontario coincided with a period when the profession was trying to become more respectable, and it seems that many felt the presence of women would only hinder those efforts. It soon became evident to some women, in particular Emily Howard Stowe and Jennie Trout, that the only option left was to try to establish separate medical colleges for women, as had been done in the States. After gaining the support of local citizens and a handful of medical professors, Stowe and Trout were successful in establishing two medical schools for women in Ontario. Stowe was involved in the creation of the Women's Medical College in Toronto in October 1883, and Trout with the founding of the Women's Medical College in Kingston at the same time. The colleges were affiliated with the University of Toronto and Queen's University respectively. The colleges themselves could not confer degrees, but women could receive their degrees from the university with which the college was affiliated. Preparing the way for a women's medical college was greatly helped by the pioneering efforts of Emily Stowe's daughter, Augusta, who, as we have seen, (see 'Victoria College') had entered the Victoria Medical College in 1879 and had completed her degree by 1883. But women had a long way to go before genuine acceptance of the female presence in medical practice was achieved. About one of the earliest University of Toronto convocations to include women from the Women's Medical College (in 1890), an observer later wrote: The occasion was embarrassing to the conferring authorities. The Halls of learning reeked with hostility and satire, so much so that [the five women graduating in medicine] were deprived of the honour and 37

Alice McLaughlin (Constantineau), one of the earliest graduates in Medicine from the Trinity Medical School (1887) is shown in both photos above; she taught briefly at the Ontario Medical College for Women. Courtesy of Joan McLaughlin Walsh

satisfaction of public formality. They were obliged to remain in an anteroom, and after the men students had received their degrees with ''pomp and circumstance/' some subordinate functionary appeared in their midst and handed around their precious documents as if they were so many commercial circulars/28 When the Women's Medical College at Kingston was forced to close its doors in 1893 due to financial difficulties, the Women's Medical College in Toronto became the Ontario Medical College for Women. The latter operated a maternity department and dispensary which were the forerunners of the present-day Women's College Hospital. The Ontario Medical College for Women graduated a total of 109 women in its twenty-two years of existence. The Faculty of Medicine at the University at last opened its doors to women in 1906 and the Ontario Medical College for Women closed. Women desiring an education in the arts had to confront a general 38

and vaguely formulated prejudice against the idea of higher education for women. But women pursuing an education in medicine had an even tougher battle to fight. They had to confront the specific and deeply-ingrained prejudice which most members of the medical profession held against the idea of women joining its ranks. The persistent and heroic efforts of a few women slowly worked to change attitudes about women in medicine, but even when women were finally allowed to study alongside their male colleagues at the University of Toronto after 1906, their path was still far from smooth. Until well into the twentieth century, women medical students were often denied residencies and internships in hospitals across Canada, and some universities had female quotas in their Faculties. Marion Milliard wrote of her experience in the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Toronto in the 1920$: The pioneer work had been done by the time I went to medical school. ... Of course the girls had to sit in the front row and you could hardly say we were welcomed - but we certainly were not outcasts/29 Perhaps not outcasts, but certainly not equals either. LAW

In spite of the obstacles encountered by the first women who tried to study medicine in Ontario, there was, nonetheless, a modicum of public acceptance of a place for women in that profession. It was argued that the role of caring for the sick fitted society's prescribed role for women as nurturers. This was not the case with the profession of law. Some felt there was, quite simply, no place for women in law. An editorial in the Canada Law Journal of 1896 commented: We know of no public advantage to be gained by [women] being admitted to the Bar, whilst there are many serious objections on the grounds which are scarcely necessary to refer to. As a matter of taste, it is rather a surprise to most men to see a woman seeking a profession where she is bound to meet much that would offend the natural modesty of her sex.30 Another editorial in the same journal noted that 'a pretty witness or a lady litigant with a winning manner can twist any judge on the Bench around her thumb/31 There was presumably no knowing what the effect of a 'lady lawyer' might be! 39

The story of the pursuit of a career in law for women in nineteenth-century Ontario is essentially the story of one remarkable woman, Clara Brett Martin, who graduated from Trinity with high honours in Mathematics in 1890. In 1891 she approached the Law Society of Upper Canada to request admission to the Ontario Law School. She was informed that only 'persons' could be admitted to the School - and under the British North America Act, 'persons' did not include women. Martin presented the Society with a formal petition, and at the same time approached Oliver Mowat, Premier and Attorney-General of Ontario, requesting his help. Mowat proved sympathetic and petitioned the provincial legislature to amend the admission regulations and allow women access to the Law School. In

Clara Brett Martin, the first woman to study Law and successfully complete a degree in Canada. She completed an undergraduate degree in Mathematics at Trinity College in 1890. Courtesy of Law Society of Upper Canada 40

1892, an act of the legislature was passed allowing women to be admitted to study at the Law School, but the act stipulated that they could practise only as solicitors, not as barristers. The Law Society objected to the act but was forced to give in when Mowat threatened to pass a compulsory act. Clara Brett Martin was admitted to the Law School in 1893. Like her sisters in Medicine, Martin was not received well by the men. Unruffled, she applied to be admitted as a barrister. In 1895, the previous act allowing admission to Law School to study as solicitors was amended allowing women to practise as barristers. Martin was called to the Bar of Ontario in February 1897, and thus became the first woman barrister not only in Canada but in the entire British Empire. In addition to this, Martin successfully completed a Bachelor of Civil Law degree at Trinity in 1897 and an LL.B. at the University of Toronto in 1899. She practised for a number of years in Toronto and also served actively on the Toronto Board of Education. She died of a heart attack in 1923 at the age of 49. Of her experience articling with a law firm in Toronto, Martin said: You would not believe how many obstacles I have had to overcome single-handed. I was articled to one of the largest firms in Toronto, and when I put in my appearance, I was looked upon as an interloper, if not a curiosity. The clerks avoided me and made it as unpleasant for me as they possibly could, and for a time it looked as if I were doomed to failure through a source with which I had not reckoned. Finally, however, I had the satisfaction of beating them all in the examinations.32 She is also quoted as having said, 'Were it not that I set out to open the way to the Bar for others of my sex, I would have given up the effort long ago. '33 Martin had opened the doors of the law profession to women, but a surprisingly small number took immediate advantage of her pioneering efforts. In 1902 Eva Powley, who had been an undergraduate at Trinity from 1896, was called to the Bar. A few others followed, but at the time of Martin's death in 1923 only 35 women had been called to the Bar in Ontario.34 (For more on women in the professions, see 'Women in the Nontraditional Fields/) 4*

Doming into the Twentieth Century

C

PROPOSAL FOR A SEPARATE COLLEGE FOR WOMEN Though enrolment statistics for women at the University of Toronto increased steadily after the turn of the century, there remained a lurking suspicion about the female presence on campus. By 1905,152 women were registered at University College and items in The Varsity of the day indicate that men were becoming annoyed by what they felt was increased competition for facilities on campus. A series of poems addressed to the 'Chitty-chatty Co-ed' appeared in The Varsity, no doubt contributing to a growing rift between the men and women on campus. One reads: Lovely Venus came to college Made a buff at getting knowledge Took in a lecture now and then Coquetted with a fountain pen.35 The fact that women students did not fit the accepted female stereotype and were winning University awards with a frequency disproportionate to their numbers may also have been a source of aggravation.36 Although it had been a fact at the University for over twenty years, coeducation in the early twentieth century was still viewed by Women's hockey game, Victoria College vs University College, c.i9io. Courtesy of Victoria College Archives

Convocation procession 1912. Courtesy of the City of Toronto Archives, James Collection

many as an experiment. This sentiment manifested itself in the appointment in 1908 of a University Committee to examine the possibility of a separate college for women on campus, even though such a proposal (when suggested though not actively pursued by Daniel Wilson in the early i88os) had long before been rejected. This committee became convinced that women's educational needs were not being met by the University College curriculum. The committee - chaired, ironically enough, by Professor George Wrong, whose daughter Margaret had done so much for women at University College - issued a report late in 1908 stating that a separate college for women was both feasible and advisable. Some women approved of the idea; the University Women's Club, in particular, argued that a ro* irate college might encourage women to begin to think of themselves more as individuals in their own right and less in their relation to men. The University Women's Club, however, was evidently not representative of the female student body, and counterarguments were presented: In this new and fast-developing country women must be prepared for a life of many emergencies and many varied claims; they must learn to adapt themselves to these and to a life in 43

which, for the most part, they will work and live in much closer association with men than is the case in the older lands.37 Furthermore, it was felt that since history had shown a reluctance on the part of the University administration to establish and support women's institutions, it was unlikely that, at a time when the University was in a precarious financial state, adequate funds for a separate women's college would be provided and consistently maintained.

