Blowing up the Skirt of History: Recovered and Reanimated Plays by Early Canadian Women Dramatists, 1876-1920 9780228004257

Citation preview

b l o w i n g u p t h e s ki rt

of Histor y

blow i ng u p t h e s k i rt

of Histor y

R ecovered and R eanimated Plays by Early C anadian Wom e n D ramatists, 18 76 – 19 2 0 edited by

ky M bi rd

Mc gi l l - qu e e n ’s u n i v e r s i t y p r e s s

Montreal & Kingston | London | Chicago

© McGill-Queen’s University Press 2020 isbn 978-0-2280-0331-1 (cloth) isbn 978-0-2280-0332-8 (paper) isbn 978-0-2280-0425-7 (ePDF) Legal deposit fourth quarter 2020 Bibliothèque nationale du Québec Printed in Canada on acid-free paper that is 100% ancient forest free (100% post-consumer recycled), processed chlorine free This book has been published with the help of a grant from the Canadian Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences, through the Awards to Scholarly Publications Program, using funds provided by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.

We acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts. Nous remercions le Conseil des arts du Canada de son soutien.

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication Title: Blowing up the skirt of history : recovered and reanimated plays by early Canadian women dramatists, 1876–1920 / Kym Bird. Names: Bird, Kym, 1956– author. Description: Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: Canadiana (print) 20200288059 | Canadiana (ebook) 20200288164 | isbn 9780228003328 | (softcover) | isbn 9780228003311 (hardcover) | isbn 9780228004257 (PDF) Subjects: LCsH: Women in literature. | LCsH: Women in the theater–Canada–History– 19th century. | LCsH: Women in the theater–Canada–History–20th century. | CsH: Canadian drama (English)–Women authors. | CsH: Canadian drama (English)–19th century. | CsH: Canadian drama (English)–20th century. Classification: LCC Ps8311 .b57 2020 | DDC C812/.40809287–DC23

F o r F r a n C e s J. L a t C H F o r D , my forever lover, butch and butter, my most ardent supporter, intellectual exhorter and companion on this sojourn through our scholarly and domestic lives; this is for you, with my most sincere apologies for all of the days you had to clean the house, walk the dogs, make the meals, languish alone, and listen to my interminable laments.

Contents

Figures | ix Acknowledgments | xiii Introduction | 3 ky m bir D 1 ) L aura S ecord: T he Heroine of 1812 by sa r a H a n n e Cu r zon Introduction | 55 Playtext | 62 2 ) A Mock Parliame nt CoL L eCt i v e Cr e at ion a Da P t e D

by

ky m bir D

Introduction | 125 Playtext | 134 3 ) Slumberland S hadows: A Chr i stma s D rama for Wee O nes by k at e si m P s on H ay e s Introduction | 156 Playtext | 165 4 ) T h e J o g g s v i l l e C o n v e n t i o n ( F o r A l l Wo m e n) by CL a r a rot H w eL L a n Der son Introduction | 179 Playtext | 188 5 ) T h e R e d C r o s s H e l p e r s: A P a t r i o t i c P l a y by sist e r m a ry agn es Introduction | 213 Playtext | 222

viii

Content s

6 ) T he Soldiers by L ou i s e C a rt e r-brou n Introduction by Laurel Green | 242 Playtext | 251 7 ) T h e Wo o i n g o f M i s s C a n a d a by e Di t H L e L e a n grov es Introduction | 262 Playtext | 270 8 ) My S oul-Mat e: A Mu sical Comedy by bL a nCH e ir bé br emn er Introduction | 286 Playtext | 297 9 ) Acadia: A Play in Five Acts by m a ry k i n L ey i ngr a H a m Introduction by Kym Bird and Tanja Harrison | 323 Playtext | 330 10 ) A D e m o n s t r a t i o n i n S c i e n t i f i c S a l e s m a n s h i p by m a Dge m aCbet H Introduction by Zaynab Ali, Kym Bird, and Melanie Williams | 348 Playtext | 361 Appendix A: Bibliography of Playwrights Included in This Edition | 367 Appendix B: Abbreviated List of Popular Amateur Theatre in the 1920s | 373 Bibliography | 375 Contributors | 393 Index | 395

Figures

I.1 Cover of Joggsville Convention. Reproduction by Jan Bird. Photo: Jan Bird. | 5 I.2 The Pavilion at Allan Gardens. Courtesy of Toronto Reference Library, Baldwin Room. | 9 I.3 Sarah Ann Curzon from Canadian Singers and Their Songs (1919). Reproduction by Jan Bird. | 10 I.4 Margaret Eaton School of Literature and Expression in Toronto. Courtesy of City of Toronto Archives, Fonds 1244, Item 2405. | 14 I.5 Newspaper headshot of Louise Carter-Broun. With permission from the

Billy Rose Theatre Division, the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts. | 14 I.6 Playbill for the 1914 Winnipeg Parliament starring Nellie McClung. Courtesy of Parks Canada. | 16 I.7 The Canadian Women’s Press Club. | 17

I.8 The MacKay United Church. Courtesy of McKay United Church, Ottawa. | 18 I.9 Lady Dufferin on stage. Courtesy of Rideau Hall and the Governor General and Library and Archives Canada. | 33 I.10 Lady Dufferin on stage. Courtesy of Rideau Hall and the Governor General and Library and Archives Canada. | 34 I.11 Lady and Lord Dufferin’s three oldest children dressed for performance in 1876. Courtesy of Library and Archives Canada. | 35 I.12 Lady Aberdeen about 1890. Courtesy of Library and Archives Canada. | 36

x

Figures

I.13 Headshot of Pauline Johnson. Courtesy of Library and Archives Canada. | 37 I.14 A drawing of Lady Aberdeen and the Governor General Aberdeen from

the commemorative Book of the Victorian Era Ball, 1897. Photo: Jan Bird. Reproduction by Jan Bird. | 38 I.15 Royal Alexandra Theatre – postcard – 1907. | 41 1.1 Sarah Ann Curzon a few years before her death in 1898. From Women,

Maiden, Wife and Mother, Canadian Council of Women and the Victorian Order of Nurses, 1898. | 56 1.2 From the original manuscript written in 1887. | 59 2.1a Dr Emily Stowe. Courtesy of Library and Archives Canada. | 126 2.1b Dr Augusta Stowe-Gullen. Courtesy of Victoria University Library, University of Toronto. | 126 2.2 The playbill of the Toronto Mock Parliament. Courtesy of Archives of Ontario. | 128 2.3 The playbill of the Toronto Mock Parliament. Courtesy of Archives of Ontario. | 128 2.4 Portrait of Nellie McClung, 1914. By permission of the Nellie McClung Foundation. | 130 3.1 Kate Simpson Hayes. Courtesy of Provincial Archives of Saskatchewan. | 157 3.2 The North-West Mounted Police Barracks in Regina. Photographer

unknown. By permission of the Provincial Archives of Saskatchewan. | 160 3.3 Playbill for Kate Simpson Hayes’s Domestic Disturbance, Regina 1892. By permission of the Provincial Archives of Saskatchewan. | 161 4.1 Clara Rothwell Anderson with her husband, the Reverend P.W. Anderson. Collection of the author. | 180 4.2 Production photo of An Old Time Ladies’ Aid Business Meeting at Mohawk Crossroads. Original held by author. | 181 4.3 A production photo of Anderson’s The Minister’s Bride. Photo John Hair, courtesy of Donald S. Hair, University of Western Ontario. | 183 4.4 A photo of the Melville Church Group in costume for the play Aunt Susan Tibbs of Pepper’s Corners. Courtesy of Markham Museum Collection. | 185 4.5 Photo of an unknown Anderson production. Courtesy of MacKay United Church. | 186

Figures

xi

5.1 Sister Mary Agnes’s birth family. Courtesy of her niece, Miriam Malone, snJm, D.Min. | 214 5.2 The theatre in St Mary’s Academy, Winnipeg. Courtesy of St Mary’s Academy, Winnipeg. | 216 5.3 The playbill for Mary Magdalen. Courtesy of St Mary’s Academy, Winnipeg. | 217 5.4 Probably a picture of Mary Magdalen’s star actor, Gladys Maber. Courtesy of St Mary’s Academy, Winnipeg. | 218 6.1 Headshot of Louise Carter-Broun. Courtesy of the University of Washington, Special Collections. | 243 6.2 Playbill of The Soldiers. Courtesy of the Toronto Public Library. | 244 6.3 Newspaper photo of Louise Carter-Broun. With permission from the Billy

Rose Theatre Division, the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts. | 247 7.1 Commemorative photograph of Edith Lelean Groves. With permission from the Toronto District School Board. | 263 7.2 Edith L. Groves School for Adolescent Girls. Courtesy of the Toronto District School Board. | 264

7.3 Cover, Wooing of Miss Canada. Courtesy of the Osborne Collection of Early Children’s Books, Toronto Public Library. | 267 8.1 Blanche Irbé Bremner, probably sometime after she moved to Vancouver. Private collection. | 287 8.2 Blanche Irbé Bremner graced the cover of the Seattle Mail and Herald,

29 April 1905. At the time she went by her first husband’s name, Mrs Perry C. Kofoed. | 288 9.1 Mary Kinley Ingraham, 1915. Courtesy of Vaughan Memorial Library, Acadia University, Wolfville, Nova Scotia. | 324 9.2 Mary Kinley Ingraham’s official faculty photograph. Courtesy of the Esther Clark Wright Archives, Acadia University. | 326 9.3 Title page of Acadia 1920 edition. Courtesy of Vaughan Memorial Library, Acadia University, Wolfville, Nova Scotia. | 328

xii

Figures

10.1 Madge Macbeth dressed for high society. Courtesy of Library and Archives Canada. | 349 10.2 Madge Macbeth playing mandolin. With permission of Library and Archives Canada. | 350

10.3 Freiman’s Department Store, Ottawa, 1939, decorated for the royal visit of King George VI and Queen Elizabeth II. Courtesy of the Ottawa Jewish Archives oJa 2-041. | 353 10.4 Madge Macbeth’s self-styled advertisements in the Ottawa Citizen, 20 September 1920. Courtesy of Library and Archives Canada. | 354

Acknowledgments

My first, my last, and most heartfelt thanks go to Dr Frances Latchford, chair of Gender, Sexuality and Women’s Studies at York University, who has travelled this road with me from its inception: her ears, her eyes, her loving arms, and her ardent support have been my mainstays. I would like to thank my family: trouble, all of them! My unendingly demanding mother, Thelma Florence Bird (née Curtis), who would have children with degrees; my dear, new father, Kenneth Jones, who has similar filial expectations: thank you both for not leaving me in the middle of this journey. My funny, precious, dependable sisters Mary-Ruth Wright and Janice Mae Bird who keep the earth under my feet and the sky above my head. My nephews Kitchener Curtis and Dante Julian Sanguedolce, for growing into bright, beautiful boys with talents and intelligence, and who love their Auntie as she needs to be loved! To Paul Halferty, who no longer just loves me, but is a careful, sagacious reader, editor, and listener – Drama Studies at University College Dublin must know how fortunate they are to have him as their head. To Dr Stephen Lowe who assisted me in editing this work and most especially for helping me see with new eyes women’s contribution to drama and theatre in terms of the public sphere theory: “my heart leapt up!” To David Levine, who patiently and carefully transcribed the plays from sometimes nearly illegible photocopies: I could not have done this without your enduring labour. I want to thank Dr Marlene Mendonca for her research into Blanche Irbé Bremner and Bremner’s extended family who she was able to interview. Thank-you to James Gobuty for adding his research into the musical that is at the heart of Bremner’s work; dramaturge Laurel Green who is undoubtedly the most conscientious, erudite, and prodigious graduate student I have ever had; Mel Williams and Zaynab Ali for finding Madge Macbeth’s play and for their thoughtful research and writing on her work during our graduate class in “Suffrage and Sexuality on the Stage” at York University in 2018. Tanya Harrison, your patience

xiv

Ack nowledg ment s

is biblical and your research and writing on Mary Kinley Ingraham is central to the introduction of her play. I would also like to acknowledge the large scholarly shoulders upon which I stand: those of Richard Plant, Alan Filewod, Denis Salter, Anton Wagner, Carol Budnick, and Chad Evans, who have changed the tenor of, respect for, and interest in Canadian theatre history, and the late Patrick B. O’Neill, who first gave me women’s plays upon which I worked. I am indebted to the important scholarship of Paula Sperdakos and Moira Day, whose academic lives have been dedicated to the recovery of Canadian women actresses and playwrights and who know the painstaking struggle involved in the recovery of this kind of work. The same can be said of my respect and admiration for the archival recovery of Heather McCallum and Ann Saddlemyer. I also owe a great debt of gratitude to the women historians who over the last two generations have created the field of Canadian women’s history including Veronica Strong-Boag, Mariana Valverde, Carol Bacchi, Naomi Black, Paula Bourne, Gail Cuthbert Brandt, Catherine Cleverdon, Louise Forsyth, Carole Gerson, Beth Light, Wendy Mitchinson, and Alison Prentice. I would like to thank George Ramsay Cook for the historical work that helped initiate the field of Canadian women’s history. I would also like to extend my great thanks to the institutions that facilitated this project: the Vancouver Public Library, the Seattle Public Library, St Mary’s Academy in Winnipeg, Vaughan Memorial Library, Acadia University in Wolfville, Nova Scotia, the Metro Reference Library in Toronto, the Saskatchewan Archives, Scott Library, York University in Toronto, Library and Archives Canada, the Ontario Archives, the New York Public Library (Billy Rose), and most especially York University’s Faculty of Liberal Arts and Professional Studies, who assisted in funding this work. Finally, my wholehearted appreciation goes to McGill-Queen’s for shepherding this project through to its conclusion and especially to its editor in chief, Jonathan Crago, for his kindness, practical support, and belief in this work over many years.

b l o w i n g u p t h e s ki rt

of Histor y

Introduction ky m bi r D

This be my lady’s hand. These be her very c’s, her u’s and her t’s. Shakespeare, Twelfth Night

mrs weakLy: Now, for the question drawer ... mrs stoate: Well, I was wondering if mothers of big children should bob their hair? mrs granite: No ... mrs gusH: If it is becoming and her husband don’t mind. mrs rose: Well, if it is thin and wispy and you’ve tried coal oil, mange cure, and bear’s grease, and it did no good, why just cut it, I say. mrs boker: Women never were meant to have short hair. Whoever read of short-haired heroines? The women who have lived in history and literature all had luxurious hair. It was their glory. Think of Cleopatra ... mrs biLker: At what age shall a woman marry? miss buskin: Old age. mrs gusH: Oh, early. Don’t you think so, Mrs Rose? mrs rose: Oh yes, dear, I’m not particular. Anytime will do ...

4

Ky m B i r d

miss JoDe: ... My ruling is that while a woman’s mind is developing, she should not be handicapped by matrimony ... mrs biLker: Should a woman propose? Personally, I consider it quite within her rights. mrs gusH: Oh, how confusing. Just think if he’d say no. miss buskin: I’d like to see the one who would say no to me, if I asked him ... mrs sweet: I’m not one for saying much, but I think if they want us, they will ask us. mrs Jones-Joggs: There should be some method of discovering a man’s financial state before accepting him. mrs sweet: Supposing he hadn’t any? Some haven’t, you know. miss JoDe: No sane man would find himself in such a position. mrs granite: There’s lots that aren’t sane then. (Laughs) My man wasn’t.

This dialogue, coming as it does near the end of Clara Rothwell Anderson’s Joggsville Convention, comedically treats the very kinds of questions that were on the minds of middle- and upper-class women at the beginning of the twentieth century.1 A change was in the air and this stichomythic banter interpolates the personal autonomy that women of the new century demanded. It playfully invokes persistent political and social concerns that had dogged women for decades and tries to move the goal posts, just a little. It is one moment among many in which theatre by women made public the acrimonious issues that all too often remained private, clandestine, and concealed. In Canada, plays by middle-class, British-identified women across the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries proliferated and propounded the ideas of the Canadian women’s movement as well as those of associated social movements, such as the social gospel, social purity, and Sunday Observance movements, in an endeavour to construct a public of politically vocal and socially powerful women. In ways related to the ensemble of characters that we see here digging into the “question drawer” in Anderson’s play, these dramas kick against the pricks: they interrogate, critique, and lampoon both male and female communities and the discourses that form and inform ideas of gender, sex, and sexuality. In the face of a widespread anti-theatrical prejudice, these plays, and others like them, are exemplars of the types of theatre that became increasingly appropriate to and supportive of middleand upper-class Anglo women’s culture. While still seduced by an abiding belief in the truth of separate spheres that mark out the hierarchies of men’s and women’s roles, they challenge conventional notions of the private and public in the service of women’s rights, including their right to citizenship, equality, and ideas of moral superiority. They endeavour to construct a counterpublic sphere that challenges central tenets of the culture. In the views they hold, the political work they do, and the conditions under which they do it, these plays and the women in them fumble toward emancipation; yet still they love the brutes that subjugate them and the

I nt roduct ion

5

I.1 Cover of Joggsville Convention with Clara Rothwell Anderson’s logo, the old woman in the rocking chair, which she used as a cover design and on her advertising flyers.

masculinist ideas that hold them captive. They fight but are not free from the patriarchal ties that bind and blind their authors to discourses and conventions that render women second class. As activist texts they are invested in the possibility of a new social landscape for women, but are sometimes unconscious and certainly uncritical of the connections they make between their activism, racial privilege, nation-building, and a fidelity to empire.

6

Ky m B i r d

This anthology recovers plays by Canadian women written between 1876 and 1920, dates that conventionally embrace the first wave of feminist activity in this country.2 It collects some of the earliest plays written by women in English, plays by some of the period’s most prolific playwrights, and those that had an impact in their time. While it does not and cannot include the length and breadth of women’s dramatic writing, it does attempt to offer its readers – the academic public that it addresses and creates – some sense of the period’s most instructive and/or influential plays, the work of some of its most productive women playwrights, and playwrights who represent, in some way or another, all regions of the country as it was constituted at the time. Blowing up the Skirt of History is intended to offend conventional renditions of the history of Canadian drama that breeze past women’s plays, distill the whole body of work into a phrase, and dismiss it, in slightly embarrassed tones, from academic scrutiny and dramatic history. It has a political agenda. As the first anthology of plays by women of the early period, it is meant to publicize and promulgate women’s theatrical/ dramatic activity. The introductions that preface each play provide a context for this work, including a rendition of the playwright’s biography – often we do not know nearly enough – her national and regional affiliations, professional and political alliances, and the relationship of her drama to social reform, women’s rights, feminism, religion, and the public sphere. The plays are penned by women who, while unquestionably marginalized as women in a heavily male-dominated society, were privileged enough to produce and bequeath a written legacy and to be schooled in conventional dramatic forms; they were from middle- and upper-class backgrounds and if not British themselves, identified with the dominant discourses that extolled the superiority of British culture within a Canadian context of colonization and imperial expansion. The plays collected here express the epoch-making discussions that mark an age in massive transition: between 1876 and 1920 the nation was ineluctably altered, as was women’s place within it. In ways distinct and various, all of these plays concern the creation of a late nineteenth-century public sphere as it was invoked and occupied by women, and the related discourses of privacy and separate spheres. They also draw upon liberal and domestic feminism in and through which women constructed what Michael Warner calls “counterpublic” political discourse, in opposition to pseudoscientific rationalizations of women’s social inequality.3 Similar to work contemporary to it in the United States and the United Kingdom, these plays are mostly amateur comedies created at a time when the majority of women’s plays – especially those with mainly female casts and roles – were not professionally staged. Their main goals were neither profit nor acclaim, but rather a material and political effect upon the social world in which they were produced.4 Many were specifically designed to intervene into the public sphere by staging the concerns with which first-wave women activists in Canada (and throughout much of the Western world) were engaged, including citizenship rights, suffrage, philanthropy, religion, moral reform, and the education of children: it is these issues that form the centrepieces of

I nt roduct ion

7

their texts. Simply because they were written by women about ideas that were part of the national and international feminist zeitgeist, they were audacious. These plays are important to Canadian theatre history because they fill in and fill out that history, and because they are evidence of the ways in which our foremothers contributed to women’s artistic output. They are important to the history of the country more generally because they introduce us to figures and events in the past that were catalysts for social, cultural, and political change and they all, in one way or another, assisted in effecting that history. They are plays that help to shape the present because they allow us to draw connections between Canada’s past and the ongoing contemporary struggle for a more expansive sense of political, social, representational, and economic justice for minoritized Canadians and Indigenous peoples.

C a non i z at ion a n D r eCov e ry Literary concerns related to feminist recovery, representation, and canonization in some respects may seem a debate of the past. But, as Veronica Strong-Boag and Carole Gerson point out in their literary restitution of Pauline Johnson, “no scholarly endeavour is ever truly finished.”5 This is certainly the case with the history and reclamation of early Canadian women’s theatrical and dramatic works. The ideas and issues this anthology addresses and the lacunae it attempts to fill are as pertinent in twenty-first century Canada as they were in 1979, when Anton Wagner edited Canada’s Lost Plays Volume Two: Women Pioneers; or in 1987, when Ann Saddlemyer asked if the critic and the historian “have the same responsibility to recognize the present comparative invisibility of women in the theatre and identify its sources.”6 The fact is, if you go to anthologies of Canadian drama that include texts written before the 1920s, you will, like Marion Beaton in Virginia Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own, be “looking about the shelves for books that are not there.”7 What is likely to be assumed based on this vacuum? That women either did not write dramatic/theatrical texts or that what they wrote is not worthy of investigation and study. The repository of early Canadian women writers across genres, including drama, collected in “Canada’s Early Women Writers” on Simon Fraser University Digitalized Collections is a game-changing storehouse of bibliographic and biographic information. It should be a point of departure for any student of Canadian women’s writing. Nevertheless, as Fidelis Morgan claims in her 1994 anthology The Years Between: Plays by Women on the London Stage: 1900–1950, plays by women in the first half of the twentieth century have fallen “outside the mainstream of the theatrical movement.”8 This ongoing and “widespread amnesia about women’s playwriting activity,” say Tracy C. Davis and Ellen Donkin, “amounts to acceptance of, and complicity with, the ideological forces that preferred to keep women in the background, that rightly or wrongly perpetuated the anti-theatrical prejudice, and that undervalued the drama  ... as a writing pursuit secondary to novels, poetry, expository prose, and even translation.”9 As George P. Landow has aptly adduced, “the lack of access to women’s

8

Ky m B i r d

texts effects the neophyte reader far more than the instructor, for few students have time to read beyond the reading list.”10 It is my hope, therefore, that the availability of these texts, their introductions, annotations, and elaborated contexts encourage further research and analysis into them – and into early Canadian women’s drama more generally – by students and scholars, who may be inspired to include some on courses of study, in this way restoring women’s work to an interpretation of Canadian theatre history that endeavours to be representative in terms of sex. The design of this anthology, however, is not intended to establish a countercanon of women’s writing to place alongside that of men’s writing, or to establish these works as representative beyond their genre, morphology, or the issues which they take up. How could it be otherwise when there are obvious, glaring absences, like those of Catherine Nina Merrit (1859–1926), Jean Newton McIlwraith (1858– 1938), Constance Lindsay Skinner (1877–1939), Louisa Alberta Griffin Brownlee (1859–1933), Clara Louise Burnham (1854–1927), Ann Cull, Ann Botham (Lee) MacDonnel, Hazel Sheppard Wagner, Amy Redpath Roddick (1868–1954), and Alice Maude Smith? 11 How could this anthology claim to be representative when the dramatic works emerging out of the multi-cultural, multi-racial make-up of the country – plays by Indigenous, French, African-Canadian, Chinese, Japanese, and Icelandic women, as examples, who undeniably have roots in Canada’s earliest settlements – are not represented within its pages? It does not pretend to have amassed the pivotal plays, the plays that transcend time, speak universally, or formulate the era into a phrase. It is not an authoritative collection of the most important women playwrights of the period – although many of those included here, as I have said, are indeed among the most prolific. It does not aim to assemble the greatest women writers when measures of greatness remain overdetermined by a hierarchy of values that privilege patriarchal law and identity and consistently marginalize women writers, the genres in which they write, and the ideas top-most in their minds and closest to their hearts. Additionally, to assert that these texts meet the masterful standard of their canonical male contemporaries such as Charles Mair (Tecumseh, 1886) and Wilfred Campbell (Mordred, Hildebrand, Daulac, Morning, 1908) or even of popular playwrights like Frederick Augustus Dixon (Fifine, the Fisher-Maid: or, The Magic Shrimps, 1877, Maiden Mona the Mermaid, 1877) or W.A. Tremayne (The Black Feather, 1916 published as The Man Who Went) is problematic for a number of reasons. Notwithstanding a series of canon-shaping exercises that include works by at least the first two of these playwrights, we would be hard-pressed in Canada to speak of a stable inventory of esteemed dramatists writing at the turn of the twentieth century, or to assume that the canonizing significance of this work is ideologically neutral, when it is most often venerated for its similarity to British and European models. Like American literature of the same period, these plays are prized for the extent to which they represent the nation. In a culture that was under threat of effeminacy, one of the most cherished features of plays by men in this period is that they enshrine in their work types of nationalism and patriotism that in kind and quality

I nt roduct ion

9

I.2 The Pavilion at Allan Gardens, Toronto, venue of the 1896 Mock Parliament.

are masculine and patriarchal against a backdrop of whiteness; they represent the country as an imperial, male-dominated frontier whose heroes are celebrated for their robust virility and machismo. By their very nature, such plays exclude, devalue, and dismiss women, their interests, and their artistic productions, expunging them almost by definition from fin-de-siècle discourses of Canadian nationalism.12 Yet, for better and worse, any number of the texts anthologized here meet the classic exemplar set by their male counterparts. They are written in every genre employed by male playwrights and include plays for associations, educational and school plays for children, patriotic pageants, occasion plays, closet dramas, and even some musicals. Being products of the same time and place, women’s plays negotiate the same English-Canadian nationalist myths and imperialist attitudes, and the same white, British-identified, middle and upper-class positions. The difference between these plays and those by men involves the ways in which they relate to the dialectic of public and private, advocate for their sex, feminize their dramatic worlds, and deploy genre. The Mock Parliaments, for example, in all their incarnations, are political parody of a kind we often see in nineteenth-century journals; but they are also agitprop that argues for women’s access to the franchise and the tools of government. Incorporated into suffrage campaigns, these plays were designed to mobilize resistance to legislative bodies that excluded women. Set during the War of 1812, Laura Secord: The Heroine of 1812 by Sarah Anne Curzon is a history play

10

Ky m B i r d

I.3 Sarah Ann Curzon in midlife.

written to call public attention to women’s participation in the grand narrative of a Canadian past that venerated the United Empire Loyalists. It represents war in the feminine, in which all combat, quarrel, and conflict is averted. The Soldiers and Acadia are similarly self-consciously feminist and also put their audiences in a position of political dissent from patriarchal culture; Laura Secord and The Soldiers make women war-time heroes, and through their heroes offer vantage points from which to critique the idea that only men take part in the activities of war. Slumberland Shadows and The Wooing of Miss Canada are children’s fantasies and The Red Cross Helpers is a melodrama; each uses conventions of these traditional dramatic genres in the service of narratives focussing upon how maternity and domesticity authorize women’s participation in the public world. My Soul Mate is a feminist romance that takes on ideas of the New Woman and her expanded freedom to be professional and sexual on her own terms and to challenge traditional gender roles that confined her to the private sphere. A Demonstration in Scientific Salesmanship is a commercial play that recognizes women’s new importance within the consumer economy, particularly within the new environment of the department store and the ways in which such venues empowered them. Joggsville is a type of meta-theatrical

I nt roduct ion

11

parody of women in the semi-professional world of associations. It lampoons women’s ability to organize, to educate, to be informed, to sustain political conviction, and to act independently. In one sense, this anthology offers little in the way of attending to other types of absences in the history of Canadian theatre, specifically those of race, ethnicity, and class, and could be faulted with reinscribing the very canonical exigencies of exclusion and segregation that it attempts to address. This project might be charged with a supplemental approach to canonization that places middle- and upper-class, white, British and British-identified Canadian women’s plays alongside their male peers in the annals of dramatic history. To address these very important issues, this anthology does not simply recover these plays; it annotates and introduces them. These apparatuses historicize and highlight the ways in which each playtext informs and is informed by the discourses of the public/private, of separate sphere ideology, the politics of race and the operation of whiteness, as well as issues related to class, sex, nation, imperialism, and colonization in Canada. At this juncture, there are no anthologies dedicated to the work of early Canadian women dramatists as a group. This anthology, as I have intimated, is an activist undertaking. It reflects my unabashedly partisan commitment to women, gender, and sexuality as categories of reclamation and analysis. It is intended to restore a body of women’s dramatic writing to a narrative of Canadian theatre history and to women’s history more generally.13 It is a point of departure, a place from which to begin to fill the void, and to start a conversation that one day – after much additional research and excavation into archives not entirely white and British-Canadian, perhaps oral as well as written – will embrace the dramas of Canadian women in different social, political, and ethnic locations, and be more inclusive of all women playwrights that lived in the country at the time.

Det e r m i n i ng begi n n i ngs a n D e n Di ngs Determining the beginning and ending of any period is often slightly arbitrary, and there is significant overlap as one epoch comes to a close and another commences. The first wave of feminist activity in Canada, according to some, did not conclude until 1929, with the victory of “The Famous Five” who contested the legal definition of “persons” and opened the doors of the senate to women. But the era associated with the women’s movement is usually considered to end in 1920, and it is in 1920 that the last play in the anthology is published. By the beginning of the second decade of the twentieth century, Canada had changed demographically, politically, economically, and socially; the fight for suffrage was all but over and white, urban, middle- and upper-class, British-identified women had made important social, political, and professional gains.14 It is also a period that witnessed large transformations in the theatrical landscape. As has been elaborated by many historians, Canada’s nineteenth-century professional theatre was dominated by big, New York–based touring circuits that brought

12

Ky m B i r d

American and British stars in melodrama, vaudeville, and grand spectaculars to urban centres large and small.15 As two of the country’s most prominent men of the theatrical arts, newspaper critics Hector Charlesworth (Toronto Mail and Empire) and Bernard Sandwell (Montreal Herald) lamented, Canadian professional stages were annexed by foreign capital.16 The business of theatre at this time is characterized by one of Canada’s most important theatre historians, Alan Filewod, as “the inevitable application of the expansionist economics of the age of monopoly capital to theatrical production.”17 According to Paula Sperdakos, whose prominent project of feminist recovery begins to flesh out the history of nineteenth and early twentieth-century Canadian actresses, these stages hosted many Canadian women who went to either Britain or the United States to “make it,” and returned to dazzle national audiences with touring companies that incorporated lucrative Canadian destinations into their schedules. The juggernaut of the foreign theatrical monopoly was utterly altered by the First World War. Shortly before and after, British touring companies continued to visit Canada, but touring costs were inflated, new taxes imposed, train schedules unreliable, and venues poorly equipped.18 The mood in the country did not favour foreign professionals and foreign stories, but a home-grown, nationally invested theatre with Canadian players and stories. The 1920s ushered in Canada’s contribution to theatrical modernism, inspired by European and American realisms and reactions to them. Galvanized by amateur and little theatre organizations from Victoria to Newfoundland, and eventually extinguished by the creation of the Dominion Drama Festival whose first organizational meeting took place at Rideau Hall in 1929, modern drama fired the imaginations and energy of a new generation of theatre artists, including women artists, and laid the foundation for a national theatre post–Second World War.19 By the beginning of the second decade of the twentieth century, the critics’ calls for a made-in-Canada theatre put on in small venues, committed to “method acting, interior dramaturgy, and psychological realism,” was helping to support and establish these new, theatrical forms.20 Realist work by women that characterizes the memorable, if not canonical, dramas of “little theatre” or la petite scène, as it was also known, signalled a conspicuous break in the style, tone, and thematics from much of women’s theatre between 1876 and 1920. This is not to say that all of the amateur theatre produced by women between the wars was realist or that none was realist prior to this period, as Louise Carter Broun’s 1915 work The Soldiers evidences. Many plays written after 1920 had roots in the preceding historical period, even if a significant number of these lacked the political ambition and aesthetic naiveté of the earlier works. Some plays by women throughout the 1920s are not realist, and in fact carry on styles of drama/ theatre used by playwrights who came before them. The anti-modernist theatrical forms of the earlier generation uncovered here – plays for associations, educational and school plays for children, patriotic pageants, occasion plays, closet dramas, and even some musicals – still occupied women playwrights, and would continue to do

I.4 (above) Margaret Eaton School of Literature and Expression in Toronto where the Women’s Dramatic Club at the University of Toronto put on some of their earliest productions.

I.5 (left) Newspaper photo of Louise Carter-Broun as a stage actress in her twenties.

14

Ky m B i r d

so well into the 1930s.21 But women’s theatre was nonetheless taking a new direction. At the Canadian forefront of women’s realist theatre and la petite scène was Hart House Theatre at the University of Toronto. Although there were hundreds of little theatres formed during this period, Hart House had the support of editor, scholar, and future governor general Vincent Massey, and assembled the material resources, including “an endowment, a building, [and] a budget,” capable of producing as well as publishing this innovative type of art theatre. It fostered women’s playwriting in a new and concerted way.22 Robin Whittaker’s historical work on women’s amateur theatre at the University of Toronto reminds us that two years before Vincent Massey installed Roy Mitchell as director of the cutting edge theatrical experiment at Hart House, the women of the University of Toronto formed the Victoria College Women’s Dramatic Club (1917).23 Yet, unlike their predecessors, the women who participated in art-movement theatres, especially Hart House, won competitions, gained public profiles, made profits, and had their work published in collections. One of the most talented women to have her work fostered by Hart House was Mazo de la Roche, who wrote two of its 1920s realist plays, Come True (perf. 1927) and The Return of the Emigrant (perf. 1928). Her play Low Life (1925), developed by Montreal’s Trinity Players, won first prize in competitions organized by the Imperial Order of Daughters of the Empire (ioDe) and the Montreal Branch of the Canadian Author’s Association.24 Her 1936 drama White Oaks was among the first Canadian plays to be performed on Broadway and in London’s West End.25 The scholarly contributions of Moira Day have also significantly enriched our knowledge of other important women playwrights who had their start in art theatre at Hart House, among them Elizabeth Sterling Haynes, who acted in two of Mitchell’s earliest productions before moving to Alberta to become director of the University of Alberta’s Dramatic Society in 1923, and her colleague: playwright, educator, and historian Elsie Park Gowan.26 Isabel Ecclestone MacKay (The Second Lie, perf. 1921) became a leading West Coast dramatist. Marian Osborn contributed her single play, Point of View (perf. 1923 and pub. 1926) and Pauline Bradley Perrigard produced All Hallows’ Eve and The King (pub. 1926).27 This anthology, conversely, ends where Canada’s art theatre begins. It documents the opening act in Canadian women’s dramatic history. Setting aside any plays by women written under the authorship of “anonymous,” the only woman who published dramas prior to the 1880s is Eliza Lanesford Cushing, and while Kimberley Radmacher makes a valiant case for reading Cushing’s poetic drama The Fatal Ring (1840) as a feminist play, there are four intervening decades with little to no women’s theatrical writing, feminist or otherwise, prior to Sarah Anne Curzon’s Laura Secord: The Heroine of 1812 in 1876.28 Beginning in the 1880s, theatre for women in Canada underwent significant changes: actresses enjoyed an expanding pool of major roles, women in urban centres attended the theatre in greater numbers, and there was a comparative explosion in the number of dramatic scripts women wrote.29 Measures were put in place that

I nt roduct ion

15

made it a more respectable kind of entertainment, which in turn cultivated an audience of upper- and middle-class women. The plays included here, as well as those titles mentioned en passant, are proof of the growing popularity of theatre among these women. Between 1876 and 1920, theatre by women in Canada became a form of communication through which women expressed their views and attempted to influence and form public opinion. The success of any individual piece depended upon some combination of who created it, how it was advertised, published, and distributed, who read it, how it constructed audiences as active agents in its production, where it was performed, and who performed in it. It was a media and a medium through which these women publicized and created publics for their grievances: they relied upon its capacity to awaken an interest in their political rights and social roles. In doing so, women’s plays helped to transform some women’s lives. Although female playwrights belonged largely to the Anglo-Canadian middle class and were not a subaltern group, they were in many ways still second-class citizens who were aware of their subordinate status vis-à-vis their male counterparts and their theatre helped to devise a place and a space for social critique, for talking back. Plays by women, despite their critiques of sex and gender, were designed, just like those by men, as “instrument[s] of cultural assimilation,” as Denis Salter has noted.30 In a predominantly British nation-state, even the oppositional voices of women playwrights were British in their cultural orientation, “with a predisposition towards European culture” and propagating “self-serving myths.”31 Nevertheless, if theatre theorist Christopher Balm is correct in his assertion that the professional theatre as a money-making institution conflicted with and even “compromised ... [its] ability to function as a place of public communication,” theatre by women, which was only infrequently designed for professional stages, did the opposite.32 It used theatre to speak to and to produce a counterpublic that identified with its critique of the exclusively male character of power. Theatre by women spoke to women of their relationships to politics, nation, rights, roles, and work.33 While women’s plays did not precipitate the kind of scandals and controversies that Balm indicates are “the most prominent point of articulation between performance and the public sphere,” they do represent a range of theatrical practices and genres, ideas, and motifs that supported and strengthened women’s counterpublic voices and endeavoured to intervene into and have an impact on feminist debates. As Elizabeth Sabiston remarks of the nineteenth-century British novel, these works were “instruments of social activism.”34 Few of the women playwrights whose work is collected here fraternized or formed intimate friendships with one another. They were, nevertheless, part of the warp and weft of feminist activity in the country over the turn of the twentieth century: they belonged to the organizations and the societies that animated the core of the movement and connections between them abound. Curzon knew the members of the Women’s Christian Temperance Union (wCtu) who, together with the Dominion Women’s Enfranchisement Association (Dwea, an organization she helped found),

16

Ky m B i r d

I.6 Playbill for the 1914 Winnipeg Parliament starring Nellie McClung.

put on the Toronto Mock Parliament in 1896; the wCtu supported virtually every other Parliament that was staged. In helping create the Canadian Women’s historical society, Curzon became friends with author and activist Mary Agnes Fitzgibbon, Susanna Moodie’s granddaughter and the grand-daughter of James Fitzgibbon, to whom Secord reports the American attack during the War of 1812. Nellie McClung travelled extensively and was acquainted with many women writers and journalists, including E. Cora Hind, Emily Murphy (writer, magistrate, and reformer), Helen MacGill (reformer and among Canada’s first women judges), Lillian Beynon Thomas, and her sister Francis Marion Beynon – all members of the Canadian Women’s Press Club of which Kate Simpson Hayes was a founder. Not coincidentally, the Beynon sisters, Hind, McClung, and Harriet Walker (Canada’s first female theatre critic) participated in the 1914 Mock Parliament. In the twenties, several of the playwrights became members of the Canadian Authors Association, including Clara Rothwell Anderson, Madge Macbeth, and Mary Kinley Ingraham. Anderson and Macbeth lived in the same town and there is a good chance they knew of each other: the manse in which Anderson lived bordered the southeast corner of Rideau Hall. Macbeth learned her craft as a journalist from doctor, writer, eugenicist, and government official Helen MacMurchy. MacMurchy was good friends with Edith

I nt roduct ion

17

I.7 The Canadian Women’s Press Club in Detroit in 1904. Kate Simpson Hayes is the third figure from the right.

Lelean Groves, whose career she also elevated. Kate Simpson Hayes wrote letters to Pauline Johnson, and Johnson put on performances for Lady Aberdeen who, in her capacity as wife of the governor general, mounted grand commemorative pageants and, as president of the National Council of Women of Canada (nCwC), met and interacted with most of the women mentioned here. Hayes has the dubious distinction of being invited to give a performance of her theatrical adaptation of Cinderella or The Little Glass Slipper (1891) before Lady Aberdeen and having that performance cancelled when members of the Regina Council of Women (of which Hayes was president) took exception to one of its songs. These same synergies and connections were not enjoyed by Sister Mary Agnes, whose orientation was inward, toward her religious order; Blanche Irbé Bremner, who settled in Vancouver at forty and was involved largely in the world of music; or Louise Carter Broun, who was an actor by trade and spent most of her working life in the United States.

t e a si ng ou t t H e bi na r i es According to political theorist Carole Pateman, “the dichotomy between the private and the public is central to almost two centuries of feminist writing and political struggle; it is, ultimately, what the feminist movement is about.”35 The idea that the modern world was structured by private and public spheres was first elaborated by

18

Ky m B i r d

I.8 The MacKay United Church and manse (at right) in Ottawa, Ontario. Performances of Anderson’s plays usually took place in the Sunday School Hall (at extreme left), behind the nave of the church, which sat five hundred people.

Jürgen Habermas in his 1962 publication The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere (1962). Situating its rise in the eighteenth century, Habermas articulates a vision of modern Europe in which a public sphere made up of a newly established, urban, middle-class of private citizens engaged in rational discourse in an array of newly formed cultural institutions, networks of communication, commerce, and state administration. Among these institutions, although not new, was theatre.36 But, as Habermas explains, with the development of this public, discursive sphere, “the status of private man combined the role of owner of commodities with that of head of the family, that of property owner with that of ‘human being’ per se.”37 Thus, another new public sphere “burst out of the confines of the household economy [and] the sphere of social reproduction became differentiated from the sphere of the conjugal family.”38 This further division of the public sphere into public and intimate furnished the foundation for an identification of “owner of commodities and the head of the family under the common title of the ‘private.’”39 This nineteenth-century reformation of the public/private or private/intimate mediated between the state and the family, creating, in effect, a new dichotomy

I nt roduct ion

19

of separate spheres that advanced the political power of bourgeois men and facilitated their participation in politics within a liberal democracy, while at the same time continuing to silence women’s voices. The rearticulation of the spheres barred women from equal participation in what became civil society and relegated them to the “intimate” space of home and family, in this way dramatically reducing their social, political, and economic power.40 By the nineteenth century, the dominance of the separate spheres paradigm had caused women’s participation in public affairs to diminish even further: the British Reform Act of 1832, for example, eliminated women’s long-standing, if sporadically used, right to vote. The formation of middle-class women into feminist movements is related to the many revolutions of the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, but it is also the direct result of women being increasingly confined to the intimate and excluded from the public sphere. To the extent that women’s dramatic texts were the products of social movements, they were also a result of an industrializing nation, a growing economy, and an expanding population. They were easily interpolated by ideas of separate spheres, and the expression of this ideology was, for the new and burgeoning middle class at the dawn of the twentieth century, “common-sense.”41 In the plays collected here, as in the society generally, the rigorous ideological opposition between men’s and women’s social roles was consolidated into a natural imperative: through custom and practice, separate spheres became indurate. It was middle-class women’s confinement within the spatialized and gendered private sphere, as well as the making public of relevant matters that had been considered private, that led to middle-class white women’s demands for education, access to the professions, and citizenship rights.42 After the mid-century, these women became increasing employed as teachers and nurses. By the 1880s, a significant number started to graduate from universities and professional schools and make their way into careers like journalism, law, commerce, and medicine.43 A massive number were stirred by philanthropy and the reform movement that endeavoured to address society’s new social problems related especially to immigration and urbanization. They were also inspired to organize by the women’s movements in the United States and England, which in both action and in speech began to transform the prevailing norms of public and private.44 As many as one in eight Canadian women joined Christian-inspired social reform associations, and it was through these organizations that they began to raise political awareness and enlarge their sense of a common identity that would, as Michael Warner says, “giv[e] public relevance to the most private matters.”45 The newly empowered women of these classes held views that were justified and emboldened by Christianity and by a Christian sense of responsibility “rooted in self-reliance, independence and self-fulfillment.”46 They formed the first age of self-supporting women in Canada. A significantly liberal-leaning portion of women who participated in this first flush of the counterpublic sphere desired a voice in politics and in the newspapers; they wanted the right to acquire an academic degree and acceptance into the professions.47 They also became the

20

Ky m B i r d

founding members of and the driving force behind a whole host of socially progressive, feminist, and women-centred organizations, including The Toronto Women’s Literary Club, the Dominion Women’s Enfranchisement Association, the Canadian Suffrage Association, the Manitoba Political Equality League, the Imperial Order of the Daughters of the Empire, the Women’s Christian Temperance Union, the National Council of Women of Canada, Local Councils of Women, the Federated Women’s Institutes, the Victorian Order of Nurses, various women’s missionary and church-associated Ladies Aid societies, the Young Women’s Christian Association, and the kindergarten movement. It was often a woman’s involvement in these and similar organizations, as we will see, that inspired the theatrical works in this volume. Separate spheres, as well as ideologies of the public and private, placed women, as historian Katie Pickles so succinctly puts it, in the “spaces of domesticity and citizenship.”48 These spheres related not only to gender and class, they also mapped themselves onto the all-important nineteenth-century discourses of science, Christianity, imperialism, and race.49 The view that the sexes were biologically determined as opposites underpinned most important scientific works on sex from Charles Darwin to Sigmund Freud. The foundation of a separate sphere world view – that is, the ethical/theological ground upon which all other discourses were premised – was Christianity: it situated educated, white, middle-class women as the moral centre of the culture, just as they were of the home, and this belief informed their work in the public sphere. It also gave this sector of privileged women personal authority and the permission to speak publicly and to organize politically, which they very often considered a Christian duty.50 As I have indicated, in the women’s club movement that began in the 1870s and burgeoned in the 1890s, the separate sphere ethics of Christianity, despite obvious contradictions and hypocrisy, were used to mobilize great numbers of women to take part in achieving important reforms in education, employment, enfranchisement, housing, and health. Nativist attitudes and an elaborate “rhetoric of the foreigner” were similarly justified by a belief in the Christian superiority of this class of women. Indigenous Canadians and immigrants were characterized by journalists and suffragists (who were often one and the same) as suspicious, politically corrupt, and illiterate, in opposition to the family-oriented, pious, and sober representation of themselves and those like them. Racialized immigrants, especially those of African and East Asian heritage, were considered unassimilable, as were Indigenous Canadians.51 Anne-Marie Kinahan corroborates this view, highlighting the fact that the largest women’s organization, the National Council of Women of Canada, dedicated itself to “women’s righteous maternity,” and often deployed “race-based arguments” to draw connections between maternity, public activism, religious and moral missions, and their support of British-Canadian nation-building and women’s enfranchisement.52 The discourses of public and private also operated differently in the lives of racialized women, as well as new immigrants from parts of Europe and the lower classes who took on jobs in factories, farms, and in domestic service. Domestic

I nt roduct ion

21

labour, which was the most common paid work among girls and women, as Marylin Barber’s research demonstrates, abandoned women to master-servant relationships in individual households in isolated communities.53 The first significantly sized organizations in which British-identified women were able to undertake positions of power, develop alliances, cultivate confidence in their abilities, and promulgate their own issues were Protestant-based reform organizations associated with the social gospel, social purity, and missionary societies. These were usually established in urban centres and frequently directed by men.54 These groups were closely affiliated with domestic feminism and committed to what they considered women’s “natural ability,” as Nellie McClung put it, “to serve and save the race.”55 They believed that the moral superiority of women was expressed in their ability to undertake occupations that rehabilitated the social fabric. The social gospellers called this “doing God’s work on earth,” and it was parlayed into missionary expeditions, charitable endeavours, philanthropy among the poor, teaching, nursing, and politics.56 The ethos of the social gospel infuses the plays of Clara Rothwell Anderson. In her satirical “character sketch entertainment” Joggsville Convention, anthologized here, as well as all of her other theatrical comedies, Christianity is the balm that heals an ailing culture, torn from its community and familial moorings by urbanization. On the other hand, social purity advocates were more scientific and nationalist in orientation, and made their project one of Christianizing the society through the regulation of sexuality.57 These politics emerge, for instance, in the frontier playwriting of Kate Simpson Hayes, where the morality at the centre of her children’s play Slumberland Shadows is expressed as controlling instinct and desire.58 As a nation, Canada has its roots in the expansionism of the British empire, which reached its height in 1922.59 The colonization of the country was based upon the transplantation of British culture into a Canadian context and was constituted through the appropriation of land and resources from the Indigenous peoples, the management of the French who had been conquered more than one hundred years earlier, and the suppression of all other non-British European migrant cultures.60 The kind of multicultural rhetoric that epitomizes today’s Canada was certainly not popular at this time; the ruling powers within the country were very comfortable with what they viewed as the natural superiority of the British and the positions of power it conferred upon them. According to its most strident contemporary media proponent, The Anglo Saxon, imperialism conceived of the empire as “the vehicle and embodiment of a progressive civilization which was designed by Providence to spread its culture, religion, and political institutions across the face of the earth.”61 An ideology of imperialism, therefore, formed the culture of which the playwrights collected here were a part. In reading and recovering these playwrights one must take into account how imperialism engendered in audiences a politics of British supremacy and racism. Even as these same playwrights challenged the sexism of white women’s second-class status and prevailing views of gender (as they pertained

22

Ky m B i r d

to the public expression of white, British-identified women’s voices), they did not extend this same sense of emancipation to racialized characters, whose inferiority they believed to be biologically determined. For this reason, Forestell and Moynagh call the context in which Canadian feminism originated “imperialism.”62 These discourses, infused and inflected with Christian rhetoric, were used to authorize a public and political role for women, and form the moral and ethical positionality of some of the plays here. Female imperialism in Canada was robustly represented in the ioDe, which “declar[ed] itself to be the empire’s ‘premier’ women’s patriotic organization.”63 As Pickles elucidates, the ioDe subscribed to “the cult of domesticity.”64 Even if the organization’s educational, health, and welfare work made uncomfortable bedfellows with the almost entirely male sphere of “politics, nation and empire,” women used the ioDe to become “empire builders, nation builders and colonizers” themselves.65 In the pioneering days of the nineteenth century, imperialism was advanced by “gentlewomen teachers” who “actively promoted and embraced the gendered constructions of “true womanhood” that many in the colony considered essential for civilized society.”66 Thus, Edith Lelean Groves’s The Wooing of Miss Canada allegorizes the imperial family, and particularly the young, beautiful, and wealthy daughter of the family, Miss Canada, in a narrative that instils and domesticates a love of God, Queen, and country in the empire’s smallest subjects. The play’s epilogue paraphrases the most famous public declaration of one of Canada’s most famous prime ministers, Sir Wilfrid Laurier, when it announces that “the twentieth century belongs to Canada,” and its final, cautionary watchword: “Canada for Canadians.” Its core qualification, that “we must be ever on the alert to guard well [Canada’s] interests, to watch the immigration and see that undesirables do not enter,” unabashedly reinforces the nationalism of the age. These tendencies are apparent a generation earlier in Curzon’s Laura Secord, which embodies a politics of imperial unity in Loyalist women’s contribution to settlement and war. Discourses of race operated in ways comparable to and in concert with those of British imperialism, and were often central to the feminist politics of the day. The Canadian population during the period was predominantly British – 55 per cent – “to which all of the various immigrant communities from the British Isles including the Scots, the Welsh, and the Irish, contributed.”67 Together with the Americans, this group comprised the privileged demographic and political majority in the country. It was their views that kept “firmly in place intersecting hierarchies of white settler dominion and colony, West and East, white women and ‘other’ that held sway over Indigenous, racialized, and non-European populations.”68 It was comparing themselves to the “other,” regardless of who that other was, that allowed them to forge their own identity. According to Raka Shome, “whiteness is not just about bodies and skin color, but rather more about the discursive practices that, because of colonialism and neocolonialism, privilege and sustain the global dominance of white imperial subjects and Eurocentric world views.”69 Historically, whiteness was considered by

I nt roduct ion

23

the majority to “ultimately determine the authentic Canadian.”70 Many held that the Anglo-Saxon races were facing degradation through miscegenation, which was linked to mental disability and sexual aberration;71 that they were facing “race suicide.”72 These biologically based eugenicist views were shared by first-wave feminists, whose early defence of their right to post-secondary education, professional work, and public philanthropy was performed in the name of caring for Anglo-Canadian children. Race-based arguments drew connections between nation-building, an Anglo-Canadian identity grounded in a fidelity to empire, and the Christian notion of “women’s maternal activism.”73 These arguments were premised upon the exclusion of other ethnicities or racialized subjects.74 Racial discourses, as Strong-Boag and Gerson argue, were also shaped by sexual relations.75 Women activists for suffrage insisted that the morality of Christian women was more supportive of the government and more patriotic than that of male foreigners, who were allowed to vote but were nevertheless in danger of being seditious, malicious, uncouth, and uncivilized. Race-based rhetoric framed Prime Minister Robert Borden’s August 1917 Military Voters Act that enfranchised female British subjects twenty-one years and older who participated in the war, and the Wartime Elections Act of September of that same year, which extended the vote to British subjects who were the mothers, wives, and sisters of soldiers.76 The same legislation disenfranchised “enemy aliens” (unless in the forces), most Indigenous peoples, and racial minorities, which, for various reasons, swayed the vote dramatically in Borden’s favour. Even where racial prejudice is not overt, white supremacy usually governs the point of view of the plays collected here, especially as they lack racial and ethnic diversity: their casts of characters, who are predominantly women, are also virtually all white and European in origin; all of the events that form their dramatic action take place against a background of whiteness; all of the plays privilege moments, proverbs, and grand, universalizing claims that are articulated in and through constructions of whiteness. This BritishCanadian view of the world is also evident in the dramatic forms upon which these women playwrights draw, the books available to them, and their own school curricula in which literary influences were almost entirely British in origin. Britishness and imperial ideology were not the only discourses that helped determine white women’s lives and their work within the public and private spheres. In fact, the public private dichotomy itself, while powerful, is a complex formation that often functioned in ways that were contradictory. Despite its centrality as a way of organizing the social world and restricting women’s movements within it, the separate spheres dichotomy and the binary that forms the range of ideological oppositions embraced by it regularly collapsed, frequently to the advantage of privileged women’s rights, social mobility, and social influence.77 In 1879, one writer for the Canadian Monthly and National Review expressed the contradiction between the private and the public in this way: “delicate nerves are often not a little disturbed, and conservative prejudices shocked by what seem unwomanly words and ways on the one hand; and, on the other, the sense of justice is outraged by the denial of natural equality, and a

24

Ky m B i r d

deep indignation excited by stinging sarcasm and pitiless ridicule.”78 On the topic of public/private dichotomies more broadly, Michael Warner contends that such oppositions collapse because “most things are private in one sense and public in another and that their relation to one another is never ‘static.’”79 In the 1890s, as the Women’s Christian Temperance Union, the ywCa, the Girl’s Friendly Society, and rural women’s institutes became firmly established, so too did the contradiction between the society’s belief in maternalism and the strong public and professional positions that women adopted in the culture and in their playwriting, as I will discuss below. The lives of the playwrights whose work is collected here are examples of new, urban, educated women. While only a small sample of the women writing at the time, even of those who wrote theatre, these plays reveal how, more than ever before, women favoured personal autonomy. Almost all of these women enjoyed an education beyond high school; some were married with children but others were single by choice. Then there were those who had families but preferred not to live encumbered by them. All of these writers came in contact with the discourses of separate spheres, equality feminism, and maternal feminism. Some of the writers were equal rights feminists and believed in human rights within a Christian framework.80 Others expressed maternal feminist views which, in the final analysis, had a greater influence on the women, the politics, and the plays of the period. A belief in women’s essentially maternal nature was the bedrock of many of the public activities in which these playwrights participated, and they used it to justify women’s involvement in everything from higher education and the professions, to better pay, the regulation of the workplace, the regulation of food, Sunday Observance, and the abolition of alcohol.81 Perhaps most significantly, the highly influential National Council of Women of Canada, an umbrella organization founded in 1893 for a whole host of Christian-inspired women’s groups from across the country, relied largely on arguments of maternity and superior Christian morality to endorse suffrage.82 Binary oppositions govern a set of relations that prevailed in the lives of Canadian women; such binary oppositions are an important modality through which women either have made or have been forced to make sense of the world. But, as Eleanor Gordon and Gwyneth Nair caution, these terms “close off ways of thinking and lead to ‘the reduction of genders and sexualities to two counter-posed possibilities.’ The multiple meanings assigned to these terms and the multiple ways of thinking and conceiving of social relations and personal identities make it likely that gender roles were more complex and numerous than suggested by the associated dichotomies of ‘public’/’private’ and ‘man’/‘woman.’”83 In this light, it is important to understand with greater complexity the discourses that cut across and supplement the private/ public binary, because they also aid in a more nuanced understanding of women’s agency at the time these plays were written. We see an instance of this collapse in The Mock Parliament, when Dr Amelia Yeomans asserts that with “a recognized right to a vote on all public affairs, woman could follow her children all through life with a helpful, strong, and authoritative influence.” It is also voiced in Curzon’s short,

I nt roduct ion

25

satirical closet drama The Sweet Girl Graduate when its main character, Kate Bloggs, endeavours to convince her mother that a post-secondary education is a suitable enterprise for a young woman because “the better educated” she is, “the better she can fulfil her home duties, especially in the care and management of the health of her family, and the proper training of her sons and daughters as good citizens.”84 An equivalent collapse of separate sphere subordination and professional legitimacy was operative in the secular professions. According to historian Kathryn McPherson, nursing promoted a division of labour and authority, not unlike conventional heterosexual marriage, where women always took on “subordinate positions relative to male doctors.”85 Yet, it also promoted a “feminine respectability [that] ... ensure[d] elevated status for modern medical and institutional health services” that caused nurses to understand “their position as a skilled élite and celebrated their particular definition of femininity as a way both to gain social legitimacy and to distinguish themselves from other women.”86 Blanche Irbé Bremner’s 1916 play The Nurse, for example, constructs its eponymously named character as a woman who embodies the same strength and commitment required to participate in the war as her male counterparts. She declares herself a “comrade” but is nominated “the Nurse,” and asks that people overlook her sex and gender and instead trust in her abilities. The same could be said of women teachers whose status as professionals was thought by many to be based on a natural maternity that was defined by their private sphere “capabilities” and a gendered model of citizenship that promised security through the performance of educational democracy.87 These conflicts between private and public, domestic and professional, galvanize the humour and the morality in the plays of Clara Rothwell Anderson. The teacher at the centre of her Young Country Schoolma’am is a mothering pedagogue, who not only instructs her class in academic subjects, but is a catalyst for the personal, social, and religious transformation of family and community with whom she boards. In her “Ladies Club” play Joggsville Convention, women’s organizational abilities are critiqued from the perspective of the moderate, maternal Protestant reformer who occupies a middle ground between women’s rights and women’s domestic oppression. The same can be said of her 1912 play, An Old Time Ladies’ Aid Business Meeting at Mohawk Crossroads. As the professional career of Edith Lelean Groves evidences, pedagogy at the turn of the century constructed women teachers and female educational politicians – schoolboard trustees – as mothers. Through their natural affection, empathy, and virtue, teachers facilitated the child’s intellectual and moral development. The argument made against women voting by “Miss McArthur” in the Mock Parliament, a collectively created play, functions in a consistently contradictory fashion: she speaks of the “deteriorating influence politics would have on the finer sensibilities of women,” but her contention is countered by her own public involvement in preventing women’s suffrage. Women’s activism often cut two ways: it expanded their purview to validate and rationalize their public role, but it also sustained their private sphere domain of the intimate and the domestic.88

26

Ky m B i r d

The plays also invoke discourses of war that cut across the private/public binary, and in doing so establish a counterpublic discourse. Wending their way throughout them, contrary to the mythology of separate spheres, are women who figure as active participants in many arenas. As I have mentioned, the declared purpose of Laura Secord is to write women as heroes of the War of 1812, but the play also incorporates into its narrative a much larger context for women and war going back to Jeanne d’Arc, and coming forward through aristocratic and pioneering women in North America who were civilians, nurses, and soldiers: women who felt compelled to action, who reconnoitred, and who followed their men onto the battlefield. In Acadia, women are Christian warriors whose duty and responsibility it is to care for the country. The Red Cross Helpers commemorates the part that an army of female volunteers contributed to the First World War at home. The Wooing of Miss Canada was part of an educational strategy to justify the war to little children. The Soldiers gives a whole new meaning to the term “home front,” where war walks into the house and women and children become combatants. In many of these plays, women are agents in war, and their interests and needs are bound up in these wars just as much as those of men. They behave in ways that are active and passive, feminine and masculine, maternal and paternal. From each position they make interventions into this quintessentially male enterprise and construct it as the province of women. In the wake of eighteenth-century liberal thought, the “private realm” became the “authentic public sphere” formed by private people. One of the consequences of this, as Warner reminds us, was that “private persons, no longer defined by privation of powerlessness, had become the proper site of humanity: they possessed publicly relevant rights by virtue of being ... private person[s].”89 The public/private binary that precipitated women’s exclusion from the public sphere, according to Leonore Davidoff and Catherine Hall, caused British women to “demand ... entry to education, the professions and citizenship rights.”90 The same can be said of Canadian women. In the forty-year epoch spanned by this anthology, the apparent rigidity of the binary energized a sizable number of middle- and upper-class, white, British and British-identified women to make their voices heard, demand opportunities and rights, and make their first moves into the public, political, and professional life of the nation. Some were inspired to use their literary talents in service to this same set of rights and privileges. These women formed the voice of a counterpublic, and in so doing made the first significant contribution to the drama of this country.

t H e a t r i C a L w o m e n , P u b L i C i t y, a n D C L a s s Christopher Balm nominates theatre as the most public art form in Euro-American cultures, and historically it is the very publicity of theatre that made it dangerous for women.91 Since its early beginnings in ancient Greece, the theatre and its practitioners have been haunted by an “anti-theatrical prejudice.”92 Martin Puchner contends that the theatre’s negative reputation was at least partly premised upon “the

I nt roduct ion

27

immorality of public display, of arousing the audience, and ... of those who practice the art of pubic deception.”93 In the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, attitudes toward women’s participation in the theatre were highly contradictory and many of these contradictions turned on constructions of gender, class, and genre as they related to publicity. The theatre’s questionable character meant that for middle-class women, simply being part of an audience had the potential to jeopardize one’s reputation as decent and virtuous. For this reason, theatre owners, designers, and managers employed a whole series of efforts, some quite successful, to render it a more respectful forum for middle-class women. The result was that their participation in theatre increased appreciably. The anti-theatrical prejudice had long been perpetrated by churches across Canada, who took aim at women participants based on principles of gender, while at the same time recognizing the theatre’s value to their coffers, their callings, and their capital projects. These prejudicial attitudes seemed not to apply to lower-class or Indigenous women, who populated the wine rooms, music halls, and variety theatres of pioneering towns out west, and made an itinerant, subsistence living entertaining men while plying them with liquor. Neither did they often deter the British-identified middle and upper classes, who understood their literary heritage as having its roots in British and European drama, and for whom drama was a point of national pride. For such women, sitting-room theatricals became an acceptable pastime; professional productions were often considered a form of high art, and amateur theatre was increasingly used as a political and cultural tool. It is for this reason that Ann Saddlemyer claims that “the profile of women in Canadian theatre was probably higher in the nineteenth century than it has been ever since.”94 Nevertheless, the discourse of separate spheres still represented women in public as monstrous. Even as women joined in public speaking and public performance, doing so remained a violation of conventional, feminine behaviour. As Warner stresses, at the close of the nineteenth century the idea of women’s proper sphere intensified: despite their move into the professional world, physical spaces were still gendered, language was gendered, and the right to speak in public was still classified as masculine.95 In Canada, according to Strong-Boag, “not until 1893 at least, if not later ... [was it] considered correct from a ‘society standpoint’ for a woman to speak from a public platform.”96 As a profession, as a place, and as a genre, theatre in the nineteenth century was at odds with prevailing middle-class ideologies of women’s nature and social roles. The most public of artistic professions, it required women to be bold and thereby opened them to scrutiny when they were counselled to be modest and private. It was a site of business and action when ideologies of the feminine attempted to bind them to domesticity and passivity. It involved the plastic arts of a secular world when women were to embody the real, the genuine, and the sacred.97 Women who dared to participate in the theatre became “public women” and when they did so their reputations – their femininity and their virtue – were rendered suspect. As contemporary

28

Ky m B i r d

Ottawa playwright and actress Madge Macbeth recalled, a woman’s virtue, questioned merely by her presence at a hotel, “was gossamer frail.”98 Theatre had always been perceived as a public-sphere activity associated with a display of dangerous merriment and aroused passions, and its very publicity made it treacherous for women. There has been a strong and persistent connection between sexuality and the stage, between actresses and “whores,” that denigrated the theatrical profession in the popular imagination and conferred upon the women engaged in it a morally unsavoury reputation. Speaking of the British context, Michael Booth elaborates the broad compass of these correlations: The public associated the life of an actress with a life of immoral and degenerate ease. The public and exhibitionist nature of their art, the suspect institution in which they were employed, the gaudy skimpiness of their burlesque and pantomime costumes, the element of deceit essential to acting a role, the morally tarnished characters they sometimes had to undertake – these and other factors largely convinced a Victorian public that treasured quite different moral and domestic ideals for women that actresses were unfit for family society: worse, that they were no better than prostitutes, indeed, for some they were prostitutes and paid them the same or better wages.99 Opinion in the United States was remarkably similar. So odious was the theatre that its abolition, along with other forms of what were considered degraded performances, was an aim of the country’s founding fathers. The First Continental Congress articulated “Article of Association” number 8, in which “plays and other expensive diversions and entertainments” like “horse-racing ... gaming, cock-fighting, exhibitions of shows” were “discountenanced and discourage[d].”100 As social historian David Monod says, “the theatre epitomize[d] every degree of corruption.”101 In the lyrical orations of American Congregationalist Henry Ward Beecher, “if you would pervert the taste, go to the theatre. If you would imbibe false views, go to the theatre. If you would efface as speedily as possible all qualms of conscience, go to the theatre. If you would put yourself irreconcilably against the spirit of virtue and religion, go to the theatre.”102 Not surprisingly, Canada’s clergy followed suit. Theatre was a corrupting influence, according to Canadian Evangelical Methodist pastor Hugh Thomas Crossley (1850–1934), that cultivated “a fascination and intoxication to the carnal mind and depraved nature, which fosters a carrion appetite and leads downward ... It is a school that induces carelessness, irreligion, irreverence and immorality.”103 “The theatre,” he castigated, “is responsible, by its bills and plays, for leading people to lewdness, adultery and murders.”104 Throughout the nineteenth century in Canada, an anti-theatrical prejudice, grounded in Christianity and a loathing of women’s flesh, shadowed the theatre and contributed to its lack of reputability. In the press and at the pulpit, on the west coast as in the east, at the beginning as at the end of the century, theatre was one

I nt roduct ion

29

indiscreet wink of the eye, one indecorous sashay away from offending religious morality. Theatrical activity in Catholic Quebec was condemned as a scurrilous exhibition of the body, “a sinful appeal to pride and sensuousness, a temptation offered by a corrupt and materialistic society.”105 Conflated with the “white slave trade” in Montreal, one anonymous writer in 1913 wrote that “many [young women] are not only imprudent, they are flirts, girls of easy virtue [who] ... have scarcely arrived to earn a living in the big city, when they begin to frequent the theatres, the cinemas, and the busy streets filled with crowds of idle folk.” The theatre was equated with a “slippery slope,” “vice,” “luxury,” “flashy clothes,” and a life of “ease and comfort.”106As J.M.S. Careless points out, the “severely practical” proclivity of Methodism and Calvinism which “exerted powerful influences” in Ontario, “was [also] considerably disposed against sensual, immoral entertainments.”107 “First-rate comic or tragic representations might at some distant date be acted by actors of good moral tone and pure life,” W.S. Rainsford, Anglican Pastor of Toronto’s St James Cathedral declared in response to Sarah Bernhardt’s tour of 1881, but “moral considerations alone should keep fathers and mothers away” from her Toronto performance.108 A letter both corroborating Rainsford’s sentiments and condemning the clergy for not doing more to censure the theatre appeared in the paper the following day: “it is, in my humblest opinion, no place for virtuous husbands and wives, much less parents still less for young people of either sex: and I believe that had the different clergy throughout the city once taken the matter up the attendance would have been found to have been far more sparse than now, unfortunately in the interest of morality, prove to be the case.”109 The writer’s critique of the clergy was not simply idle talk: by the 1880s, even in these same cities, theatre had become a popular form of entertainment and much more socially defensible. Scantily clad women, nevertheless, caused a public outcry. When the short-lived, all female Gaiety Company staged the New Adamless Eve in St John, New Brunswick, the press fulminated that Lilly Clay’s “scant[ily] dress[ed]” women performed before a “large audience composed entirely of men in a burlesque [that] catered to ‘depraved rather than to moral tastes.’ A small scandal erupted and the Gaiety Company’s subsequent Halifax performance was banned.”110 Most playwrights were, ironically, inspired by Christian convictions, and by the end of the century there were signs that Christian organizations were embracing theatre, as the plays in this anthology bear out: Clara Rothwell Anderson produced her work within a Presbyterian ministry, Sister Mary Agnes staged plays for Catholic youth, and Mary Kinley Ingraham wrote for and about Maritime Baptists. Individual churches were enriched by women’s playwriting as they used their plays to further church aims and activities, often by raising money.111 When churches became more tempered in their views and professional theatrical venues more established and reputable, anti-theatrical attitudes in the cultural generally began to subside. Theatrical venue and the dramatic genre had much to do with the class of women who became involved in a theatrical performance. Variety theatres were on the

30

Ky m B i r d

bottom rung of the hierarchically ranked playhouses of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and fell furthest outside of middle-class conceptions of reputable theatre. Forms of theatre that were comprised of song and dance – “‘opera’ (if they were wholly sung) or ‘operetta’ (if they involved both talking and singing), or ‘ballet’ (if they were wholly danced)” – were not “legit.”112 Legit theatre was a designation that harkened back to the British Licensing Act of 1737, reserved only for those staged plays comprised of the spoken word: comedy, tragedy, and farce were legitimate, as well as melodrama, if only marginally so.113 Although women attended all types of theatre, lower-class and Indigenous actresses were associated with male audiences and forms of performance and venues that were sexual and therefore considered sinful and socially degraded. Middle and upper-class women performers in popular American and European touring shows, while still engaged in appreciably risqué behaviour, played in more sophisticated, urban houses where women’s attendance projected to the social world generally and their peers in particular a certain sense of bourgeois taste, refinement, and respectability that was only slightly audacious. The relationship between actresses, seen as sexually available, public women, and a theatre that was constrained by class and race was starkest in the demographically heterogeneous male West. There, as Chad Evans’s research reveals, “public” women, undoubtedly poor and many of them Indigenous, worked in the virtually all male wine rooms, music halls, and variety theatres of swiftly established, geographically isolated mining and logging towns, like those in the Kootenays, Alaska, and the Klondike.114 In the rough-and-tumble venues of Victoria, actresses known as “box-rustlers” worked on commission: the more drinks they sold, the more money they and the establishment made.115 After the coming of the Canadian Pacific Railway to Winnipeg – aspirationally nominated the “Chicago of the North” – the population tripled, and women actresses played in a spate of fly-by-night variety theatres. In the wine rooms associated with these variety stages the line between women performers, waitresses, and sex workers was frequently blurred. It was the vaudeville acts that brought in the large audiences, but it was the sale of alcohol that made money. Fraternizing with female performers was “an added feature, [that] many variety theatres offered patrons.”116 The Manitoba Free Press called these theatres “‘shops of Harlotry’ where ‘decent young men’ and ‘scores of boys’ were started on the road to ruin,” and after various scandals the Winnipeg City Council passed an ordinance prohibit[ing] “‘immodest, lewd, blasphemous or obscene language,’ immoral posters, and ‘immodest, lewd, lascivious’ movements, made by a woman or person attired in women’s clothes, which are likely to be ‘offensive to womanly modesty or common decency.’”117 “Decent women,” god-fearing women who valued their reputations, were dissuaded from attending variety theatres by organizations like the wCtu: their message to middle- and upper-class white females was that only a defiled woman would find herself in a variety theatre.118 As the nineteenth century moved to its close, British-identified, middle- and upper-class women nevertheless began to attend the theatre in ever greater

I nt roduct ion

31

numbers. Their growing participation was the result of several significant factors: the emerging profile of “leading ladies” on the stage; women’s involvement in the business of theatre; the ability of the profession and the art form to secure the esteem of royalty and the upper classes; and the relative security and comfort that resulted from the new efforts of architects and theatre managers to create glamourous, well-appointed venues with afternoon, family-oriented shows. Despite being an overwhelmingly male-dominated occupation, more than a few “innovative theatrical managers were women ... In England ... there was Madame Vestris (1797– 1856). In the United States, the major actress-managers were Anne Brunton Merry (1769–1808), Charlotte Cushman (1816–1876), Catherine Sinclair (1817–1891), Vlatilda Vinev Wood (1821–1915), Louise Lane Drew (1820–1897), and Laura Keene (1826– 1873).” 119 Mae Edwards (1878–1947) and Ida Van Cortland (1854–1924) were the star performers of their own companies and, though based in the United States, “divided their time between the States and Canada.”120 According to Paula Sperdakos, these and other of the century’s most well-known female performers had their roots in Canada and graced its theatrical houses in cities large and small: Margaret Anglin (1876–1958), Julia Arthur (1869–1950), and Ida Van Cortland were born in Canada, although they forged their reputations in the United States. Women actresses, considered by many to be debauched and licentious, were revered by others as the Victorian “embodiment of ideal womanhood” or, as Carol Budnick said of Fanny Reeves, “artless,” “sweet,” and “pretty.”121 Many made their names in legitimate comedy by performing the popular role of the soubrette, an attractive, saucy, and flirtatious character that many actresses, including Kate Simpson Hayes, played with aplomb. By the end of the century, centres small and large in Canada built new venues, and every major American, British, and European actress graced their stages, including Sarah Bernhardt (1844–1923), Mary Frances Scott-Siddons (1844–1895), Lillie Langtry (1853–1929), Clara Morris (1846?–1925), Jeffreys Lewis (circa 1852–1926), Helena Modjeska Chlapowski (1840–1909), Fanny Janauschek (1830–1904), and Ellen Terry (1847–1928).122 Canadian women attended the theatre in numbers like never before. The approbation of the wives of men who formed the military elite lent credibility to nineteenth-century garrison theatricals put on by French and British troupes in Canada.123 Women’s enjoyment of these performances was thought to be possible only if they were commensurate with their sex, which in turn helped to form a reputable alliance between women and military philanthropy.124 Women’s attendance rendered such plays socially acceptable as entertainment. Later in the nineteenth century, this same class of Canadian women began to understand theatre as part of an elevated British and European literary heritage, both popular and artistic. For them and their children, sitting-room theatricals became an acceptable amusement that in time were employed by schools and organizations as tools of cultural inculcation. Queen Victoria had a profound and lasting influence on British attitudes to women and theatre. As Michael Booth notes, she was the first monarch to take a significant interest in the theatre since Charles II, whose exuberance helped produce

32

Ky m B i r d

Restoration drama. “The fact is that Victoria was an ardent lover of theatre, went frequently both before and after she was married, was widely acquainted with modern drama as well as Shakespeare, was catholic in her taste and enjoyed all types of drama, went to many theatres, and was a keen student of acting.”125 Indeed, she kept copious critical notes in her journals commenting on performers and performances.126 Victoria set the example that other women of the middle- and upperclasses could and did follow: she helped to make theatre respectable. She had a stage erected in her own drawing room, she “brought the best performers of the day to play on it, she knighted actors.”127 She invited prominent companies to give command performances at Windsor Castle. While she unquestionably enjoyed theatre, these acts were not merely satisfying her own desire for amusement: hers was a “conscious attempt to awaken higher society to an awareness of the English dramatic tradition and to the necessity of supporting it in the theatre.”128 As wife of the queen’s representative in Canada, it was therefore not inappropriate that the young and vivacious Hariot Georgina Hamilton-Temple-Blackwood, Marchioness of Dufferin and Ava (1843–1936), staged dramas at Rideau Hall. The viceregal consort of Governor General Fredrick Hamilton-Temple-Blackwood, Marquess of Dufferin and Ava (1826–1902), himself the great-grandson of AngloIrish playwright Richard Sheridan, assisted in fulfilling the ceremonial aspect of her husband’s role by turning the most prestigious venue in the fledgling colony into a social hub.129 Lady Dufferin’s husband, with his own great love of the theatrical, was both proud and supportive of his wife’s passion. Following the queen’s example, during their renovations to Rideau Hall in 1872, they built a small but very serviceable stage, the existence of which allowed Lady Dufferin to cultivate a theatrical community in Ottawa.130 In the spring of each year, she undertook the production and direction of a season of British domestic comedies and farces. Lady Dufferin starred in all of her own shows, sometimes presenting two plays in an evening for the entertainment of “general audiences” in Ottawa. 131 At Christmas and in January she mounted plays for young people in which her own children also participated: for four years running she put these in the hands of British dramatist, journalist, and cultural collaborator Frederick Augustus Dixon, who likewise tutored the four Dufferin boys.132 In February 1876, the Dufferins put on a historical fancy dress ball at Rideau Hall in which Lord Dufferin was gowned as James V of Scotland, while Lady Dufferin appeared as Mary of Guise, James’s wife. When the viceregal couple departed Canada after their five-year tenure, Lady Dufferin had won the hearts of Canadians, especially the community in Ottawa, by and through the theatre.133 Fourteen years later, in 1893, the thirty-six-year-old Ishbel Maria Gordon (1857–1939), wife of the Canadian Governor General John Hamilton-Gordon and 1st Marquess of Aberdeen and Temair (1847–1934), carried on the tradition first established by Lady Dufferin. Although she did not have the same affection for the theatre as the third governor general’s wife, arguably she did even more to advance

I nt roduct ion

33

I.9 Lady Dufferin on the stage at Rideau Hall during her tenure as wife of the vice-regal during the 1870s, downstage right.

its standing as a socially acceptable art form for women, reinforcing its effectiveness in empire-building and nurturing civic pride.134 The large scale of her pageants, staged in Montreal (1895), Ottawa (1896), and Toronto (1897), challenged lingering anti-theatrical attitudes; the preponderance of women actors was a remonstrance against women’s exclusive role in the private sphere and the theatre’s reputation as a forum for iniquity. Lady Aberdeen honoured Queen Victoria in her pageants: she cultivated patriotism and a historical tradition that glorified British-Canadian women as well as men, and in doing so challenged the discourse of the private sphere as women’s proper sphere. Lady Aberdeen was also one of the most important liberal reformers in Canada. She was a founding member and the first president of the National Council of Women of Canada and the Victorian Order of Nurses, and president of the International Council of Women for nearly forty years, the first and third of these being umbrella organizations that provided a political, cultural, and administrative framework for

34

Ky m B i r d

I.10 Lady Dufferin, centre stage at Rideau Hall during the 1870s.

many women’s groups which were responsible for initiatives that would eventually use theatre as a pedagogical and political tool.135 At Rideau Hall, she established a cultural and educational “Household Club,” as she had done on her family estate in Scotland.136 Lady Aberdeen gave some of the Club’s Thursday evening lectures herself (the first governor general’s wife to do so), and according to Strong-Boag was “often criticized” for her public addresses.137 As James Noonan describes them, Lady Aberdeen’s Household Club plays emphasized “the practical advantages of theatre for the children.”138 Like her predecessor, in her first year as the governor general’s wife she helped organize plays for youngsters: she was of the opinion that “‘acting gave the family a favourite occupation [and] ... training in the art of public speaking.’” 139 In 1894, Aberdeen hosted Pauline Johnson who, dressed in costume, recited her own story of a murdered chief and his bereft daughter after the Europeans steal their land. Nothing in Canada, however, compared to her pageants put on to honour Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee of June of 1897. These pageants, associated with women of the most prominent classes, were the epitome of public-sphere theatre, and in this way challenged the public/private divide that historically prevented women from participating in politics and the life of the nation. They used spectacle to represent a national imaginary and embody

I nt roduct ion

35

I.11 Lady and Lord Dufferin’s three oldest children dressed for performance in 1876. From left to right are Terence, the future second Earl of Dufferin and Ava, Archie, the Viscount Clandeboye and future Earl of Ava, and Nellie, Lady Helen Blackwood, future Viscountess Novar.

the iconography of the Canadian colonial nation state. As John MacKenzie’s work argues, a pageant tradition helped to forge imperial ties. Pickles elaborates the early twentieth century spectacle of grand balls that were organized to celebrate imperial occasions.140 In pageants, women characters “were often allegorical figures representing space as well as national and imperial connections.”141 Edith Lelean Groves’s pageant play, The Wooing of Miss Canada, as Robert Cupido says of pageants generally, was written to “inculcate notions of civic loyalty” and stimulate “the growth of ‘national feeling.’”142 The three pageants by Lady Aberdeen that honoured and enacted Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee were among the grandest pieces of theatre ever presented in the country.143 Mounted in large, public arenas, they required wide community participation in their creation, dramaturgy, staging, and performance.144 The first of these engaged two hundred young people from Montreal’s most socially

36

Ky m B i r d

I.12 Lady Aberdeen about 1890. Like her predecessor, Lady Dufferin, Lady Aberdeen put on theatrical performances in the theatre at Rideau Hall. She also used theatre to cultivate British patriotism.

elevated families in a series of tableaux that depicted Canadian Historical Scenes, and took place at Montreal’s Queen’s Theatre in 1895. The second, entitled Historical Fancy Dress Ball, was put on in the Senate Chamber in Ottawa in 1896 and was attended by the Aberdeens, the prime minister, all of the members of the cabinet, and the justices of the Supreme Court. It involved nine episodes that traced the pre-history of Canada to the Vikings, played by the members of the viceregal party, and the arrival (eight hundred years later) of the United Empire Loyalists. All of Aberdeen’s pageants actively participated in the dual project of Canadian nation-building and the building of the British Empire, and in them British women and men embodied the ideals of the dominant culture.145 The Victorian Era Ball, staged in Toronto in 1897, enacted a national imperial genealogy with related dances that included seven “sets” and comprised a procession of “Costume,” “Literature,” “Music,” “Science,” “Invention,” “Sports,” and “Amusements” from across the empire.146 In doing so, the Victorian Era Ball performed an argument for an “unbroken European claim to the New World and of a nation emerging from the equal contributions of French and British pioneers.”147 In the introduction to the

I nt roduct ion

37

I.13 In 1894, Pauline Johnson, hosted by Lady Aberdeen at Rideau Hall and dressed in Indigenous regalia, recited a story she wrote of a murdered chief and his bereft daughter after the Europeans stole their land.

commemorative program of the Toronto performance, the pageant’s ideological intentions are imagined as having “a far higher aim in view than the mere amusement of a few hours. It was intended ... to force the careless student of our history ... to feel a deeper pride in this ‘Canada of ours,’ now commencing to wear the habiliments of a nation.”148 Lady Aberdeen called the pageant a “landmark in the history of the mighty empire which united to celebrate it with one heart and voice ... [by representing the] various phases, typical of the Victorian Era, & denoting the progress made in all departments of life under the beneficent reign and influence of the Queen whom her people delight to honour.”149 If Winnipeg was infamous for its wine rooms and prostitutes, it was also in the avant-garde of theatre culture, both attracting and producing middle-class, female audiences to its stages. The emergence of a “sophisticated” form of theatre culture in that city was largely the work of one woman, Harriet (Hattie) Walker (née Anderson) (1865–1943), wife of theatre impresario Corliss Powers Walker (1853– 1942). Originally an actress and director, in 1897 Walker and her husband came north from the United States to found Winnipeg’s Bijou Theatre, making it into

38

Ky m B i r d

I.14 A drawing of Lady Aberdeen and the Governor General Aberdeen (with pages and maids of honour) from the commemorative Book of the Victorian Era Ball, 1897.

the northern jewel of their Red River Valley Circuit. Walker was the press agent for all the theatres in the chain. Even more importantly for the reputation of theatregoing among women, she wrote theatre reviews for the arts and society paper Town Topics (1898–1913), which was founded by her friend and fellow critic Charles W. Handscomb.150 Under the nom de plume “Rosa Sub the Matinee Girl,” she strove to be honest and credible in an age when puffery, positive publicity, and paternalism were common among male reviewers.151 Despite her obvious conflict of interest as wife of the theatre producer, her ability to achieve this standard was in part made possible by the fact that her reviews were usually published after performances had closed.152 Reg Skene calls her style “sharp and racy, her opinions civilized and well-informed, and her commentary intelligent and biting.” She “championed such socially progressive playwrights as Henrik Ibsen and Leo Tolstoy in a period when male critics in Winnipeg dismissed them as obscene.”153 Carol Budnick claims that Walker knew her reviews were an “excellent way … to reach … women [who were] … an important segment of the audience for theatre.”154 She was invested in a middleclass, European- and American-oriented theatre that generated respectable audiences in a place where the theatre was commonly thought of as anything but. She was a tastemaker who endeavoured not only to cultivate aesthetic discernment but to regulate standards of polite, public behaviour. To this end, she liberally dispensed advice

I nt roduct ion

39

concerning proper theatre etiquette. She censured “those who started to leave before the show was quite over ... ladies who did not remove their hats ... [those] who ate in the theatre or brought their babies ... disruptive behaviour in the galleries, and ... spitting on the stairs.”155 Rosa Sub the Matinee Girl had an estimated ten thousand readers, among them a substantial female constituency. She shared this constituency with Walker Theatre – particularly its afternoon audiences. Her daughter Ruth Harvey recalls the “special smell on a matinée afternoon – not just a grownup smell, warm and alive from the crowd of breathing people, but a female smell like a mass of mammas all balmy, bosomy and nicely perfumed.”156 Like many politically active women playwrights, Walker believed “theatre should be morally uplifting”; she wanted to “educate Winnipeg audiences to the point where they could appreciate the best in international theatre.”157 She brought the media spotlight to bear on public behaviour, and in so doing influenced, in a sanguine fashion, women’s attitudes to theatregoing there. In fact, when middle- and upper-class women participated in the theatre – as audience members, playwrights, and producers – they were understood to make it authentic and permissible. “In the mid-Victorian mind,” according to Evans, “the number of ladies attending a theatrical performance was generally felt to be commensurate with the quality of that performance.”158 Not surprisingly, therefore, these same women were at the centre of a series of considerations in Britain, the United States, and Canada that cultivated theatre as more decent, more decorous, and more befitting of the female sex. In order to construct the theatre as a refined experience, venues were renewed by innovative forms of architecture that invited sophisticated female audiences and appealed to their sense of elegance and respectability.159 In finer theatres, a level of personal comfort was engineered through the construction of richly decorated salons and foyers, segregated seating, and elaborate restrooms worthy of their designation as places for women to repose and relax.160 In Britain, a “deliberate effort [was] made by some management to make their theatres more comfortable. Stalls were cushioned and set on carpeted floors; the ‘dress-circle’ was invented, and with it, for less wealthy patrons, the ‘family circle.’”161 Clarence Blackall, the American architect of over three hundred theatres, advised in 1908 that “the ladies’ room be a ‘very ornamental feature of the theatre, and elaborately decorated as an advertisement.’”162 In the second decade of the twentieth century, Marcus Loew’s and the Winter Garden in downtown Toronto spared no expense in creating “sumptuously decorated ladies’ rooms” with “perfectly equipped little individual dressing tables” that “transformed shop-clerks into royalty.”163 Women were similarly accommodated at Toronto’s Shea’s Hippodrome: in order to give the theatre an aura of respectability that would induce women to attend, the management took special account of restrooms and lounges in building and renovation. The most reputable theatres, like Walker Theatre, solicited the patronage of female audiences by putting on matinée performances that, as early as the 1870s in the United States,

40

Ky m B i r d

were associated with women and children. Toronto’s Majestic staged daily matinées in 1905 to cater “to almost exclusively female audiences.”164 It was the same in Winnipeg’s Princess Opera House, which ventured to establish itself as a “symbol of urban refinement and civilization” by restricting the accessibility of prostitutes that were an “insult to the respectable women in the audience” and to alter the behaviour of men who were “asked not to smoke ... wear hats during the show ... return late after intermission ... [or] dangle their feet over the balcony railings.165 As I said at the beginning of this section, the relationship between women and theatre in the nineteenth and early twentieth century was contradictory. Its publicity jeopardized women’s reputations; but, generally speaking, class, venue, and genre bore upon gender and social attitudes that affected and inflected women’s theatrical participation. For lower-class and racialized women who performed in taverns and wine rooms, in burlesque and operetta, theatre was a dangerous line of work that continued to be viewed as degenerate – and even indecent – from a middle-class perspective, although more women were employed by it than ever before. For middle- and upper-class, British-identified women the theatre had an illustrious literary history, and some of Canada’s first ladies – Lady Dufferin and Lady Aberdeen, as well as educated women such as Harriet Walker – understood it as having a humanizing influence. For these same women, certain forms of theatre were considered culture, even art, capable not solely of diversion but of social commentary, commemoration, and the elevation and inculcation of national pride.