St. Hilda's 'Saints/ Courtesy of Trinity College Archives

A petition protesting against the Wrong Committee proposal circulated and was signed by the overwhelming majority of the women students. The Senate ignored this gesture when confronted with it, and this prompted the Women's Alumnae Association to address the problem of the lack of female members on the Senate. As a consequence of the Association's efforts, in 1911 Gertrude Lawlor and Charlotte Ross became the first women to be elected to the University of Toronto Senate. The recommendations of the Wrong Committee were ultimately rejected by the Senate. One can only speculate whether this was the result of pressure applied by women, or the result of the Senate's recognition of the financial burden involved in the construction of a separate college for women. 44

Convocation procession, 1920. The two women at the front are Jennie Stork Hill (1.), from the first class of women admitted to the University in 1884, and Gertrude Lawlor (r.), one of the first women to receive a Master's degree from the University (1892) and one of the first women to sit on the University of Toronto Senate. Courtesy of Esther Marjorie Hill

45

c4'

Academic Progress of Women atUofT

WOMEN IN THE NONTRADITIONAL FIELDS Women who attended universities in the early part of this century were very exceptional people, particularly those who were entering fields which had been male domains of long standing. It is not surprising, therefore, that a considerable number of the first women students ranked high in their classes and received many of the University's awards. And once the PH.D. programme was instituted in certain departments in the late nineteenth century, women again responded to the challenge and began working toward this degree. In 1903 Clara Cynthia Benson in Physical Chemistry and Emma Sophia Baker in Philosophy were the first women to be awarded PH.D. degrees at the University of Toronto. Over the next twenty-five years an astonishingly high number (twenty-eight out of thirty) of the PH.D. degrees awarded to women were in the sciences, not in the humanities and arts as one might have expected. (It has to be noted, however, that certain departments in the arts and humanities, such as English, did not adopt PH.D. programmes until the second and third decades of the twentieth century.) Helen Sawyer Hogg, the first woman to obtain a faculty position in the Department of Astronomy (1936). Today, she is Professor Emeritus in the Department and works at the David Dunlap Observatory. In 1984, the International Astronomical Union named a small planet after her. Courtesy of the University of Toronto Archives

46

Clara Cynthia Benson, Faculty of Household Science, 1906 to 1945, and one of the first two women to receive a PH.D. degree at the University. - with students in Food Chemistry — convocation for PH.D., 1903 - in the 19505, photo by Karsh - at Whitney Hall Alumni Day, 1963 All photos courtesy of Cynthia Eberts

Emma Sophia Baker (centre), one of the first two women to earn a PH.D. degree at the University of Toronto, in 1903. Courtesy of the University of Toronto Archives

In 1923 Norma Henrietta Ford became the first woman to receive a PH.D. degree in Entomology at the University. In that same year, she was appointed the first female faculty member (with the title of Instructor) in the Department of Biology. Again in that same year, Jessie Wright was the first woman to receive a PH.D. in Botany. In 1925 Edna Eascot achieved the same distinction in the Department of Biochemistry. Cecilia Krieger in 1930 became not only the first woman to receive a PH.D. degree in the Department of Mathematics at the University, but also only the third person in Canada to receive the degree in that subject. Following World War i a few noteworthy women were making their mark in the professional faculties of the University. In 1921 the Ontario College of Agriculture, in affiliation with the University of Toronto, graduated its first woman: Susannah Chase of Greenwich, Nova Scotia, was awarded a Bachelor of Science degree in Agriculture. In the case of two women who made their mark in professional fields, the influence of their pioneering mothers was a factor in their decisions. In 1920 Esther Marjorie Hill became the first woman to hold a degree in Architecture in Canada. She received her Bachelor of Applied Science in Engineering from the Department of Architecture at that year's convocation at the University of Toronto. She returned to the University in 1922 to do postgraduate study in town planning. 48

During her lifetime Hill worked as an architect, draftsperson, printer, and finally as a master weaver. She died in Victoria, B.C., in January 1985. Her mother, Jennie Stork Hill, had been in the first class of women to be admitted to the University in 1884, and reportedly wanted to be an architect herself.38 Following in the tradition which her mother, Helen Gregory, had begun in the nineteenth century, Elsie Gregory MacGill was the first woman to graduate in the field of engineering at the University of Toronto when she received her Bachelor of Applied Science in Engineering in 1927. She went on to receive her Master's degree in Aeronautical Engineering at the University of Michigan in 1929. That same year she was struck with a form of myelitis which left her permanently lamed. In spite of her affliction she went on to numerous achievements in the field of engineering in Canada, winning widespread esteem and an impressive array of honours and awards, including the Order of Canada in 1971 and four honorary doctorates. She campaigned actively for women's rights for most of her adult life. Elsie Gregory MacGill died in 1980.

Cecilia Krieger, the first woman at the University of Toronto and the third person in Canada to receive a PH.D. in Mathematics, in 1930. She taught for over forty years in the Department. Courtesy of the University of Toronto Archives Esther Marjorie Hill, first woman to receive a degree in Architecture in Canada, at her convocation in 1920. She was the daughter of Jennie Stork Hill of the 1884 class. Courtesy of Esther Marjorie Hill

49

Elsie Gregory MacGill, aeronautical engineer, received the Order of Canada in 1971 and four honorary degrees in her. lifetime. She died in 1980. Courtesy of the 'Toronto Star' Madeline Hoare, one of the first women to graduate in Electrical Engineering at the University, in 1952. Courtesy of Madeline Hoare

THE 'PROPER SPHERE' The early women scientists, engineers, and architects stand out in the history of women at the University of Toronto because their academic careers were pursued almost exclusively in the company of men. In most instances, particularly at the PH.D. level, they were the only women in classes of men, and female faculty role models were nonexistent. In terms of the number of women enrolled at the University, however, women in nontraditional fields represented a very small percentage of the total. The vast majority of women at the undergraduate level at the University from 1910 to 1940 were found in disciplines more traditionally associated with the female sex: teaching, nursing, household science, social services, and the humanities. And the ever-increasing female enrolment at the University in this period helped raise the standing of these disciplines in the community at large. Household Science In the late nineteenth century Lillian Massey Treble of the noted 50

Massey family began an 'experiment' in Toronto by offering elementary classes in household science on the 'American model' under which she had herself studied. The experiment was a success, and in 1900 she received endorsement from the provincial Department of Education. She took her proposal to Victoria College's President Burwash in 1902 and again received a very favourable response. Burwash persuaded the University of Toronto Senate to establish a degree programme - the Bachelor of Household Science - which would prepare students for the teaching of household science in the secondary schools. In 1906 Treble offered funding for the construction of a building for Household Science at the University. In 1907 the University created a Faculty of Household Science. Annie Laird, a graduate not of the University of Toronto but of an American college, was appointed the school's first Director, and Clara Cynthia Benson was hired to teach Food Chemistry. The two were made Associate Professors, the first women to hold this rank at the University. Further requirements for admission to the programme were soon added, and the degree was changed to Bachelor of Arts in Household Science. The cornerstone of the Household Science Building (at the junction of Bloor Street and Avenue Road) was laid in 1908. When the

The Lillian Massey Household Science Building, officially opened in 1913 to house the Faculty of Household Science. Courtesy of the University of Toronto Archives

5*

Students in the food laboratory of the Household Science Building. By 1950, a doctoral programme in Food Chemistry was available at the University. Courtesy of the University of Toronto Archives

Students learning how to do laundry at the Household Science Building. Courtesy of the University of Toronto Archives Annie Laird, in charge of the Faculty of Household Science from its inception in 1902 until 1936. In spite of the fact that Household Science had been designated a faculty, Laird was never given the title of Dean. Along with Clara Benson, Laird was the first woman to receive Associate (1906) and Full (1920) Professor status at the University of Toronto. Courtesy of the University of Toronto Archives