C a n a D i a n w o m e n ’s t H e a t r e a n D t H e D e v e L o P m e n t oF a F em i n ist t H e at r iC a L sPH e r e or Cou n t e r Pu bL iC Upper- and middle-class women most often used theatre to cultivate Canadian culture for the public good. While still maintaining their refinement and sophistication, women of these classes wrote and staged theatrical performances to make public interventions into their social and political worlds. They used theatre to make a deliberate, material impact on their culture, to accrue resources, to express feminist views, to teach and nurture children, as well as to express opinions in the important turn-of-the-century discourses of nationalism, industrialization, Christianity, and fidelity to empire. The plays collected in this anthology form a female theatrical sphere that occupied both semi-public and public spaces: they were associated with political movements, caused their authors to interact with the professional world, and subjected these authors to public scrutiny. As Christopher Balm has argued of the theatrical public sphere generally, in the largest sense, these plays are concerned “with theatre’s role in the democratic process.”166 Consciously or unconsciously, they participated in the creation of a British-identified Canadian national identity, helped define what respectable theatre was and was not, and helped to determine what respectable

I nt roduct ion

41

I.15 Royal Alexandra Theatre, one of Toronto’s more upscale theatrical venues, where Louise Carter-Broun made her playwriting debut in 1915 with her one-act play, The Soldiers.

theatre could do. They challenged women’s exclusion from theatre and the public world and demonstrated the theatre’s effectiveness in promoting women’s rights. Though these plays are not strictly characterized by principles of social equality as we would understand them today, they were designed to have an ethical impact on Canadian society and, like much creative work, were written to cause people to think about and question the culture within which they were produced. Many of them were designed to raise public awareness of women’s issues and women’s changing social roles. In terms of the organizations with which many were associated, the venues in which they were performed, and the audiences they drew, addressed, and constructed, these plays mark the transition of women from private persons to public citizens that was inaugurated by the women’s movement. In them, we have access to the spirit of dissent from the status quo that was taking place among advantaged, progressive white women in the public sphere generally. Over the turn of the twentieth century, this theatre was a vital forum for the discussion and creation of women’s culture. These plays wrestled the theatre out of the hands of the opera houses and wine rooms and made it politically effective, powerful, and respectable. The theatre represented by women in this anthology is often private in one sense and public in another. Much of it was written for coterie audiences. This was not public, professional theatre like that put on by many male playwrights; it was work

42

Ky m B i r d

that resulted from the personal, voluntary labour of women who produced it for the social, religious, cultural, and educational groups they strove to support. Its spectators were members of schools, congregations, and political bodies and their sympathizers. Some pieces had affiliations with dominion-wide alliances like the National Council of Women of Canada, the Women’s Christian Temperance Union, the Canadian Women’s Press Club, and a variety of late-nineteenth-century reform movements. The Mock Parliaments were the brainchild of the wCtu, and were written and performed by organizations established to fund and foster women’s enfranchisement: Anderson’s plays underwrote projects developed by the MacKay Presbyterian Church; Edith Lelean Groves, Sister Mary Agnes, and Kate Simpson Hayes penned plays for schools and to generate support for the First World War. Many of these plays were acts of propaganda, but as Jonathan Vance observes of art at this time, they were also “source[s] of consolation and diversion, something that Canadians created and consumed first and foremost because it addressed their own needs, not the needs of the state.”167 Some were the product of local and national initiatives through which women raised funds, proselytized, taught, and supported an aggrieved and fledgling nation. The venues in which most of these plays were performed were often the semi-public spheres of churches, schools, meeting halls, and classrooms. Such venues, as Balm reminds us, have their own particular “rules of engagement,” governing “space, participation, and degree of imbrication with other public spheres.”168 They are also spaces where the public and private are tethered or blurred, creating locations where women could have a public voice, but where one could also expect to see men in important social positions attending in support of their wives and children. In fact, a lot of the fundraising and charity events undertaken in these environments were done, and expected to be done, by women, who in them had a unique entitlement to and opportunity for a public and political voice. For example, The Mock Parliaments, staged before a full house in Winnipeg’s Bijou Theatre in 1893, the eighteenhundred-seat Allen Gardens Theatre in 1896, and the expansive Walker Theatre in 1914, were connected to outside political actions: specifically bringing suffrage petitions to parliament.169 The Walker Theatre enjoyed the patronage of Harriet Walker, as I have said. Anderson’s plays were mounted behind the nave of the MacKay Presbyterian Church in Ottawa, where her husband was pastor: in a room that sat five hundred, they involved the participation and attendance of many in the MacKay Protestant community, whose Ladies Aid societies used them to generate money for church programs.170 At least some of the lost plays of Kate Simpson Hayes were mounted at the Regina Town Hall, the largest civic venue in Regina and the single most important for public sphere participation.171 School auditoriums, like St Mary’s Academy that hosted plays by Sister Mary Agnes, or any of the Toronto public school theatres in which Groves’s theatricals were presented, would have accommodated a few hundred students, their parents, community and church leaders.

I nt roduct ion

43

When women began to sign their names to their own dramas, when they dared place more than the inscrutable “anon” beside their theatrical works in advertisements and bibliographies, they did not usually or primarily do so for public fame, self-aggrandizement, posterity, aesthetics, or personal, financial gain.172 They did so in order to make a contribution to what they saw as the greater public good, sometimes risking their own reputations. They did so to be politically effective beyond the realm of the theatre. Women used the theatrical form, by and large, for political or quasi-political reasons and in signing their work, they signalled a new, bourgeois self-confidence and a liberal feminist ideology of civic participation. The women who wrote, created, and performed in these plays were publicly minded. They were part of the first group of female, urban professionals, a number of whom, at some point in their relatively long and messy lives, raised children, left husbands, lived alone, supported relatives, and hid illegitimate offspring. They also belonged to a privileged group of English, Irish, Scots, and Americans – some Catholic but mainly Protestant – who ran the country. They were educated, employed in good jobs, and/or enjoyed an elevated status in their communities, or in organizations and institutions of which they were members. This does not mean, however, they had lots of money: few did. Most lived, at least by the end of their lives, in shabby gentility, because cobbling together an income by writing was difficult and certainly not lucrative. Many benefited from the respectability theatre increasingly enjoyed due to the approbation and application of aristocrats like Lady Dufferin and Lady Aberdeen, and the middle-class pretensions of a theatregoing public that in time increased and became respectable. But few wrote for the commercial stage, and those who did, like Carter-Broun or even British Columbia’s Constance Lindsay Skinner, made only a modest income.173 In his discussion of theatre and the public sphere, Balm emphasizes the capacity of the “agonistic,” emotional, affective, and “ludic” elements of the drama to “spill out of the auditorium and intervene in and engage with sensitive social discourses.”174 For women in Britain and the United States at this time, these elements of theatre were expressed most readily in comedy.175 In Canada, comedy was overwhelmingly preferred by women dramatists. It is, of course, not a monolithic genre. As the plays collected here evidence, it embraces a range of dramatic and theatrical practices including drawing-room comedy, parlour drama, melodramas, the history play, closet drama, the fairy tale, the pageant, and the commercial play. One can only surmise the reasons for the popularity of comedy with women dramatists: among them is the fact that it is a less dangerous form than tragedy. It does not lay the world waste. It is also a more conservative theatrical form. Comedy often returns one to the halcyon days of a bygone age when life was simple and the world unspoiled. It fulfills wishes and reunites families. Such comedy has the public sphere at stake. One might even say that in their nationalist impulse, Canadian women’s comedies of this era reflect the sentiments of the governmental proclamation of “peace, order and good government” stated in section 91 of the British North America Act of 1867.

44

Ky m B i r d

In their pedagogical resolve, they combine feminist impulses and the strength and efficacy of dramatic representation with the developing idea of a new Canadian dominion under the authority and institutions of a fundamentally British state. In Comedy and the Public Sphere Arpad Szakolczai asserts that in the nineteenth century, “the force of laughter through ridicule and mocking” was a way of “achieving dominance.”176 In its use of parody and satire, comedy makes people laugh and makes them think, and that is what many of these plays hoped to do. It allowed women to ridicule elements of the culture that barred them or left unrecognized their participation in government, war, politics, and professional work. It poked fun at women’s own debilities in running philanthropic and religious associations, and in organizing their social and domestic lives. The comedies in this anthology also idealize new, progressive subjectivities for white, middle- and upper-class, British-identified Canadian women, who were part of the ruling elite and participated in the project of nation-building and the building and expansion of empire.177 Like so much comedy, these plays address the time and place in which they were written: their heroines represent the ideals of British culture; they proselytize in defense of reform-minded values and domestic feminist views respecting children and youth; and they imagine middle- and upper-class women in the public and as professionals. While Szakolczai discusses a wildly different time and place, he understands comedy as a set of rhetorical strategies that have “a decisive role in forming both the structured space that is called the ‘public sphere’ and the dominant attitudes related to it, even governing its functioning and broader effects.”178 The comedies collected here, if they are at all acerbic, also reached out to their audiences in an almost conciliatory fashion by representing middle-class, Anglo-Canadian women and assiduously avoiding anything lewd or shocking. As Szakolczai reminds us, the “pretense” of comedy in the public sphere lies in the “‘pact’ that emerged between actors and audience” and, I would say, between the playwright and her public, in which slapstick, irony, satire, parody, and romance were understood to be all in good fun: a joke or lark where no one could really get hurt.179 In this way, comedy was effective in winning over the naysayers in the audience to the play and the playwright’s point of view. It used the subversive power of comedy to resist the conventionalism of the patriarchal public. Comedy also engenders joy, goodwill, and comradery: it disarms the unwitting spectator, who as a result is more receptive to women’s worlds, women’s issues, and women’s dissent.180 It is important to recognize, however, that while these works imagined new subjectivities for a cadre of Canadian women, their discourses of women’s rights did not extend to racialized, ethnic, or immigrant characters; nor were such women likely to be in the audience. These plays and their performances express virulent, casual, comic, overt, and often unconscious racism toward characters who are Indigenous, Black, and Chinese in particular. They are grounded in imperial, Anglo-Christian discourses that are permeated by a social and historical hierarchy of racial inequality. They express the dominant view of the white, Anglo, middle

I nt roduct ion

45

classes at a time when the “races” were primarily constructed as discrete, biologically determined categories that were naturally ranked. In fact, the colour of humour was often racialized. Problematic as it is, racist comedy was regarded and utilized as a forceful way in which white Anglo women attempted to compensate for their own lack of social authority. In this period, one of the strategies of white women’s dramatic humour was to attack those less powerful than themselves. Comic stereotypes were a central conduit for this type of humour. For example, non-white, non-Anglo characters are drawn as uneducated and uncivilized and speak in an accented English that employs accompanying racist speech patterns and exaggerated physical traits; the “Indians” in Laura Secord adhere to a stock characterization of the “romantic primitive,” innately good but depicted as terrifying because of their radical cultural difference from the Anglo characters in the text. The slaves Flo and Pete in the same play are minstrel show clowns; they are caricatures of African-Americans and/or Canadians who not only generate the play’s humour, but are also the objects of that humour. Similarly, the racism governing the comedy of Li Chang in Sister Mary Agnes’s The Red Cross Helpers conforms to the pejorative and prevalent Anglo-Canadian stereotypes of Chinese people.181 The black-faced characters in production photos of Anderson’s plays are glaring examples of racist representations of racialized characters, even when such characters are not written into her scripts. In plays that end with a comic lesson or parable that seems to be neutral, virtuous, and universalized, it is nevertheless the white, Anglo-Canadian, American, British, and Irish characters who are victorious at the expense of an ethnic other, in line with notions of imperialism, empire, colonialism, and nationalism that it also reinforces. The happily-ever-after, “separate but equal” doctrine that comically concludes Slumberland Shadows and The Wooing of Miss Canada in particular needs to be understood as having a cultural foundation and, therefore, a racist bias in the white, Anglo-Canadian politics of the period. The ten plays in this collection are evidence of these propensities. Each of the introductions which preface them endeavours to contextualize their issues and ideas within the controlling ideologies of the private/public and the corollary of separate spheres, as well as the biography of their authors, the conditions of their production and/or publication, and in terms of genre. As Ann Saddlemyer has said, “one might in fact question whether it is possible to assess a play at all without taking into account its genesis, its social, sexual and political context, and its intended audience.”182 I do not believe it is, and so have provided as much of this framework and circumstance as is possible. Early women’s plays were a product of the British-identified, middle-class Canadian women’s movement and promulgate the ideas of the movement. They challenged dominant forms of thinking with respect to the private and public and separate spheres by interpolating a counterpublic concerned with suffrage, citizenship, equality, maternity, war, business, and a Christian sense of moral superiority. They are activist texts. They were intended to help form an oppositional consciousness

46

Ky m B i r d

and an oppositional voice that elaborated these playwrights’ concerns, status, experiences, politics, organizations, and causes. Women’s theatre played a crucial role in the emergence of a more liberal, more feminist society for those of the white middle class by giving their experiences – often private, personal experiences – representation in a public forum. The playtexts collected here are the fruits of the labour of these authors toward a new social milieu for women. I do not pretend that these plays are the greatest of those that are extant, but greatness is not the goal of the collection. They are not better or worse than those written by men. They are representative of a wide range of comedy, a form favoured by women, in major and minor genres. They include some of the earliest plays written by Canadian women in English, some of the period’s most formative plays by some of the era’s most productive women playwrights, and in one way or another, they touch upon all then extant provinces. While they are unquestionably feminist in their orientation, early Canadian women’s plays express the dominant discourses of a British cultural identity within a Canadian context of colonization and imperial expansion. They trade in English-Canadian nationalist myths and Christianimperialist attitudes. Some plays express an overt superiority toward other races, and all belie a feminism, morality, and a “white-centeredness” in their universalizing maxims.183 They unquestionably denigrate those of the lower classes and “other” non-Anglo ethnicities. Yet, at this point in the narrative of Canadian theatre history, these plays are important because they tell part of the other side of a history gendered masculine. They show how some women used theatre to empower themselves and their local societies. They familiarize us with characters and circumstances of social, cultural, and political revision. Some of these texts were catalysts for a gender revolution, and today they rise like phoenixes from the ruins of nineteenthcentury playhouses and parlours to become important for and because of women’s public presence as playwrights, as actresses, and theatregoers. In their own age, their performances challenged the sexism that relegated women to the private sphere and in doing so they helped make theatre reputable. Their politics activated and legitimated the women’s movement and its causes, organizations, and claims. Despite centuries of anti-theatrical prejudice, they demonstrate the power of the theatre to change lives.

notes 1 It should be noted that all playwrights are referred to by their professional names, i.e., the

names under which they wrote (excluding pseudonyms) – usually their married name or a combination of their birth and married names. 2 All dates associated with the plays collected in this volume refer to publication date or date of copyright, unless otherwise stated. 3 Warner, Publics and Counterpublics, 56.

I nt roduct ion

4 5 6 7

8 9 10 11 12

13

14

15 16

17 18 19

20

21

47

K.E. Kelly, “Introduction: The Making of Modern Drama,” 5. Strong-Boag and Gerson, Paddling Her Own Canoe, 7. Saddlemyer, “Forum.” Wagner’s 1979 collection, Canada’s Lost Plays: Volume Two: Women Pioneers was important in generating a discussion of Curzon’s plays, about which a number of essays – both literary and historical – were written. See Hodkinson, “Restaging the Past,” 5–15; Derksen, “Out of the Closet Part One,” 3–20; Bird, “Leaping into the Breeches,” 168–79; and “Leaping into the Breeches: Liberal Feminism,” in Redressing the Past, 17–58. F. Morgan, The Years Between, 7. Davis and Donkin, “Introduction,” Women and Playwriting, 3. Landow, The Literary Canon. For a list of plays by these playwrights see Bird, Redressing the Past, Appendix 2. See Salter, “The Idea of a National Theatre,” 71–90 and R. Knowles, “Voices (off ),” 91–111. For a source contemporary to the period see Payne, “The Displacement of Young Men,” 467–70. See the introduction to Scullion’s Female Playwrights, liii. This same lacuna existed in Britain according to Scullion who, in 1996, called the nineteenth century “all but a black hole for plays written by women.” See also Shafer, American Women, 2, who made the same claim about American theatre when she said: “most people think that there were few or no women playwrights at the turn of the century.” See Bird, Performing Politics, 65. “These dates ... do not encompass the anomalous situation of Quebec, where women were not enfranchised on the provincial level until 1940.” Neither do they include Indigenous women (First Nations, Métis, Inuit) who, while granted the right to suffrage at various times in Canadian history, did not enjoy the right to vote without surrendering their Indian status until 1960. “Little Theatre and Amateur Theatre,” Oxford Companion to Canadian Theatre, 303. See Salter, “Hector Willoughby Charlesworth,” 137. Charlesworth was a reporter for various Toronto papers between 1892–1904 and city editor and music critic for the Mail and Empire between 1904 and 1910. He was assistant managing editor of Saturday Night between 1910 and 1926 and editor from 1926 to 1932. B.K. Sandwell wrote for the Montreal Herald (first under pseudonym “Munday Knight”) between 1900–14 and then also for Saturday Night between 1932–51. See Wagner, “B.K. Sandwell,” 185. Filewod, Committing Theatre, 62. Plant, “Drama in English 2,” 153. Plant, “Drama in English 2,” 155; Gardner, “Little Theatre,” 308–9. The international theatre art movement was inspired by the work of Henrik Ibsen, Anton Chekhov, August Strindberg, Bernard Shaw, and the theatre organizations with which they were associated, such as André Antoine’s Théâtre Libre (Paris 1887), Otto Brahm’s Freie Bühne (Berlin 1889), J.T. Grein’s Independent Theatre Club (London 1891), and Konstantin Stanislavsky’s and Vladimir Nemirovich–Danchenko’s Moscow Art Theatre (1898). Filewod, Committing Theatre, 62. While Sperdakos argues that “the Earl Grey competitions were predominantly social events, contributing very little to the development of Indigenous Canadian theatre,” they were one of only a couple of national theatre initiatives prior to the formation of the Dominion Drama Festival in the 1930s and fostered the careers of playwright Catherine Nina Merritt and actor Dora Mavor Moore. See Sperdakos, “Dora Mavor Moore.” For the impact of realism on the little theatre movement, see Barker and Solga, Introduction, “Stage Realism in Canada,” vi–viii. See appendix B.

48

Ky m B i r d

22 It was not the first to do so. As early as 1913, Macbeth became a founding member of the

23 24 25

26 27

28

29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41

Ottawa Drama League. See fn 44. In 1916 Ethel Reese-Burns created Forbes-Robertson Amateurs, which had a life in both Edmonton where she established it, and in Victoria in the 1930s. See S. Blanchard, “Little Theatre,” 307. See also Marjorie Lowry Christie’s Mons Angelorum in her Complete Poems of Marjorie Pickthall (Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1926) and The Woodcarver’s Wife, University Magazine 19, no. 2 (1920), and The Woodcarver’s Wife and Later Poems (Toronto: McClelland, 1922). See Whittaker, “‘Entirely Free of Any Amateurishness.’” Plant, “Drama in English 2,” 155; Gardner, “Little Theatre,” 304. Plant, “Drama in English 2,” 155. White Oaks (1936), starring Ethel Barrymore, was performed in Toronto as well as on Broadway for 112 performances before touring other cities in the United States. It ran for more than eight hundred performances in London’s west end. See Plant, “Drama in English 2,” 155. See Day, “Haynes and the Development.” See also Day and Potts, “Elizabeth Sterling Haynes,” and Day, “Elizabeth Sterling Haynes.” See “Elizabeth Sterling,” Oxford Companion to Canadian Theatre, 258. See “Drama in English 2,” Oxford Companion to Canadian Theatre, 154; S. Blanchard, “Little Theatre,” Oxford Companion to Canadian Theatre,” 307. For a brief biography see sFu digitalized Collections, “Osborne, Marian Francis,” accessed 18 July 2018, http://digital.lib.sfu.ca/ceww-927/osborne-marian-francis. The Montreal Community Players brought Marjorie Pickthall’s verse play The Woodcarver’s Wife to Hart House in 1920. See Plant, 154. In the 1920s, Caroline Crerar helped re-establish the Players’ Guild of Hamilton, Ontario, Canada’s oldest amateur theatre in North American. In 1897, the fifteen-year-old Crerar, the daughter of K.C. John Crerar who, with the Marquess of Lorne, Canada’s fourth governor general, helped found the Garrick Club, debuted in its production of Kitty Cline. See “The Players’ Guild of Hamilton Ontario, Garrick Club,” accessed 6 Oct 2017, http://www.playersguild.org/. See Radmacher, “Writing Samples,” accessed 29 Aug 2017, http://kimberleyradmacher. com. Eliza Lanesford Cushing published ten historical and biblical plays and several dramatic fragments in her publication the Literary Garland. For a comprehensive list of these plays see Bird, Redressing the Past, Appendix 2. Salter, “The Idea of a National Theatre,” 72. Ibid., 76, 73. Balm, The Theatrical Public Sphere, 7. Ibid., 7. Sabiston, Private Sphere to World Stage, 4. Pateman, The Disorder of Women, 118. Habermas, The Structural Transformation, 28–9. Ibid., 28–9. Ibid., 28. Ibid., 28–9. Ibid., 29. Davidoff and Hall, Family Fortunes, xvii. “In 1871, 81.2 per cent of the Canadian population lived in areas classed as rural. By 1901 this had declined to 62.5 per cent.” See Mitchinson, “The wCtu,” 151. See also the Census of Canada, 1941, Vol. I, Table 18, “Population, By Marital Status and Sex, Census Dates 1871–1976,” Table A110–124, the following all accessed 20 July 2018 at http://www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/11-516-x/sectiona/4147436-eng.htm#1; Census of Canada, 1941, Vol. I, Table 7, “Population, Canadian, Other British and Foreign-Born, By Sex, Census Dates, 1871–1971,” Table A26. For sex breakdown in 1921 see Statistics Canada,

I nt roduct ion

42 43 44 45 46 47

48 49 50 51 52

53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67

68 69 70 71 72 73

49

Unpublished Data Folio CXL, “Population, Canadian, Other British and Foreign-Born, By Sex, Census Dates, 1871–1971,” Table A26. For sex breakdown in 1911, Census of Canada, 1951, Vol. I, Table 44, “Population, Canadian, Other British and Foreign-Born, By Sex, Census Dates, 1871–1971,” Table A26. For 1881 and 1891, Census of Canada, 1941, Vol. I, Table 12, “Population, By Age and Sex. Census Dates, 1851–1976,” Table A78–93; Census of Canada, 1951, Vol. I, Table 19, “Population, By Age and Sex. Census Dates, 1851–1976;” Table A78–93. Davidoff and Hall, Family Fortunes, xvii; Michael Warner, Publics and Counterpublics, 31. Bird, Redressing the Past, 11. Prentice et al., Canadian Women, 211. Ibid.; Warner, Publics and Counterpublics, 31. Gordon and Nair, Public Lives, 5. Prentice et al., Canadian Women (1988), 130–4. For a sense of the increasing frequency and relevance of women’s voices in print media over the course of the period see Forestell and Moynagh, Documenting First Wave Feminisms, Vol. 2. Pickles, Female Imperialism, 28. Gordon and Nair, Public Lives, 3. Ibid., 4. Bacchi, Liberation Deferred?, 53. Ibid., 21. The nCwC, founded in 1893, was an umbrella organization for a whole host of Christian-inspired women’s groups from across the country that put their energy into women’s educational reform, employment, enfranchisement, housing, and health. See Canadian Women, 124. See M. Barber, “The Women Ontario Welcomed,” 148–72. See also Bradbury, “Women and Wage Labour,” 115–31. Prentice et al., Canadian Women, 172; Strong-Boag, Parliament of Women, 57–8. McClung, In Times Like These, 100. Strong-Boag, Parliament of Women, 60. Valverde, The Age of Light, Soap, and Water, 17. The same can be said of Hayes’s 1927 immigration play, The Anvil. Buckner and Francis, “Introduction,” Canada and the British World, 3. Hastings, “‘Our Glorious Anglo-Saxon Race,’” 92–3. Berger, Sense of Power, qtd. in Paula Hastings, “‘Our Glorious Anglo-Saxon Race,’” 95. Nancy M. Forestell and Maureen Moynagh, eds, Documenting First Wave Feminisms, Vol. 2, 67. Pickles, Female Imperialism, 2. Ibid, 98. See also Pickles, 2. The ioDe “declar[ed] itself to be the Empire’s ‘premier’ women’s patriotic organization.” Ibid., 9. Ibid, 23. Buckner and Francis, “Introduction,” Canada and the British World, 6. For a discussion of the construction of Britishness from the English, Irish, Scottish, and Welsh nations, see Pickles, Female Imperialism. Forestell and Moynagh, eds, Documenting First Wave Feminisms, Vol. 2, 69. Shome, “Whiteness and the Politics of Location,” 108. Strong-Boag and Gerson, Paddling Her Own Canoe, 19. Valverde, The Age of Light, Soap, and Water, 108. See Hochman, “Race Suicide,” Encyc, accessed 3 July 2019, http://eugenicsarchive.ca/ discover/encyclopedia/535eedb87095aa0000000250. Strong-Boag, Parliament of Women, 71.

50

Ky m B i r d

74 Racism, while pervasive, was not monolithic. Manitoba journalist and feminist activist

75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103

104

Marion Francis Beynon (1884–1951) makes this very point when, in a 1914 article entitled “The Foreigner,” she insisted with some indignance that “because we of the Anglo-Saxon race have been able to bully less militant and aggressive peoples into handing over their territory to us is [sic] a poor basis for the assumption that we as a race are the anointed of God and the one and only righteous and virtuous people.” See Forestell and Moynagh, Documenting First Wave Feminism, 177. Strong-Boag, Parliament of Women, 7. All Canadians were British subjects domiciled in Canada until the Canadian Citizenship Act of 1947. See English, “Wartime Elections Act.” Gordon and Nair, Public Lives, 3. Rpt. in Cook and Mitchinson, eds, The Proper Sphere, 51. Warner, Publics and Counterpublics, 30, 38. Kraditor, Ideas of the Woman Suffrage Movement, 92. Based on this “distinctive character,” mothering was a quality that could be “extended almost indefinitely throughout the society.” See Strong-Boag, Parliament of Women, 7. Strong-Boag, Parliament of Women, 7. Gordon and Nair, Public Lives, 3. See Bird, Redressing the Past, 45. McPherson, Bedside Matters, 15–16. Ibid., 17. Llewellyn, Democracy’s Angels, 3. Kinahan, “Transcendent Citizenship,” 17. Warner, Publics and Counterpublics, 39. Davidoff and Hall, Family Fortunes, xvii. Balm, The Theatrical Public Sphere, 7. Barish, The Antitheatrical Prejudice, 499. Puchner, Stage Fright, 1. Saddlemyer, “Forum.” Warner, Publics and Counterpublics, 51–2. Strong-Boag, Parliament of Women, 42. Davies, “The Nineteenth-Century Repertoire,” 92. Macbeth, Boulevard Career, 110. Booth, Theatre in the Victorian Age, 112–13. Malinsky, “Congress Bans Theatre!” Monod, The Soul of Pleasure, 5. Qtd. in Monod, The Soul of Pleasure, 5. See Crossley, On-line Encyclopedia of Canadian Christian Leaders, 46, accessed 6 Jun 2018, http://www.canadianchristianleaders.org/portraits-collection/hugh-crossley-1850-1934/. Under the heading “The Greatest Men in all ages Denounced the Theatre” Crossley rehearses the following history: “Augustine called theatres ‘cages of uncleanness and public schools of debauchery’ ... Solon prohibited plays as pernicious to morals; Plato said ‘plays raise the passions and are dangerous to morality.’ Macaulay said that ‘the theatre is the seminary of vice.’ Shall we sanction or patronize such an academy? ... Wilberforce declared, ‘Decorum and modesty retire, and riot and lewdness are invited.’” For more on Crossley also see Kee, “A Night at the Theatre,” Revivalists, 13–52. Crossley, Online Encyclopedia of Canadian Christian Leaders, 48–9.

I nt roduct ion

51

105 Forsyth, “Three Moments in Quebec Theatre History.” 106 Forestell and Moynagh, Documenting First Wave Feminisms, Vol. 2, 223. 107 Bird, Redressing the Past, 152. See also Smith, Too Soon, 34. In that same decade, puritanical

108 109 110 111 112 113

114

115 116 117 118 119 120

121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130

governance inhibited theatregoing in Halifax. The editor of the City Gazette proclaimed it an “insidious enemy,” and described a “volley of protests ... [that] reached even to the Mayor’s office and the Grand Jury.” See Rainford, “The Bernhardt,” Toronto Daily Mail, 17 Mar 1881, 8. See Pater, “What Do People Say,” Toronto Daily Mail, 18 Mar 1881, 8. Smith, Too Soon the Curtain Fell, 155. All churches appear to have become more tempered as the nineteenth century wore on, and as communities and venues became more reputable and established. Brockhouse, The Royal Alexandra Theatre, 8–9. In 1885, Parkhurst claimed that “Melodrama could be acceptable: ‘the majority of recently written melodramas have been productions of considerable merit, [particularly when] the sensation to an extent characteristic of melodrama is presented in such plausible form as to be acceptable to intelligent and cultivated audiences.” Qtd. in Stuart, “E.R. Parkhurst,” 105. Evans, Frontier Theatre, 227–8. See also 210 and 227. In some families, wives and children did accompany their men, but these were not the target audience of such theatre. Quoting journalist of the time R.T. Lowery, Evans makes the point that “‘few men care to bring their wives and children to a town where the main object of some of the leading men is to create an institution that will pander to the animal nature of men, without any regard to its effect upon their morals, intellect and bank account.’” Evans goes on to distinguish between the absence of “white women on the Yukon River” and “[N]ative girls [who] were plentiful.” Ibid., 192, 209. Budnick, “Theatre on the Frontier.” Ibid. Ibid. See “Theatre in the Nineteenth Century,” accessed 8 July 2019, http://homepage.smc.edu/ martin_ben/TheaterHistory/nineteenth.htm. The Mae Edwards Players was managed by Mae Edwards and her husband and “stage partner” Charlie T. Smith. The Tavernier Company was run by Ida Van Cortland and her husband Albert Tavernier. Budnick, “The Performing Arts.” See “Canada’s Daughters,” fn 7. See also Evans, Frontier Theatre, 127–58 and Noonan, Canada’s Governors General at Play, 72, 225–6. Baker, “Captain R. Burton Deane.” Evans, Frontier Theatre, 19; Baker, “Captain R. Burton Deane.” Booth, “Queen Victoria and the Theatre,” 249. Ibid., 252. Ibid., 257. Ibid., 253. See Governor General of Canada, “The Earl of Dufferin 1872–1878,” Office of the Secretary to the Governor General, accessed 20 July 2018, http://www.gg.ca/document.aspx?id=15406. Noonan, Canada’s Governors General at Play, 43, 45. See also Nicoll, British Drama, “Drama in the Nineteenth Century,” 203.

52

Ky m B i r d

131 See Noonan, Canada’s Governors General, 49. Her theatre events consisted of “from two to

132

133 134 135

136 137

138

139 140 141 142

four plays, with sometimes two plays presented on the same program, each program being repeated with usually a week or two between performances of the same play.” While “at Rideau Hall [Frederick Augustus Dixon] ... wrote children’s plays of wit and imagination for 4 of the Dufferins’ New Year’s Day festivities. He also wrote a libretto for the popular The Maire of St Brieux: An Operetta in One Act (1875) with music by Frederick W. Mills, performed at Rideau Hall in 1875, and A Masque Entitled Canada’s Welcome (1879) for the arrival of the next Governor General, the Marquess of Lorne, and his wife, Princess Louise, with music by Arthur A. Clappé. He continued to write plays, contributed articles to Canadian and British magazines, and collaborated on travel books on Canada. He was instrumental in the formation of the Royal Academy of Art in Canada.” See “Fredrick A. Dixon,” Canadian Encyclopedia; and Noonan, Canada’s Governors General, 63–4, 70. Lady Dufferin also mounted a Grand Fancy Ball. See Noonan, Canada’s Governors General, 50. Ibid., 217. She also founded the local Council of Women in Ottawa, as well as Ottawa’s May Court Club for the aid of hospitals and the Aberdeen Association for the distribution of literature to farmers in the West. See Noonan, Canada’s Governors General, 193. In 1895, Lady Aberdeen hired Madge Macbeth as her social secretary. Macbeth would go on to to write, act, and direct for the stage. She also helped found the Ottawa Drama League in May of 1913. See Kelly, “Introduction,” Shackles, 2–3. Noonan, Canada’s Governors General, 196. Ibid., 199. See also Strong-Boag, Parliament, 44. See also Strong-Boag, Parliament, 77, for a sense of the crowds before which Lady Aberdeen spoke, as in February of 1894 when she addressed an audience of “nearly 3000” on behalf of the nCwC, and imagine the audacity and courage which it took to do so. Noonan, Canada’s Governors General, 196. See also The Canadian Journal of Lady Aberdeen, 62, accessed 6 June 2018, http://champlainsociety.utpjournals.press/doi/abs/10.3138/ 9781442618015_4. “This evening at our Club Social Miss Johnson, an Iroquois chief’s daughter recited pieces of her own composition very successfully. She was dressed in Indian costume and one of her pieces describing an encounter of an Indian chief with some White settlers, the Indians shot dead & the wild lament, imprecations of the daughter on those who had robbed her people of their land was v. telling.” Ibid., 201, Petland qtd. in. MacKenzie, Propaganda and Empire, 41. Nicholas, “Gendering the Jubilee,” 269. Cupido, “Appropriating the Past,” 155–6. Dance teacher and choreographer Amy Sternberg produced and performed a pageant in 1927 as part of the celebrations marking Canada’s Diamond Jubilee wherein all of the male parts were played by bearded women in drag. The majority of the over five hundred performers and the approximately three thousand production personnel belonged to sixty-five chapters of the Imperial Order Daughters of the Empire, which produced the pageant under the aegis of its Toronto Municipal Chapter, working in conjunction with administrators for the City of Toronto who were coordinating civic activities in honour of Canada’s sixty years of Confederation. See “Toronto I.O.D.E. Plan Pageant for Jubilee,” newspaper clipping, DCD, Amy Sternberg Fonds; “Progress of Canada Depicted in Pageant,” Toronto Daily Star (23 June 1927); and “Three Thousand Women Plan Pageant,” newspaper clipping, DCD, Amy Sternberg Fonds. For an in-depth analysis of the event see Lindgren, “Amy Sternberg’s Historical Pageant.”

I nt roduct ion

53

143 Noonan, Canada’s Governors General, 205. 144 Cupido, “Appropriating the Past,” 162. 145 Buckner and Francis, “Introduction,” Canada and the British World, 8; Noonan, Canada’s

Governors General at Play, 219. 146 As examples, the opening march, featuring the governor general and his wife, formed a Saint Andrew’s Cross (undoubtedly in recognition of the Aberdeen’s Scottish heritage) to the tune of “Rule Britannia,” thus representing the greatness of the British Empire; the second group, “Victorian Costumes,” danced the Old Fashioned Quadrille, the court dance of England, which displayed the elevated standing of the English aristocracy; the third group, “Literature and Music,” enjoined the quick and lively Lancers, a popular square dance which was, of course, English in origin. Similar arguments can be made about the succeeding dances. I would like to thank master’s student Sara D’Agostino, whose seminar in “Suffrage and Sexuality on the Stage,” York University, 2013, brought these arguments to light. 147 Filewod, Performing Canada, 16. 148 Noonan, Canada’s Governors General, 215. See also Mavor and Aberdeen, The Victorian Era Ball, vi. Parkin in his introduction to the book elaborates Aberdeen’s pedagogical project by saying that “naturally much attention was given to Canada, and the picturesque diversity of races, industries and occupations throughout the Dominion offered a wide field for the study of dress and character. The lumbermen and backwoodsmen of the east, the fur traders of the far north, the cow-boys, pioneers and Indians of the western Prairies, the miners of the Rockies and many other equally characteristic figures furnished striking types of the rough energy which has gone to build up our Northern Land.” The accompanying dances were as follows: group one, “The Empire,” danced the St Andrew’s Cross (Scottish Flag) to the tune of “Rule Britannia;” group two, “Victorian Costumes” danced an Old Fashioned Quadrille; the third group “Literature and Music,” danced the Lancers; the fourth group, Science and Inventions, created its own, “electric dance” with night watchmen and lanterns; the fifth group, Art, danced the minuet; and groups six and seven, “Sports and Amusements,” danced the Virginia Reel. For interpretations of these dances see Theresa Buckland, Society Dancing, 40–70. 149 Mavor and Aberdeen, The Victorian Era Ball, iii. 150 Skene implies that Walker financed Town Topics. See “C.P. Walker,” 132. 151 See Arrell, “The Cosmopolitan,” 107–33. 152 Ibid.,” 113–14. 153 Skene, “Harriet Walker,” Canadian Encyclopedia Online. 154 Budnick, “The Performing Arts,” accessed 18 June 2017. http://www.mhs.mb.ca/docs/ mb_history/11/performingarts.shtml. 155 Arrell, “The Cosmopolitan,” 133. See also Arrell 120 where he notes that “Walker’s later columns tended to be less and less about the theatre, and more and more about general issues of fashion and etiquette, largely based on her knowledge of how things were done in the larger centres.” 156 Harvey, Curtain Time, 2. 157 Budnick, “The Performing Arts,” 121, 115. 158 Evans, Frontier Theatre, 21. 159 Russell, Double Take, 64–5. 160 Ibid. 161 Nicoll, British Drama, 203–4. 162 Russell, Double Take, 64.

54

Ky m B i r d

163 Ibid., 64. See also Russell, Double Take, 65. After the 1928 renovations of its ladies lounge in

164 165 166 167 168 169 170 171 172 173

174 175 176 177 178 179 180 181

182 183

which the colour scheme of “‘Mauve moire’ covered its walls and festooned its ceiling,” this toilet room was named “The Lady Willingdon Salon” because it recalled the colour scheme at Rideau Hall, thus involving yet another governor general’s wife in the reclamation of the theatre’s reputability. Brockhouse, The Royal Alexandra Theatre, 11. Budnick, “The Performing Arts,” 121, 115. Balm, The Theatrical Public Sphere, 6–7. Vance, A History of Canadian Culture, 219. Balm, The Theatrical Public Sphere, 8. Bird, Redressing the Past, 71. Ibid., 149. Ibid., 113. Woolf, The Common Reader, 48. See Barman, Constance Lindsay Skinner, 59, 61. Skinner, who lived by her pen and made money in the early part of her career as a drama critic, had her play The Birthright staged in Chicago. As was the case with most women, however, she failed to receive any substantial royalties or remuneration. Balm, The Theatrical Public Sphere, 11, 15. See Kritzer, “Comedies,” 3. In the United States, “comedies by English women writers were among the most popular works in the theatres of early America.” Szakolczai, Comedy and the Public Sphere, 5; Christopher Balm, The Theatrical Public Sphere, 12. Buckner and Francis, “Introduction,” Canada and the British World, 8; Holdsworth, Theatre and Nation, 13. Szakolczai, Comedy and the Public Sphere, 1. Ibid., 3. Ibid., 1. According to the 1902 Report of the Royal Commission on Chinese Immigration, “they are not and will not become citizens in any sense of the term as we understand it.” See Ward, White Canada Forever, 12. Saddlemyer, “Forum,” 3. Curry, “Whiteness and Feminism,” 254.

1 L aura Secord: T he Heroine of 1812 A n Introduction ky m bi r D

Laura Secord: The Heroine of 1812 by Sarah Anne Curzon was the first self-consciously feminist Canadian play.1 Published in 1887, it was actually written in 1876, the same year that Curzon, Emily Stowe (1831–1903), and other Toronto women activists formed into a “Literary Club,” the inaugural feminist organization in the country. This play and Curzon’s delightful playlet, The Sweet Girl Graduate (1882), have garnered more scholarly attention than any other dramatic works by a woman of the period. Laura Secord was a historical, political, and feminist enterprise and not solely a literary work. Curzon belonged to the Imperial Federationist League, an organization developed to forge a federal union between member-states of the British empire: this play was a part of her contribution to the imperial federationist strategy of producing histories that cultivated a sense of British national identity in Canadian citizens. A closet drama written to be read rather than staged, it obviously provided a private pleasure for its readership. Its purpose was nevertheless to make the act of a private citizen public and in doing so give women a significant presence in that history. Its intention was to incorporate typically overlooked female heroism, particularly in the War of 1812, into the dominant, patriarchal, loyalist narrative. It was also meant to effect material and social changes in the culture on behalf of women. Its aim was to present a drama in which women were as capable as men of great and consequential public and patriotic acts. In it, Laura Secord undertakes a punishing, thirty-one-kilometre journey through the formidable Niagara woods to inform British General James Fitzgibbon of an imminent attack by Henry Dearborn’s United States troupes on Beaver Dam. In doing so, the play makes a case for women’s equality with men under Christianity. Curzon was born into a solidly middle-class, urban family in Birmingham, England, in 1833. The daughter of George Philips Vincent, a glass manufacturer with a lively interest in science and chemistry and an association with the intellectuals of his place and age, Sarah benefited from her father and mother’s enlightened

56

Ky m B i r d

1.1 Sarah Ann Curzon a few years before her death in 1898.

attitudes and ample purse. She received a ladies-school education and private training in music and languages. In 1858, she married Robert Curzon (of Norfolk) and sometime between 1862 and 1864 the couple immigrated with their first son, Robert Jr, to Toronto. Curzon gave birth to three more boys and one girl, her daughter being among the earliest women to benefit from her mother’s activism and graduate from the University of Toronto. While her husband was for the most part gainfully employed – he worked as a bookkeeper, a shopkeeper, and a clerk/treasurer in Toronto City Hall – she never had enough money to buy her own home. She moved nine times in thirty years. Curzon, too, generated an income – she gave historical lectures and wrote for publications like The Dominion Illustrated, The Canadian Monthly, The Evangelical Churchman, and The Canadian Magazine. She published poetry and for a period was employed as editor of the first “Women’s Page” of the Toronto temperance weekly, The Canada Citizen (1881–84). Her work, however, was precarious and modestly paid. Laura Secord, a piece whose time she was so convinced had come that she underwrote it herself, placed her “heavily in debt to her publisher.”2 Curzon suffered from “Bright’s Disease,” a kidney disorder from which she died in 1898 while living with her daughter on Harbord Street in Toronto, her husband having passed away four years earlier. She was sixty-five years old.

L aura S ecord: A n I nt roduct ion

57

Over the course of her life, Curzon engaged in a whole range of feminist ventures. She was an officer of the Christian Women’s Temperance Union, a founding member of the Dominion Women’s Enfranchisement Association (for which she was recording secretary), and of the Canadian Suffrage Association – organizations that produced the most effective actions in the struggle for Canadian women’s suffrage. As editor for The Canada Citizen, she was the first in the country to report on feminist affairs, including the establishment of the Women’s Medical College and women’s entrance into the University of Toronto, the subject of her Sweet Girl Graduate, as well as the first to reprint, for a Canadian audience, articles from American and British feminist luminaries and organizations.3 She lectured on women’s history for several historical societies and in 1895, after a lifetime of associated status in male-dominated organizations, she was instrumental in establishing the Women’s Canadian Historical Society of Toronto and became its first president (1895–97).4 In her preface to Laura Secord, Curzon announces that that play was meant “to rescue from oblivion the name of a brave woman, and set it in its proper place among the heroes of Canadian history.” It was the most enterprising of her literary endeavours and to a great extent equal to her ambition for it, helping transform Secord’s ordeal from obscure anecdote into an incident of great, political consequence. Well-known fiction writer, contemporary, and fellow equity feminist Louisa Murray urged “every ... householder ... to make it a point of honour to possess a copy ... [and] every School and Church Library [to buy] ... at least one.”5 The play also strove to generate curiosity in Canadian history, which Curzon believed was “lacking in a course of teaching that could leave Canadians to think that their country had no historical past.”6 Curzon tells us that Laura Secord’s “publication ... aroused ... interest in all the events of the campaign of 1812–14.”7 Neither was this an erroneous claim: it anticipated a large wave of historical writing during the loyalist centennial commemorations and launched a comparatively obscure footnote in the War of 1812 into a canonical standard. It help to form a counterpublic of writers who adapted and published many versions of the tale, and teachers and children who taught and read them as they began to appear in books of Canadian history, histories of school children, and anthologies of literary verse and stories.8 It further intended to construct a legacy of women warriors: those associated with the American Revolutionary War, like Lady Harriet Acland and the Baroness Reidessel who followed their men onto the battle-grounds where they tended to their wounds and transported them to safety;9 and those associated with the present war, the Widow Secord, Mrs Maria Hill, and Laura herself who also recovered her injured husband from Queenston Heights. Laura Secord was based to a large extent on W.F. Coffin’s 1812: The War and Its Moral (1864), a text that became the authoritative rendition of events.10 The ways in which it alters Coffin’s interpretation, most importantly the fact that Laura and not her husband receives news of the attack, makes it more fundamentally a feminist story. Although the play was clearly an imaginative work, there is no doubt Curzon

58

Ky m B i r d

wanted it to be understood as primarily grounded in fact. To this end, it contained much of the apparatus one associates with a historical text, being carefully research, copiously footnoted, and covered by facsimiles of documents original to the period that corroborated the veracity of its version of events. It incorporated elements of what one might call, somewhat anachronistically, public history, as it attempted to generate an intimacy between the population at the time and its past, while also making that past lofty, renowned, and useful by endeavouring to engender pride and loyalty in Canadians. It made history feminist by indirectly arguing for women’s citizenship and their public participation in the creation of the country. Laura Secord was one of a series of commemorative strategies Curzon produced on the subject that included memoirs, poetry, and lectures, as well as a campaign to erect a monument to the memory of Secord and her benevolent act.11 Like many nineteenth-century feminists, Curzon held contradictory views respecting women. She was, by and large, a liberal feminist. She fought for women’s equal political and social status in the conceptualization of history, in the academy, in the professions, and in government bodies: liberal feminism was her principle philosophical stance. In Laura Secord, she defies the private/female and public/male dichotomy that prevailed, at least ideologically, in nineteenth-century middle-class life. She was nevertheless also a proponent of domestic feminism. Maternity was often the moral ground upon which she justified women’s involvement in public affairs. In Laura Secord, she transposes female “virtues” such as self-sacrifice, nurture, and the safeguarding of children onto the civic realm. She represents the country, itself, as a home, its citizens as family, and women’s domestic work as “a civic obligation” that requires they make the “‘health, welfare, education, and comfort’ of the people a priority of local and national government.”12 Laura Secord is a closet drama, a genre that Marta Straznicky argues has an important gender component. Closet dramas were not unusual in late nineteenth-century Canada and there were certainly other Loyalist closet dramas, like Catherine Nina Merritt’s When George the Third Was King (1897) and Charles Mair’s Tecumseh (1886).13 They were a literary rejoinder to the impropriety and depravity of many theatrical venues. From the early eighteenth century to the end of the nineteenth century, Europe’s greatest writers deserted the squalid conditions of theatres for the imagined stage. But for women, for whom these conditions were particularly difficult to negotiate, this literary and dramatic form had a distinct advantage: it could be produced in their own domestic space. It allowed them to avoid the theatre’s customary publicity, male-dominated administration, dissolution, and social stigma. And, as Straznicky argues, “closet plays ... [were] uniquely capable of conflating public and private discourses.”14 Laura Secord allowed the playwright to create a woman hero who is fundamentally domestic and maternal and who uses these feminine virtues as the moral ground upon which to build her case for acting the part of war-time hero in the public world. According to fellow Imperial Federationist and biographer Henry James Morgan, the play “led to the formation of several historical societies and

1.2 From the original manuscript written in 1887. From Canadian Singers and Their Songs.

60

Ky m B i r d

organizations having for their object the promotion of original research,” including the Canadian Women’s Historical Society.15 Curzon also had another, very practical ambition for her play. She hoped that it would have some influence upon the contemporary discussion respecting pensions for veterans of the War of 1812. By using her play to make an argument for Secord’s public heroism, Curzon hoped that her closet drama and its recognition of Secord’s actions would make Secord eligible for a state dispensation, similar to male war heroes, to be posthumously bestowed upon her only living daughter. Curzon had comparable public and political intentions for her only other closet drama, The Sweet Girl Graduate, which ends with a plea for the cause of women’s rights. It is said to have helped effect the success of the Order-in-Council on 2 October 1884 admitting women to University College.16 Laura Secord’s feminist strategy of historical recuperation is more or less entirely confined to white, British-identified women and men. Its version of history as Loyalist is constructed at the expense of all other histories and peoples living on the territory that in 1867 became Canada. For example, while Curzon claims that Flos and Pete are evidence of the fact that the Secords kept slaves, these characters are variously stereotyped as silly, ignorant, inarticulate, and puerile,17 and to this extent, as Alan Filewod reminds us, are “popular conventions of racial impersonation and racist caricature”; they speak in a “stage dialect made famous as a tactic of patronizing ridicule by the Tom shows and the minstrel troupes” that toured throughout the United States in the latter half of the nineteenth century.”18 Similarly, while it is now commonly acknowledged that Mohawk warriors caused the American forces to surrender at Beaver Damns, the history that is presented in Curzon’s drama relegates these warriors to bit parts: their behaviour never corresponds in quantity, degree, value, rank, or ability to the European troupes that surround FitzGibbon. As Marianne Valverde writes, “White people were seen as having more character, as a group, than Native people or people of colour; and among whites, people of British descent were regarded as having the most character” (104). History, as it is conceived of here, is written by the victors and both Black and Indigenous characters can lay no claim to land, to power, or to their genuine identity and real contribution to the public, political sphere. Laura Secord commemorates, for the contemporary moment in which it is written and for future generations, the private act of a woman for public and political ends. Even though it is a closet drama, to be read in the penetralis of one’s own domestic space, it nevertheless deployed theatre and theatrical conventions in the service of a civic duty, in the hope of producing a counterpublic of Anglo-Canadian women, and of historical, material, and social changes in the culture on behalf of these women, whose contributions to culture were finally recognized and celebrated.

L aura S ecord: A n I nt roduct ion

61

notes 1 Although Radmacher offers an interesting and convincing reading of Eliza Lanesford

2

3 4 5 6 7 8

9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18

Cushing’s The Fatal Ring (1840) as a feminist play, there is no evidence that feminism was the purpose or the intention of its playwright. See “Academic Writing Samples” and “Making a Case.” See Murray, “Appeal to Patriotic Canadians,” 362. In 1888, just after her book was published, Curzon wrote to poet William Kirby (1817–1906) to ask for a financial loan. See also Bird, Redressing the Past, 28. Bird, Redressing the Past, 21. Boutilier, “Women’s Rights and Duties,” 57. Murray, “Appeal to Patriotic Canadians,” 362, and “The Story of Laura Secord, 1813,” 675. Curzon, Laura Secord: The Heroine of 1812, preface. Ibid. Murray, “Appeal to Patriotic Canadians,” 362, and “The Story of Laura Secord, 1813,” 675. The significance of Curzon’s recovery is substantiated in the many histories and educational volumes which were subsequently written about Secord. For an extensive list of these see Bird, Redressing the Past, 218n18. Curzon, Laura Secord, 48n, 49n. N. Knowles, Inventing the Loyalists, 127–8. Among these works are Curzon’s “Ballad of 1812” (1887), Canada in Memoriam 1812–14 (1891), and Story of Laura Secord (1891). Boutilier, “Women’s Rights and Duties,” 57. I am also thinking here of Samuel James Watson’s Ravlan (1876), John Hutchinson Garnier’s Prince Pedro: A Tragedy (1877), and C.F. Newcomb and J.M. Hanks’s The Fireworshippers (1882). Straznicky, “Margaret Cavendish,” 373. Bird, Redressing the Past, 23. See Oxford Companion to Canadian Theatre, s.vv. “Sarah Anne Curzon.” Curzon, Laura Secord, n5. Filewod, “Nation on Parade,” n.p.

L aura Secord: T he Heroine of 1812 1887 s a r a H a n n e C u r z o n (18 3 3 –18 9 8 )

And among them all move the majestic, white-robed bards, striking their golden harps, and telling the tales of the days of old, and handing down the names of the heroes for ever. Justin H. McCarthy1

The soul of the book is whatever beautiful and true and noble we can f ind in it. Charles Kingsley 2

P r e Fa C e 3 The drama of Laura Secord was written to rescue from oblivion the name of a brave woman and set it in its proper place among the heroes of Canadian history.4 During the first few years of her residence in Canada, the author was often astonished to hear it remarked, no less among educated than uneducated Canadians, that “Canada has no history”; and yet on every hand stories were current of the achievements of the pioneers and the hardships endured and overcome by the United Empire Loyalists. Remembering that as soon as she had conquered the merest rudiments of reading and grammar at school, she was set to learn English history – and so become acquainted with the past of her country – it seemed to the writer that there was something lacking in a course of teaching that could leave Canadians to think that their country had no historical past. Determined to seek out for herself the facts of the case, it was with

L a u r a S e c o r d : T h e H e r o i n e o f 18 1 2

63

feelings of the deepest interest that she read such of the contributions to the newspaper press as came in her way during the debate with regard to the pensions that the surviving veterans of 1812 asked of government for. Among these was incidentally the story of Mrs Secord’s heroic deed in warning Fitzgibbon. Yet, it could not pass without observation that, while the heroism of the men of that date was dwelt upon with warm appreciation and much urgency as to their deserts, Mrs Secord, as being a woman, shared in nothing more tangible than an approving record. The story to a woman’s mind was full of pathos and, though barren of great incidents, was not without a due richness of colouring if looked at by appreciative eyes. Nor were the results of Laura Secord’s brave deed insignificant. Had the Americans carried Beaver Dams at that juncture, the whole peninsula would have been before them, all its supplies, all its means of communication with other parts of the province. And Canada, Upper Canada at least, would have been in the hands of the invaders until, by a struggle too severe to be contemplated calmly, they were driven forth. To save from the sword is surely as great a deed as to save with the sword, and this Laura Secord did at an expense of nerve and muscle fully equal to any that are recorded of the warrior. To set her on such a pedestal of equality, to inspire other hearts with loyal bravery such as hers, to write her name on the roll of Canadian heroes, inspired the poem that bears her name. But, the tribute to her memory would not be complete were it to omit an appeal to Canadians, especially to the inhabitants of this province who in their prosperity owe to her so much, to do their part and write her name in enduring marble upon the spot where she lies buried. Nor does it seem asking more than a graceful act from the government of the dominion – a dominion which, but for her, might never have been – to do its share in acknowledgment. One of her daughters still lives, and if she attains her mother’s age has yet nearly a decade before her. The drama of Laura Secord was written in 1876 and the ballad a year later but, owing to the inertness of Canadian interest in Canadian literature at that date, could not be published. It is hoped that a better time has at length dawned. S. A. Curzon, Toronto, 1887.

CH a r aCt er s5 britisH Laura seCorD, “ Mrs Secord,” the heroine, wife of James seCorD. wiDow stePHen, “Widow,” wife of James’s deceased elder brother. mary, a girl of thirteen, daughter of James anD Laura seCorD. CHarLotte, her sister. Harriet, her sister. babette, the maid at the mill.

64

Sarah A nne Curzon

a woman, keeper of a roadside tavern at Beaver Dams. James seCorD, “Mr Secord,” a wounded militia officer, home on sick leave, husband of Laura seCorD Lieutenant Fitzgibbon, a British officer holding the post at Beaver Dams. maJor De Haren, a British officer lying at St Catharines with his command. CoLoneL tHomas CLarke, a Canadian militia officer. sergeant george mosier, an old pensioner and UE Loyalist of 1776. misHe-mo-qua tHe great bear, a Mohawk chief. JoHn Penn, a farmer and Harvey’s Quaker. george Jarvis, a cadet of the 49th Regiment. george James Cummings, a corporal of militia. roaring biLL, a private in the 49th Regiment. JaCk keLLey, a private in the 49th Regiment. tom, a child of six, son of the wiDow seCorD. arCHy, a little boy at St David’s Mill. CHarLes, a boy of four, son of James anD Laura seCorD. A Sergeant of the 8th Regiment. A Sergeant of the 49th Regiment otHer soLDiers, of the 49th, 8th, or King’s Own and 104th Regiments. miLitiamen, CanaDians. inDians, British allies, chiefly Mohawks. Other boys of various ages from eight to sixteen. ameriCan CoLoneL boerstLer, an American officer. CaPtain mCDoweLL, an American officer. Pete and FLo, slaves. a Large boDy oF ameriCan soLDiers, inFantry, Dragoons, anD artiLLerymen.

AC T I 6

Scene i (Queenston, a farmhouse. John Penn, a Quaker, is seated on a chair tilted against the wall.7 Mr Secord, his arm in a sling, reclines on a couch against the end of which a crutch is placed. Mrs Secord occupies a rocking chair near the lounge. Charlie, a little fellow of four, is seated on her lap holding a ball of yarn from which she is knitting. Charlotte, a girl of twelve, is seated on a stool set a little in rear of the couch; she has a lesson book in her hand. Harriet, a girl of ten, occupies a stool near her sister and has a slate on her lap. All are listening intently to the Quaker who is speaking.)

L a u r a S e c o r d : T h e H e r o i n e o f 18 1 2

65

quaker: The midnight sky, set thick with shining points, Hung watchingly, while from a band of gloom That belted in the gloomier woods, stole forth Foreshortened forms of grosser shade, all barred with lines of denser blackness, dexter-borne.i Rank after rank, they came out of the dark, So silently no pebble crunched beneath Their feet more sharp than did a woodchuck stir. And so came on the foe all stealthily, And found their guns a-limber,ii fires ablaze, And men in calm repose. With bay’nets fixed The section in advance fell on the camp, And killed the first two sentries, whose sharp cries Alarmed a third who fired and firing fled. This roused the guard, but “Forward!” was the word, And on we rushed, slaying full many a man Who woke not in this world. The ’larumiii given, A-sudden rose such hubbub and confusion As is made by belching earthquake. Waked from sleep, Men stumbled over men and angry cries Resounded. Surprised, yet blenching not, Muskets were seized and shots at random fired E’en as they fled. Yet, rallied they when ours At word from Harvey fell into line,8 And stood right ‘mid the fires to flint their locks. An awful moment! As amid raging storms, the warring heaven Falls sudden silent and concentrates force To launch some scathing bolt upon the earth, So hung the foe, hid in portentous gloom, While in the lurid light ours halted. Quick, Red volcanic fire burst from their lines And mowed us where we stood! Full many a trembling hand that set a flint Fell lifeless ere it clicked: yet silent all, i

Moving toward the right: the Quaker is describing the increasing darkness to the right of the troops as they commence battle. oed, s.v. “dexter.”

ii

oed,

s.v. “unready.”

iii “A signal of the need to take up arms; a warning of the imminent danger of attack by a hostile force.” oed, s.v. “larum.”

66

Sarah A nne Curzon

Save groans of wounded, till our rods struck home; Then, flashing fire for fire, forward we rushed And scattered them like chaff before the wind.9 The King’s Own turned their left;10 the 49th, At point of bay’net, pushed the charge,11 and took Their guns, they fighting valiantly, but wild, Having no rallying point, their leaders both Lying the while all snug at Jemmy Gap’s.12 And so the men gave in at last and fled, And Stoney Creek was ours. mr seCorD: Brave Harvey! Gallantly planned and carried. The stroke is good, the consequences better. Cooped as he is in George,13 the foe will lack his forage and perforce must eat his stores, For Yeo holds the lake and on the land His range is scarce beyond his guns.14 And more, He is the less by these of men to move On salient points, and long as we hold firm At Erie, Burlington, and Stoney Creek, He’s like the wretched bird, he “can’t get out.”15 mrs seCorD: You speak, friend Penn, as if you saw the fight, Not like a simple bearer of the news. quaker: Why, so I did. Mrs SeCorD: You did! Pray tell us how it was, For ever have I heard that Quakers shunned The sight of blood. quaker: None more than I. Yet innate forces sometimes tell o’er use Against our will. But this was how it happed: Thou seest, Mistress Secord, I’d a load Of sound potatoes, that I thought to take To Vincent’s camp, but on the way I met16 A British officer, who challenged me: saith he, “Friend, whither bound?” “Up to the Heights,” say I, “To sell my wares.” “Better,” saith he, “Go to the Yankee camp. They’ll pay a price Just double ours, for we are short of cash.” “I’ll risk the pay,” say I, “for British troops; Nay, if we’re poor, I can afford the load, And p’rhaps another, for my country’s good.” “And say’st thou so, my Quaker! Yet,” saith he,

L a u r a S e c o r d : T h e H e r o i n e o f 18 1 2

67

“I hear you Quakers will not strike a blow To guard your country’s rights, nor yet your own.” “No, but we’ll hold the stakes,” cried I. He laughed. “Can’t you do more, my friend?” Quoth he, “I need A closer knowledge of the Yankee camp: How strong it is and how it lies. A brush Is imminent and one must win, you know. Shall they?” His manner was so earnest that, before I knew, I cried, “Not if I know it, man!” With a bright smile he answered me: “There spoke A Briton.” Then he directed me How I might sell my load, what I should mark, And when report to him my observations. So, after dusk I met him once again And told him all I knew. It pleased him much. Warmly he shook my hand. “I am,” saith he, “Lieutenant-Colonel Harvey. Should it hap That I can ever serve you, let me know.” mrs seCorD: And then you stayed to see the end of it? quaker: Mistress, I did. Somewhat against my creed, I freely own, for what should I, a Quaker, E’er have to do with soldiers, men of blood! I mean no slight to you, James. mr seCorD (Laughing.): No, no! Go on. quaker: Well, when I thought how tired poor Dobbin was, How late the hour, and that ’twould be a week Before I’d hear how Harvey sped that night, I thought I’d stay and see the matter out, The more because I kind o’ felt as if Whatever happed I’d had a hand in it. mrs seCorD: And pray where did you hide? For hide you must, So near the Yankee lines. quaker: It wasn’t hard to do. I knew the ground, Being a hired boy on that very farm, Now Jemmy Gap’s.17 There was an elm, where once I used to sit and watch for chipmunks, that I clomb,i* And from its shade could see the Yankee camp, Its straggling line, its fires, its careless watch, And from the first I knew the fight was ours, i

Past tense of climb. oed, s.v. “clomb.”

68

Sarah A nne Curzon

If Harvey struck that night. Mr SeCorD: Ha! Ha! Friend John, thine is a soldier’s brain Beneath that Quaker hat. (Quaker in some embarrassment, rising.) No, no, I am a man of peace and hate The very name of war. I must be gone. (To Mrs Secord.) My woman longs to see thee, Mistress. Good-bye to all. DaugHters seCorD (The little girls rising.): Good-bye, sir. mrs seCorD: Good-bye, John. ’Twould please me much to see my friend again, But war blots out the sweet amenities Of life. Give her my love. quaker: I will. mr seCorD (Rising and taking his crutch.): I’ll walk a piece with you, friend Penn, And see you past the lines. (His little daughter Harriet hands him his hat.) quaker: That’s right, ’twill do thee good: Thy wounds have left thee like an ailing girl, So poor and pale.18 (Exit Quaker and Mr Secord.) CHarLotte: Oh dear, I wish I were a man to fight In such brave times as these!19 (Enter Mary, a girl of fourteen.) mary: Were wishing aught, Soon should another sword strike for the King And those dear rights now rudely overlooked. mrs seCorD: My child? mary: Oh naught, mamma, save the old tale: no nook That’s not invaded, even one’s books Borrowed without one’s leave. I hate it all! mrs seCorD: We must be patient dear, it cannot last. Harriet: Oh, if we girls were boys or Charles a man! mrs seCorD: Poor baby Charles! See, he’s asleep and now, Dear girls, seeing we cannot fight we’ll pray That peace may come again: for strife and blood Though wisely spent are taxes hard to pay. But come, ’tis late! See Charlie’s dropt asleep. Sing first your evening hymn and then to bed. I’ll lay the darling down. (Exit Mrs Secord with the child in her arms.)

L a u r a S e c o r d : T h e H e r o i n e o f 18 1 2

CHarLotte: You start it, Mary. (Children sing Hymn20 ) Softly as falls the evening shade, On our bowed heads Thy hands be laid, Surely as fades the parting light, Our sleep be safe and sweet tonight. Calmly, securely may we rest, As on a tender father’s breast. Let war’s black pinionsi soar away, And dove-like peace resume her sway, Our King, our country be Thy care, Nor ever fail of childhood’s prayer. Calmly, securely may we rest, As on a tender father’s breast. (Exit.)

Scene ii (The same place and the same hour.) (Enter Mrs Secord.) mrs seCorD: After a weary day, the evening falls With gentle benisoniiof peace and rest. The deep’ning dusk draws like a curtain round, And gives the soul a twilight of its own, A soft, sweet time full of refreshing dews, And subtle essences of memory And reflection. Oh, gentle peace, when (Enter Pete, putting his head in at the door.) Pete: Oh mistis! Heh mistis!21 mrs seCorD: What now, Pete? Pete: Oh mistis, dat yar sergeant ossifer – Dat sassy un what call me “Woolly-bear.” An’ kick my shin, he holler ’crass to me: – “You, Pete, jes’ you go in, an’ tell Ma’am Secord I’se comin’ in ter supper wiv some frens.” He did jes’ so – a sassy scamp.

i

“The wing of a bird in flight.” oed, s.v. “pinion.”

ii

Blessing. oed, s.v. “benison.”

69

70

Sarah A nne Curzon

mrs seCorD: To-night? At this hour? Pete: Yes, mistis; jes’, jes’ now. I done tell Flos Ter put her bes’ leg fus’, fer I mus’ go An’ ten’ dat po’, sick hoss. mrs seCorD: Nay, you’ll do nothing of the kind! You’ll stay And wait upon these men. I’ll not have Flos Left single-handed by your cowardice. Pete: I ain’t a coward - ef I hed a club. Dat po’, sick hoss – mrs seCorD: Nonsense! Go call me Flos and see you play no tricks to-night. Pete: No, mistis, no, no tricks. (Aside.) Ef I’d a club! (He calls from the door.) Flos! Flos! Ma’am Secord wants ye. mrs seCorD (Spreading a cloth upon the table.): God help us if these men much longer live Upon our failing stores. (Enter Flos.) 5 What have you got to feed these fellows, Flos? FLos: De mistis knows it ain’t much, pas’ noo bread, An’ two – three pies. I’ve got some bacon sisslin’, An’ put some taties on when Pete done tole me. Pete: Give ’em de cider, mistis, an’ some beer, And let ’em drink ’em drunk till mas’r come An’ tell me kick ’em out. FLos: You! – Jes’ hol’ yer sassy tongue. (Footsteps are heard without.) Pete: Dat’s um. Dey’s comin’. Dat po’, sick hoss – (He makes for the door.) mrs seCorD: You, Pete, come back and lay this cloth, And wait at table properly with Flos. (Enter a sergeant, a corporal, and four privates.) sergeant (Striking Pete on the head with his cane.) That’s for your ugly phizi and impudence. (Exit Pete, howling.) (To Mrs Secord.) Your slaves are saucy, Mistress Secord. mrs seCorD: Well, sir! sergeant: None of my business, eh? Well, ’tis sometimes, You see. You got my message: what’s to eat?22 mrs seCorD: My children’s food, sir. This nor post-houseii is,

i

“A face or facial expression; countenance.” oed, s.v. “phiz.”

ii

“A posting-house or inn where horses are kept for the use of travellers.” oed, s.v. “post-house.”

L a u r a S e c o r d : T h e H e r o i n e o f 18 1 2

71

Nor inn to take your orders. (Flos and Pete enter carrying dishes.) sergeant: Oh, bless you, we don’t order, we command. Here, men, sit down. (He seats himself at the head of the table and the others take their places, some of them greeting Mrs Secord with a salute of respect.) Boy, fill those jugs. You girl, Set that dish down by me and haste with more. Bacon’s poor stuff when lamb and mint’s in season. Why don’t you kill that lamb, Ma’am Secord? mrs seCorD: ’Tis a child’s pet. sergeant: Oh pets be hanged! (Exit Mrs Secord.) CorPoraL: Poor thing! I’m sure none of us want the lamb. a Private: We’ll have it, though, and more if Boerstler – 23 CorPoraL: Hold your tongue, you – seConD Private (Drinking.): Here’s good luck, my boys, to that surprise – CorPoraL (Aside.): Fool! sergeant (Drinking.): Here’s to tomorrow and a cloudy night. Fill all your glasses, boys.

Scene iii (Mrs Secord’s bedroom. She is walking up and down in much agitation. Enter Mr Secord). mrs seCorD (Springing to meet him.): Oh James, where have you been? mr seCorD: I did but ramble through the pasture, dear, And round the orchard. ’Twas so sweet and still. Save for the echo of the sentry’s tread O’er the hard road, it might have been old times. But, but, you’re agitated, dear. What’s wrong? I see our unasked visitors were here. Was that – ? mrs seCorD: Not that, yet that. Oh James, I scarce can bear The stormy swell that surges o’er my heart, Awaked by what they have revealed this night.24 mr seCorD: Dear wife, what is’t? mrs seCorD: Oh, sit you down and rest, for you will need All strength you may command to hear me tell.

72

Sarah A nne Curzon

(Mr Secord sits down, his wife by him.) That saucy fellow Winter, and a guard Came and demanded supper and, of course, They had to get it.25 Pete and Flos I left To wait on them, but soon they sent them off, Their jugs supplied and fell a-talking loud As in defiance of some private plan To make the British wince. Word followed word, Till I, who could not help but hear their gibes, Suspected mischief and listening learned the whole. Tomorrow night a large detachment leaves Fort George for Beaver Dams.26 Five hundred men, With some dragoons, artillery, and a train Of baggage wagons, under Boerstler go To fall upon Fitzgibbon by surprise,27 Capture the stores, and pay for Stoney Creek. mr seCorD: My God! And here am I, a paroled cripple! Oh Canada, my chosen country! Now, Is’t now, in this thy dearest strait, I fail? I, who for thee would pour my blood with joy, Would give my life for thy prosperity, Must I stand by and see thy foes prevail Without one thrust? (In his agitation, he rises.) mrs seCorD: Oh, calm thee dear, thy strength is all to me. Fitzgibbon shall be warned or aid be sent. mr seCorD: But how, wife? How? Let this attempt succeed, As well it may, and vain last year’s success, in vain fell Brock, in vain was Queenston fought, in vain we pour out blood and gold in streams;28 For Dearborn then may push his heavy force Along the lakes with long odds in his favour.29 And I, unhappy wretch, in such a strait Am here unfit for service. Thirty men Are all Fitzgibbon has to guard the stores And keep a road ’twixt Bisshopp and De Haren.30 Those stores, that road, would give the Yankee all. mrs seCorD: Why, be content now dear. Had we not heard, This plot might have passed on to its dire end, Like the pale owl that noiseless cleaves the dark, And on its dreaming prey swoops with fell claw. mr seCorD: What better is it? mrs seCorD: This, that myself will go to Beaver Dams, And warn Fitzgibbon: there is yet a day.31

L a u r a S e c o r d : T h e H e r o i n e o f 18 1 2

mr seCorD: Thou! Thou take a task at which a man might shrink? No, no, dear wife! Not so. mrs seCorD: Ay, prithee, let me go; ’Tis not so far. And I can pass unharmed Where you would be made prisoner, or worse. They’ll not hurt me; my sex is my protection. mr seCorD: Oh, not in times like these. Let them suspect A shadow wrong and neither sex nor tears Nor tenderness would save thy fate. mrs seCorD: Fear not for me. I’ll be for once so wise The sentries shall e’en put me on my way. Once past the lines the dove is not more swift Nor sure to find her distant home than I To reach Fitzgibbon. Say I may go. mr seCorD (Putting his arm round her tenderly.): How can I let thee go? Thy tender feet Would bleed ere half the way was done. Thy strength Would fail ’twixt the rough road and summer heat, And in some gloomy depth, faint and alone, Thou would’st lie down to die. Or, chased and hurt By wolf or catamount,i thy task undone, Thy precious life would then be thrown away. I cannot let thee go. mrs seCorD: Not thrown away! Nay, say not that, dear James. No life is thrown away that’s spent in doing duty. But why raise up these phantoms of dismay? I did not so when at our country’s call You leapt to answer. Said I one word To keep you back? And yet my risk was greater Then than now – a woman left with children On a frontier farm, where yelling savages Urged on or led by renegades might burn And kill and outrage with impunity Under the name of war. Yet, I blenchedii not, But helped you clean your musket, clasped your belt, And sent you forth with many a cheery word. Did I not so? mr seCorD: Thou didst indeed, dear wife, thou didst.

i

A panther or wildcat. oed, s.v. “catamount.”

ii

Flinch. oed, s.v. “blench.”

73

74

Sarah A nne Curzon

But yet, I cannot let thee go, my darling. Did I not promise in our marriage vow, And to thy mother, to guard thee as myself? mrs seCorD: And so you will if now you let me go. For you would go yourself without a word Of parley were you able, leaving me The while in His good hands, not doubting once But I was willing. Leave me there now James, And let me go. It is our country calls. mr seCorD: Ah, dearest wife, thou dost not realize All my deep promise: “guard thee as myself?” I meant to guard thee doubly, trebly more. mrs seCorD: There you were wrong. The law says “as thyself Thou shalt regard thy neighbour.”32 mr seCorD: My neighbour! Then is that all that thou art To me, thy husband? Shame! Thou lovest me not. My neighbour! mrs seCorD: Why now, fond ingrate! What saith the Book? “The gooD with all thy soul and mind and strength, Thy neighbour as thyself.” Thou must not love Thyself, nor me, as thou must love the Good. Therefore, I am thy neighbour, loved as thyself: And as thyself wouldst go to warn Fitzgibbon If thou wert able, so I, being able, Thou must let me go, thy other self. Pray let me go! mr seCorD (After a pause.): Thou shalt, dear wife, thou shalt. I’ll say no more. Thy courage meets the occasion. Hope shall be My standard-bearer, and put to shame The cohorts black anxiety calls up. But how shall I explain to prying folks Thine absence? mrs seCorD: Say I am gone to see my brother. ’Tis known he’s sick and if I venture now ’Twill serve to make the plot seem still secure. I must start early. Mr SeCorD: Yet, not too soon lest ill surmise, Aroused by guilty conscience, doubt thy aim. mrs seCorD: That’s true. Yet, at this time of year do travellers start Almost at dawn to avoid the midday heats.

L a u r a S e c o r d : T h e H e r o i n e o f 18 1 2

75

Tell not the children whither I am bound. Poor darlings! Soon enough anxiety Will fall upon them. ’Tis the heritage Of all – high, low, rich, poor – he chiefly blest Who travels farthest ere he meets the foe. There’s much to do to leave the household straight. I’ll not retire tonight. mr seCorD: Oh, yes dear wife, thou shalt not spend thy strength On household duties, for thou’lt need it all Ere thy long task be done. Oh, but I fear – mrs seCorD (Quickly.): Fear nothing! Trust heaven and do your best, is wiser. Should I meet harm, ’twill be in doing duty. Fail I shall not! mr seCorD: Retire, dear wife, and rest. I’ll watch the hours beside thee. mrs seCorD: No need to watch me, James, I shall awake. (Aside.) And yet perhaps ’tis best. If he wake now he’ll sleep tomorrow Perforce of nature and banish thus Some hours of sad anxiety. mr seCorD: I’d better watch. mrs seCorD: Well then, to please you! But call me on the turn Of night, lest I should lose an hour or two of cooler travel.

Scene iv (Daybreak on the 23rd June 1813. The porch of Mr Secord’s farmhouse. A garden path, with a gate that opens onto the high road from Newark to Twelve-Mile Creek.33 Enter James Secord and his wife.) mr seCorD: Heaven speed thee, then, dear wife. I’ll try to bear The dreadful pangs of helplessness and dread With calm demeanour, if a bursting heart. mrs seCorD: Then will you taste a woman’s common lot In times of strait, while I essay man’s role Of fierce activity. We will compare When I return. Now fare-thee-well, my husband. (Fearful of being observed, they part without an embrace. Mrs Secord walks down the garden slowly and gathers a few clove-pinks.34 At the gate she stops as though the latch were troublesome, raises the flowers to her lips, and makes a slight salute to her husband who yet stands within the porch watching her. She then rapidly pursues her way, but soon encounters an American sentry whom she essays to pass with a nod and a smile. The man prevents her by bringing his musket to the charge and challenging.)

76

Sarah A nne Curzon

mrs seCorD: Why do you stop me? sentry: Where is your pass? You know that none may take the road without one. mrs seCorD: But surely I may go to milk my cow. Yonder she is.35 (A cow is seen in the clearing.) She’s wandered in the night. I’ll drive her back again, poor thing. She likes new pasture best, as well she may. sentry: Keep you your kinei at home; you’ve land enough. mrs seCorD: Why, that’s our land and those our barns and sheds. sentry: Well, pass! (He suddenly observes the flowers.) But where’s your milking pail? I guess the bunch of flowers is for the cow. mrs seCorD (Gently.): You are too rough! The pinks weep dewy tears Upon my hand to chide you. There, take them, (She offers him the flowers.) And let their fragrance teach you courtesy, At least to women. You can watch me. sentry: Madam, suspicion blunts politeness. Pass. I’ll take your flowers and thank you too. ’Tis long since that I saw their fellows in The old folks’ garden. (Mrs Secord crosses the road, takes a rail out of the fence, which she replaces after having passed into the clearing, and proceeds to the barn whence she brings an old pail, luckily left there, and approaches the cow.) mrs seCorD (Aside.): Could I but get her out of sight, I’d drive The creature round the other way and go My own. Pray heaven the sentry watch me not Too closely. His manner roused my fears.(She waves her hand at the cow, which moves on.) Co’ boss! Co’ boss. Sh! Haste thee, poor cow. Fly from me! Though never didst thou yet, Nor should’st do now but for the stake I play. (Both disappear in the bush.) sentry (Apostrophising the disappearing “enemy”): Well, mistress, were you gentle as your face, The creature wouldn’t run you such a race. i

Plural of cow. oed, s.v. “kine.”

L a u r a S e c o r d : T h e H e r o i n e o f 18 1 2

It serves you right! The cows my Anna milks Come at her call like chickens. Oh, sweet voice, When shall I hear you next? Even as I pace With measured step this hot and dusty road, The soft June breezes take your tones and call: “Come, Henry, come.” Would that I could! Would I had never joined! But my hot blood o’ermastered my cool sense, Nor let me see that always is not bought Honour by arms, but often dire disgrace. For so it is, as now I clearly see, We let the animal within remain Unbroke, till neither gyvei nor gearii will serve To steady him, only a knock-down blow. Had I, and others too within the ranks, Haltered our coltish blood, we should have found That hate to England, not our country’s name And weal,iii impelled mad Madison upon this war, And shut the mouths of thousand higher men than he.36 It is a lesson may I learn So as to ne’er forget that in the heat of words Sparks oft are struck that should be straightway quenched In cool reflection, not enlarged and fed With passionate tinder till a flame is blown That reaches past our bonds and leaves behind Black, sullen stumps where once the green trees grew. If honour’s what we want, there’s room enough For that, and wild adventure too, in the West, At half the cost of war, in opening up A road shall reach the great Pacific.37 (A step). Ha! Who goes there? (Exit.)

Scene v

i

A “shackle esp. for the leg.” oed, s.v. “gyve.”

ii

A “harness for draught animals.” oed, s.v. “gear.”

iii “Wealth, riches, possessions.” oed, s.v. “weal.”

77

78

Sarah A nne Curzon

(The road at the foot of Queenston Heights.) mrs seCorD (Looking in the direction of her home.): Gone! Gone! Quite out of sight. Farewell, my home, Casket that holds my jewels. If no more My happy eyes rest on thy lowly roof, If never more my ears drink in the sounds Of sweeter music in your loving tones, My darlings, than e’er was drawn from harp The best attuned, by wandering aeolus,i Then let my memory, like some fond relic laid In musk and lavender, softly exhale A thousand tender thoughts to soothe and bless. And let my love hide in your heart of hearts, And with ethereal touch control your lives, Till in that better home we meet again. (She covers her face with her hands and weeps unrestrainedly for a few seconds, then recovers herself and raises her hands in prayer.) Guard them and me, Oh Heaven. (She resumes her journey, but still gazes in the direction of the Heights.) And Brock! Macdonell! Dennis!38 All ye hero band who fell on yonder Heights, If I should fall, give me a place among ye, And a name will be my children’s pride, For all I risk, as ye, to save My country. (Exit.)

AC T I I

Scene i (The great kitchen at St. David’s Mill.39 Breakfast time. At the boardii are seated the Widow Stephen Secord, 40 Sergeant George Mosier41 and little Tom. Babette is waiting at table.) wiDow: ’Tis pitiful to see one’s land go to waste For want of labour and the summer days, So rich in blessing, spend their fruitful force i

“Of or relating to Aeolus, the Greek god of the winds; of, made by, or borne on the wind or currents of air; (also) like an Aeolian harp.” oed, s.v. “Aeolian.”

ii

A table. oed, s.v. “board.”

L a u r a S e c o r d : T h e H e r o i n e o f 18 1 2

79

On barren furrows. And then to think That over both the provinces it is the same, No men to till the land, because the war Needs everyone. God knows how we shall feed Next year: small crop, small grist, a double loss To me. The times are anxious. (To Sergeant Mosier.) Have you news? sergeant george: Not much ma’am, all is pretty quiet still Since Harvey struck them dumb at Stoney Creek. Along the lakei bold Yeo holds them fast, And Erie way, Bisshopp and Evans back him.42 Thus stand we now, but Proctor’s all too slow.43 Oh had we Brock again, bold, wise, and prompt, That foreign rag that floats o’er Newark’sii spires Would soon go down and England’s ensign up.iii wiDow: Ah, was he not a man? And yet so sweet, So courteous and so gentle. babette: Ah, oui, madame. So kind. Not one rough word he ever had, The General, but bow so low, “Merci, Babette,” For glass of milk, et petit chose comme ça. Ah, long ago it must be he was French: Some grand seigneur, sans doute, in Guernsey then.44 Ah the brave man, madame, ce hero la! wiDow: Yes brave indeed Babette, but English, English. Oh bravery, good girl, is born of noble hearts, And calls the world its country, and its sex Humanity. babette: Madame? wiDow: You do not understand me, no, but you Were very brave and noble-hearted when You faced the wolf that scented the young lambs. babette: Brave, moi? Madame is kind to say it so. But bravery of women, what is that To bravery of man? i

Lake Ontario.

ii

Present-day Niagara-on-the-Lake.

iii “The Red Ensign, a red flag with the Union Jack in the upper corner, was created in 1707 as the flag of the British Merchant Marine. It was used by British navy and merchant ships after 1801.” Canadian Encyclopedia, s.vv. “First Canadian Flags.”

80

Sarah A nne Curzon

tom: An’ that’s just what I said to Hatty mother, When she declared that Aunty Laura was As brave as soldiers, ’cause she went an’ fetched Poor Uncle James from off the battlefield After the fight was over.45 That wasn’t much! wiDow: You’re but an ignorant little boy, my son, But might be wiser were you not so pert. sergeant george: I heard not that before, ma’am. wiDow: Did you not? ’Tis very true. Upon that dreadful day, After Brock fell, and in the second fight, When with the Lincoln men and 41st Sheaffe led the attack, poor Captain Secord dropped,46 Shot, leg and shoulder, and bleeding there he lay, With numbers more, when evening fell, for means Were small to deal with wounded men, and all, Soldiers and citizens, were spent and worn With cruel trials. So when she learned he lay Among the wounded, his young wife took up A lantern in her hand, and searched the field, Whence sobs and groans and cries rose up to heaven And paled the tearful stars until she found The man she loved, not sure that life remained. Then binding him as best she might, she bore, With some kind aid, the fainting body home, If home it could be called where rabid hate Had spent its lawless rage in deeds of spite, Where walls and roof were torn with many balls, And shelter scarce was found. That very night, Distrustful lest the foe, repulsed and wild, Should launch again his heavier forces o’er The flood, she moved her terror-stricken girls, Four tender creatures, and her infant boy, Her wounded husband and her two young slaves, ‘Neath cover of thick darkness to the farm, A mile beyond: a feat even for a man. And then she set her woman’s wit and love To the long task of nursing back to health Her husband, much exhausted through loss of blood, And all the angry heat of gunshot wounds. But James will never be himself again

L a u r a S e c o r d : T h e H e r o i n e o f 18 1 2

81

Despite her care. sergeant george: ’Twas well and bravely done. Yet, oft I think the women of these days Degenerate to those I knew in youth. wiDow: You’re hasty, Sergeant, already hath this war Shown many a young and delicate woman A very hero for her hero’s sake, Nay, more, for others.’ She, our neighbour there At Queenston, who when our troops stood still, Weary and breathless, took her young babe, Her husband under arms among the rest, And cooked and carried for them on the field.47 Was she not one in whom the heroic blood Ran thick and strong as e’er in times gone by? Oh Canada, thy soil is broadcast strowni With noble deeds: a plague on him, I say, Who follows with worse seed! (She rises and prepares for making pies. Babette clears off the table and Sergeant George smokes his pipe, sitting close to the open chimney, now filled with fresh branches of spruce and cedar.) sergeant george: Well, mistress, p’rhaps you’re right, old folks ayeii think Old times the best, but now your words recall The name of one, the bravest of her sex, So far as e’er I saw, save p’rhaps the Baroness.48 Tender of frame, most gentle, softly raised,iii And young, the Lady Harriet Acland 49 shared, With other dames whose husbands held commands, The rough campaign of ’Seventy-six.50 But her lot fell so heavy and withali v She showed such spirit, cheerfulness, and love, Her name became a watchword in the ranks. wiDow: And what about her, Sergeant? sergeant george: Well mistress, as you ask I’ll tell the tale: She was the wife of Major John Dyke-Acland,51 An officer of Grenadiers, then joined To Highland Frazer’s arm of Burgoyne’s troops.52 At Chamblée he was wounded. Leaving the Fort, i

To scatter. oed, s.vv. “broadcast” and “strown.”

ii

Ever, always. oed, s.v. “aye.”

iii Brought up. iv “In addition; besides; moreover.” oed, s.v. “withal.”

82

Sarah A nne Curzon

His wife crossed lake and land by means so rough As tried the strength of men to nurse him. Recovered, next he fought Ticonderoga,53 And there was badly wounded. Lake Champlain She traversed to his aid in just a bateau.i No sooner was he better than again He joined his men, always the first to move, And so alert their situation was, That all slept in their clothes. In such a time The Major’s tent took fire and he, that night, But for a sergeant’s care, who dragged him out, Had lost his life. Twice saved he was, For thinking that his wife still lay within, Burning to death, he broke away, And plunged into the fiery mass. But she, Scarce half awake, had crept from out the tent, And gained her feet in time to see him rush In search of her, a shuddering sight to one Loving and loved so well. But luckily, Both then were saved. She also shared the march That followed up the foe, action impending At every step. And when the fight began, Though sheltered somewhat, heard all the din, The roar of guns and bursting shells and saw The hellish fire belch forth, knowing the while Her husband foremost in the dreadful fray. Nay, more, her hut was all the shelter given To dress the wounded first. So, her kind eyes Were forced to witness sights of ghastly sort, Such as turn surgeons faint: nor she alone, Three other ladies shared her anxious care. But, she was spared the grief they knew too soon, Her husband being safe. But when Burgoyne At Saratoga lost the bloody day,54 The Major came not back, a prisoner he, And desp’rate wounded. After anxiety So stringent and prolonged, it seemed too much To hope the lady could support such sting i

“A light river boat; esp. the long tapering boats with flat bottoms used by the French Canadians.” oed, s.v. “bateau.”

L a u r a S e c o r d : T h e H e r o i n e o f 18 1 2

And depth of woe, yet drooped she not, but rose And prayed of Burgoyne, should his plans allow, To let her pass into the hostile camp, There to beseech for leave to tend her husband. Full pitifully Burgoyne granted her The boon she asked, though loath to let her go, For she had passed hours in the drenching rain, Sleepless and hungry, nor had he e’en a cup Of grateful wine to offer. He knew Her danger too, as she did, that she might fall In cruel hands or, in the dead of night Approaching to the lines, be fired on. Yet, yielding to her prayer, he let her go, Giving her all he could, letters to Gates,55 And for her use an open boat. Thus she set forth, with Chaplain Brudenell56 For escort, her maid, and the poor Major’s man. Thus was she rowed adown the darkling stream. Night fell before they reached the enemy’s posts, And all in vain they raised the flag of truce, The sentry would not even let them land, But kept them there, all in the dark and cold, Threatening to fire upon them if they stirred Before the break of day. Poor lady! Sad Were her forebodings through those darksome hours, And wearily her soft maternal frame Bore such great strain. But, as the dark Grows thickest ere the light appears, so she Found better treatment when the morning broke. With manly courtesy, proud Gates allowed Her wifely claim, and gave her all she asked. wiDow: Could he do less! Yes, Sergeant, I’ll allow Old times show tender women bold and brave For those they love, and ’twill be ever so. And yet I hold that woman braver still Who sacrifices all she loves to serve The public weal. sergeant george: And was there ever one? wiDow: Oh, yes (Enter Mrs Secord.) Why, Laura! Now you’re just too late To have your breakfast with us. But sit down.

83

84

Sarah A nne Curzon

(She calls.) Babette! Babette! (Enter Babette.) Haste, girl, and make fresh tea, Boil a new egg and fry a bit of ham, And bring a batch-cakei from the oven, they’re done By this. (Exit Babette.) (To Mrs Secord.) Take off your things, my dear. You’ve come to stay a day or two with Charles, Of course. He’ll be awake just now. He’s weak, But better. How got you leave to come? (Sergeant George is leaving the kitchen). Stay, Sergeant, you should know James Secord’s wife, Poor Charles’s sister. (To Mrs Secord.) Laura, this is a friend You’ve heard us speak of, Sergeant George Mosier, My father’s crony and poor Stephen’s too. mrs seCorD: (Curtesying.): I’m glad to meet you, sir. sergeant george (Bowing low.): Your servant, madam, I hope your gallant husband is recovered. mrs seCorD: I thank you, sir, his wound, but not his strength, And still his arm is crippled. sergeant george: A badge of honour, madam, like to mine. (He points to his empty sleeve.) (Enter Babette with tray. Exit Sergeant George.) wiDow: That’s right, girl, set it here. (To Mrs Secord.) Come eat a bit. That ham is very nice, ’tis Gloucester fed,ii And cured, malt-coombs,iii you know, so very sweet. (To Babette.) Mind thou the oven, lass, I’ve pies to bake, And then a brisket.iv (Exit Babette.) (To Mrs Secord.) I thought you fast v Within the lines: how got you leave to come? i

A “cross between a giant scone and a light fruitcake.” See Nick Malgieri, “Batch Cake,” accessed July 2018, http://www.nickmalgieri.com/recipes/batch-cake.

ii

A high quality, imported pork.

iii “The dried radicles which are separated from the grain in the kiln-drying process of malting.” oed, s.v. “malt-comes.” iv Breast meat of an animal, typically a cow. oed, s.v. “brisket.” v

Something that is ... fixed. oed, s.v. “fast”.

L a u r a S e c o r d : T h e H e r o i n e o f 18 1 2

mrs seCorD: I got no leave. Three several sentries I, With words of guile, have passed and still I fear My ultimate success. ’Tis not to see Poor Charles I came, but to go further on To Beaver Dams and warn Fitzgibbon there Of a foul plot to take him by surprise This very night. We found it out last eve, But, in his state poor James was helpless, So I go instead. wiDow: You go to Beaver Dams! Nineteen long miles On hot and dusty roads and all alone! You can’t, some other must. mrs seCorD: I must, no other can. The time is short, And through the virgin woods my way doth lie, For should those sentries meet, or all report I passed their bounds, suspicion would be waked, And then what hue and cry! wiDow: The woods! And are you crazed? You cannot go! The woods are full of creatures wild and fierce, And wolves prowl round about. No path is blazed, No underbrush is cleared, no clue exists Of any kind to guide your feet. A man Could scarce get through, how then shall you? mrs seCorD: I have a guide in heaven. This task is come To me without my seeking. If no word Reaches Fitzgibbon ere that murderous horde Be on him, how shall he save himself? And if defeat he meets, then farewell all Our homes and hopes, our liberties and lives. wiDow: Oh dear! Oh dear! And must you risk your life, Your precious life? Think of it, Laura, yet, Soldiers expect to fight and keep strict watch Against surprise. Think of your little girls, Should they be left without a mother’s care, Your duty is to them and surely not In tasks like this. You go to risk your life As if you had a right, and thereby leave Those who to you owe theirs, unpitied, Desolate. You’ve suffered now enough With all you’ve lost, and James a cripple too, What will the children do should they lose you

85

86

Sarah A nne Curzon

Just when their youthful charms require your care? They’ll blame you, Laura, when they’re old enough To judge what’s right. mrs seCorD: I do not fear it. Children can see the right at one quick glance, For, unobscured by self or prejudice, They mark the aim and not the sacrifice Entailed. wiDow: Did James consent to have you go? mrs seCorD: Not till he found there was no other way. He fretted much to think he could not go. wiDow: I’m sure he did. A man may undergo A forced fatigue and take no lasting hurt, But not a woman. And you so frail. It is your life you risk. I sent my lads, Expecting them to run the chance of war, And these you go to warn do but the same. mrs seCorD: You see it wrong. Chances of war to those Would murder be to these and, on my soul, Because I knew their risk and warned them not. You’ll think I’m right when tramp of armed men, And rumble of the guns disturb you in your sleep. Then, in the calmer judgment night-time brings, You’d be the first to blame the selfish care That left a little band of thirty men A prey to near six hundred. wiDow: Just the old story! Six hundred - it’s disgraceful! Why, were they tailors, nine to make a man,57 ’Tis more than two to one. Oh, you must go. mrs seCorD: I knew you’d say so when you came to think. It was your love to me that masked your judgment. I’ll go and see poor Charles, but shall not say My real errand: ’twould excite him so. (Exit Mrs Secord.) wiDow: Poor Laura! Would to God I knew some way To lighten her of such a task as this. (Enter Sergeant George.) sergeant george: Is it too early for the invalid? The lads are here and full of ardour. wiDow: Oh no, his sister’s with him. (Exit Sergeant. A bugle is heard sounding the assembly. Enter Mrs Secord in alarm.) mrs seCorD: What’s that! What’s that!

L a u r a S e c o r d : T h e H e r o i n e o f 18 1 2

87

wiDow: I should have warned you, dear, But don’t be scared, it’s Sergeant George’s boys. He’s gathered quite a company of lads From round about, with every matchlock,i gun, Or fowling-pieceii the lads could find, and drills Them regularly every second morn. He calls ’em “Young St David’s Yeoman Guard,” Their horses, “shankses naigie.”iii Look you here! (Both ladies look through the open window from which is visible the driving shed. Here are assembled some twenty lads of all ages and heights, between six and sixteen. They carry all sorts of old firelocksiv and are “falling in.” v They are properly sized, and form a “squad with intervals.” In the rear stands a mashtubvi with a sheepskin stretched over it for a drum and near it is the drummer-boy, a child of six. A bugle, a cornet and a bassoon are laid in a corner, and two or three boys stand near.) sergeant george: Now Archy, give the cadence in slow time. (To the squad.) Slow march. (They march some thirty paces.) Squad halt. (They halt, many of them out of line.) Keep your dressing.vii Steps like those would leave some of you half behind on a long march. Right about face, two, three. That’s better. Slow march. (They march.) Squad halt. (They all bring up into line.) That’s better. No hangers back with foe in front. Left about face, two three. Keep up your heads. By the right dress. Stand easy. Fall in, the band. We’ll try the music. (The band falls in, three little fellows have fifes,viii two elder ones flutes, one a flageolet.ix The owners of the cornet, bugle, and bassoon take up their instruments and a short, stout fellow has a trombone.) sergeant george (To the band.): Now show your loyalty, “The King! God bless him.”58 (They play, the squad saluting.) i

“A gun having a matchlock,” i.e., a “gunlock in which a piece of smouldering slow match is used to ignite the charge.” oed, s.v. “matchlock.”

ii

A light gun for shooting wild fowl. oed, s.v. “fowling-piece.”

iii “Using one’s own legs to travel. Scots Dictionary, s.vv. “shank’s naig,” consulted Januuary 2018. iv A gun-lock which used fire to ignite the gun powder. oed, s.v. “firelock.” v

“Fall in,” like “squad with intervals” which follows it in the same passage, refers to soldiers assuming their positions in the ranks while standing in a straight, linear formation. oed, s.vv. “to fall in.”

vi A large tank used to mix malt and water in making beer. oed, s.v. “mashtub.” vii Proper, straight alignment while in ranks. Right dress involves the front rank putting out their right arm and all ranks turning their heads towards the right and lining up with them. viii A type of flute which is side-blown and held horizontally when played. oed, s.v. “fife.” ix A wind instrument similar to a recorder. oed, s.v. “flageolet.”

88

Sarah A nne Curzon

sergeant george (To band.): That’s very well, but mind your time. (To the squad.) Now you shall march to music. (To the band.) Boys, play “The Duke of York’s March.” (To the squad.) Squad, attention. Quick march, (They march.) Squad, halt. (At a signal, the band ceases playing.) Yes, that’s the way to meet your country’s foes. If you were Yankee lads, you’d have to march to this (He takes a flageolet). Quick march. (Plays “Yankee Doodle” with equal cleverness and spite, travestying both phrase and expression in a most ludicrous manner until the boys find it impossible to march for laughter. The Sergeant is evidently delighted with the result.) Ho! Ho! That’s how you march to “Yankee Doodle.” ’Tis a fine tune! A grand, inspiring tune, Like “Polly put the Kettle on,” or “Dumble-dum-deary.” Can soldiers march to that?59 Can they have spirit, honour, or do great deeds With such a tune as that to fill their ears? mrs seCorD: The Sergeant’s bitter on the foe, I think. wiDow: He is, but can you wonder? Hounded out When living peaceably upon his farm, Shot at and threatened till he takes a side, And then obliged to fly to save his life, Losing all else, his land, his happy home, His loving wife, who sank beneath the change, Because he chose the rather to endure A short injustice than belie his blood By joining England’s foes. He went with Moody. mrs seCorD: Poor fellow! Those were heavy times, like these. sergeant george: Now boys, the grand new tune, “Britannia Rules the Waves,” play con spirito,i that means heart, mind, soul! As if you meant it. (He beats time, and adds a note of the drum at proper points, singing the chorus with much vigour and emphasis. (Mrs Secord betrays much emotion, and when the tune is begun for the third verse, she hastily closes the window.) mrs seCorD: Shut, shut it out, I cannot bear it Ellen, It shakes my heart’s foundations! Let me go. wiDow: Nay, but you’re soon upset. If you must go, Your bonnet’s on my bed. I’ll get a bite Of something for you on the road. (She busies herself in filling a little basket with refreshment and offers Mrs Secord cake and wine.) Here, eat a bit, and drink a sup of wine, i

An Italian musical term meaning “with spirit.” oed, s.vv. “con spirito.”

L a u r a S e c o r d : T h e H e r o i n e o f 18 1 2

89

It’s only currant.i The General’s got a keg I sent, when stores were asked. James Coffin’s good:60 He always sends poor Ned, or Jack, or Dick, When commissariat’sii low. A mother’s heart, A widowed mother too, he knows, sore longs To see her lads, e’en if she willing sends Them all to serve the King. I don’t forget him Morning and night and many a time between. No wine? Too soon? Well, take this drop along. There’s many a mile where no fresh water is, And you’ll be faint. (She bursts into tears.) Good lamb, I cannot bear to see you go. mrs seCorD: Nay sister nay, be calm. Send me away light-hearted. (Kisses her.) I trust in God, As you for your dear lads. Show me the way To gain the woods unseen by friend or foe, The while these embryo soldiers are engaged. wiDow: I’ll go with you a mile or two. mrs seCorD: No, no. It might arouse suspicion. (She opens the door and the Widow Secord joins her.) wiDow: Times indeed When every little act has some to watch. (Points to a tree.) You see yon oak just by the little birch? mrs seCorD: I do. wiDow: There is a little path leads down To a small creek, cross that and keep the sun Behind you half a mile, and then you strike The bush, uncleared, and wild. Good God, to think – mrs seCorD: Think not, but pray and if a chance occurs Send aid to poor Fitzgibbon. Little help Just in the nick of time oft turns the scale Of fortune. God bless you dear. Good-bye. (They embrace with tears. Exit Mrs Secord.) i

Made from local fruit, usually less flavourful and lower in alcohol content than grape wine.

ii

“That department of the military service which is charged with the duty of providing food and other supplies for the army.” oed, s.v. “commissariat.”

90

Sarah A nne Curzon

Scene ii (A beautiful glade. Enter Mrs Secord. After scanning the spot searchingly, she seats herself on a fallen trunk.) mrs seCorD: This spot is surely safe. Here I will rest, For unaccustomed service tires my limbs, And I have travelled many a weary roodi More than a crow-line measures:iiups and downs Absorb so many steps that nothing add To distance. Faint am I too, and thirsty. Hist! Hist!iii Ye playful breezes that do make Melodious symphonies and rippling runs Among the pines and aspens, hear I not A little tinkling rill,iv that somewhere hides Its sweet beneficence ‘mid ferns and moss?61 (She rises and looks about.) Ay, here it is, a tiny brilliancy That glances at the light as careful, still, To keep the pure translucency that first It caught from heaven. Give me, oh give sweet rill, A few cool drops to slake my parching throat. Fair emblem truly thou of those meek hearts That thread the humblest haunts of suffering earth With Christ-like charities and keep their souls Pure and untainted, by heavenly communings. (She reseats herself and contemplates the scene.) Oh, this is beautiful! Here I could lie Were earth a myth and all her trials nought And dream soft nothings all a summer’s day.62 In this fair glade were surely celebrated The nuptials of the year, and for her gift Fair Flora, lightly loitering on the wing Of Zephyrus, tossed all her corbelv out, i

A unit of length used for land. Typically the size of a rod, approximately seven or eight yards. oed, s.v. “rood.”

ii

Following a straight line. oed, s.v. “crow-line.”

iii An exclamation “used to enjoin silence, attract attention, or call on a person to listen.” oed, s.v. “hist.” iv A stream or brook. oed, s.v. “rill.” v

Corbel or corbeil (fr.): “an elegant fruit or flower basket.” oed, s.v. “corbeil.”

L a u r a S e c o r d : T h e H e r o i n e o f 18 1 2

91

Filling the air with bloom.63 From yonder copse,i With kindling eye and hasty step, emerged The gladsome Spring, with leafy honours crowned, His following a troop of skipping lambs. And o’er yon hill, blushing for joy, approached His happy bride on billowy odours borne, And every painted wing in ’tendance bent. Procession beautiful. Yet, she how fair. The lovely Summer in her robes of blue, Bedecked with every flower that Flora gave Sweet eglantineii and meek anemone,iii Bright, nodding columbineiv and wood-star v white, Blue violets, like her eyes, and pendant gems Of dielytra,vi topaz-tippedvii and gold, Fragrant arbutusviii and hepatica,ix With thousands more. Her wreath, a coronet Of opening rosebuds twined with lady fern, And over all, her bridal veil of white, Some soft diaph’nous cloudlet that mistook Her robes of blue for heaven. And I could dream That, from his lofty throne beholding, Great Sol,x on wings of glowing eve, came down In gracious haste to bless the nuptials. (She pauses.) And shall this land, i

A thicket of small trees or underwood. oed, s.v. “copse.”

ii

“More fully eglantine rose.” oed, s.v. “eglantine.”

iii A genus of plants with handsome flowers ... also called also the Wind-flower ... common in Britain.” oed, s.v. “anemone.” iv “The English name for plants of the genus Aquilegia, esp. the long-cultivated A. vulgaris, or common columbine, the inverted flower of which has some resemblance to five pigeons clustered together.” oed, s.v. “columbine.” v

“A name for several species of humming-birds, as those of the genus Calothorax and the Bahama sheartail, Doricha evelynæ.” oed, s.v. “Wood-star.”

vi “Having drooping heart-shaped flowers. oed, s.v. “dicentra.” vii Dark yellow in colour. oed, s.v. “topaz.” viii Trailing arbutus or “mayflower,” “prized as a harbinger of spring.” oed, s.v. “arbutus.” ix “A subgenus ... of the genus Anemone; esp. the common spring-flowering Anemone … the three-lobed leaves of which were fancied to resemble the liver.” oed, s.v. “hepatica.” x

Sol, or “sun,” was the solar deity in ancient Roman religion. oed, s.v. “sol.”

92

Sarah A nne Curzon

That breathes of poesy from every sod, Indignant throb beneath the heavy foot Of jeering renegade? – at best a son His mother blushes for. Shall he, bold rebel, Entwine its glories in defiant wreath Above his boastful brow and flaunt it in Her face, rejoicing in her woe? No! No! This priceless gem shall ever deck her crown, And grace its setting with a ray more pure For that, nor flood, nor fire can flaw its heart. Yes Canada, thy sons, at least, maintain The ancient honour of their British blood, In that their loyalty contracts no stain From proffered gifts or gold.64 But I must on. I may not loiter, while So much depends on me. (She rises to proceed and at the first step a rattlesnake rears up at her, hissing and springing its rattles. She recoils in fear, but remembering the cowardly nature of the creatures, throws sticks at it and it glides swiftly away.) Vile reptile! Base as vile and cowardly as base, A straight descendant thou of him, methinks, Man’s ancient foe or else his paraphrase. Is there no Eden that thou enviest not? No purity thou would’st not smirch with gall? No rest thou would’st not break with agony? Aye, Eve, our mother tongue avenges thee, For there is nothing mean, or base, or vile, That is not comprehended in the name Of snake! (Exit Mrs Secord.)

Scene iii

(A thick wood through which runs a forest path leading to a high beech ridge. Enter Mrs Secord, walking as quickly as the underbrush will allow.) mrs seCorD: How quiet are the woods. The choir of birds that daily ushers in The rosy dawn with bursts of melody, And swells the joyful train that waits upon The footsteps of the sun, is silent now, Dismissed to greenwood bowers. Save happy cheep

L a u r a S e c o r d : T h e H e r o i n e o f 18 1 2

Of callow nestling, that closer snugs beneath The soft and sheltering wing of doting love, Like croon of sleeping babe on mother’s breast, No sound is heard, but peaceful, all enjoy Their sweet siesta on the waving bough, Fearless of ruthless wind or gliding snake. So peaceful lies Fitzgibbon at his post, Nor dreams of harm. Meanwhile, the foe Glides from his hole and threads the darkling route In hope to coil and crush him. Ah, little recksi he that a woman holds The power to draw his fangs! And yet some harm must come, some blood must flow, In spite of all my poor endeavour. Oh War, how much I hate thy wizard arts, That with the clash and din of brass and steel O’erpowers the voice of pleading reason, And with thy lurid light, in monstrous rays Enfolds the symmetry of human love, Making a brother seem a phantom or a ghoul! Before thy deadly scowl kind peace retires, And seeks the upper skies. Oh cruel are the hearts that cry “War!” “War!” As if War were an angel not a fiend, His gilded chariot a triumphal car And not a Juggernautii whose wheels drop gore, His offerings, flowers and fruit, and chaplets gay,iii And not shrieks, tears, and groans of babes and women. And yet hath War, like Juggernaut, a hold, A fascination, for humanity, That makes his vot’riesiv martyrs for his sake. Even I, poor weakling, march in keeping-time To that grand music that I heard today, Though children played it, and I darkly feel i

From “reckon.”

ii

From Hindu mythology, oed, s.v. “Juggernaut” refers to the “uncouth idol” of Krishna “annually dragged in procession on an enormous car, under the wheels of which many devotees are said to have formerly thrown themselves to be crushed.”

iii A wreath for the head made of flowers or leaves. oed, s.v. “chaplet.” iv “A devoted adherent or admirer of some person.” oed, s.v. “votary.”

93

94

Sarah A nne Curzon

Its burden is resistance physical. ’Tis strange that simple tones should move one so! What is it, what, this sound, this air, this breath The wind can blow away, Nor most intricate fetters can enchain? What component of being doth it touch That it can raise the soul to ecstasy Or plunge it in the lowest depth of horror, Freeze the stopti blood, or send it flowing on In pleasant waves, Can draw soft tears, or concentrate them hard To form a base whereon the martyr stands To take his leap to heaven? What is this sound that in Niagara’s roar Brings us to Sinai, Or in the infant’s prayer to Him, “Our Father,” That by a small inflection wakes the world And sends its squadroned armies on To victory or death, Or bids it peaceful, rest, and grow and build, That reassures the frighted babe or starts The calm philosopher, without a word, That, in the song of little bird speaks glee, Or in a groan strikes mortal agony That, in the wind, brings us to shipwreck, death, And dark despair, Or paints us blessed islands far from care or pain? Then what is sound? The chord it vibrates with its magic touch Is not a sense to man peculiar, An independent string formed by that breath That, breathed into the image corporate, Made man a living soul. No, for all animate nature owns Its sovereign power. Brutes, birds, fish, reptiles, all That breathe are awed or won by means of sound. Therefore, it must be of the corporate, corporeal, And if so, why then the body lives again, Despite what sceptics say, for sound it is Will summon us before that final bar i

Stopped or blocked. oed, s.v. “stopt.”

L a u r a S e c o r d : T h e H e r o i n e o f 18 1 2

95

To give account of deeds done in the flesh. The spirit cannot thus be summoned, Since entity it hath not sound can strike. Let sceptics rave! I see no difficulty That He, who from primordial atoms formed A human frame, can from the dust awake it Once again, marshal the scattered molecules And make immortal, as was Adam. This body lives! Or else no deep delight Of quiring i angels harping golden strings, No voice of Him who calls His children home, No glorious joining in the immortal song Could touch our being. But how refined our state, How changed, never to tire or grow distraught, Or wish for rest, or sleep, or quietude, But find in absence of these earthly needs A truer heaven. Oh, might I rest even now. These feet grow painful and the shadows tell Of night and dark approaching, my goal An anxious distance off. (She gazes round.) I’ll rest awhile, For yonder height will tax my waning strength, And many a brier all beautiful with bloom Hides many a thorn that will dispute my path Beneath those ancient beeches. (She seats herself and, having removed her bonnet, partakes of the refreshment brought from the mill. As she eats, a grieved look comes upon her face and she wipes away a tear.) The sun leans towards the west: Oh darlings mine, E’en now, perchance, ye sit in order round The evening board, your father at the head, And Polly in my place making his tea, While he pretends to eat and cheats himself. And thou, Oh husband dearest, might I lay My weary head as oft upon thy breast – But no (She rises.), I dare not think – there is above A Love will guard me and, Oh blessed thought, Thee, too, and they our darlings. i

To sing, as a choir; to sing in a chorus, Derivative of choir. oed, s.v. choir

96

Sarah A nne Curzon

(She proceeds towards the beech ridge, but is stayed at the foot by a rapid-running stream.) Nor bridge, nor stone, nor log, how shall I cross? Yon o’erturned hemlock, whose wide-spreading root Stands like a wattledi pier from which the bridge Springs all abrupt and strait, and hangs withal So high that hardihood itself looks blank, I scarce may tempt, worn as I am, and spent. And on the other bank, the great green head Presents a wilderness of tangled boughs By which would be a task, indeed, to reach The ground. Yet must I try. Poor hands, poor feet, This is rough work for you, and one small slip Would drop me in the stream, perchance to drown. Not drown, oh no, my goal was set by Heaven. Come, rally all ye forces of the will, And aid me now. Yon height that looms above Is yet to gain before the sun gets low. (She climbs the hemlock root and reaches the trunk, across which she crawls on her hands and knees and at last finds herself some yards up the beech ridge. After arranging her torn and dishevelled clothing, she proceeds up the ridge, at the top of which she encounters a British sentry who challenges.) sentry: Who goes there? mrs seCorD: A friend. sentry: What friend? mrs seCorD: To Canada and Britain. sentry: Your name and errand. mrs seCorD: My name is Secord, Captain Secord’s wife, Who fought at Queenston and my errand is To Beaver Dams to see Fitzgibbon, And warn him of a sortie from Fort George To move tonight. Five hundred men with guns And baggage wagons for the spoil are sent. For with such force the enemy is sure Our stores are theirs and Stoney Creek avenged. sentry: Madam, how know you this? mrs seCorD: I overheard Some Yankee soldiers, passing in and out With all a victor’s license of our hearths, Talk of it yesternight, and in such wise No room for doubt remained.65 My husband wished i

Interlaced twigs and branches. oed, s.v. “wattle.”

L a u r a S e c o r d : T h e H e r o i n e o f 18 1 2

97

To bear the news himself, but is disabled yet By those two wounds he got at Queenston Heights, And so the heavy task remained with me, Much to his grief. sentry: A heavy task indeed. How got you past their lines? mrs seCorD: By many wiles, Those various arts that times like these entail. sentry: And then how got you here? mrs seCorD: I left my home At daybreak, and have walked through the deep woods The whole way since I left St David’s Mill. sentry: ’Tis past belief, did not your looks accord. And still you have a weary way to go, And through more woods. Could I but go with you, How gladly would I. Such deed as yours Deserves more thanks than I can give. Pass friend, All’s well. (Mrs Secord passes the Sentry who turns and walks with her.) mrs seCorD: There’s naught to fear, I hope, but natural foes, Lynxes or rattlesnakes upon my way. sentry: There are some Mohawks ambushed in the wood, But where I cannot quite point out. They choose Their ground themselves, but they are friends, though rough, Some of Kerr’s band, Brant’s son-in-law.66 You’ll need To tell the chief your errand should you cross him. mrs seCorD: Thanks, for I rather fear our Red allies. Is there a piquet?i sentry: No, not near me, our men are all too few. A link goes to and fro ‘twixt me and quarters, And is but just now left (He turns sharp about). My limit this, Yonder your road (He points to the woods). God be wi’ you. Good-bye. mrs seCorD: Good-bye my friend. (Exit Mrs Secord.) sentry: A bold, courageous deed! A very woman, too, tender and timid. i

Spelt piquet in British Army Regulations, it refers to a military detachment or “a small detachment of troops sent out to watch for the approach of the enemy.” oed, s.v. “picket.”

98

Sarah A nne Curzon

That country’s safe whose women serve her cause With love like this. And blessed, too, it is In having such for wives and mothers.

Scene iv (The forest with the sun nearly below the horizon, its rays illuminate the tops of the trees, while all below is dark and gloomy. Bats are on the wing, the night-hawk careersi above the trees, fire-flies flit about and the death-bird calls.67 Enter Mrs Secord showing signs of great fatigue.) mrs seCorD: Gloomy indeed, and weird, and oh so lone! In such a spot and hour the mind takes on Moody imaginings, the body shrinks as ’twere, And all the being sinks into a sea Of dreariness and doubt and death. (The call of the death-bird is heard.) Thou little owl, that with despairing note Dost haunt these shades, art thou a spirit lost, Whose punishment it is to fright poor souls With fear of death, if death is to be feared And not a blank hereafter? The poor brave Who answers thee and hears no call respond, Trembles and pales and wastes away and dies Within the year, thee making his fell arbiter.ii Poor Indian! Much I fear the very dread Engendered by the small neglectful bird, Brings on the fate thou look’st for. So fearless, yet so fearful, do we all, Savage and civil, ever prove ourselves, So strong, so weak, hurt by a transient sound, Yet bravely stalking up to meet the death We see. (A prolonged howl is heard in the distance.) The wolves! The dreadful wolves, they’ve scented me! Oh whither shall I fly? No shelter near, No help. Alone! Oh God, alone! (She looks wildly round for a place to fly to.

i

To move swiftly over. oed, s.v. “career.”

ii

Fierce or ruthless: in this case a fierce or ruthless judge. oed, s.v. “fell.”

L a u r a S e c o r d : T h e H e r o i n e o f 18 1 2

99

(Another howl is heard.) O Father! Not this death, if I must die, My task undone, ‘tis too, too horrible! (Another howl as of many wolves, but at a distance. She bends to listen, her hand upon her heart.) Be still, wild heart, nor fill my list’ning ears With thy deep throbs. (The howl of the wolves is again heard, but faintly.) Thank God, not me they seek! Some other scent allures the ghoulish horde. On, on, poor trembler! Life for life it is, If I may warn Fitzgibbon. (She steps inadvertently into a little pool, hastily stoops and drinks gladly.) Oh blessed water, to my parched tongue More precious than were each bright drop a gem From far Golconda’s mine,i how at thy touch The parting life comes back and hope returns To cheer my drooping heart. (She trips and falls and instantly the Indian war-whoop resounds close at hand and numbers of braves seem to spring from the ground, one of whom approaches her as she rises with his tomahawk raised.)68 inDian: Woman! What woman want? mrs seCorD (Leaping forward and seizing his arm.): Oh Chief, no spy am I, but friend to you And all who love King George and wear his badge. All through this day I’ve walked the lonely woods To do you service. I have news, great news, To tell the Officer at Beaver Dams. This very night the Long Knives leave69 Fort George To take him by surprise, in numbers more Than crows on ripening corn. Oh help me on, I’m Laura Secord, Captain Secord’s wife, Of Queenston and Tecumseh, your70 great chief, And Tekoriogea are our friends.71 CHieF: White woman true and brave, I send with you Mishe-mo-qua, he know the way and sign, And bring you safe to mighty chief Fitzgibbon. mrs seCorD: Oh thanks, kind chief, and never shall your braves Want aught that I can give them. CHieF (To another.): Young chief, Mishe-mo-qua, with woman go, i

“The old name of Hyderabad [southern India], formerly celebrated for its diamonds.” Synonym for “a mine of wealth.” oed, s.v. “Golconda.”

10 0

Sarah A nne Curzon

And give her into care of big White chief. She carry news. Damn Long Knife come in dark To eat him up. misHe-mo-qua: Ugh! Rascal! Damn! (Exit Mishe-mo-qua and Mrs Secord.)

AC T I I I

Scene i (Decau’s house, a stone edifice of some pretensions.72 In the parlour, with folding doors which now stand a little apart, a sentry is visible. The parlour windows are barricaded within, but are set open and a branch of a climbing rose with flowers upon it swings in. The sun is setting and gilds the arms that are piled in one corner of the room. A sword in its scabbard lies across the table, near which in an arm chair reclines Lieutenant Fitzgibbon, a tall man of fine presence. In his right hand, which rests negligently on the back of the chair, he holds a newspaper of four pages, “The Times,” from which he has been reading. Several elderly, weather-beaten, non-commissioned officers and privates belonging to the 49th, 104th, and 8th regiments, together with a few militiamen and two cadets, share the society of their superior officer and all are very much at their ease, both in appointments and manner. Belts and stocks are unloosed and some of the men are smoking.)73 Fitzgibbon: ’Tis true, it seems, and yet most horrible, More than five hundred thousand fighting men Crossed with him o’er the front and not a tenth remains. Rather than let him find a place For winter quarters, two hundred thousand Happy families had to forsake their homes In dead of winter, and of the ancient seat Of Russian splendour, Rotopschin made a pyre, A blazing pyre of all its precious things: Moscow is burned.74 First sergeant: So Boneyi could but toast his freezing toes And march back home again: fine glory that! Fitzgibbon: Sad waste of precious lives for one man’s will. But this mishap will seal his fate. The Czar75 Will see his interest is a strong alliance, And all the powers will prove too great a match, Even for Buonaparte. seConD sergeant: Where is he now, Lieutenant?

i

Short for Buonaparte.

L a u r a S e c o r d : T h e H e r o i n e o f 18 1 2

Fitzgibbon: In Paris, plotting again, I see, or was Nine weeks ago. First Private: Yon news coom quick.76 Now when I were a bairn, that’s forty year’ sin’, We heard i’ York ‘at Merriky refused To pay the taxes, just three munth’s arter, An’ that wur bonnie toime, fur then t’coach Tuk but foive days ti mak’ t’hull way doon, Two hunner moile fra Lunnon. Fitzgibbon (Still scanning the newspaper.): Well Jimmy, here’s a man, one Bell,77 Of Greenock, can send a boat by steam Against the wind and tide, and talks with hope Of making speed equal to both. He’s tried it on the Clyde,i so we may look For news from England in a month, ere long. First Private: Na, na sir; noo doant ’e pooak fun at me!78 Iver he doos ma’ I go hang. Why neist They scatterbrain ’ull mayhap send a shep Jest whear tha’ loike wi’oot a win’ at all. Or promise till ’t. ’Twere pity Nelson, noo, He’d noan o’ sech at Copenhagen Mebbe tha’ cu’d ha’ got tha’ grunded sheps Afloat, an get moor men to fe’ht them Daans. Fitzgibbon: The fewer men the greater glory, Jim. Why, man, he got his title by that fight. seConD sergeant: And well deserved it! A finer man Never trod deck, sailor, or officer: His voice gave courage, as his eye flashed fire. We would have died for him and he for us, And when the fight was done he got our rights, Or tried at it. More than old Parker did.79 First sergeant: Parker was rich and so forgot the poor, But Nelson forgot none. seConD Private: He was cliver, too. Dash’t! How I laughed, All i’ my sleeve o’ course.ii The fight was hot, And getting hotter, for gad, them Danes can fight! And quite a quarter o’ the ships was stuck, The Admiral’s among ’em. So Nelson held i

A river in Scotland.

ii

“To be amused but not show it; hide your laughter.” Dictionary of American Idioms, s.vv. “laugh up one’s sleeve,” accessed May 2018.

101

10 2

Sarah A nne Curzon

The squadron at command. Up comes the word, “The signal Thirty-nine is out, sir.” Nelson turns, His stump a-goin’ as his arm was used Afore he lost it, meets the officer, as says, “Sir, Thirty-nine is out, shall I repeat it?” “No, sir, acknowledge it.” Then on he goes. Presently he calls out, “What’s flying now?” “The same, sir.” So he takes his glass And puts it to his eye, his blind eye, mind you, An’, says he, “No signal can I see. No, Ne’er a one.” Winking to Ferguson says he, “I’ve but one eye and may be blind sometimes. What, strike off now and lose the day? Not so. My signal keep for ‘closer battle’ flying, That’s how I’ll answer. Confound the signal! Nail mine to the mast.” He won. First miLitiaman: Just touch and go for hanging, that. Fitzgibbon: Success ne’er saw a scaffold, Jeremy. a CaDet: Fine looking fellow Nelson was, I guess? First sergeant: To look at? No, a little, thin, pale man With a long queue,i one arm, and but one eye, But that a blazer!ii seConD miLitiaman: These little uns has lots o’ spunk. Boney’s a little un, I’ve heerd. First Private: Just so, and Wellington ain’t big.80 Fitzgibbon (Rising and drawing himself to his full height.): Come boys, you’re getting personal. See me, If none but little men may win renown, I hope I’m two in one, for your sakes. And you forget the lion-hearted Brock. aLL (Interrupting him.): No! No! No! Fitzgibbon: A man of height exceeding any here, And yet whose altiii of metred inches Nobly enlarged to full, fair, Saxon mould, And vested in the blazonmentsiv of rule, i

Nelson was often represented with a plait of hair or a short pigtail, as in the 1801–03 oil on canvas by Simon de Koster. National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London, accessed June 2018, http://collections.rmg.co.uk/collections/objects/14373.html.

ii

“Anything that shines … ; something that attracts attention.” oed, s.v. “blazer.”

iii “Extent or distance upward; height.” Dictionary.com, s.v. “alt.” iv Blazoning, setting forth in bright colours. oed, s.v. “blazonments.”

L a u r a S e c o r d : T h e H e r o i n e o f 18 1 2

10 3

Showed not so kingly to the obeisant sight As was his soul. Who than ye better knew His bravery, his lofty heroism, His purity, and great unselfish heart? Nature in him betrayed no niggard touch Of corporate or ethereal. Yet, I yield That men of lesser mould in outward form Have been as great in deeds of rich renown. But then, I take it, greatness lies not in The flesh, but in the spirit. He is great Who from the quick occasion of the time Strikes out a name. And he is also great Who, in a life-long struggle, throws the foe, And binds on hoary locks the laurel crown. Each is a high exemplar. One with concentrated vigour strikes a blow That rings around the world. The other draws The world round him, his mighty throes And well-contested standpoints win its praise And force its verdict, though bleak indifference, A laggard umpire, long neglects his post, And often leaves the wrestler’s best unnoted, Coming but just in time to mark his thewsi And training, and so decides, while the loud shock Of unexpected prowess starts him aghast, And from his careless hand snatches the proud award. But mark me, men, he who is ever great Has greatness made his aim. The sudden blow or long-protracted strife Yields not its secret to the untrained hand. True, one may cast his statue at a heat, But yet the mould was there. And he who chips the marble, bit by bit, Into a noble form, sees all the while His image in the block. There are those who make a phantom of their aim. See it now here, now there, in this, in that, But never in the line of simple duty. Such will accomplish nothing but their shame. For greatness never leaves that thin, straight mark And, just as the pursuit diverges from it, i

An individual’s “custom or habit ... ; manner of behaving or acting” oed, s.v. “thew.”

104

Sarah A nne Curzon

Greatness evanishesi and notoriety Misleads the suitor. I’d have you think of this. aLL: Aye, aye, sir. Fitzgibbon: Order the lights, for darkness falls apace, And I must write. (Exit First Private.) Fitzgibbon (Cutting the newspaper and handing the halves to the sergeants.): There, read to the rest, and let me have them back when done with. (Enter a soldier with lights. A voice is heard in the next room, beginning to sing.) Who’s that? First Private: It’s Roaring Bill sir, shall I stop him? Fitzgibbon: No, let him sing. It cheers our loneliness and does us good. First sergeant: Another of his own, I guess, homespun And rough, like country cloth. Fitzgibbon: Hush! What is that he says? (A Cadet gently pushes one of the folding doors a little wider open.) roaring biLL: ’Tis but a doleful ditty boys, With ne’er a chorus. Yet, I’ll be bound You’ll hardly quarrel with it. a ComraDe: Let’s have it Bill, we ain’t red Injuns, As likes palaver.ii roaring biLL: (Song.) October blasts had strewn the wreaths that erstwhile hung so gay, Above the brows of Queenston Heights where we impatient lay. Niagara fretted at our feet, as chafing at his post, And impotence to turn the fleets that bore the aggressive host. And gray the dawn and cold the morn of Rensselaer’s attack,81 But warm and true the hearts, though few, that leapt to beat him back. “On, Forty-ninth! On, volunteers! Give tongue ye batteries twain!” Bold Dennis spake: the guns boomed82 forth, and down he rushed amain.iii They sink! They fly! They drop down stream. Ah, too delusive sight, A long abandoned path they find, and gain the wooded height. The batteries now must guard the shore, above our struggle lies, But, down they pour like surging flood, that skill and strength defies. Down, down they press us, inch by inch beyond the village bound,

i

To vanish out of sight, disappear from view. oed, s.v. “evanish.”

ii

“Unnecessary, profuse, or idle talk; chatter.” oed, s.v. “palaver.”

iii “With all one’s might.” oed, s.v. “amain.”

L a u r a S e c o r d : T h e H e r o i n e o f 18 1 2

105

And there, o’erwhelmed, but not o’ercome, we keep our sullen ground. Short time we stand. A ringing cheer proclaims our hero nigh, Our darling leader, noble Brock, hark to his gallant cry! “Follow me, boys!” the hero cries. We double to the wall, Waving his gleaming sword on high, he climbs and follow all. Impetuous up the mountainside he strides in warlike glee, All heedless of the leaden hail that whistles from each tree. For on and up proud victory lures, we touch her laurel crown, When by malign, deliberate aim the hero’s stricken down. He falls, we fire, but ah, too late, the murderous work is done. No more that voice shall cheer us on, with “Vict’ry” in its tone! He falls, nor word nor look may cheer young Jarvis’ anxious quest,83 Among his stricken men he sinks, his hand but seeks his breast. Oh Death, could none but him suffice thy cold, insatiate eye? Nor knewed’st thou how many there for him would gladly die! Nor lonely speeds the parting soul, nor lonely stands the bier, Two forms the bastion tomb enfolds, two claim the soldier’s tear. “Avenge the General!” was the cry. “Avenge!” McDonell cries, And leading madly up the Height McDonell falls and dies. (Several of the men pass their hands over their eyes. Mr Jarvis goes to the open window as if to observe something without.) an 8tH man: A mournful ditty to a mournful tune, Yet not unworthy of the heroic theme, Nor of a soldier’s heart. mr Jarvis (In a low voice.): Indeed, you’re right. I thank the singer for his memories, Though sad to me who caught Brock’s latest breath. Fitzgibbon: I did not think there had been such a stroke Of genius in the lad. (Another voice.) But who’s this now? seConD CaDet: It’s young Jack Kelley, sir; he has a voice, And emulates old Bill. JaCk keLLey (With the airs of an amateur.): Ugh, Ugh, I’m hoarse. Now mind the coal box, byes,i and sing it up. “The Jolly Midshipman” ’s the tune. (Song.) It was a bold Canadian boy That loved a winsome girl, And he was bold as ancient knight, She fair as day’s own pearl. i

Boys. A junior military rank in various forces. oed, s.v. “boy.”

10 6

Sarah A nne Curzon

And to the greenwood they must go, To build a home and name, So he clasped hands with Industry, For fortune, wealth, and fame. Chorus. (In which all join, the leader beating time upon his knees with his fists.) For fortune, wealth, and fame, For fortune, wealth, and fame, So he clasped hands with Industry, For fortune, wealth, and fame. And when the jocund Spring came in, He crowned the wedded pair, And sent them forth with hearts elate Their wildwood home to share. For he had built a snug log house, Beneath a maple tree, And his axe had cleared a wide domain, While store of goods spun she. Chorus. While store of goods spun she, While store of goods spun she, And his axe had cleared a wide domain, While store of goods spun she. The husband whistles at his plough, The wife sings at her wheel, The children wind the shrilly horn That tells the ready meal. And should you roam the wide world o’er, No happier home you’ll see, Than this abode of loving toil Beneath the maple tree. Chorus. Beneath the maple tree, Beneath the maple tree, Than this abode of loving toil Beneath the maple tree. a 49tH man: Hurrah, Jack! That’s a good tune, Let’s have the chorus again. aLL: Beneath the maple tree, Beneath the maple tree, Than this abode of love –

L a u r a S e c o r d : T h e H e r o i n e o f 18 1 2

10 7

(The sentry challenges and a corporal enters and salutes Fitzgibbon.) Fitzgibbon: Well, Corporal. CorPoraL: Sir, here is Mishe-mo-qua and a woman. They say they’ve news and wish to speak with you. Fitzgibbon: Then Corporal show them in. (Exit Corporal.) (Enter Mrs Secord and the Indian Chief, who salutes Fitzgibbon.) severaL miLitiamen (In surprise, aside to each other.): ’Tis Mrs Secord, Captain Secord’s wife. What can her errand be? So tired, too, And in rags. mrs seCorD (Courtesying.): You are the Captain, sir? Fitzgibbon: At your service. mrs seCorD: I bring you news of great importance, sir. Fitzgibbon: I am indebted, madam, for what I see Has been no common task. Be seated, pray. (A cadet places a chair.) Chief, will you also rest? (He indicates a couch.) misHe-mo-qua: No. Woman, she Come far, to tell White chief great words. Fitzgibbon: I thank her much. mrs seCorD: I came to say that General Dearborn tires Of his inaction, and the narrow space Around his works, he therefore purposes To fall upon your outpost here tonight, With an o’erwhelming force and take your stores. Fitzgibbon: Madam! mrs seCorD: Five hundred men, with some dragoons and guns, Start e’en tonight, soon as the moon goes down, Lieutenant-Colonel Boerstler in command. A train of wagons, too, is sent for spoil. Fitzgibbon: And may I ask on what authority To trust such startling news? I know you not. mrs seCorD: My name is Secord, I’m Captain Secord’s wife, Who fought at Queenston Heights and there received The wounds that leave him now a helpless cripple. Some here may know him. Fitzgibbon: I remember now. mrs seCorD: We live within the Yankee lines and hence By victor’s right our home is free to them. Last night a sergeant and his new-changed guard Came in and asked for supper. A boy and girl I left to wait on them, seeing the table set With all supplies myself and then retired.

10 8

Sarah A nne Curzon

But such their confidence, their talk so loud And free, I could not help but hear some words That raised suspicion. Then I listened close And heard, ’mid gibe and jest, the enterprise That was to flout us. Make the Loyalist A cringing slave to sneering rebels, make The British lion gnash his teeth with rage, The Yankee, hand-on-hip, guffawing loud The while. At once, my British blood was up, Nor had I borne their hated presence more, But for the deeper cause. My husband judged As I did, but his helpless frame forbade His active interference, so I came, For well we knew your risk, warning denied. Fitzgibbon: Alone? You surely did not come alone? mrs seCorD: Sir, I have walked the whole way through the woods, For fear of spies, braving all other foes. Nor, since at early morn I left St David’s Mill, Until I met your sentry on the ridge, Who begged me tell you so, and said “all’s well,” Spoke I or saw a soul. Since then the chief, Whose senior sent him with me for a guide, Has been my kind protector to your post. Fitzgibbon (To the chief.): I thank you, Mishe-mo-qua and your chief. (To Mrs Secord, bowing.) But you, oh madam, how shall I thank you? You have, indeed, performed a woman’s part, A gentle deed, yet at expense of more Than woman’s fitting means. I am not schooled In courtly phrases, yet may I undertake To thank you heartily, not on our part Alone, but in our good King George’s name, For act so kind achieved. Knew he your care For his brave men, I speak for those around, Of whom some fought for him at Copenhagen, He would convey his thanks, and the Queen’s, too,84 Who loves all nobleness in better terms Than I, his humble servant. Affliction Leaves him in our hands to do him justice, And justice ’tis, alike to him and you, To thank you in his name, and in the Regent’s.

L a u r a S e c o r d : T h e H e r o i n e o f 18 1 2

10 9

tHe soLDiers(They toss up their caps.): Hurray! Hurray! Hurray! mrs seCorD: Sir, you make quite too much of my poor service, I have but done my duty and I beg Let me not interrupt your movements now. I would not be an obstacle across The path I made. Fitzgibbon: You add an obligation, madam. (At a signal the men from the next room file in. To the men.) We’ve hot work coming, boys. Our good friend here Has walked from Queenston through the woods this day, To warn me that a sortie from Fort George Is sent to take this post and starts e’en now. You, Cummings, mount, you know the way, and ride85 With all your might, to tell De Haren this.86 He lies at Twelve-Mile Creek with larger force Than mine, and will move up to my support. He’ll see my handful cannot keep at bay Five hundred men, or fight in open field. But what strength can’t accomplish cunning must. I’ll have to circumvent them. (Exit Cummings). (To Mishe-mo-qua.) And you, chief, What will you do? You’ve stood by me so long, So faithfully, I count upon you now. misHe-mo-qua: White chief say true: we good King George’s men. My warriors yell! Hide! Shoot! Hot bullet fly Like dart of Annee-meekee.87 We keep damn Long Knife back. I go just now. Fitzgibbon (Handing the Chief a twist of tobacco, which he puts into his girdle with a grunt of satisfaction.): A Mohawk is my friend and you are one. (Fitzgibbon shakes hands with the Chief, who retires well pleased.) (To Mrs Secord.) Madam, how may I serve you to secure Your safety? Refreshment comes, but here Is no protection in our present strait. mrs seCorD: I thank you sir, but will not tax you more Than some refreshment. I have friends beyond A mile or two with whom I’ll stay tonight. Fitzgibbon: I’ll spare an escort. Mr Jarvis here will – (Mrs Secord faints.) Poor soul, poor soul! She is exhausted indeed.

11 0

Sarah A nne Curzon

(The men run out and bring water. Fitzgibbon gets brandy from a buffeti and Mr Jarvis unloosens her bonnet and collar. They bathe her hands with the spirit and sprinkle her face with the water and at last Mrs Secord sighs heavily.) Fitzgibbon: She’s coming to. Back men, give her more air. (Mr Jarvis and another cadet support Mrs Secord, while Fitzgibbon offers her coffee, into which he has poured a little brandy, feeding her with the spoon.) an 8tH man (aside): She’ll never walk to reach her friends tonight. a 49tH man (To a comrade.): Jack, thou an’ me can do’t. ’Tyent the fust time We’ve swung a faintin’ comrade ’twixt us two, An’ her’s just like a babby. Fatch a pole An’ blanket an’ we’ll carry her. a sergeant: You’ll then be in the rear for we’re to move. seConD 49tH man: We’ll catch ye oop a foight’n’; its summat wuth To wait o’ sech as she.88 Fitzgibbon (To Mrs Secord.): Are you better now? mrs seCorD (Trying to stand.): I think I am. Oh sir, I’m losing you The time I tried to save! Pray leave me. I shall be better soon and I can find my way. Fitzgibbon: Nay, be not anxious, we are quite prepared. Sheathed though our claws may be, they’re always sharp. Pray drink again, nor fear the potent touch That snatches back the life when the spent heart, Oppressed by cruel tasks as yours, can scarcely beat. (Mrs Secord drinks the coffee and again rises, but can scarcely stand. a 49tH man (Saluting): Sir, me an’ Bill has here a hammock ready, An’ volunteers to see the lady safe Among her friends. mrs seCorD: But I can walk. Fitzgibbon: Madam, you cannot. Let these carry you, An honour I do grudge them. I shall move With better heart knowing you cared for. mrs seCorD: I’ll go at once. Fitzgibbon: Men, bring your hammock hither. (The hammock is brought and Mrs Secord is assisted into it by Fitzgibbon, who wraps a blanket round her. The men fall into line and salute as she passes. At the door she offers her hand to Fitzgibbon.) mrs seCorD: Farewell, sir. My best thanks for all your goodness, Your hospitality, and this your escort. i

A sideboard or cupboard. oed, s.v. “buffet.”

L a u r a S e c o r d : T h e H e r o i n e o f 18 1 2

111

You do me too much honour. Fitzgibbon: Should we not Show our respect for one has done so much For us? We are your debtors, madam. (He points to the sky, set thick with brilliant stars, the moon having already set.) See how the eyes of heaven look down on you, And smile in gentle approbation Of a most gentle deed. I pray they light You safely to your friends. mrs seCorD: And you to victory, sir. Farewell. (Fitzgibbon bows.) (Exit Mrs Secord and her escort.) Fitzgibbon (To the men who have crowded round the door and are awaiting orders.): Men, never forget this woman’s noble deed. Armed and in company inspiritedi By crash of martial music, soldiers march To duty. But she, alone, defenceless, With no support but kind humanity And burning patriotism, ran all our risks Of hurt and bloody death to serve us men, Strangers to her save by quick wartime ties. Therefore, in grateful memory and kind return, Ever treat women well. men: Aye, aye, sir. Fitzgibbon: Now then, for action. I need not say, Men, do your duty. The hearts that sprung To follow Nelson, Brock, have never failed. I’m proud, my men, to be your leader now.

Scene ii (Morning twilight. A little wayside tavern at a cross-road.) (Enter Fitzgibbon, reconnoitring.) Fitzgibbon: They must be pretty near by this time, If they are come at all. (Two American soldiers of the advanced guard rush out of the tavern and present their rifles. Fitzgibbon springs on them and, seizing each man’s weapon, crosses them in front of himself.) Not yet my friends. i

“To put spirit, life, or energy into.” oed, s.v. “inspirit.”

11 2

Sarah A nne Curzon

(They struggle and one of the Americans draws Fitzgibbon’s sword and is about to plunge it in his shoulder. Enter a woman, the tavern-keeper.) woman: Ye Yankee rogue! Ye coward!89 (She snatches the sword and runs into the tavern with it.) Fitzgibbon: Take that! And that! (He trips up one man and knocks the other down, putting his foot on the man’s breast.) Now, give me up your arms. (They give up their arms. Enter Fitzgibbon’s command.) Here, Sergeant, march them in and set a guard. (They are marched into the tavern. Shots are heard.) Fitzgibbon: They’re come! Quick march, my lads.

Scene iii (The beech ridge. Frequent firing. The Indian war-whoop. Bugles sounding the advance. Enter Fitzgibbon and Colonel Thomas Clarke.)90 Fitzgibbon: The Mohawks have done well and I am glad To have your help, sir, too. What is your strength? CLarke: But twenty, sir, all told. Fitzgibbon: And I but thirty. Too few to fight such force In open field. But Boerstler’s lost his head, Deluded by our calls, your fierce attack. And Indian fighting, which to them has ghosts Of their own raising: scalps, treachery, what not. There is our chance. I mean to summon him To a surrender.91 CLarke (In great surprise.): Sir! Fitzgibbon: ‘Tis a bold stroke, I grant, and if it fail Why then I’ll fight it out. Keep up the scare Some moments longer and we’ll see. CLarke: Good luck betidei so brave a word, I’ll do my best. (Exit Col. Clarke.) (Enter the American force in some confusion. Fitzgibbon sends forward a flag of truce. The bugles sound “cease firing;” an officer advances from the American lines and Fitzgibbon goes forward to meet him.) Fitzgibbon: Sir, with my compliments to your commander, I am the leader of this large detachment, Backed closely up by reinforcements i

“To happen, befall.” oed, s.v. “betide.”

L a u r a S e c o r d : T h e H e r o i n e o f 18 1 2

113

Larger still. Indians, our good allies, Swarm in the woods around and in your rear A strong militia force awaits my orders. Therefore, sir, to save a useless loss Of brave men’s lives, I offer you fair terms Of full surrender. ameriCan oFFiCer: I will report, sir, To Colonel Boerstler. (Exit.) Fitzgibbon (aside): And I will pray. For after all in God’s hand lies the day. I’ve done the best I know. (Enter the American officer and an orderly.) ameriCan oFFiCer: Sir, with respect, our colonel bids me say That, seeing fate and fortune both unite To mar success, he’ll rather save his men By fair surrender, than waste their lives In useless struggle. He commissions me To act in drawing up the terms. I am McDowell, captain of a troop. Fitzgibbon (Bowing.): Your humble servant, sir. We’ll try to please Your colonel, rejoicing we have met a foe Who knows the bravery of discretion. (Enter Clarke, Capt. Kerr of the Indian contingent and Mishe-mo-qua. The British officers consult and then invite Capt. McDowell to join them. A drum is brought. Major De Haren produces writing materials and terms of capitulation are drawn up, which are read to Capt. McDowell.) Fitzgibbon: Our terms we make as light as possible. I hope you’ll find them so, sir. mCDoweLL (After reading.): Terms generous and honourable, sir. I thank you.92 A noble foe is always half a friend. I’ll carry them to Colonel Boerstler, With your consent. (Fitzgibbon bows. Exit McDowell. Enter De Haren, who hastens to greet Fitzgibbon.) De Haren: Why, what is this Fitzgibbon that I hear? That with your little handful you have caught Five hundred enemy? A very elephant! Fitzgibbon: A strait like mine required some strategy. De Haren: My dear, brave fellow you have surely won The golden epaulettes!i How glad I am I was not here before.93 Such tact. Such skill. You are a soldier born. But who comes hither? i

“A shoulder-piece; an ornament worn on the shoulder as part of a military, naval, or sometimes of a civil uniform.” oed, s.v. “epaulet.”