52

building formally opened in 1913, it contained a gymnasium, a pool, classrooms, laboratories, and offices. The programme provided training in Household Science for thousands of women over the next six decades. Its usefulness was reassessed in the 19603 and the University ultimately decided to phase it out as an independent division. Its functions and staff were redistributed to the Faculty of Medicine and the Faculty of Arts and Science, and the building was passed to Victoria University in accordance with Lillian Massey Treble's will. (It is at present rented to the Office of the Ombudsman for the Province of Ontario.) Nursing In the nineteenth century the training of nurses in Ontario was carried out in schools within certain hospitals; the emphasis was on practical skills, with little academic instruction in medicine. In 1905 the Graduate Nurses' Association of Ontario submitted a proposal to James Loudon, then President of the University of Toronto, for a nursing course to be established at the University. The proposal was not accepted. Need for such a course became increasingly evident after World War i, and in 1920 the Department of Public Health Nursing was established at the University and Kathleen Russell was appointed as its Director. It was primarily through Russell's efforts and her commitment to the advancement of the profession that the University established a School of Nursing with a diploma programme in 1932; funding was provided by the Ontario government and the Rockefeller Foundation. The School sought degree status from the University in 1942, and the degree of Bachelor of Science in Nursing was awarded for the first time in 1946. The School obtained Faculty status in 1972.

Soldiers and nurses on the U. of T. campus during World War i. Courtesy of the University of Toronto Archives 53

Katherine Bearman, B.A. (Victoria) 1908, was one of the first women to receive a Bachelor of Science in Household Science at the University. Courtesy of Joan McElroy Adamson Kathleen Russell helped to establish the Department of Public Health Nursing at the U. of T. in 1920 and the School of Nursing in 1932. She served as the Director of the School from 1933 to 1952. Courtesy of the University of Toronto Archives

Education Throughout the better part of the nineteenth century, a university education was not considered a necessary part of the training of elementary school teachers in Ontario. Until the mid-nineteenth century a considerable amount of elementary school teaching took place in people's homes, with both men and women providing the instruction. Elementary school teaching became more public by the i86os and increasing numbers of women joined the profession. (The term 'profession' has, however, to be used with caution, since teachers were still struggling to gain the kind of recognition associated with that word.) After the turn of the century a Royal Commission on the University of Toronto examined the question of teacher training as a part of the University curriculum. It recommended the creation of a Faculty of Education at the University, a recommendation which was implemented in 1907. From its inception the Faculty enrolled a high proportion of women students. The Institute of Child Study was linked with education but was not 54

part of the Faculty of Education until the 1960$. The postgraduate programme in Child Study had its beginnings in the St. George's School which operated as a research centre in the late 1920$. In 1939 the centre became the Institute of Child Study and offered a multidisciplinary research programme towards a diploma in Child Study. Physical and Occupational Therapy In 1926 the Department of University Extension offered an experimental two-year course in occupational therapy; in 1929 a two-year course in physical therapy was introduced. In a very short time the success of these courses was established and they were no longer seen as experimental. In 1951 the two programmes were combined as part of a three-year diploma in Physical and Occupational Therapy within the Faculty of Medicine. This in turn was replaced in 1971 by four-year programmes leading to a Bachelor of Science (Occupational Therapy) or a Bachelor of Science (Physical Therapy). The enrolment in both of these fields has been, from their beginnings in the 1920$, almost exclusively female. Physical Education In 1901 the first Physical and Health Education programme in Canada was developed at the University of Toronto - a two-year diploma programme - and equal numbers of men and women were enrolled. As a diploma programme, however, it did not attract a large number of students, and was allowed to lapse for a time until 1911 when Ivy Coventry was appointed the University's first Directress of Physical Education. She managed to revive the course formally in 1920 and it continued until 1940. In 1940 a degree programme was instituted, with distinct and separate men's and women's units. The programme offered a degree in Physical and Health Education, and provided teacher training in Athletics. Some classes were coeducational but many were single-sex until 1968. The first sixteen graduates of the School of Physical and Health Education at the 1943 convocation were all women. They had the distinction of being the first persons to receive a degree in physical education from any university in the British Commonwealth. By the 1950$ the situation with respect to facilities for women's physical education had reached a very low point. In the 1956-57 academic year, for example, women in the Department of Physical Education were provided a choice of twenty activities, and fourteen 55

different locations - within the area bordered by Bloor, Yonge, Gerrard, and Bathurst streets - in which to carry out these activities. Women in the degree programme often found themselves seeing many corners of the campus and beyond as they rushed to make classes or practices on time. (See 'Hart House and the Women's Building that Never Was/)

Students in the gymnasium of the Household Science Building. Courtesy of the University of Toronto Archives

Social Work Another field which has traditionally drawn a much higher proportion of women than men, social work was first introduced as a field of study in Canada at the University of Toronto in 1914, when a Department of Social Service was formed. This development arose from interest generated by two voluntary organizations in Toronto, the Social Science Study Club and the Social Workers' Club. Membership in both clubs was predominantly female. When the department was established in 1914 it offered a one-year diploma programme, but this was soon extended to two years. By 1941 the Department of Social Service had become the School of Social Work, offering degree programmes at the bachelor's and master's level. The doctoral programme in Social Work was introduced in the 1960$.

56

Library Science Under the aegis of the College of Education, the Library School at the University of Toronto had its beginnings in 1928. A course leading to librarian certification was introduced in that year, and Winifred Barnstead was appointed the School's first Director, with the rank of Associate Professor. The Bachelor of Library Science degree was introduced within a decade, and the first degrees were awarded in 1937 - to an almost exclusively female class. The first Master of Library Science degree was awarded in 1970, and in 1974 Claire England obtained the first PH.D. in Library Science conferred in Canada. The profession continues to be female-dominated. In summary, some women at the University of Toronto in the twentieth century, albeit a fairly small proportion, were breaking into academic fields which had previously been exclusively male. The vast majority of women, however, entered either fields of study which were predominantly service-oriented or the arts. From the University's perspective this represented progress, since a number of new disciplines were being introduced into the University curriculum and gaining professional status.

Coeds, 1928. Courtesy of the City of Toronto Archives, James Collection #2534

57

WOMEN AS FACULTY: LIMITED PROGRESS If the progress made by female students over the years has been slow, the progress made by women faculty at the University of Toronto has been doubly so. In the one hundred years of female presence at the University women faculty have advanced at a snail's pace. Stories about poor advancement opportunity for female academic staff in the earlier decades of this century are numerous. Often in spite of distinction in their fields individual women faculty members at the University never advanced beyond the level of Associate Professor: Cecilia Krieger in Mathematics remained in that position from 1928 to 1969 in spite of the fact that she had established herself internationally as an accomplished scholar. Jessie Macpherson, the first woman to be hired in the Philosophy Department through Victoria College in 1945, did not achieve full professor status until 1960. The record improved slightly for some at the end of World War n, particularly for those who had had the opportunity to fill temporarily the positions of those men who had gone to war, and thus to establish themselves as capable of doing the job. During the lean years of the late 19205 and early 19305 the hiring practices of the University involved discrimination against women as a direct result of provincial government policy. Upon the request of the Premier of Ontario, President Falconer submitted to the Board of Governors in October 1931 a list of married women employed by the University, indicating beside each name whether they could be replaced by other persons.39 In December 1931, the Board of Governors resolved that it was 'undesirable to employ married women in the University unless the Board are satisfied in individual cases that such persons require to earn money for the support of their families/40 There was considerable opposition to the policy from the Canadian Federation of University Women, the University Women's Club of Toronto, and the Alumni Associations of University, Victoria, and St. Hilda's Colleges and the Faculty of Medicine. One story recorded in an oral history is that of Mossie May Kirkwood, who recounted her experience as a married woman faculty member in the 19305. (Kirkwood was a PH.D. graduate from the University and held an appointment in English at both University and Trinity Colleges; she had been Don of Hutton House at University College as early as 1919 and was also Dean of Women at different times at University College and St. Hilda's College.) Kirkwood was told by University College Principal Malcolm Wallace in 1931 that the 58