11 4

Sarah A nne Curzon

(Enter Col. Boerstler, McDowell, and other American officers.) Fitzgibbon: These are the officers to sign our terms. (The officers on both sides salute.) boerstLer (To Fitzgibbon.): I thank you, sir, for honourable terms. For vain it was to cope with force like yours. But, ne’er I thought to put my hand to such A document. (He takes up the pen.) Fitzgibbon: Fortune of war, sir, that we all may meet. (Each officer signs the document in his order. Mishe-mo-qua draws his totem, a bear, as his signature.) De Haren (To Boerstler.): Will you proceed on the third article? boerstLer (To McDowell.): Give you the order. (Exit McDowell.) Fitzgibbon (To his men, who are drawn up across the road, De Haren’s command forming their right and left wings): Forward ten paces. (Enter by companies the American force, who lay down their arms in front of the British officers and defilei to the rear.) De Haren (To Fitzgibbon.): A glorious day for you, Fitzgibbon, For this fair Canada and British arms. Fitzgibbon: Yes, thanks to a brave woman’s glorious deed. (Exit.) f inis

i

“To march in a line or by files; to file off.” oed, s.v. “defile.”

notes Curzon’s Laura Secord: The Heroine of 1812 was published by Blackett Robinson of Toronto in 1887. The original can be accessed through archive.org, https://archive.org/details/ laurasecordheroi00curz/page/n4. 1 Taken from well-known British writer, Irish nationalist, and British parliamentarian Justin

H. McCarthy’s (1860–1939) An Outline of Irish History: From the Earliest Times to the Present Day (London, 1883). 2 Taken from Charles Kingsley’s book Hypatia or New Foes with an Old Face (London, 1853), a historical fiction that recovers the heroic life of the woman mathematician, philosopher, and astronomer, Hypatia. 3 This edition of Laura Secord: The Heroine of 1812 omits the thirty-nine footnotes in the original publication and the “Memoir of Mrs Secord” that succeeds the preface. Their function, necessary to Curzon’s project of establishing the veracity of Laura’s actions and lionizing

L a u r a S e c o r d : T h e H e r o i n e o f 18 1 2

4 5

6

7

8

9 10

11

12

1 15

the War’s great actors and organizations at Beaver Dams, is superseded by easily accessible, more accurate, and less ideologically invested histories in the present notes. The original text was intended, at least in part, to gain support for the monument Curzon wanted erected in Secord’s memory, as well as her declared purpose of having a posthumous pension bestowed upon Laura. See Coates and Morgan, Heroines & History, 196; see also Beverly Boutilier, “Women’s Rights and Duties,” 66. Curzon’s text is the first self-consciously feminist dramatic work to be written in Canada. Except when otherwise indicated, characters correspond to real, historical figures and real, historical groups. For biographies of Laura and James Secord, see Leavey, Laura Secord: Heroine of the War of 1812, 39–49; see also Coates and Morgan, Heroines & History, 119–29; see also the dcb, s.vv. “Laura Ingersol.” All dictionary and encyclopedia references and all references to Coffin and Auchinleck’s texts were accessed between May and July 2018 and May and June 2019. Curzon’s two major historical sources for the play were Coffin’s 1812; The War, and Its Moral: A Canadian Chronicle (1864), https://archive.org/details/1812waritsmoralc00coff, and Auchinleck’s A History of the War between Great Britain and the United States of America, during the Years 1812, 1813, and 1814 (1855), https://archive.org/stream/historyofwarbetw00auch_0/ historyofwarbetw00auch_0_djvu.txt. Coffin’s text was a “patriotic” history “to combat the sensational American versions of the war and to offer ‘an antidote to the American literature of the day.’” See dcb, s.vv. “William Foster Coffin.” For a critique of Coffin, see McKenzie, Laura Secord: the Legend and the Lady, 104. Auchinleck corresponded with Secord. Benson J. Lossing, who Curzon quotes in her footnotes, interviewed Secord in the 1860s for his book The Pictorial Field-Book of the War of 1812 (1869). See Leavey, Laura Secord: Heroine of the War of 1812, 183. The Quaker “Penn” – no doubt a generic name derived from the early Quaker settlement of Pennsylvania – is a fictional construct based on Coffin’s text in which the Quaker is a “patriotic ‘Friend’” that “found a good market for his produce and valuable information for Harvey.” See Curzon, Laura Secord, the Heroine of 1812, note 3. On 6 June 1813 British Lieutenant-Colonel Sir John Harvey (1778–1852) led approximately seven hundred men in a surprise attack on much superior US forces at the Battle of Stoney Creek, preventing the Niagara Peninsula from falling to defeat. It was the apex of his career and “one of the most decisive encounters of the war.” See Buckner, dcb, s.vv. “Sir John Harvey.” See also Canadian Encyclopedia Online, s.vv. “Sir John Harvey.” See Psalm, 35:5. “The Kings Own,” the Eighth Regiment under the leadership of Major-General Roger Hale Sheaffe (1763–1851), Brock’s second-in-command, was instrumental in the British victory at Queenston Heights. Sheaffe commanded forces at Fort George and, after Brock fell in battle, joined his men to the British-allied natives including the Chippawa. See Canadian Encyclopedia, s.vv. “Sir Roger Hale Sheaffe.” See also “British Regular Regiments in North America during the War of 1812,” The War of 1812 Website, http://www.warof1812.ca/charts/ regts_na.htm; see also Dale, “History.” The Forty-Ninth Princess Charlotte of Wales Hertfordshire Regiment of Foot, glorified by Curzon in the play, arrived in Canada in 1802 and was commanded by General Isaac Brock (1769–1812). During the War of 1812, the company saw action in the most important battles on the Niagara Peninsula including Stoney Creek, Queenston Heights, Beaver Dams, and Fort George. See “British Regular Regiments,” The War of 1812 Website, http://www. warof1812.ca/charts/regts_na.htm. See Coffin, 1812; The War and its Moral, 142, https://archive.org/details/1812waritsmoralc00coff. Coffin contends that the American generals resided in the farmhouse of a man named

11 6

13

14

15

16

17 18 19 20 21

22

23

24

25

Sarah A nne Curzon

Jemmy Gap and that the troops marshalled at Gap’s property on the night of the attack on Stoney Creek. Fort George, located on the north shore of the Niagara River in Niagara-on-the-Lake, was occupied by the Americans for seven months from the Battle of Fort George on 27 May 1813. They did so under particularly adverse conditions, with “crowding, cold rains, and wretched sanitation.” See Alan Taylor, The Civil War of 1812, 222. Sir James Lucas Yeo was appointed “commander-in-chief on the lakes of Canada” in 1813 and was responsible for safeguarding British positions and trade across both Lake Erie and Lake Ontario until the end of the War. Canadian Encyclopedia, s.vv. “Sir James Lucas Yeo.” See also dcb, s.vv. “Sir James Lucas Yeo.” See Leavey, Laura Secord: Heroine of the War of 1812, 68–75. Fort Erie, Burlington Heights (Hamilton), and Stoney Creek were all strategic geographical locations on the Niagara Peninsula under threat by the Americans prior to the Battle of Beaver Dams. See James E. Elliott, Strange Fatality, 52. General John Vincent was a commanding officer of the Forty-Ninth Regiment and in the lead up to the Battle of Stoney Creek held his forces in a defensive position at Burlington Heights. See Coffin, 1812; The War and Its Moral, 142. The Quaker hides under an elm tree on the farm so as not to be discovered by the American forces. James Secord was a sergeant in the First Lincoln Militia Regiment and wounded at the Battle of Queenston Heights. For a reiteration of this theme in Canadian women’s drama see Sister Mary Agnes’s A Patriot’s Daughter and Louise Carter Broun’s The Soldiers. See Curzon, Laura Secord: The Heroine of 1812, note 4. Curzon tells us that “an air to this hymn has been composed,” but there is no evidence of its being extant. Curzon believes the Secords held slaves and in note 5 of Laura Secord: The Heroine of 1812 she makes an apology for the institution and offers praise for its easy abolition and for the amicable relationship she claims exists between Blacks and Whites, signalled by Black patriotism in the establishment of “a coloured regiment” in the War of 1812. See also Leavey, Laura Secord, 47–8, who argues that the Secords employed servants named Bob and Fan (sometimes referred to as Floss) who “were treated with respect by everyone in the family.” In exchange for the concession that the invalid Mr Secord remain at home, the family was required to billet three American officers. See Leavey, Laura Secord: Heroine of the War of 1812, 76–7. In note 6 of Laura Secord: The Heroine of 1812, Curzon elaborates the conditions created by the invading American soldiers: “Dearborn’s men came and went, ordered, or possessed themselves of whatever they chose, and took every form of familiarity in the homes of the residents within their lines, and that it was fast becoming an anxious question with the farmers and others, what they should do for supplies if Dearborn were not ousted within the season.” For Henry Dearborn, see also note 29 of Curzon’s Laura Secord: The Heroine of 1812. Lieutenant Colonel Boerstler of the United States Fourteenth Infantry Regiment led an army of approximately five hundred men to attack Lieutenant James FitzGibbon’s British forces. It was Boerstler who commanded the invading troops about which Laura Secord ventured to warn FitzGibbon. See Canadian Encyclopedia, s.vv. “Battle of Beaver Dams.” According to Coffin, it was James and not Laura (whom he mistakenly refers to as Mary) that overhears the Americans discussing the attack on Beaver Dams. See Coffin, 1812; The War, and Its Moral, 147. See Hickey, The War of 1812, 293. Lieutenant Winter, to whom this is no doubt a reference, was commander of the US Navy ship Hamilton. Shortly after the invasion of Queenston on 8 August 1813, his ship sank during a sudden storm off Fourteen Mile Creek near present-day Hamilton.

L a u r a S e c o r d : T h e H e r o i n e o f 18 1 2

117

26 An American column under Boerstler’s command left Fort George for Decau’s farmhouse,

27

28

29

30

31 32

33

34 35

36

37 38

the British command post on the Niagara escarpment at Beaver Dams, on 24 June 1813, intending to take them by surprise. See Leavey, Laura Secord: Heroine of the War of 1812, 73–5. Irish-born James FitzGibbon (1780-1863) joined the Forty-Ninth Regiment of the British army in 1798. He participated in many important initiatives during the War of 1812 including the Battle of Stoney Creek in which he was a company commander and the Battle of Beaver Dams where he is credited with achieving the surrender of the American troops, which earned him a gold medal. See dcb, s.vv. “James FitzGibbon.” The Battle of Queenston Heights, the first major engagement of the War of 1812, took place on 13 October 1813. Major-General Isaac Brock, famous for his “dynamic, popular and aggressive leadership,” defended the British and was shot and killed on the battlefield. Canadian Encyclopedia, s.vv. “Battle of Queenston Heights.” Henry Dearborn (1751–1829) was made major general of the US Army by President James Madison and given command “of the northeastern sector from Niagara to the New England coast.” See The US War of 1812, “Henry Dearborn,” accessed 8 July 2019, http:// theuswarof1812.org/commanderdetail.aspx?commander=107. See Auchinleck, A History of the War. British Lieutenant-Colonel Cecil Bisshopp (1783–1813) and US Major De Haren were commanding officers stationed with their troops at opposite ends of Beaver Dams. Auchinleck tells us that Bisshopp “took up two positions commanding the cross roads at the Ten-Mile Creek and the Beaver Dams.” See also dcb, s.vv. “Cecil Bisshopp.” See Curzon’s Laura Secord: The Heroine of 1812, note 42. Laura Secord’s journey was about thirty-two kilometres. Here and in the discussion which follows, Laura is referencing Luke 10:25–8, Mark 12:28–31, and Mathew 22:35–40 (Authorized [King James] Version), all of which recall Jesus’s disputes with the authorities in Galilee. Niagara-on-the-Lake was named Newark from 1792 to 1798. The native trail to which Secord refers led from Queenston across Twelve Mile Creek. All such creeks were named according to their distance from the Niagara River. Also called Dianthus Caryophyllus, clove-scented pinks are a species of carnation. oed, s.v. “clove-pink.” See Norman Knowles, Inventing the Loyalists, 127–8. The story of the cow and milk bucket that is so often repeated in connection with the Laura Secord narrative appears to have no grounding in historical fact and can be traced back to Coffin. See also Coates and Morgan, Heroines & History, 213; Leavey, Laura Secord: Heroine of the War of 1812, 183. James Madison Jr (1751–1836), president of the United States from 1809 to 1817. See American National Biography Online, s.vv. “James Madison.” See also War of 1812, s.vv. “James Madison.” In calling Madison “mad,” Curzon may be referring to portrayals in the British press, such as George Cruikshank’s 1812 cartoon, “A Sketch for the Regent’s Speech on Madass-son’s Insanity,” Library of Congress, accessed July 2018, http://www.loc.gov/pictures/ item/98514002. The sentry’s critique of the War hints at the ideological divisions between the Republicans that supported the War and the Federalists whose political sympathies aligned them with Britain.” In a racially stratified culture such as British North America at the beginning of the nineteenth century, war with the Native Americans is preferred over war with Anglo-Americans. Responding by way of direct attack to the American seizure of a gun battery at Queenston Heights, Brock led his troops into battle and was shot in the chest by an American soldier. He died instantaneously. Lieutenant-Colonel John Macdonell (1785–1812), his military aide de campe, led the troops in a new attack at Queenston Heights. He, too, was shot multiple

11 8

39

40

41

42

43

44 45

46

Sarah A nne Curzon

times with musket fire and died the following day. Captain James Dennis of the FortyNinth “commanded in the village [of Queenston], and he counterattacked the Americans in a fierce firefight that resulted in numerous casualties before both sides withdrew.” The Encyclopedia of the War of 1812: A Political, Social, and Military History, s.vv. “Queenston Heights, Battle of.” See also Malcolmson, A Very Brilliant Affair, 158, 214; Canadian Encyclopedia, s.vv. “John Macdonell.” St David’s Mill was one of several mills built along Four Mile Creek, just a few kilometres west of Queenston. It was built and owned by Stephen and David Secord, Laura Secord’s brothers-in-law, and situated in the eponymously named village of St David’s, the site of much activity during the war. See Curzon, Laura Secord: The Heroine of 1812, note 11. The Widow Stephen (Hannah DeForest, 1767–1841) is one of several women who together form a history of female heroism invoked by the play. Having been left with several sons, she continued the business of the grist-mill begun by her husband and brother and “thereby brought up her family … [I]n the absence of sufficient help the widow worked with her own hands, turning out flour for which the Government paid her twenty dollars a barrel.” For a brief biography of Stephen Secord and Hannah DeForest see Leitch, “The Stephen Secord and Hannah DeForest Family.” See Curzon, Laura Secord: The Heroine of 1812, note 12. While the character of Sergeant George Mosier is apparently fictional, Curzon tells us “there was a Captain Mosier living at Newark in 1812 ... [who] was of some service to the British Government.” See dcb, s.vv. “Cecil Bisshopp.” Bisshopp held his troops at Fort Erie before he joined forces at Burlington Heights with Harvey. On 6 June they “mounted a successful attack upon the Americans at Stoney Creek and two days later Sir James Lucas Yeo’s fleet bombarded and dispersed the enemy encamped at Forty Mile Creek. During these engagements Bisshopp commanded the reserve. Later in the month he played a nominal role in the Indian victory at Beaver Dams.” See also Curzon, Laura Secord: The Heroine of 1812, 30. See dcb, s.vv. “Thomas Evans.” Thomas Evans (1777–1863) was a British Army officer and deputy adjutant-general under Brock’s command. He was “primarily responsible for preparing the expedition which compelled the surrender of General William Hull’s army at Detroit on 16 August. His brilliant handling of reinforcements at Queenston on 13 October, following the death of Brock, proved a vital contribution to Major-General Roger Hale Sheaffe’s victory in that crucial battle.” See dcb, s.vv. “Henry Procter.” Procter (Proctor) succeeded Brock as commander of the Detroit frontier and was soon made brigadier-general. His conduct at Moraviantown, however, brought a public reprimand and court martial. He was charged with allowing the retreat to be “slowed by taking too much baggage, some of it personal ... [failing] to prevent supplies and ammunition from falling into enemy hands ... [neglecting] to fortify adequately positions along the Thames ... [making] poor dispositions to meet the enemy ... [and failing] to rally and encourage his troops and Indian allies at and after the battle.” Brock was born at St Peter Port, Guernsey, an island at the southwest end of the English Channel. See Canadian Encyclopedia, s.vv. “Laura Secord.” Secord is said to have rescued her wounded husband James from the battlefield at Queenston Heights and taken him home to nurse him back to health. Although women were not formally recognized for their efforts, this was a common practice for women of the time. For Captain James Secord, see Curzon, Laura Secord: The Heroine of 1812, note 18. The FortyFirst Regiment of Foot comprised the majority of Brock’s forces and of British army regulars during the War of 1812. They fought US troops at Queenston Heights, Lake Erie, Fort

L a u r a S e c o r d : T h e H e r o i n e o f 18 1 2

47

48

49

50

51

52

53

54

119

Niagara, and Lundy’s Lane among other places, earning “more battle honours than any other British Regiment during the War of 1812.” “Reenactments: 41st Regiment of Foot Living Military Group,” United Empire Loyalists’ Association of Canada, accessed July 2018, http://www.uelac.org/Reenactments/41st-Regiment-of-Foot.php. See also Yaworsky, “The 41st Regiment and the War of 1812,” The War of 1812 Website, http://www.warof1812. ca/41stregt.htm. See Curzon, Laura Secord: The Heroine of 1812, note 14. Maria Hill (1791–1881) grew up in the army forts of Niagara and, having married a soldier, took part in several battles associated with the War of 1812, eventually serving as a surgeon’s assistant. Curzon writes: “This brave woman was Mrs Maria Hill, a soldier’s wife, who pitying the hungry condition of men who had been called out before day-break on a cold October morning to meet a foe already in partial occupation and temporarily victorious, had no means of procuring or cooking supplies, and indeed could not even break their fast, except by the intervention of those whose property they, for the time, had been unable to defend. Mrs Hill carried her little stores on to the field, and leaving her babe, who crowed and cheered, it is said, as though mightily diverted by the sight of the red-coats, under the shelter of a wood-pile, lighted fires, boiled water, and carried tea and food to as many of the men on the field as she could supply.” For Maria Hill in her own words, see Kingsford, The History of Canada, Vol. 9 (Toronto, 1897): 182–4. Baroness von Reidesel was the wife of Friedrich von Reidesel, the Hessian commander leading the German troops paid by the British army to fight with them in several battles, including the Battle of Saratoga referred to here. Curzon tells us in Laura Secord: The Heroine of 1812 note 16 that the Baroness, along with the wives of other army officers, “followed the route of the artillery and baggage.” When the fighting began, the wives retreated into a small hut and awaited the wounded soldiers, including their own husbands, who were brought to them for treatment. This is corroborated by Wilson in The Island Race, 121. See also AmericanRevolution.org, s.vv. “The Baroness von Reidesel,” where it states that she joined her husband in Canada. See Wilson, The Island Race, 122. Lady Christian Henrietta Caroline Fox-Strangways, also known as Lady Harriet (1750–1815), was the wife of Major John Dyke Acland who she accompanied to Canada in 1776 when he came to assist John Burgoyne in the War. “Lady Acland accompanied the artillery and baggage train with the rest of the women.” See also Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, s.vv. “Lady Christian Henrietta Caroline Acland.” See Wilson, The Island Race, 121. Although Curzon is vague, these “other dames” may have included Mrs Harnage and Mrs Reynell who accompanied their men to Canada in 1776 to assist in the eighteen-month campaign against the Americans in the American War of Independence. Major John Dyke Acland (1747–1778), the Eton-educated son of a baronet, was a hawkish member of parliament when he joined the Grenadiers, the most senior regiment of the British infantry. In 1776 he was sent with British General John Burgoyne’s army to North America. He was wounded and taken prisoner at the Second Battle of Saratoga. See odnb, s.vv. “John Dyke Acland.” John Burgoyne (1722–1792), British general and commander of Frazer’s Highlanders, the Seventy-Eighth Regiment of Foot. Burgoyne later became a politician and playwright. See Encyclopaedia Britannica Online, s.vv. “John Burgoyne.” One of the battles of Saratoga involved the capturing of Fort Ticonderoga by John Burgoyne and the Canadian army on 6 July 1777. See Nickerson, The Turning Point of the Revolution, 140 Seventy-Eighth Regiment of Foot 57. See Wilson, The Island Race, 123–4. Burgoyne surrendered his troops at the Second Battle of Saratoga.

120

Sarah A nne Curzon

55 See Wilson, The Island Race, 124. Upon hearing the news that her husband was wounded and

56

57

58

59

60

61 62

63

taken prisoner at the Second Battle of Saratoga, Lady Acland requested permission from the American commander General Horatio Gates to cross the Hudson River to tend to him. The Reverend Mr Edward Brudenell was a chaplain of the Artillery under General Burgoyne. See Arthur Wentworth Eaton, The Church of England in Nova Scotia and the Tory Clerg y of the Revolution (New York, 1891). See also Project Canterbury, s.vv. “Reverend Mr Brudenell,” accessed 27 Jan. 2018, http://anglicanhistory.org/canada/ns/eaton/10.html. “Nine Tailors Make a Man” is a sartorial adage that counsels a “gentleman” to “select his attire from various sources.” The Widow is here being more literal: she is suggesting that even if a British soldier were a tailor and there were nine for each one, the British forces would still be outnumbered: at the Battle of Beaver Dams the British were outnumbered by ten to one. Oxford Dictionary of Proverbs, s.vv. “Nine Tailors Make a Man.” Three British patriotic songs follow here: the first a ballad and drinking song; the second and third marches. According to Curzon’s Laura Secord: The Heroine of 1812, note 17, “The King: God Bless Him” and “The Duke of York’s March” “were at this period new and favourite tunes all over the British Empire.” The first of these was composed ca 1828 by John Braham, a famous opera singer during this period. See The Lester S. Levy Sheet Music Collection, accessed 9 July 2018, http://levysheetmusic.mse.jhu.edu/catalog/levy:014.041; for “The Duke of York’s March” (comp. Christopher Friedrich Eley, 1785) see Library of Congress, accessed July 2018, https://www.loc.gov/resource/musm1a1.10125.0?st=gallery; for “Britannia Rules the Waves,” see “Rule, Britannia” (comp. Thomas Augustine Arne, 1740), Encyclopaedia Britannica, s.vv. “Thomas Arne,” accessed July 2018, https://www. britannica.com/biography/Thomas-Arne. “Yankee Doodle” (ca 1770), often attributed to British Army surgeon Richard Shuckburgh, is a popular Anglo-American folk tune that has its origin in the Seven Years’ War and was originally intended “to mock the dishevelled, disorganized, colonial ‘Yankees’ with whom [the British] served in the French and Indian War” (Wikipedia, s.vv. “Yankee Doodle”). See also “A Short History of Yankee Doodle,” Journal of the American Revolution, accessed 14 July 2019, https://allthingsliberty.com/2013/12/short-history-yankee-doodle/. By the War of 1812 it had become a patriotic American song, but here it is used in the original, derisive sense, which explains its comparison to the British nursery rhymes “Polly Put the Kettle On” and “Dumble-dum-deary” (also a ballad, aire called “Dumble deary dum”). See John A. Lomax and Alan Lomax, American Ballads and Folk Songs (New York: Macmillan, 1934), 521–5. For “Polly Put the Kettle On” ( Joseph Dale, 1803) see Iona Opie and Peter Opie, eds., The Oxford Dictionary of Nursery Rhymes (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997), 353–4. For “Dumbledum-deary” see “Richard of Taunton Dean,” Folk Music of England, Scotland, Ireland, Wales, & America, accessed 9 July 2018, http://www.contemplator.com/england/taunton.html. This character appears to be honouring W.F. Coffin’s father John who Curzon tells us in her Laura Secord: The Heroine of 1812, note 19, “settled in Quebec and did such good service at the Près-de-ville, when Montgomery and Arnold invaded the Province.” Curzon’s rendition of wildlife and nature, here as elsewhere, is more literary than realistic, more British than Canadian. Curzon is drawing upon her English education and experience as the flowers she describes belong to the genre of English Romantic poetry and characterize a delicate, pastoral garden rather than the rough Niagara bush through which Secord was forced to forge a path. Flora was a Roman fertility goddess whose annual festival, the Floralia, was celebrated at springtime. Zephyrus was the Greek god of the west wind. Their union in this passage draws

L a u r a S e c o r d : T h e H e r o i n e o f 18 1 2

64

65

66

67

68

69

70

71

72

73

121

upon the genre of marriage poetry, or epithalamia. Flora and Zephyrus were also paired in Flore et Zéphire, a ballet by Charles-Louis Didelot that premiered in 1796 and remained popular throughout the nineteenth century. See Lincoln Kirstein, Four Centuries of Ballet: Fifty Masterworks (New York: Praeger, 1970): 130–3. Curzon’s note 20 in Laura Secord: The Heroine of 1812 quotes a letter written by Dr Strachan (“Treasurer of the Loyal and Patriotic Society of Upper Canada”) to former president Thomas Jefferson that contends the soldiers of the predominantly Irish Forty-First Regiment were “induce[d] ... to desert and enlist” with the Americans. See Coffin, 1812; The War, and Its Moral, 147, accessed 14 July 2019. According to Coffin, it was not Laura but James Secord who “hobbled home to his wife with the news” of the impending American attack. “Captain William Johnson Kerr [1787–1845], twenty-six-year-old son-in-law of the late [Mohawk] Chief Joseph Brant [1743–1807], who had led part of the Six Nations to the Grand River following the American War of Independence, had assembled two hundred warriors from among the Six Nations at Brantford, along with seventy or eighty Natives from various other tribes in Upper Canada. Kerr had fought at Queenston Heights alongside his cousin, John Brant, son of Joseph, as well as with [another Mohawk chief, Major] John Norton [dates unknown].” See Leavey, Laura Secord: Heroine of the War of 1812, 99; see also Taylor, The Civil War of 1812, 228. Curzon’s Laura Secord: The Heroine of 1812, note 22, cites Illustrated Natural History, Vol. 2. (London, 1864): 99 which identifies the “death-bird” as being Tengmalm’s owl, an object of superstition amongst “several of the North American Indian tribes. When an Indian hears one of these birds uttering its melancholy cry, he whistles towards the spot from whence the sound proceeded and if the bird does not answer him, he looks for a speedy death.” Despite Curzon’s attribution of the victory of Beaver Dams to Lieutenant FitzGibbon and his Forty-Ninth Regiment, contemporary historians like Carl Benn assert that the Battle of Beaver Dams was, in fact, “the largest engagement of the war in which the Iroquois (and other Indigenous warriors with them) inflicted defeat on an enemy without the significant participation of white troops.” See Benn, The Iroquois, 120; see also Leavey, Laura Secord: Heroine of the War of 1812, 98. “Long Knives” or “Big Knives” was originally a term “used by the Western Indians to designate the English colonists ... In the latter part of the Revolution, down to and during the War of 1812, the term was used to designate Americans.” It is thought to refer to the colonists’ steel knives and swords. See Dictionary of American History, s.vv. “Big Knives”; see also Miriam Greenblatt, War of 1812, 31. Tecumseh (1768–1813), a Shawnee Indian chsief during the War of 1812, allied with British troops and organized a massive driving force that resulted in the capture of Detroit and the attack on Ohio. See Encyclopaedia Britannica, s.v. “Tecumseh.” As there are no First Nations peoples by the name Tekoriogea, it seems very likely that Curzon is referring to the Tuscarora who were part of the Six Nations but not identical with the Mohawk “Indians” named in the play. Also spelt Decew, De Cew, and Decou. This stone farmhouse owned by militia officer John DeCow was the headquarters for FitzGibbon’s Forty-Ninth Regiment near Beaver Dams. dcb, s.vv. “John DeCow.” Curzon’s text tends to elide the distinction between the Forty-Ninth Regiment to which FitzGibbon belonged and the independent company of fifty Irish rangers which he obtained permission to organize after the Battle of Stoney Creek in June 1813, suggested here. This

122

74

75 76

77

78

79

80

81

Sarah A nne Curzon

independent company, nicknamed the “Irish Greens” or “Bloody Boys,” participated in the attack at Beaver Dams under FitzGibbon’s command. See dcb, s.vv. “James FitzGibbon.” See also Alan Taylor, The Civil War of 1812, 225. See Fanny Mayne, The Life of Nicholas I. Emperor of Russia; with a Short Account of Russia and the Russians (London, 1855), 308. Internet Archive, accessed June 2018, https://archive.org/ details/lifenicholasiem00nichgoog. Count Fyodor Vasilyevich Rotopschin (1763–1826) was the governor of Moscow who made the decision to sacrifice “the capital to save the country.” In September 1812, “he set the example by applying the torch to his own magnificent house.” See also Eyre Evans Crowe, The History of France, Vol. 5 (London: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1868): 189. See Google Books, accessed June 2019, https://books.google. ca/ooks?id=ccJWAAAAMAAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=Eyre+Evans+Crowe,+The+ History+of+France,+vol.+5+(London,+1868),+189. It is said that Rotopschin entrusted the inmates of Moscow “to set fire to the city, whilst he himself carried off the pumps and implements for extinguishing it.” Alexander I of Russia (1801–1825). “That news came quickly. / When I was a child, that’s forty years ago, / We heard in York that America refused / To pay the taxes just three months after [it happened], / And that was [making] excellent time, for then the [mail] coach / Took but five days to make the whole way down / Two hundred miles from London.” I would like to thank my late professor, Richard Douglas Ewen of Aberdeen, Scotland, for translating this passage and the passage in notes 78 and 88 below. “Scotland.com, s.vv. “Henry Bell – Steamboat Pioneer,” accessed 14 July 2019, https:// www.scotland.com/blog/henry-bell-steamboat-pioneer/. “Scottish engineer Henry Bell (1767–1830) is credited with pioneering the development of Europe’s first successful passenger steamboat service, a paddle steamer named Ps Comet, which ran between Greenock and Glasgow on the River Clyde in 1812.” “No, no sir. Now don’t you poke fun at me! If ever he does, may I go hang [be punished]. Why, next, / Those scatterbrains will maybe send a ship / Just where they like, without a wind at all. / Or promise to do it. It’s a pity Nelson, now, / Had nothing like that at Copenhagen. / Maybe then he could have got those grounded ships / Afloat and thus had more men to fight those Danes.” Horatio Nelson, First Viscount Nelson (1758–1805), was an officer in the Royal Navy who reached the rank of admiral and won fame for his service during the Napoleonic Wars. The Battle of Copenhagen (1801), where three of his ships ran aground, was among his hardest-fought. See odnb, s.vv. “Horatio Nelson.” Admiral Sir Hyde Parker (1739–1807) was the naval officer appointed to command the Baltic in 1801 and Horatio Nelson was his second-in-command during the Battle of Copenhagen. This passage recalls an important and well-known moment in that battle when, thinking that Nelson was unable to fight on – three ships, the Bellona, the Russell, and the Agamemnon being grounded – Parker gave the signal to recall the fleet. Nelson refused to “leave off action” by “pretending he did not see the signal.’” See Mahan, The Life of Nelson, 90. The Battle of Copenhagen with its imprudent signal marked the end of Parker’s career while for Nelson it was a mighty achievement. Arthur Wellesley, First Duke of Wellington (1769–1852), was an Anglo-Irish-born British army officer and statesman whose military career encompassed some sixty battles, including the defeat of Napoleon at Waterloo (1815) in present-day Belgium. See odnb, s.vv. “Arthur Wellesley.” Colonel Solomon van Rensselaer led the American troops in the first attack on Queenston Heights. See Leavey, Laura Secord: Heroine of the War of 1812, 57.

L a u r a S e c o r d : T h e H e r o i n e o f 18 1 2

123

82 See note 38. 83 George Stephen Benjamin Jarvis (1797–1878), a volunteer with the Forty-Ninth, was with

84

85

86

87

88 89

90

Brock when he was killed at Queenston. Jarvis went on to become a judge and a politician in Upper Canada. See dcb, s.vv. “George Stephen Benjamin Jarvis.” See also note 90. The queen referenced here is Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz (1744–1818), the wife of King George III (r. 1760–1820). With the king incapacitated by mental illness (he had suffered from it since 1788), Charlotte oversaw the Acts of Union in 1800, by which she became queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. See odnb, s.vv. “Charlotte [Princess Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz].” See Curzon, Laura Secord: The Heroine of 1812, note 31. “James Cummings of Chippewa was engaged in the Indian trade. He accompanied Clark’s plucky expedition on Black Rock, when they surprised the work, captured the guard together with several stand of arms, one brass six-pounder, and a large store of provisions.” See Coffin, 1812; The War, and Its Moral, 160. See also “The Manuscript of James Cummings – August 28, 1860,” Brock University Archives and Special Collections, accessed July 2018, https://dr.library.brocku.ca/handle/ 10464/3677?show=full. See Robert Henderson, “Field Officers of the Canadian Regiment of Fencible Infantry in 1812,” The War of 1812 Website, http://www.warof1812.ca/fd_offr.htm. De Haren was a lieutenant-colonel in command of the grenadier and light companies of the Canadian Fencibles. He “le[d] reinforcements to the battle of Beaver Dams and receive[d] the American surrender after the engagement.” A phonetic rendering of the Ojibwe word for “a thunderbird” or “a thunderer.” In this context it refers to lightning. The Ojibwe People’s Dictionary, s.vv. “animikii.” Accessed 8 July 2019. https://ojibwe.lib.umn.edu/main-entry/animikii-na. “We’ll catch up to you in a fortnight; it’s worth something to wait upon such as she.” The anecdote of the woman tavern-keeper was provided to Curzon by George Jarvis, then a judge living in Cornwall, Ontario, in a private letter he wrote to her in 1876 when he was suffering from rheumatism: “‘Although I write with great labour and pain ... I cannot refrain from giving you the following incident. Lieut. Fitzgibbon, who always preferred going on any dangerous expedition to sending any other person, on receiving the information of the patriotic woman, went forward to reconnoitre. On approaching a small tavern two American soldiers came out of the door and immediately presented their rifles. He seized the rifles and crossed them in front of his person ... so that neither could fire without shooting his fellowsoldier. Here he held them until one of them drew Lieut. Fitzgibbon’s sword and held it up over his head, of course intending to stab him forthwith. The woman of the house saw the position and rushed out and seized the sword and got it from the soldier’s hand. Fitzgibbon then tripped up one of the soldiers and felled the other with a blow, then took them both prisoners and marched them into the line occupied by his company.’” For Curzon, Jarvis’s story presents an opportunity for the historical recovery of a woman’s participation in the War. She says, “It is a pity this brave woman’s name cannot be discovered in order that it might be added to the roll of those patriotic women whose names adorn Canadian history.” Curzon, Laura Secord: The Heroine of 1812, note 34. See Curzon, Laura Secord: The Heroine of 1812, note 35. See also dcb, s.vv. “Thomas Clark (Clarke).” Thomas Clark (?–1835) was a Scottish-born Upper Canadian businessman who achieved the rank of lieutenant-colonel of the Second Lincoln Militia in the War of 1812. He participated in several events associated with the War including the Battle of Queenston Heights and, as is represented here, the surrender of the American forces at Beaver Dams. In recognition of his military service, wealth, and prominence, Clark later became a member

124

Sarah A nne Curzon

of the Legislative Council in Upper Canada. Curzon had great admiration for his courage and “the confidence” he had acquired of his men. 91 The Canadian Encyclopedia, s.vv. “Battle of Beaver Dams.” Based on reports contemporary to the time, historians generally credit the Indigenous warriors, particularly the three hundred Kahnawake warriors nominally under the command of Captain Dominique Ducharme of the Indian Department, for the British victory at Beaver Dams. In speaking of their “successful guerrilla tactics,” in his official report, FitzGibbon claimed that “they beat the American detachment into a state of terror and the only share I claim is taking advantage of a favourable moment to offer them protection from the tomahawk and scalping knife. The Indian Department did the rest.” Mohawk leader John Norton is reputed to have said, “the Cognawaga Indians fought the battle, the Mohawks or Six Nations got the plunder, and FitzGibbon got the credit.” 92 Curzon, Laura Secord: The Heroine of 1812, note 38, quotes Auchinleck who lays out the terms of the agreement. See also Auchinleck’s A History (1855), 175. https://archive.org/stream/ historyofwarbetw00auch_0/historyofwarbetw00auch_0_djvu.txt. 93 In October 1813 FitzGibbon was promoted to the rank of captain and appointed to the Glengarry Light Infantry Fencibles. See dcb, s.vv. “James FitzGibbon.”

2 A Mock Parliament A n Introduction ky m bi r D

The most spectacular, the most high-profile, and the most important theatrical phenomena to emerge out of the Canadian women’s movement were The Mock Parliament suffrage plays. A type of feminist agitprop, they were written and staged to create a counterpublic of politicized feminists and to amass scarce resources for women’s enfranchisement. Britain and the United States produced comparable works, but the Canadian Parliaments were collective creations, devised by the same women who performed in them, and they bore the stamp of the places and the politics where they were created (69–70). There were at least six in Ontario, including the Toronto Mock Parliament of 18 February 1896 at Allen Gardens. Winnipeg staged the very first Parliament at the Bijou Opera House on 9 February 1893, the work of the Women’s Christian Temperance Union, the earliest and the most influential supporter of suffrage in Canada. There is no complete script of any Mock Parliament. The play collected here is an amalgamation of two performances for which there exists considerable portions of the original text. It takes its first act from the 1896 Toronto rendition of the play, a collaborative effort between the wCtu and the Dominion Women’s Enfranchisement Association that drew 1,800 patrons to the beautiful, pagoda-inspired horticultural building in Allan Gardens.1 After a brief opening prelude in which men come to plead for the vote and are turned away, two acts follow. Its first act is dominated by “Question Period” and moves quickly through a reform-driven agenda of social issues and performs a satirical indictment of politics as usual, while poking fun at the women’s movement’s preoccupation with moral regulation. The Mock Parliament’s second act is comprised of a suffrage debate taken from detailed newspaper reports of the first known suffrage Parliament that took place in the eight hundred seat Bijou Opera House in Winnipeg in 1893. While it dispenses with the reversal of men and women, it is, nevertheless, playful and ironic, and to this extent comically consistent with the first half of the play.2

126

Ky m B i r d

2.1 a & b Dr Emily Stowe (left) and Dr Augusta Stowe-Gullen (right), daughter of Emily Stowe. Both mother and daughter played in the Toronto Mock Parliament of 1896.

In its form, The Mock Parliament is a conavacco, a term that I have adopted from Commedia dell’Arte to signify a recurring and therefore conventional dramatic structure and characters that was filled in or populated by each group that staged it. Its structure more or less insured that the amateur activist women who undertook to perform it were a success. In every iteration it is the rigorous structure, in large part parliamentary, that guides and even determines the dialogue. Each of its character-members wrote the lines they delivered. Still surviving sides were carried by the actresses onto the stage as prop and prompt, as was the playbill, made up to look like the parliamentary “Orders of the Day,” distributed at the beginning of the performance and enumerating the items or “scenes” to follow.3 All of the Mock Parliaments were the product of the suffrage campaigns most important organizations and most high-profile women activists. The 1896 Parliament featured the president of the wCtu and one-time editor of its Woman’s Journal, Annie O. Rutherford. Beside her played Dr Emily Howard Stowe (1831–1903), the first woman physician in Canada and the first female principal, as well Stowe’s daughter, Dr August Stowe-Gullen (1857–1943), Mary McDonnell, and Mrs. A. Vance, all of whom contested seats on the Toronto School Board in 1892.4 It was attended by no less than twenty members of the legislative assembly.5 The 1893 Winnipeg play was mounted by the Women’s Christian Temperance Union, the single most influential suffrage organization in Canada and involved in most productions.

A Mock Parliame nt : A n I nt roduct ion

127

The Mock Parliaments express the contradiction – one with which nineteenth-century feminists were happy to live – between equality and maternal feminism. This script is infused with the equality-based leanings of the early woman’s movement, as in its invocation of the “right to exercise the power of suffrage in all respects on an equality with the men of the provinces” or “that taxation must not be without representation.” There is also focus upon women’s domestic and maternal identity. The plays poke fun at an unconscious maternity implicit in a line like “The cradle lies across the door of the polling booth,” but maternity is also used to support suffrage, as when Dr Yeoman’s insists that “with a recognized right to a vote on all public affairs, [a] woman could follow her children all through life with a helpful, strong, and authoritative influence” or when Mrs Dolsen says, “woman would especially represent the interests of the home.”6 All of the Parliaments expressed concerns with electoral reform and women’s suffrage: that was their raison d’être. But, the significance of many of their bills, petitions, and questions arising in the first act, interpolates a counterpublic of women for whom a whole host of other issues, including labour and property reform and access to the professions were becoming important. Some of these issues were specific to place. The 1896 Parliament addressed the administration of the “Mercer,” a woman’s prison in downtown Toronto, which activists in that city thought should be directed by a female matron. “The ringing of a curfew bell at ten o’clock” each evening invoked the wCtu desire to enact a curfew ordinance in Ontario, as they had done in Minnesota, to enforce sobriety if not total abstinence. The nine bills that are introduced in the second act amount to a kind of wish-list of Western Canadian women activists who desired new laws having to do with immigration, nativism, inheritance, prohibition, and women’s legal status.7 In the 1914 Winnipeg version of the play, a petition to provide labour-saving devices for men is a reversal and a critique of farm men who put more money into their land and equipment than their houses or households, which were the domain of women. Dower rights arose in both the 1911 Vancouver play and the 1914 Winnipeg play, at a time when under the law a husband could deprive his widow of claims upon his real estate.8 In terms of their impact, the Mock Parliaments helped to build a counterpublic of women from Ontario westward who were politically deft, perspicacious and determined to win public confidence. The four Parliaments for which there is some extant textual evidence were huge events that required substantial organization. The Parliament was often the highlight in an evening of performances of music and other plays, like the popular 1910 British drawing-room comedy, How the Vote Was Won by Cicely Hamilton and Christopher St John, that delighted audiences in Vancouver and Winnipeg.9 Performances were also timed to coincide with other suffrage actions, including petitions to the legislature, which provided pre and post-performance publicity. Dr Amelia Yeomans, who was also the campaign leader of Manitoba’s earliest English suffrage organization, petitioned the provincial legislature twice the week the

2.2 The playbill of the Toronto Mock Parliament with a dance card on the back.

2.3 The playbill of the Toronto Mock Parliament with a list of participants between its front and back leaves.

A Mock Parliame nt : A n I nt roduct ion

129

1893 Mock Parliament was performed, asking that the house be adjourned in order for members to watch the play.10 Although the petition failed, several parliamentarians did attend and the women followed up their show with the presentation of two additional suffrage petitions that “pray[ed] that the rights of citizenship be not abridged or denied on account of sex and that the franchise be extended to women.”11 The Winnipeg Political Equality League used a wCtu suffrage petition to the Manitoba legislature on 27 January 1914 as pre-performance publicity for the Walker Theatre Parliament of the following evening. As McClung relates the tale, the women were counting on Premier Roblin (1853–1937) to refuse their appeals and they were not disappointed.12 An “orator of the old school ... [she says, he] was at his foamy best ... He was making the speech that I would make in the play in less than thirty-six hours ... O, the delight of that moment!”13 When McClung took up the role of mock premier, she delivered what has now become an almost mythic parody of Roblin’s pompous rhetoric and paternal sermonizing of the day before.14 The Toronto Mock Parliament was intended to stimulate the languishing Ontario campaign and gain much needed publicity.15 The combined effort of the Dominion Women’s Enfranchisement Association and the wCtu, it also boasted sympathetic publicity and star power, but it failed to prevent the almost ten-year period of inactivity that followed. It, nevertheless, inspired similar efforts on the part of local wCtu franchise departments who continued to stage Mock Parliament plays as a way of keeping the issue alive.16 The Mock Parliament plays were also used by the feminist activists who performed them as opportunities to circulate petitions and pamphlets and proselytize to the skeptical. Compared to some of their radical British sisters, whose slogan “deeds not words” exhorted them to cause property damage, chain themselves to the railings of 10 Downing Street, play cat and mouse with the police, and go on hunger strikes in prison, a theatrical performance before a social elite, such as a Mock Parliament, is a bridled political tactic. It must be remembered, however, that this was still an age when a woman speaking in public was coded masculine and a violation of the status quo ideology of separate spheres that understood women as private and domestic. From this point of view, a chorus of females acting as though they were running the country was a bold and, for some, a brazen picture of womanhood turned on its head. The four largest of the Mock Parliaments were advertised in the entertainment or amusement sections of newspapers. They were covered by a counterpublic of journalists who wrote lengthy reviews and spoke in passionate ways of full houses, exciting theatrical fare, and sympathy for the cause.17 At the close of the “standing room only” event at the Bijou the Manitoba Daily Free Press called the Mock Parliament “excellent,” insisting that “few burlesques ... have ever met with a heartier response.”18 The reviewer was in “little doubt that wiser and better men left the house than entered it” and that “citizens feel that if necessary something could be done in the way of legislation.” 19 In her woman’s page for the Toronto Evening Star Portia described the “howls” from the audience for a performance with which it was simply delighted.20 The atmosphere was buoyant with optimism: she claimed “every

13 0

Ky m B i r d

2.4 Nellie McClung in 1914, the year of her performance in the Winnipeg Mock Parliament.

woman present seemed to feel that here was her opportunity to express herself, to impress her individuality upon the world.” The Winnipeg Telegram of 29 January 1914 exuberantly forecasted that “if last night’s production is any indication and the campaign in future meets with as much success, the cause may not be so hopeless after all and the vote may not be so far away as one might be inclined to fear.”21 The next day, the Manitoba Daily Free Press called McClung’s performance at the legislature eloquent, logical, and dramatic.22 The largely supportive newswomen were on the right side of history: in their creation and subject matter, The Mock Parliaments were intended to promote democracy among a new group of sympathetic citizens. They were activist strategies designed to demonstrate women’s equal right to enfranchisement and their equal ability to organize and have an effect in the political arena, even if that “equality” was ironically premised upon notions of women’s domestic and moral superiority. They were based on the idea that women, like men, should have access to the instruments of government, particularly the vote, which would allow them to participate in the establishment of the laws that regulate society. These were events that forced public debate and garnered attention in the newspapers. They allowed participants to act as the politicians they hoped to one day become, and their representation of

A Mock Parliame nt : A n I nt roduct ion

13 1

politicians as women challenged the way both were seen by the society. Their aim was to win over the hearts and minds of the communities that staged them to the idea of a genuine democracy that included women’s equal right to take part in the running of government. The Mock Parliament positioned its counterpublic of spectators in such a way as to recognize and be critical of the chauvinism and political discrimination inherent in the real parliamentary system. Its mimetic recreation of the government conferred authority on the original – this was a political body which women prized and to which they wanted access. But by daring to imagine women in power, it questioned the ideology of naturally opposing spheres that divided women’s work into the realm of the private and men’s work into the public. Its structure of parodic reversal scrutinizes the efficacy of a parliamentary government that naturalized relations between men and political power and challenges the exclusive right of a single sex to citizenship and decision-making. Its reversal entertained audiences and its comedic treatment of topical issues induced them to laughter, while at the same time convincing them of women’s energy and ability to participate in the public and political act of law-making.

notes 1 For a detailed discussion of both plays see Bird, Redressing the Past, 59–91. 2 See “The Ladies’ Innings,” Manitoba Daily Free Press, 10 Feb 1893: n.p. For reasons that

no doubt had to do with the scarcity of public opportunities to speak of suffrage and the desire to win support for the cause, the Winnipeg suffragists played the debate straight and deliberated the female vote. While the Manitoba Daily Free Press claims that the women who staged the Bijou Theatre Parliament in Winnipeg were considering similar performances in Portage La Prairie and Brandon, it is questionable whether or not these ever took place. 3 We are given some sense of the costumes and stage business used in the play from the Winnipeg Telegram, 29 Jan 1893 (reprinted in McClung, Stream, 118–19), where we are told that the speaker “was attired in a handsome cloak of lavender hue trimmed heavily with ermine, while her hat was a stunning affair, also lavender and surmounted by a huge ostrich plume. It was also notable that in the Woman’s Parliament, the mace was decorated with yellow and purple ribbons and several bouquets of flowers.” Quoted in McClung, Stream, 119. Yellow and purple were used in the American and British suffrage campaigns. Uniformed pages are described by McClung as carrying glasses of water to the speakers, “distribut[ing] bills and call[ing] the members to the telephone.” See Stream, 114. In the fictional version of the Parliament, elaborated in McClung, Purple Springs, 278, cabinet ministers “were showing every sign of being bored” when “the Opposition had the floor” … “they read their papers, one of the Cabinet Ministers tatted, some of the younger members powdered their noses, many ate chocolates” and a great many “pounded their desks.” 4 See Cleverdon, Woman Suffrage Movement, 27. Other well-known temperance women who performed in the play include: Hattie Stevens, president of the Toronto wCtu in 1906; Lottie Wiggins, superintendent of the Franchise Department for the Ontario wCtu, 1898– 1900; Mrs Fred C. Ward, franchise superintendent for the Ontario wCtu, 1891; Mrs F.S.

13 2

5

6

7 8

9

10 11 12 13 14

Ky m B i r d

Spence; and Letitia Youmans, president and founder of the wCtu in Canada. See also Bacchi, Liberation Deferred?, 30, 158. Cleverdon, Woman Suffrage Movement, 50–1. See also Bacchi, Liberation Deferred?, 29. A generation later, in 1911, a Parliament entitled A Session of the Provincial Legislature in 2014 a d was put on by the University Women’s Club in Vancouver and in it acted Canada’s first woman judge, Helen MacGill (1864–1947). This Vancouver Parliament inspired the 1914 Walker Theatre production associated with McClung. It was the last and most celebrated rendition of the play. The 1914 Woman’s Parliament, as McClung called it in A Stream Runs Fast, 111, was conceived and sponsored by members of the Manitoba Political Equality League, and many of its participants were also members of the Canadian Women’s Press Club and involved, once again, some of the highest profile women first wave feminism produced: journalist Francis Marion Beynon (1884–1951) and her sister, journalist and social reformer Lillian Beynon Thomas (1874–1961); a much older E. Cora Hind; Harriet Walker (1865– 1943), Canada’s first female theatre critic and wife of the man who owned the theatre; and the star, of course, Nellie McClung (1873–1951), whose success in the role of premier helped to make her one of the most distinguished activists in the suffrage movement. McClung’s daughter Florence and Walker’s daughter Ruth played the roles of page. See Stream, 114. For a list of the women who performed in the 1914 Walker Theatre production in Winnipeg see the Winnipeg Telegram article reprinted in McClung, Stream, 118–20. Among them is one Ethel Hayes, which could be a reference to Kate Simpson (Ethel) Hayes who fraternized with these women and whose Winnipeg dates appear to coincide with the performance. See ibid., 120. Members also represented other progressive organizations that stood behind the rights of women, including the Grain Growers’ Association, the Young Women’s Christian Association, the Trades and Labor Council, the Icelandic Women’s Suffrage Association, and the Women’s Christian Temperance Union. The ideological shift away from equality-based liberal feminism toward maternal or domestic feminism – a politics that understood women to be morally superior to men – became most evident in the first decade of the twentieth century. For example, in the 1911 Vancouver play, there is “a petition craving that a School of Domestic Science be established for men whereby they may receive training to fit them for their duties as husbands and fathers.” It also arises in the 1914 Winnipeg Parliament which pleaded for guardianship rights for men at a time when children had shifted from the right and property of men to the responsibility of women. See “Alberta Women’s Parliament,” Grain Growers’ Guide, 27 January 1915, 14–15. Baskerville, Silent Revolution?, 25. “In 1860s British Columbia passed a homestead law which did require husbands to get their wives to agree to any sale or mortgaging of property.” For a woman to enjoy any entitlement, however, she had to be listed as a homesteader and this was only possible was if the husband registered his wife. Ibid., 131. The Winnipeg performance of How the Vote Was Won, directed by Harriet Walker, altered its nomenclature, to the delight of the audiences, to reflect Winnipeg place names. See McClung, Stream, 120. See Bird, Redressing the Past, 72. Ibid., 71. McClung, Stream, 115. Ibid. Ibid., 111–22. For Roblin’s speech, see “Woman’s Sphere Is in the Home Says Premier to Women,” Winnipeg Telegram, 28 Jan 1914, morning edition, 62. McClung’s parody of this speech is partially preserved in her Stream Runs Fast and Purple Springs, but no complete copy of the

A Mock Parliame nt : A n I nt roduct ion

15 16 17

18 19 20 21 22

13 3

text is extant. Randi Warne (Department of Religious Studies, Mount St Vincent University), who has worked substantially on McClung, surmised in an interview that it is unlikely, given McClung’s training in an oral tradition, the speech was never written down. Cleverdon, Woman Suffrage Movement, 27. See Prentice et al., Canadian Women, 2nd ed., 205. See, “The Ladies’ Innings,” Manitoba Daily Free Press, 10 Feb 1893, n.p.; “The Government Sustained: On the Woman Suffrage Bill – The Mock Parliament Holds a Brilliant and Profitable Session,” Winnipeg Daily Tribune, 10 Feb 1893, 5; “Portia’s Column: Women as Legislators in Their Mock Parliament,” Toronto Evening Star, 20 Feb 1896, 5; “Women Score in Drama and Debate,” Winnipeg Free Press, 29 Jan 1914 and “Women Suffragists Gambol at Walker Theatre,” Winnipeg Telegram 29 Jan1914, rpt. in Stream, 118–22. For McClung’s fictive version see her Purple Springs, 273–89. “The Ladies’ Innings,” Manitoba Daily Free Press, 10 Feb 1893, n.p. Ibid, n.p. “Portia’s Column: Women as Legislators in Their Mock Parliament,” Toronto Evening Star, 20 Feb 1896, 5. Quoted in McClung, Stream, 119. “The Ladies’ Innings,” Manitoba Daily Free Press, 10 Feb 1893, n.p.

A Mock Parliament 1893 and 1896 CoL L eCt i v e Cr e at ion, a Da P t e D by k y m bi r D

CHaraCters attorney-generaL ParLiamentarians members oF tHe men’s DePutation Pages CLerk assistant CLerk sPeaker sergeant-at-arms men’s DeLegation Excepting the members of the Men’s Delegation, all roles are played by women

AC T I 1 (Toronto, The Ontario Legislature.) 2 (On the walls are banners reading: “Men are Citizens and Vote: Let Us Have Justice,” “The Province Cannot Afford to Wrong Her Daughters,” and “Woman’s Vote Will Bring Social Purity.” It is assumed that women have ruled in the legislative halls from time immemorial; men have, from the early days, been hewers of wood and drawers of water.) The curtain rises on a version of a provincial legislature. The stage is divided into two sections, with a representative twenty-six desks in each section. Between these is a large table for the clerk and her assistant. Upstage centre is the speaker’s throne. At their seats are the AttorneyGeneral and the cabinet, consisting of the Ministers for Crown Lands, Education, Public Works, Agriculture, the Treasurer, and the Provincial Secretary. A deputation of men from the Men’s

A Mock Parliament

13 5

Enfranchisement Association and Men’s Christian Temperance Union approach the platform and are received by the members.)3 sPokesman For tHe DePutation, mr robertson: And so, Honourable Madam, it is the purpose of this delegation to plead on behalf of our downtrodden sex that men, fully half of the population, so long denied a role in the political decision-making of this country, be granted that first right of a citizen, the ballot. attorney-generaL, mrs Dr stowe: 4 I am delighted to have met all of you gentlemen here today, and I am quite sure my colleagues share in the delight I feel. I have, and I am sure they have, listened with the greatest possible interest to your address. Your arguments on behalf of your claim have been forcible, eloquent, logical, and clear. If any person can answer the reasons you have advanced in favour of manhood suffrage, I am sure that I cannot. So long as I can remember, I have sympathized greatly with the cause you have at heart, namely the right of the individual to representation in the government to which she contributes and belongs. The most precious of all human rights is the right to think – to form opinions – and the expression of such opinions into words or language is what characterizes us as humans and distinguishes us from brutes. The ballot is an instrument used in a method most effective in expressing important and far-reaching opinions, and is the legitimate possession of every person capable of having such opinions and desiring to express them. A parliament is but a delegated body exercising its right in trust for the nation. The nation is the universal paymaster and, therefore, should have its right to full representation recognized – a justice that in the order of progress and the fullness of time must come. Your cause has, within the last half century, made great progress over the English-speaking world. I advise you to continue the agitation – extend and widen the sentiment in your favour.5 Take courage from this as to the rightness of your cause. At the same time, I need scarcely remind you that majorities rule – they do in this House. Make your cause popular, secure the majority vote, and your enfranchisement is assured. Speaking for myself alone, and leaving my colleagues to the responsibility of their own thinking, I have no hesitation in saying that nothing but good has resulted from your use of the franchise, as far as it has been extended to you, in municipal and school matters.6 And, reasoning from analogy, I am quite sure that nothing but good would be the outcome of your having the parliamentary franchise also. But, as a practical politician whose visual rays always converge and focus through the telescope of expediency, I cannot hold out to you any degree of hope that you will get what you want this year or even next. But this I do say most heartily, that I hope I shall remain long enough in power to be the humble instrument of carrying your wishes into ultimate effect. I do not know that there is anything more for me to say other than to again express the pleasure it has given me in meeting you, and the very deep interest myself and my colleagues take in the subject you have so ably brought before us for our consideration.7

13 6

Collective creation

(The deputation withdraws and the members take their seats.8 The speaker enters, followed by the sergeant-at-arms, bearing the mace, the clerk of the house, and her assistant. Little girls in Sunday dress act as pages and move between the clerk and the members. 9 The routine business of the House which follows emulates Parliament procedure and includes the following: presenting petitions; reading and receiving petitions; presenting reports by committees; motions. Bills are carried to the speaker and to the clerk by the pages.)10 sPeaker: The House will present petitions. Member for Oxford. member For oxForD: Madam Speaker, I beg to present a petition from the Lady Mayor and ten thousand electors of the City of Toronto begging that the borrowing powers of the City of Toronto be unlimited and that the city council be empowered to borrow ad libitum and for any purpose whatever and without reference to the wishes of the ratepayers. sPeaker: Member for Monck. member For monCk: Madam Speaker, I beg also to present a petition from the quarter of a million electors of Ontario, asking that members of the legislature be prohibited by law from using a railway pass when travelling to and from Toronto, thus reinforcing that the press of Canada is becoming more and more pronounced in opposition to the acceptance of passes by members and the consequent weakening of their independence when dealing with railway corporations asking for favours at the hands of the legislature.11 The petitioners say that the railways must be maintained by somebody, that they pay fares when travelling on them, and that they regard it as unjust that the mileage they are asked to pay should be greater than is necessary in consequence of the large number of deadheadi politicians carried on the railways. sPeaker: Standing and select committees will report to the House. Member for South York. member For soutH york: Madam Speaker, I move that the Member for Elgin, Member for Stormont, Member for Peterborough, and the mover herself be appointed to inquire into, and report on, the system of purchasing poultry in the late by-election in Cardwell; and also to investigate whether at the time of the purchase of the said poultry it was the intention of the Dominion Government to establish a poultry farm in the said constituency, and if the province is still to have the benefit of said poultry farm and what has become of the said poultry. sPeaker: Member for Toronto. member For toronto: To the Honourable Speaker of the Legislative Assembly, your committee appointed to consider the proper costume to be worn by lady public school teachers begs to report as follows:12 Your committee, considering the importance of the subject in the public interest, deemed it advisable to call witnesses in reference to the matter. And, in consonance with this view, called twenty-one witnesses, fourteen of whom were ladies occui

“To act the ‘deadhead,’ obtain a privilege without payment.” oed, s.v. “deadhead.”

A Mock Parliament

13 7

pying leading positions in the various professions representing the intelligence of the province, three of whom were business men, three clergymen, and one school trustee. They also had before them, at their various settings, specimens of the different kinds of dress worn by lady teachers, including knickerbockers, bloomers, divided skirts, short skirts, and ordinary dresses, some of them beauties. Your committee further begs to report that the said witnesses, save the said school trustee, gave their evidence in a most careful, thoughtful, calm, and satisfactory manner. Your committee further reports that the evidence tends to show that each of the kinds of dress before mentioned may, on appropriate occasions, be worn with advantage. Your committee, however, after carefully weighing all the evidence submitted, and thoroughly investigating the subject, would recommend that, for the present, no legislative action be taken in reference to the said subject. All of which is respectfully submitted. sPeaker: Notice of motions will be presented to the House. Member for Lambton. member For Lambton: Madam Speaker, I desire to give notice that at the next sitting of this House I will introduce a bill to provide that, in a case where a married woman is in receipt of a salary, or has an income from any source whatever, her husband shall be debarred from holding any position to which a salary is attached.13 sPeaker: Member for Parry Sound. member For Parry sounD: Legislation should be passed at once to the effect that, in the opinion of this House, all monies subscribed for charitable purposes should be invested for the establishment of industries to provide work for the unemployed. sPeaker: Member for Perth. member For PertH: Madam Speaker, I desire to give notice that on Thursday next I will move that a humble address be presented to Her Honour, the Lieutenant Governor, asking that the corpus of all petitions, correspondence, documents, and papers in the possession of the government with reference to the enfranchisement of males, be laid before the House. sPeaker: Bills will be presented to the House. Member for Victoria West. member For viCtoria west: Madam Speaker, I beg leave to move, seconded by the Member for Peel, the first reading of a bill entitled “An Act for the Protection of Dead Voters.” The object of this bill is to place on the staff of civic officials, in the city of Toronto especially, a duly qualified clairvoyant whose business it shall be to put herself in communication with deceased voters in order to ascertain whether more of them desire their names retained on the voters lists and whether they, like many of their dead friends, will return to earth to revisit the polling booths and exercise the franchise.14 sPeaker: Member for Elgin.

13 8

Collective creation

member For eLgin: Madam Speaker, I beg leave to move, seconded by the Member from Simcoe, that a bill entitled “An Act to Define the Qualifications for Holding Municipal and Legislative office” be introduced and that it now be read the first time. The object of this bill is to provide that the only qualification for municipal office shall be the serving of an active and useful apprenticeship in one or more of the flourishing, benevolent, patriotic, or secret societies of this province. Also, that qualification for the Provincial House shall consist of an apprenticeship in municipal office or faithfulness to party politics. sPeaker: Member for Bruce. member For bruCe: Madam Speaker, I beg leave to move, seconded by the Member for Parry Sound, the first reading of a bill entitled “An Act to Prevent Men from Wearing Long Stockings, Knickerbockers, Roundabout-coats, Etcetera When Bicycling.” The object of this bill is to enact legislation that shall enlist the sympathy of every person in this assembly. It is well known that an individual’s clothes have a marked influence on that individual’s character. Should men be permitted to wear long stockings they will soon wish to assume other articles of women’s clothing, such as the divided skirt. The subtle influences of these things would create a desire to fill women’s positions in the world. And, there are already too many men occupying women’s positions. This bill is intended to prevent these abuses and keep men to wearing short-stockings and long trousers as they have been from time immemorial. sPeaker: Member for Peterborough. member For PeterborougH: Madam Speaker, I beg leave to introduce a bill entitled “An Act to Amend the Married Woman’s Act.” sPeaker: Member for Wellington. member For weLLington: Madam Speaker, I desire to give notice that, at the next sitting of the House, I will introduce a bill to remedy the injustice from which the weaker half of humanity suffer, owing to a custom of antiquity, by which men performing the same work as women, and in an equally efficient manner, receive only one-half or one-third the wages paid to women.15 sPeaker: Member for Bruce. member For bruCe: I beg to give notice that, at the next sitting of this House, I will move that members be prohibited from using flutes, mouth organs, and any other instruments that mitigate against the exercise of decent speech. sPeaker: Member for South York. member For soutH york: I beg leave to move, seconded by the Member from Haliburton, the first reading of the bill “An Act to Compel Political Office Seekers to be Photographed by the Crooke’s Tube Process” be introduced and now read for the first time. The object of this bill is to discover the exact position and condition of the health of the conscience of such office seekers or, in reality, to discover if they possess a conscience at all.16 sPeaker: Question Period will begin. Member for Nipissing.

A Mock Parliament

13 9

member For niPissing: Is it the intention of the government to so amend the Public Schools Act as to enable it to take steps to dismiss all married men engaged in the profession of teaching?17 sPeaker: Member for Muskoka. member For muskoka: Why is a woman physician in charge of the Mercer, an institution devoted exclusively to reforming male offenders?18 sPeaker: Member for Brant. member For brant: Does the government intend to introduce a measure prohibiting men from the invasion of, or further entrenchment on, any of the lighter employments, such as medicine, law, dressmaking, millinery, etcetera, etcetera, which by their very nature belong exclusively to women?19 sPeaker: Member for Frontenac. member For FrontenaC: When does the government intend to abolish the ridiculous office of lieutenant governor and the expensive establishment in connection therewith? sPeaker: Member for Wentworth. member For wentwortH: Does the government intend to introduce a measure granting a sum of money for the construction of an apparatus for the use of smokers, which each and every smoker shall be compelled to use (under a penalty therein provided), whereby they shall be forced to consume their own smoke, said apparatus to have a portable spittoon attached?20 sPeaker: Member for Essex. member For essex: Does the government intend to introduce a measure to provide for the ringing of a curfew bell21 at ten o’clock each evening of the week warning all men off the streets unless accompanied by their wives?22

AC T I I

23

(Winnipeg, The Manitoba Legislature 1893) 24 (The second reading of the Bill No. 2, to amend ‘The Manitoba Election Act,’ providing that females as well as males shall be eligible to sit in the Legislative Assembly and vote for members thereof.) sPeaker: We will now begin the orders of the day. The following bills appear on the order paper: the second reading, Bill Number Two, to amend “The Manitoba Election Act,” providing that females as well as males shall be eligible to sit in the legislative assembly and vote for members thereof. Second reading, Bill Number Three, to provide for the disenfranchisement of certain classes of men in certain cases.25 Second reading, Bill Number Four, to amend “The Devolution of Estates Act,” to declare the interest of the husband in his deceased wife’s estate.26 Second

140

Collective creation

reading, Bill Number Five, “The Act Respecting Offences Against Public Morals and Public Convenience,” to provide for the enforcement of the same.27 Second reading, Bill Number Six, to amend the interest of “The Criminal Procedure Act,” so that the wife may give evidence for or against her husband. Second reading, Bill Number Seven, to provide for the total prohibition of the sale of intoxicating liquor in the province of Manitoba.28 Second reading, Bill Number Eight, to amend certain acts respecting the legal disabilities of women. Second reading, Bill Number Nine, to amend certain acts and provide for certain matters. The Honourable Premier will ask leave to introduce the following bills: to amend “The Manitoba Election Act,” to amend “The Municipal Act,” an act respecting Sabbath observance. Today’s debate will address Bill Number Two, “providing females as well as males shall be eligible to sit in the legislative assembly and vote for members thereof.” First speaker, Dr Yeomans. Dr ameLia yeomans: 29 The bill before the House confers on the women of Manitoba a right to exercise the power of suffrage in all respects equally with men of the province. It is said that unless a woman marries and makes a good man happy she is likely to become a philanthropist and make some bad man happy. In either case, her function is a useful one. This bill, however, a very philanthropic one, was the outcome of a petition from women, both married and single, signed also by their male friends and relatives in great numbers. In the vast area of the British possessions, excepting in the little Isle of Man, woman is everywhere denied the right to vote on political questions.30 Her position is a peculiar and very trying one: in power as a child, in responsibility considered fully mature. A very large number of women thrown entirely on their own resources earn their daily bread. They do so restricted by laws, which they had no voice in making, and which their employers who are often also their oppressors retain on the statute books by their votes. They throng the mills, manufactories, and stores. They engage in almost every description of labour. They are endowed with perceptive and reasoning qualities in like measure with their brothers. The laws touch their interests at every point, interfere with their liberties, and punish their infractions even to requiring the forfeit of their lives, yet they cannot alter one jot or tittle of them. Is this fair? Is this freedom? I put this question to this honourable House as I move the second reading of this bill providing that equal suffrage should be granted to women. The first woman’s rights convention was held in Seneca Falls, New York in 1848. But, it is more than a hundred years since the sister of Robert Lee of Virginia refused to pay her taxes on the ground that taxation and representation should go together.31 And, in the anti-slavery agitation, abolitionists, both man and woman, saw as by an electric flash that the argument for human freedom applied to women not less than to the Negro slaves. An equal education for women and men was first offered by Oberlin College, Ohio in 1832. It was not so intended, but the institution speedily became a nursing mother for the cause of woman’s freedom. Here Lucy Stone went to study Greek and Hebrew that she

A Mock Parliament

141

might read the Bible in the original and form an independent idea of woman’s rightful position.32 After graduating, she fought a solitary and most extraordinary battle. Except a few abolitionists, no one sympathized with her. But, she bravely did what she was inspired to do. She lectured on woman’s rights. She had a few handbills printed, which she tacked up herself using a stone for a hammer, as she could not afford to pay for posting them. There was no admission fee for fear any might be kept away by it. She took up a collection, which always paid expenses. The persecutions of these pioneer women, Madam Speaker, remind one of apostolic times. They were poor, maligned, the butt of the pulpit, newspapers, and social circles, and it did not need advocacy of women’s rights to subject them to all this. It was enough that a woman dared to speak in public at all. Women had the electoral franchise in New Jersey for thirty-one years.33 In England, the woman suffrage cause is advancing bravely; the old objections that women know nothing of politics and that the polls are no place for them are wholly abandoned. They speak in public and electioneer just as men do, and the platform services of clever women are in keen demand by leading politicians.34 Their cause there has also been ably forwarded by the sympathy and work of very distinguished men. I will mention here John Stuart Mill, Jacob Bright, and Leonard Oburteney.35 Spinsters and widows in England now use municipal, school board, and poor law guardian votes, and the parliamentary franchise now seems almost within their grasp.36 In Finland and Iceland, women vote in all municipal matters.37 The results of all commissions of suffrage to women have been most satisfactory. Madam Speaker, I cannot too strongly deprecate the method of considering this vital subject by drawing comparisons between man and woman, as to their relative superiority, inferiority, or equality. Such comparisons are utterly unnecessary and useless, and also odious beyond expression. The sexes cannot be so compared being essentially different. It is this difference that makes it impossible for me to represent women. What is she, Madam Speaker? I answer, a rational independent organism, endowed by the Creator with certain, natural rights which no one may infringe without wrongdoing: one of these is the right of freely impressing her individuality upon her country. This is best done by the use of the ballot, which is merely a contrivance for amassing and expressing public opinion. Woman is wronged in being denied this method, which is the only one carrying with it recognized authority. You cannot wrong the humblest member of society without injuring the whole body politic. The absence of feminine representation is fatal to the best progress of any commonwealth. Corrupt politics are man-made. The worse we represent them, the greater the need of the natural remedy -woman’s vote. Our petitioners ask for this legislation: First: The concession of the exercise of this right, which they possess in virtue of their intelligent humanity, and which is emphasized by women’s unique function of motherhood; and also, as a matter of expediency, because it is always expedient to do what is right.

142

Collective creation

Second: They ask it for the protection of their business, which is rearing good citizens for the province and Dominion. This business is not only not protected by the direct representation of woman, but actively injured by the operation of laws that place pit falls and temptations to evil in the way of the young who are thus made to stumble and fall, often never to rise again. With a recognized right to a vote on all public affairs, woman could follow her children all through life with a helpful, strong, and authoritative influence. Third: There would be benefits in our houses. The boys would have greater respect for their mothers and sisters. The girls would be invested with a feeling of self-respect and an expectation of future responsibility that would cause them to take broader and more earnest views of life. Fourth: It would enlarge the field of community interest between husbands and wives.38 A consciousness that her opinion does not count gives many a woman sore feelings at election times because she sees how intensely interesting to her husband are political subjects. At present, politics separate husbands and wives. If both voted, even for the same candidate, the quality of the vote and its influence on the character of the man would be different for the admixture of feminine opinion. It would be superior to a purely masculine vote, and this would tell, in the long run, in the character of candidates nominated. Fifth: The influence on woman would be broadly educative, make her less trivial, more thoughtful, less apt to jump at conclusions. She is conscientious to a high degree, and it is absurd to suppose that dropping a ballot into a box now and again would change her whole nature.39 She would vote against all the enemies of purity and righteousness. Men know this and are prepared to oppose her getting the right of suffrage. Sixth: There is no good reason for refusing these petitioners. Insane people are obviously unable to vote, criminals are the enemies of society, children have not enough knowledge, but none of these disabilities are found in women. Why then refuse this reasonable request? Seventh: Questions of legislation are largely those of morals. Men alone, however honest or able, are incompetent to deal with the morals of any community. It is along the line of reformatory work that woman’s eyes have been opened to the necessity of her political recognition. Our cities are full of societies whose aim it is to fight evils fostered by our present laws. The organizations under which society grows, such as those representing the liquor interests, are violently opposed to woman’s suffrage. Their attitude gives a straight pointer to all good men as to the propriety of passing the bill. How can prohibitionists hesitate to give its passage the whole weight of their influence? But, Madam Speaker, I will not further multiply reasons, but conclude with evidence that cannot be gainsaid as to good results already achieved where women have been voters. Happily, the experiment has been made. In Wyoming, they have had the full suffrage for twenty-four years: it is incorporated in the state

A Mock Parliament

143

constitution.40 Governors, editors, state officials, and old residents unite in saying that the man cannot be found who would consent to the repeal, unless he belonged to the ranks of those who do not like to see good laws faithfully executed; that none of the evils feared have been experienced, while the beneficial effects are striking in many unexpected directions; that men have to make good nominations unless they are willing to have their candidates defeated. Like testimony reaches us in abundance from Washington Territory and from Kansas, where women’s votes defeated the saloon ticket, elected the entire law and order city council, and all but two of the school board. The votes of men alone, as shown by the official figures, would have elected the entire saloon ticket by an average majority of six hundred and ninety-three. The experiment has been made and these are the results.41 In the face of them, there is not an objection to the granting of the full suffrage to women worth stating. In the sacred name of justice, to every man, woman, and child in Manitoba, I move the second reading of this bill. As Ruskin says: “The one ordered sacrifice is to do justice, and it is the last we are inclined to do.”42 But, how can a people be free that has not learned to be just? “What is justice?” says Aristotle, “but to render to everyone his or her own.” 43 sPeaker: Second speaker, Miss McArthur, Member for Portage la Prairie. miss mCartHur: The first question is, will woman’s condition be improved by the concession? Her influence would be pure and elevating on politics, but the deteriorating influence politics would have on the finer sensibilities of woman is a vital consideration for this House. Many women clamour for the ballot, but many do not want it and could not be induced to go near the polling booth. The warmest advocate of women’s suffrage and those whose power is great in social circles, our most charming women, would not vote. The principal reason against women’s franchise is the scriptural one – it clearly says “woman is not to usurp authority over the man.”44 In the days of chivalry, great danger surrounded all state affairs and men offered protection. The women, in reality, now are the power behind the throne. Their influence with brothers and husbands is great. Every successful candidate or canvasser takes pains to conciliate the woman. In England, the Primrose League is a powerful factor in elections, witness the Liberal Association in England who elected Gladstone.45 Why do not Canadian women use the powers they have? The 100 per cent duty on coal oil, the light used in the majority of homes in Canada, would soon be removed if women would send in a strong protest against it. Let women show us that they know how to use the privileges they now enjoy, and then we may feel disposed to consider their claims to the ballot. Their influence now keeps them in their proper sphere; their duty to make the home pleasant is a duty more important than law making. What greater fame can woman want than Harriett Beecher Stowe? She wrote the immortal story of Uncle Tom’s Cabin, while attending to humble household duties.46 Many women seek suffrage, the theory being that men are selfish and make laws for themselves. This is a mistake,

144

Collective creation

as women have received justice and men have voluntarily passed acts giving married women control of their earnings. England’s law gives a woman one-third of her husband’s property.47 Advocates of woman’s suffrage never will revert to the social laws. The injustice does not originate in the statute books, nor in any laws that men make, but is made by women and enforced by them, as the laws which govern society are made almost entirely by women. Let a revolution of the social law be worked out by women themselves. The temperance agitation of the present day is responsible for calling into existence this woman suffrage movement. The shouting that takes place when a woman passes a good examination, or makes a clever speech, or takes a perilous ride upon a cow-catcheri always struck me as very foolish and inconsistent. Her opinion of the energy and courage and resource of women is so high that there is nothing under the sun unattainable from an Easter bonnet to the ballot. In fact, the fertility of the resources of woman is one of the things not to be comprehended by the mind of man. There is another side to this question. Self-preservation is the first law of nature. What is to be said of a government that not only gives the ballot to women, but equally champions their cause? Do they not foresee the disaster that is about to overtake them? If the House passed this bill, the news would be telegraphed to the remotest part of the earth that women in far off Manitoba have equal rights with men. Then will begin such an emigration of old and young and all conditions of women to this country as was never known in the history of the world. Then, and not until then, will they realize their present folly. She would have no objection to a multitude coming, only if the power conferred upon them by that little piece of paper called a ballot, be used against a politician it would be to his dismay. sPeaker: Third speaker, Mrs Dolsen. mrs DoLsen: The granting of full suffrage to women seems to suffer from its very familiarity. If it could be sprung as a new question, if the right to vote were altogether a new right conferred upon the people this year, 1893, for the first time, there would be no more question of granting it to both men and women than of permitting both males and females to attend the public schools, or of their acquiring and holding property, or doing any of the other many things which both now do in common. In spite of all that the Member for Portage la Prairie has said against the measure, I have yet to hear anything advanced that deserves to be called a reason. There is some satisfaction in striking at an obstacle that may be knocked down, but the opposition and arguments against granting full suffrage to women is, as someone has said, something like a bag of feathers suspended in the air: you may pound at it all day and at night it is a bag of feathers still, neither ruffled nor moved. Let us then be honest and acknowledge that as the premier has just said, this opposition is a bit of ancient barbarism lingering about our boasted tenth century civilization, i

“An apparatus fixed in front of a locomotive engine to remove straying cattle or other obstructions from the rails in front of a train.” oed, s.vv. “cow-catcher.”

A Mock Parliament

145

the same barbarism that in former days made women slaves or beasts of burden. If the principle upon which government is grounded is true, that taxation must not be without representation, and if women be without representation, and if women hold property and are taxed, then it follows that women should be represented in the state by their votes. Instead of this, what do we see? Women today robbed, simply because they are taxed by a body in which they are not represented. As a class they have tastes, interests, and occupations that they alone can adequately represent. They are different from men, therefore they deny the right of men to represent them, make laws for them, judge them in court, or spend their tax money. If they are the same as men, they have the same rights; if they are distinct from men, they need the ballot to help make laws for themselves. Take which view you please, it comes to the same thing. Admit in the slightest degree her right to property or education, and woman must have the ballot to protect the one and use the other. Man especially represents material interests; woman would especially represent the interests of the home. She would not be willing to spend hours and days discussing the best methods for the protection of crab or the spawning of fish, as some of our local legislature do, and not one hour be given to the consideration of questions affecting the interests of her home and the protection of her children. Women are the most religious, the most moral, and the most sober portion of the people and it is easy to understand why their influence in public life should be dreaded. If woman is ignorant of politics, remember that for centuries she has been kept back, not been permitted the training for voting. Give her the opportunities that men have for exercising political rights and she will advance her present capacity. To confer the franchise upon her would, in itself, be an immense education. If called upon to vote, she would feel it a duty to examine public and political questions, study them, talk about them with her husband and sons, thus making themselves, thereby, more and more associates and companions in everything. It is sometimes said that women have not enough brains to comprehend such weighty questions as finance and tariffs. Let men remember this point, however, that moral questions are deeply involved in politics. While it is said that men have from four to six ounces more brain than woman on the average, it is also true that the elephant would outdo man greatly in this respect. The honourable Member for Portage la Prairie has stated that women here already have the power behind the throne and that they can do more in a silent, secret way than they can do publicly. If this is true, it seems to me to be a very dangerous sort of influence, because it is a power divorced from responsibility. There are thousands of women who suffer the worst of wrongs, some placed legally at the mercy of savage, drunken husbands, some driven by misery and ill-paid, hopeless labour into the dead sea of vice, some piteously wronged are breaking their hearts day-by-day and yearby-year and no man understands their woes or seeks a remedy. Then, too, the dreadful shadow of that gigantic evil, the liquor traffic, is cast over all the land, and I am sure that woman with a ballot in her hand would speedily find a solution

146

Collective creation

to this perplexing question. For many reasons, I say give woman the ballot as a means of getting things done that she wants done. sPeaker: Fourth speaker, Mrs (Rev.) W.N. Jamieson. mrs Jamieson: So much has come to woman in the last half-century, so much through higher education and new employments that the present question, namely “enfranchisement,” seems to me to be a pivotal point. Results have lifted the question far above that old and absurd one of superiority versus inferiority, muscles versus angelic qualities. It has resolved itself into the common sense one of what is to be gained or lost by subverting the established order. I do not dare contradict the fundamental right of every human being, male or female, endowed with an ordinary amount of reason and experience, to receive enfranchisement. But, I do doubt the expediency of such a measure. A few very tangible reasons why woman should not vote are first, and principally, because she is a woman, a woman physically, mentally, morally: One: Physically, woman’s physique was planned and built, cell-by-cell, organby-organ, by the Master-builder for one great, grand, ennobling and Godordained purpose. No woman is justified in setting afoot an undertaking that shall militate against her first great natural duty and her first great social obligation. “The cradle lies across the door of the polling booth.”48 Two: Mentally, a woman student is by no means inferior to her complement man. Still, I must acknowledge that woman’s mental constitution is entirely different to that of man. Women argue concerning things as they ought to be, not as they are. This, to say the least, is a most uncomfortable factor in dealing with political leagues. If all women were educated politically, then our hesitancy on this point might not be so great. But, we must deal with the average woman who knows nothing of politics. The great danger that threatens every nation is the ignorance of its masses: why then add to the numerical force of this already threatening majority? Three: Morally, it has been argued with considerable force that woman has nobler instincts than man. Consequently, her presence at the ballot box would have a refining influence, provided they can confine their franchise to a few true gentlemen. If woman enters the political contest now, how can she retain those ideal qualities that she has largely gained through a certain amount of seclusion? Is she, alone, of all created things, incapable of reversion to the lower original type, uninfluenced by environments? Furthermore, because she is preoccupied, being only a woman, not omnipotent, she cannot fill two places at once, and to perform public duties the home must be left empty. The only position woman should envy is one higher, nobler, and more sacred than her own, and that she cannot find though she searches the universe for a million years. They will not simply extend the franchise to a few self-respecting, self-controlled ladies to quietly record their predilections. In the natural sequence of events, the public polling booth will become a favourite rendezvous of drunken women and the

A Mock Parliament

1 47

prostitute. The presence of these last-named classes at the booth would madden already excited men and the polling booth will become pandemonium. What of the blood tax?i Man must pay, woman cannot. In private women live by their ideals. Home is the most beautiful ideal: it means rest, quiet, peace. But where will the peace be if woman, like man, plunge into the troubled sea of political strife? A house divided against itself cannot stand, nor can the home life where the husband is Grit and wife Tory, or visa versa.49 If this division of interest is permitted, the sacred bond of “the twain shall be one” will be dashed to the earth, the dove of peace will take everlasting flight, and a reign of terror will commence which will wreck our home life and consequently our country.50 Such a demand is unnecessary and superfluous. “The hand that rocks the cradle rules the world.”51 Women already hold the power of framing the laws for the future. The absolute authority of motherhood leaves the opinions of the future man under her control. Such a demand is glaringly inconsistent. Women say they cannot trust men to frame and enact the laws that shall govern our country, but at the hymnal altar they promise to love, honour, and obey those very beings whom they cannot trust to make the laws. Into men’s hands do women give the keys of their happiness in time, and well nigh their eternal happiness. Away with such inconsistency! Let no woman that promises to love, honour, and obey say that she cannot trust man to perform his part in the world’s plan nobly and well. sPeaker: Fifth speaker, Miss Cora Hind, Provincial Secretary. miss Cora HinD 52: I cannot forbear expressing surprise that the honourable Member for Beautiful Plains53 should have treated us to so much of what has been characterized as the hysterical vapouringsii of Mrs Limi Linton: “The grim blood tax,” “the cradle across the door of the polling booth.” 54 As to the grim blood tax, the argument that women, if in parliament, might bring about a war in which they cannot be called out to fight is idle, because those who decide for war are never those who can be called on to fight. Doctors, lawyers, and clergymen are exempt from service, but enjoy suffrage equally with those who may be called on to fight.55 One-tenth of the population of Manitoba is Mennonite.56 All men are entitled to suffrage if they have spent three years in the country and have taken out their naturalization papers. Yet these people have the promise of the federal government that they shall not be called on for military service. The cradle across the door of the polling booth! The absurdity of supposing that casting a vote will incapacitate a mother for home duties! What is to be done in the case of the hundreds of thousands of women who do not marry? Maternity is not the first and only office of womanhood. As to a woman not having the mental caliber to vote, i

“A tax paid by the shedding of blood; spec. (a derogatory term for) military conscription.” See oed, s.vv. “blood tax.”

ii

“The action of talking or acting in a high-flown or pretentious manner.” See oed, s.v. “vapourings.”

148

Collective creation

mental qualifications are not required of male voters. This, the best of all reasons why the ballot should be granted to them, rather betrayed the opposition to say that in politics it is expedient to do wrong. Women should have suffrage, first and always, because they are citizens, and citizens have a right to say what shall be done in the nation. Second, because in our day and time the suppression of the liquor traffic is a burning question and women, who are the greatest sufferers from the traffic, should have a voice in its management. Third, working women need the protection of the franchise. There is too much talking as to the effect of suffrage on certain classes. The greatest good to the greatest number is one of the soundest doctrines of political economy.57 The largest body of women is working women. Their condition needs improvement. Suffrage has been an immense help to working men, and there is every reason to suppose it will have the same effect in the case of working women. Every door of advancement opened to women has been wisely used. The prophecies of the disastrous results that would occur from the higher education of women have proven false and the highly educated women of today are quite practical and much more useful than their less enlightened sisters of the early part of the century. It is charged against working women that they do not hold together and support one another. In fact, as things stand, trade unionism, that most potent influence in raising the standard of individual comfort and establishing a moral minimum below which the working classes will not allow themselves to sink, is almost non-existent among women. The cause of this is not far to seek. Give working women suffrage, and thereby a common interest, and they will form a meeting ground from which the strength of union will very soon arise. Not only will education and union be a result, but working women will possess a power that will make them an important factor in the calculations of political potentates, and in this way, their wrongs will be redressed and their hours of labour improved. The success of the dockers’ strike of 1889 (that miracle in the history of “unskilled labour”) was greatly due to the fact that many of those interested possessed votes.58 Suffrage for working women is no new theory. As far back as 1844 the great Italian patriot, Mazzini, in an address to Italian working men, closed with this statement: “your complete emancipation can only be founded and secured on the truth of a principle – the principle of the unity of the human family. The emancipation of women must be regarded by you as necessarily linked with the emancipation of the working man. This will give to your endeavors the consecration of a universal truth.”59 The cause of women’s suffrage is a good cause, Madame Speaker, a glorious cause. What does it matter if in the past its advocates have been despised: if today they are barely tolerated, tomorrow they shall be the exalted of the earth!60 For humanity sweeps onward, Where today the martyr stands, On the morrow crouching Judas With the silver in his hands.

A Mock Parliament

149

Far in front the cross stands, Ready and the crackling fagots burn, While the howling mob of yesterday In silent awe return, To clean up the scattered ashes Into history’s golden urn.61 And shall not Manitoba, brave little Manitoba, who has declared her ability to manage her own affairs in the face of so much opposition, shall not Manitoba have the honour of being the first of the provinces to grant equal rights to all her citizens.62 (When the debate terminates, the Speaker restates the motion and asks those in favour to rise. The Sergeant-at-Arms indicates the votes are in by bowing to the Speaker. The Clerk declares the number of yeas and nays and the Speaker announces the motion to enfranchise women is lost.)63 f inis

notes 1 As there is no extant version of an entire play, this version has been culled from two

performances. Its first act took place at the Pavilion in Allen Gardens in Toronto on the evening of 18 February 1896. It is based upon three sources: “Portia’s Column,” Toronto Evening Star, 20 Feb 1896, n.p.; portions of the evening’s program entitled “Mock Parliament and Promenade Concert”; the playbill/agenda for the performance entitled “Ontario Legislature: Tuesday, the 18th February 1896.” See the wCtu Archives, held by ao, mu 82889. The second act of the play was staged at the Bijou Theatre in Winnipeg on 9 February 1893. It is elicited from two sources: “The Ladies’ Innings,” Manitoba Daily Free Press, 10 Feb 1893, n.p.; “The Government Sustained: On the Woman Suffrage Bill – The Mock Parliament Holds a Brilliant and Profitable Session,” Winnipeg Daily Tribune, 10 Feb 1893, 5. 2 See “Plan of Members Seats.” See also “Mock Parliament and Promenade Concert Programme,” wCtu Archives, held by the Archives of Ontario, Toronto, mu 8288-9. A partial list of the performers includes: W. Abercrombie, county and local corresponding secretary, Toronto wCtu for Parkdale, see Report of the 22nd Convention of the Ontario Women’s Christian Temperance Union 1899, 20, ao, Toronto, mu8407.10; C. Bowbeer, superintendent of railroad and fire halls for Toronto wCtu, see Report of the 19th Annual Meeting, mu8407.7; A. Brown, delegate to wCtu convention in 1902; F.R. Campbell, delegate to wCtu convention in 1902, maybe Mrs S. Campbell of 101 Charles St, county and local corresponding secretary for Northern Toronto, see Report of the 22nd, 20; A. Chamberlain, superintendent of Evangelistic, prison reform and police for Toronto wCtu, see Report of the 21st Convention, mu8407.9; C. Cook, superintendent of the flower mission for Toronto wCtu, see Report of the 19th Annual Meeting, 20; Amelia M. (Kent) Cowan, superintendent of Evangelistic, prison and police for Toronto wCtu, see Report of the 19th Annual Meeting, 20; L.S. Faircloth, superintendent of juvenile and Dominion kitchen garden for Toronto wCtu, see Report of the 19th Annual Meeting, 20; M.C. Forester, superintendent of Sabbath observance for Toronto wCtu, see Report of the 20th Convention, 20, mu8407.8; L.C. Harrington; G. Henderson,

15 0

3

4

5

6

7 8

9

Collective creation

superintendent of the franchise for Toronto wCtu, see Report of the 21st Convention, 21; S. Hilborn, member of Fairworks Committee, see Report of the 21st Convention, 12; W. Mason, superintendent of narcotics for Toronto wCtu, see Report of the 19th Annual Meeting, 20; M. McDonell, superintendent of peace and arbitration for Toronto wCtu, see Report of the 19th Annual Meeting, 20; W.H. Orr, superintendent of parlour meetings for Toronto wCtu, see Report of the 19th Annual Meeting, 20; A. (Brant) Noxon, see “Plan of Members Seats”; M.A. Redmond, treasurer of Toronto wCtu in 1902, see Report of the 25th Convention, 12; J.M. Rose, superintendent of parlour meetings for Toronto wCtu, see Report of the 21st Convention, 21; A.O. Rutherford, superintendent of schools of method for Toronto wCtu, see Report of the 19th Annual Meeting, 20; Spence S. F. Savigny, superintendent of the franchise, see Report of the 19th Annual Meeting, 8, also superintendent of work among coloured people, see Report of the 19th Annual Meeting, 20; Hon H. Stevens (probably Mrs E.S. Stevens), president of the Toronto wCtu, see Report of the 21st Convention, 20–1; A. Vance, county and local president for Gordon wCtu, see Report of the 22nd Convention, 20; H. Walker, (probably Mrs George Walker), superintendent of unfermented wine for Toronto wCtu, see Report of the 19th Annual Meeting, 20; F.C. Ward, superintendent of the Band of Hope for Toronto wCtu, see Report of the 19th Annual Meeting, 20; Hon. Lottie E. Wiggins, superintendent of work among young people for Toronto wCtu, see Report of the 19th Annual Meeting, 20; G. Wrigley, superintendent of press for Toronto wCtu, see Report of the 20th Convention, 20. This is a spoof on the wCtu that presented suffrage petitions to legislatures across the country. The wCtu was involved in most performances of the Mock Parliament, including the 1896 Toronto and the 1893 Winnipeg productions. The Dominion Women’s Enfranchisement Association also helped sponsor the 1896 Toronto Parliament. Dr Emily Stowe was a principal figure in the early Ontario suffrage movement. The first female public-school principal in Ontario and the first woman to formally practise medicine in Canada, she was a founding member of Canada’s first feminist organization, the Toronto Women’s Literary Club (1876): this club became the Toronto Women’s Suffrage Association (1883) and later became the Dominion Women’s Enfranchisement Association (1889). Stowe was also a driving force behind women’s entrance into post-secondary education. The newspaper accounts upon which this Parliament is based are incomplete. Thus, there is a section of dialogue missing here referring to the men’s suffrage plea that ends with a corrupted quotation which references Bernard Shaw who, in his 1891 treatise The Quintessence of Ibsenism, reformulated Ibsen’s critique that “the minority is often right, but the majority is always wrong,” to read “it is easy to be in a minority, and yet be wrong; it is impossible to be in the majority and yet be right,” 94. See Cleverdon, Woman Suffrage Movement, 21–2. “The right to vote for school trustees had been granted to both married and single women with property as far back as 1850.” Unmarried women with property qualifications were permitted to vote on municipal by-laws in 1882, the result of the political agitation of the Toronto Women’s Literary Club. See Cleverdon, Woman Suffrage Movement, 27. This dialogue is a parody of a speech made in March of 1894 by Hon. Sir Oliver Mowat, premier of Ontario (1872–96). According to the program for the 1896 production, a march called “Oriental Echo” succeeds the deputation from the Men’s Enfranchisement Association and Men’s Christian Temperance Union. See Bacchi, Liberation Deferred?, 30. Mrs A.O. Rutherford, president of the Dominion wCtu, played the role of the Speaker in the 1896 Parliament. See also “Mock Parliament: Universal Suffrage Voted Down by Women Legislators,” Stowe-Gullen Papers, Victoria University Library, University of Toronto, 80.

A Mock Parliament

15 1

10 The following are a collection of conventional and repeated lines and directions for the

11

12

13

14

15

16 17

18

19

introduction and reading of bills included in extant portions of the script and should be peppered throughout the performance: “Call for member: ‘I move the first reading entitled ...’”; “Bill carried to the speaker. Speaker: ‘the member for ... seconded by member for ... moves the first reading of ...’”; “‘Is the House ready for the ...’”; “Bill handed to [the] clerk who says, ‘This is a bill entitled so and so. First reading of the bill ...’ Speaker asks, ‘When shall this bill be read again?’” See extant papers related to the Mock Parliament in the ao, wCtu collection, mu 8288.7. The railway scandals of the nineteenth century involved institutions and individuals who were frequently charged with bribery and the misappropriation of public funds for personal gain by making opprobrious agreements with railway companies. See Berton, “The Pacific Railway Scandal,” 15–18. See also Myers, “The Distribution of Railway Subsidies,” 19–32. While we are to assume a reversal of men’s and women’s roles in this first act, the authors of the Mock Parliament were not above reverting to gender related issues in the “real world” when they thought it expedient to do so. This report pokes fun at the controversial issue of women’s dress reform as it bears upon teachers in the Toronto Public School Board, particularly the fashions associated with the new “fad” of bicycle riding. It specifically refers to a case involving a School Board Trustee named Bell who was morally offended by women wearing bloomers and, at a School Board meeting on 4 July 1895, he proposed that inspectors be instructed to report the names of those women who did so. According to the Toronto Evening Star 5 Jul 1895, 4, Bell’s suggestion that inspectors record which women wore bloomers was met with derisive laughter by the other trustees. See also Globe and Mail 19 July 1895, 6. See W. Roberts, “‘Rocking the Cradle,’” 31–2. This bill takes aim at the pervasively held view that married women should not and did not need to work. Specifically, it parodies a contemporary Toronto Public School Board ruling, implemented in 1895, that “prohibit[ed the] employment of married women who had husbands to support them.” See also Kealey, “Canadian Socialism,” 97. The corrupt practice of including the names of deceased voters on electoral lists was not uncommon in nineteenth-century Canada. This issue also arises in the 1914 Walker Theatre Mock Parliament when the character of the Premier, played by Nelly McClung, declares that “time and again ... men came back and voted – even after they were dead.” See McClung, Purple Springs, 285. See W. Roberts, “‘Rocking the Cradle,’” 8. Women were paid as little as one-third to onehalf the salary of men engaged in the same work based on the often-erroneous assumption that, unlike men, they had no children or spouse to support. Crooke’s tube was used in the discovery of early x-ray technology. See Globe and Mail, 10 Feb 1896: 9. See Prentice et al., Canadian Women, 130. This bill is yet another attack on the Toronto Public School Board, which dismissed women from their positions upon marriage. See also Dehli, “They Rule by Sympathy,” 204. See “Andrew Mercer,” Dictionary of Canadian Biography, http://www.biographi.ca/en/ bio/mercer_andrew_10E.html, accessed 23 June 2018. The Andrew Mercer Ontario Reformatory for Females was the first women’s prison in Canada, located on King Street in Toronto. Although it became a notoriously wretched place, it was originally intended as an institution for female reform. This bill reverses the pervasive notion that men’s work involved “heavy lifting” and women’s work the “lighter employments.” Such views masked the intellectual and sedentary nature

15 2

20 21

22

23 24

25

Collective creation

of much professional work associated with men and the strenuous labour involved in tasks like washing, ironing, sewing, and child-rearing usually undertaken by women. The wCtu agitated against the use of tobacco, which, like alcohol, it considered a social ill that should be banned. See Mitchinson, “The wCtu,” 155. An 1896 reform-inspired Ontario statute allowed municipalities to pass by-laws regulating the time of night after which children could not be in the streets without proper guardianship. The wCtu established a Department of the Curfew Bell in order to facilitate the implementation of the bill. The idea presented in the Parliament that a similar statute could be conceived and applied to men would have been appealing to the women of the wCtu by connecting men’s alcohol consumption with crime and sexual immorality. See also the wCtu Report of the19th Annual Convention, 212. The mock parliamentary order paper entitled “Ontario Legislature, Tuesday, the 18th February 1896” under “Orders of The Day” tells us that the second act of the play is comprised of two bills. The member for North Middlesex introduces the “second reading, bill (no. 48) ‘An act to extend the franchise to men on the same condition as to women.’” The member for Addington introduces the “second reading, bill (no. 52) ‘An act to amend the Municipal Act so as to allow men to vote for municipal officers.’” See also “Portia’s Column,” which goes on to document the remainder of the performance as follows: “The speeches made for and against were in many cases very able. The Minister of Education showed, perhaps, the most thorough command of herself, her points being delivered with telling emphasis from first to last. She humorously asked how, in view of scriptural teaching, it could be thought right for a man to leave the home to vote, when St Paul says to women, ‘If you would know anything, ask your husband at home.’ How can he be asked if he isn’t there? ‘Again,’ she continued, ‘children are exhorted not to forsake the law of their mothers, which I take as conclusive that woman is the law-maker.’ The Minister for Crown Lands, in opposing the bill, ably contrasted social conditions under matriarchal and patriarchal rule, showing the immense superiority of the former, and urging the members to run no risk of a recurrence of polygamy, and the other horrors that disgraced patriarchal government. The bill was lost.” See note 1. In Act II, the conceit of reversal between the roles of men and women is almost entirely abandoned and the debate addresses itself to women’s suffrage. Unlike the newspaper accounts related to Act I, those related to Act II do not list all of the women who participated in the production and neither do they describe the first act of the production in any detail. All we know of the first act of the 1893 production of the Mock Parliament is distilled in the following paragraph: “The Speaker, preceded by the sergeant-at-arms bearing the mace, took the chair, and the House opened with prayer by Mrs Hogg. Petitions were presented by Mrs Tisdale and reports of committees by Mrs Rev. J. Semmens and Mrs Manahan. Motions were made by Mrs Hogg, Mrs Mills, Mrs MacArthur in reference to second readings of various bills, and passed in due form.” See “The Government Sustained,” The Winnipeg Daily Tribune, 10 Feb 1893, 5. From the text we can also glean the participation of Amelia Yeomans, Mrs Dolsen, Mrs Rev. W. N. Jamieson, and Cora Hind. See also notes 29, 53. Among the unlisted performers Mrs J.A. McClung is notable, not just for being Nellie McClung’s mother-in-law, but because she “introduced Nellie to the cause of suffrage for women.” See Macpherson, Nellie McClung, 54. See also Savage, Our Nell, 25–6. See Prentice et al., Canadian Women, 223. The great wave of immigration, initiated by Minister of the Interior Clifford Sifton, to Western Canada from non-British and American countries provoked “nativism,” a form racism, upon which the suffragists capitalized.

A Mock Parliament

26 27 28 29

30 31

32

33

34

35

36

37

15 3

One of the arguments they used in support of their suffrage bid was that the government enfranchised “‘foreign’ men and not their own good, white Anglo-Canadian women.” Ibid., 124. In a momentary return to the conceit of reversal, this bill is directed towards inheritance laws which gave women no legal right to their husband’s estates upon his death. Within the ethic of the wCtu, social problems were understood to be moral problems. The central platform of the wCtu was a temperant life and complete abstinence from alcohol. See dcb, s.v. “Le Sueur, Amelia (Yeomans).” Yeomans (1842–1913) played the premier of Manitoba in the 1893 Mock Parliament. She was one of Canada’s first women doctors. Because no Canadian medical school would accept female students, she and her daughter, who also became a doctor, attended the University of Ann Arbor in Michigan. She was also a political and social activist invested in prison reform and improving labour conditions for the working poor, along with advocating for women’s suffrage, temperance, and crusading against prostitution. She was president of the Manitoba Branch of the Dominion Women’s Enfranchisement Association, circa 1894, and helped found the Manitoba Equal Franchise Club. Women were accorded the vote on the Isle of Man in 1881, making it the first country in the world to enfranchise women in national elections. See Tutt, “No Taxation,” 1473–5. Although not a central plank in the American women’s suffrage platform, “no taxation without representation” was a catchphrase periodically used by suffrage leaders in arguing their position. An abolitionist and early suffragist, Lucy Stone (1818–1893) was the first woman in Massachusetts to graduate from college and helped to organize the first national women’s rights convention. See “New Jersey,” n.p. On 22 Feb 1797, The New Jersey Assembly passed “An Act to Regulate the Election of Members of the Legislative-Council and the General Assembly, Sheriffs and Coroners, in this State,” which specifically extended the right of women to the franchise. See Wojczak, “British Women’s Emancipation,” n.p. In England, women were given the right to vote in municipal elections beginning with the Municipal Franchise Act of 1869. Shortly thereafter, in 1872, this act was rescinded and married women were denied the right to vote in municipal elections on the grounds that upon marriage they became the property of their husbands. In 1880, the courts determined that women were disqualified from running for municipal office. It wasn’t until a year after this Mock Parliament that women in Britain were given the right to vote and run for office in parish councils, district councils, school boards, and Poor Law Guardians. See Essay On Liberty, 1859, https://www.gutenberg.org/files/34901/34901-h/34901-h.htm, accessed 23 June 2018. John Stuart Mill (1806–1873) was a British philosopher, political economist, and civil servant. Mill’s conception of liberty was premised on the freedom of the individual “over himself, his own body and mind, the individual is sovereign.” Jacob Bright (1821–1899) was a British Liberal politician, whose sister campaigned for woman’s suffrage. See Wojczak, “British Women’s Emancipation,” n.p. See also note 34 above. In England, women were granted the right to vote for Poor Law Guardians beginning in 1834, but this right was taken away in 1835, only to be returned with the Municipal Franchise Act of 1869. In England and Wales, “Poor Law” refers to a set of policies aimed to alleviating poverty. See P. Orman Ray, “Woman Suffrage in Foreign Countries,” American Political Science Review 12, no. 3 (August 1918), 469, 479. Finland “granted local suffrage to taxpaying woman (sic)

15 4

38 39 40

41 42 43

44

45

46

47

48

Collective creation

living in country districts.” In Iceland, “widows and spinsters who were householders and self-supporting were given local suffrage in 1881.” This view is in direct opposition to that held by anti-suffragists who argued that if women had the vote and did not share their husband’s views, domestic chaos would ensue. Anti-suffrage advocates often argued that voting would “unsex” women. See “Wyoming History,” State of Wyoming, http://www.wyo.gov/about-wyoming/wyominghistory, accessed 27 May 2019. On 10 December 1869, Wyoming became the first territory in the US, and later in 1890 the first US state, to extend suffrage to women. See Chapman Catt and Rogers Shuler, Women Suffrage and Politics, 112–15. John Ruskin (1819–1900) was an English art critic, art patron, artist, social thinker, and philanthropist. This is not a direct quote, but rather a conflation of a biblical passage with a crude summary of Aristotle’s political philosophy. Almost identical to the words of Jesus Christ, this quote clearly echoes the parable: “Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s,” Mark 12:17. This quote could be confused with Aristotle’s political philosophy of justice, which is better summarized as justice “consists in giving an individual what they deserve.” I Timothy 2:12. The original quotation from the King James Bible upon which this is based reads: “But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence.” See “Women’s Liberal Federation,” Liberal History, http://www.liberalhistory.org.uk/ history/womens-liberal-federation/, accessed 27 May 2019. The conservative Primrose League in Britain (1883–2004), among the earliest of large-scale party organizations, accepted women members, who, in turn, were able to fraternize with politicians and take a role in party politics long before they could vote. On the other end of the political spectrum, the Women’s Liberal Federation, formed by William Gladstone’s daughter Catherine, included many other members who were related to Liberal Members of Parliament. Consequently, this Liberal Association, made up solely of women, had a direct influence on the male members of Parliament. See Vollaro, “Lincoln, Stowe, and the ‘Little Woman,” 18–34. Harriet Beecher Stowe (1811– 1896) was one of the most important sentimental novelists of nineteenth century America. In a popular American literary anecdote featuring Stowe and her novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Abraham Lincoln is introduced to Stowe and remarks, “So you’re the little woman who wrote the book that made this great war!” Though entirely apocryphal, this anecdote is indicative of Stowe’s influence on the larger political and social landscape of the United States of America. See Duhaime’s Law Dictionary, s.vv. “Dower Definition,” http://www.duhaime.org/ LegalDictionary/D/Dower.aspx, accessed 27 May 2019. This refers to the “Dower Act” in English law that states upon his death a husband is legally obliged to will one-third of his property to his wife to insure her continued financial stability and security. The speaker here, though, is out of date as the “Dower Act” was revised in 1835 and left no such entitlements for widows. See Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, s.vv. “Elizabeth (Eliza) Lynn Linton 1822–1898.” Linton, despite having been a defender of women’s rights, became famous for writing sensational articles for conservative publications. This particular quote is found in the first of a pair of essays entitled “The Wild Women,” which oppose the progressive idea that women should have public and political influence, but instead should attend to their “natural” duties as mothers. See also Harman, Feminine Political Novel, 119.

A Mock Parliament

15 5

49 “A house divided cannot stand” was the title of, and a quotation from, a speech made by

50 51

52

53 54 55 56 57 58

59

60

61 62 63

Abraham Lincoln upon receiving the Illinois Republican Nomination as the candidate for State Senator on 16 June 1858. In the speech, Lincoln proposed that either all of the United States would have to abolish slavery or that slavery would be legal in every state. Lincoln’s speech countered earlier proposals that would allow each state to decide on abolition for itself. Lincoln appropriated this well-known phrase from the New Testament Gospel, Luke 11:17, Matthew 12:25, and Mark 3:25. “And they twain shall be one flesh: so then they are no more twain, but one flesh,” Mark 10:8. See Susan Ratcliffe, ed., Oxford Treasury of Sayings and Quotations (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), 325. “What Rules the World” (1865), a poem by William Ross Wallace (1819– 1881), celebrates motherhood and suggests that mothers are a powerful force for change in the world. See Johnstone, “A New Woman of the Canadian West,” n.p. E. Cora Hind (1861–1942) was an esteemed journalist and known internationally for her authoritative and award-winning knowledge of Western Canadian agriculture. She helped articulate the constitution of the Canadian Women’s Press Club and in 1901 was made the first woman agricultural editor of the Manitoba Free Press. Hind was a member of the wCtu and one of the most important Canadian feminist activists of her day, helping to form both the Manitoba Equal Suffrage Club in 1894 and the influential Manitoba Political Equality League in 1912. Beautiful Plains was a pioneer settlement of western Manitoba in the area that today is known as Neepawa. See note 49. See Military Service Act 1917, “An Act respecting Military Service,” 19, No. 11, a-f. https:// www.lermuseum.org/military-service-act/, accessed 22 June 2018. Mennonites are a Protestant sect, generally held to be pacifists. A central tenet of the eighteenth-century philosophy of “Unitarianism,” articulated by Jeremy Bentham (1748–1832) in his A Fragment on Government (1776). See “1889: The Great London Dock Strike,” Libcom.org, http://libcom.org/history/1889the-great-london-dock-strike, accessed 23 June 2018. The London dock strike of 1889 represented the expansion of the labour movement from skilled, craft unions to unskilled day labourers. By invoking this strike, the left-leaning Cora Hind, like her suffrage sisters in Britain, aligns herself with socialist politics and labour movement organizations. See The Duties of Man Addressed to Workingmen (London: Chapman and Hall, 1862), 220. See also Hall, McClelland, and Rendall. Defining the Victorian Nation, 164. Giuseppe Mazzini (1805–1872) was an Italian journalist and leader of the nineteenth-century movement for the unification of the Italian state. This quote is an abbreviation of a more extended passage in his “Essay on the Duties of Man Addressed to Workingmen” (1844 and 1858) and evidences the importance of Mazzini’s revolutionary writing to the women’s suffrage movement. This quote, echoing Psalms 46:10, suggests that woman’s suffrage may be viewed negatively at the time, but the future will reveal that extending suffrage to women was the right course of action. The biblical quote reads, “Be still and know that I am God: I will be exalted among the heathens, I will be exalted in the earth.” From the abolitionist poem “The Present Crisis” (1844), by the American poet James Russell Lowell (1819–1891). Twenty-three years later, on 27 January 1916, Manitoba was in fact the first province to extend suffrage to women in Canada. This stage direction is taken from “Portia’s Column,” but changes the phrase from “men” to “women.”

3 Slumberland Shadows A n Introduction ky m bi r D

Kate Simpson Hayes claimed that her play, Slumberland Shadows, A Christmas Drama for Wee Ones, was the first to be written and published in Canada’s North West.1 It appeared in a collection she titled Prairie Pot-Pourri and she sold it at the “Canadian Territorial Exhibition,” held in Regina in 1895.2 People came from far and wide to showcase their wares at the fair and clearly Hayes was hoping a little of the “progress” in industry it was designed to celebrate would cast its bright light upon her new literary endeavour featuring the North West’s first home-grown play. In many ways a typical European fairy tale, Slumberland Shadows was intended for school children and designed to communicate middle-class, feminine gender roles to the young girls of a newly established, mandatory public school system in a newly urbanizing prairie town.3 Ideologically informed by the contemporaneous Western social purity movement, it invested its tiny audience members with a sense of maternity that was associated with cultural superiority and social dominance.4 Born in Dalhousie, New Brunswick, in 1856, but doing much of her dramatic writing in the 1890s on the Prairies, Hayes was brought up by her “highly cultivated” mother, Anna Hagan (1825–1909), a Prince Edward Island teacher, and her father, Patrick Hayes, born in Kerry, Ireland (1821–1869).5 When she was just thirteen years old, her father’s general store was foreclosed upon and shortly thereafter, having taken a job in a Wisconsin lumber camp, he was killed under the weight of a falling tree.6 Clearly aspirational and independent from a young age, Hayes published her first play, poems, and short stories while still in high school.7 Upon graduating, she trained as a teacher with a second-class certificate in music and, at twenty-three, accepted a teaching position in Prince Arthur’s Landing (Thunder Bay) in Northern Ontario. It was with her class from Prince Arthur’s Landing that she staged her first public performance, an adaptation of Cinderella, in the town hall. Hayes worked for two years as a governess in the Northwest Territories before returning to Ontario to marry Charles Bowman Simpson in 1882, the ne’er-do-well

Slumberland S hadows : A n I nt roduct ion

15 7

3.1 A picture of Kate Simpson Hayes that was in the possession of her daughter, Agnes Agatha.

son of mill owner and senator John Simpson. Simpson was abusive and an alcoholic and Hayes had no intention of continuing to subject herself to his maltreatment. Despite having two infant children – Burke Hayes Simpson (1883–19-?) was not yet two and Anna W. Elaine (“Bonnie”) Simpson (1885–1973) a mere babe in arms – the vibrant and ambitious Hayes walked out on her husband and decamped for the prairies.8 Working briefly as a governess for surveyor J. Lestock Reid, she settled in Regina where she quickly advertised in the local paper as a teacher of elocution, French, and music. She opened her own millinery shop, became the organist of Saint Mary’s Roman Catholic Church, and joined in the creation of Regina’s first literary and musical association. It was through the literary and musical association, no doubt, that Hayes met Nicholas Flood Davin (1843–1901), founder and editor of the Regina Leader and soon-to-be Conservative representative for Assiniboia West, the newly established federal electoral district of the North-West Territories. Her decade-long relationship with Davin not only dramatically altered her professional world, it also had spectacular effects on her personal life: among many things, it crystallized the stark choices faced by women of her generation between a career and motherhood, between

15 8

Ky m B i r d

publicity and privacy, between the desire to become a self-supporting, self-sufficient woman, and the social, legal, and moral implications of maternity. Although much of her writing advanced traditional feminine gender roles, these were not values to which she herself adhered. She did not marry Davin – initially because she could not procure a divorce and later because she was appalled by his drinking, as she had been by Simpson’s – but she did bear two children by him. Her concerns, however, were not first and foremost maternal. She sent her children by Simpson to boarding schools and relegated the two she had with Davin, Henry Arthur Davin (1889–1916) and Agnes Agatha Hammell (1892–19-?), to the care of private nurses. Hayes refused to disclose the details of these arrangements to Davin and he, in turn, hired a private detective to discover their whereabouts. Davin eventually found his son, who later came to live with him as his nephew, but fared less well in his search for his daughter, whose name Hayes had changed.9 After leaving Regina in 1899, Hayes moved regularly, often sharing her domicile with a fluctuating constellation of children, her mother, her sister, and their relations. For most of her adult life money was scarce and she was often a sole wage-earner, sustaining herself and her family as best she could through her journalism and freelance writing. She became well-known as editor of “Woman’s World,” the women’s page of the Winnipeg Free Press and the first enduring page of its kind in Western Canada.10 Her column featured articles dealing with women’s sphere of personal and social activity, some of them progressive and many less so.11 While she left this post after six years in 1906, she continued to submit work to the paper on a freelance basis. She briefly edited a similar page for the Ottawa Free Press in 1910. She wrote a daily advice column in the 1920s for the Winnipeg Tribune, as well as articles for Maclean’s, the Daily Colonist, Saturday Night, the Campbellton Graphic, and, in later life, the Vancouver Province. Hayes died in Vancouver in 1945, just short of her eighty-ninth birthday. Over the course of her professional life, Hayes lived and advocated for liberal feminist values. She was a trail-blazing, female professional who helped establish gender equality and career autonomy for women. In addition to starting her own business, she acted in plays she wrote before the local community in Regina and, with Davin’s assistance, she became the first woman legislative librarian in the Northwest (1888–1900) and the Leader’s first woman reporter. Through her journalism, she supported the rights of Toronto Women Garment Workers, Winnipeg nurses, women doctors, secretaries, librarians, entrepreneurs, and farmers. She helped found the Canadian Women’s Press Club, taking on the role of its first secretary and second president, which brought her into contact with a coterie of women now famous as the titans of Western Canadian feminism, including Nellie McClung, Cora Hind, Francis Marion Beynon, Lillian Beynon Thomas, and Emily Murphy, all of whom also became members of the Club and most of whom took part in the 1914 Mock Parliament suffrage play. She reported for the Winnipeg Free Press on the activities of the Canadian Women’s Press Club and the powerful National Council of Women, of which she became president of the Regina chapter. Some even hold

Slumberland S hadows : A n I nt roduct ion

15 9

her responsible for Davin’s parliamentary bill in support of women’s suffrage and his bill to abolish a woman’s liability for her husband’s debts.12 A conservative ethos inconsistent with Hayes’s defence of women’s employment and rights nevertheless influenced her tremendously: social purity. In part a reaction to the great influx of newcomers to Western Canada that began in 1895, social purity was, like social Darwinism and eugenics, a biologically based philosophy that understood maternity, sexual purity, and racial regeneration as central to a healthy social fabric.13 It was her social purity-inspired belief in the idea of “the mother of the race” that caused her to declare women without children “barren, sightless limb[s] on the tree of life.”14 Despite having left her first husband, bearing two children out of wedlock and not personally rearing any of the four, she argued in the Winnipeg Free Press’s women’s page that marriage and motherhood precluded salaried employment because of the full-time commitment entailed in ministering to husbands and children.15 Hayes’s work as an immigration agent elevated her social status abroad, extended her the privilege of writing for foreign newspapers, and required her to hold public lectures at a time when women speaking in public was still a scandalous undertaking. In doing so, though, she subjected working- and lower-middle class British and Irish women who answered her immigration advertisements to governmental policies that turned women’s sexual proclivities (and their effects, like pregnancy) into moral, social, and professional violations that occasioned discipline and often deportation back to their countries of origin.16 Hayes’s attitudes toward teaching at Cavendish School near Gimli, Manitoba (1918–19), where she instructed immigrant children from Germany, Poland, Austria, and Russia, also belie the nativist politics of social purity. In her article “Speaks on Foreigner in Canada,” she associated those migrating from central and southeastern Europe with horrendous living conditions, vulgar traditions, a lack of education, unchecked sexual passion, and subversive politics.17 She blamed such immigrants for “race suicide,” because she understood them to pose a threat to British-Canadian demography. She elaborated these views in her 1928 fulllength melodrama, The Anvil (Marka Wöhl, 1927), which expresses the racial and cultural differences of newly landed “Galicians” in moral and sexual terms: their poverty and social degradation are characterized as a lack of Christian virtue and loyalty to Canada. Hayes’s playwriting also evidences this same contradiction between liberal independence and maternalism. For example, her early domestic comedies, written while she was still in Regina, also appear to be her most audacious – even radical – works. While there are no extant scripts of these plays, their play bills are quite revealing with respect to their subject matter. In spite of her secrecy and embarrassment in later life regarding her affair with Davin and their children, these plays use the salacious notoriety that her affair generated, including adultery, divorce, and the illegitimacy of children, as comic fodder.18 They also enjoyed a fairly high profile in the West.

16 0

Ky m B i r d

3.2 The North-West Mounted Police Barracks in Regina, where Hayes staged several of her plays.

The first performance of each play was put on in Regina’s North-West Mounted Police barracks or town hall theatres. A Domestic Disturbance (1892) was advertised as Regina’s “first local comedy,” and billed as a play about a “love child” and a “prominent man.” Hayes took on the lead role of Sophronia Bangs. Although it generated critical consternation for daring to lampoon local personalities such as Davin, the production nevertheless travelled to Moose Jaw and was independently mounted by the Winnipeg Operatic Society.19 Divorce for $50.00, the following year (1893?), also poked fun at marriage. While we only know that T’Other from Which provided the “highlight of the amateur season in 1894,” Duplicate Man; or, Too Much a Godfather (1897), later renamed A Bargain Husband, was interpreted openly by critics as a satire of Hayes’s relationship with Davin and played to “enthusiastic audiences” in Moose Jaw, Portage la Prairie, and Winnipeg. These were plays that expressed Hayes’s spirit of political rebellion and obviously endeavoured to create a counterpublic of women (and perhaps also men) who were sympathetic to upending the inviolability of marriage and impossibility of divorce. When Hayes left Regina in 1899, she also left playwriting and acting behind.20 In her return to the form in the 1920s, the blithe irreverence and comic rebellion against social mores that appears to have governed her Regina plays had transformed into a seriousness and dogmatism that equated ethnic differences with sedition and the social contribution of women with maternity and domesticity. There was obviously a market for her reform-minded work because, although never staged,

Slumberland S hadows : A n I nt roduct ion

161

3.3 Playbill for Kate Simpson Hayes’s Domestic Disturbance, Regina, 1892, “bought” by Harry Lindley, who performed it again at Fort Garry Park, Winnipeg, in June of 1897 (Hayes never received payment). A revised version for which she was paid, entitled A Bargain for a Husband, was bought by Alice Rowlands, who toured it along the western seaboard into the twentieth century.

Hayes mentions some discussions of turning The Anvil into a film.21 Midnight Express (19-?), her only attempt at realism, is a one-act play that offers a response to the exploitation of working women worthy of Hayes, herself: its main character suffers a tyrannical boss and, despite being bribed by him into a love relationship with the promise of medical treatment for her chronically ill son, she refuses to sell her soul by giving in to his egregious demands.22 Slumberland Shadows, A Christmas Drama for Wee Ones, is an expression of Hayes’s belief in the separate spheres dichotomy and how Hayes understood maternity to be bound up with race-based arguments of nation-building. Performed at least two times, this children’s play was first produced by Saint Mary’s Catholic Church, which sponsored a production in the North-West Mounted Police barracks at Christmas in 1894. It was again mounted in the town hall in the fall of 1895.23 A musical, magical tale, on the most literal level it is about being lost and found in the forest; however, the division between a real world of home and mother and an alternative or fantasy world of fairies allows one to read the play against the backdrop of social unrest between Europeans and Indigenous people in the context of European domination, colonization, mass immigration, and the Red River and North-West Rebellions.

162

Ky m B i r d

Slumberland Shadows employs tropes that were familiar to both adults and children in a contemporary audience including playing hooky from school, running away from home, straying into the forest, the discovery of fairyland, the dread of abduction, the threat of violence, and the fear of losing home and mother.24 At the same time, at least one contemporary reviewer recognized its relation to Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream with which it shares the Queen of the Fairies, Puck the servant, and a cast of fairy flowers.25 Its additional literary resonances, including “sermons in stones” (As You Like It), would have allowed contemporary audiences to make a range of associations that greatly expanded the meanings within this simple narrative.26 While its juvenile bacchanalian pleasures are designed to entertain young audiences, the play is, in fact, an object lesson in Victorian notions of obligation, self-restraint, social reform, and discipline to ensure good mothers that safeguard the nation. In this children’s fairy tale, the threatening contradictions endangering the girls are resolved in the final moments of the narrative by the textual strategy of a magical intervention. The play provides children with resolutions they expect and their fulfilment reinforces the dominant culture’s ideology: the enchanting resolution effected by Sandman’s corrective dust, accompanied by his moralizing, reaffirms the children’s stated ideals of middle-class, Anglo-identified family and maternity as they are represented in the ideology of social purity. It displaces these ideals onto an alternative world associated with slightly frightening beings, indigenous to the landscape, in whom the contradictions between civilized and savage, Anglo-Canadian and Indigenous, repression and passion, are resolved and reinstated in ways that echo the social control of reform advocates playing out in the Western regions of the country. Slumberland Shadows may appear to be a simple, straightforward fairy tale, like so many others of the genre. But its focus is hardly the magical and imaginary land in which the children find themselves. The play’s real concern is for Hayes’s vision of the health and well-being of the Anglo-Canadian culture which she thought under siege by immigrant and indigenous forces alien to it. At its heart is Hayes’s social purity-inspired belief in maternity in the newly settled west as the public responsibility of women. It endeavours to construct a conservative counterpublic of women in a remote, pioneering town like Regina committed to retaining the strong bonds between childbearing and childrearing as well as the welfare of the Anglo-Saxon “race.” It endeavours to fabricate in women a dedication to sexual purity, racial regeneration, and a vigorous, dominant, and well-populated Anglo-Canadian society.

notes 1 See Papers of Mrs Kate Simpson Hayes, 4, Scrapbook. See also Drake, “The Fair and the

Fairer Sex,” 61. See also O’Neill, “Nineteenth Century Theatre in Regina,” 9. Ms held by the author.

Slumberland S hadows : A n I nt roduct ion

163

2 The Exhibition was a grand manufacturing fair with a good deal of representation from the

3

4

5 6

7

8 9

10

11 12

13 14

agricultural sector, but also with some representation from the literary arts. Hayes wanted her writing to be recognized as a contribution to “the progress made by the provisional districts” announced on the cover of the Exhibition by Regina, in the area of the literary arts. See Canadian Northwest Territorial Exhibition, Archive.org, accessed 4 July 2019, https:// archive.org/details/cihm_06972/page/n4. Born Katherine Ethel Simpson and periodically listed as “Catherine” or “Kathleen,” she employed several noms de plume throughout her life depending on her age, the literary context, and the genre in which she wrote. When she was very young and publishing for the St Croix Courier in St Stephen, New Brunswick, she called herself “Ivy.” Her most common appellation was Mary Markwell, which she used when writing for the Winnipeg Free Press. She signed some work as Marka Wöhl, a German translation of Mary Markwell, and at least one story as Yukon Bill. Slumberland Shadows received very warm reviews in The Leader, the Toronto Week, and the Winnipeg Tribune when it was published in 1895. See Hayes, Papers, 4, Scrapbook. See also Maguire, “Convention and Contradiction,” 44. Henry James Morgan, Canadian Men and Women of the Time, 516. For an elaboration of Hayes’s biography including her relationship with Nicholas Flood Davin, see Bird, Redressing the Past, 93–112; Maguire, “Convention and Contradiction,” 1–25; 26–62; 63–84; 85–103, and dcb, s.vv. “Nicholas Flood Davin.” Hayes’s first journalistic opportunity was extended to her at sixteen years old by the St Croix Courier in St Stephen, New Brunswick, when its editor, having read one of her plays, hired her for a dollar a year to write for the paper’s children’s column. See Maguire, “Convention and Contradiction,” 28. Hayes legally separated from Bowman in 1889. See Bird, Redressing the Past, 110–11. Henry was brought up as Davin’s nephew and died fighting in the First World War. Agnes spent most of her childhood as the ward of Father Sinnett, a sexually abusive priest. When she reappeared as an adult to confront her mother, Hayes refused to meet her or to ever admit of her maternity, largely because she was now concerned it would negatively impact her public reputation. Hayes, Papers, 6, Books. During the first decade of the twentieth century she wrote literary works, including the “Indian” themed Aweena: An Indian Story of a Christmas Tryst in the Early Days (1906), and The Legend of the West (1908); Derby Day in the Yukon [pseud. Yukon Bill] (1910) is a collection of comic adult verse in the style of Robert Service; “The Taras Pioneer the West” is a serialized story that appeared in the Winnipeg Free Press; “The Trail Breakers,” a novel in manuscript about settlement in the West, was never published. See Bird, Redressing the Past, 104–5 and Maguire, “Convention and Contradiction,” 164–5. See Cleverdon, The Woman Suffrage Movement, 110. Davin’s May 1895 woman’s suffrage bill was “the first full-dress debate on the question in ten years – and also the last until the period of the Great War.” See Bird, Redressing the Past, 95. See also Drake, “The Fair and the Fairer Sex,” 61: Davin’s intercession was limited to “spinsters and widows who held property and paid taxes.” It should also be noted that Davin, at the behest of Prime Minister Sir John A. MacDonald, produced the Davin Report, which produced the Canadian the residential school system that has been responsible for destroying the lives of so many Indigenous Canadians. Valverde, The Age of Light, Soap, and Water, 15. Maguire, “Convention and Contradiction,” 117.

164

15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23

24 25 26

Ky m B i r d

Ibid.,163–4. Barber, “Women Ontario Welcomed,” Hayes, Papers, 4, Scrapbook. See Bird, Redressing the Past, 115–16. While there are no extant scripts of these plays, their play bills are quite revealing with respect to the subject matter of the plays. O’Neill, “Nineteenth Century Theatre in Regina,” 9. Ibid., 4. In Regina she also enjoyed some acclaim for her acting in the farce Turn Him Out (1886) and as Lady Teazle in School for Scandal (1777). For a critical treatment of The Anvil see Bird, Redressing the Past, 127–37. See Papers, 6, Books. Hayes also wrote a play entitled The Writ about which we know only that it won tenth place in a playwriting competition. See O’Neill, “Nineteenth Century Theatre in Regina,” 22. It was not Hayes’s only play for children with a veiled political inflection. Her adaptation of Cinderella or The Little Glass Slipper (1891), put on with a cast of fifty children from St Mary’s Catholic Church and staring her daughter Bonnie in the lead as Prince Lupin, was the first major fundraising activity of the Regina Council of Women during her tenure as president. Slated for a repeat performance before Lady Aberdeen (1857–1939), it was cancelled when several of the members took umbrage to a “police-man’s song.” See Bird, Redressing the Past, 115. See also Maguire, “Convention and Contradiction,” 46–7 and Hayes, Papers, 4, Scrapbook. I am thinking here of “Little Red Riding Hood,” “Hansel and Gretel,” and “Goldie-Locks and the Three Bears.” See Hayes, Papers, 4, Scrapbook, “Northwest Midsummer Night’s Dream.” The nineteenth century revitalized the work of Shakespeare and popularized fairy stories in editions of the Grimm brothers, but also in the many publications by Andrew Lang in which the tales were often retold and made more literary.

Slumberland Shadows: A Chr istmas D rama for Wee Ones 1896 k a t e s i m P s o n H ay e s (18 56 –19 4 5 )

CH a r aCt er s DoLLie-DimPLe, an earth child and schoolgirl: large apron over white dress with silver and gilt trimmings. bessie-bee, her sister, an earth child and schoolgirl: dressed the same as Dollie-Dimple. teDDy, their older brother and an earth child: in school dress: short pants, a coarse wool jacket or tunic, and boots.1 beLLe, their older sister and an earth child: in school dress, like Dollie-Dimple and Bessie-Bee sanDman, governs Slumberland Town:i a page’s costume of drab velvet, pink hose, and a three-cornered hat. PuCk, a mischief-maker: 2 tights of pale yellow, blue hose,ii and cap with feathers. queen oF tHe Fairies: all in white, covered with flowers, carries a wand. Dot, DasH, CHatter, FLasH, sPeCkLe, sweet: fairies all in white, covered with coloured paper stars.

i

Sandman is an adaptation of the character from northern European folklore, who puts sand in the eyes of children to make them sleep. See A Dictionary of English Folklore, s.v. “sandman,” accessed 30 May 2019, http://www.oxfordreference.com.ezproxy.library.yorku. ca/view/10.1093/acref/9780198607663.001.0001/acref-9780198607663-e-920.

ii

Breaches or drawers. oed, s.v. “hose.”

166

K ate Si mpson Hayes

AC T I

Scene i (Curtain rises on a forest. The forest is produced by having tree branches fitted into wooden blocks, which may be moved about in order to alter the scene. Chinese lanterns swing during songs. A semi-circle of fairies with their Queen in the centre.) Fairies (Singing.): Dreaming, dreaming, Lights athwarti elf-land are gleaming, Bringing the beautiful, singing the beautiful, Ringing the beautiful Slumberland dreams. (Softly.) Dreaming, dreaming, Star-eyes above us are beaming, They ring us the beautiful, bring us the beautiful, Songs that fall softly in Slumberland dreams. (Enter the Sandman with two sandbags. All the fairies bow three times.) sanDman (Swinging his sandbags.): Ho!ii Little elves, take care of yourselves, Footsteps are echoing by. Our haunt is invaded, elf-flowers look faded, The breath of earth blights us, Lo!iii Footsteps are nigh. (Fairies cower as if afraid.) To guard our retreat from earth-clogging feet, This sand, which brings magical sleep, Will I throw. (Shakes sand about.) Away little elves! Quick, hide yourselves! If you would the mysteries of earth mortals know. (Hangs a sandbag on each side of the stage, upon a tree.) (Fairies hide at each side of the stage. The Queen of the Fairies stands behind a tree at centre stage. Exit Sandman.) (Enter Dollie-Dimple and Bessie-Bee, their arms filled with books.) DoLLie-DimPLe (Crossly.): Oh, how I am wearied by lessons, And puzzled by bothering sums. My head is quite addled and muddled.

i

“From side to side of, transversely over, across.” oed, s.v. “athwart.”

ii

“A call to stop or cease what one is doing.” oed, s.v. “ho.”

iii “The imperative of behold, […] used to call attention.” oed, s.v. “behold.”

S l u m b e r l a n d S h a d o w s : A C h r i s t m a s D r a m a f o r We e O n e s

16 7

bessie-bee: Hark, Dollie! I think someone comes. (Fairies all laugh.) bessie-bee: I heard such a queer little chuckle. It gave me a terrible fright! (Lights grow dim.) DoLLie-DimPLe: Let’s hurry away. It is almost as dark as the middle of night. Now, for a race o’er the prairie. bessie-bee: What? Back to that stupid old school? Indeed, I won’t go. (Sits down.) Come sit down here. We’re free from our teacher’s harsh rule. DoLLie-DimPLe (Throws down her books.): There’s a lesson in music awaits me, (Sits down.) With horrible squeaky loud sharps, (Imitates.) It’s one, two, three. One, two, three. bessie-bee: Hush! I hear the playing of harps. (Both children rise and stand listening: the music becomes louder, then soft.) botH (Together.): Listen! Oh, what does it mean, dear? It’s coming right down from the trees. It’s running around in the grasses. DoLLie-DimPLe: It’s like fairy tunes played by the breeze. (Fairies are heard singing softly.) Fairies (Singing.): Steal in and out and roundabout, Sipping honey all the day. Roses pink, violets blue, Prairie blossoms bright and gay. Tra-la-la-tra-la-la-tra-la-la-la-la-la Tra-la-la-tra-la-la-tra-la-la-la-la-la (The children tiptoe about during the singing and peeping. They look frightened.) DoLLie-DimPLe (Looking over her shoulder.): Oh, Bessie-Bee! What can it mean? bessie-bee (Looking over her shoulder.): Oh, Dollie-Dimple! We’ll surely be seen. DoLLie-DimPLe: Let’s hide ourselves under this pretty tree. (The children hide under the tree centre stage, behind which is also the Queen of the Fairies.) bessie-bee: I’m not afraid. (Stamps.) (All the fairies laugh.) bessie-bee (Jumps.): Oh! Oh! Eee! Eee! DoLLie-DimPLe (In a whisper.): Why, Bessie! I ’magine the flowers around, Are making that horrible laughing-like sound. (Fairies heard singing “Tra-la-la” as before.) bessie-bee (Shivering.): Oh my! I wish I were safe at home. And school is so pleasant you know. DoLLie-DimPLe (Shivering.): Ye-s Bess! I’ll never more roam.

16 8

K ate Si mpson Hayes

botH (Whisper.): Come quick! Let us go. (Lights grow dimmer, the children begin to nod sleepily.) DoLLie-DimPLe (Yawns.): Why, what is this drowsiness? What does it mean? (Rubs eyes.) bessie-bee (Nods.): I’m sleepy – oh, so – slee – p – y. (Yawns.) Pray let– me– dr–e–am. (Both fall asleep.) (Enter Puck, dancing.) PuCk (Sings.): You may say what you will About humour and fun, About gammoni and jest, But you’re out every one. If there’s mischief abroad Every tongue goes a-cluck, And all is put down, To that imp, Master Puck! (Dances.) Now here’s quite a pickle! There’s mischief to do. The elves and earth children, Have got in a stew. So to mix up the matter, For good or ill luck, I’ll change Sandman’s eye-dust, (Switches the sandbags from one side of the stage to the other.) Pray, don’t tell it was Puck. (Dances off stage.) (At this moment the fairies, led by the Queen, troop out, singing, and dancing any pretty movement or figure.) Fairies (Singing.): Steal in and out and roundabout, Sipping honey all the day, Roses pink, violets blue, Prairie flowers bright and gay. Tra-la-la, tra-la-la, tra-la-la, tra-la-la, tra-la-la, tra-la-la, tra-la-la-la-la ! (They form a half circle about the sleeping children.) Fairy queen (Looking at the children asleep.): Highty-tighty,ii what’s amiss? What a funny pair is this! CHatter: What funny looking things! i

“A thief’s accomplice who distracts the attention of a victim while a crime is committed.” oed, s.v. “gammon.”

ii

“Expressing contemptuous surprise or annoyance.” A variant of hoity-toity. oed, s.v. “highty-tighty.”

S l u m b e r l a n d S h a d o w s : A C h r i s t m a s D r a m a f o r We e O n e s

16 9

They haven’t any wings. FLasH: Aren’t they ugly little frights? sPeCkLe (Nods.): I guess they’re cheese-mites.i Dot (Cocks her head.): I wonder where they came from, the odd little creatures? sweet: There’s something quite familiar. DasH (Critical eye.): Yes, about the features. Fairy queen: They’ve surely strayed here by mistake. CHatter (Dancing about.): Oh, when they see us won’t they quake! (Fairies dance about, singing Tra-la-la, tra-la-la, as before.) Fairy queen (Sternly.): Why are you sleeping, naughty elves? You have surely lost yourselves! You’re very naughty little girls, You’ve neither pretty wings, nor curls. (Stamps.) What brought you into Fairyland? Away! (Waves hand.) You mar our happy band. (Fairies all dance as before, singing Tra-la-la, tra-la-la, etc.) DoLLie-DimPLe anD bessie-bee (Wake up and stare in astonishment. Together.): Oh! Oh! Who are you? Dot: Oh, they are awake! How could they wake up? DasH: I’m sure it was that imp, Puck. CHatter: He’s always in mischief in Lollypop Town. sweet: Why, here he comes dancing upon thistledown.ii (Enter Puck, dancing. He tweaks one fairy, pinches another, twirls another around swiftly, all the while dancing gaily.) PuCk (Sings.): Oh, what a riot! Oh, what a racket! The dusty miller is beating his jacket, The man in the moon looks frowningly down, He peeps in the windows of Slumberland Town. (The fairies repeat the verse, making appropriate motions.) PuCk (Sings.): The fire-bug his lantern has blown quite out, The bees and the wasps are all in a pout, The stars, wide-eyed, are beginning to frown, There’s trouble a-brewing in Slumberland Town. (Dances out.) DoLLie-DimPLe anD bessie-bee (Together.): What a jolly little fellow! i

“The minute arachnid (Acarus domesticus) which infects old cheese.” oed, s.v. “cheese-mite.”

ii

“The down or pappus which crowns the ‘seeds’ or achenes of the thistle, and by means of which they are carried along by the wind.” oed, s.v. “thistle-down.”

170

K ate Si mpson Hayes

All cream and blue and yellow. (To Fairy Queen.) And, pray, who are you? Fairy queen (Bowing.): I’m Queen of the fairies! I live among wild prairie flowers, I gather the dew from the wild sweet rose, (Motions.) And live amidst the prairie showers. I laugh and dance all summer long, And winter is always like some sweet song. The poplar trees with the fluttering leaves, The tall rich grasses in waving sheaves, The clouds that curtain the Land of Night, Where life is a dream of pure delight. Fairies: Oh, life is a dream of pure delight! (Fairies dance and sing “Tra-la-la.”) DoLLie-DimPLe: Then you do not have to go to school, Or study verbs, or sit at a piano, A whole day, and get your fingers rapped, do you? Fairy queen (Laughing.): No! My studies are the pretty clouds, My music, the song of the wild bird, The buzzing of the busy bee, My work is weaving sunbeams, (Motion.) And we play see-saw upon a rainbow. (Motion.) Fairies (Sing, with motions.): Playing see-saw on a rainbow, Peek-a-boo with the stars, Running a race with the west wind, Pickling sunbeams in jars, Dancing about upon rose leaves, The dew-drops are kisses we blow Peek-a-boo with the star eyes, And see-saw upon a rainbow. bessie-bee: Then you must be – fairies. DoLLie-DimPLe: You must be happy little fairies! Fairies (Dancing about.): Oh, we are happy as shells in the sea, Happy are we, happy are we. Lighter and brighter than limpidi moonbeams, i

“Of immaterial things and fig.” oed, s.v. “limpid.”

S l u m b e r l a n d S h a d o w s : A C h r i s t m a s D r a m a f o r We e O n e s

171

Brighter are we, brighter are we, Soft is our slumber and happy our dreams, And music the rhythm of life’s melody! DoLLie-DimPLe: Oh, I’d like to be a fairy! bessie-bee: So would I! Fairy queen: You are earth children and cannot be fairies, unless – DoLLie-DimPLe anD bessie-bee (Together.): Oh! Can we ever be fairies? CHatter: Yes, by giving up all earthly things. DoLLie-DimPLe anD bessie-bee: Oh, we will! We will! Dot: Your lessons? DoLLie-DimPLe: Yes, yes! DasH: Your music? bessie-bee: Oh yes, yes! CHatter: Your school? DoLLie-DimPLe anD bessie-bee: Yes, oh yes! Fairy queen: Your mother and – home? DoLLie-DimPLe anD bessie-bee (Thoughtfully.): My mother? My home? (They look at each other irresolutely. Invisible music plays “Home Sweet Home,” and the fairies march in a circle about the children. Dollie and Bessie, half-crying, look wonderingly on. The music crashes in and the aprons upon the earth children are whirled off and away and they are transformed into fairies. All the fairies join hands, taking in the earth children. They advance and retreat, dancing and singing.) Fairies (Singing.): Dance, dance, dance, and sing, Fairest flowers and blossoms bring, Pearls of dewdrops all on a string, This is a happy day! Dance, dance, dance, and sing, Birds and bees are now a-wing, To Fairyland our prize we’ll bring, This is a happy day! (The fairies run off, taking Dollie and Bessie with them. Enter Puck, dancing, as they go off.) PuCk (Laughing.): Oh, what a joke! Oh, what a joke! I’ve laughed ’till I’ve cried. I believe I shall choke! (Laughs.) I’ve mixed up the sand, Won’t it be a surprise, If it ever gets filtered, In fairies’ bright eyes? (Sandman comes in slyly.) PuCk (Laughs.): I’ve mixed up the eye dust,

172

K ate Si mpson Hayes

Oh, what jolly fun, We’ll have ’ere tomorrow, It’s done! Yes, it’s done! (Dances out laughing.) (Sandman shakes his fist after Puck.) sanDman: That fellow’s up to mischief, He makes such heaps of trouble, And did you hear him laughing? I declare he bent quite double! He’s dancing like a sunbeam, I know there’s mischief brewing! (Looks at sandbags.) Why, someone’s changed my sandbags! So, that’s what he’s been doing! (Changes the bags again.) Oh, what an awful muddle It would be, to be sure, For if it got in fairy eyes, We’d never more allure. That naughty Puck! I’ll tell our Queen! He’ll want some real punishment She’ll whip him ’till he turns bright green. On mischief he is ever bent, He’s such a vain, vain fellow. With his jacket white and yellow. (Sandman goes out.) (Enter Puck hobbling, doubled up as if in great pain.) PuCk (Complainingly.): I feel so badly, I can dance no more, (Groans.) I’m full of sighs, (Sighs.) And my tears downpour. (Weeps.) My eyes with grief their pupils drown, I’m smothered in grief, And my hopes go down. (Shakes his head.) I know it’s the mischief this day I’ve done, (Sighs.) I’ll undo the harm, this one for that one. (Changes back the bags.) Now, I’m myself, and quite limber my legs. I’m sure I could dance on a spider queen’s eggs! (Dances.) What a wonderful world, and the heart how light,

S l u m b e r l a n d S h a d o w s : A C h r i s t m a s D r a m a f o r We e O n e s

173

It grows when we know we’ve done, the thing that is right! (Fairies heard singing.) (Curtain.)

Scene ii (A wood. Trees arranged to form little groups. Enter Teddy and Belle, carrying baskets. They are gathering flowers.) teDDy: This is the wood where our poor little sisters were lost. beLLe (Shivers.): It makes me feel creepy, ugh! teDDy (Looks up.): I think by the man in the moon they were tossed. beLLe: Don’t speak so loud! I’m afraid, aren’t you? teDDy (Plucking a flower.): Here’s a blue bell. a Fairy (Shrieks. Offstage.): Oh! beLLe (Jumps.): Did you hear that yell? (Plucks a flower.) a Fairy (Shrieks. Offstage.): Oh! teDDy: I say, did you hear that crying out? It sounded to me like a giant’s shout. beLLe (Stoops.): Here are some roses, pink and white. severaL Fairies (Shriek. Offstage.): Oh! Oh! beLLe: Dear me! I got a most terrible fright. (All Fairies crying offstage. Teddy and Belle look frightened.) beLLe: Why, the – flowers are – talking! teDDy: They’re crying. How shocking! (All Fairies crying offstage.) teDDy anD beLLe (Throw down the baskets. Scream and jump back.): Why, the grass is all red! beLLe (Crying.): I wish – we – were home – and safe – in – bed. (The Fairies suddenly appear, rubbing themselves and limping as if in great pain. The children do not see them.) beLLe (Picks up a flower.): Teddy, oh look, What queer little faces, They’ve eyes just like ours, And Teddy, my gracious! Just like our dear sister’s, As laughing and bright, My heart’s in a flutter,

174

K ate Si mpson Hayes

My head feels quite light! teDDy (Snatches flower, throws it down, tramples on it.): I’ll chuck off its head, It’s got no eyes at all, Girls are such ninnies, Come on, let’s play ball. (With consternation, Teddy turns and is confronted by the Fairies limping and rubbing themselves.) Dot: Oh, my nose! DasH: Oh, my toes! CHatter: I’ve got a bump on my elbow. FLasH: Oh, my eye! sPeCkLe: My arms are all awry. sweet: Somebody broke off my wee toe. Dot: I don’t think I’ll ever be able to fly again. (Tries to fly.) aLL Fairies (Squawking.): Oh, I’m in such terrible pain! (All limp and some fall.) beLLe (Awed.): You – don’t mean to – say you’re what we picked – up? Fairies (Together.): I’m a daisy! I’m a rosebud! I’m a bay-leaf! I’m a buttercup! teDDy (Going behind a tree.): I say, I believe we’re in for it now. I expect there’ll be a terrible row. Fairy queen: Did you not know the flowers that grow, Are delicate, rare, and sweetly mild? Over the prairie, sweet perfume we throw, And each little bud is nature’s own child. Fairies: The heart of the rose is all gladness, The chalice of lily deep, oft holds a tear And each little weed bears its sadness, Every leaf does its work, little dear. Fairy queen: God makes everything for a purpose, Though to us it may not seem quite clear. Dot (Crossly.): We are dreadfully abused! DasH (Pouting.): We are. We’re shamefully used. CHatter: Oh, I’ve been shut up in book leaves, And squeezed till the tears would start. sweet: I’ve been kissed by the daintiest maiden, And pressed to her loving heart. FLasH: I’ve been plucked for a gallant, Who took me from fingers so small,

S l u m b e r l a n d S h a d o w s : A C h r i s t m a s D r a m a f o r We e O n e s

175

And I’ve heard just the foolishest whispers, ’Till I’ve blushed: Oh, I daren’t tell all! sPeCkLe: The fact is, we’re used just as Cupid, Who’s inclined to make us his dart, We’ve been vowed over, cried over, kissed over, And in all things, we’ve played a queer part, sweet: I’ve given joy to a sick child, By just smiling up in her eyes. aLL FLowers (Nodding.): That’s what we like best, to comfort, For within flower-hearts kindness lies. Fairy queen: And each tiny bud will soft open, Just out of goodness of heart, And gathered by hands that touch kindly, We play in the world a kind part. beLLe (To Teddy.): All the lessons of life you see, Aren’t taught by books in school. TeDDy: They’re a jolly queer lot, it appears to me, That their methods are, well, rather cool! Fairy queen (Rubbing her eyes.): My eyes feel so queer, very queer. Now, who do you think has been here? Someone has shaken the poppy-red flower, Mandragorai o’ercomes my fading power. (All the Fairies nod.) Ho! Flower! Wake up naughty elves! (Fairies droop.) Come! Come! Rouse up yourselves! (Falls down asleep.) “No sleeping; no slumbering! Frown Star-eyes upon you! (Nods sleepily.) (Fairies fall down one after another.) We must guard those earth-mortals Under the trees, (Nods.) They are caught (Nods.) in the dream net of – Slum-ber-land-Town (Enter Puck dancing.) PuCk: Here’s a to-do. All the fairies asleep. Ha, ha! Ha, ha! Won’t the Sandman weep? i

“A plant genus of the nightshade family. Figuratively, used to describe something that has hypnotic or soothing properties.” oed, s.v. “mandragora.”

176

K ate Si mpson Hayes

(Dances about fairies.) Ha, ha! Mix ’em up. Ha, ha! Mix ’em down, Oh, Puck’s the gay fellow of Slumberland Town! (Dances out.) (Curtains at the back of stage part. Dollie and Bessie lying asleep under tree.) DoLLie-DimPLe (Waking up.): Oh, Bessie, have I been asleep? bessie-bee: I have had such a funny dream! DoLLie-DimPLe (Jumping up.): Why, so had I. I had a peep into Slumberland Town. How odd it did seem! (Teddy and Belle run in.) teDDy (Shouts.): Here’s little sister! beLLe: Oh, girls, Mama thought you were lost! DoLLie-DimPLe: I’m sorry ’twas only a dream. bessie-bee: Things are not always what they seem. beLLe (Reaching up.): There’s a butterfly chasing a sunbeam! DoLLie-DimPLe: Bess, there are “sermons in Stones,” and lessons in little brooks.3 teDDy (Turning to go.): Then hurray for home and our books! Fairies (Sing, with motions.): Playing see-saw on a rainbow, Peek-a-boo with the stars, Running a race with the west wind, Pickling moonbeams in jars, Dancing about upon rose leaves, The dew-drops are kisses we blow. Peek-a-boo with the star eyes, And see-saw upon a rainbow. (Enter Puck and the Sandman from opposite sides.) PuCk anD tHe sanDman (Sing, with motions.): Oh, who will go riding to Slumberland Town? The gates are unbarred, and the locks are let down, The paths are paved with white thistle-down, And browniesi run riot in Slumberland Town. aLL: The horses a-riding of doughnuts are made, The cows in cake pastures in sugar are laid, The chickens and turkeys they all gobble gold, And the half of its wonders have never been told. Butterflies dance in the sunshine all day, We never have work there, it always is play, So under eyelashes of golden and brown, i

“A benevolent spirit or goblin, of shaggy appearance, supposed to haunt old houses.” oed, s.v. “brownie.”

S l u m b e r l a n d S h a d o w s : A C h r i s t m a s D r a m a f o r We e O n e s

177

A-riding, nid-noddingi to Slumberland Town. Oh, who will go riding to Slumberland Town? The locks are unbarred and the gates are let down, The paths are paved with white thistle-down, And brownies run riot in Slumberland Town. DoLLie-DimPLe anD bessie-bee (Shaking their heads.): Well, we don’t want to go there. We want to go home. Fairies (Circle about the children. Sing coaxingly.): We’ll take you to ride on a rainbow, To play hide-and-seek with the stars, We’ll give you dew wine from the lily, And pickled bee kisses from jars. We’ll teach you to dance on a rose leaf, And wonderful things will you know, The Milky Way to the Starland, Where the flowers of the Elfland blow. TeDDy: Oh, it’s all very fine, I’ve no doubt, But the girls would rather go home. DoLLie-DimPLe, bessie-bee, anD beLLe (Nodding.): Oh yes, we would rather go home. Fairies (Laugh and point.): Oh, what little sillies! Just see us dance. (They dance a pretty figure.) DoLLie-DimPLe: We’d rather go home and learn our lessons. bessie-bee: It would be very tiresome to dance all day. (Enter Puck dancing.) PuCk: Hullo! What’s amiss? Where’s the Sandman? Who is this? (Looks at Teddy.) sanDman (Enters, throwing his dust.): Here I am, as prompt as you please. (Bows.) There’s surely about us a peculiar breeze. (Shivers.) I’ve caught a cold. I’m going to sneeze. (Sneezes.) (Earth children all run off.) PuCk: There is a saying, as old as the hills, There is ever a cure for the worst of ills. In Elfland as well as on the earth the chase, After ease and getting things out of place. So, from this little story in very bad rhyme, i

British in origin. That which “nods or sways repeatedly.” oed, s.v. “nid-nod.”

178

K ate Si mpson Hayes

Take notice, for everything there is a time.4 And the very best plan, as you all may see, (Motion.) Is for you to be you and me to be me. (Fairies, Sandman, Puck all join hands. The earth children reappear at the rear of the stage. The lanterns begin to swing. All sing.) aLL (Sing.): Oh, who will go riding to Slumberland Town? The gates are unbarred and the bars are let down, So under eyelashes of golden and brown, A-riding, nid-nodding to Slumberland Town. f inis

notes 1 Boys like Teddy would have worn short pants, a coarse wool jacket or tunic, and boots. For

examples of both types of school dress in the 1890s British Columbia see “Lochiel the One Room School,” Langley Centennial Museum and National Exhibition Centre, accessed 13 Jan 2014, http://www.langleymuseum.org/pdfs/lochiel-school.pdf. 2 Like the Shakespearian figure from Midsummer Night’s Dream upon whom he is loosely based and with whom he shares a name, Puck creates the conditions for the drama of the play by confusing the earth world and fairy world. 3 As You Like It 2.1, 563–4. 4 Ecclesiastes 3:1–8.

4 T he Jog gsville Convention A n Introduction ky m bi r D

Of her not insubstantial oeuvre of fourteen dramatic works, Joggsville Convention was among Clara Rothwell Anderson’s most popular. It endeavours to construct a world view that places a counterpublic of Anglo-Canadian women, arguably across classes, at the centre of which is the socially oriented ideas of the social gospel.1 Its characters take on issues in popular culture that arose in the press and the pulpit having to do with sex, sexuality, money, marriage, and child-rearing. But most of all, the play is a satirical parody, a spoof of women in the public, political world; it lampoons a women’s meeting and therefore women’s ability to organize, to educate, to be informed, to sustain political convictions, and act independently. It is designated a “Character Sketch Entertainment” because, unlike Anderson’s preponderance of romantic comedies, it was developed to engender a new type of feminist aesthetic. Its breaks with dramatic convention, and its freedom from the constraints of genre open up its subject matter to a wide range of critical observations on AngloCanadian women’s culture within organizations in the world of the nineteen tens and twenties. Clara Rothwell was born on 3 June 1871 in Listowel, Ontario, to Sarah Cozens and Benjamin Rothwell.2 She was the fourth of six children and just ten years old when her mother fell ill and died. It was Clara’s father, therefore, who became her most formative influence. Having immigrated to Elma, Ontario, from Gloucester, Ireland, during the potato famine, Benjamin Rothwell founded Listowel’s first public school and was its principal for most of his professional career; he was also clerk and treasurer of the municipality. Rothwell bequeathed his passion for theatre and literature to his daughter, but this was less apparent when she was young and chose to study music. She took private instruction with a local organist and then studied with the Toronto Conservatory of Music. After graduation, she accepted the position of soprano soloist of Toronto’s Trinity Methodist Church. She then moved to Chatham where she undertook the more elaborate role of choir leader in a church

18 0

Ky m B i r d

4.1 Taken on the porch of the manse during Anderson’s most prolific period of playwriting. From left to right, the maid (name unknown), Clara Rothwell Anderson with her daughter Jean in her arms, her oldest son Bruce with the family dog, the reverend P.W. Anderson, and her middle child Murray.

there. But Rothwell Anderson’s musical career abruptly ended when she married Knox College theology student Peter William Anderson. Never again did she perform as a soloist or lead a choir.3 Her husband held two relatively short-lived pastorates in the small Ontario towns of Mount Pleasant and Shelburne, and it was during his stay in Shelburne that Clara gave birth to her first son, Bruce, in 1902. In 1904, the couple and their new baby moved to the Ottawa parish of MacKay Presbyterian Church.4 The Andersons lived in the manse next to the church and there Clara bore two more children, William Murray in 1904 and daughter Jean a few years later. She enjoyed thirty years of domestic and authorial stability.5 Despite living in a working-class parish, the minister and his wife dwelled in relative middle-class affluence and associated with middle-class members of their congregation. The reverend received a modest wage, as was standard for the time, but the couple’s expenses – including the upkeep of the manse, its decor, and the garage for their new car – were paid by the congregation.6 Clara’s domestic work and the work of entertaining church members were aided immeasurably by a full-time, live-in maid. When the reverend died in 1936, Anderson moved from the manse into a retirement home on Laurier Avenue in downtown Ottawa. She died in 1958.

T he Jog gsv ill e Conve ntion: A n I nt roduct ion

181

4.2 Production photo of An Old Time Ladies’ Aid Business Meeting at Mohawk Crossroads probably taken in the Sunday School Hall of MacKay Presbyterian Church.