Mossie May Kirkwood (nee Waddington), PH.D. from Trinity College, 1919, Dean of Women and Professor of English at both Trinity and University College. Courtesy of the University of Toronto Archives

provincial government was pressing for the exclusion of married women from the University staff. She was required to appear before President Falconer to account for the way in which her salary was spent. (Kirkwood was married to a University of Toronto professor.) 'I was shocked to be asked' she notes, 'whether I believed, other things being equal, that a married woman was as good as an unmarried one.'4I It is not known how much further this investigation was taken, though Kirkwood believed that Falconer discussed the matter with the Premier, but in any event she was never asked to resign from her position.42 During the same period and even after World War n, there was also discrimination against women at the departmental level. Certain department heads were noted for their determination to maintain an all-male staff, sometimes even in spite of pressure to hire women. A.S.P. Woodhouse, Head of the Department of English at University College for a number of years, refused to hire women as long as he was head of the department. Although there were women Professors in the English Departments at the other Colleges, the first women to be hired to the tenure-stream professoriate in English at University College were not appointed until 1965: they were Phyllis Grosskurth, Anne Lancashire, and Ellen Denoon. Benjamin Bensley, Head of the Department of Biology from 1912 to 1934, was known for his desire to keep his discipline a male domain. E. Home Craigie noted in a history 59

of the department that 'as late as 1930, [Bensley] expressed objection to women in the department and refused on that ground to provide support for a brilliant woman undergraduate who sought summer employment/43 Principal Walter T. Brown of Victoria College openly admitted his objections to having women on faculty in the 19405. Brown refused for years to give in on the question of granting tenure to Kathleen Coburn in the Department of English. Coburn, a Victoria graduate who was making her mark internationally as a distinguished Coleridge scholar, had established her credibility as a lecturer when she took over the position of a male colleague who had gone to war in the 19405. In spite of her obvious qualifications for the position, Brown virtually had to be intimidated by Coburn's supporters on staff into granting her tenure in 1945.44 While the economic buoyancy of the late 19505 and early 1960$ made it possible (and necessary) for the University to increase its faculty considerably, the ratio of male/female hirings did not improve noticeably; although far more women were being hired, large numbers of men were also being appointed, and the overall balance was therefore not much changed. And with a few exceptions - 1958 saw Marion Bassett become the first woman on staff in the Faculty of Engineering - women were still being hired mainly in the traditionally female fields. The early-to-mid-seventies saw a closer examination of the status of women faculty at the University. Due in part to public interest and pressure in this area, the Council of Ontario Universities (c.o.u.) and the Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada (A.U.C.C.) undertook examinations of the status of women at Ontario universities. The two most significant committees dealing with this issue to be set up at the University of Toronto were the Committee on Employment Conditions of Full-Time Women Faculty, which presented its brief to the c.o.u. in April 1974, and the Working Group to Review the Employment Conditions of Part-Time Faculty, which presented its brief to the A.U.C.C. in the spring of 1975. The report of the former committee - to which faculty members Jill Conway, Rebecca Colman, and Wendy Potter made significant contributions - confirmed what many women faculty had already known for years: women were clustered in the lower, nontenured ranks; a good proportion were employed part-time; women scarcely appeared at all in the senior academic administrative positions; except in the traditional women's fields, nowhere did women outnumber men or even approach equal numbers; and finally there was no correlation between the number of 60

women undergraduate students and the number of women faculty teaching them. Various recommendations were put forward by these two committees, and for a brief period concerted efforts were made to improve the situation for women faculty: fifty-two salary inequities were adjusted and an Equal Opportunity Office was established at the University. The latter position was abolished after a few years because of 'increasing financial difficulties/45 A report prepared in 1984 for the A.U.C.C. found the situation for female faculty at Canadian universities in general has not improved noticeably since 1972.46 This study looked at all universities across the country and noted that the latest Statistics Canada figures available indicate that the median salary for women in every academic rank is lower than that for men. Furthermore, of 43 Canadian universities surveyed in 1981-82, the gap between male and female salaries was the greatest at the University of Waterloo, the University of Western Ontario, and the University of Toronto.47 The authors conclude their hard-hitting report by saying, 'Until women are permitted to participate fully in the academic community, that community will be less than it could otherwise become. Nor will it be possible for Canadians to have a reasonably balanced knowledge and understanding of themselves or of the national and international societies within which they reside/48 The issue will not lie dormant. In the spring of 1984, the Ad Hoc Committee on the Status of Women at the University of Toronto, consisting of women from the faculty, the administrative staff, and the student body, was formed 'to address the problems of inequality which remain/49 In August 1984 President Strangway announced the appointment of Lois Reimer to the newly created position of Status of Women Officer at the University, reporting directly to the President. It seems telling that even after 100 years at the University, women are still having to fight to protect their right to equality. NONACADEMIC STAFF: THE WOMEN WHO KEEP THE WHEELS TURNING In most studies of institutions the history of support staff is rarely included. In the universities information on nonacademic staff is more difficult to trace than that which relates to professors and students, or even to the courses taught, or to the buildings which make up the university. The little information which is available tends to be anecdotal. 61

Like many other women in all fields of endeavour thousands of women in the history of the University of Toronto have devoted months, years, sometimes decades of their lives to the kind of work which generally receives the least recognition apart from an acknowledgement at the beginning of a book or report, or a gift upon retirement. The women in nonacademic positions at the University have worked as cleaning staff, dieticians, cooks, secretaries, assistants, library assistants, demonstrators, daycare staff, technicians, administrators, and deans and directors of administrative units. Historically, they have had the lowest incomes and the least job security of any people employed at the University. That situation has improved somewhat since 1970 with the formation of the University of Toronto Staff Association (U.T.S.A.), whose first president was a woman Gwen Russell, a technician from the Faculty of Medicine. About the same time in the 19705 that concern was raised about the status of women faculty, a task force to study the status of nonacademic women was also established. The task force grew out of a call to all female nonacademic staff asking them to forward 'any complaints arising out of discrimination affecting their conditions of employment/50 Not surprisingly, some discriminatory policies were discovered. The task force found that the classification system for nonacademic staff tended to perpetuate low salaries for women by grouping 'female' jobs at the bottom of the salary scale, and allowed little room for lateral or upward promotion. One of the task force's recommendations was that university-wide (as opposed to individual departmental) policies be developed to ensure that there be closer monitoring of possible discriminatory practices. As with the situation for faculty women at the University, some changes for the better were made, particularly with respect to job classifications and descriptions, but with the increasingly difficult situation created by underfunding in the 19705 and 19805, the University was compelled to plead 'lack of financial resources' for carrying out the more detailed recommendations of the report. For a brief period beginning in August 1975, a monthly newsletter entitled The University Woman was published by an editorial board of nonacademic female staff. Articles addressed the issues raised by the task force, career development, and other concerns shared by nonacademic women at the University. The publication was funded by an International Women's Year grant from the province and could not continue when that one-year grant ran out. It is simply not possible to compile a list of the women who have 62

made an outstanding contribution in nonacademic roles at the University, but there are certain women who can be singled out here as perhaps representative of those thousands whose service has gone unrecorded: Molly Delemere, Departmental Secretary in the Department of Biochemistry for forty-five years; Audrey Hozack, who began working at the University in 1947 as Secretary to the Students' Administrative Council and since 1971 has been Assistant Warden (Administration) at Hart House; Marie Parkes, who graduated from the University in 1916, was hired as Secretary to the Students' Administrative Council in 1920, and was a long-time member of the Women's Athletic Association; Marie Salter, who served for twentyone years, initially in the Faculty of Law, and from 1966 until her death in 1984 in the Senate and Governing Council offices; Moira Whalon, who served the University for twenty-one years, was the first Secretary to Massey College and is now College Secretary Emeritus. Katherine Page Riddell is a woman of distinction who merits particular attention in the discussion of nonacademic staff. For twenty years — 1951 to 1971 - she devoted herself to the cause of helping

Katherine Page Riddell, founder and Director of the International Students' Centre, shown here on the occasion of receiving an honorary LL.D. in 1973 at the University of Toronto. Courtesy of K.P. Riddell 63

foreign students at the University. In 1951, she established a group called Friendly Relations with Overseas Students, whose aim it was to welcome to Canada (specifically the University of Toronto) students from overseas and to encourage mutual appreciation between their countries of origin and Canada. After being housed in numerous locations on campus, the group acquired its present headquarters (the International Students' Centre on St. George Street) in 1965 - after Riddell, with the assistance of the Rotary Club, raised $200,000 for renovations. The building was officially opened as the International Students' Centre on i July 1965. In honour of her twenty years of work Riddell was awarded an honorary LL.D. in 1973 and the Order of Canada in 1974. She had graduated from Victoria College in 1929.