Clara had two related professional roles: she was Mrs P.W. Anderson, wife of the minister, and in that capacity attended church twice a day and was the honourary head of the Ladies Aid and the Women’s Missionary Society. She opened the manse to her husband’s parishioners and made it “available for Sunday evenings after church ... cultural entertainments, and large annual events” like her “Lilac Tea,” held on its porch and in its gardens in summer.7 She was also Clara Rothwell Anderson, playwright and novelist. From her north-west window overlooking the governor general’s gardens at Rideau Hall, she wrote all but one of her twelve dramatic works and one novel. She penned most of her plays in the tens and the twenties, roughly the period after the birth of her children and before the death of her husband.8 Her persona as a writer was independent of her husband and his ministry, and she was proud of the fact that she was a member of the Canadian Authors Association. She also cultivated a local, literary circle that included popular women writers Mary Esther MacGregor (pseud. Marion Keith, 1876–1961), another wife of a Presbyterian minister, and Madge Macbeth (pseud. Gilbert Knox 1878–1965), who also wrote plays, including A Demonstration of Scientific Salesmanship, anthologized here. In 1896, the church buildings were augmented by the addition of the five hundred seat Sunday School Hall, constructed behind the nave of the church, and it was in this space that the first production of each of Anderson’s plays was mounted. Put on yearly under the auspices of the active and influential MacKay Presbyterian Ladies’ Aid Society, the money made from the opening performance of each new play was donated to their treasury.9 Conventionally, the plays were twenty-five cents a ticket

182

Ky m B i r d

and, according to the church records, over $1,200 was realized from their presentation throughout the years. The play scripts were sold widely to women’s organizations in Canada and the United States at a cost of thirty-five cents each, and it is safe to assume that many groups used them to raise funds for their philanthropic initiates. Anderson also charged a five-dollar royalty fee for a single presentation of a play or 10 per cent of its proceeds, monies that augmented Anderson’s own coffers.10 The business of promoting her work, of preparing the manuscripts for printing (by J.J. Hope and Sons), designing and distributing flyers, advertising in journals, and corresponding with individuals and groups who bought and produced the plays, was discharged by Anderson herself. As Richard Foulkes reminds us, over the course of the nineteenth century, a “remarkable rapprochement” was achieved between the church and the theatre in which major intellectual thinkers of the Victorian age like Jeremy Bentham, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and Charles Kingsley recognized that the theatre was not an aesthetic monolith. Far from denigrating its participants, as was commonly thought, theatre actually helped cultivate spirituality, education, and self-improvement.11 Anderson and her parish considered her theatre a Christian undertaking, entirely in line with the aims and values of the church, even if there is evidence in her 1923 novel John Matheson that she was apprehensive of the possible censorship of her dramas by some of the parishioners. The plays were a form of evangelicalism, a “popular media [that did] not simply … reflect or communicate theology but, more important[ly] … increase[d] religious accessibility in ways that [gave] lay believers agency over their faith.”12 By the time that Anderson was writing, the church and the theatre were only apparently opposing activities of consequence for women. The church increasingly became associated with the feminine sphere and domestic feminism reinforced dominant religious beliefs and women’s traditional roles. It also helped develop a counter-public of women who were active participants in the church-related activities based on the idea that, as mothers and caregivers, women were responsible for the moral and social well-being of the community. Through its alignment with the social gospel, the church engendered social reformers and maternal feminists who initiated philanthropic reforms to “regenerate Canadian society” and Christianize the social order.13 For this reason, it fostered the Ladies Aid and the women-run missionary society, which became involved in a whole host of initiatives including the sponsorship of Anderson’s plays.14 The church, and Anderson herself, understood her plays as a significant contribution to parish activity and to the evangelical project that was at the heart of its spiritual mission. Anderson’s comedies were inspired by the middle-class evangelicalism of the Social Gospel movement in which Protestant churches of the time were immersed. They taught Christian morality and embraced an ethic of social reform, while beguiling their audiences into laugher.15 Most enter into the motif of secularization, the theory that modern culture “generally defined as industrialization, urbanization, and the expansion of the capitalist market economy, necessarily diminishes

T he Jog gsv ill e Conve ntion: A n I nt roduct ion

183

4.3 The Salem country Church in which this production of Anderson’s The Minister’s Bride was staged was located between London and Sarnia in Brooke Township, Ontario, on the northeast corner of the Lasalle Line and Salem Road. Eva Watson (front right in braids) played the lead. 26 February 1915. Photo by twelve-year-old John Hair.

the social significance of religion.”16 These comedies include: Afternoon Tea in Friendly Village 1862 (1917), An Old-Time Ladies Aid Meeting at Mohawk Crossroads (1912), Aunt Mary’s Family Album (19-?), Aunt Sophia Speaks (1940?), Aunt Susan’s Visit (1917), Here Comes The Bride (19-?), Let Mary Lou Do It (19-?), Marrying Anne? (192-?), Martha Made Over (19-?), Minister’s Bride (1913), Wanted – A Wife (19-?), The Young Country Schoolm’am (1920), The Young Village Doctor (1915). Each, in its own way, establishes a world in which its characters have renounced, either consciously or through torpid neglect, the religious values with which they have been raised in favour of a vacuous but seductive, modern, urban culture. The action of the plays involves returning characters and their communities to a prelapsarian age through the acts of a redemptive mother”: it is the figure of the mother that realizes the power of the social gospel to reintroduce Christianity and the church into people’s lives.17 For example, Aunt Susan’s Visit’s eponymously

18 4

Ky m B i r d

named main character arrives in “Golden City” to restore her family and their neighbours to Sunday worship and the Christian values that governed their rural lives in Pepper’s Corners, where they grew up. A similar conceit lies at the centre of Aunt Mary’s Family Album in which the characters reminisce over the old-fashioned rural stability and integrity of “Friendly Village” and Aunt Sophia Speaks where the audience is asked to commiserate with the main character’s clear-headed, smalltown Christian common sense. Afternoon Tea in Friendly Village 1862 represents the same kind of backward-looking idealism. In Martha Made Over the titular character learns that her concern with the material state of her city home must not supersede her primary obligations to God, church, and community. The first of these plays walks the line between the social pretense of country folk who are influenced by the materialism of the city and the intelligent nurture of a youthful urbanite. In the second, Anne’s education and liberal values as a new, urban woman underpin her Christianity and her related sense of truth and honesty influences her old-fashioned, patriarchal, and apparently godless guardian Mr Oldays and his Victorian daughter.18 Here Comes the Bride, on the other hand, features a character like Amy Jakes, “a smart, up-to-date” love interest who is suspect because she is associated with the city. Wanted – A Wife, The Young Country Schoolm’am and Marrying Anne? associate material aspirations with secularization and its pretty ingenues teach us that finding a well-heeled man flies in the face of honesty, integrity, religious adherence, and unadulterated love. The Young Village Doctor functions in the same vein, where the love interest is an independent, intelligent young woman who wants nothing more than to be socially useful as a nurse. Anderson devised her own Christian theatrical process and this process came before the success of the plays themselves. The overall value of a play, for Anderson, was not how much money it made or how many copies it sold, but the Christian ideals governing its production and performance. For example, in the preface to Marrying Anne? she cautions that in “preparing the play,” one must “endeavour to maintain a Christian spirit of tolerance ... and let nothing be done through strife or vainglory.”19 In The Young Village Doctor and Here Comes the Bride she urges participants to “maintain a spirit of Christian tolerance when preparing [a] play and if you can’t work pleasantly with others – do not accept a part.” Joggsville Convention (1928) is a comedy, but entirely different in form than most of Anderson’s other work because it breaks with dramatic convention and the backward looking “happily-ever-after” ending that closes her romantic plays. It has no causal plot, no identifiable story line, and no main character or pivotal event that propels its action. Its deviations from traditional romantic comedy provide a form of generic latitude that permits an almost entirely woman-centred type of humour to evolve. Its liberation from the constraints of genre opens its subject matter up to a critique of orthodox, Victorian womanhood and of Christian women’s organizations in the world of the early twentieth century. Yet, the play still resolves in a reunion of the women with their husbands who are so entirely unthreatened by their

T he Jog gsv ill e Conve ntion: A n I nt roduct ion

185

4.4 A photo of the Melville Church Group dressed in costume for the play Aunt Susan Tibbs of Pepper’s Corners, an adaptation of Clara Rothwell Anderson’s Aunt Susan’s Visit, Melville Church Group, 6th Concession, Markham Township, 1919. There are three rows of actors, dressed in costume. The front row from left to right: Mr Guy De Marchmont Coggs, Rebecca Jane Tibbs, Mrs Eliza A. Tibbs, John Thomas Tibbs, Aunt Susan, Senator Samuel Smith, Mary Alice Tibbs, Mrs Johnston Highborne, Madam Pauline Wizer. Productions: Melville, 14 November 1919, and Stouffville, 9 January 1920. It is unclear why an actor appears here in blackface given that there are no explicitly racialized characters in the play, nor is it the type of comedy with which such characters are associated. As this photo and figure 4.5 evidence, this did not prevent individual groups who performed her plays from employing such theatrical types.

wives’ political activities they send word to the convention that when the program is finished they will take “all in attendance for a motor drive to Beach Park.” Like Anderson’s other dramatic works, Joggsville is an ensemble play with a large cast of both speaking parts for and stock characters of women. It parodies a women’s organization, much like those to which Anderson and so many of her contemporaries belonged.20 As parody, the play constructs a counterpublic of women participants and audience members that esteem women’s independence on the one hand and

186

Ky m B i r d

4.5 An unknown production of an Anderson play.

that repudiate what they hold to be extreme political feminist views on the other. To this end, its characters fall into three basic camps: those who are convinced of the supremacy of men, those who hate them, and those who occupy a middle ground based on women’s kind-hearted maternity and evangelical sense of Christian duty. Joggsville elicits much of its humour from lampooning the stereotype of women’s inability to be rational and their lack of organizational skills and public sphere experience. At the same time, we know this play was performed by and for the very women it critiques. Its mockery of women’s political abilities is offset by a genuine interest in the changing nature of middle-class women’s lives as they begin to take up space in the public world of social, political, and religious institutions. It is a parody that is censorious of the ways these women do politics but it also pays homage their associations and social aspirations.

T he Jog gsv ill e Conve ntion: A n I nt roduct ion

187

notes 1 See Broadfoot, Holidaying in Canada, 127. Broadfoot makes the point that MacKay Presbyterian

Church supported an “evangelical congregation.” 2 For an elaborate version of Anderson’s bibliography see Bird, Redressing the Past, 140–9. 3 This decision seems particularly sad in light of the fact that the MacKay Presbyterian

4

5 6 7 8 9

10 11 12 13 14 15

16 17 18 19 20

Church completed a five-year project of installing a pipe organ in 1905 and had a history of a female organist in Mrs Elizabeth Reid. See Ashton, “The Macleod Years,” 31; see also Margaret Bunel Edwards, “The Anderson Years,” 35. New Edinburgh Presbyterian Church was re-nominated McKay United Church in 1925 in the wake of church union. As a point of interest, it was named after Thomas McKay who with John Redpath, was contracted to build the Rideau Canal and Redpath, in turn, is the grandfather of Amy Redpath Roddick, another important Canadian woman playwright of the age. See Bird, “No Blood on the Sheets.” The Manse was bequeathed to the church in 1894 by Christina MacKay, Thomas McKay’s daughter. See Ashton, “The Macleod Years,” 28. Ibid., 33. Broadfoot, Holidaying in Canada, 128; Margaret Bunel Edwards, “Anderson Years,” 41. Aunt Sophia Speaks (c. 1940) is the exception, written by Anderson a few years after her husband Peter Anderson’s death. MacKay and New Edinburgh Presbyterian Church, Ladies Aid Society. “Minutes Book of the Board, 1901–1920.” According to historian Alan C. Bowker, “She allowed her own congregation and deserving organizations, such as the ioDe and others during the war, to perform her plays royalty-free.” It is also important to note that some of the money raised by the Ladies Aid went to refurbishing the minister’s manse, so at least some of Anderson’s philanthropy was actually self-interested. See the cover of Here Comes the Bride. Foulkes, Church and State, 14, 91. Stevenson, Sensational Devotion, 6. Valverde, Age of Light, 15. Margaret Bunel Edwards, “Anderson Years,” 20, 23. Of her fourteen plays, all but one, I surmise, were written in the tens and twenties, roughly the period after her children were very small until a few years before her husband died in 1936. Gauvreau and Hubert, The Churches and Social Order, 7. Kilde, When Church Became Theatre, 7. Ibid., 9. Anderson, Marrying Anne?, preface. Approximately one in eight women joined women’s organizations. Prentice et al., Canadian Women, 211.

T he Jog gsville Convention (For All Women) 1910 C L a r a r o t H w e L L a n D e r s o n (18 7 1–19 5 8 )

CH a r aCt er s mrs gusH, reception committee: pleasant manner, fussy, excitable, wide frilly skirt, big hat with bright flowers, long earrings, scarf, etc. mrs granite, reception committee: long, dark, tight-fitting dress, stiff white collar, and little sailor hat (a man’s will do). mrs weakLy, president: nervous and uncertain, loses glasses, papers fall off table, wears cape, feather boa, hat with draped veil partly over face and hanging at back. mrs buLk, small woman, very stout, awkward, and sleepy: any full, clumsy, padded-up dress will do. mrs amy, slow to hear: any light-coloured dress with a becoming, old-fashioned hat. mrs boker, sits with Mrs Amy and corrects her: bright bonnet, wide, blue ribbon strings, and red flowers, full dress, lace scarf (a window curtain could be used). miss HannaH buskin, outspoken man-hater, thin, with a good voice: wears a very plain, dark dress. mrs biLker, secretary, very correct in minutes and procedure: any suitable costume. mrs Jones-Joggs, treasurer, proud and important: richly dressed with too many feathers on hat. mrs manForD strong anD miss anne Jane JoDe, visiting speakers: much overdressed, can wear bright evening dress, big hats, and long white kid gloves, but not necessary.i mrs rose, kindly and sensible, helping everybody: any quiet dress, bonnet, and glasses. PatienCe Parks, pale and tired: brings four children in starched white, one in arms (a doll), another in small bugg y sleeping (a doll). mrs stoate, knits and periodically jumps up to speak: any costume will do.

i

Leather made from goat-skins, from lamb-skins, or similarly soft leather. oed, s.vv. “kid gloves.” Online references cited for Joggsville Convention were consulted between May and June 2018.

T h e J o g g s v i l l e C o n v e n t i o n ( F o r A l l Wo m e n )

18 9

susie sweet, young and pretty with curls, small waist, and large bustle.i (In addition to the characters named here, as many other delegates should be included in the convention as space will allow, but don’t crowd). Old-fashioned costumes should be worn, if possible; tight waists and bustles add much to play. Don’t hurry parts. Speak distinctly and practice behind doors. Characters must act naturally. Take great care to select right people for parts. While characters speak there must be perfect quiet on stage. President should request all delegates to rise and address the chair while speaking. President frequently corrects speakers. The effect of these greatly improves the play. Should you wish the programme longer, introduce an organ march played in a spectacular fashion, solos, and duet before the closing poem. Arrange platform with raised space at the back for the speakers, small table, and chairs. Other chairs placed on either side, leaving aisle in front of the speakers table. Wall decorated with mottoes printed by hand in large capital letters on big sheets of paper. Crude coloured drawing, suited to the mottos, will add to the placards greatly, but is not essential. The convention opens with the reception committee arranging chairs and table, hanging mottoes, etc. Talk naturally about weather, hoping there is enough meat for dinner, etc. Some mottoes on the wall when curtain rises, namely: “The Child and Free Will.” “Eat less, Feed the Mind.” [To be discussed after dinner.] “Should Women Propose?” [If Not, Why Not?] Mottoes to be hung after the curtain rises: “The Fathers’ Allowance Act.” “Feeble-minded Men.” “Mothers and Bobbed Hair.”

AC T I (Morning session. Curtain rises. Mrs Granite and Mrs Gush arranging chairs and table. They look for the other mottoes, which Hannah Buskin brings in, and hurry to tack on wall, where all can read them.) mrs gusH: Oh, dear Mrs Granite, don’t the mottoes look so, so artistic? I do think it adds so much to a convention to have the walls decorated up, don’t you?

i

“A stuffed pad or wire frame worn below the waist under a woman’s skirt to distend it, esp. at the back; the part of the skirt projected or distended by this.” oed, s.v. “bustle.”

19 0

Clara Rot hwel l A nderson

mrs granite: Miranda Gush talk sense – read what’s on them. Do you think I’d spend my time nailing up chromosi for idle folk to gape at? Where are the rest of them? mrs gusH: Oh, Hannah Buskin is making them. She will be along any minute. I wonder if there will be enough chairs? mrs granite: She will be here if she promised. Trust Hannah to do her duty. Isn’t that a motto under the big basket? Hand me it. mrs gusH: Why, yes. (Reads.) “Feeble-minded men.” The poor things, hiding away under the dinner basket. mrs granite: Save your pity, they’re used to it: not enough gumption to earn a meal, eating off their women folks. mrs gusH: Oh, Mrs Granite, you are so cross at the men. I – I rather like them myself, that is … mrs granite: Which goes to prove that you are as feeble-minded as they are. Well, I hope you’ll get your eyes opened before this convention is over. Here – hold it up – give me the hammer – thanks. (Gives three great cracks.) There! miss buskin (Enters.): Here are the other mottoes. (Unwraps them.) I was making a few extra. I want this convention in Joggsville a success. mrs gusH (Holds up.): Oh, how perfectly lovely Hannah, such pretty colours. (Reads.) “The – The Decline and Fall of Man.” What man? Why, who do you mean, dear? Oh, I do hope not poor Jim Bolter. I heard he had a fall, but I did not know he was in a decline. He was so hardworking and good to his family. mrs granite: Here give me that. You don’t know what you’re talking about. Go and set the chairs straight. mrs gusH: Oh, don’t be so cross to me, please Mrs Granite. mrs granite: Well, I suppose you can’t help it. Here Hannah give me a hand. Put this one where it will be seen well. (Reads.) “The Fathers’ Allowance Act!” miss buskin: I expect this one will call forth discussion. mrs granite: Well, I’d dispose of it in a hurry if you asked me. They don’t need any allowance at all. What allowance do I get, I’d like to know? My man’s wages, that’s all. No more or less. I’d like to know where my allowance comes in. mrs gusH: I can’t see why you are so cross at the men, Mrs Granite. I think it would be a terribly dull world without them. No one to take you out, or get you pretty clothes, or anything. miss buskin: You never did have any backbone, Miranda. mrs gusH: Wasn’t it funny you married a man, Mrs Granite? mrs granite: Not so very funny: not funny at all when you have to live with one. Give me that hammer, Hannah. (Knocks hard and gets down.)

i

Short for chromolithograph, a type of nineteenth century printing in which the colour was transferred from stone to paper. oed, s.v. “chromos.”

T h e J o g g s v i l l e C o n v e n t i o n ( F o r A l l Wo m e n )

191

miss buskin: Here, I’ll take the hammer. I have to run home and get a pitcher of water. (Mrs Gush arranges flowers on table.) mrs granite: I can’t see what you want with flowers cluttering up the table. They’ll just get knocked over. mrs gusH: Oh no. They always have flowers at conventions. When you can’t hear, it is nice to have something to look at, and they are so pretty. mrs granite: Well, it’s more than lots who go to conventions. Not that I set any store on mere, outside looks. mrs gusH: You really are cross today, dear. I don’t see any good in being pretty inside where no one can see you. I’d rather look pretty outside. (Goes to glass, arranges hair.) How do I look, you dear old cross-patch?i mrs granite: You look as good as you can, I guess. I’m not blaming you. Here, put these away. We didn’t get up a convention to talk about looks.ii mrs gusH (Looks out of window.): I think I see them coming. We had better get over to the door. (Excited.) Oh yes, here they are. Now let us look pleasant mrs granite: I’ll look as I always do, no more and no less. (Enter Mrs Bilker with great book for minutes.) mrs gusH: Oh dear Mrs Bilker, do let us welcome you. Here is Mrs Granite, too, she is so delighted to see you. mrs biLker: She looks it alright. mrs granite: Go and set your basket in the kitchen. Your seat’s on the platform, since you’re secretary. You’d need a kitchen table for that book. mrs biLker: I just want it understood before the ladies arrive that as secretary, I am very particular. I want all details correct. I require my chair to be set two feet eleven-point-eight-nine inches from the president and half a yard from the table. mrs granite: Well, you can set it outside altogether, if you’re so hard to suit. mrs gusH: Oh no, dear. Set it just where you like. We could never carry on business without you. (Runs up to fix table.) mrs granite: Business would carry on if we were all dead, I’ll say. mrs biLker: You would specialize in writing obituaries, Mrs Granite. (Goes to table, measures with tape-line.)iii mrs granite: Well, let me know when you want one. (Enter Mrs Rose.) mrs gusH: oH, Dear mrs rose, Do Let us weLCome you. mrs rose: Why Miranda, is it you? And how is John? You look happy, child.

i

“A cross, ill-tempered person.” oed, s.v. “cross-patch.”

ii

“To prepare, make ready, organize, set on foot, bring into existence.” oed, s.vv. “get up.”

iii “A line of tape; spec. a strip of linen or steel marked with subdivisions of the foot or metre.” oed, s.v. “tape-line.”

192

Clara Rot hwel l A nderson

mrs gusH: Oh, my dear, old John. He is just the best, kindest husband in the whole world. mrs rose: I’m sure he is. How are you, Mrs Granite? Where had I better sit? mrs granite: Sit just where it suits you. You don’t need any showing. mrs gusH: Oh, don’t mind her, Mrs Rose. Come with me. Aren’t the mottoes beautiful? mrs rose (Uses glasses.): They do take away the bare look alright. (Finds seat.) mrs gusH: Do be more cheerful, dear. Aren’t you afraid you will hurt someone’s feelings? mrs granite: Conventions are no place for feelings. mrs gusH: Here are more coming. Whatever shall we do? mrs granite: Do? Do nothing, but tell them to sit down in their seats and stay there. mrs gusH: Oh hush! Here are the speakers with Mrs Jones-Joggs. mrs granite: Well, that’s nothing to get excited about. We’ve seen speakers before and will see speakers again. Where there’s women there’s talk. Keep cool and don’t lose your head. mrs gusH: Oh dear, I am all flustered up. I do wish I’d stayed off this reception committee. mrs granite: So do I. (Enter Mrs Amy, Mrs Boker, and Mrs Jones-Joggs with speakers Miss Anne Jane Jode, and Miss Manford Strong.) mrs gusH: Oh, it’s Mrs Amy and Mrs Boker. Come right in. We are on the reception committee. mrs amy: What is she on? mrs boker: She is receiving us. They always do that at conventions. mrs granite: Take your seats. I saw you both from my backyard before breakfast, and I knew you’d both be here if there was any getting. mrs amy: Get where I can hear. mrs granite: Well, you can’t hear anywhere at conventions, so sit where you like. mrs Jones-Joggs: Well, here are the ladies who are going to receive us: our reception committee. They will extend to you the hand of welcome. Mrs Granite, Mrs Gush, this is Mrs Manford Strong, and Miss Anne Jane Jode. mrs granite (Shakes hands stiffly.): You’re welcome. I hope you’ll speak up so that the folks can hear you. mrs gusH: Oh, it was so lovely of you to come to us. There is so much we want to know. Are women really wearing their skirts shorter and bobbing their hair? We are that ignorant here. mrs granite: Speak for yourself, Miranda. Mrs Joggs, you’d better take the folks up to the platform and get them seated. mrs strong: About the skirts Mrs Gush, I hope I have more important matters to occupy my mind. mrs gusH: Oh certainly, Mrs Strong, I hope so too, I am sure.

T h e J o g g s v i l l e C o n v e n t i o n ( F o r A l l Wo m e n )

193

miss JoDe: I trust you are training your children right. I will advise you to the best of my ability. mrs gusH: That is awfully sweet of you, Miss Jode. I – I am sure I would be glad if … mrs granite: She hasn’t got any. Most who come to the convention have grown-up families or none at all. mrs strong: I fear our message is too late. (Confusion as others come in. As many can attend as you have room for. They change chairs, talk, laugh, let books fall, run out for wraps. If possible, when one opens door, another closes it.) mrs weakLy (Enters hot and flustered.): Oh, I am so sorry to be late. The speakers are here too? Have they been here long? Mary and Bob just took down with the measles and their pa … mrs gusH: Oh, I’m so sorry. mrs weakLy: I really should have stayed at home, but I thought it was my first duty to hear the speech on child welfare. mrs granite: If it was the child welfare you were after, you should have stayed at home, I say. But now you are here, get things going. (Mrs Weakly starts for platform, drops umbrella and shawl, her bonnet goes crooked. She shakes hands and talks to speakers. Hot and perspiring, she mops face and looks for glasses.) miss JoDe: Madam, children should not have measles. It is not necessary in any well-regulated home. I will explain later. mrs weakLy: If you can stop them, I will be so glad. I am afraid I have left my glasses behind. miss buskin: Here try mine. They’re years too young for you, though. mrs weakLy (Looks around.): You just look like a lot of cabbage heads.i mrs strong: Perhaps you can use mine. They are a very expensive pair. mrs weakLy: Can’t see a thing. For all I know, you might be a sheep. mrs strong: Give them to me. (aside.) Such a lack of culture. mrs rose: Well now, that is too bad. Perhaps our secretary will help you out. mrs biLker: How can I? I won’t have a chance to take my eyes off my minute book. mrs weakLy: Whatever shall I do? mrs granite: Here they are. Mary brought them. You left them on the pantry shelf. mrs weakLy: Why so I did. I was cleaning currants for the cake I promised. mrs Jones-Joggs: Well, perhaps now all this unnecessary confusion is over our President might proceed to open the convention. (Clapping. Shouts of hear, hear.) mrs weakLy: Yes, yes, certainly, I shall just put it to the meeting. Is it the will of those present that this convention now convened be formally opened? (Silence.) Will somebody move? (No reply, umbrella falls, women motion to one another.) I wish there was a man here. They come in handy at making motions. miss buskin: That is all they are handy at then. i

“A dull-witted or foolish person.” oed, s.vv. “cabbage head.”

19 4

Clara Rot hwel l A nderson

mrs biLker: We do not require any man. I am quite conversant with business procedure. I second the motion that we get down to business. mrs amy (Quite loud.): Did she say get down to supper? mrs boker: No, not down to supper, down to business. mrs weakLy (Rings bell.): It has been moved and seconded that we start this convention. All in favour? Aren’t you voting, Mrs Granite? mrs granite: No, what’s there to vote about? If we didn’t want it to start, we wouldn’t be here. mrs weakLy: Well, if it’s the will of the meeting, I pronounce this convention opened. (Two more women come in. All look.) mrs weakLy: There are seats at the front, ladies. (They come up and get front chairs and take to back. Confusion.) mrs weakLy (rings bell again.): Order. We might now hear the secretary’s report. mrs biLker: Madam President, I have no report. This is our first convention. mrs weakLy: Sure enough. I had overlooked that. But we can’t carry on a meeting without minutes. Have you any suggestions, Mrs Rose? mrs rose: Well, well, perhaps our Treasurer could read us a little line or report that we might get started properly. Eh, Mrs Jones-Joggs? mrs Jones-Joggs: I understand what is expected of my position. When I have any money in the treasury, I will report. mrs amy: Did she say money? Say, Tom Begg has been left a mint of money. mrs boker: Hush, hush. miss buskin: What he needs, then, is a good, sensible woman who can help him keep hold of it. mrs granite: Well, she ain’t here, so let us get down to business, I say. mrs weakLy: Yes. Ladies, please don’t talk. I – I see where the president makes a speech. I can’t make one, I ... mrs rose: No, dear, of course you can’t. We don’t expect it of you. mrs weakLy: No, but I want to say, I want to say … mrs granite: Well, say it and be done with it. mrs biLker: Express yourself in concise terms, that I can embody your speech in my minutes. mrs weakLy: Yes, yes certainly. I just wanted to say that I am so glad we are having the convention in Joggsville. (Hear, hear.) You notice the subjects we are here to discuss. Just read them for yourselves. “The Child and Free Will.” (Confusion at door. Patience Parks enters with four children in starched white [two are dolls], one in arms and one in baby carriage. Another cries with fright: “I want to go home” and spills the baby bottle. Mrs Gush and Mrs Sweet try to help and find seats.) mrs weakLy: Just a minute, ladies, until Mrs Parks gets seated. (Ladies show disapproval.)

T h e J o g g s v i l l e C o n v e n t i o n ( F o r A l l Wo m e n )

195

mrs granite: Here, set down and keep the young ones quiet. This is no place to fetch a lot of youngsters to disturb folk. PatienCe Parks (Tired.): Oh, I am so sorry, but when I heard there was a speech on child training, I thought I owed it to the dear children to bring them. Set still and don’t move, Johnnie. mrs rose: You did right, Patience. Now, don’t worry about the children. Like as not they’ll all drop off to sleep when the speeches get going. I almost drop off myself, the speakers usually having soft voices that you can’t hear a word, but soothing for all of that. Here, sonny, take a cake. (Other children cry.) Yes, yes, there’s one for each of you. (Patience Parks looks after the children.) mrs amy: What did she bring all those young ones for? mrs boker: Hush, she’ll hear you. miss JoDe: Madame President, please restore order. I cannot possibly speak on the important subject of child welfare, if mothers insist on bringing untrained children. (Mrs Amy goes out and gets big coat.) mrs strong: That is right, we are losing valuable time. I never had any children, but for all that, I know how they should be brought up for the good of the state. PatienCe Parks: I wish I had stayed at home. CHiLD 1: Ma, I want a drink. CHiLD 2: So do I. mrs sweet: I will get them. mrs rose: Here are more cookies. PatienCe Parks: I had better get the baby’s bottle filled. (Clatters out.) CHiLDren: Mama. (Crying.) mrs rose: Hush, she’ll be back in a minute. mrs weakLy (Rings bell.): Ladies, we really must get started. It will soon be dinner-time. mrs amy: Dinner did she say? Let us go quick and we’ll get the first table. mrs boker: No, no, it isn’t dinner-time yet. Sit down. mrs amy: Let me know when it is. mrs weakLy: I want to introduce one of our speakers, Miss Anne Jane Jode, specialist on children, who will speak to us on child welfare. (Clapping. Child screams and climbs on chairs.) miss buskin: Sit down. Folks can’t see through you. miss JoDe: Madame President and ladies of Jonesville. mrs Jones-Joggs: Allow me to offer a correction. Joggsville, not Jonesville. mrs rose: Eliza Ann’s father, old Jeremiah Joggs, cut the first tree where Joggsville stands.

19 6

Clara Rot hwel l A nderson

miss JoDe (Puts up lorgnettei and looks at Mrs Rose.): Thank you, madam. I feel sure you mean well by correcting me, but I plead with you, as women, not to be so particular about mere trifles in the face of the broad and all absorbing issues of the day. (Coughs and uses handkerchief freely.) Would someone please remove these flowers, they – they play on my nasal organs. mrs amy: Did she say she played on the organ? mrs biLker: No, no, she’s got a cold in her head. mrs amy: What’s she got in her head? mrs granite: Nothing, if you ask me. mrs weakLy: Someone please remove the flowers. mrs gusH (Rushes up.): Oh, do let me take them. (Spills water on minute book and Mrs Strong’s dress.) Oh, I’m so sorry. mrs biLker: My report is destroyed. mrs strong: And my best frock. (Mrs Gush wipes up with handkerchief.) mrs granite: Here, take this and wipe up. Take out the flowers. mrs strong: That dirty rag will ruin my dress. mrs granite: It’s all there is. It’s the dishcloth, it ought to be clean if it isn’t. (Mops up.) CHiLD 1: I want a drink. CHiLD 2: So do I. (Patience Parks leads them all to a pail in the corner. Uses dipper.) mrs weakLy: As soon as there is order we will start. I wonder if you would mind making your speech short. I am sorry, but the chickens are nearly done. miss JoDe: I did come prepared to make a speech upon the all absorbing question of child welfare embracing the … mrs amy: Embracing who? This meeting is no place to introduce such a topic – embracing – the idea! mrs boker: No, no. Do sit down and listen. mrs weakLy: Order, ladies! miss JoDe: Embracing the subject so beautifully displayed upon the wall: “The Child and Free Will.” (Child gets up on chair.) PatienCe Parks: Sit down, like mother’s darling boy. CHiLD 1: I won’t. mrs granite (Sets him down.): Yes you will! mrs rose: Don’t be hard on the children, Jane. They are little growing things and not made to be still. They smell the roast chicken. CHiLD 1: Please, I want a leg. Mary had it last time. i

“A pair of eye-glasses held in the hand, usually by a long metal, ivory, or tortoise-shell handle.” oed, s.v. “lorgnette.”

T h e J o g g s v i l l e C o n v e n t i o n ( F o r A l l Wo m e n )

19 7

miss buskin: If those were my children, they’d be still. miss JoDe: I really must commend Miss Buskin on her attitude toward child training. She has struck the right vein. mrs buLk (Enter Mrs Bulk, panting and puffing.): Oh, I do hope … I am not … late. (Sinks into first chair.) (Mrs Gush fans Mrs Bulk and takes her wrap.) mrs granite: Well, you are. Don’t talk. Come over here and sit down, that is if you can. Here are seats. You’d better take two. (Mrs Sweet helps put two chairs together and gets Mrs Bulk seated.) CHiLD 1: Ain’t she big, ma!i mrs granite: Yes. PatienCe Parks: Hush. CHiLD 1: Say, I saw an elephant ’most as big at the circus. PatienCe Parks: Be quiet. (Goes over to bugg y, gives baby bottle.) mrs weakLy: You might perhaps go on, Miss Jode. miss JoDe: I was just going to say that this subject weighs on my soul. The crushing burden of it causes me night after night to toss wearily on my wakeful pillow. Sleep, nature’s sweet restorer, deserts my tired eyelids. mrs rose: Excuse me for interrupting, ma’am, but a good mess of onions eaten before you go to rest will make you sleep alright. miss JoDe: Madam, I’d rather sleep the sleep that knows no waking than be guilty of such a vulgar, plebeian act as eating onions. mrs amy: Was she eating onions? I thought I smelled them. mrs boker: Oh dear, no. Do be quiet. mrs amy: Guess it was the chicken stuffing. mrs granite: Please make your speech. miss JoDe: I would be glad to, but I will permit no more interruptions. CHiLD 2: I want to go home. (Patience Parks rises to take them out: one loses bonnet and cries. Mrs Sweet sees it under Mrs Bulk. She and Mrs Gush help her up and get it. They help the children and take them out.) mrs granite: Well, what Patience Parks don’t know about child welfare no one else can teach us, I say. miss JoDe: I am sure our sympathies go out to the woman who has just left. To raise a family of four children … mrs granite: She has eight. i

In the original text of this play, the two child characters are largely referred to as “children,” sometimes speaking together and often in lines not clearly designated to one or the other. However, very briefly in Act I, the following lines are attributed to “Johnny”: “Please I want a leg. Mary had it last time”; “Ain’t she big, Ma!”; “Say I saw an elephant most as big at the circus.” I have retained the neutral appellation “child,” as “Johnny” does not appear in the dramatis personae.

19 8

Clara Rot hwel l A nderson

miss JoDe: Eight. Do I hear alright? mrs rose: Oh yes. Patience manages real well, and they’ll soon be able to look to themselves, that is the first five. mrs weakLy: Now ladies, I think we can hear Miss Jode’s paper. miss JoDe: To the mothers of our land is allotted the stupendous task, immeasurable and incalculable in its dimensions ... mrs granite: Louder. mrs biLker: I didn’t get that last sentence. Just a minute please. mrs Jones-Joggs: While our secretary is copying her notes from the report, I would like to make an announcement. The membership fee for the Woman’s Protective Society is twenty-five cents, to cover a period of two years running concurrently. Please make a note of this. Should any lady not feel in a position to accept this financial responsibility, by paying twelve and a half cents down she can enter into full and free membership. mrs biLker: I consider that a most exorbitant fee. mrs weakLy: Perhaps we should not discuss this until our speaker has finished. mrs Jones-Joggs: Miss Jode realizes that this is a question of vital importance. miss JoDe: I trust that no lady will allow the amount to hinder her from joining a society which will eventually broaden her understanding. mrs rose: Well, ladies, do you think ten cents would be enough? Since we are considering the question of a Father’s Allowance. mrs Jones-Joggs: The other two and a half cents could, of course, be reserved for that purpose. The Father’s Allowance would naturally add to our expense. mrs granite: Not if the men don’t get more than usual to spend on themselves. mrs gusH: That is so, Mrs Granite. Why, my dear John never dreams of … mrs granite: This is no place for your John nor his dreams. He’d get the nightmare here. mrs weakLy: We might perhaps discuss the fee after dinner, ladies. The morning session was to be given over to child problems. mrs granite: Well, it has been. mrs buLk: Won’t somebody open a window? I’m fit to choke with this heat. mrs sweet (Fans her.): I’ll try. mrs granite: No, they won’t open. They haven’t moved since they were put in forty years ago. We ain’t going to break one, choke or no choke. mrs buLk: The air is heavy. mrs granite: It’s you that’s heavy. miss JoDe: Well, ladies, my time is gone. I regret I have not been able to give you my speech. mrs rose: Well, don’t worry about it child. Like as not, we wouldn’t know any more about it when you were through. We’re just passing the time pleasantly away, waiting for dinner. mrs buLk: It’s the weary work, waiting for dinner. (Yawns.)

T h e J o g g s v i l l e C o n v e n t i o n ( F o r A l l Wo m e n )

19 9

miss JoDe: I raise my voice in protest. I came here for the express purpose of making a speech and I do not propose to be diverted from my objective. (Mrs Gush hands note to Mrs Bilker.) Children are a great, yea, an overwhelming responsibility. But, up to the present, no one has been able to eliminate the responsibility. There are a few enlightened ones who have caught the vision, but the great masses … mrs buLk (Yawns out loud.): The pies and doughnuts are in the basket. mrs weakLy: Silence. mrs rose: Oh well, ladies, we all know that the children are a little work to raise. But, on the whole, I think the world is the better for them. Just don’t fuss over them. Keep them clean and wholesome and a bite in their mouth. Educate them up for this world and the next, then just seti back and enjoy them. mrs gusH: Just what my John says. miss JoDe: I regret that there are still women in this fair Canada of ours with such crude notions. mrs granite: Well, Mrs Rose has raised nine that don’t keep her awake nights. (Mrs Gush hands note to Mrs Bilker) mrs biLker (Reads.): Try and cut speech short. Chickens done to a turn.ii Convener, “refreshment committee.” (Ladies clap.) mrs weakLy: You might say the convention will be pleased to grant the request. mrs buLk (Asleep, partly falls off chair, two women help her back on.): Dearie me, I thought I was home in my own feather bed. mrs granite: Well, you ain’t. So, set up and keep your eyes open. mrs weakLy: I am sure we are all greatly indebted to you, Miss Jode. Have you more to tell us? miss JoDe: I have more to tell, were there ears to hear. mrs gusH: May I speak, Madam President? miss buskin: Step up to the front. mrs gusH: Oh, must I? I am sure, ladies, you will all be relieved to know that, at last, dinner is ready in the basement. (“Hear, hear.” Clap.) On behalf of the ladies of Joggsville, I wish to extend a hearty invitation to all to take part freely in these exercises. mrs boker: Well, I’m ready. Come on, Mrs Amy. mrs weakLy (Rings bell.): Shall we hear the rest of Miss Jode’s paper or shall we go to dinner? mrs granite: I move we go to dinner. The speech will keep, but the dinner won’t.

i

“To seat.” oed, s.v. “set.”

ii

“Roasted, done, etc. to a turn, i.e., exactly to the proper degree, precisely right: orig. in reference to the turns of the spit.” oed, s.v. “turn.”

200

Clara Rot hwel l A nderson

mrs Jones-Joggs: I second that motion. You can warm up a speech easier than you can warm up a dinner. mrs weakLy: Well, ladies, all in favour of omitting the speech? (All rise but Miss Jode.) Unanimous. Just a moment, ladies. Be on time after dinner. The subject, “Eat Less and Read More,” followed by “The Father’s Allowance Act” and “Feeble-minded Men” will be discussed at the beginning of the afternoon sederunt.i mrs Jones-Joggs: A moment, please. Will the ladies who promised to contribute toward the gallon of milk for dinner please meet me in the back room at 1:30 p.m. and settle the account, that I may keep my books straight? Thirty-eight cents in all will cover the expense. mrs biLker: Madam President, I want to give notice of motion to be made at the afternoon sederunt. mrs rose: She means after dinner, ladies. mrs biLker: I trust I am expressing myself in correct phraseology. mrs weakLy: Yes, yes, you certainly are. mrs biLker: Thank you. mrs buLk: Ain’t it ‘most time’? mrs granite: Set down or you’ll fall. mrs weakLy: Ladies, let us hear our secretary’s notice of motion. mrs biLker: I beg to submit the following resolutions: That whereas women have awakened to their mental supremacy, and whereas the decline and fall of man is an accepted fact, therefore be it resolved that this gathering of women, being possessed of sound mental faculties and clear vision, do hereby be given instructions to take over the social, political, economic, and religious interests of the parties mentioned herein and hereby and herein and in pursuance of the above, the party of the first part do set forth to make, build, and construct a world wherein the party of the second part may dwell in abounding prosperity, and unto this I do hereby set my hand and seal. miss HannaH buskin: Beautiful. mrs stoate: I second it. mrs rose: I declare, I’m ’most ready to cry. mrs sweet: Perfect phraseology. miss JoDe: Good business form. mrs sweet: Why, I think it reads like a last will and testament. mrs granite: So it is. mrs amy: Who’s dead? mrs weakLy: Is this the will of the meeting? Carried. Is that all? mrs stoate: I want to know if mothers should cut off their hair? mrs weakLy: Please discuss that after dinner. i

“A sitting of a deliberative or judicial body.” oed, s.v. “sederunt.”

T h e J o g g s v i l l e C o n v e n t i o n ( F o r A l l Wo m e n )

201

(“Hear, hear.” All chat noisily. Declare it a wonderful meeting. Mrs Weakly leads the way with guests.) mrs gusH: This way, ladies. Such a lovely meeting. Yes, Mrs Bulk, I have reserved two chairs for you. Mrs Sweet will help you. (Curtain Falls. Musical selections and Orchestra.)

AC T I I (After dinner. Same Hall. Enter in groups, chatting, laughing, fuss over wraps. The first-comers choose the back seats.) (Enter Mrs Boker and Mrs Amy.) mrs amy: Now, that’s what I call a good dinner and no mistake. If there’s one thing I enjoy at conventions, it’s the dinner. I wouldn’t set a foot in it, if it wasn’t for dinner, since I never hear a word from start to finish. mrs boker: Don’t mind that, Rebekah. No one ever expects to hear at conventions. It is more a getting together. I think I will move a motion, though, that they speak up a little louder. It won’t do either harm nor good. mrs amy: Do Pearl, please, one gets so tired of looking at hats and mottoes. (Others enter.) (Mrs Stoate brings feather bed.) mrs gusH: Do let me help. mrs granite: Were you thinking of going to bed, ma’am? mrs stoate: I can’t close an eye on a strange bed, so just brought it along. I hope it won’t be in the way. It was getting damp out there. mrs granite: No, just roll it up in the corner and sit down on it. Chairs are scarce. mrs stoate: Thanks very much. (Starts to roll up the bed.) mrs buLk (Enters puffing.): Is there any sofa I could lie down on? I have such a smothering feeling round my heart. (Gasps, Mrs Sweet fans her.) It is always worse after meals. mrs granite: And little wonder, I say. mrs stoate: Come and lie down on my feathers a spell. mrs buLk: I would take it kindly, ma’am. mrs granite: Between you, you’d best take your bed out to the other room. Here Hannah, give a hand. miss buskin: Folks that have to go to bed at conventions should stay at home. We were just going to discuss the subject, “The World for Women.” mrs stoate: Well, if there’s any voting, wake her up. mrs buLk: Yes, that’s why I’ve come, so’s to vote. (Enter others chatting. Mrs Bilker and Mrs Jones-Joggs walking around with paper and pencil, talking and making notes. Mrs Weakly and speakers enter. Quiet.) mrs strong: You ladies serve a good dinner, Mrs Weakly.

202

Clara Rot hwel l A nderson

miss JoDe: They are good cooks. They have a part to play in the world’s work, minor though it be. mrs weakLy: Yes, there are twenty-five ladies getting it ready. It is too bad, but they said they’d rather get dinner than come in to hear the speeches. mrs sweet: Hardly that ladies, they … mrs weakLy: Well, I always feel that if the dinner at conventions is poor, folks lose all interestin the programme. That’s my experience. mrs strong: Might we not begin our afternoon sederunt? I see the ladies are coming in. mrs biLker: Please let us get started. I have a report to make. mrs Jones-Joggs: Just a minute until I get the rest of the money in for the dinner. (All chat.) mrs weakLy (Rings bell.): Ladies, I think it is time to begin, as there are many important subjects to discuss. Before we hear Mrs Strong, is there any business to come before the meeting? I think our treasurer has a report. mrs Jones-Joggs (Very importantly.): Madam President and delegates to the Joggsville Convention, I beg to submit the following report of expenditure up to date. I shall mention the donated gifts, for which there were no disbursements, in order that those present may have a clear-cut conception of how the funds have been disbursed. mrs amy: What’s burst, the bank? I’m going! All my savings. (Cries.) mrs boker: No, no, the bank’s not burst. Sit down. mrs Jones-Joggs: I ask that there be no interruptions. (Rings bell. Points with ruler.) The mottoes on the wall – “The Decline and Fall of Man,” “The Fathers’ Allowance Act,” “Feeble-minded Men” – were donated free of all cost by John Burn and Sons, Printers. I am sure we are all grateful to Burn and Sons for their generosity. (Clap.) miss JoDe: Personally, I would like to add my quota of appreciation. Burn and Sons, Printers, have displayed a broadminded and most commendable spirit. (Clap “Hear, hear.”) mrs Jones-Joggs: The other mottoes were prepared by Miss Buskin at a cost of one dollar thirty-nine and five-eighths cents each. The flowers for all the tables were donated by Mr Crocus (Clap.): none for expenditure. To one dozen pair of chickens, they were one dollar eighty-nine cents a pair. To fruit, three dollars. Other supplies donated. Total, twenty-three dollars and seventy-eight to nine cents. The Secretary will present a detailed account. The cost of a gallon of milk was covered by the following ladies: Mrs Bulk five cents, Patience Parks ten cents, Miss Buskin five cents, Mrs Bilker five cents, Mrs Sweet five cents, making a grand total of thirty cents, all of which is respectfully submitted. I move this report be received and adopted. mrs weakLy: Ladies, you have heard the report, is there …

T h e J o g g s v i l l e C o n v e n t i o n ( F o r A l l Wo m e n )

203

mrs biLker: I ask that my report as secretary be heard before the treasurer’s is voted on. mrs weakLy: Oh certainly, my mistake. We will hear our Secretary’s report. mrs biLker: Madam President, ladies, the first convention under the auspices of the Women’s Protective Association, convened at Joggsville at 10:00 a.m., Tuesday, March 6th, 1928, bC aD. The morning session ... mrs strong: Sederunt please, correctly speaking. mrs biLker: The session was occupied with business, and a most helpful address on child welfare and the training of children was delivered by Miss Jode. Miss Jode displayed a profound knowledge of the subject, the more remarkable since she lacks the personal touch. mrs granite: It’s the personal touch the child needs, I say. mrs rose: Oh no, they are tender little plants. Just keep them in the sun, the darlings. mrs biLker: I suppose I may proceed, Ladies? At the close of the address they sat down to a sumptuous repast of which all partook heartily. In this connection it would not be out of place for me to mention the donations toward same: one ham, stuffed, one roast, ground beef and pork eight pounds, beef shin bone four pounds, green bacon, two roasts of beef, ten pounds approximately in each. I might explain here, that the ladies decided to buy a front quarter and, in that way, got the meat one-and-a-half cents cheaper. mrs boker: What did you do with all the bones? mrs granite: Went to the “fathers’ allowance.” (“Hear, hear.”) mrs strong: Very commendable disposition. mrs weakLy: No more interruptions, please. mrs biLker: Half a bag of potatoes (Early Rose),i half-a-bag turnips, one dozen pumpkin pies, one dozen raisin pies, eight lemon and ten pumpkin pies, five pounds of butter, ten loaves of bread, six bottles of pickles, sixteen salads, nine jellies. mrs granite: Madam President, I move we’ve heard enough. We need to have eat all we ought to get something worthwhile out of this convention, or it ain’t going to pay, I say. I move we take all these reports as read.

i

The “Early Rose” potato was one of the first and most commercially important hybrid varieties developed after the “late blight” of the mid-nineteenth century, made infamous by the great famine of Ireland. Cambridge World History of Food, s.vv. “Potatoes, White.”

204

Clara Rot hwel l A nderson

mrs rose: I second. I do declare it reminds me of baking up for a threshing or barn raising.i mrs weakLy: If the ladies are agreed, we will accept the reports. Hands up. Now, is there any further business? mrs biLker: There was my order of motion. mrs gusH: Oh, I would just love to have the recipe of those lemon pies. My John just adores them. mrs sweet: So would I. I wonder if they used corn starch or flour? mrs biLker: All questions will be answered when the question drawer is opened, not before. mrs weakLy: Ladies, I must ask you not to talk. (Mrs Bulk snores.) mrs weakLy: Will someone please waken Mrs Bulk? Thank you. We will now proceed with the programme. Mrs Strong will now speak to us touching the different subjects which you see displayed on the wall. Mrs Strong is an able, forceful speaker and has a strong grasp of the subject. mrs amy: A strong grasp of what, her husband? mrs boker: No, her subject. mrs granite: The same thing, if you ask me. mrs amy: Oh I see. I thought she had a strong grasp of the fathers’ allowance. (Ladies laugh.) mrs boker: Do try and hear better dear, it is so awkward. mrs weakLy: Pardon the interruption, Mrs Strong. Mrs Amy can’t hear you. mrs granite: Neither can the rest of us. mrs strong: Please have a glass of water carried hither. Speaking always awakens a thirst in me. mrs gusH: Oh I am so sorry. (Enters with a big stone pitcher and cup.) Do excuse the cup. There is no glasses. mrs strong: It is immaterial. I accustom myself to hardships. (Drinks.) Ladies, I am sure I am deeply sensible of the honour conferred upon me in being asked to address you, and as the time is short, I will dispense with all preliminaries. The first subject is “Eat Less, Feed the Mind.” I consider it a most happy choice for an after-dinner speech. I, I, I ... mrs granite: Well, we’d rather hear about it after dinner than before. mrs weakLy: Ladies, please make less noise.

i

“Threshing is part of the harvesting process [and] involves separating the grains from the straw.” See Rice Knowledge Bank, International Rice Research Institute, “Post Production Course,” accessed 30 July 2018, http://www.knowledgebank.irri.org/postproductioncourse/ module03/Lesson_05.htm.

T h e J o g g s v i l l e C o n v e n t i o n ( F o r A l l Wo m e n )

205

mrs strong: Regarding the subject, I think we may safely leave it with the ladies. The very fact that you are here today listening to my voice proves that you want your minds fed. mrs granite: Yes, after they’ve eaten till they can’t read the title of a book without drowsing off. What about “The Decline and Fall of Man?” mrs strong: I was just approaching that subject. It is one I naturally feel great delicacy in approaching. To the thinkers of the day it is quite evident and borne out by scientific research that man is on the decline and, deeply as it pains me to say it, about to fall. mrs amy: Who is in pain and going to fall? mrs rose: Oh, no one, dear. Just some poor man we never heard of in Joggsville. He’ll be all right. Please go on, Mrs Strong. mrs strong: I see no necessity for elaborating the subject. Their very presence is at the root of the disturbing topic which it is now my painful duty to introduce, namely, “The Fathers’ Allowance Act.” For some reason, which is quite beyond my comprehension, some weak sister had conceived the monstrous idea that fathers should have an allowance which, being interpreted, means an amount of money regularly set apart specially to be applied to his own personal needs. I am sure you can see for yourselves how unnecessary and inadvisable this would prove. I think we, as a convention, should take a strong stand against any such suggestion gaining headway in our midst. miss buskin: Louder, please. I would like to know the voice of the meeting. (Mrs Bulk tries to get up to chair. Ladies help her.) mrs Jones-Joggs (Reads.): As treasurer, I feel that I speak with authority on matters pertaining to and dealing with money. I would, therefore, suggest that at such time as all household expenses including rent, coal, education of children, taxes, insurance, dentist, and doctor bills be paid, a percentage based on the remainder be struck i and that the same be known as “The Fathers’ Allowance” – to have and to hold. The spending thereof be subject to the supervision of his wife and not in any case to exceed the sum of twenty-five cents a week. (Clap, hear, hear.) mrs boker: Well, I would second the motion with one proviso, namely that for one month he does not spend the twenty-five cents, but add it to the next month’s allowance, making it fifty cents in all, and with that amount he takes his wife to some form of entertainment where the expense would accrue to that amount. (Great applause.) mrs amy: What’s it all about? mrs granite: Nothing. i

“To settle, arrange the terms of, make and ratify ... ; esp. in phrase to strike a bargain.” oed, s.v. “strike.”

206

Clara Rot hwel l A nderson

mrs rose: I think the poor fathers work hard for their money. It’s too bad they have to give it all away. mrs sweet: So do I. mrs weakLy: Ladies, before we go any further, Mrs Jones has to leave early and she will give us her recitation now. (Clapping. Recites well. Clap.) Only A Dad. Only a dad, with a tired face, Coming home from the daily race Bringing limit of gold or fame To show how well he has played the game But glad in his heart that his own rejoice To see him come and to hear his voice. Only a dad of a brood of four Among ten million men or more Plodding along in the daily strife Bearing the whips and the scorns of life With never a whimper of pain or hate For the sake of those who at home await. Only a dad, neither rich nor proud Merely one of the surging crowd Toiling, striving from day to day Facing whatever may come his way Silent whenever the harsh condemn And bearing it all for the love of them. Only a dad, but he gives his all To smooth the way for his children small Doing with courage, stern, and grim, The deeds that his father did for him This is the line I plead for him Only a dad, the best of men. Anon. mrs granite: Well, that’s good common sense, and more, it’s true. miss buskin: Well, the way to avoid trouble is to hold onto your own purse strings. mrs gusH: Oh dear me, I am afraid I wouldn’t have anything but string to hold onto if it wasn’t for my John. mrs strong: We will have the weak and incompetent sister in our midst. (Drinks, spills water on notes. President and treasurer help.) Oh do be careful. There, my notes are all spoiled, whatever will I do? Where are my “Feeble-minded Men?” (Looks through notes.) mrs granite (Wiping up.): All drowned, if you ask me.

T h e J o g g s v i l l e C o n v e n t i o n ( F o r A l l Wo m e n )

207

miss buskin: Well, leave them there then. mrs weakLy: I am so sorry that this should have happened. Perhaps you can remember some of the heads. mrs granite: The tail will do. mrs strong: I can’t begin to treat the subject in an intelligent manner without my notes. mrs amy: Who ain’t intelligent? Louder please. (Mrs Bulk yawns loudly.) mrs strong: It has been my high privilege to meet many feeble-minded men, particularly since my marriage or, more properly speaking, my two marriages. I have come into close touch with them. mrs rose: The poor thing, she has lost two men. mrs granite: Well, what of it? They’re at rest, so let them be. I move that we’ve heard enough speeches and that we have the question drawer. mrs stoate: I second it. mrs weakLy: Well ladies, I’m sure we are greatly indebted to Mrs Strong for the able manner in which she has treated her subject. Did time permit, we would be glad to hear her talk more. Now we will have the question drawer. (Mrs Gush whispers to president.) Oh yes, there are some lost articles which you can have by applying to Mrs Gush. Our secretary will read the list. mrs biLker: One pair of rubbers, number eight. (Holds up.) mrs buLk: Those are mine. (Jumps to go.) mrs gusH: Oh don’t dear, I’ll get them. mrs biLker: You can get the other things at the close of the meeting: two pair of glasses, one muff, three purses, one black comb. Also, there are some dishes to be claimed, six odd cake plates, one cracked bowl, and one odd vegetable dish with no handle. mrs boker: That’s mine. I lost it at the Jowes supper four years ago. mrs weakLy: Now, for the question drawer. Miss Jode has kindly consented to answer the questions. (Silence. Nudge one another to ask questions.) Don’t waste time ladies. Someone speak, please. mrs sweet: Go on Mrs Stoate. mrs stoate: Well, I was wondering if mothers of big children should bob their hair? mrs granite: No. mrs weakLy: Would anyone like to speak to the question? mrs gusH: If it is becoming and her husband don’t mind.

208

Clara Rot hwel l A nderson

mrs rose: Well, if it is thin and wispy and you’ve tried coal oil,i mange cure,ii and bear’s grease,iii and it did no good, why just cut it, I say. mrs boker: Women never were meant to have short hair. Whoever read of short haired heroines? The women who have lived in history and literature all had luxurious hair. It was their glory. Think of Cleopatra.iv mrs granite: Well, there’s no Cleopatras round here. miss JoDe: Woman is no longer dependant on her hair for glory. It is what is inside her head that counts. (Hear, hear.) mrs weakLy: Very cleverly answered ladies. mrs biLker: I have been handed this question. Shall I read it? mrs weakLy: Yes, by all means. mrs biLker: At what age shall a woman marry? miss buskin: Old age. mrs gusH: Oh, early. Don’t you think so, Mrs Rose? mrs rose: Oh yes, dear, I’m not particular. Anytime will do. mrs granite: Take a good man when you can get him, I say. mrs sweet: Yes, indeed. (Clap.) miss JoDe: I must take exception to the position the convention has taken. My ruling is that while a woman’s mind is developing she should not be handicapped by matrimony. mrs biLker: Is the world getting better or worse? mrs rose: Oh, better every day to be sure. miss JoDe: I fear I am not so optimistic as my outspoken sister. Unless we are successful in introducing many drastic reforms we are heading for oblivion, the fate that awaits all nations which drag behind. i

“Once a week, dip this brush in kerosene (coal oil) and brush the hair thoroughly with it. Kerosene is about the safest germicide you can use, and a little kerosene on the brush is good for the hair.” See Rock Island Argus, “How to Make Your Hair Look Beautiful” (1914), accessed 29 July 2018, http://clickamericana.com/media/newspapers/how-to-makeyour-hair-more-beautiful-1914.

ii

“Any of various skin diseases of mammals and birds caused by ectoparasitic mites, usually characterized by intense itching, inflammation, and hair loss.” [See Scabies] oed, s.v. “mange.”

iii “Bear’s grease has a long history of use in hair care regimens ... In the 19th century, people used bear’s grease to make pomades, a waxy substance similar to hair gel used to style hair. Magazines, newspapers and ladies guides also promised that bear’s grease would help grow hair as well as serve as a cure for both baldness and sores.” See “Bear’s Grease: A 19th-century cure for baldness, sores and cowlicks,” The State Museum of Pennsylvania, accessed 6 July 2018, http://statemuseumpa.org/philadelphia-hair-grease/. iv See Encyclopaedia Britannica, s.v., “Cleopatra Queen of Egypt,” accessed 6 July 2018, https:// www.britannica.com/biography/Cleopatra-queen-of-Egypt. “Egyptian queen, famous in history and drama as the lover of Julius Caesar and later the wife of Mark Antony.”

T h e J o g g s v i l l e C o n v e n t i o n ( F o r A l l Wo m e n )

209

mrs buLk (Yawns loud.): Oh, dearie me. I must have been dozing off. Conventions are so restful. It must be suppertime. mrs granite: Sit still or you’ll fall off. mrs biLker: One more question. Should a woman propose? Personally, I consider it quite within her rights. mrs gusH: Oh how confusing. Just think if he’d say no. miss buskin: I’d like to see the one who would say no to me, if I asked him. mrs rose: To be sure, they can always be given a helping hand. miss buskin: How would you go about it? mrs granite: No strong measures, Hannah. mrs rose: Well, I can hardly explain, but if I hadn’t made my John Edward feel at home when he began, he’d have never got through. miss JoDe: You mean you created the atmosphere: tactics unworthy of a woman. mrs rose: Oh well, what oddsi as long as John Edward wasn’t unworthy. mrs biLker: I am ashamed to know that you even countenanced such a procedure. mrs rose: I’m not ashamed of John Edward, that’s the chief thing. mrs sweet: I’m not one for saying much, but I think if they want us they will ask us. mrs Jones-Joggs: There should be some method of discovering a man’s financial state before accepting him. mrs sweet: Supposing he hadn’t any. Some haven’t, you know. miss JoDe: No sane man would find himself in such a position. mrs granite: There’s lots that aren’t sane then. (Laughs.) My man wasn’t. mrs gusH: Oh, I don’t think I would have liked my John to have talked money, that is, not just then. miss JoDe: Such weak considerations should not enter into the case. mrs weakLy: Ladies, this discussion is getting us nowhere. mrs buLk: No, not even to supper. mrs boker: Well, I can’t see how we, as a convention, can take a stand. We who are married are pretty well satisfied who did the asking, and the others could be married if they were willing to take a chance like the rest of us and not expect too much. mrs granite: I’m not one for long speeches, but it’s a fifty-fifty business, I say. miss JoDe: The ladies have answered this question according to their light.ii mrs weakLy: Are there any more questions? mrs buLk: When will supper be ready? mrs granite: Sit down, you’ll hear.

i

“Difference in respect of benefit or detriment.” oed s.v. “odds.”

ii

“According to the way one believes; according to the way one’s conscience or inclinations lead one.” McGraw-Hill Dictionary of American Idioms and Phrasal Verbs, s.vv. “according to own lights,” accessed 6 July 2018, http://idioms.thefreedictionary.com/ according+to+own+lights.

210

Clara Rot hwel l A nderson

mrs weakLy: It has been suggested that we sing a piece. It will rest us to stand up and hear some music. mrs granite: It ain’t always restful, the singing end of it, but we’ll try. mrs biLker: The selection is on page 86, “Silver Threads among the Gold.”i (Accompanist plays poorly. Makes three attempts to sing before going on. Someone holds Mrs Bulk up.) mrs weakLy: We still have some important items of business to wipe off the docket before supper. mrs buLk: I can smell it. mrs rose: Have patience, ladies, it will soon be ready. (Clap. Mrs Gush brings up note to president.) mrs weakLy: Our secretary will please read. mrs biLker: To the President of the Women’s Protective Association: on behalf of the men of Joggsville, we wish to give the delegates now in session a hearty welcome to our village and would request the pleasure of taking all in attendance for a motor drive to Beach Park where light refreshments will be served. Signed, John Burrill, on behalf of the Men’s Brotherhood. (Great clapping. “Lovely.” “When can we go?” “Just like them.” Some get up but sit down again.) mrs rose: Just what we would expect of them. mrs sweet: I knew they would do something nice for us. mrs weakLy: This is most thoughtful and considerate, I am sure. Shall we accept the invitation? mrs granite: Well, I move we go and waste no time. Where’s my umbrella? mrs weakLy: We still have a little program, ladies. mrs biLker: The drive is not for an hour yet. mrs strong: Madam President, on behalf of Miss Jode and myself, I want to express my appreciation of the lofty and commendable spirit displayed by the men of Joggsville in this expression of hospitality. I suggest we lose no time in accepting it. The social side of our conventions should be emphasized more strongly. Matters of lesser importance can wait or, should necessity dictate, can be placed upon the table. mrs amy: Is supper on the table? Come on. mrs weakLy: You have heard the suggestion, ladies. All in favour? (Clapping.) Then, there is just one more item: a closing poem written for the occasion, which will now be rendered. (Choose one who reads well.) Mrs____ will come forward. Poem When all the men are women i

Comp. H.P. Danks 1873, based on a poem by Eben Rexford, “What Does the Song Mean,” History Matters, The U.S. course on the web, accessed 22 July 2018, http://historymatters.gmu. edu/mse/songs/question4.html.

T h e J o g g s v i l l e C o n v e n t i o n ( F o r A l l Wo m e n )

211

’Twill be a happy day Our light shall ne’er be dim In that time not far away. When men are in their rightful place Which still is to be found We women will the world face Since no men are around. Their little race they’ve run dears Full weak has been their sway But the end is near at hand dears When they all shall pass away. From out the work day world dears No more the wheels they’ll clog Of purpose in our midst dears Their brain is in a jog.i No more to them we’ll grant Allowances to spend Lest it may turn their heads And to the store they wendii Their way, and waste their pay On four new hats a year Or have their hair marcellediii dear And buy much useless gear. With money, which to them we hand From our hard earnings saved Our children’s bread, the hungry band Who are so well behaved. Since papers we have now heard read On how the will to free At getting up and going to bed No trouble will there be. But peaceful-like they’ll wander off Their father’s footsteps in Who long ere since in bed dears In slumber sweet has been. Our hair we’ll bob at will i

“To shake or move (a heavy body) with a push or jerk; to throw up with a jerk; to shake up.” oed, Fig. s.v. “Jog.”

ii

“To turn, change.” oed, s.v. “wend.”

iii “A deep artificial wave in the hair produced by heated curling tongs,” popular in the 1920s. oed, s.v. marcel.

212

Clara Rot hwel l A nderson

Grandmothers though we be And will not take it ill Though all our friends shall see. Back to our homes we’ll turn With heart and tongue aflame And all who wish to learn Just how to play the game. Join the Women’s Protective Association. (Clap.) miss JoDe: Beautiful, the closing line particularly effective. mrs strong: Displays fine literary taste. mrs sweet (Wipes eyes.): Poetry affects me so. mrs gusH: Me too. mrs weakLy: Now, we just have a few minutes before the men come. miss JoDe: Let it be soon. (Clap.) mrs granite: The best speech she’s made today. mrs Jones-Joggs: I want some information along the lines of high finance. How can the fathers entertain us on their allowance of twenty-five cents a month? mrs strong: Practice economy. mrs biLker: Very commendable. mrs gusH: But, isn’t it perfectly sweet of them? I’m so excited. (Confusion.) mrs weakLy: In closing, I suggest that we show our appreciation of their kindness by joining heartily in song. All sing loudly – “He’s a Jolly Good Fellow.” (Disperse.) (Shake hands with speakers. Tell them, “wonderful meeting,” “great inspiration.” All in a hurry to find wraps.) Mrs Gush (Comes in.): The cars are here. (All hurry out.) (Curtain Drops.) (Should you wish the programme longer, introduce organ march played in spectacular fashion, also solos and duet. Let this be before the closing poem.) f inis

5 T he Red Cross Helpers A n Introduction ky m bi r D

The Red Cross Helpers is a two-act melodrama written by Sister Mary Agnes, the single most prolific playwright of early twentieth-century Canada. It is a play that stages women’s involvement in the First World War, the social activities that make them heroes on the home front, and the Catholic world view which vindicates and rationalizes their semi-public voices in this major, military conflict. Written in 1918, shortly after the United States had entered the war, it reflects the conflict from the American perspective, where Agnes was raised. A fast-paced, emotional comedy, its focus is upon the unbridled patriotism of American and American-identified girls who are the target of a clandestine attack by the evil Germans over whom they finally triumph. Its happy end involves the ritual expulsion of the enemy and the clown and the adulation of the female victor whose bravery and Christian charity preserves the country and the flag. Mary Agnes Ives was born on 20 July 1862 in south Boston, Massachusetts.1 She was eighth generation American on her father’s side, the first Ives, William, having set sail from Ipswich, England, for New Haven, Connecticut, in 1635.2 Her family were substantial people: her uncle was a botanist and helped explore the Colorado River in 1858. Her father, Edward Ives, was a successful broker who in 1859 married his fortune to the wealthy Elizabeth Hall, daughter of a merchant, thirteen years his junior.3 The Ives were sons of New Haven for hundreds of years so it must have seemed strange when in the 1870s Mary, her parents, brothers Charles and Joseph, her maternal grandfather, and three Irish servants moved hours west along Long Island Sound to Union, New Jersey. After graduating from secondary school, Mary ventured even further. She entered the Hochelaga Convent of the teaching Order of the Holy Names of Jesus and Mary in Montreal, Quebec. There, she undertook what was the equivalent of teacher training. On 6 August 1883 Mary Ives became Choir Sister Mary Agnes.

214

Ky m B i r d

5.1 Sister Mary Agnes and family. From left to right: Edward Ives (Mary’s father), Charles Hall Ives (brother), Mary Ives (Sister Mary Agnes), Joseph Christmas Ives (brother), Elizabeth Hall Ives (mother).

The Sisters of the Holy Names of Jesus and Mary was the product of a “devotional revolution” in Canada that constituted the Catholic Church as an important national institution.4 French in origin, it was one of the earliest female orders to form missions after confederation and provide assistance in dealing with the social consequences of the urbanization, immigration, and the industrialization of the culture. Female religious orders presented women with occupational opportunities beyond those of marriage and motherhood and the influence of the Holy Names Order on the career of Sister Agnes is a perfect example of the expansion of women’s professional purview. After her novitiate in Albany, New York, and three relatively brief teaching appointments at the motherhouse Boarding School in Hochelaga (1889–91), Beauharnois, Quebec (1891–92), and Windsor, Ontario (1892–94), Sister Agnes became principal of the Holy Names Academy in Rome, New York. In 1899, in the same capacity as principal, she was sent to Key West, Florida, where for close to six years she supervised the expansion of the Holy Names educational institution for “white” girls.5 In 1905, she was sent back to Quebec and was employed in helping to found Outremont Convent. After only one year, however, she was reposted to Outremont Boarding School (1905–57). Following a second brief return to her alma mater at Hochelaga (1907–09), and now almost fifty years old, Sister Agnes was granted her final obedience in 1909 in Winnipeg at St Mary’s Academy for Girls, where she spent the better part of the next twenty years. Sister Agnes enjoyed interesting and varied positions of prominence throughout her career, but

T he R ed C ross Helpers : A n I nt roduct ion

2 15

none so elevated as at St Mary’s, where she taught university-level classes, as well as performing administrative roles at the provincial level, including “Local Assistant to the Superior,” “Provincial Director of English Studies,” and “Third Provincial Councillor.” She retired to the mother house in Montreal in 1928 where she died ten years later at the age of seventy-eight. St Mary’s Academy, founded in 1869 by the Grey Nuns and bequeathed to the Holy Names teaching order seven years later, had a mandate to educate Catholic students in English, despite being a French order.6 It was among the earliest and most prestigious Catholic female educational institutions in Canada and, like those that would succeed it, served the daughters of the social and financial élite.7 In 1902, it relocated from the city centre to a new, state-of-the-art French-derived architectural structure in the Western Fort Rouge, which accommodated more than thirty nuns and boarded over one hundred and thirty girls. St Mary’s boasted a curriculum that fostered religiosity, breeding and decorum, “solitude,” and “refinement.”8 To this end, it provided classes in Catholicism as well as in the traditional female accomplishments. For professionally ambitious girls, it also offered teacher training and secretarial courses. In 1913, St Mary’s allied institute, St Mary’s College, became affiliated with the University of Manitoba and was accredited to teach women a Bachelor of Arts program.9 As a leader in women’s education, St Mary’s recognized the need to furnish women with post-secondary educational opportunities. The advanced goals for which St Mary’s prepared its female students are indicative of its progressive milieu and Sister Agnes, as a university teacher and provincial administrator, was an important part of cultivating these opportunities throughout the years she spent there. Although theatre was “regularly denounced” as sinful and seductive, it also had a history within the Church for inspiring religious feeling.10 As early as the 1880s, St Mary’s itself put on “performances and recitations at graduation or awards time.”11 This was the tradition in which Sister Agnes operated. In 1913, her playwriting was recognized by her order as part of her Christian work and they accorded her permission to publish. She also had conferred upon her the formal acknowledgement that her dramas and the dialogues were written “for the benefit of our English sisters preparing receptions and the festivals.”12 By 1923, she was advertising her plays in the trade magazine Catholic School Journal.13 The advertisements must have been effective because her obituary claims that “scarcely a day passed without bringing her an order to fill.”14 She “received ... orders for her plays from many different Sisterhoods ... from far and wide – England, Philippine Islands, British Columbia, New Brunswick, and from colleges and Academies of almost every State in the US ... letters of praise that are received after the play has been a dramatic success show us how highly Sister’s beautiful plays are valued.”15 The plays were staged yearly in the proscenium theatre under the chapel at the academy. They were used to raise money for various academy projects, both pedagogical and religious, and over the years were frequently incorporated into

216

Ky m B i r d

5.2 The theatre in St Mary’s Academy, Winnipeg, where Sister Mary Agnes staged many of her plays.

graduation and awards ceremonies.16 A Day with Pegg y was performed in 1928 to help offset the cost of the graduation ceremony and a production of Dialogues in 1921 earned enough money to purchase statues for the alter of the church.17 But, they were also staged for charitable ends that assisted in doing the work of social reform. Mary Magdalen, for example, was mounted in 1921 by grade eleven and twelve students to “help poor children in Europe.”18 Sister Agnes wrote somewhere between seventy and one hundred plays: all were published by St Mary’s Press.19 In doing so, she participated in a long tradition of women religious, reaching back to the tenth century Quem Quaeritis, who made theatrical contributions to Catholic culture. The dramatic work of Sister Agnes covers a substantial assortment of comedic genres, including mission plays, biblical and historical plays, allegories, occasion plays that celebrate graduation and Christmas, plays geared to certain cultures (such as her Irish and Japanese plays), and boarding school plays. Generally speaking, they are moral and religious comedies that inculcated in their high schoolaged audiences the values of Christian self-sacrifice, devotion, and charity. By and large they focus on white, middle-class, Anglo-American female characters that

T he R ed C ross Helpers : A n I nt roduct ion

217

5.3 The playbill for Mary Magdalen. A delightful little critique of the performance is written around the photo by the creator of the scrapbook in which this ephemera is pasted, audience member and student at St Mary’s Helen Beauchamp.

embody initiative, strength, and independent spirit. They proselytize and promote a counterpublic of active female Catholicism infused with Agnes’s own Americanidentified culture and a politics of domestic and equity feminism. The Red Cross Helpers is particularly interesting among Agnes’s large oeuvre for several reasons, among them is the way in which it endeavours to represent both US and Canadian allegiances. It takes place in Hudsonville Academy – Hudsonville being a real, geographical city in Ottawa County, Michigan – and is explicitly American in its patriotism and politics. Its stage directions, however, imagine the possibility that it can also represent British ideals when being performed before a British audience: “If this play is given in a British colony it can easily be adapted to changed conditions, by substituting British patriotic songs for American; the word ‘king’ for ‘president’; the British flag for the American; etc.” Its association with Britain and its defense of the war expresses the transformation in US policy from Woodrow Wilson’s August 1914 “Declaration of Neutrality” to the active US involvement in the war, as well as the sea change in French attitudes in Quebec, where Henri Bourassa had also yielded to Canada’s limited participation. Nevertheless, its locum of US songs, symbols, and sentiments with British ones fails to disguise the play’s glaringly American ideological assumptions.

218

Ky m B i r d

5.4 Probably a picture of the star actor for Mary Magdalen, Gladys Maber.

The Red Cross Helpers is also a play that stages the importance of middle-class women’s involvement in fundraising endeavours and the Red Cross in particular. Its representation of girls as selfless, self-sacrificing Red Cross helpers makes a direct connection between an expanding politics of domestic feminism within the first flush of women’s associations and women’s dedication to patriotic labour. The girls are, on the one hand, the epitome of conventional middle-class femininity as they convene their sewing circle at the opening of the play and adapt their domestic skills in service of the war effort, knitting for the boys overseas. In agreeing to consign their school to the military for use as a veteran’s hospital, these young mothers-in-training, evoke the famous First World War poster of “the greatest mother in the world,” the visual face of the Red Cross campaign that inspired eleven million new members in eighteen months.20 They also gleefully agree to raising funds to support the hospital. But in this boarding school drama, where teachers are mother/ mentors and children behave as adults, the line between private/domestic and public/professional is blurred. The most prominent characters, like the evil Hilda and Miss Schmidt, the good Elsie and Mabel and the vigilante Captain Frank represent women as strong-willed, independent thinkers. They are also fighters, up to the

T he R ed C ross Helpers : A n I nt roduct ion

219

challenges of the war, and while they do not speak of women’s equality with men – Sister Mary Agnes never did – they certainly acted out of a sense of duty, courage, and intelligence (even when misguided) equal to men. The Red Cross Helpers is a melodrama and employs fast-paced action, heightened emotions, and stereotypical characterization in a distilled version of the First World War: “free and innocent Americans are the victims of an unprovoked attack by the ruthless Germans, while Belgium is an innocent casualty.”21 It is also a dramatic adaptation of the “Widow’s Mite.”22 In each interpretation of the tale, it is a woman hero in whom the Christian value of charity and the American ideals of freedom, liberty, and property are wed. It positions the Germans as evil, and they are eventually vanquished, and although the antipathy for them is understandable – they were the real political enemy during the First World War – the play forgives them as they recognize in the young German student a respect for the culturally compatible ideals of love of country and family.23 This same respect is not accorded the Chinese character of Li Chang, whose comedic role involves being too improvident to submit to Christianity; he conforms to pejorative, hackneyed stereotypes that reflect the racism toward Chinese people in Canada and the United States at the time, including effeminacy and cowardliness.24 Like many of Sister Agnes’s other plays, The Red Cross Helpers overtly expresses the racism of the age. Its worldview relates patriotism and Catholicism with white Europeans only. This may seem surprising in an author so entirely dedicated to Christianity. However, it must be remembered that the laws in the US and Canada were themselves racist; the church and its hierarchy were white and congregations were segregated. Some argue that Christianity’s views respecting race have their roots in its endeavour to separate itself from Judaism.25 What is clear is that this play and others by Sister Mary Agnes have absolutely no reservations in separating out people who were worthy of women’s Christian activism and those who were not. The Red Cross Helpers, like all of the playwriting of Sister Mary Agnes, has a strong, evangelical disposition that endeavours to create a counterpublic of moderate feminists. It is one work among a huge corpus of similar plays that crusades for feminist-inspired Christian values. It uses the extreme emotions engendered in melodrama to conjoin in the minds of its largely female audiences the relationship between Christian service and war work and in doing so positions women and girls as defenders of the faith and active patriots in the military battle on the home front. It frames the battle as one between progressive American (and British-identified) values, the ruthless, warring Germans, and the preposterous racialized other: they were views that shaped the attitudes of many during the First World War.

220

Ky m B i r d

notes 1 I would like to extend my thanks to Miriam Malone, snJm, D.Min, a Holy Names nun and a

2

3 4 5 6 7 8

9

10 11 12

13 14 15 16

17

18

distant niece of Sister Mary Agnes who has been a great help in correcting and augmenting my knowledge of the Ives family. In “In the Habit of Independence” I incorrectly speculate that the Ives heritage is Irish. In fact it is English. The earlier Iveses were Protestant and Joseph Ives (1674–1755), William the patriarch’s grandson, was the first deacon of the Congregational Church in Cheshire, Ct. It is still not clear when or who other than Mary in the family became Catholic. For an extended biography see Bird, “In the Habit of Independence.” Murphy and Perin, A Concise History of Christianity in Canada, 197, 212. “In the new climate of religious revival, 57 new female communities emerged between 1837 and 1914.” Malloy, “The History of St Mary’s Academy,” 28; Browne, “Key West,” Floripedia, accessed 27 June 2018, http://fcit.usf.edu/florida/docs/k/keys04.htm. See Rostecki and Ritchie, St Mary’s Academy, 51. Murphy and Perin, Concise History, 211. See Rostecki and Ritchie, St Mary’s Academy, 51. In a 1936 advertisement for the school, St Mary’s claimed to “preserve a restful, secluded spirit of aloofness from the noise, the hurry and turmoil of the busy metropolis, gently insisting ... on solitude and calm as necessary factors in the attainment of that poise and dignity so essential to true culture.” See also Ruether, “American Catholic Feminism,” 3–12. See Chaput, Synopsis S.N.J.M., 9. The first woman graduat[ed] from this program through University of Manitoba with a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1913. In 1925, St Mary’s College associated itself with the University through St Boniface College and later through St Paul’s College.” Murphy and Perin, Concise History, 199, 209. Rostecki and Ritchie, St Mary’s Academy, 21. See “Chroniques 1909–1936,” n.p. “Avec l’autorisation de notre mère générale, soeur MarieAgnes a fait imprimé les drames et les dialogues, par elle composé pour le bénéfice de nos soeurs anglaises préparant des récepitions et des fêtes.” Ibid., n.p. Single volumes of plays were sold for thirty, thirty-five, and forty cents. A collection like The Queen of Sheba and Other Dramas sold for one dollar and sixty cents. “Généalogie.” “Chroniques 1909–1936,” 157. These plays include The Arch of Success (1912), A Shakespearean Pageant (May 1915; Nov 1928), Choosing a Model (Oct 1915), The Taking of the Holy City (Oct 1918), Arch of Success (1919), Mary Magdalen (Mar 1921), Way of the Cross ( June 1921), Little Cinderella (Dec 1922), A Harvest of Years (Oct 1924), The Last Vestal (1925), Pontia, Daughter of Pilate (Mar 1928), and A Day with Peggy (1928). See also the Helen Beauchamp “Scrapbook.” Beauchamp, who performed in Mary Magdalen (1921), calls Agnes an “enterprising person” for putting on “a play each year. Such a play must entail pupils in the whole school – so much planning to see that all is brought to the point of perfection.” For a more complete list of Anderson’s plays see Bird, Redressing. “Chroniques 1909–1936,” 278, 165. A Day with Pegg y was mounted by Factory Theatre Lab in Toronto on 5 December 1972 in their “Works I” theatre festival along with twelve other short Canadian plays. See Anton Wagner, ed., Brock Bibliography, 220. See Beauchamp, “Scrapbook.” Students raised a total of sixty-five dollars.

T he R ed C ross Helpers : A n I nt roduct ion

221

19 See Julien, “Bibliographic Notes.” Her obituary of 2 April 1939 states that “sixty-eight of her

20

21 22 23

24 25

compositions were printed.” See “Death of Sister M. Agnes.” I have been able to find titles for only seventy of her plays, not all of which are extant. See American Red Cross, A Brief History, accessed 27 June 2018. http://embed.widencdn.net/ pdf/plus/americanredcross/uua0vkekh3/history-full-history.pdf?u=0aormr. “The number of local chapters jumped from 107 in 1914 to 3,864 in 1918 and membership grew from 17,000 to over 20 million adults and 11 million Junior Red Cross members.” Bird, “In the Habit.” Luke 21.1–4, King James Bible. It is also important to note that Germans were long renowned among Europeans and their territories for their great musicians, philosophers, and writers, and the works they produced were often incorporated into Canadian school textbooks. Williams, Misreading the Chinese Character, 97; Peter Ward, White Canada Forever, 12. J. Kameron Carter, Race, 4.

T he Red Cross Helpers: A Patr iotic Play 1918 s i s t e r m a r y a g n e s (18 6 8 –19 3 9)

CH a r aCt er s gertruDe, senior graduate. HeLen, senior graduate. mabeL, senior graduate. LiLLian, senior graduate. iDa, senior graduate. marie, a Belgian refugee. HiLDa, a German student. eLsie, HiLDa’s half-sister. FranCes, “Captain Frank.” miss HoLmes, the Principal. miss sCHmiDt, “Miss Smith,” the music teacher.1 rHoDa gary, a detective. Li CHang, a Chinese laundry boy. eveLyn, an undergraduate. any number oF otHer sCHooLgirLs in a FLag DriLL. 2 (If this play is given in a British colony, it can easily be adapted to changed conditions by substituting British patriotic songs for American, the word “king” for “president,” the British flag for the American, etc.).3

T he R ed C ross Helpers : A n I nt roduct ion

223

AC T I (A room of the Hudsonville Academy,4 where the graduates of the following June have gathered to make useful articles for the Red Cross Society.5) mabeL (Holding up a knitted sock.): Now, that’s the fifth pair of socks I have finished since we began our Red Cross work; pretty good, isn’t it? gertruDe: Very good. I trust they will bring comfort to some of our brave boys “over there.”6i iDa: No doubt they will. I wish I were clever enough to make a pair, but I never could learn to knit. However, perhaps this scarf will be useful to some officer whose throat is hoarse from shouting orders above the din of the battlefield. LiLLian: Gertrude, do help me with this stocking. I am afraid the stitches are going wrong again. gertruDe (Laughing.): I think, Lillian, that if our soldiers had to depend upon you for their stockings, they would have cold feet. LiLLian (Sighing.): I know it. I fear I never shall be skilful at knitting, but I thought I ought totry, in order to do my “bit” for our boys at the front.ii HeLen: Oh, don’t be discouraged, Lillian. There’s enough work for all willing hands these days, and already the ladies of the Red Cross have complimented our teachers on the good work accomplished by the patriotic students of the Hudsonville Academy.7 gertruDe: It was nice of them to say that and we must live up to our reputation and send them another supply of useful articles before the end of June. mabeL (Energetically.): Yes, we will. Let each one of us consider what she can make best and outdo her former efforts. iDa (Laughing.): I think that candy is what I can make best. Shall I show my peculiar talent in that way and send the product to the Red Cross? gertruDe (Smiling.): No doubt our boys in France would be delighted to have your contribution. Ask Miss Holmes about it. I see her coming. (Enter Miss Holmes.) miss HoLmes: Hard at work, girls? That is right, it is the duty of every citizen, young and old, to help our government care for our brave men overseas. I am happy that you have so eagerly enrolled yourselves among the youthful helpers of the Red Cross. gertruDe: A personal interest in our brave boys “over there” increases our efforts, Miss Holmes, for you know that many of us have brothers at the front. i

An expression used by the American military during the First World War to refer to the Western Front. See oed, s.vv. “over there.”

ii

“To do one’s bit,” meaning to contribute or take a part in the war effort, however small, was an expression often used during the First World War.

224

Ky m B i r d

HeLen (Sadly.): Yes, and some of our dear ones have already paid the price for their gallantry and are now suffering in French or British hospitals.8 miss HoLmes: It is of that I came to speak to you. We are all anxious to have our wounded men back at home and our government officials, in looking for a suitable home for our convalescent soldiers, have decided that this building, with its fine locality near the Hudson, would be a most suitable place. What do you think of that plan? gertruDe: Oh it’s fine! iDa: A grand idea! I am dying to see the soldiers roaming over our school grounds. LiLLian (Smiling.): I’ll make all their stockings for them! HeLen: But when are they coming? miss HoLmes: Not so fast, my young friends. I merely said that the proposal had been made to turn our Academy into a hospital. mabeL: But you have given your consent, have you not? miss HoLmes: Yes, and the school trustees have formally offered the building and grounds to the government, but we have not received the final answer from Washington. mabeL: Oh, I am sure the government will accept. What can we do to help? HeLen: That’s what I was thinking. gertruDe: As the Class of 1919, and perhaps the last graduates of this Academy, I think we should make a donation, and a handsome one, to the new military hospital. How can we raise the sum? HeLen: Don’t you think, girls, we might give up our elaborate commencement exercises this year and receive our diplomas in the simplest way, thus saving a sum which could be employed in fitting up a hospital ward?9 aLL: Yes, yes, we will do it. mabeL: And let us devote to this purpose the money we would have spent on our graduation dresses, gloves, flowers, etcetera. Are you all willing? aLL: Oh yes! We’ll save in every way. miss HoLmes: Good, my dear girls. You have expressed my wishes exactly. iDa: I vote that Mabel be our treasurer and go around among the graduates to collect their donations. Will you, Mabel? mabeL: With pleasure. I am inclined to begin right now and here and pass around the hat. gertruDe: Oh, you must give us time to calculate expenses and collect our funds. HeLen: Gertrude is right. We don’t carry the United States Mint in our pockets, you know. LiLLian: Some of us may have to appeal to our parents, as they are too wise to furnish us with large sums before they are needed. mabeL: Well, I am going to tell the other graduates our plans and gather their contributions. (Exit.)

T h e R ed C ross Helpe rs: A Pat r i ot i c Pl ay

225

iDa: Won’t my father get a shock when he learns that I have turned economical and refused a dressmaker! LiLLian: And my dear mother will never believe that her vain, giddy Lillian has renounced all the “fine feathers” that were to turn me into a “fine bird” on Commencement Day.i miss HoLmes: I am sure that your parents will all be proud of their patriotic daughters. Now help me gather up these articles and get them ready to be sent to the Red Cross Society. (They all withdraw except Gertrude and Helen.) gertruDe: I wonder if Hilda and Elsie will contribute to our fund? HeLen: Why not? Of course they will. gertruDe: I am not so sure. Hilda is wholly German, born in Prussia. She never loses an opportunity of glorifying her native land and declaring its divine right to conquer and rule the whole world. 10 HeLen: Oh yes, I had forgotten. But Elsie seems different. gertruDe: Yes, she is only Hilda’s half-sister. She was born in this country and has an American father. HeLen: Oh, I am sure that Elsie is loyal, through and through. She has been one of the most zealous in working for patriotic societies and says she would be a Red Cross nurse herself, if she would be accepted.11 gertruDe: I believe her, but I have my doubts about Hilda. (Mabel returns.) mabeL: Oh girls! I have had fine success. (Holds up a purse.) I have two hundred and fifty-four dollars in this purse and have been promised much more when the girls have communicated with their parents. gertruDe: That is fine. Did all the girls contribute? mabeL: Nearly all. But, Hilda Meyer refused positively and said that if she has any money to spare, she would send it to the German generals to help them conquer Europe and America. HeLen (Indignantly.): The villain! The traitor! gertruDe: Not a traitor, Helen. We must be just. Remember that Hilda’s father and mother were both Germans and she herself was born in Germany. HeLen: Well, I wish she had stayed there and would stop flaunting her Kaiserism in our faces.ii gertruDe: What about Elsie? mabeL: I did not meet her. HeLen: Here she comes. Ask her. i

“If you dress elegantly, people will think you are elegant.” The Free Dictionary, s.vv. “Fine feathers make fine birds.”

ii

“Absolutism as exhibited in the rule of the German emperor.” “Kaiserism” was used by Theodore Roosevelt in 1914. See oed, s.v. “kaiserism.”

226

Sister Mar y Ag nes

(Enter Elsie.) eLsie: I have just heard of your project, girls, and am so anxious to help. But, you know that my family is poor and I cannot give as much as I would wish. I have in my head a plan by which I think I can give you a little sum at the end of the week. In the meantime, will you accept this ring as my contribution? mabeL (Hesitating.): But it is very valuable, Elsie, and perhaps a souvenir which you would like to keep. eLsie: That makes no difference. If you knew how I long to do something for our brave, wounded men! That ring was given to me last Christmas by a rich uncle. If you offer it to some jeweller, I think you will find that it has some value. mabeL: I do not doubt it. I have never seen a more beautiful pearl. (Puts it in the purse.) I thank you, Elsie, in the name of all the class.12 gertruDe: Now come with me, Mabel, and we will interest the undergraduates in the cause of our future hospital. (They withdraw.) eLsie: Oh, how I envy the rich people who can give of their abundance to help the many patriotic and charitable societies that appeal to our generosity these days. Well, I have given my “bit,” and I hope it will be acceptable in the sight of Heaven, even as was the “widow’s mite.”i13 (Enter Hilda.) HiLDa (Indignantly.): I have just met Mabel Gaynor, who told me you had given her your beautiful pearl ring to be sold for this hospital fund they are talking about. Is it true, Elsie? eLsie: Yes, Hilda. You know we have not much extra money to spend and the least we can do is to give up some of our luxuries these days. HiLDa (Angrily.): You need not say “we,” Elsie. If you want to make a fool of yourself, I cannot stop you. But, I shall not give one penny to help the enemies of my country. eLsie: Nor would I help the enemies of my country. You forget, Hilda, I am an American, like my father, and nothing is dearer to my heart than the cause for which my countrymen are fighting – to secure to America and the whole world the blessings of freedom, righteousness, and civilization. HiLDa: And I hope that the German arms will triumph everywhere and that all the nations of the earth will be subjected to the rule of our great Kaiser. Then

i

“Any small coin of low value; originally applied to a Flemish copper coin, but in English used mainly as a proverbial expression for an extremely small unit of monetary value.” See oed, s.v. “mite.”

T h e R ed C ross Helpe rs: A Pat r i ot i c Pl ay

227

will “Kultur” prevail, and all the blessings which follow when Prussian ideals are spread.i eLsie: Hilda! Do not boast now of German “Kultur.” The world has had a sample of it in unhappy Belgium, Poland, and Romania, and deems it a thing to be exterminated. The Prussian ideals are not those of Christianity, Hilda; they tend to enslave and brutalize mankind, not to uplift and ennoble. HiLDa: Oh, your education has been all wrong! I will not argue with you. eLsie: No, it would be useless. I thank Heaven that I was brought up in free America and imbued with Christian ideals. HiLDa (Contemptuously.): Keep your Americanism! My cry shall always be “Long live the Kaiser, and may he triumph over all his enemies!” eLsie: And I say, “God bless our noble President and our country, the American arms, and our brave allies!” (They go out in opposite directions. Enter Gertrude, Evelyn, and Marie with her arm in a sling.) gertruDe: Do you think you can make a success of it? eveLyn: Of course. There is much musical talent among the undergraduates and we want to do something in aid of the new hospital. gertruDe: Very well. Arrange for your concert at the end of the week and I will see that it is advertised in the daily papers to ensure a large audience. eveLyn: Will you sing a solo, Marie? You have the best voice in the class and we depend upon you to add a special charm to our concert. marie: You are very flattering. I will sing with pleasure if you are not ashamed to have me appear thus with my arm in a sling. eveLyn: Oh, not at all. It will give an added charm to your personality, and everyone will be interested to know your story. gertruDe: Why not tell them? I have an idea. Would you be willing, Marie, to make a little speech to the audience and tell them your experience: how the Germans invaded your native town, the desolation they wrought, and how you received the injury to your arm? I know the audience would be immensely interested, and it would greatly help our cause. marie: Oh my friend! It is not a little thing you are asking me. My English is still very imperfect, and I am timid before a crowd. gertruDe: You speak English very well, and the audience will overlook a few slips, even if you do make some. marie: But I am afraid I would break down and the tears would come, as I recalled those dreadful scenes I witnessed: the slaughter of our people, the ruin of our towns, and the separation of families.14 It was all so dreadful that I cannot think of it now without a shudder. i

“Civilization as conceived by the Germans; esp. used in a derogatory sense during the 1914–18 and 1939–45 wars, as involving notions of racial and cultural arrogance, militarism, and imperialism. Also attrib. and transf.” oed, s.v. “kultur.”

228

Sister Mar y Ag nes

eveLyn (Affectionately.): Poor Marie! You have indeed gone through a terrible experience and you have all our sympathy.15 marie: I know it, dear friend, and all your people have shown for my unhappy country a beautiful sympathy which the Belgians will never forget.16 If I comply with your request, it will be to show my gratitude for all that Americans have done for my people. I will think on it. (Goes out slowly.) gertruDe: Poor Marie! Her sad face reveals the sorrows and sufferings she has undergone. I hope she will live to see her country’s conquerors driven from it and Belgium once more the free, prosperous, and honoured nation it deserves to be. eveLyn: I devoutly wish it. Gertrude, as you are a skilled musician, will you attend the rehearsals of our concert and give us the necessary suggestions? gertruDe: Certainly, if you wish it. But really, you do not need me. Will not Miss Smith superintend the preparations and ensure the success of her music pupils? eveLyn: Strange to say, Miss Smith refuses to have anything to do with this concert. Said she was too busy, and some other things that I don’t believe a bit. gertruDe: It is certainly strange. I have noticed that Miss Smith has seemed quite a different person recently. eveLyn: Perhaps she’s a German spy! gertruDe (Laughing.): Oh nonsense! There are no government secrets to be spied out here. (Seriously.) And yet, another peculiar circumstance comes to my mind: Helen told me that all our teachers except Miss Smith had volunteered to work as Red Cross nurses in our new hospital. eveLyn: I tell you she is a spy, or a German sympathizer anyway. gertruDe: But why? Isn’t she English or American? Her name is. eveLyn: I am not sure of that. Yesterday, I was talking with her when she dropped a letter. I stooped to pick it up, but she hastened to prevent me. However, I saw the envelope and it was addressed to “Fraulein” – that is the German for “Miss,” isn’t it? – and then the name “Schmidt.” gertruDe: So she has changed her name. That’s a discovery. (Enter Frances, dressed in khaki, short skirt, military jacket and boots, beating a drum.) gertruDe: Why, Frances, when did you enlist in Uncle Sam’s army?17 Frank: Don’t call me “Frances.” I am now Captain Frank of the Girl Scouts, enlisted for home defence.18 eveLyn: Bravo! We may need your valuable protection, brave Captain. For you know what the Kaiser told our Ambassador in Berlin? That he would “stand no nonsense from America after the war.” Frank: Perhaps by this time the Kaiser has learned that America will stand no nonsense from him. (Executes a little flourish on her drum.) gertruDe: When do the Girl Scouts begin their operations against the enemy, Frances?

T h e R ed C ross Helpe rs: A Pat r i ot i c Pl ay

229

Frank: I told you my name and title is “Captain Frank.” If you call me “Frances” again, I’ll have you arrested for lèse-majesté.i eveLyn: What’s that? Frank: If you were a German subject, you’d know. eveLyn: I thank heaven I’m not. But what is it, anyway? Frank: Oh, I don’t know how to pronounce it. But, it means disrespect towards the All-Highest, Emperor William of Germany, King of Prussia, Commanderin-Chief of the Huns, Mighty Admiral of the Baltic fleet – chiefly submarines – Invincible War Lord, and general god of the German people. 19 gertruDe (Laughing.): All that! Couldn’t you find another title for so great a personage? Frank (Energetically.): Yes. I and my Girl Scouts have sworn that William the Second shall be William the Last! gertruDe: All the world would bless you for that. In the meantime, come and we will tell you what part we want you to take in the coming concert. You know that the most warlike sons of Mars are also devoted to Apollo. (They retire, Frances beating her drum.) mabeL (Entering, purse in hand.): My deposit is increasing all the time: three hundred fifty-seven dollars in hand and more promised. Hurrah for the class of 1919! I am sure we shall derive far more enjoyment from seeing our money devoted to so good a purpose than in selfishly spending it on our vanities and pleasures. (Looks aside and sees Li Chang bowing and smiling at the door. In her surprise, she drops the purse on a table beside her and retreats behind a chair.) mabeL: Who are you and what do you want? Li CHang (Advancing and bowing.): Me’s China boy. Work in laundry. Come and get Mees Meyer’s wash things. mabeL: Oh, I understand. You have come from the laundry and wish to see Miss Meyer? Li CHang (Nodding vigorously.): Dat’s it. She live here? mabeL: Yes, yes. I will send her to you. (Hilda enters.) Oh, you’re just the one wanted here. (Laughing.) I hope you talk Chinese. (Exit.) HiLDa: Can’t you speak English? Li CHang: Oh yis, Mees. Me talk Englees. Learn it in public school. HiLDa: Indeed! How long did you go to the public school? Li CHang: Mos’ six months. Learn heaps. Good ’Merican, me. HiLDa (Severely.): You might be something better. Did you ever hear of the Germans? Li CHang: O yis, very bad mens: kill much an’ steal an’ cheat. HiLDa (Angrily.): How dare you say such a thing? Get down on your knees and beg my pardon for slandering my nation.

i

“Any offence against the sovereign authority; treason.” See oed, s.v. “lèse-majesté.”

230

Sister Mar y Ag nes

Li CHang (Frightened, falling on his knees.): Beg Mees Meyer pardon. How poor China boy know what to say? He hear dat ev’ry day. HiLDa: Then you hear lies! Stay on your knees till you say the right thing for once. Li CHang: Yis, Mees. Me say what you tell me. HiLDa: Swear you will never speak ill of the Germans or the Kaiser. Swear! Li CHang: Me know only one swear word, damn. You wish me say dat for the Kaiser? HiLDa: No, you idiot! Say “Long live the great and glorious Kaiser and the brave German people!” Li CHang: Yis Mees, all dat. But, poor China boy no can remember long speech in Englees. HiLDa: Then stand up and pray for the German army while I go for my clothes. (Exit.) Li CHang: China boy scared to lose his head! Dat girl very much mad, and say big talk. Lor! Here’s another! (Enter Captain Frank, with drum and toy pistol.) Frank (Sternly.): What are you doing here? A boy, and not in uniform! Li CHang (Trembling.): Me good China boy, Mees, me. Frank: Say “Captain,” or I’ll have you punished for disrespect to authority. Li CHang: Yis, Mees Cap’n. Me come to get laundry things and spend time praying for German big Lord. Frank (Sternly.): What do you say? (Draws out her pistol.) Have we a German spy here? Or a vile traitor? Li CHang (Falling on his knees.): Oh please, Cap’n, don’t shoot poor China boy. Hedo no harm. Frank (Severely.): It is great harm, an unpardonable crime, to be an enemy of your country. I’ve a great mind to shoot you. (Points her pistol at him.) Li CHang (Supplicating.): Oh don’t, please, Mees Cap’n! China boy do anything, say anything you wish. Frank: Very well, I will spare you this time, since you repent. But you must swear allegiance to the United States government, and promise never to give aid or comfort to the enemy. Do you swear? Li CHang: Yi-is Mees Cap’n. But, I can’t swear long. Don’t know much Englees. Frank: Well, answer “yes” to everything I ask you, and leave out the “Miss.” Li CHang: Yis, Mees. I mean Cap’n. Frank: Do you swear to be a loyal citizen of the United States? Li CHang: Yis, Cap’n. Frank: To defend her constitution and observe her laws? Li CHang: Yis, Cap’n. Frank: To fight for her rights and die in her defence? Li CHang (Hesitating.): Big men fight an’ die. Me jes small China boy.

T h e R ed C ross Helpe rs: A Pat r i ot i c Pl ay

231

Frank: Well, we’ll let that pass. Do you swear to respect the American flag and to salute it each time you see that glorious emblem of our mighty nation? Li CHang: What dat mean: “salute”? Bow low? Frank: Yes, and present arms. Li CHang (Looking at his arms.): Me no like to present arms: need ’em for laundry work. Frank: Oh, you stupid boy! You ought to be educated in military terms. Rise, now, a free and loyal American citizen. Take care that you remain one or something dreadful may happen to you. Li CHang: Yis, Cap’n. Me good ’Merican now, an’ always keep so. Don’t wish to lose head. (Hurries out.) Frank (Laughing.): Well, I have converted one foreigner to American ideals and made him a loyal citizen, even though it took my redoubtable pistol to do so. Now, I must see what other valuable service I can render to my country. (Exit beating her drum.) (Enter Miss Schmidt with a letter.) miss sCHmiDt: Every letter brings me tidings of some new disaster. I have not known a happy day since Karl and Wilhelm were taken prisoners by the English, and now my last brother, my brave Herman, has been killed by American soldiers. Oh how I hate them! They have not only shed the blood of my nearest and dearest of kin, but they have stopped the victorious advance of our valiant troops. But for them, perhaps the Kaiser and his victorious generals would today be in Paris and the German arms triumphant everywhere. (Laughs mockingly.) And I have been asked to become a nurse in this newly made hospital and take tender care of the wounded soldiers who have killed my brother! (Fiercely.) Gladly would I see them all dead. I will leave this place which I abhor, as soon as I have accomplished my purpose: that Belgian girl shall not present herself at the concert before a sympathetic audience and show her broken arm to excite their pity and arouse their indignation against the German people. Let me think. I have it! I will put a drug in some drink she will take that afternoon, which will prevent her speaking in the evening. And if she should never awake? Ah, well, accidents will happen sometimes, and no one will be responsible. (Moves away, but stops as she perceives a purse lying on the table.) Whose purse is this, I wonder? Oh I know, it must be Mabel’s and contains, I suppose, the contributions of these young simpletons who have volunteered to furnish a ward in the new hospital. I should like to throw it into the river! Or rather I should like to use it for the good cause, our cause. And why not? “All is fair in love and war.” I will take this money and put it to good use. My countrymen need it more than these pampered American soldiers. (Hurries out with the purse.) (The graduates come in from the opposite side carrying various packages and bundles.) gertruDe: I am so glad it is all settled, and the Government has decided to make use of our Academy for the returned soldiers.

232

Sister Mar y Ag nes

HeLen: Yes, all the citizens are enthusiastic about it, as these numerous packages testify. iDa: What do they contain, anyway? gertruDe: Unpack them and you will see: gifts from the citizens to equip our hospital and to make our wounded men comfortable. mabeL: How happy they will feel to be at home once more, surrounded by loving relatives and dear friends. LiLLian: Perhaps they will find it dull after the wonderful sights and grand cities they have seen abroad. gertruDe: Oh there is no fear of that. All their letters show their intense love for their native land, and their longing to be back as soon as their arms have been crowned with victory. HeLen: Yes, I can imagine how they feel. (Sings “America, My Homeland.” All the girls join in the singing.)20

AC T I I (A garden scene on the school-grounds; rustic seats at the side; a flagpole in the rear. The graduates sit or stand in various groups.) gertruDe: So this evening’s entertainment will be the last we shall give on our dear old school grounds. HeLen: Yes, it really makes me feel a little sad. iDa: But, think of the glorious cause which our alma mater will serve. HeLen: I know, and rejoice at the honour conferred on our Academy. But, one always feels some regret at parting with an old friend. (Mabel hurries in.) mabeL: Oh girls! I have a sad confession to make. You will all blame me, and I am terribly ashamed of myself. gertruDe: Then your fault, whatever it may be, is fully repaired. mabeL: Not this time, I fear, for I cannot prevent the consequences of my carelessness. HeLen: But what disaster has happened, Mabel? mabeL: The purse you entrusted to me with our contributions for the hospital is either lost or stolen. HeLen: Lost! iDa: Stolen! gertruDe: Well if it is lost, let us find it: if stolen, let us catch the thief. mabeL (Gloomily.): Easier said than done, Gertrude. I have looked everywhere for the missing purse and cannot find it. If it has been stolen, the thief will be clever enough to elude us. gertruDe: I don’t know about that. I have my suspicions already.

T h e R ed C ross Helpe rs: A Pat r i ot i c Pl ay

233

HeLen: So have I. I believe that German girl, Hilda Meyer, stole our money to hinder the good cause for which it was intended. mabeL: It may be. She is heart and soul for the Germans and has always openly proclaimed her national sympathies. LiLLian: True, and she departed bag and baggagei the evening after we had made our donations. gertruDe: I doubt, girls, if she is the culprit, for the very reason that her pro-Germanism was always so open and rampant. Besides, she announced the day before that she would leave this place never to return. LiLLian: Yes, she is filled with those fanciful ideas of Prussian superiority, and has no doubt gone off to become a superwoman, marry a superman, and bring up a family of super-children.21 mabeL: It is wonderful how her half-sister Elsie escaped those influences and is wholly governed by our ideals. iDa: I am not sure of that. If anyone stole our money, I believe it was that little sneak, Elsie. HeLen: Oh Ida! How can you accuse Elsie of anything so mean? She is totally different from Hilda and as true and loyal an American as any in the land. iDa: She may say so. But, don’t all spies and traitors make loud professions of loyalty to deceive their dupes and accomplish their ends? HeLen: Well, I for one do not believe that Elsie is a hypocrite. mabeL: Neither do I. We have always found her good and sincere and she is one of the most loved girls in the school. iDa: Oh, villains are generally clever in disguising their villainy. How do you explain her sudden departure with Hilda without saying a word to any of us? HeLen: I do not know her reasons, but I believe they were good as we shall probably find out later. gertruDe: That is right, Helen. Stand up for your friend until something has been proven against her. But we are losing time, when we should be doing something to recover our lost funds. Come and consult Miss Holmes about it. mabeL: I have told her the circumstances and I believe she has engaged a detective to trace the missing purse. gertruDe: Then we can do nothing more. Come and prepare for the evening’s concert. (All go out except Mabel.) mabeL: Oh, I shall be utterly miserable till that money is either found or replaced. (Enter Frances, executing a little flourish on her drum.) Frank: You have no right to look so dismal, Mabel. It is giving encouragement to the enemy. i

Here “used depreciatively to express the absolute character of any one’s departure: to clear out completely, ‘and a good riddance too!’” oed, s.vv. “bag and baggage.”

234

Sister Mar y Ag nes

mabeL: But I have good reason to look sad, Frances. I have lost the whole sum which the graduates confided to me as their donation to the hospital. Frank: Really? That is a misfortune, truly. Where did you have it last? mabeL: In the graduates’ reception room, where we were sewing for the Red Cross. After the girls left, a queer-looking Chinese boy came in, and I was so much surprised that I dropped my purse on the table. When I went back, it was gone. Frank: How strange! mabeL: And how unfortunate! You don’t think the Chinese boy took it, do you? Frank: No, for I entered the room the moment you left it, and the boy departed before I did. However, the Chinese are reputed to have deft fingers, so I will question him. I saw him entering the gate a few moments ago, and see, he is coming this way! mabeL: Well, I will leave you to perform your office of grand inquisitor. Frank (Straightening into a military attitude.): Of a vigilant sentinel, rather. (Mabel goes out on one side, as Li Chang enters on the other.) Frank: Halt! Who goes there? Li CHang (Bowing and grinning.): I isn’t goin.’ I’se comin.’ Frank: Give the countersign! Li CHang: I’ve nothin’ to give, Mees – I mean Cap’n. I come get laundry clothes from the Kaiser’s young lady. Frank (Severely.): She’s gone from these loyal premises to join the enemies of our country. I’ve a great mind to have you arrested, Li Chang, for consorting with traitors. Li CHang (Clasping his hands in supplication.): Oh please, Cap’n, I’se a good straight ’Merican. Vote for Wilson ev’ry time.i Frank: That’s a falsehood, Li Chang. You’re too young to vote. And if you’d lie, you’d steal. Li CHang: No, no, Cap’n, me never – Frank: Now look at me straight in the eye, Li Chang, and answer me this: the last time you came here, did you steal a purse containing money destined to save the American republic, defeat our enemies, and plant the Stars and Stripes over a freed and happy world? Li CHang (Frightened.): Oh no, sure, sure, Cap’n. Frank: Do you swear it, Li Chang, with one hand on your heart and the other on your head? Li CHang (Taking the attitude required.): Sure as I live and breathe, Cap’n. Frank: Very well. I believe you, Li Chang. Continue to be a good and loyal citizen, and help the government win the war. Li CHang: Oh yis, Cap’n. Tom Lane, my chum at public school, he tell me how to help gover’ment, and we each buy a thief stamp. i

28th president of the United States, 1913–21.

T h e R ed C ross Helpe rs: A Pat r i ot i c Pl ay

235

Frank: You mean a thrift stamp, I suppose? Li CHang: Yis, dat’s it. Frank: Only one? That’s not much. Li CHang: Oh, but we do more. Tom make me go to church with him because big boss in Washington want all people pray. Frank: Yes, that’s right, and what did you do in church? Li CHang: I do what the good man say: the man who do all the talking. Frank: The minister? Li CHang: Yis, he, too, talk much about – about – Frank: Thrift? Li CHang: Yis, and when I understan’ it mean jus’ savin,’ I begin right there. Frank: In church? How did you manage that? Li CHang: Easy nuff. When I see anudder man get up and pass aroun’ box to put money in, I get up and walk out o’ dat church. See? Frank (Laughing.): Yes, I see. If all the congregation followed your example, Li Chang, I think the preacher would take another text the next Sunday. Li CHang: Dunno ’bout dat. Some people in church look black i at me, but Tom, he jes giggle. Frank: No wonder. Well, Li Chang, your trial is over, and you are acquitted, so you may return to camp and drill. Li CHang (Looking puzzled.): Do what, Cap’n? Frank: Oh, just go home and work. Li CHang (Bowing profoundly.): Thank you, Cap’n. I’se gone. (Exit.) Frank: I fear that a sentry on duty shouldn’t talk so much, even with a Chinese ally. But, as our academy is not yet besieged, or threatened with an attack of the enemy, no harm’s done. Think I’ll go and demand my share of rations. (Goes out beating her drum.) (Gertrude enters with Marie.) gertruDe: Rest here a while in the fresh air, Marie, and you will feel better. marie: I hope so, or I shall not be able to take part in the concert this evening. gertruDe: Do you often have these attacks, Marie? marie: I am subject to severe headaches, but this one is different. It is especially the drowsiness, I feel, that worries me. Really, I can hardly keep my eyes open, and all my limbs seem numbed. gertruDe: It is strange. Did you take any unusual medicine today? marie: No, only a hot drink which Miss Smith kindly prepared for me. gertruDe (Startsii.): Miss Smith!

i

“To frown, to look angrily or threateningly (at, on, or upon a person).” oed, s.vv. “look black.”

ii

“To spring on, upon one’s feet.” oed, s.v. “to start.”

236

Sister Mar y Ag nes

marie: Yes, I was rather surprised, for I have always thought that for some reason she does not like me. But, she was very kind and attentive today and prepared a warm drink for me, mixing with it a powder which she said was a sure cure for headache. (Sighs.) But I do not feel any better yet. gertruDe (Aside.): This sudden friendliness with its consequences is rather suspicious. I must inform Miss Holmes. Well, there are several hours before the concert, Marie, so you might as well sleep for a time and then perhaps the heavy feeling will pass away. Fortunately, one of the girls left a sofa-pillow here. Rest your head upon it and make yourself comfortable on this bench. (Marie reclines on a rustic bench and goes to sleep.) gertruDe (Bending sympathetically over her.): Can it be that any one has been so unkind, so cruel, as to inflict any more pain on this afflicted girl? It would be an unpardonable outrage! Alas! It is but one of the many grievous wrongs suffered by the unhappy Belgians. Oh heaven! Hasten the day of their deliverance! Let the sun of justice and righteousness once more shine upon a tortured, agonizing world! I must find Miss Holmes at once and discuss with her the means of bringing relief to poor Marie. (Hurrying out, she meets Evelyn coming in.) eveLyn: Gertrude, the undergraduates wish to know if they may use this part of the grounds now to rehearse the flag drill they are going to present this evening. gertruDe (Slowly.): I suppose so. eveLyn: Why do you seem to hesitate? gertruDe: I was thinking of poor Marie here, who is quite ill, but has now fallen asleep. However, I do not think you will arouse her. Indeed, perhaps it would be well to find out how sound is her sleep. Tell the girls they may come and practice here. eveLyn: Thank you. The undergraduates, with their contributions, have bought a large flag to be set up before the new hospital and greet our returning soldiers. Tonight, they will hoist it with appropriate ceremonies, and perform some little drill before it. So, they may come and rehearse here? gertruDe: Certainly, as soon as they please. (Exit on one side.) (Evelyn beckons to the girls on the other side. Singing is heard in the distance, then gradually nearer: “Just a Bit of Cloth, But It’s Red, White and Blue.”22 Columbia, in appropriate costume, enters bearing a large flag, and stands in the centre, while the other girls, dressed in white, decorated with red, white, and blue, and bearing smaller flags perform a drill before or around her.23 Directions for this drill may be found in “Drill of the Stars and Stripes,” by Lily Wood.24 After the drill, the flag is raised on the flagpole, and the girls retire singing.) (Miss Schmidt enters, walks softly to the bench where Marie is sleeping, and laughs low. Elsie enters unobserved and watches the scene.) miss sCHmiDt (Maliciously.): She will not awake in time, I think, to display her broken arm, and talk to her American audience of the German occupation of Belgium. (Looks at the flag.) How I hate that flag! I would tear it into fragments, and

T h e R ed C ross Helpe rs: A Pat r i ot i c Pl ay

237

throw them into the mud of the streets to be trampled on by men and beasts, if I had time to do the deed. But I must hasten away, as already a few in this house are beginning to regard me with suspicion. Yet, I cannot, will not, leave that hated emblem proudly floating in the breeze. I will tear it down and then leave this place forever. (Hastens to the flagpole and raises her arm to seize the flag. Elsie rushes forward, grasps her arm, and stands between her and the flag. Marie, aroused from her sleep, observes intently their words and actions.) eLsie: Touch that flag at your peril, wretched woman! Either your blood or mine shall be shed before you touch with your traitor hands the sacred emblem of our glorious country. miss sCHmiDt (Standing back.): Your country, you miserable renegade! May it perish utterly with all who have sought the ruin of my noble country! (Enter Miss Holmes, Rhoda Gary, and several graduates.) miss HoLmes (Coldly.): It is well that you have at last thrown off the mask, Miss Schmidt. We should all gladly see you depart for the country whose aims and methods are so similar to your own. But first, this young woman has something to settle with you. miss sCHmiDt: I do not know her. rHoDa: Perhaps not, Miss Schmidt, but I know more of you and your deeds than you are aware. May I ask if you happen ever to have seen this ring? miss sCHmiDt (Coolly.): Possibly. It looks like one I have seen on the finger of some pupil here, I believe. rHoDa: Quite right. Miss Elsie, do you recognize this piece of jewellery? eLsie (Surprised.): Why, it is my ring, or rather it was. But, I gave it to be sold in aid of our new hospital. rHoDa: Did you give it to Miss Schmidt? eLsie: No, to Mabel Gaynor. mabeL: And, unfortunately it disappeared when my purse was either lost or stolen. rHoDa: I think we can say “stolen,” Miss Gaynor. I know all the circumstances and will communicate them to you later. At present, I must request Miss Schmidt accompany me to the gate. miss sCHmiDt (Haughtily.): And who are you to give me your commands? rHoDa: If you care to know, I am a detective employed by the government to discover and apprehend women spies, women enemies, and women thieves. Under all three names, I believe I may arrest you. miss sCHmiDt: And if I do not choose to accompany you? rHoDa: Then the two gentlemen at the gate, whom you will perhaps recognize as officers of the law, will employ the necessary force. miss sCHmiDt: Oh I am ready to go with you, and rejoice to escape from this band of simpletons whom I despise. I glory in the fact that I have served my country and defeated the plans of its enemies. Long live the Kaiser!

238

Sister Mar y Ag nes

(Hisses from the girls as she goes out with Rhoda Gary.) gertruDe: Did you ever see such impudence? mabeL: We are well rid of her, the miserable spy! But, shall we ever get back our money? miss HoLmes: Let us hope so, as we have discovered the thief who took Mabel’s purse. Your ring, Elsie, has been of the greatest service in tracing the culprit. By my description, Miss Gary, our detective, recognized it in a third-class jewellery store, and the shopkeeper, when shown the portrait of our German music teacher, declared at once that it was the likeness of the woman who had sold him the ring. mabeL: I am glad we have recovered that offering, anyway. miss HoLmes: Yes, your beautiful ring, Elsie, can still be devoted to the purpose for which you generously donated it. eLsie: It was all I could give at the time to show my interest in the cause. But, I have been able to raise a little sum during my week’s absence by some work I fortunately secured. Here are twenty dollars which I earned by replacing a teacher in the high school, and by giving some private lessons in the evening. Will you accept them for our new hospital? miss HoLmes: Willingly, dear Elsie, in the name of the class and of the trustees. And, we all appreciate doubly the gift which cost you so much extra labour and fatigue. eLsie: Oh, I wish it were in my power to give more and to do more to help the glorious cause that thrills the heart of every patriotic American. HeLen (Affectionately.): No one need have any fears about your patriotism, Elsie. marie (Advancing.): You would be convinced of that, young ladies, if you had seen how bravely Elsie defended the flag a short time ago. gertruDe: The flag! When? How? marie: I had been asleep on the bench when an angry voice nearby awakened me. Miss Schmidt wished to tear down your beautiful flag, but Elsie seized her arm and prevented it. I never saw a woman so angry, and I feared she would do some injury to our dear friend. But, Elsie defied her and held her back till you all came in. gertruDe: Oh that was grand, Elsie! We’ll have to write to the president about it and have you decorated with the military cross for distinguished bravery. HeLen: Why, you’re a real heroine, Elsie, and we’re all proud of you. eLsie (Laughing.): Oh, you make too much fuss over my little adventure. I do so love the dear old flag! See, the undergraduates, decked with their patriotic emblems, are returning this way! Let us all join with them in singing our national anthem. (All sing “The Star-Spangled Banner.”) f inis

T h e R ed C ross Helpe rs: A Patr i oti c Pl ay

239

notes 1 In the original text, Miss Schmidt is listed in the dramatis personae firstly as Miss Smith,

2

3

4

5

6

7 8

9

followed by the name Schmidt in brackets. In the name that precedes the dialogue in the body of the text, she is designated as Miss S. For the sake of consistency, I have designated her Miss Schmidt to signal the German identity with which she most closely identifies. This also accords with the way in which Sister Mary Agnes lists the character of Frances, who is referred to by her proper name in the dramatis personae and by her nickname in the text. A “flag drill” is a military-style march using flags put on by schools, churches, and paramilitary organizations like the Girl Guides and Boy Scouts and were frequently performed on special occasions like Empire Day. See Fisher, Boys and Girls, 88–92. As in the plays of Edith Lelean Groves, drills in Canada were associated with military readiness, but also had a correlation with self-discipline, Christian morality, and patriotism. See the introduction to The Wooing of Miss Canada. The idea that the play could be “made British” simply by replacing songs and signifiers of state is an attempt to recognize the Canadian context in which it was written. This does not, however, take account of the entrenched American ideology at the heart of the play. The Hudson River, a major waterway that connects upstate New York to New York City, determines the vague geographic setting of the play. Located somewhere on the banks of the Hudson River, the school and soon-to-be hospital would have been easily accessible to soldiers coming from Europe to the Eastern Seaboard. Hudsonville Academy is supposed to represent a typical, upper-class girls’ academy in the northeastern US. See Paula Becker, “Knitting for Victory,” HistoryLink.org, The Free Online Encyclopedia of Washington State History, accessed 29 June 2018, http://www.historylink.org/index. cfm?DisplayPage=output.cfm&File_Id=5721. The Red Cross expanded dramatically during the First World War in the United States and in Canada. South of the border, the Junior Red Cross reached eleven million members. “In the summer of 1917 the American Red Cross put out an urgent call for knitted goods” and an army of volunteers knitted “wristlets, mufflers [scarves], sweaters, and pairs of socks.” See also “The First World War: 1914–1918,” Canadian Red Cross, accessed 4 July 2019, http://www.redcross.ca/whowe-are/about-the-canadian-red-cross/historical-highlights/the-first-world-war-1914-1918. See also “A Brief History of the American Red Cross,” American Red Cross, accessed 29 June 2018, http://www.redcross.org/about-us/history. See also McCoy, Historical and Cultural Meanings. “Over There” is also the name of a popular song written by George M. Cohan in 1917. The song was used both to recruit soldiers and as propaganda in both the First and later the Second World War. It declares “The Yanks Are Coming,” a reference to the fact that the Americans entered the war on 6 April 1917 after a policy of neutrality established three years earlier. The students at St Mary’s Academy, where Sister Mary Agnes taught from 1909 to 1928, also participated in Red Cross work during the First World War. See Jaffin, “Medical Operations,” 99, 102. In fact, “the British relied heavily on … American units. By 1917, their Medical Department was having trouble handling the massive numbers of casualties from the war.” Nevertheless, it is also the case that “where American hospitals were not available, the wounded went to French hospitals.” Commencement or graduation day was an important event at St Mary’s Academy and one in which Sister Agnes’s plays were produced. While at the school, she wrote at least two

240

10

11 12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

Sister Mar y Ag nes

plays specifically for commencement: A Shakespeare Pageant: Dialogue for Commencement Day (1915) and Choosing a Model: A Dialogue for Commencement Day (1914). See Kurtz, The Second Reich, 60. While Germany became a country in 1871, it remained under Prussian leadership until 1918 when its monarchies were abolished. “Its divine right to conquer,” as Gertrude puts it, refers to the country’s leadership under Wilhelm II, who made claims to divine right after becoming Kaiser in 1888. Patriotic societies, which proliferated in Europe, the United States, and Canada during the First World War, made it their role to mobilized nationalist sentiment and interests. See Michael Ferber, Dictionary of Literary Symbols, s.v. “pearl.” See also “pearl,” Symbols, stanDs4 Network LLC, accessed 29 June 2018, http://www.symbols.com/symbol/2268. Pearls are most often symbols of femininity, chastity, purity, innocence, wisdom, and humility. The pearl is also associated with Jesus Christ. In Mark 12:41-44, mite takes on a specifically biblical connotation. As Jesus watches those who make offerings at the temple treasury, he is most impressed not by the rich who contribute great sums that constitute a small portion of their collective fortune, but by the poor widow whose offering of a single mite represents the entirety of her wealth: “Verily I say unto you, this poor widow cast in more than all they that are casting into the treasury: for they all did cast in of their superfluity; but she of her want did cast in all that she had, even all her living.” Chantal Kesteloot, email message to author, October 2014. According to historian Chantal Kesteloot (Free University of Brussels), Belgium experienced horrific violence during the German invasion of August 1914 when 5000 civilians were killed and the subsequent occupation imposed “particularly harsh conditions” upon the Belgian people. Simoens, “Warfare 1914–1918 (Belgium),” “A Disastrous Start in 1914.” The repetition of “poor Marie” recalls the nickname “poor Belgium” conferred upon the country after the Battle of Liège (5–16 Aug 1914), the first battle of the First World War.  See Gay and Fisher, preface and “Chapter 1 – The Origin of the Crb,” Public Relations. The Belgian population survived partly thanks to American relief programs that brought in supplies via a naval bridge during the German occupation See History, “This Day in History,” accessed 29 June 2018, https://www.history.com/thisday-in-history/united-states-nicknamed-uncle-sam. “Uncle Sam” is a personification of the United States. Although this sobriquet was first applied to the US during the War of 1812, the name was popularized in the latter half of the nineteenth century by cartoonist Thomas Nast (1840–1902). The iconic image associated with the name, however, depicting Uncle Sam in a top hat ringed with a ribbon of stars, a blue jacket, white beard and hair, and pointing aggressively at the viewer was created by James Montgomery Flagg (1877–1960) for the well-known US army recruitment poster during the First World War. See “Who We Are,” The Girl Scouts of the United States of America, accessed 4 July 2019, www.girlscouts.org/who_we_are. Founded in the United States in 1912 by Julliette Gordon Low, the Girl Scouts were a paramilitary youth movement for girls that encouraged outdoor activities, “self-reliance and resourcefulness:” Low “encouraged girls to prepare not only for traditional homemaking, but also for future roles as professional women – in the arts, sciences and business – and for active citizenship outside the home.” See also “History of Guiding,” World Association of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts, accessed 20 Oct 2018, https:// www.wagggs.org/en/about-us/our-history/. During the First World War, the organization expanded throughout the world and in many countries “offered their services as volunteers.” See “William II,” Encylopeadia Britannica, accessed 4 July 2019, http://www.britannica. com/EBchecked/topic/644086/William-II/7947/Foreign-policies#toc7948. Wilhelm II

T h e R ed C ross Helpe rs: A Pat r i ot i c Pl ay

20

21

22

23

24

241

(1859–1941), Germany’s last kaiser, was a militaristic leader who was intent on making his naval forces the equal to those of Britain and was committed to bolstering the strength of Germany’s armed forces. British journalists portrayed him as “the Supreme War Lord.” See “Advertising Section N.C.M.S. Journal,” Music Supervisors Journal 4, no. 4 (Franklin, Ohio: The Eldridge Entertainment House, 1918), 91. “America, My Homeland” was written by H.C. Eldridge. “Übermensch,” commonly translated as “superman,” is a concept popularized by Friedrich Nietzsche in his philosophical work Thus Spoke Zarathustra (1883–1885). “Übermensch,” like many of Nietzsche’s ideas, is associated with German right-wing imperialism and, in fact, 150,000 copies of Thus Spoke Zarathustra were distributed to German soldiers during the First World War. See Aschheim, The Nietzsche Legacy, 102. Published by the Eldridge Entertainment House, Franklin, Ohio, price 25 cents. Publication information is cited in Agnes’s script. See Henry Carleton Eldridge, “Just a Bit of Cloth but It’s Red, White and Blue,” Eldridge Entertainment House, 1907. Agnes also notes in her original script “Any other patriotic song may be substituted.” See endnote 3. Note that the girls concert involves staging a pageant, a theatrical form often used by Sister Mary Agnes and one that was very popular during civic celebrations in Canada, the United States, and Britain at the beginning of the twentieth century. Wood, “Drill of the Stars and Stripes.”

6 T he Soldiers A n Introduction L au r eL gr e e n

In 1915, Louise Carter-Broun premiered her one-act drama, The Soldiers, on the Royal Alexandra Stage in Toronto, inciting a critical debate about the patriotic duty of a Canadian playwright during wartime. It is a play that called into question ideas of nationhood and notions of the private and public in order to emphasize the active role that white, European/North American women played in the First World War and to create a counterpublic of women audience members who were disposed to such views. Louise Carter was born in Denison, Iowa, on 17 March 1875 to French-Canadian parents Lawrence “Louis” J. Carter (1848–1916) and Philomine Carter (née Richards, 1849–1908). The eldest daughter of six children, she graduated from Denison high school and married her childhood sweetheart, Frederick Seymour, at the age of twenty-one. The newlyweds lived at the Carter family home in 1900, where the town census recorded their occupations as actress and theatrical manager respectively. Louise first caught the critic’s eye with her ingenue performance in The Heart of Maryland (1897) and, by 1902, she had performed at the Lyceum Theatre in New London, the Castle Square Theatre in Boston, and the Savoy Theatre in New York City. She and her husband Frederick lived peripatetically until the birth of their first child, Philomine Seymour (named for Louise’s mother).1 Her second child was born in the more stable atmosphere of the new family seat in Silver City, New Mexico, where the remaining members of the Carter family had joined their eldest son.2 While no divorce date can be confirmed, Louise had, by this time, separated from Frederick and given her daughter her own birth name, Betty-Lee Carter.3 Two years later, in 1911, the Brooklyn Eagle heralded the arrival of a new leading lady for the Gotham Stock Company under the management of venerable businessman Percy G. Williams.4 During the heyday of vaudeville entertainment in East New York, Williams owned and operated the Orpheum Company chain of theatres that brought folks “clean shows in clean houses.” Life in the stock theatre

T he S oldi ers : A n I nt roduct ion

243

6.1 Headshot of Louise Carter-Broun.

was hectic for Louise, as Williams often programmed the same show at two of his theatres in one evening, rushing the cast from the first to the second venue for back-to-back performances. Louise was featured in numerous popular productions, winning the hearts of audiences while also garnering acclaim from critics.5 In March of 1915, the New York Star reported in an article entitled “Visits Old Friends,” that Louise had left the company after four seasons and was “considering several offers.”6 By September, the New York Star reported that “the once leading woman of the Gotham Stock Company ... is married and living in Toronto [Ontario, Canada] ... she keeps alive her interest in the stage by playwrighting.”7 Although her wedding date is unknown, Louise briefly shared the surname of Toronto businessman and manufacturer Cobrun Broun. From their High Park address in 1916, she deposited four manuscripts into the National Library of Congress: The Awakening, Chérie, The Soldiers, and Teddy’s Marriage.8 Louise Carter-Broun made her playwrighting debut at the Royal Alexandra Theatre in Toronto on 31 May 1915 with her one-act play, The Soldiers. This wartime drama was included on a bill handpicked by American actress and theatre producer Miss Percy Haswell, to be performed by her stock touring company.9 In these early days, Toronto stages were almost completely dominated by British and American touring troupes and Miss Haswell’s company made frequent stops at the Royal Alexandra Theatre, renting the venue for the summer and sending the management

244

Laurel Green

6.2 Playbill for The Soldiers.

on vacation.10 It was a bit of savvy programming to designate Carter-Broun as a “local playwright” alongside work by American and British authors.11 Her new nomination as Canadian ensured the interest and enthusiasm of Toronto theatre critics and the advanced press was abuzz with curiosity. The Globe and Mail, for example, promoted The Soldiers as “having a special appeal at this particular time, because it treats of military life and the bravery of a Canadian child.”12 Louise returned to Broadway and the use of her birth name, Carter, by 1917 when she was numbered among the cast of Difference in Gods. Continuing to write, she is listed in the Library of Congress catalogues as having penned at least seven dramatic titles between 1918–23, among them: The Living Dead, Her Story, Blessing, The Ruling Passion, Out of the Dark, Maid, Wife, Widow, and Ma Adams.13 Despite being estranged from her second husband, she wrote her 1924 play Clouds under the pseudonym Helen Broun, while also appearing in the title role as Louise Carter.14 The press was not kind to this work, which ran for thirty-eight productions at the Cort Theatre. Critic Percy Hammond of the New York Tribune called it a “messy little canard,” warning that it was “not entertainment for the hard-boiled.”15 In 1928, Louise wrote the three-act comedy Bedfellows that also debuted to scathing reviews. Starring her now twenty-year-old daughter, Betty-Lee, the play was criticized by the New York Times for employing “dreary old farce tricks ... producing an effect varying from complete vacuousness to a sustained yawn.”16 Carter’s last writing credit was an adaptation of the German play The Joy of Living (1931), which was as poorly received as her original work. In a review from the New York Times, the play was deemed “nothing more than a lengthy, if fairly innocuous, piece of conversation.”17

T he S oldi ers : A n I nt roduct ion

245

While writing these plays, Louise also began appearing in silent films, balancing her work on Broadway with the silver screen as the motion picture industry flourished around her. Perhaps tiring of the stage, perhaps allured by the promise of more money, Carter moved to Los Angeles where she worked as a character actor in an impressive number of Hollywood films including: I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang (1932), Madame Butterfly (1932), Ready for Love (1934), Reckless Roads (1935), Nancy Drew and the Hidden Staircase, and Gone with the Wind (1939).18 One of her featured roles was in the acclaimed 1931 Ernst Lubitsch-directed Broken Lullaby, in which she starred as Lionel Barrymore’s German mother. After a ten-year retirement, Louise died in Los Angeles on 20 November 1957 at the age of eighty-two. Her obituary in Variety magazine describes a veteran actress who rose from a stock theatre player to become a “Broadway star with a sixteen-year career in the motion pictures; she wrote several plays and was survived by her daughter.”19 Louise Carter rose to popularity playing the ingenue and romantic lead in popular melodramas, and her early Toronto manuscripts are dramatic texts akin to those in which she performed. Teddy’s Marriage (1916) is a melodramatic satire of the institution of marriage that relies on the tropes of coincidence and mistaken identity. When wealthy Teddy is expected to marry a man of good breeding, she impulsively weds a vagabond, only to discover that he is actually the rich man to whom she was betrothed by her parents. The Awakening (1915) is a gritty drama that unfolds in a New York tenement in which a bereaved mother mourns her imprisoned son only to find out that the policeman who arrested him is also his estranged father. Chérie is particularly compelling as it draws inspiration from Louise Carter’s Quebecoise heritage. An ambitious, three-act drama, it tells the story of a girl raised by an Indigenous band and French Voyageurs in the untamed wilderness of northern Ontario. Beginning on a stage set to represent the Canadian Shield, complete with a lake downstage, Chérie juxtaposes the simple virtues of life in the forest with the moral bankruptcy of urban society by transplanting its eponymous heroine into a duplicitous, high-society family. After confessing to a crime she did not commit, Chérie is put on trial for murder and is forced to choose between her bucolic past and a not-quite-so civilized future. In the premiere production of The Soldiers at Toronto’s Royal Alexandra Theatre, the nationalities of Carter-Broun’s characters were not originally made clear to the audience. In it, Miss Haswell starred as Anna Varna, Toronto child star Violet Dunn appeared as her daughter, Sophia, Mr Fred Tiden played Victor Varna, and Mr Lynn Osborn portrayed Captain Cato who hides secrets from the enemy. While the audience may have been won over by the “romance of melodrama” with its grandiose acting and intricate plot, Toronto critics were attuned to the playwright’s refusal to specify her characters’ nationalities: they were left wondering at the “Canadian-ness” of the play and disappointed in the playwright’s initial unwillingness to locate the specific nationalities of its characters. According to the Globe and

246

Laurel Green

Mail, The Soldiers was “supposed to have been a Canadian play, but its Canadianism [sic] was obscure. It told the story of a woman’s devotion to ‘The Cause,’ even at the cost of husband and daughter, and might have come under less scrutiny had the adversary been German instead of khaki-clad warriors of an unknown nationality.”20 The Toronto Telegraph agreed that the play “would have been stronger had it been less vague as to the nationality of the enemy and its place of action.” It seemed written for production across the border. There was an atmosphere of neutrality about it “that robbed it of vitality.” Plays in these realistic days must leave no doubt as to the “enemy,” railed the reporter. “The day of abstractions is past.”21 Perhaps it was Carter-Broun’s recent marriage to a German man that was the source of her reluctance to name the enemy as such in The Soldiers. Or, perhaps it was that in 1915 the United States had yet to enter the war. But after the premiere and subsequent reception of the play, she edited her 1916 manuscript to reflect much more certain alliances: she renamed the French family Le Bois, and Louis, Marie, and their daughter Jeanne hide war secrets from Captain Von Boem and his German army. The playwright now left no ambiguity as to who was the enemy, noting in her opening stage directions: “this playlet is an episode of the present war.” Situated firmly within the ongoing conflict, this second version of the script more aptly addresses issues of domestic patriotism. With the first Canadian troops already stationed in France, the play clearly presents characters that are French nationals who outwit their German rivals, to better align itself with Canada and its Allies. Nevertheless, aligning itself with French interests was a bit dubious because, at the time, it was Anglo-Canadian Protestants who were identified with Britain, the empire, and the war. French-Catholics, even outside of Quebec, were persuaded by the views of Henri Bourassa (1868–1952) who held the war to be a foreign affair in which Canada’s only role should be defense at home.22 No doubt recalling Broun’s own French-Canadian roots, as she had done in Chérie, the play proposed the French perspective as one that was Canadian. The Soldiers is part melodrama, part realism, and all feminist: it takes the public world of war into the home and makes the home and domesticity part of the public world of women. As melodrama, The Soldiers provided Carter-Broun with an ideal medium for representing the kinds of gender transgressions in which Marie and Jeanne engage. Melodrama was historically a democratic genre that turned social class on its head.23 It also incorporated pro-feminine strategies, as Heather Jones has argued, that allowed for a re-articulation of history and nationalism as gender-balanced.24 At the same time, The Soldiers is a transitional play. Like Ibsen’s Doll’s House, it is as influenced by the developing genre of realism as it is by melodrama. Its unity of time, place, and action, its three-dimensional characters, and psychological realism enables an audience to witness Jeanne’s transformation from an innocent child into a brave young woman, forced to act under the pressures of war. We watch as both she and her mother find empowerment and importance in the domestic sphere. It is through the blending of the melodramatic and realistic forms that the play

T he S oldi ers : A n I nt roduct ion

2 47

6.3 Newspaper photo of Louise Carter-Broun.

emancipates its heroines both theatrically and politically, connecting the military service that Marie and Jeanne perform in the present of the play to the soldierly activities of women in the past, as in its reference to Joan D’Arc, a popular icon in the contemporary women’s movement.25 Theatrical parts and feminist representations like those in The Soldiers contributed to the emergence of a modern counterpublic of feminist women by enacting and reflecting the progressive shift in gender roles and expectations that occurred outside the doors of the theatre. Female performers, as Susan A. Glenn reminds us, were “not only permitted but expected to live unconditional lives and play unorthodox parts ... rewarded in spite of, or because of, their transgressions.”26 Theatrical representations like those in The Soldiers contributed to the emergence of a white, Anglo-European feminist perspective by enacting and reflecting the progressive shift that occurred outside the doors of the theatre. “Female performers,” as Glenn

248

Laurel Green

notes, “explored, exaggerated, and exploited modern fears and fantasies about women’s roles and, in so doing, inspired other women to dream and experiment.”27 They also inspired other women to dream, to dare, and to experiment in business, in art, and in politics. As actresses, breadwinners, and popular figures, starlets like Carter-Broun and Haswell became productive icons for the suffrage movement. They used their professional profiles to raise awareness for women’s rights and to carry radical performances of gender into the public sphere. The Soldiers is the only one of Carter-Broun’s Toronto manuscripts to be professionally produced. It approaches the war from a woman’s point of view, and sets it in a woman’s realm, in order to underscore the active role women played in the war. As Marie extols, “it is not only those at the front who can help the most.” Like Sarah Ann Curzon’s Laura Secord, it challenges the traditional notions of who can be a hero and what constitutes a heroic act by conflating the domestic and the heroic and by making home into the front lines. The Soldiers has the potential to empower a radical project: “the configuration of national identity as distinctly feminine in nature.”28 It disrupts national boundaries and ideas of nationhood and this same disruption reconfigures notions of the private and public, the domestic and the heroic, the home and the battlefield, and the masculine and the feminine. The Soldiers was staged at a pivotal time in the defining of Canada as an independent and heroic nation “forged in the fire” of the trenches of the First World War. Written by a woman who was not a traditional wife, mother, or Canadian, The Soldiers explodes the restrictions implicit within national and domestic boundaries and in so doing helps to create a counterpublic of women who recognize acts of civic heroism within the domestic sphere. It places women’s work at the heart of nation-building by confidently situating women as confederates with men on the front lines.

notes 1 I would like to thank Professor Kym Bird at York University, as well as my father, Dr Anthony

Green, for helping me to bring this piece to publication. I would also like to thank the librarians at the Toronto Metro Reference Library and the Billy Rose Theatre Collection (n yC Public Library). Although the spelling of the child’s name on Ancestry.com is “Philemon,” she was probably named after her maternal grandmother, Philomine. There is no information available as to where she was born. 2 Remembered as pioneers who helped develop gold, silver, and turquoise mines in the area, the Carters’ Queen Anne Colonial Revival home, built in 1906, still remains today. Until recently, the “Carter House Inn” operated as a bed and breakfast with a twenty-two-bed hostel adjacent.

T he S oldi ers : A n I nt roduct ion

249

3 “Captain” Seymour, whom I believe to be Frederick Seymour, remarried in 1923 to Nellie

4

5

6 7 8

9 10

11

12

B. Power. He became the founding superintendent of the Cole Brothers Circus (now Clyde Beatty Circus) in 1935 and died in 1943 in Albion, Michigan. See “Percy G. Williams,” Vaudeville Old and New: An Encyclopedia of Variety Performers in America, Vol. 1 (New York: Routledge, 2006): 1215–16. Between 1897 and 1905 Williams and his partners acquired the Gotham, Novelty, Orpheum, Greenpoint, Crescent, and Bushwick Theatres in Brooklyn, New York, as well as other properties in Manhattan, Philadelphia, and Boston. Williams was later appointed the business manager for the United Booking Office (ubo), which centralized the early vaudeville industry. See the Robinson Locke Collection, Billy Rose Performing Arts Library, n yC. Robinson Locke (newspaper editor, owner, and theatre critic from 1885 to 1922) conscientiously collected all of Louise Carter’s reviews during her time on the Broadway stage. Locke kept scrapbooks of clippings for many New York actors and his careful preservation of these documents grants us insight into the reception of productions that might otherwise have been lost to posterity. Carter’s reviews document how she grew as a performer during her tenure in Brooklyn and her increasing popularity with local audiences. “Visits Old Friends,” New York Star, 17 March 1915, Robinson Locke Collection, “Carter, Louise 1897–1919,” “Series II Scrapbook,” Vol. 26: n.p. New York Star, 13 September 1915, Robinson Locke Collection, “Carter, Louise 1897–1919,” “Series II Scrapbook,” Vol. 26: 149. See the obituary of “L.J. Carter,” Enterprise [Silver City, New Mexico], 21 Apr 1916: n.p. This article identifies Louise Carter-Broun of Toronto, Canada, and claims that “all [the Carter family] were present [for the funeral] except the daughter in Canada.” Perhaps it was in New York that Louise and Miss Percy Haswell became acquainted, as both were popular actresses on the vaudeville stage at that time. See Brockhouse, Royal Alexandra Theatre, 64. Miss Haswell leased the Royal Alexandra Theatre for six summers from 1910–15, “mounting 66 family-friendly” productions for largely female audiences to whom she promised “nothing but clean entertainment ‘free of the Ibsen taint.’” See The Soldiers playbill. The Soldiers was staged third in a line-up of one-act plays that included: An Interrupted Divorce, a curtain-raiser from London’s Haymarket and Strand theatres, Such Things Have Happened, by company member Mr Lynn Osborn, and Betsy Manners by Allan Fawcett. “Four One-Act Plays,” Mail and Empire [Toronto], 29 May 1915, n.p. According to reviews, while The Soldiers was well received by audiences, the Toronto critics were left wondering at the “Canadian-ness” of this play, disappointed in the playwright’s ambiguity – perhaps the result of her American roots and the US declaration of neutrality – particularly her refusal to locate the specific nationalities of her characters. In the Royal Alexandra production, the characters were named Anna, Sophia, and Victor Varna, who hid war secrets from Capt. Cato. It is clear that Carter-Broun took the Toronto reviews to heart and attempted to clarify the Canadian antecedence of the play because in the printed script anthologized here, she made the characters names unmistakably French – Marie, Jeanne, and Louis Lebois – and the enemy from whom they are hiding, Capt. Von Boem, clearly German. She also explicitly situates the action of The Soldiers in France within the French/German conflict, where Canadian soldiers spent much of the war endeavouring to repel the German invasion.

250

Laurel Green

13 See the Library of Congress, Catalogue of Copyright Entries, Vol. 1918–23. I would like to thank

14

15 16 17 18

19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28

Everett Dixon, whose skillful research while a PhD student at York University brought these titles to light. See Carter-Broun, “Clouds,” Internet Broadway Database, accessed 14 July 2019, https:// www.ibdb.com/broadway-production/clouds-7844. See also “Clouds,” The Encyclopedia of the New York Stage 1920–1930, Vol. 1: 630. For Cobrun Lee Broun’s “Registration [draft] Card,” see Ancestry.com. While no divorce date can be confirmed, this 1918 draft card records that he now lived in Norfolk, Massachusetts, with a new wife, “Mrs C.L. Broun,” who in this instance is designated with her husband’s initials as well as his last name, as was common at the time. Significantly, Louise Carter-Broun never referred to herself as Mrs C.L. Broun. Quoted in Clouds, Encyclopedia of the New York Stage 1920–1930, Vol. 1: 630. “Bed Fellows Uses Dreary Farce Tricks,” New York Times, 3 July 1929, n.p. “Joy of Living Conversational,” New York Times, 7 April 1931, n.p. See International Movie Database, “Louise Carter,” accessed 5 July 2019, https://www. imdb.com/name/nm0141782/. This extensive listing also includes films in which she appeared uncredited. See Kaplan, “Louise Carter,” Variety Obituaries 1957–1963, Vol. 5 (New York: Routledge, 1988): n.p. “Four Playlets at Royal,” Mail and Empire [Toronto], 1 June 1915, n.p. “Four One-Act Plays a Hit,” Toronto Telegraph, 1 June 1915, n.p. Cook, “Triumph and Trials,” 402–3. Grimstead, Melodrama Unveiled, 208. See Jones, “Feminism and Nationalism,” 5–14. See Elsie Clews Parsons in Susan A. Glenn, Female Spectacle, 6. Glenn, Female Spectacle, 7. Ibid., 216. Ibid.

T he Soldiers 1915 L o u i s e C a r t e r- b r o u n (18 7 5 –19 57)

C H a r aC t e r s1 Louis Lebois, a French soldier. marie, his wife. Jeanne, their child, aged nine. CaPtain von boem, a German soldier. suPers, German soldiers. (This playlet is an episode of the present war in one scene.i Living room, home of Louis LeBois. Table left of center. Chairs right and left of table. Fireplace at right. Chair at fireplace. Door right upstage exit and left front, window right front. Marie discovered sewing right of table. Jeanne, playing on floor with doll, which is minus one eye and one arm, and dressed as a French soldier.) Jeanne: Mother? marie: Yes dear. Jeanne: I wish I could have a new dolly. marie: We can’t dear, we haven’t the money. Jeanne: But I can’t make a real soldier. See, he has only one eye (Pokes finger in eye) and one arm gone, too. (Shakes empty sleeve as she crosses to mother.) marie: Play wounded soldier, dear. Jeanne: Yes, that’s very good. But, I’ve had him in the hospital so long now, he must be all well by this time. I’m tired of that game. I want to play “Going to War.” Couldn’t we have him mended mother? (Marie shakes head.) Jeanne (Sighs.): Oh dear! i

The First World War.

252

L o u i s e C a r t e r- B r o u n

marie: I wish we could dear, but you know the toy shop was burned when the enemy marched through here two weeks ago. Besides, we must give all we can spare to those in greater need than we. Jeanne: That’s so. Oh dear! And you’ve made him such beautiful soldier clothes, too. Well, he’s no good soldier this way. marie: Don’t say that, my child. A helpless cripple may become a great soldier if his chance comes. Jeanne: His chance? marie: Yes, it is not always those at the front who can help the most. Why not play, “He Carries an Important Message.” He has good legs. Jeanne (Pushing out doll’s legs.): That’s so. He has good legs. I’ll play he’s like my daddy and has an important message for the general. That’s what he had the last time he was here. marie (Startled.): How do you know that? Jeanne: Oh, I heard daddy tell you after I’d gone to bed and you thought I was asleep. marie (Anxiously.): Come here my child. You haven’t told anyone, have you? Jeanne: Told anyone? Why mother, of course not! I haven’t even told you, have I? marie: My good girl. Mother’s little soldier. Jeanne: That’s what daddy calls me, but it’s only a pretend soldier. I’m only a girl. marie: One of the greatest soldiers of France was a girl. Jeanne: Really? marie: Yes, really. Jeanne: Oh, tell me about her. What was her name? marie: Joan D’Arc.2 Jeanne: What did she do? marie: Led the soldiers to battle. Jeanne: Real soldiers? marie: Yes. Jeanne: Oh, tell me, tell me! (Claps hands with joy, kneels beside mother.) marie: Well, one upon a time in a village like ours, lived a little girl like you. Jeanne: Like me? marie: But, this little girl was different from other little girls because God sent visions to her. Jeanne: Visions! What’s that? marie: Why, like dreams. God told her in those dreams what to do and she always obeyed. Thus, she did great things for France. Jeanne (Rising.): Oh dear! I wish God would send me a vision and let me do something. marie: You are doing something right now. Jeanne: Right now? marie: Yes! Bringing comfort to mother, while father is away facing danger and death, that our country may live. Jeanne: Oh yes, daddy’s a real soldier, so one in this family is all right.

T he Soldiers

253

marie: All right! Would that one could be certain. But, this waiting, waiting ... Not a word in weeks! (Rises.) Sometimes I feel I can’t endure the suspense another minute. (Crosses up to window.) Jeanne: Don’t you worry, mother. Maybe daddy will come again like last time, only this time he’ll have a whole pocket full of messages. (Knock at the door. Pause.) marie (At door.): Shh! Louis (At door.): Marie, Marie! Open, open quickly! marie (Opens door. Enter Louis.): Louis! My husband. Jeanne: Daddy! My daddy. Louis: Sh! Draw the curtains. (Marie does so. Louis and Jeanne down centre.) Louis: I am closely followed. I managed to elude them by hiding in a bit of shrubbery. I had to take a chance, so I came here. (Sits left of table.) Oh, it’s great being home again. But there is no time for that. Listen, listen closely. For weeks I’ve been living in the enemy’s lineup, wearing this uniform. That’s why I was unable to communicate with you. marie: How did you enter the German lines? Louis: Ha! That was easy. Fate played my hand in a clever way. One day after battle, a wounded German was brought into our line. He resembled me so strongly that we could easily pass for one another. My superior officer conceived the idea that I impersonate this man. You see this name plate tells who he was, his command, in fact everything we needed to know. He proved to be a courier on the General’s staff. Oh, it was glorious entering the village, which they had taken the day before. I presented myself as having been cut off from my command. marie: It was fortunate you could speak German. Jeanne: Oh, father can do anything! Louis: That was three weeks ago. Since then, I managed to make maps and set down data which is invaluable to General Joffre.3 One night, I was surprised while at work. I extinguished the light, bolted, and ran. marie: My Husband! Louis: There was nothing else to do. Under cover of darkness and this uniform, I managed to get away. marie: The plans? Louis: I did not leave them, you may be sure. They are made on the thinnest rice paper, carefully rolled and inserted in these two empty shells. (Shows shells.) That’s why I had to take a chance on coming home. If I am killed – marie: Louis! Louis: This is no time for mincing words. I had to share the secret with someone. Who better or safer than you? These contain exact duplicates. You take this one. I’ll keep the other. If I get through safely, you will hear from me tomorrow. marie: Tomorrow?

25 4

L o u i s e C a r t e r- B r o u n

Louis: If no word comes, start at once for our lines and see that this reaches General Joffre, himself. See, the shell has a special mark. This makes it an open passport through our lines. You understand? marie: I do, I do. Louis: Now, I must go. (Rises and starts up stage.) marie: The uniform. If you could disguise yourself – Louis: No time, there is no time. marie: Wait! Old Pierre’s garden smock. It will partly cover you. Jeanne: I’ll fetch it, I’ll fetch it. (Runs off right upper exit.) Louis: Hurry, hurry! marie: It will take but a moment. Jeanne (Re-entering.): Here! Here! (Gives smock.) marie: Let me help you. Jeanne: The hat, too. (Gives hat.) (Helmet rolls under table unobserved.) Louis (At door.): God bless and keep you both. (Quick exit down left front.) marie: Amen! Jeanne (Down left.): Isn’t it great being a soldier, like daddy? Oh, I wish I were a boy. marie: A boy? Jeanne: Yes, then I could be a soldier like father. marie: But, you are too young. Jeanne: Well, I could beat the drum, couldn’t I? (Pause. Marie crosses to fire. Sits.) Girls are no good. All they can do is stay at home. marie: Stay at home. Ofttimes, that is the hardest part. Jeanne: Hard! Why, I think it’s easy. I don’t even go to school anymore.4 I wish I could do something. marie (Rising, crosses centre.): Don’t say that, my child. The time may come sooner than we think. Jeanne: What do you mean? Is something really going to happen? marie: One never knows. The fighting is so close, and father, if we do not hear from him … (Looks at shell in her hand.) Jeanne: Oh, goody! Goody! We can carry the message. That would be something like it. We’d be almost real soldiers, wouldn’t we mother? marie: Yes, dear, real soldiers. Jeanne: Oh joy! I wish it was right now. I wish, I wish, oh I wish I had a gun like this (Takes revolver from drawer.) that father gave you mother. I wish I held it like this and a big, fat German came through the door. I’d say (Enter Captain Von Boem and supers.) throw up your hands! CaPtain (Does so. Realizes situation. In anger, coming down.): Name of God! What does this mean? Speak like that to a soldier of the Emperor?5 (Marie right, Captain centre, Jeanne left. Jeanne places revolver in drawer). marie: Pardon, a thousand pardons. The child is only playing.

T he Soldiers

255

CaPtain: Have a care. The game might grow into a deadly one. But we waste time. We are after a French spy disguised in a German uniform – been chasing him some time. We saw him skulking near, but he got away in the underbrush. Did he come here? marie: There is no man here but you. You are free to search. CaPtain (Motions supers who exit right upper exit.): It will go ill with you if you try to help him. He carries papers which we want and will have. (Jeanne has been edging towards him, listening attentively, and is now quite close.) CaPtain: Get away from me. I don’t like children. You’ve gotten on my nerves. (Pushes her to left.) Jeanne: That’s it. Girls are no good. Only to stay at home and be pushed aside. (Supers enter, cross to down left front, salute.) CaPtain (To supers.): Find anything? (Crosses to super, who shakes his head “no.” Turns at door.) Remember we’re out to get this spy, this Major LeBois. Jeanne: My father! (Realizes her slip, turns hand over mouth.) CaPtain: Ah! Ha! For once a child is not a nuisance. So, we are decidedly on the right track. (His eye falls on helmet under the table. Picks it up.) Ah! His helmet. He has been here. Jeanne: His helmet! Excuse me, that’s mine. (Takes it.) After the battle the other day, I picked it off a dead German. CaPtain (Up to door.): Well, he can’t be far. We’ll search outside. Come. (Gives orders. Marches off with supers down left front.) marie: My child. (Looks around.) Your father –– Jeanne: You see! I let that slip because I’m a girl. Girls are no good and I’m worse than no good. marie: Come here my daughter and listen. You say you wish to be a soldier? Jeanne (Earnestly.): Oh yes! marie: Your chance is here. Jeanne: Here? marie: Now. Jeanne: Now? marie: Yes, your chance to be a better soldier than any man. Jeanne: Joy, joy! Tell me how. marie: Your father is hiding near. Through greatest peril he must be forced to return to us. Listen, listen closely, there may be little time. Jeanne: Speak mother, I’ll listen. marie: Should your father come again, no matter what you see, no matter what you hear, you will keep silent? Jeanne: Yes mother, I promise. marie: In the name of France. Jeanne: In the name of France. marie: I believe you do realize what that means. Your ancestors were all soldiers.

256

L o u i s e C a r t e r- B r o u n

Jeanne: Of course I know what it means. You’ll see. I promise. I’ll even forget I’m only a girl. marie: The plans! We must hide them, but where ... where? Jeanne: Find a good place mother where no one would think of looking. God could tell us, mother, like he did the soldier girl. He could tell us in a vision. I’ll ask him. (Kneels centre.) Please God, send me a vision. marie (Absorbed in looking for place to hide shell. At fireplace.): No, no this won’t do. Jeanne: A vision! A vision! (Opens eyes, sighs, looks at dolly.) You’re a soldier! Can’t you do something for your country? (Shakes him.) marie (Lifting corner of carpet.): Not here, not here. Jeanne: Oh mother, I’ve got it, I’ve got it! marie: Got what? Jeanne: The vision! God sent me a vision! marie: A vision? Jeanne: Yes, he told me, like he did the soldier girl, where to hide the plans. Such a good place! See? The dolly’s eye, where the eye ought to be. Look mother! (Takes shell, drops it in doll’s head.) There, he’s a soldier after all. marie: My big girl, my big girl. (Shots outside. Marie rushes to window.) Oh Father in Heaven, be with me and mine! Jeanne (Down left.): And please God, let me be some kind of soldier, even if I am a girl. (Disturbance outside, door opens. Louis bursts in, closes door, leans against it. He is badly wounded.) marie (Rushes to him.): You are wounded! Jeanne (Runs to him.): Daddy, my daddy! Louis (Dying.): ’Tis nothing. There are graver things than wounds. I must speak quickly: the maps, the plans – you have them – must be delivered to the General’s camp five miles this side of the river. Understand? marie: Yes, yes. Louis: Enemy too close. They got me –– threw my plans in well. You have yours. (Gasps.) I’m done for. You’ll deliver them? (Marie nods.) Louis: The child, she won’t tell? Jeanne: I’m a soldier too. For the Cause! (Salutes.) Louis: For the Cause. (Noise of pursuit outside.) They come. I must go. I must go on. (Starts for door left front.) marie: No, no, this way. Hide in here. (Leads him to right upper exit. Child follows.) Louis: I can’t. I’m done. My God I’m done. (Falls down right.) Remember, silence. For the – Cause! (Convulses and dies.) marie (Bending over him.): My God! My God! Jeanne (Takes Marie’s hand.): Remember, we’re soldiers: two instead of one. (Pause.)