Katherine Page Riddell in the early days of the International Students' Centre

64

Extracurricular Life HART HOUSE AND THE WOMEN'S BUILDING THAT N E V E R WAS As early as 1916, women were talking of the need for a comprehensive building on the campus for women's athletic as well as cultural and social activities. Even earlier than this, in 1911, when discussion had begun regarding the construction of the building which was to become Hart House, a motion was passed that a petition be sent to each college reading: 'We, the undersigned, do hereby petition for a gymnasium in the Massey Memorial Hall [Hart House] for the use of women students at the University of Toronto.' This effort had, however, little effect. The eleventh day of November 1919 marked not only the celebration of Armistice Day but also the occasion of the opening of a building which has, for many, come to symbolize the University of Toronto - Hart House. With elaborate funding from the Massey Foundation, the building, named after Hart Massey, was intended to house the extracurricular activities of the men of the University. No expense was spared in the construction of two gymnasia, a dining hall, club rooms, reading rooms, a library, a chapel, a swimming pool, common rooms, guest rooms, and numerous offices for men's

The Library at Hart House, where women were not allowed until 1972. From postcard belonging to the author

65

Varsity Band, University of Toronto, 1946. At centre is Barbara Dyment (Kissick), first woman member of the band. Courtesy of Barbara Kissick

organizations on campus, as well as administrative offices for the Warden and his staff. From its beginnings Hart House was intended for men only. Upon admission to the University male students and staff immediately became members with access to all the facilities. Many argued that women's exclusion was not discriminatory, since some of the colleges had women's unions in them to provide for social activities, and the newly constructed Household Science Building contained a pool (generally called 'the bathtub' because of its minute size), as well as a small gymnasium. But as any woman who has used those facilities will attest, the conditions were far from comparable to the elegance and spaciousness of Hart House. Hart House also had the advantage of offering all its nonacademic facilities in one location on campus, and in a very central one at that. Edith Catherine Rayside, matron-in-chief of Canadian nurses overseas during World War I and recipient of the first honorary degree (a Master's in Household Science) awarded to a woman at the University of Toronto. The degree was awarded on the occasion of the opening of Hart House, 11 November 1919. Courtesy of David Rayside, University College

66

When Hart House opened in 1919 the Massey Foundation provided $125,000 to the University towards the construction of a women's building comparable to Hart House. The forty-year struggle on the part of women students and faculty to get that building is one of the saddest of the untold stories of women's history at the University of Toronto.

The pool in the Household Science Building:so small, it was referred to by some

Studentd as 'the bathtub' Courtesy of the univercity of Toronto Archives

Miss Beaton instructing in swimming at McGill Street YWCA, 1908. Women students from U. of T. used these facilities for many years along with the pool at the Lillian Massey Building, as no larger ones were available on campus. Courtesy of the City of Toronto Archives, James Collection

67

One of the first sets of sketch plans for the women's gynmasium, which was to have been built on the site of the present-day Massey College. Courtesy of the University of Toronto Archives 68

During the 19205 women students and faculty of the University organized an informal group to approach the President of the University about the need for a women's building and to try to determine what was to be done with the money given by the Masseys. In 1921 plans were drawn up for a gymnasium to be built at the corner of Hoskin Avenue and Devonshire Place, but the building was never realized. In 1928 a committee of women faculty was formed. On this committee sat two of the women who would play key roles in the ongoing fight for a women's building: Clara Cynthia Benson and Mossie May Kirkwood. Another key figure in the history of the fight was Marie Parkes, Secretary to the Students' Administrative Council (see 'Nonacademic Staff).

Architect's sketch for another plan for a women's building, 1936. For the twenty-year period when such sketches were being commissioned by the University (1920-1940), a women's building stayed very low on the list of buildings to be constructed on the campus. Courtesy of the University of Toronto Archives Flavelle House. Left by Lord Flavelle to the University to be used as a women's building, it was eventually taken over by the Faculty of Law. Premier Frost apparently feared the sight of ladies' bloomers in eyeshot of Queen's Park! Courtesy of the University of Toronto Archives

Marie Parkes, a 1916 graduate, campaigned for years for a women's building at the University. Active in women's athletics, she also served as Secretary to S.A.C. for a number of years. Courtesy of the University of Toronto Archives

In 1930 the ad hoc committee was officially recognized by the Board of Governors, and was renamed by President Falconer The Women's Building Committee of the University of Toronto/ More blueprints were drawn up for a gymnasium, but still nothing happened. In 1938 millionaire Joseph Flavelle left his large and luxurious home, Holwood, located on Queen's Park Crescent, to the University to be used as a club or meeting place for the women staff and students of the University. For reasons unknown, use of Flavelle House by women was postponed during World War n, and when scores of men flooded onto the campus after the war, overcrowding the residences, the University elected to use Flavelle House as a temporary men's residence for University College students. Despite the donor's intentions Flavelle House was never in fact used as a women's building, and the Faculty of Law has occupied the premises since 1961. One story even suggests that in the 19505 the President of the University, Sidney Smith, would not sanction the use of Flavelle for women's athletics because the provincial Premier of the time, Leslie Frost, did not want women's physical activities to be going on in such a prominent position close to Queen's Park! By the early 19505 the fund for the women's building had mounted to $290,000; sources included contributions made by alumnae and money earned by women students over the years through a variety of fund-raising activities. By this time the need for improved physical facilities for women at the University had become acute because of the marked increase in the number of women on campus. By 7°

Wymilwood, on Queen's Park Crescent, purchased by the University in 1951. It was to have been the site of the women's building, with a gymnasium addition planned for the rear of the building. The name was changed to Falconer Hall in the 19505 and it is currently occupied by the Faculty of Law. Courtesy of the University of Toronto Archives

the mid-1950s the women's division of the Department of Physical Education was in great need of one central location for women's athletic activities. In 1951, the University purchased the former Victoria College Women's Union, Wymilwood (the former home of the wealthy Wood family, located just north of Flavelle House), and announced that this was to be the women's building. Plans were drawn up for a gymnasium to be added to the back of Wymilwood, and the name was soon changed to Falconer Hall. As with Flavelle House, the gymnasium was never built and the building was never used as a women's building, although the offices of the Physical Education Department and the Women's Athletic Association were housed there until 1959. Falconer Hall, too, now forms part of the Faculty of Law. Plans for the original Hoskin and Devonshire site were reconsidered in the early 19503 but were soon abandoned. Concern among women students and staff was mounting as women continued to use inferior and overcrowded facilities at the Household Science Building and in the colleges. An ad hoc committee of women's graduate 7*

The Benson Building at Harbord and Huron Streets, opened in October 1959. This centre for women's athletic facilities was the result of a forty-year struggle for a women's building comparable to Hart House. Courtesy of the University of Toronto Archives

organizations on campus was set up and chaired by Pauline McGibbon in the mid-1950s. This group prepared a brief concerning the need for a women's building and presented it to President Smith. The group also lobbied the single female member of the University of Toronto Board of Governors, Irene Clarke. Smith reinstated the Women's Building Advisory Committee which had disbanded during the war: it was now chaired by Zerada Slack and consisted of a number of female faculty members. In 1959 all the various plans and schemes for female athletic facilities finally came to fruition. The Benson Building, named after Clara Benson, was officially opened at the corner of Harbord and Huron Streets on 30 October 1959. But what had been achieved was clearly a compromise and fell far short of the all-purpose building of which generations of women at the University had dreamed. The original plan back in the 1920$ and 1930$ had been for a women's facility comparable to Hart House. What the women of the University ended up with was a home for women's physical education and sports.

72

THE HART HOUSE SAGA C O N T I N U E S Although women now had their own athletic facilities on campus, many still felt that the ban on their admission to Hart House was unjust and discriminatory. Small but brave groups of women students defied the 'no women allowed' rule and entered the premises on different occasions, with the full knowledge that they would be thrown out. In 1966 future Olympic athlete Abby Hoffman (who was then a University of Toronto student) attempted on three separate occasions to use the athletic facilities at Hart House, only to be refused each time. Hart House contained the only large indoor track on the campus, the one facility Hoffman needed most. (After women were admitted to Hart House, a portion of the building was renovated to accommodate a women's locker room. Abby Hoffman was asked to cut the ribbon for the opening of this new section on 4 December 1979. A commemorative plaque of the day reads, 'On three separate occasions in 1966, Abby Hoffman attempted to use the athletic facilities of the House. As an all-male establishment, Hart House forcefully rejected her on each occasion. Only she who attempts the absurd will achieve the impossible/)

Item in 'The Varsity', 4 October 1971. Courtesy of 'The Varsity'

73

HART HOUSE DEBATE Wednesday, I Oth February, 1926 8 p.m. IN THE LECTURE ROOM QUESTION FOR DEBATE : " That this House is of the opinion that Woman has more than come into her own." Moved by MR. A. H. E. MOLSON, New College, Oxford ; President of the Oxford Union Society. Opposed by MR. A. T. VAN EVERY, University College, Toronto; Vice-Chairman of the Debating Committee of Hart House. MR. R. N. MAY, President of the Debating Society, University of Birmingham, will speak third. MR. P. REID. King's College, London; Vice-President of the Union Society of the University of London, will speak fourth. MR. W. L. SMITH, Trinity College, Toronto, will speak fifth. MR. T. P. McDONALD, President of the Celtic Society of the University of Edinburgh, will speak sixth. For the Ayes : Mr. H. M. Bissett. Trinity College Mr. J. F. R. Douglas. University College Hart House, J. B. BICKERSTETH. W.rdcn

For the Not* : Mr. J. P. Armstrong. Faculty of Medicine Mr. B. W. Doherty, University College

G. E. JACKSON.

CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEE

Announcement of Hart House debate, 1926, when the men of the University discussed whether or not 'Woman has more than come into her own/ There was not a woman in sight of the debates room. Courtesy of the University of Toronto Archives

In 1971 an Advisory Committee was set up to consider the future role of Hart House, and to decide upon the possible admission of women. The resulting report recommended that women be allowed to join the House, and a change of deed was sought from the Massey family. The change was approved and a vote was taken by the Board of Stewards in January 1972. In July of the same year women were admitted as full members to Hart House.51 Although admission to Hart House was considered a great success (albeit much overdue), many women on campus since 1972 have continued to feel the need for a women's centre to house activities and resources particular to women. Almost all other large universities in Canada have provided such facilities on campus. In early 1984 a Coalition for a Women's Centre at the University of Toronto formed to 74

encourage the University to provide space for a women's centre. A brief to that effect was submitted to the University administration in April. As this book goes to press the matter is still under discussion, but the University has not yet allocated space on campus for a women's centre. MAKING THEIR PRESENCE KNOWN: W O M E N I N T H E 1970s A N D 1980s One of the most significant changes in the last fifty years of the University's history took place in 1971 with the creation of the new University of Toronto Act. Although there were several versions of the University of Toronto Act after 1906, this replaced the existing, outdated University of Toronto Act. The most important change that the new Act introduced was the creation of Governing Council, a unicameral form of government which replaced the bicameral system consisting of a Senate and a Board of Governors. And for the first time in the history of the University, students played a key role in the creation of the new government. As early as 1966 University of Toronto students had begun making it clear that they believed they should be able to participate in all levels of University government. This was a major change of tone from the 'apathetic fifties/ and was fed by the enthusiastic student movement which was making its presence felt on most university campuses in North America and Europe in the 19605. By applying continued pressure students managed to be included in the representation on Governing Council when it was constituted in 1971. Professor Nancy Joy, Chairman, Department of Art as Applied to Medicine, 1984. Courtesy of Professor Nancy Joy

75

One of the issues which greatly concerned students, and particularly women students, at the end of the 19605 was the need for adequate daycare facilities. In 1970 several hundred students occupied the Senate chamber at Simcoe Hall in order to pressure the administration to subsidize the Campus Co-op Day Care Centre, a tenant of the University with facilities that were felt to be inadequate. President Claude Bissell responded to the students' demands and promised Campus Co-op $2,000 from the Varsity Fund. The University's own Margaret Fletcher Day Care Centre opened in 1974. Equally vocal and visible on the campus in the early 1970$ was the women's movement which had been gaining momentum in North America in the 19605. Perhaps the most outstanding accomplishment of women activists at the University during this time was the introduction of courses in the new field of Women's Studies. The first such course (an overview course) was offered through the Department of Interdisciplinary Studies in 1971. Interestingly, the impetus behind

Poster advertising a series of lectures on women's issues offered at the University in 1972, prior to the establishment of the Women's Studies Programme. Courtesy of Ceta Ramkhalawansingh Poster advertising the first course in Women's Studies, offered in 1971 through the Department of Interdisciplinary Studies and taught by members of the Women's Studies Teaching Collective. Courtesy of Ceta Ramkhalawansingh

76

the course is said to have come more from students than from faculty; two students who were particularly involved were Kay Armatage and Ceta Ramkhalawansingh, and they went on to co-teach the course in its early years. In that same year History Professors Jill Conway and Natalie Zemon Davis introduced a course entitled 'Topics in the History of Women from the Fifteenth to the Twentieth Century/ Over the past thirteen years, these early courses have blossomed into a multidisciplinary Women's Studies Programme housed in New College. As an academic discipline, Women's Studies encourages the study and appreciation of 'what, traditionally, many academic disciplines have tended to slight: the significance of the contributions women have made socially, intellectually and culturally to human history. '52 The University has undergone tremendous expansion during the last twenty-five years, creating three new colleges on the St. George campus (New, Innis, and Woodsworth) and two surburban campuses (Erindale and Scarborough). And for the first time in the University's history, the female student population (51 percent in 1984-85) outnumbers the male. The 19705 saw for the first time a woman as Chancellor of the University; Pauline Mills McGibbon served in this post from 1971-74, and Eva Macdonald filled the post from 1974 to 1977. In 1976 Marina Suzanne Paikin became Chair of Governing Council, a post she held until 1980. In the last two decades we have seen the appointment of our first female Vice-President (Jill Conway), our first female Principal (Joan Foley), our first female Vice-Provost (Lorna Marsden), and our first female University Professor (Ursula Franklin). We have seen the creation of a Women's Studies Programme and a Status of Women Officer. These have been important gains for women at the University of Toronto and they have been won in an environment that is much less hostile to women than that of the nineteenth century. Today we can take chances, comforted by the knowledge that others will support us. The Eliza Balmers of our early history did not have that reassurance. As we continue our struggle to improve the situation for women at the University, we would be wise not to lose sight of the work of the small group of brave women who first made their way through the doors of University College in 1884.

77

N

otes

1 James MacGrigor Allan, addressing the Anthropological Society of London, 1869, cited in Elaine and English Showalter, 'Victorian Women and Menstruation/ Suffer and Be Still: Women in the Victorian Age, ed Martha Vicinus (Indiana University Press, 1972). 2 Punch, 1884, quoted in Margaret Gillett, We Walked Very Warily: A History of Women at McGill (Montreal: Eden Press Women's Publications, 1981), 17. 3 Sir Daniel Wilson quoting Harvard President Eliot in a letter which Wilson wrote to Education Minister George Ross in 1884. 4 One source indicates that Ryerson 'refused to accept Principalship until women were dismissed from the student body'; Nancy Ramsay Thompson, 'The Controversy Over the Admission of Women to University College, University of Toronto' (Master's thesis, University of Toronto, 1974). 5 George Grant, 'Education and Coeducation,' The Canadian Monthly and National Review, 3 (November 1879): 509-18. 6 Ibid. 7 Henrietta Charles to Daniel Wilson and members of the University Council, 31 December 1881, quoted in John Squair, Admission of Women to the University of Toronto and University College (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1924), 6. 8 Nellie Spence, University of Toronto Monthly (February 1933): 146-49. Spence was a former classmate of Eliza Balmer's. 9 Ibid., 146. Jennie Stork Hill, in a letter to 'Mr. Fife' dated 25 November 1932, 78

10 11

12

13

14 15

16

17 18 19 20 21 22

23

refutes the theory that her friend Eliza Balmer tried to attend classes in the 1883-84 session. Clearly, observers of the time have conflicting impressions of what Eliza Balmer did or did not do. (Letter in author's files, provided by Esther Marjorie Hill.) Ibid., 147. The Varsity at the time of its inception in the i88os was not an undergraduate paper. Stevenson was a graduate of the University during his stint as editor. HughH. Langton, Sir Daniel Wilson: A Memoir (Toronto: Thomas Nelson and Sons, 1929), 111. Houston to Gibson, January 1884, from the letter books of William Houston, provided by his grandniece Eila Hopper Ross, Associate Professor of Art as Applied to Medicine, University of Toronto. Houston to Wilson, June 1884, Houston letter books. William Mulock to George Ross, 13 December 1895, Ontario Archives Education Department Records, RG 2, Series D-7Nellie Spence, 'Once There Were No Women at Varsity/ University of Toronto Monthly, (January 1933): 123. Bessie Scott, diary entry, 25 December 1889, University of Toronto Archives. Ibid. Janet Ray, Emily Stowe (Toronto: Fitzhenry and Whiteside, 1978), 46. Cited in Acta Victorianaf (April 1884). Acta Victoriana, (November 1903). Chancellor Burwash to Margaret Addison, 30 January 1911, cited in One Hundred Years: Women at Victoria (Toronto: Victoria College, 1984), 11. Elsie Gregory MacGill, My Mother,

24

25

26 27 28

29 30

the Judge (Toronto: Peter Martin Associates, 1981), 43. Kathleen McGovern, 'Outline of the History of Loretto/ (paper read before students and guests at the annual dinner in honour of Mary Ward, 22 January 1976), 3. Laurence K. Shook, Catholic PostSecondary Education in Englishspeaking Canada: A History (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1971), 157. Ibid., 157. Ibid., 159-60. William Perkins Bull, From Medicine Man to Medical Man, Perkins Bull Historical Series (Toronto: Perkins Bull Foundation, 1934), 211. Marion O. Robinson, Give My Heart: The Dr. Marion Hilliard Story (New York: Doubleday and Co., 1964), 82. Canada Law Journal 32 (i June 1896):

423 ' 31 Ibid., 784. 32 From an article in the Buffalo Express, September 1896, cited in Isabel Bassett, The Parlour Rebellion (Toronto: McLelland and Stewart, 1976), 156. 33 Ibid. 34 Much of the information for this section was culled from Alexandra Anderson, 'The First Woman Lawyer in Canada: Clara Brett Martin' Canadian Woman's Studies, 2, no.4 (1980): 9-11. 35 The Varsity 24 (1904-1905): 262, cited in Elspeth McCarroll, 'Co-education at the University of Toronto, 1884-1914: The Experience of Women' (unpublished paper), 14. 36 M. Jennifer Brown, A Disposition to Bear the Ills: Rejection of a Separate College by University of Toronto Women (Toronto: O.I.S.E. Publications, 1977), 13. 37 From editorial entitled The Proposed Women's College/ cited in Brown, A Disposition, 19. 38 E. Marjorie Hill, personal correspon-

dence with author, i June 1984. 39 Minutes of the Board of Governors, University of Toronto (1931), 74-77. 40 Ibid., 103. 41 M.M. Kirkwood, 'Notes by a Former Member of Staff, 1919-1936,' University of Toronto Oral History Project, University Archives. 42 Kirkwood is quoted as saying that her husband applied some pressure on the Chairman of the Board of Governors to dissuade him from taking the issue any further. 43 E. Home Craigie, A History of the Department of Zoology of the University of Toronto (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1965), 36. 44 From a conversation between the author and Kathleen Coburn, July 1983. 45 Robin Ross, The Short Road Down: A University Changes (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1984),

89.

46 T.H.B. Symons and J.E. Page, Some Questions of Balance: Human Resources, Higher Education and Canadian Studies (Ottawa: Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada, 1984), chap. 9. 47 Ibid., 197. 48 Ibid., 210. 49 Dorothy E. Smith, 'Women at U of T: Still a long way to go,' The University of Toronto Bulletin, (7 May 1984). 50 Preliminary Report of the Task Force to Study the Status of Non-Academic Women at the University of Toronto (March 1975), i. 51 Another Massey institution at the University of Toronto, Massey College, was founded in 1963, and was intended for male graduate students only. Years of protest finally resulted in Massey College admitting its first female Junior Fellow in 1974, despite some residual reluctance. 52 From the Women's Studies Programme brochure, 1984-85. 79

1877

c

hronology

- first matriculation of women into the University of Toronto, after the University Senate establishes local exams for women - Barbara Foote becomes the first woman admitted to first-year Arts classes at Victoria College in Cobourg

1880 - Nellie Greenwood enters the undergraduate programme in Sciences at Victoria College in Cobourg 1881 - University of Toronto scholarships are open to women but women are still not allowed to attend classes 1883 - eleven women apply to the College Council of University College; President Daniel Wilson refuses them admission - Augusta Stowe becomes the first woman in Canada to graduate in Medicine from a Canadian University (Victoria College Medical School) - the Ontario Medical College for Women (initially called the Toronto Women's Medical College) opens at 289 Sumach Street, through the efforts of Emily Stowe - Jessie McCallum becomes the first woman to receive the Bachelor of Pharmacy degree (B.Sc.Phm.) through the Ontario College of Pharmacy, later affiliated with the University of Toronto 1884 - 5 March - motion put forward in the provincial Legislature suggesting provisions should be made for the admission of women into University College; motion debated, declared carried - 6 October - after numerous delays, three women begin attending classes at University College; by the end of academic year, they are joined by six others - Nellie Greenwood becomes first woman to complete B.SC. degree at Victoria; she is first woman in Ontario and second in Canada to hold the degree 80

i885 - first graduating class to include women at the University, Spring convocation (May Bell Bald, Catherine Edith Brown, Margaret Nelson Brown, Ella Gardiner, Margaret Langley)

1886 - at Trinity, Helen Gregory the first woman admitted to classes - at Victoria, Isabella Willoughby becomes first woman to receive Bachelor of Arts degree 1888 - official opening of St. Hilda's College, residence for women at Trinity College, at 48 Euclid Avenue - 38 women undergraduates enrolled at Trinity 1889 - sixty-eight women enrolled at University College - Louise Lavelle Ryckman (University College) receives University's highest award, the Governor General's Award for Extremely High Standing in the Arts - Helen Gregory becomes first woman to receive degree (Bac. Mus.) at Trinity College 1892 - Victoria College moves to Toronto - fourteen women registered - first meeting of the Women's Literary Society of University College 1893 — C.L. Josephine Wells receives certification in Dentistry from Royal College of Dental Surgeons, becoming first woman dentist in Canada - Clara Brett Martin admitted to Law School, after an Act of Legislature in 1892 allows women admission to study and practise as solicitors 1897 - first edition of Sesame ("The Annual Publication of the Women Graduates and Undergraduates of University College") - Clara Brett Martin completes a Bachelor of Civil Law degree at Trinity College and is called to the Bar 1899 - Lady Minto lays cornerstone of new St. Hilda's College's building on the grounds of Trinity College 81

1902 - Mrs. Hart Massey lays the cornerstone of Annesley Hall, residence for women at Victoria 1903 - first PH.D. degrees awarded to women at the University: Clara Cynthia Benson (Chemistry) and Emma Sophia Baker (Philosophy) 1905 - opening of Queen's Hall as a residence for women at University College - Graduate Nurses' Association of Ontario submits request to President James Loudon for a nursing course to be established at the University; not accepted - formation of the Toronto University Women's Athletic League, consisting of women from University, St. Hilda's, and Victoria Colleges - women admitted into the Faculty of Medicine at the University 1906 - Ontario Medical College for Women closes its doors; clinic stays open and later becomes Women's College Hospital 1907 - creation of Faculty of Household Science under University Act of 1906 - Annie Laird and Clara Cynthia Benson are appointed the University's first women Associate Professors - creation of Faculty of Education 1908 - Senate Committee under Professor George Wrong set up to enquire into the feasibility of establishing college for women at the University of Toronto 1909 - Wrong Report suggests a separate college for women; rejected by student body 1910 - St. Michael's College becomes federated Arts college within the University of Toronto; Loretto and St. Joseph's make similar request but are rejected; both women's colleges affiliate with St. Michael's 82

1911 - through efforts of Women's Alumnae Association, Gertrude Lawlor and Charlotte Ross become first women elected to the University of Toronto Senate - Ivy Coventry becomes first Directress of Women's Physical Education at the University 1913 - formal opening of the Household Science Building at Bloor and Avenue Road 1914 - Agnes Murphy becomes first woman to graduate from St. Joseph's College after its affiliation with St. Michael's College 1918 - the Women's Athletic Association is recognized by the University with Clara Cynthia Benson appointed Chair by President Falconer - University College acquires the use of Argyll House (site of present-day ROM) as residence for University College women - Mary Coyne Rowell becomes first woman to be appointed to the Department of French at Victoria (as Lecturer) 1919 - Armistice Day - opening of Hart House; membership open to male staff and students only - University College acquires the use of Hutton House (site of present-day Sidney Smith Building) as residence for University College women 1920 - Department of Public Health Nursing is established at the University of Toronto with Kathleen Russell as Director - Women's Athletic League merges with the University of Toronto Women's Athletic Association; Professors Clara Benson and Mossie May Kirkwood appointed Faculty Advisors - Esther Marjorie Hill becomes first woman to obtain a Bachelor's degree in the Faculty of Applied Science, Department of Architecture (and first woman in Canada to hold this degree) - Margaret Addison appointed first Dean of Women at Victoria - Annie Laird and Clara Cynthia Benson become first two women to be granted title of Professor

83

1923

- Norma Henrietta Ford becomes first woman to receive PH.D. degree in Entomology at the University; receives first female faculty appointment in Department of Biology - Jessie Wright becomes first woman to receive PH.D. in Botany at the University - construction of Women's Union of University College on St. George Street

1924 - in first graduating class in Commerce and Finance, one woman graduates: Charlotte Alice McCubbin - Edith Taylor and Clara Winifred Fritz become first women to receive PH.D. degrees in Bacteriology at the University 1925 - Edna Eascot becomes first woman to receive PH.D. in Biochemistry at the University - the first PH.D. degree in Sociology awarded at the University is received by a woman: Helen Elizabeth Fisher - Caroline Macdonald becomes first woman to receive honorary doctorate at the University 1926 - introduction of two-year diploma course in Occupational Therapy through the Department of University Extension 1927 - Adelaide MacDonald becomes first woman hired in Department of Political Economy at the University - Elsie Gregory MacGill becomes first woman to graduate in Electrical Engineering at the University 1928 - Library School organized at the University; Winifred Barnstead appointed first Director 1929 diploma programme in physical therapy introduced within Department of University Extension

84

Debates Committee of Hart House invites a woman for the first time in its history (Agnes McPhail); topic: That in the opinion of this House, the emancipation of women has not lived up to its early promise

1930 Cecilia Krieger becomes first woman to receive PH. D. degree in Mathematics at the University, and the third person to receive the degree in Canada Women's Building Committee established by President Falconer; Marie Parkes hired as Secretary-Treasurer 1931 opening of Whitney Hall, residence for women of University College Mabel Jones becomes the first woman to graduate from Wycliffe College 1932 Beatrice Corrigan becomes the first woman to receive a PH.D. degree in Italian at the University establishment of the University of Toronto School of Nursing, with funding from the Ontario government and the Rockefeller Foundation 1935 Department of Astronomy graduates its first female student - Ruth J. Northcott - in the Master's programme 1937 Reba Ethel Hern becomes the first woman to receive a Diploma in Theology from Emmanuel College laying of cornerstone of St. Hilda's College on the St. George campus by Mabel Cartwright 1938 opening of St. Hilda's College by Mossie May Kirkwood 1939 Sir Joseph Flavelle leaves his home, 'Holwood', to the University to be used 'as a club or meeting place for women staff and students' - it was never used as such

85

1943 - School of Physical and Health Education graduates its first class of Bachelors' degrees — all 16 are women - death of Augusta Stowe Gullen in Toronto 1951 - University purchases Wymilwood from Victoria College announcing that it will be the women's building - it is never used as such 1952 - Loretto College and St. Joseph's College federate-with St. Michael's College in the University of Torontp; classes become coeducational for the first time in the history of St. Michael's - Lois DeGroot and Madeline Hoare become first women to graduate in Department of Mechanical Engineering at the University 1953 - first female faculty appointment made in Faculty of Dentistry: Dr. Marjorie Jackson 1954 - Kathleen Coburn appointed to position of full Professor in Department of English at Victoria, the first woman to reach this rank at Victoria 1956 - Isobel Stauffer becomes first woman to be hired in Faculty of Pharmacy at the University — first female faculty appointment made in Department of Applied Physics in Faculty of Applied Science and Engineering: Marion Bassett ^959 - opening of Margaret Addison Hall, residence for women at Victoria College - opening of the Benson Building

1965 - Rose Marie Rauter becomes first woman to receive a degree in Forestry at the University (B.Sc.F.) 1966 - Joan Marshman (nee Smith) becomes first woman to receive PH.D. in Pharmacy at the University 86

future Olympic athlete Abby Hoffman attempts to use the athletic facilities at Hart House and is thrown out Elizabeth Lynn Halgren becomes first woman to receive PH.D. degree in Astronomy at the University 1969 opening of Wilson Hall, residence for women at New College; Audrey Huntingford Taylor appointed first Dean of Women 1971 Pauline McGibbon becomes first woman to be elected Chancellor of the University first Women's Studies course offered at the University - FSW 200, through the Department of Interdisciplinary Studies 1972 School of Nursing at the University is designated the Faculty of Nursing Mary Barker becomes first woman to receive PH.D. degree in the Department of Geography at the University women are admitted into Hart House 1973 Jill Conway, Professor in the Department of History, becomes first woman at the University to be appointed to position of Vice-President (of Internal Affairs) Governing Council establishes a committee to study the status of nonacademic women at the University Provost's Committee established to review employment conditions of women faculty and to correct any anomalies in salary policies; 52 adjustments are made, ranging from $500 to $5,000 1975 Janette Adele Buckley becomes first woman to receive PH.D. degree from the Institute for Aerospace Studies within the Faculty of Applied Science and Engineering members of the Task Force on Nonacademic Women begin publication of The University Woman Ann Saddlemyer becomes first woman elected a Senior Fellow at Massey College »7

1976 - Marina Suzanne Paikin becomes first woman to sit as Chair of Governing Council - Governing Council approves an equal opportunity policy applying to all staff of the University *977 - opening of the Warren Stevens Athletic Building; Department of Athletics and Recreation becomes fully coeducational - Professor Joan Foley appointed Principal of Scarborough College, the first woman Principal of a constituent college of the University of Toronto

1978 - Gladys Jennings becomes the oldest woman ever to receive a Bachelor's degree at the University of Toronto (Woodsworth College) at the age of 82 years 1980 - death of Elsie Gregory MacGill 1981 - Professor Alexandra Johnston becomes first woman Principal of Victoria College, the first woman to become Principal of a college on the St. George Campus 1984 - University celebrates the centenary of the admission of women to University College - Caroline Dawson becomes first woman to graduate in the Doctor of Ministry Programme at the Toronto School of Theology — a Coalition for a Women's Centre at the University of Toronto is established - President Strangway establishes the position of Status of Women Officer at the University, appointing Lois Reimer to the position 1985 - Ursula Franklin becomes the first woman to receive the distinguished title of University Professor at the University - death of Mossie May Kirkwood - death of Esther Marjorie Hill

88