T he Soldiers

257

CaPtain (Rushes on with supers left front.): Ah! Ha! We’ve got him. We’ve got him! Stand aside. (Brushes Marie and Jeanne left. Kneels over Louis. Feels his heart.) Dead! Well, no matter. (Rises. To supers.) Take him in there and search him thoroughly. (Supers carry Louis off down right.) We must have those plans. I’ll question these two. (Grabs Jeanne’s arm, turns her to right.) So, he came, didn’t he? Jeanne: Looks like it. CaPtain: No impertinence. Is that your father? Jeanne: I beg your pardon? CaPtain: You heard me. (Loud.) Is that your father? Jeanne: Not so loud, I’m not deaf. CaPtain: I know that’s your father. Jeanne: Then why do you ask me? CaPtain: Name of God, you’re a cool one. I never could understand children. (Enter additional supers who cross to Captain.) Well, you found them? (Super shakes his head “no.”) You searched thoroughly. (Super nods “yes.”) Search the woman. (Super takes Marie off right.) Hmm! (Looking at Jeanne. He follows her around, she circles table to left. Captain smiles at her.) Come here my child. You’re not afraid of me, are you? Jeanne: No, I’m not afraid of you, but when you smile like that I’m not exactly comfortable. (Sits left of table.) CaPtain (Sits right of table.): I only want you to answer a few questions. Jeanne: Is that all? CaPtain: Yes. Jeanne: Sure? CaPtain: Sure. Jeanne: Oh well, if that’s all, I’ll do that. (Settles herself.) CaPtain: What did the soldier say and do when he came in? Jeanne: What did the soldier say and do when he came in? CaPtain: Yes, dear. Jeanne (Gives him a look, then proceeds to act out what she narrates): Well – there was shooting – then the door burst open and the man stood there – like this. CaPtain: Yes, yes. Jeanne: The man stood there like this. CaPtain: Well, well what did he say? Jeanne: My god! I’m shot! (Pause.) CaPtain: And then ... Jeanne: And then ... CaPtain: Well ... Jeanne: Well, he fell right down there and died. CaPtain (Rises. Crosses to down right exit.): But, he was over here. Jeanne: Was he? Oh yes, he crawled over there and laid down and died.

258

L o u i s e C a r t e r- B r o u n

CaPtain: By God I’ll – (Starts for back of table, down to left. Enter supers and Marie right upper exit. Jeanne crosses front of table to right. To supers.) Well? suPer: Nothing. CaPtain: Leave her to me. I’ll make her talk. Search the child. (Marie crosses to fireplace. Super starts for Jeanne.) Jeanne: Wait! I don’t mind a little thing like being searched. Wait till I get my dolly. (Starts for table, Captain stops her.) CaPtain: No! This is serious business. We have no time for play. Jeanne: Very well, I have no serious objections to leaving him behind. Now gentlemen, I am ready to be searched. (Exits with supers right.) CaPtain (Comes centre facing Marie.): Now madam, you’ll talk or I’ll find a way to make you. Come here. (Grabs her arm, feels her pulse.) Ah, you’re not as calm as you look. Your pulse is running like mad. (Pause.) The man was your husband. marie: No, no. (Crosses down left.) CaPtain (Sees photo in small frame on mantle.): Ah, a soldier in uniform. Now we’ll see. (Steps to door, looks in.) It is, by God it is. marie: Well, what then? CaPtain: What then? What then? (Coming centre.) I’ll make you tell what he did with those plans. Ha! That will not be difficult. (Supers re-enter with child, who runs toward mother.) Find anything? (Super shakes his head “no” and crosses to down left front.) Now madam, I know those plans were in that spy’s possession. The information he carried was too valuable not to pass it on, even with his dying breath. I know for three weeks he remained within our lines impersonating one of our general’s most trusted couriers. I know he made plans of our defenses. I know he had memoranda of our forces. I know he was your husband. I know you know where those papers are. I know – Jeanne: Mother, he knows all the things! CaPtain (Swing to right.): Say, I’ve stood all the impertinence I’m going to stand from you. (Pause. Musingly.) Hmm, we lost him for only a few minutes. He hadn’t much time to talk. He talked before you. You know what he told your mother. You know where she hid those papers. You know – Jeanne: Oh, now you’re going to let somebody else know some things. CaPtain: By God, I’m going to make you talk or I’ll – (Draws sword.) Jeanne: Ooh! What a grand sword! CaPtain: Name of God! This is beyond me. I never could manage children. (Replaces sword.) But women ... (Turns to Marie.) I do know a way to make you talk and I’m going to use it. Now tell me what you know. marie: I know nothing, nothing. CaPtain: I’ll give you one minute. (Draws watch. Marie crosses extreme left.) Fifteen seconds. marie: I have nothing to tell. CaPtain: Thirty seconds. If you do not speak, I shall place the child against the wall.

T he Soldiers

259

marie (Leaning against table whispers.): My god! My god! (Jeanne pauses while his meaning dawns on her, then crosses slowly to Marie.) CaPtain: Forty-five seconds. Jeanne: Remember, we are soldiers. Yes? (Marie nods.) CaPtain: You will speak? marie: There is nothing. CaPtain: Take the child. (Supers start down.) Jeanne (Centre.): Take your dirty hands off me. (Picks up doll off table.) I’m a soldier, even if I’m a girl. (Marches out ahead of soldiers. Exit down left front.) CaPtain: Now madam! (Crosses to window right front. To men outside.) Men, when I count three, shoot. (Marie stifles scream.) CaPtain: Ah, that moves you eh? (Pause.) Well? marie (To Herself.): I must not ... I must not ... CaPtain: One. marie (To Herself.): Oh God, give me strength. CaPtain: Two. marie: Wait! Wait! CaPtain: Ah. (Comes down.) marie: I plead with you ... a little child ... CaPtain: Yes, a little child, the means to an end. If she is so dear to you, speak! marie: I cannot. CaPtain: ’Tis well. (Starts up.) It is your last chance. Speak? marie: Never! Never! CaPtain: Three. Fire! (Shots outside.) (Marie screams, falls forward on knees, head down. Enter supers.) CaPtain: Raise her up. (Supers do so. She can’t stand, falls in chair right of table.) CaPtain: Speak! (She gazes out stupidly. He shakes her roughly.) CaPtain: Do you hear? Speak! marie (Mumbles.): Speak ... Speak ... (Sudden resolve.) Yes, I’ll speak. CaPtain: Ah! (In satisfaction crosses extreme right.) marie (Rises, crosses centre.): You demon, you devil in human form. You’ve killed him, my husband: just as your soldiers have shot down thousands and hundreds of thousands of other husbands, whose wives are waiting, helplessly waiting. You’ve a right to do that, I suppose, that’s war! But, you’ve killed her, a little child, who meant nothing to you, nothing. To me, she was all, all. No doubt when I finish speaking you’ll kill me too.

260

L o u i s e C a r t e r- B r o u n

CaPtain: Yes, by God, I will if you don’t tell me what I want to know. marie: Well do it, do it! Do you think I care? Care! God! You’ve taken all I care for. It’s easy to die. To live, to live, that takes courage. I want to die. I want to die. CaPtain: Here! (Lifts her roughly to her feet.) This is only wasting time. Come! You’ll speak or I’ll – marie (Dazed, hands on head.): There’s something here! It pounds and pounds and pounds. I can’t think, I can’t think. You want me to speak? I’m speaking, but I can’t think. (Continues mumbling “I can’t think.”) CaPtain: Name of God! I believe she’s going mad! marie (Screams.): Mad! Mad! You’ve said it, you’ve said it! I’m going mad. (Laughs.) I’m going mad, mad, mad. (Falls forward, head down, hair over face.) CaPtain (Lifts her head, pushes back her hair. She laughs softly.): ’Tis done. She’ll never speak now. marie (Laughs. Sits up as if rocking a baby.): Go to sleep, go to sleep. CaPtain: Come! We may as well go. She’ll never tell anything that will help our enemies now. Right face, forward march! (Captain exits with supers down left front.) marie: Sleep, sleep. (Sings softly strain from “Sleep Little Baby of Mine.”6 Pause. Listens. Rises, runs up to window, looks out.) I’ve won. I’ve won. For the Cause! For the Cause! The price! Oh God, the price! My baby! My baby, my baby! (Exit down left front crying softly. Long pause. Returns carrying Jeanne, who clutches doll in one arm. Comes down centre, places child on floor.) My baby, my little soldier. I’m free to carry your father’s message now. They’ve gone. They’ve gone. Jeanne (Sits up.): Well, if they’ve gone, it’s time for us to start. marie (Backing away to right.): My God! Jeanne: I’m not dead. I heard the soldiers say they didn’t want to shoot me ’cause they had babies at home. They must have fired in the air, ’cause I fell down and played dead. f inis

notes 1 For the original designation of characters see note 12 of the introduction to the play. 2 See “St Joan of Arc,” Catholic Online, accessed 2 July 2018, http://www.catholic.org/saints/

saint.php?saint_id=295. Jeanne D’Arc ( Joan of Arc 1412–1431) is famous for auditory hallucinations that instructed her to assist the King of France in reconquering his kingdom. She achieved several military successes, including the Siège D’Orléans on 8 May 1429. Through a reversal of fortune, she was condemned as a heretic and burnt at the stake on 30 May 1431. She was just nineteen years old. Pope Benedict VX canonized Jeanne D’Arc in 1920. She is the patroness of soldiers and of France.

T he Soldiers

261

3 See Encyclopædia Britannica Online, s.v. “Joseph-Jacques-Cesaire Joffre,” accessed 2 July 2018,

https://www.britannica.com/biography/Joseph-Jacques-Cesaire-Joffre. Marshal JosephJacques Césaire Joffre (1852–1931) was a French general during the First World War. He became immediately popular and well-known in the early weeks of the war because of his decisive defeat of the Germans at the First Battle of the Marne (5 Sept 1914). 4 See Gillis and Short, “Children’s Experiences of World War I,” n.p. School for children during the First World War was very often interrupted. Much like Jeanne, children likely struggled to understand the reasons for this cessation. 5 See Encyclopædia Britannica Online, s.vv. “William II,” accessed 2 July 2018, https://www. britannica.com/biography/William-II-emperor-of-Germany. Friedrich Wilhelm Viktor Albert (1859–1941), German emperor (kaiser), and king of Prussia from 1888 to the end of the First World War in 1918, was known for his frequently militaristic manner as well as for his vacillating policies. 6 See Christine Merrick Ayars, Contributions to the Art of Music in America by the Music Industries of Boston 1640 to 1936 (New York: The H.W. Wilson Company, 1937), 24. https://archive. org/stream/contributionstoa00ayar/contributionstoa00ayar_djvu.txt. “Sleep, Little Baby of Mine” (1890) was written by Charles Dennée.

7 T he Wooing of Miss Canada A n Introduction ky m bi r D

The Wooing of Miss Canada (1917) was the longest and most ambitious of nineteen theatricals Edith Lelean Groves wrote during the First World War. It formed her most significant contribution to a new curriculum that was designed to explain the war to, and engender a sense of civic duty in, primary school children. Groves was a domestic feminist: she consciously strove to fashion a counterpublic of female pedagogues that advocated and practiced maternity in teaching and philosophies of teaching. This play places women, the feminine, and the maternal at the centre of its coming-of-age story, that elsewhere I have read as political allegory.1 The Wooing of Miss Canada is also a pageant play. It commemorates the fiftieth anniversary of the country by dramatizing confederation and mythologizing the country’s early twentieth-century identity. It focusses on the popular figure of Miss Canada, the dutiful Anglo-Canadian daughter to John Bull who is just beginning to flirt with real independence, and recognizing for the first time her enormous wealth and resources, in order to inspire feelings of loyalty and nationalism in the children who put it on and attended performances. Groves was born Edith Lelean on 22 January1870 in Cheltenham, Gloucester County, England. Her parents were moneyed, influential people – particularly her mother, Caroline Jane Clyma, who belonged to the local elite of Truro; Clyma’s father was a banker and one-time mayor of the town.2 Groves’s father, Nicholas Lelean, was of French Huguenot ancestry and his forefathers, when they settled in England, became captain merchantmen and shipbuilders in Cheltenham’s thriving seaport and its maritime trade. Edith had a sister and two brothers and in 1882, when she was twelve, the family immigrated to Port Hope, Ontario. Her sojourn on Lake Ontario’s rural north shore, however, was short lived; by 1886, the family had moved to Queen Street in Toronto where Nicholas set himself up in the crockery and china trade.

T h e Wo o i n g o f M i s s C a n a d a : A n I n t r o d u c t i o n

263

7.1 Commemorative photograph of Edith Lelean Groves, probably taken when she became chairman of the Toronto Board of Education in 1929.

Groves followed in the footsteps of her aspirational family. After graduating from Jarvis Street Collegiate she enrolled in the city’s Normal School where she earned her teacher’s certificate.3 She accepted her first professional post at the Toronto School Board, Clinton Street School (1892), teaching junior second. She was nineteen years old. She also gave private lessons in elocution. While she taught briefly at Manning Avenue School (1899), her career in the classroom was undertaken largely at Morse Street School (1895–1901) and later Church Street School (1902–07) where she met and then in 1907 married its widowed principal, William E. Groves. As was conventional for married women, Groves was obliged to resign from teaching and instead took on the responsibility of mothering to her husband’s two boys. But, they remained a family for a relatively brief period: William died during the war, son Alan was severely wounded by gas at the Somme in 1916, and in 1917 Harold was killed at the Battle of Passchendaele.4 Throughout these remarkable domestic changes, Groves never abandoned her pedagogical passion and clearly had her eye on making a public mark in educational circles.5 In 1919 she contested a seat on the

264

Ky m B i r d

7.2 Edith L. Groves School for Adolescent Girls. Edith Lelean Groves was instrumental in creating Toronto’s first vocational schools, including the Edith L. Groves School for Adolescent Girls.

Toronto School Board for Ward 7 and won. She was subsequently re-elected twelve times.6 In 1929 she became the board’s first woman “chairman.” The Toronto School Board and its educational leaders had a progressive reputation at the turn of the twentieth century and Groves was influenced by two forward-thinking mentors. Her years as a pupil and then as a teacher at the Toronto Board of Education fell within the forty-year tenure of James L. Hughes (1846–1935), inspector of public schools for the board and a great advocate of German educationalist Friedrich Fröbel, whose child-centred approach to education dominated reform in the Toronto school system. Groves shared his child first philosophy and the social and pedagogical value it placed on the maternity of women teachers, as did women’s organizations generally, many of which Groves invited to make presentations to the board, including the “home and school movement,” the “kindergarten movement,” associations that provided free milk in schools (1923), and free textbooks and supplies (1928). Her second formative pedagogical influence was Toronto Board of Education Chief Inspector R.H. Cowley (1913–26). His “greatest concern,” he declared, was “the problem of subnormal children.”7 Groves made such children the subject of her educational attention. She is exceptional for having herself gone door-to-door in the Toronto wards creating lists of children with disabilities: what were then described as “cripple-children,” “the mentally defective,” “the blind,” and “the hard of hearing.”

T h e Wo o i n g o f M i s s C a n a d a : A n I n t r o d u c t i o n

265

She arranged to have them bussed to “auxiliary classes” in tsb schools. She was instrumental in creating Toronto’s first vocational schools: the Edith L. Groves School for Adolescent Girls, which was named after her, and its male counterpart, the Junior Vocational School for Adolescent Boys. To raise the profile of what was then called “special education” she travelled in Canada, the United States, and France speaking on related issues and purposefully cultivating an interest at home in many of the best practices from abroad. In 1928, she was elected International President for the Education of Exceptional Children. In 1929 she took the Toronto School Board’s top position. She became chairman: the first time the seat had been occupied by a woman. Groves died during her tenure in 1931. At the end of a much-extolled career she was known for drawing her greatest support from children, mothers, and teachers who formed the counterpublic that supported her work. She was eulogized as sympathetic, progressive, reform-minded, and a “friend of the children”8 As a teacher, the wife of a principal, and the author of two plays for children, Groves was favourably positioned to contribute to the new curriculum.9 She was well aware of need to develop texts that would rationalize the war to children. Over four years, she published nineteen plays for the primary grades, the majority with the newly established McClelland, Goodchild & Stewart which in their “The All Canadian Entertainment Series,” helped to meet the “great demand for books” during the war years.10 Groves’s plays were a kind of war work and the epitome of public sphere theatre. The provincial curriculum had always been designed to arouse a sense of British patriotism in students, but at this time, fidelity to Britain and the empire “assume[d] greater importance than ever before.” Groves undertook to craft plays that entered entirely into the new program of moral and didactic works designed to inculcate in small children a particularly Canadian identity grounded in duty and devotion to the country and empire.11 They offered a method by which teachers could expound upon and engage with the present conflict in terms that children could easily grasp. As historian Susan Fisher elaborates, most of these plays were augmented military drills and their use of dialogue, movement, tableau, and song, was intended to arouse “loyalty to nation and empire” in grade-school children. They were lauded in professional publications like School (1916) and eight of her drills were endorsed by the Ontario Library Review and Book Selection Guide in 1917. In 1918, the Western School Journal listed seven of her titles; the Methodist Sunday School Banner in 1916 advertised four of her plays as appropriate “‘drills for use in Patriotic Day entertainments.’”12 Groves’s plays appeared on the curriculum of every school district in Canada.13 There is also evidence of performances. The most high-profile of these was How the Fairies Chose Their Queen, staged in the pavilion in the Horticultural Gardens (Allen Gardens): five thousand copies of the play were published.14 Pageants, as David Glassberg has written of the American context, were “civic celebrations” that enacted “dramatic episodes” in the history of a town or region that both reflected and shaped the culture’s vision of itself.15 Like those initiated

266

Ky m B i r d

in Canada by Lady Aberdeen at the end of the nineteenth century, this theatrical form often involved the participation of thousands. Pageants created “public history” from images in popular culture that influenced how the society defined itself, how it conceived of its identity, and its idea of the future. They at once “appeal[ed] to progressivism” and “anti-modernism” or an idealized version of the past. “Since every way of seeing the world ... excludes hundreds of alternatives from view, the power to define what particular version of history becomes the public history is an awesome power indeed.”16 The Wooing of Miss Canada is pageantry on a small scale. Its principle purpose was to make spectacle and legend out of Canada’s history, and to form a counterpublic of young girls who could identify with the sense of independence inspired by the main character and the feminine position of the country whose founding she represents. It mythologized the country’s intimacy with Britain as a family romance and its wariness of the United States and other foreign nations; it also looked forward to a time when Canada would control her own international relations. The titular character in The Wooing of Miss Canada was a popular figure in nineteenth-century periodicals. In Toronto’s Grip magazine, editor and cartoonist John Wilson Bengough represented her in “Confederation! The Much-Fathered Youngster” (1886) as a baby torn between the Anglo founding fathers of North America. Her treatment by Bengough was similar to an unattributed pen and ink political cartoon entitled “Canada” (1870) where she is a child caught betwixt the ghoulish Uncle Sam and slightly too hands-off mother Britannia.17 She was also the simple, Anglo-Canadian middle-class girl as in Bengough’s prohibitionist cartoon Renewing the Lease (1886), the anonymous “A Pertinent Question” (1886), and A.P. Englis’s “The Happy Pair” (1886).18 In this play, as in Groves’s 1918 Canada Calls, and a preponderance of visual portrayals, including France’s Loring’s sculpture (192–?), I.J. Pranishnikoff’s Setting the Task (1875), and Benough’s Waiting for the Signal (1886), Miss Canada is drawn as a Roman goddess. Like the political face of citizenship in the United States and many European countries, she “corresponded with the symbolic and representational nature of the nationalism” that “invariably depended on gendered familial and domestic signifiers.”19 As Anne McClintock generalizes of other female icons, Miss Canada is “the atavistic and authentic body of national tradition.”20 While she does not carry the weight of a figure like Pax Britannica, “the guardian, protector and mother of the nation,” or even the “Statue of Liberty,” for the children who watched and performed in the play, she was a tangible symbol of the country’s perception of itself.21 She was beautiful, youthful, vulnerable, wealthy, progressive, and on the cusp of growing up: not a queen but every bit a princess. Miss Canada is the pictorial representation of the connection between white skin colour, a founding mythology, and Anglo-Canadian identity and nation-building at the turn of the century. Whiteness was considered by the majority of people living in the country to “ultimately determine the authentic Canadian”: thus, she is the

T h e Wo o i n g o f M i s s C a n a d a : A n I n t r o d u c t i o n

267

7.3 Cover of The Wooing of Miss Canada, typical to imprints of the Canadian Entertainment Series by McClelland & Stewart.

personification of how ideas of the Anglo-Canadian race structured the country’s international relations.22 Miss Canada’s rejection of the overtures of other lands reflects the inward-looking propensity of the country under Prime Minister Borden. Miss Canada’s fear of Germany, who is represented as the bullying, male student, depicts the vulnerability felt by the country in the face of Teutonic militarism and Germany’s desire for world domination.23 The play’s action is framed by a prologue that rehearses confederation, the founding of the four original provinces, geographical barriers to expansion, and the wealth of Canada’s natural resources. Its point is to reinforce in its youngest citizens the nation’s identity as civilized, progressive, and modern, even while these ideas were “steeped in racial norms and expectations.”24 Its epilogue is a public

268

Ky m B i r d

declaration of Canada’s newly developing optimism and independence in international relations: it now has trains, and planes and automobiles; it has five additional provinces, a swelling population, a surfeit of arable land, and a new and growing self-confidence. At its closing, the play paraphrases the most famous declaration of one of Canada’s most famous prime ministers, Sir Wilfrid Laurier, when it announces that “the twentieth century belongs to Canada,” communicating to its participants and spectators that by the second decade of the twentieth century the government had established a great many of its most important institutions, ones that would characterized it for the next one hundred years, and to English Canada a certain “cultural unanimity,” influenced greatly by the United States and Britain, that incorporated a new sense of nationalism.25 Its final cautionary watchword – “Canada for Canadians” – and its core qualification that “we must be ever on the alert to guard well [Canada’s] interests, to watch the immigration and see that undesirables do not enter,” unabashedly reinforces to the present generation the ongoing nativism of the age. The Wooing of Miss Canada conveys important political issues to children and makes these children a counterpublic of agents in their proselytization dissemination. It does not encourage or engender opposing views – how could it when its target audience is incapable of forming such views? While this and other of Groves’s plays and the opinions they express are not co-extensive with government authority, they did contribute to a new, war-time curriculum that was distributed by the schoolboard. They were the product of a private person, to the extent that when Groves wrote them she was not employed by the schoolboard, but they nevertheless brought young students and undoubtedly parents together into an imaginary, mythologically feminine community that endeavoured to propagate nationalist and xenophobic ideas at a time of great social unrest.

notes 1 See Bird, “‘I Want Riches.’” 2 MacMurchy, “Edith Lelean Groves,” 11–13. MacMurchy, mD, was a friend of Groves and

the rather extensive biography that prefaces Everyday Children, a volume that was published to raise funds for the committee in charge of the Edith L. Groves Memorial Fund for Underprivileged Children, contains facts that would otherwise be lost to history: facts that were unquestionably relayed to MacMurchy by Groves herself. For an elaboration of Edith Lelean Groves’s biography and sources corroborating claims made respecting it, see Bird, “Lelean, Edith Sarah (Groves),” dcb. 3 MacMurchy, “Edith Lelean Groves,” 13. 4 Ibid., 14–15. 5 For evidence of the persistence of sexism in the board’s hiring policies with respect to married women see Toronto School Board, Minutes of the Board of Education, 13.

T h e Wo o i n g o f M i s s C a n a d a : A n I n t r o d u c t i o n

269

6 See ibid., 1931, 200. Groves was three times chairman of the board’s management

7 8 9 10

11 12 13 14 15

16 17 18

19 20 21 22

23

24 25

committee and once chairman of the Advisory Vocational Committee. She also ran as Progressive candidate for Northwest Toronto in the election of 1923 but was unsuccessful. See MacMurchy, “Edith Lelean Groves,” 16; and the Groves Vertical File, “Schools Mourn Famed Leader.” Hardy and Cochrane, Centennial Story, 138. MacMurchy, “Edith Lelean Groves,” 14, 16, 23. Groves wrote her first two plays, Canada Our Homeland and Fancy Flag Drill, Canadian Drills and Exercises No. 1 to commemorate the Boer War in 1900. “The great demand for books in Canada during the First World War meant that by 1919 some 160 books, over half of which were also published abroad, had been published under the McClelland & Stewart imprint.” See Mcclelland.com, “Company Profile,” accessed 19 Dec 2006. http://www.mcclelland.com/about/index.html. For a brief reference to the Canadian Entertainment Series, see Gerson, “Dragged at Anne’s Chariot Wheels.” See also Fisher, Boys and Girls, 92–3, 95, 97. Barbara M., Wilson, ed., Ontario and the First World War, xcv. Fisher, Boys and Girls, 93–8. See “Clever Authoress Writes of Children,” Toronto Star, 30 Nov 1917, 5. This is the same venue that hosted the Mock Parliament of 1896. Glassberg, American Historical Pageantry, 1. Glassberg contends that the pageant is largely a historical form which was “over by World War Two.” Yet, Queen Elizabeth’s Diamond Jubilee Pageant of 2012 along the Thames in London would suggest otherwise. Ibid., 1–2. Grip also published Curzon’s Sweet Girl Graduate in 1882 with an interesting satirical comment upon it in the form of a sequence of cartoon drawings that followed the play. See Neilson, Private Women, 473. As Neilson has observed, when Miss Canada was figured as Western Canada – “Manitoba and the North-West Territories” – “the visual trope” was one of “an indigenized, feminized body” although these “Indian” images are really AngloCanadian stereotypes of indigenous bodies, as in the drawing “From Halifax to Vancouver” (1886). Heathorn, “‘For Home, Country and Race,’” 107. McClintock, Imperial Leather, 359. Heathorn, “‘For Home, Country and Race,’” 107. The young, naive Miss Canada, and her one-dimensional interactions with girls from Spain, Italy, Japan, and France represent a picture of imperial racism that instill the empire, loyalty, and the construction of a Canadian identity that is white and British. See MacMurchy, “Edith Lelean Groves,” 20. Although this is Miss Canada’s play, Jack Canuck also has an important role as her pioneer prince; a young buck, fit, capable, and symbolizing strength, hope, and moral purity of a new land; despite his rough-rider hat and khakis, he is the heroic model of the “British traditions of honesty and uprightness, of fair play and justice” that Groves believed constituted the “worthwhile citizen.” Madokoro, McKenzie, and Meren, Dominion of Race, 6. Valverde, Age of Light, 15.

T he Wooing of Miss Canada 1917 e D i t H L e L e a n g r o v e s (18 7 0 –19 3 1)

CH a r aCt er s a n D Cost u m es Fairy goDmotHer, wears a high, pointed hat covered with silver paper. tHe seven gooD Fairies, dresses short and full, made of gauzy material; each wears a star, fastened on a narrow band of elastic, on her forehead. They carry wands. JaCk CanuCk, dark blue or khaki shirt, open at the neck, rough rider hat.i When he comes in at the end of the play he wears a khaki suit. JoHn buLL, knee breeches, slippers with buckles, a Union Jack for a vest, long tailed coat, and a soft round hat. He should be well padded in front.ii Four or Five sPanisH DanCers, full white blouses, black peasant bodices laced up in front, short, full skirts of red, wide yellow sashes tied on the left side with ends flowing. severaL JaPanese girLs, kimonos with large butterfly bows tied high in the back, large paper Chrysanthemums on each side of the head just behind the ears. Four or more FrenCH girLs, ordinary white frocks with blue and white aprons; high cornered caps with fluttering strings.

i

See the Slouch Hat and the Rough Riders, Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ Slouch_hat and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rough_Riders, 29 June 2019. The “Rough Rider hat” was a version of a “slouch hat,” which had a wide brim, chin strap, and was made of felt or cloth. Although it was part of the military uniform of many European nations, including Britain, France, and Germany, it was popularized at the end of the nineteenth century in North America by Colonel Theodore Roosevelt, whose first United States volunteer cavalry were called Rough Riders.

ii

John Bull is a personification of the English nation, dating from the eighteenth century. He is here dressed in the Union Jack, the official flag of the United Kingdom and Canada’s official flag until 1965.

T h e Wo o i n g o f M i s s C a n a d a

271

Four or more itaLian girLs, red skirts with a green band, white blouses with full sleeves, black bodices laced up in front, and brightly-colored handkerchiefs on their heads. unCLe sam, as nearly like his pictures as possible: striped trousers, long-tailed coat, and high striped hat.i german stuDent, college cap and gown. miss CanaDa, “Canada,” white dress, trimmed with maple leaves; a headdress of maple leaves. (Have the prologue and the epilogue recited by someone who takes no part in the play, preferably a grown-up person.)

PROLOGUE From July 1, 1867, Confederation Day, the day upon which Sir John A. Macdonald and George Brown shook hands over the Union of four Provinces, Ontario, Quebec, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick, dates our Canadian national life.1 At that time, none thought of Canada as a nation. The people in the East were very far removed from the inhabitants of Ontario. And, as for the Canadian West, as we now know it, well, it did not exist. Mail was carried from Lake Superior to the Rocky Mountains, a distance of eighteen hundred miles, by dog train in the wintertime and by canoe in the summer season. Prior to Confederation, Canada, by natural barriers that seemed almost insurmountable, was divided into four great sections. In the east were maritime provinces, separated by a wide gap from the second section, Ontario, and Quebec, and the third section, the great prairie provinces, which was separated from the western section by a great natural barrier: the huge mountain ranges of the Rockies and the Selkirks. It was confederation that made possible the uniting of these geographical areas into one great whole, tHe Dominion oF CanaDa. (Enter Fairy Godmother.) Fairy goDmotHer: They are late. The Seven Good Fairies are late. Where can they be? I told them to meet me here, as they met me so long ago at that wonderful Birthday Party, when we all celebrated the birth of a Nation. What can have happened to them? They must have lost their way! (Enter First and Second Fairies.) First Fairy: We certainly did lose our way, and it’s no wonder. Why everything is changed. We couldn’t find any landmarks. seConD Fairy: We are just exhausted! goDmotHer: Have you come from far? First Fairy: Far? I should think we had. From the other side of the Rocky Mountains. i

The national personification of the United States dating back to 1812.

272

Edith L elean Groves

seConD Fairy: We have traveled many weary miles since the call to service sounded. goDmotHer: You have come quickly. How did you manage it? First Fairy: It seemed perfectly hopeless to us. We never dreamed of being able to get here so soon. But the strangest thing happened. While we were wondering what to do, in order to obey the call, our eye caught sight of the queerest animal running at top speed over iron rails in the very direction in which we were coming. goDmotHer: An Animal! What was it like? seConD Fairy: We simply cannot describe it. First Fairy: It had a cloud of black smoke pouring out of the top of its head so dense, that at times we almost lost sight of it. And the noise that it made was deafening. Sometimes it disappeared entirely as it bored its way through the mountains, and then all of a sudden it appeared again on the other side. seConD Fairy: It was wonderful to watch as it crossed tremendous rivers and over bridges that seemed to be there on purpose to accommodate it. First Fairy: And it was so long! It seemed unending. seConD Fairy: We hit on a wonderful plan. Would you like to hear it? goDmotHer: I would, indeed. seConD Fairy: Well we just rode on the very end of it and here we are! goDmotHer: Adventurous fairies! Why someone might have seen you. First Fairy: There was only one man who could possibly have seen us. He had brass buttons on his coat and on every button were the letters “CPr.” They called him a “conductor” and whoever heard of a CPr conductor seeing a fairy? Now, if there had been any children near we should really have been in danger, for the only ones who ever see fairies nowadays are the children. (Enter Third and Fourth Fairies.) tHirD Fairy: Are we late? We came just as quickly as we could. goDmotHer: And were you, too, a long way off? FourtH Fairy: We have come from the head of Lake Superior and we came on the biggest ship you ever saw. It was immense, and it was so filled with grain that there was hardly room for us. But we managed it and here we are! goDmotHer: Did anybody see you? tHirD Fairy: There was nobody to see us but the sailors, and sailors never see the fairies. goDmotHer: I wouldn’t be quite so sure about that. I wish the others would come. (Enter Fifth and Sixth Fairies.) FiFtH Fairy: We have had a wonderful ride. If it had not been for that we could not have been here nearly so soon. goDmotHer: What kind of ride? Tell us about it. sixtH Fairy: We rode in a horseless carriage. goDmotHer: A horseless carriage! Please explain. How could that be?

T h e Wo o i n g o f M i s s C a n a d a

273

FiFtH Fairy: That we cannot tell, but the carriage ran over the road moved by some unseen power. goDmotHer: ’Tis strange, ’tis passing strange! Did you ever hear of these remarkable things when we were here before?i Fairies: Never! Such things were unheard of. seventH Fairy (Rushing on to the stage in a breathless manner.): Here I am. Am I too late? I had a most wonderful adventure. Fairies: Adventure? How interesting. Tell us about it. goDmotHer: Yes, do. We would like to hear. seventH Fairy: Well, I was leisurely coming through the clouds on my way to this gathering when suddenly there appeared the most wonderful bird that was ever seen by fairy eyes. And the noise it made! I can hear the buzzing and the whirring yet. It nearly deafened me. goDmotHer: What was it like? seventH Fairy: It was huge, immense. goDmotHer: As large as an eagle? seventH Fairy: ’Twas larger than a hundred eagles. It had two, tremendous wings and the oddest body. At the front was a figure that looked like a human being. I assure you I was badly frightened. goDmotHer: And not much wonder. seventH Fairy: I could not tell where I was; everything is so changed. Magnificent cities now stand where formerly wilderness and bush were. It is a wonder to me that I ever found my way at all. But, I trusted to luck and rode on the wings of the bird they called an aeroplane. goDmotHer: Yes, everything has changed since that birthday party that we all attended so long ago. I was the child’s fairy godmother and ’tis the duty of a fairy godmother to bring rich offerings to her infant godchild. But I, I had little to bring. And so I called on all you Good Fairies to come and bring your choicest gifts to the infant Canada. And you all came. First Fairy: And I brought Wealth. seConD Fairy: And I brought Health. tHirD Fairy: And I brought Power to grow. FourtH Fairy: And Beauty rare, that was the share, I brought so long ago. FiFtH Fairy: Power to discern. sixtH Fairy: Desire to learn. seventH Fairy: And Wisdom rich and rare. These gifts so choice, Made all rejoice. We fairies did our share. i

“’twas strange, ’twas passing strange” (Othello, 1.3.).

2 74

Edith L elean Groves

goDmotHer: Indeed you did. I was very grateful to you. And how hard we tried to keep from the Bad Fairy the knowledge of that wondrous birthday party! But she was there. She came at the last minute. Enemies sought her out and told her and so she evaded us and gained an entrance. And such a gift as she left that precious baby! First Fairy: What was it? goDmotHer: Did you not hear? ’Twas a love for things that are not worth while: a love for power, for position, for show. seventH Fairy: My gift of wisdom ought to counteract that gift brought by the Bad Fairy. goDmotHer: ’Twas a gift wisely chosen. Let us hope ’twill always counteract the bad. (At this point introduce a fairy drill or dance in which the Godmother and The Seven Good Fairies take part.2 If the Fairies carry wands, a wand drill will fit in nicely. When the drill or dance is finished, they group themselves prettily on the platform, some standing and some sitting. Be careful to have the placing of the children all arranged beforehand. So much depends upon a pretty grouping.) (Enter Jack Canuck.)3 Fairies: Who comes here? First Fairy: What strong and stalwart youth is this? goDmotHer: ’Tis Jack Canuck! What business can he have with us? JaCk CanuCk: Good morrow, Fairy Godmother. goDmotHer: Good morrow, Jack Canuck. You are sad, I fear. JaCk CanuCk: Indeed, I am: very, very sad. goDmotHer: Tell us your sorrow. Perhaps we may be able to help you, and if we can most gladly will we do so. JaCk CanuCk: You cannot help me. Well, I fear the case is a hopeless one. I am in love with your godchild, Miss Canada. Fairies (Delightedly.): In love, how interesting! And does she love you in return? JaCk CanuCk: That I cannot say, but I fear not. goDmotHer: Have you spoken to her of your love? JaCk CanuCk: More times than I can count. Sometimes I think she loves me in return, and then she treats me with such coldness that I fear my suit is hopeless. goDmotHer: Does she give any reason for this treatment of you? JaCk CanuCk: She says I’m not of noble birth. I am much too ordinary for her. She thinks a crown would be most becoming to her golden tresses. She hopes that by and by a grander suitor will come along, one who will place her by his side upon a throne. She has visions of grandeur in the magnificent courts of Europe and ’tis for that she casts aside a heart that loves her for herself alone. goDmotHer: ’Tis the work of the Bad Fairy! I feared for the baby when I knew this unwelcome visitor had been present at her birthday party. But, we will do all we can to help you in your wooing, Jack Canuck. JaCk CanuCk: I know well a maiden fair,

T h e Wo o i n g o f M i s s C a n a d a

275

She is sweet beyond compare, And I love her well. Yes, with love my heart doth burn, Does she love me in return? That I cannot tell. She is haughty, coy, or gay, When I plead she turns away, Then my heart doth sink. When I go she calls me back, Cries, “Oh, do not leave me, Jack!” What’s a man to think? Sometimes she gaily taunts me, And laughingly she flaunts me, Then she brightly smiles. When she smiles my spirits rise, When she frowns, then hope it dies, Oh, she’s full of wiles! goDmotHer: Just like the rest of her sex, Jack Canuck. Have you anything else to offer this Godchild of mine, besides this love that you so ardently profess? What arguments have you to advance for your union with Canada? JaCk CanuCk: The greatest of all arguments is this, I love her well! Then, too, ’twould be a suitable match, we have so much in common: the same interests, the same ideals. goDmotHer: And what are these ideals? JaCk CanuCk: Her development as a nation, her future growth, her progress in the realms of commerce, of education, of literature, of art. I am strong; I am vigorous; I would safeguard her interests, I would protect her from all who would do her harm, I would keep away from her all who were undesirable. goDmotHer: Have you spoken to her father, John Bull? JaCk CanuCk: Not yet. I thought to win her first. goDmotHer: ’Tis the modern way of doing things. ’Twas altogether different in my young days. Then, the older people planned the marriage and the young people did as their parents wished. (Enter John Bull, blustering.) JoHn buLL: What’s all this? What’s all this? goDmotHer: We are talking of my dear Godchild, your daughter, Canada. We are discussing her future. She is beautiful and attractive, and many suitors will doubtless appear and ask for her hand. JoHn buLL: Suitors! Nonsense! She is but a child among the nations. goDmotHer: Old enough, John Bull, for many to be casting eyes at her and her vast possessions. Happy, indeed, will the foreign nation be that can annex Canada.

276

Edith L elean Groves

JoHn buLL: Happy? I should think so. For she is richly dowered. Beauty and grace and vast possessions in lands and resources has this daughter of mine. She has wonderful acres of farming lands and untold wealth in mine and lake and forest. But, I tell you this: no future hunter need ever ask me for my daughter’s hand in marriage. goDmotHer: John Bull, I fear you are behind the times. Nowadays, suitors do not first consult the fathers. Here is a case in point. Jack Canuck would wed your daughter and he has not asked your consent to his wooing.4 JoHn buLL: Jack Canuck, who is he? JaCk CanuCk: Nobody very important, John Bull. Just a plain, ordinary youth of humble birth, madly in love with the most charming, beautiful maiden that ever worried the heart out of a poor suitor. JoHn buLL: Has she given you any encouragement? JaCk CanuCk: Sometimes I think she has, and then again I cannot tell. She has told me I am too plain, too ordinary, too commonplace. She yearns for grandeur and greatness, and power: a golden crown, and a throne, and a King in kingly raiment whose honours she would share. And yet, withal, I feel she loves me. seventH Fairy: ’Tis the work of the Bad Fairy, who forced her way in at the birthday party of Confederation. She, it was, who put these ideas into her head. goDmotHer: And these ideas once planted are hard to destroy. They are like noxious weeds that grow and grow and if not destroyed will soon smother the good grain. Let yours be the task, Good Fairies, to prove to Miss Canada that happiness does not consist in outward show, but in real, true love that comes from the heart. We will go and find her and tell her this. JoHn buLL: I, too, shall have something to say to this daughter of mine. (John Bull takes the hand of the Fairy Godmother and leads her off the platform. The Seven Good Fairies follow.) JaCk CanuCk: I have good friends. I hope they will do something to further my suit. (Enter Miss Canada with several letters in her hand. She is just reading one.) CanaDa: Now, that’s what I call a real lover. That is the kind of letter that any girl ought to be proud to receive. I am sure I could love him in return. Ah, Jack Canuck, you here again? What brings you this time? JaCk CanuCk: ’Tis the same old story: my love for you. CanaDa: Really, you are a most persistent lover. If persistency could win me, then you would have won me long ago. JaCk CanuCk: I fear I have been too persistent. But, I have no time and little inclination to longer dally. If you do not love me, say so, and I will leave you, never to return. CanaDa: Oh, but you mustn’t do that! What should I do without you? I need you for so many things. Who would look after my interests as well as you do? Who would guard my shores? Who would fight my battles and who would keep away from Canada all who would do her harm? Who, but Jack Canuck!

T h e Wo o i n g o f M i s s C a n a d a

277

JaCk CanuCk: That’s all very well, from your standpoint, but what about mine? miss CanaDa: Why Jack, I want to make a brilliant match. I want to marry someone of old, old family. Someone who will make up to Canada what she, herself lacks in that respect. Then I want riches, and position, and standing among the other nations of the world. Oh, yes, Jack Canuck, I know that I am ambitious, but it is no wonder, for many opportunities for greatness are coming my way. Listen to this. (Reads the letter.) From Spain to Canada – Greetings: long have we admired you from afar, Oh, Canada, and long have we loved you. Your beauty, your vast acres, your wonderful resources have led us to the conclusion that a union with you would be to our great advantage. Spain, one of the oldest countries of Europe, is willing to overlook the fact that you have no particular family to boast of, no long line of ancestry, and to ask you to take into serious consideration a union at your earliest convenience. We await your pleasure and are sending ambassadors bearing gifts. (Enter Spanish dancers. They dance up to Miss Canada and present her with jewels and laces, strings of beads thrown around her neck, and a lace scarf thrown over her head, mantilla fashion.i While they are decorating her, Jack Canuck scratches his head and looks most embarrassed.) JaCk CanuCk: Well, I see this is no place for me. (Exit Jack Canuck.) (At this point introduce a Spanish dance given by the Spanish girls. They should carry tambourines or castanets. At the close of the dance, while the rest of them group themselves prettily at the feet of Miss Canada, one girl may step forward and sing a solo: something about Spain would be most appropriate. The other girls join in the chorus.) sPanisH girL: From sunny Spain, we come to woo Miss Canada, A maiden fair, a maiden fair! For she has wealth in lands, in herds, in mines and then Such beauty rare, such beauty rare! CanaDa: Why did not your master come in person to woo me? Wooing should never be done by proxy. sPanisH girL: He is much too busy. The cares of state press heavily upon our master’s brow. He cannot leave to come so far away. But, he told us to say to you, O Canada, that it was Spain that made possible the growth of your country: in fact, the very being of this land. For had it not been for Christopher Columbus, tell me this, would you ever have been discovered? CanaDa: That I cannot say, but I think so. We are willing to accord to the ancient navigator all the credit that belongs to him. But, I really do not think that I shall allow Christopher Columbus to influence me, in the slightest degree, in the choosing of a husband. Then, too, the advantage seems to be all on the side i

“A large, light veil or scarf, often of black lace, worn by (esp. Spanish) women over the head and covering the shoulders.” oed, s.v., “mantilla.”

278

Edith L elean Groves

of Spain, if we are to take into consideration only the commercial aspect of the case, and so I beg leave to decline with thanks. (Takes off her jewels and her lace and hands them to one of the maidens.) sPanisH girL: But what about family and social position? Think what it would mean to you to be allied with one of the oldest countries of Europe! CanaDa: It takes more than that to make a happy union. With Spain, Canada can have little in common. Go home and say to your master that Canada is much too busy to leave home at present. She finds there are so many matters of state that claim her attention: immigration, transportation. And then, too, her own dear soldier boys at the front, all need her personal attention. No, Canada can never be allied with Spain. (Exit Spanish girls.) CanaDa: The idea! Too busy to come himself and woo me! I’ll show him. Ah, who comes here? (Enter a number of Japanese maidens. Here is a good opportunity for a fan drill or any Japanese drill or dance, given, of course, in costume. All through the drill, have the girls take little, short, mincing steps, faces all smiles.) CanaDa: Oh, you dear little Japanese girls! Aren’t you sweet! What are you doing in Canada, so far away from the land of the cherry blossom and the chrysanthemum? JaPanese girL: Our master bade us come and tell you of our wonderful country, an island in the far Pacific. He told us to sing to you of its charms, to picture for you the beauties of Japan. CanaDa: Well, go on, I’m listening. JaPanese girL: We know a land where the sun ever shines, And the sky is a sapphire blue; Where the cherry-blossom petals flutter from the trees To bathe themselves in the dew. Where the moon hangs aloft like a toy balloon, And the breeze has the scent of flowers, And the almond-eyed maidens with little mincing steps Wile away the long sunny hours. CanaDa: It must, indeed, be a beautiful land with its little toy houses and its funny customs. They say its people are very patriotic, that their love of country is their religion. Is that so? JaPanese maiDen: In Japan, patriotism is the highest emotion of the heart. Come, ally yourself with Japan, you need then fear no foe, no matter how powerful. Her men will fight for you and will shed the last drop of blood in your defence. Our country is small, we need room to expand, we want your broad acres, and your immense forests.5 What answer, Oh Canada, shall we take you back to our master, who sent us to you, Japan? CanaDa: Very creditable, indeed!

T h e Wo o i n g o f M i s s C a n a d a

279

Patriotism is a fine quality. But, we have that in Canada. Even now in France or Flanders, our own Canadian boys are dying for Canada.i And about our broad acres and our immense forests, well, I think Canadians can use them nicely. Go home and say to your master, Japan, that Canada can never form any such alliance. The two countries are too far apart: their viewpoints are different. Canada and Japan. I do not like the sound of it. It would never do. JaPanese maiDen: But think of our age. Why, Japan is one of the oldest countries in the world. If it is ancient lineage and old family you want, where will you find them to such an extent as in old Japan? I ask you that, Oh honourable Canada! CanaDa: There are other things in life besides old family and ancient lineage. I am beginning to tire of the very sound of them. JaPanese girL: Alas, then, with our mission a failure, we return to our master to say to him that Canada will not ally herself with Japan. (Exit Japanese maidens.) (The piano strikes up the Marseillaise and four or more little French girls, carrying the Tricolour, march or dance onto the stage.ii They may be singing or humming the air. A folk dance would fit in here quite nicely.) CanaDa: Ah, French I see! You are our brave allies and Canada loves you well. FrenCH girL: We know that, else we had not come. You are such brave people, you Canadians; see what your dear boys are doing in our stricken country?6 What should France have done without your aid? CanaDa: And have you, too, come as ambassadors from your master, France, to woo Miss Canada? She has many suitors. FrenCH girL: Nay, not to woo you have we come, but to tell you something of our history. The Seven Good Fairies with your best interests at heart, Oh Canada, tell us that you wish for a crown, a throne, wealth, position, grandeur and magnificence such as many a European court has to offer. But thrones and crowns count for little. It was the grandeur and magnificence of the French court that helped to wreck our fair land at the time in our history when the populace ruled, and the French Revolution stirred the whole world. Marie Antoinette was a Queen, but that fact failed to save her from the guillotine.7 CanaDa: Poor Marie Antoinette! And she was so beautiful. I have read of her in our History. FrenCH girL: We have delivered our message and we must away. Do not think because we bring you no message of love, no plan for a union of France and i

See the Canadian Encyclopedia Online, s.v. “Second Battle of Ypres,” accessed 24 June 2019, http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.com/.

ii

“Also Marseillaise hymn. A French revolutionary marching song written and composed by Claude Joseph Rouget de Lisle, a military engineer in the Rhine army in 1792 on the declaration of war against Austria, initially popular among volunteer army units from Marseilles, and adopted as the French national anthem in 1795.” oed, s.v. “Marseillaise.”

280

Edith L elean Groves

Canada, that such would not be acceptable to our nation. But we know how little France has to offer you. Poor, stricken, impoverished France! Her plight is, indeed, pitiable. She is dependent upon her brave allies for her very existence. But wait! Phoenix-like, from the ashes of the conflagration that is now burning up that dear land is going to arise a grander country, a more magnificent France. (Exit French girls.) (Enter four or five Italian girls. Introduce a folk dance here if possible.) itaLian girL: From Italy, fair Italy, The land that we call home, The land of song and gay romance, From sunshine land we’ve come. We’ve heard of thee, O Canada, Your fame spreads far and wide; Shall Italy and Canada In marriage be allied? Then what you lack in ancestry Will Italy supply; For throne, and crown, and stately court, You need no longer sigh. CanaDa: Do you know I am not half so anxious for a throne, and a crown, and the grandeur that goes with them, as I once was? I am beginning to think that there are things in life much more important. Go back to your fair country, back to the sunny land of Italy and say, “Canada is proud to know that Italy is fighting with the Allies in the great world struggle for right and justice, but that she has changed her mind about allying herself with a strange country and, for the present, she prefers to remain just a daughter of John Bull.” (Exit Italian girls.) (The piano strikes up the Star-Spangled Banner or some other distinctively American air; then enter Uncle Sam carrying the Stars and Stripes.) unCLe sam: You have heard of thrones and princes, And crowns and titles grand, And ancestry and royal blood; And many a suitor’s hand Has been outstretched to Canada, From far across the sea; But pay no heed, for on their side Would all advantage be. For what have they to offer you For what you’d have to bring? An empty title and a throne, To share with prince or king.

T h e Wo o i n g o f M i s s C a n a d a

281

Now there’s a neighbor at your door, Who offers you his hand, The U.S.A. and Canada, Together they would stand. A powerful Union they would make, And should a foe attack, We’d like to see Old Glory joined With England’s Union Jack. CanaDa: You are a good neighbor, Uncle Sam. We are glad you live next door to us. Canada feels very kindly towards the United States, particularly at this time when our boys are fighting side by side in France. But I think we are better friends and good neighbours, than if a closer union existed. May your StarSpangled Banner always wave side by side with the Union Jack, and may you and I ever remain close neighbours and the best of friends. (Exit Uncle Sam.) (Enter Student in Cap and Gown with huge book under his arm.) stuDent: Such a time as I had getting to Canada! I did not dare say that I was a German or I never should have reached here at all. CanaDa: And what have you come for? I don’t want to seem inhospitable, but to be perfectly frank with you, Germans are not wanted here. We have too much to forget. stuDent: Not wanted? What nonsense! Why, we are the most wonderful people in the civilized world. Look at our efficiency, our inventions in the realms of art and science, and then our kultur. Not wanted, indeed!8 CanaDa: Efficiency, how we hate the word! Kultur, we know too well what it stands for. Civilization: Germany does not know the meaning of it. What are you doing in Canada? Why are you here? stuDent: On behalf of my master, Germany, I have come to tell you of the advantages that will be yours, once you ally yourself with Germany: to say to you that you cannot do better than form such a union. For once that union takes place, and Canada comes under German rule, everything will be taken in hand by efficient leaders. Every inch of ground will be made to produce. There will be no waste anywhere, and Canada will see a prosperity such as she has never dreamed of. CanaDa: And will there be a throne and a crown, and plenty of grandeur? stuDent: Indeed, there will be. In Germany, the rulers rule by divine right, and you will share in the grandeur and greatness of an empire that will dazzle you. CanaDa: How lovely! And if need be, will Germany fight for Canada? stuDent: The Germans are the greatest fighters in the world. Look at the army. Where will you find such another? CanaDa: And if I refuse?

282

Edith L elean Groves

stuDent: You must not dream of refusing. If you do, my instructions are to seize you and carry you forcibly away to my master, Germany.9 CanaDa: Those are your instructions? stuDent: Most emphatically, they are. CanaDa: And just as emphatically do I refuse. (He seizes Miss Canada by the arm, Miss Canada utters a cry, and Jack Canuck, dressed in khaki, rushes in. He is followed by John Bull, the Fairy Godmother, and the Seven Good Fairies.) JoHn buLL: We are just in time, Jack Canuck. Another moment and we should have been too late. CanaDa: I am so frightened. He would not listen to my refusal, but was going to carry me away in spite of myself. JaCk CanuCk: Touch Canada at your peril! Lay a hand on her, if you dare. Fight for her, would you? She has men much nearer home, brave and stalwart, ready at a moment’s notice to don the khaki and march away to defend her shores, should foreign foe attack. And Jack Canuck, typifying the youth of Canada, ready to shed the last drop of blood in her defense, bids Germany’s ambassador: Be gone! stuDent: But how shall I get home? Will you give me safe conduct? JaCk CanuCk: You should have thought of that before you came. JoHn buLL: Let him take his chances, Jack Canuck. (Exit Student.) Fairy goDmotHer: Many suitors have presented themselves, Oh Canada! Have you made up your mind? What is your decision? Fairies: Yes, we are anxious to hear it. CanaDa: I think I must have had a change of heart. No longer do I care for empty titles, for crowns, for thrones, for a long line of ancestry, for courtly grandeur. These do not seem as necessary to my happiness as they once did. I want a suitor who will love Canada for herself alone, who will safeguard her interests, who will fight her battles whether at home or in the fields of France or Flanders. Such a suitor, and none other, will Canada consider. JoHn buLL: And where will you find such a suitor? Fairy goDmotHer: Yes, indeed, where will you find him? CanaDa: I know where there is a suitor, such as I describe, who loves Canada well. JoHn buLL, Fairy goDmotHer, anD Fairies (In chorus.): And his name? CanaDa: Jack Canuck. (John Bull joins the hands of Jack Canuck and Canada. The Fairy Godmother and The Seven Good Fairies group themselves on either side and all sing “O Canada” or “The Maple Leaf Forever.”)i

i

Written by Alexander Muir in 1867, this was an entry in a song-writing contest to commemorate Canadian Confederation. The Canadian Encyclopedia s.v. “The Maple Leaf Forever.”

T h e Wo o i n g o f M i s s C a n a d a

283

EPILOGUE It is fifty years and more since the thirty-three Fathers of Confederation brought about the union of the Provinces. There were four then; there are nine now. During these fifty years what changes have taken place! Barriers that once existed have been swept away by bridges, by tunnels, by canals, by railroads, by steamships. The population has grown to such an extent that, instead of a handful of people, there are now eight million. Land that once was looked upon as useless is now so fertile and productive that Canada has become one of the greatest wheat-producing countries of the world. This land of ours is capable of filling the hungry mouth for every man, woman, and child in the British Empire.10 As a manufacturing country it has great possibilities. Its water-power is almost unlimited. Its resources are marvelous. Almost all minerals and metals that are used are found in Canada. Silver and gold are here in immense quantities, while the most valuable nickel deposits in the world are found in Ontario. Its chain of Great Lakes form such a highway that boats can run from the head of Lake Superior down to the sea, thus helping to solve the problem of transportation. “The Twentieth Century is Canada’s,” and as loyal Canadians we have faith in the future of our land.11 We must be ever on the alert to guard well her interests, to watch the immigration, and see that undesirables do not enter, and to ever remember our watchword, “Canada for Canadians.”12 f inis

notes In the same year that McClelland, Goodchild & Stewart published The Wooing of Miss Canada, it also published James Brown MacDougall’s Miss Canada’s Reception: A Play. 1 John A. MacDonald is well known as the Father of Confederation and the first prime minister

of Canada. George Brown, however, who founded the influential newspaper the Globe in 1844, was equally as important in establishing the country: he broke the parliamentary deadlock between Canada East and Canada West in 1864 by joining Macdonald and Etienne Tache in their Liberal-Conservative coalition, laying the groundwork for Confederation in 1867. See the Canadian Encyclopedia Online, s.v. “The Great Coalition,” accessed 25 June 2019, http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.com/articles/great-coalition. 2 See Fisher, Boys and Girls, 88–93. The drill in Canada was associated with military readiness, but also had a correlation with self-discipline and Christian morality. It is comprised of a series of choreographed maneuvers that involve a group of individuals marching in unison with exact precision: fancy drills are often executed with guns and flags. These exercises were a form of patriotic entertainment, put on by schools, churches, and para-military

284

3

4

5

6

Edith L elean Groves

organizations like the Girl Guides and Boy Scouts and were frequently performed on special occasions like Empire Day. During the First World War, Groves wrote several drills for primary school children including: Fancy Flag Drill (1900); Fancy Flag Drill: We’ll Fight for the Grand Old Flag (1917–18); Fancy Flag Drill: Rule Britannia (1917–18); Grand March with Flags (1917– 18); Holly Drill (1917–18); Patriotic Scarf Drill (1917–18). Fisher calls Grove’s drills “exceptionally effective instruments for infusing children with loyalty to nation and empire.” Johnny or Jack Canuck was first invoked in the 1830s as a way of English Canadians referring to French Canadians. The earliest cartoon image of the figure was designed in 1869 by John Henry Walker, founder of Punch in Canada, and appeared in Montreal’s Grinchuckle. Originally styled “Young Canada,” he was blond and smoked a cheroot cigar. Sometimes he was depicted as a French-Canadian habitant, dressed in a toque and open-necked shirt. In 1898 he was drawn in a Mountie hat. There was a weekly review out of Toronto between 1911 and 1913, edited by W. Rogers, entitled Jack Canuck, “Canada’s most popular weekly paper,” which in 1912 caricatured Miss Canada in a toque on its cover. “Numerous Canadian Comic journals were fond of Johnny: Pick, Sprite, Grip, the Moon, and Saturday Night all featured him at one time or another and he was a favorite of newspaper cartoonists from the Toronto Telegram to the Winnipeg Free Press.” Jack Canuck vanished at the end of the Second World War. See Adcock, “Johnny Canuck,” accessed 29 June 2019, punchincanada.blogspot.ca/2011/04/johnnycanuck.html. See Parliament uk, “Relationships,” “The Law of Marriage,” accessed 29 June 2019, https://www.parliament.uk/about/living-heritage/transformingsociety/private-lives/ relationships/overview/lawofmarriage-/. In the 1753 Marriage Act, “no marriage of a person under the age of 21 was valid without the consent of parents or guardians ... This restriction was eventually removed by Parliament in the Marriage Act of 1836.” See Sven Saaler, “The Kokuryukai,” 124–60; 130–6. The racist overtones of this passage were no doubt fuelled by Japan’s entrance onto to the world stage as an important military power at the turn of the twentieth century. With the Meiji Restoration of imperial rule that began in 1868, Japan undertook massive alterations to its political and economic systems. These involved a new constitution which invested power in the emperor, an emperor–focused nationalism, imperial expansion, and the reformation and consequent growth of the country’s economy as capitalist, industrial, and modern. By the beginning of the First World War, Japan boasted military successes in the Sino-Japanese War (1894–95) and the RussoJapanese War (1904–05), that involved the seizure of the island of Formosa (now Taiwan) that belonged to the Chinese, the expropriation of the southern portion of the island of Sakhalin that was Russian, and in 1910, as the dominant power in Asia, the annexation of Korea. By 1917, Canada had sent four divisions of its Expeditionary Forces to France and it was in France that Canada fought some of its most important battles, including the Battle of Beaumont Hammel and the opening day of the long Battle of the Somme ( July-Nov 1916), where 733 of 801 men in the 1st Newfoundland Regiment were killed or wounded on 1 July 1916. Canadians lost 24,713 troupes over the course of the Somme. The Canadian Encyclopedia, s.v., “Battle of the Somme,” accessed 29 June 2019, https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/ en/article/battle-of-the-somme. One hundred thousand Canadians fought at the Battle of Vimy Ridge (9–12 Apr 1917), 10,602 were wounded and 3,598 died. The Canadian Encyclopedia, s.v.,“Vimy Ridge,” accessed 29 June 2019, https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/ article/vimy-ridge; the Canadian Encyclopedia, s.v., “First World War,” accessed 29 June 2019, https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/collection/first-world-war.

T h e Wo o i n g o f M i s s C a n a d a

285

7 Marie Antoinette (1755–1793) was born Archduchess of Austria, the daughter of Holy Roman

8

9

10

11

12

Emperor Francis I of Lorraine and his wife the Empress Maria Theresa of Habsburg. When she married Louis VXI on 16 May 1770 she became queen of France, but her profligate ways caused her to fall out of favour with the French public and she was guillotined during the French Revolution. Encyclopaedia Britannica, s.v., “Marie-Antoinette,” accessed 22 June 2018, https://www.britannica.com/biography/Marie-Antoinette-queen-of-France. See Bertolette, “German Stereotypes,” 143, accessed 29 June 2019. https://digitalcommons. lsu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=3725&context=gradschool_dissertations. From the point of view of the British, the late-nineteenth century construction of the German national character, upon which Groves, in the figure of the student, is drawing here, involved, among other things, a reputation for having achieved “the pinnacle of artistic, scholarly and scientific achievement.” For a similar drawing of the figure of Germany at this time see the characters of Hilda and Miss Schmidt in Sister Mary Agnes’s The Red Cross Helpers collected herein. See Torgovnick, Gone Primitive, 51. As Torgovnick reminds us, abduction in literature “always carries with it the double meanings of kidnapping and rape.” Both describe the attitude of the Allies to German politics and warfare as they took over the Rhineland, Austria, Poland, and Czechoslovakia during the course of the First World War. See also Kate Simpson Hayes’s Slumberland Shadows, collected herein, for a similar use of this trope. Resonating in this prologue is a praise of progress and the corollaries of moral righteousness and material wealth that infused notions of nation-building in Canada at the end of the nineteenth century. See “The Canadian Club of Ottawa, First Annual Banquet,” Canadian History, accessed 29 June 2019, http://www.canadahistory.com/sections/documents/Primeministers/laurier/ docs-thecanadaclub.htm. “The Twentieth Century is Canada’s” is always attributed to Prime Minister Wilfrid Laurier in his speech to the Canadian Club of Ottawa, 18 January 1904. In fact, what he actually said was “the nineteenth century was the century of the United States. I think we can claim that it is Canada that shall fill the 20th century.” “A History of Racism in Canada’s Immigration Policy,” People’s Commission Network, accessed 29 June 2019, http://www.peoplescommission.org/files/poped/05.%20A%20History%20 of%20Racism.doc.pdf. Groves is no doubt referring here to people, like herself, of British decent. By the end of the nineteenth century, well over half of all immigration to Canada was from the British Isles and 96 per cent of the entire population was of European descent. Racist immigration policies, which actively discriminated against groups of individuals, were common between the turn of the century and 1917 when the play was written, including the various Chinese head taxes (1901, 1903, 1908), the tax on people from India in 1908, and the sweeping exclusions permitted by Section 38 of the Immigration Act in 1910 that allowed government prohibition of anyone “belonging to any race deemed unsuited to the climate or requirements of Canada, or of immigrants of any specified class, occupation or character.”

8 My Soul-Mate: A Musical Comedy A n Introduction ky m bi r D

My Soul-Mate: A Musical Comedy, by Blanche Irbé Bremner (1871–1958), is a special piece in this collection, not because it includes music, which several of the plays do, but because it is the only musical.1 It is also a feminist romantic comedy and its interest resides, at least in part, in the humour it derives from introducing the New Woman into the well-known tropes of that genre. Its main character, Patricia, we are led to believe, wants to straddle the line between a professional musical career on the stage and the expectations of conventional gender roles and feminine respectability: in her lie echoes of a young Bremner herself, the daughter of a substantial family with an independent spirit, who became a soprano soloist, performer, socialite and eventually the wife of an electrical engineer who wrote theatre and taught young women singers in Vancouver.2 My Soul-Mate and Bremner’s own biography are emblematic of a paradigm shift in the performing arts, as well as in the society at large, that readers contemporary to the period would recognize as the beginning of modern conceptions of musical theatre and the development of a counterpublic of women in the professional musical sphere. Blanche Irbé Boutwell was born on 27 June 1871 in Kansas, Missouri. Her parents, Julia and George H. Boutwell, were farmers, probably with considerable wealth and land.3 She had four siblings.4 The status of her formal education is unknown, though it can be reasonably assumed she received at least a high school diploma with extensive instruction in music and literature. The socially elevated class of Bremner’s family was partially elaborated by the Seattle Daily Times in 1905 when it was reported she was the niece of Senator Boutwell, who “was a full brother of Mrs Kofoed’s grandfather on her father’s side. It also claims that her paternal great uncle, “besides being a Senator from Maine … was the secretary of the treasury in President Grant’s cabinet … [the] governor of Massachusetts and served three terms in the lower house of Congress from Maine. He was one of President Lincoln’s closest friends and was a leader in his party in New England.”5 In 1892, while living

My S oul-Mat e : A n I nt roduct ion

287

8.1 Blanche Irbé Bremner, probably sometime after she moved to Vancouver.

and working in California, Bremner married Perry Christian Kofoed (1862–1929), a furniture dealer, originally from western New York State: Perry worked for the Los Angeles Furniture Co. and Blanche gave birth to her first child, a daughter, Louise Gwendolyn. 6 Evidence of her public performance career begins in earnest when the couple relocate to Seattle, Washington, and Blanche Irbe Kofoed, as she then styled herself, started to develop her singing career. The newspaper reviews were generally quite positive. Headed “Last Night’s Concert,” the Morning Olympian of March 1899 regarded her “opera” at the Olympian theatre an “artistic success,” claiming that “Mrs Perry C. Kofoed sang charmingly alongside the world-famous violinist Gernot d’Albert.”7 In 1901 the Seattle Daily Times announced one of many recitals in which she would feature the songs of Giacomo Meyerbeer. She also formed a part of the Schubert Club, which met at her home.8 By March 1905 the Seattle Daily Times was calling her “one of the best-known musicians in Seattle.”9 She played in churches, the Masonic Temple, Recital Halls, and was a member of at least three, small musical associations including The Medelssohn Quartette Club, and the Apollo Quartette.10 The Seattle Mail & Herald, a popular weekly tabloid of the period that was subtitled a “Social and Critical Journal,”

288

Ky m B i r d

8.2 Blanche Irbé Bremner graced the cover of the Seattle Mail and Herald, 29 April 1905. At the time she went by her first husband’s name, Mrs Perry C. Kofoed.

considered her talent and reputation sufficient enough to warrant a full-length photo of her on its cover, lavishly dressed in full concert regalia.11 When she resettled in Portland, Oregon, in 1906, her musical career escalated substantially. Blanche composed her own music and sang canonical standards and popular pieces. As her career flourished, local publications like the Morning Oregonian lauded her as a “great soprano soloist.”12 She was also often mentioned in the society pages of local newspapers which tracked her visitors, her vacations, and the charities she supported.13 Blanche furthermore fostered other women’s musical training. Under “Brief Local News,” in 1906 the Idaho Daily Statesman reported that she helped to form and direct the St Cecelia Ladies Choral Society, which “aim[ed] ... to give its members practice in the best chorus work.”14 She also helped found the Musical Young Ladies Club of Portland, of which her daughter, Gwendolyn Kofeod, was a member.15 In 1907 the Oregonian published an article on her contribution to the musical community that indicated she was well on her way to becoming a local celebrity for performance and teaching.16 It seems fitting, therefore, that her grandson, Richard Reinhardt, remembers her, however dimly, as “regal,” always fashionably dressed in elaborate and costly clothing and driving a 1920s Packard automobile.17

My S oul-Mat e : A n I nt roduct ion

289

Blanche’s playwriting career is significantly less documented than her career in singing and it certainly received less press. Nevertheless, by 1909 she had submitted her first three melodramas to the Library of Congress. Less than a year later, she and her daughter moved to Manhattan where she declared herself a “widow” and listed her occupation as “singer”; her daughter called herself a writer of “plays.”18 Equipped with a small oeuvre of melodramas, one assumes she planned to kickstart her playwriting career in the “Big Apple,” possibly with hopes of a Broadway production. Her life, however, once again took an unexpected, romantic turn. According to the Oregonian, in 1909 she was the guest of honour at a yachting party given by the wealthy, Vancouver-based businessman Edwin Parker Bremner.19 In 1911, the couple married. By 1915, after briefly living in Los Angeles, Blanche moved to Vancouver: it is a city she would call home for the rest of her life. 20 Blanche Irbé Bremner, as she now nominated herself, lived in a substantial house on 127 West 18th Street. She gave birth to a son, William Alexander. Vancouver provided a stable and an inspirational atmosphere for Bremner: she re-started her music school and augmented her dramatic oeuvre. Her original musical composition “California the Golden” was chosen by the British residents of California to greet the governor on Empire Day, as was her Patriotic Hymn for Vancouver, bC.21 She deposited a large collection of musical scores with the Library of Congress.22 In 1936, Bremner’s husband died.23 She continued to be productive at least until 1947 when she published her Bremner-Garcia songs and teachers’ manual. But sometime during her eighty-sixth year she was moved into the Granview Nursing Home (Vancouver General Hospital), and shortly thereafter diagnosed with advanced senility. Bremner was committed to the Provincial Mental Hospital, Essondale, on 12 May 1958, the most notorious psychiatric facility on the West Coast.24 She was soon transferred to the Home for the Aged adjoining this same facility. She died just over four months later.25 In the notes taken by attending medical professionals, her illustrious career was deemed implausible. Staff observed that “her memory was exceptionally good for recent as well as remote events,” yet they maintained that she “expressed opinions” rather than stating facts. According to the official records, she made “claims” that she was “a famous singer and author” and “talked at length about the books she had written and of the people who were waiting for her next publication,” but at no time did those healthcare professionals attending her explore the possibility that she was actually telling the truth: quite the opposite. The doctors diagnosed her with “delusions of grandeur.”26 Even when Bremner’s daughter attempted to intercede by writing to the hospital and telling them her mother was a “magnificent” and “gifted” woman with a “brilliant mind and formerly such an out-standing personality,” the medical staff paid no heed. Her daughter was living in California and willing to take the word of the doctors who apparently put no stock in the veracity of her eminence and reputation. With only six visitors over four months it is little wonder that the nurses repeatedly record her behaviour as “extremely demanding”; in the absence of friends or loved ones, more or less

290

Ky m B i r d

abandoned to a Victorian healthcare system that deemed her “mad,” and virtually penniless, Bremner died of bronchopneumonia on 28 September 1958, her contribution to North American music and theatre forgotten and delegitimized.27 Music was Bremner’s main genre of artistic expression and she did succeed in having some of her songs published.28 She also published some poetry in the Idaho Daily Statesman.29 Her plays, however, did not enjoy the same publicity, despite the strong aesthetic connection between all of these artistic endeavors. Her extant poems read like song lyrics while her plays are threaded through with original scores and popular music. The earliest of her plays are melodramas and combine a conservative, Christian worldview with the generic constraints of a period-specific brand of heterosexual courtship.30 Of Blanche’s ten plays, eight are melodramas and include Juan Haya (1909), In His Image (1909), and D. Buginski’s Will (1909), The Search Light: A Drama in Four Acts (1913). Probably, Light: In Four Acts (1915), and The Hut in the Forest: A Fantasy in Three Episodes (1916) are Canadian compositions. Juan: A Comedy Drama in Four Acts (1916) and Half Caste (1927) also represent the exoticization, nativism, and British fear of the Indigenous peoples in Canada, common to several other AngloCanadian women playwrights of the era.31 The Nurse (1916) and My Soul-Mate (1918) express an interest in the women’s movement, particularly in the social and professional empowerment of girls and women, a preoccupation in which she invested considerable energy as a musical director.32 With a view to protecting her dramatic work, in 1914 Bremner incorporated herself as the Theatrical Producing Company. While there is unfortunately no evidence that any of her plays were performed by her company, in 1913 she submitted The Search Light to the “Friday Morning Club” play contest in Riverside California, and she won. The Riverside Daily Press of May 1915 reported that the play was to have been produced in New York in 1914 “but a sudden and protracted illness of the playwright interfered, as Mrs Bremner would not allow it to be produced, except under her own personal supervision.” When she moved to Vancouver, Bremner entered a young musical scene. The city’s first musical society was only established in 1888. The Vancouver Philharmonic Society formed in 1890 and the Vancouver Opera House was constructed by the CPr in 1891.33 By the turn of the century the city was receiving an increasingly greater number of touring shows, and twelve years later it could also boast “three sizeable vaudeville theatres” as well as the Avenue and the Empress, which employed their own stock companies.34 Generally speaking, the west benefitted from the musical development of women in the United States and the established, eastern provinces: many migrants had trained in England and were intimate with the standard, musical canon as well as with the rising culture of concert and “popular” music.35 It gained pioneer women who brought with them “a vogue for pianos” and “the dignity and conventionality of the older communities they had left” behind.36 Like the rest of the country, British Columbia – and Vancouver in particular – was a beneficiary of its proximity to the United States, as many singers from Italy, France, and England who would otherwise not have made dates in this country, expanded their

My S oul-Mat e : A n I nt roduct ion

291

tours northward.37 This meant that most of “the world-famous artists who visited the United States also performed” north of the boarder.38 Canada secured a range of musical performers from “minstrel-show companies with brass bands to genuine opera companies, such as the Strakosch Italian Opera, the Kellogg troupe or the Hess English” Opera.39 At the turn of the twentieth century, a new musical paradigm was emerging, facilitated in part by Bremner’s Canadian contemporaries Pauline Lightstone Donalda (1882–1970), Eva Gauthier (1885–1958), and Emma Albani (1847–1930), who were making their North American and European debuts.40 Whereas musical instruction had long been commonplace among middle-class women, it was usually considered a social accomplishment and a matter of domestic entertainment. The professional, musical world, even when Bremner was active, was overwhelmingly dominated by men. Female soloists, and Albani in particular, were emblematic of the new inroads women began to make into the shifting artistic landscape of the turn of the twentieth century. Bremner, no doubt, felt compelled to supplement her sporadic soloist career with her career as a music teacher. Nevertheless, unlike Albani, who was “forced to ... give lessons to make money,” Bremner embraced her role as singer/ educator in the formation of a girls, counterpublic musical sphere.41 When in 1906 she founded a girl’s music school that taught Italian classical opera, she endeavoured to make more accessible and more reputable a musical career for young women and children who wanted to train as professional singers and performers.42 She instructed, among other pupils, her daughter, Louise Gwendolyn, who was following in her mother’s footsteps, and the American classical opera soprano soloist, Daisy Polk, who became instrumental in American women’s music, touring as she did in the US and Europe throughout the 1920s.43 Bremner’s career, like Albani’s, was typical of classical women musicians of the age. She studied with European instructors abroad and in the United States: Ivan Morawski was a well-known artist and vocal coach from Boston;44 but Pauline Viardat was a Spanish-born, “mezzo-soprano, pedagogue ... composer” and the daughter of celebrated singer and educator Manuel Garcia, whose method Bremner adapted, employed, and eventually published.45 Much of her work had European attributes and was marked by romantic leitmotifs. Her light operatic style drew upon influences from the Italian operatic tradition associated with the “sophisticated and conservative circles” that Albani courted. But Bremner also shaped and was shaped by a more local tradition, suffused with girls, that grew popular on the West Coast.46 Bremner calls My Soul-Mate (1918) a “musical comedy.” Such a designation was usually reserved for low comedy. Influenced by popular American musical traditions, similar work was imported to amuse “the large floating population of hopeful miners” that entered British Columbia a generation before and during the gold rush.47 The concept of musical comedy was just starting to solidify in North America and there is a “general disagreement” upon which show in the late nineteenth century could be said to birth the genre.48 Nevertheless, My Soul-Mate is part

292

Ky m B i r d

of a larger trend that saw English language operetta thriving with a larger and more general musical theatre audience.49 The most iconic and successful operettas of the time were those by Gilbert and Sullivan, whose iconic HMS Pinafore debuted in 1878, marking “a turning point in the history of American theatre.”50 Indeed, the English language comic operetta enjoyed further ascendancy in the United States during the First World War, which encouraged a coterie of European composers to cross the Atlantic and produce work there.51 My Soul-Mate could have been designated a “farce comedy,” a “revue,” or an “extravaganza.”52 It uses music, romantic comedy, and farce to create social joy and a counterpublic of women’s empowerment fostered by the crisis of war. Some of its songs were well-known and popular, others were original and written by Bremner, but like those associated with early musicals, most have little to do with the machinations of its narrative.53 Its comedy is physical and incorporates slapstick and vignettes familiar to the vaudeville and variety stages. The play employs predictable hijinks – such as disguise and bellicose behaviour – accompanied by rousing melodies, as ways for each lover to comically irritate and offend, the other. It resolves with a conventionally accidental meeting of the lovers sans disguise, when they discover their real desire for one another. Written at war’s end, My Soul-Mate signals a return to harmony, peace, and domesticity. But it does not support a return to the world as it was before the Great War, particularly for women. Although generically typical – the pressures of romantic comedy eventually bring Patricia together with her well-healed warriorprince – it heralds the introduction of the British-identified New Woman who moved into the public sphere en masse and in so doing came of age during the conflict. Its main, female character has more wit, more energy, and more spirit than her Victorian mothers and these feminist qualities are a large part of why Jack is attracted to her. Even while there are hints of her capitulation to a world of separate spheres, she undeniably represents and fosters in those audience members who identify with her, fierce independence: she drives her own car! While marriage is still in the offing, she is not entirely willing to concede a professional career.

notes 1 I would like to thank Marlene Mendonça, PhD, York University, for her research into

Bremner and James ( Jay) Gobuty, PhD student, McGill University, for his insights into the musical. I would also like to thank John LaMont, genealogy librarian at the Seattle Public Library, Andrew Martin, librarian at the Vancouver Public Library Special Collections, and the Milstein Division of United States History, Local History and Genealogy at the New York Public Library. 2 For a brief outline of Bremner’s paternal family see the San Diego Union, 18 May 1915, 9. See also Evening Tribune, 28 May 28, 1915, 7. According to his sister, Louise P. Shirley, George

My S oul-Mat e : A n I nt roduct ion

3 4

5 6

7

8

9 10

11 12

13

293

H. Boutwell “had received his share of the estate of their parents and gone through three fortunes.” See San Diego Union, 14 May 1915, 8. Her father’s parents were Illinois farmers and property owners. The US Bureau of Census records in 1880 that George H. Boutwell was born in Illinois in 1840 and that Julia Boutwell was born in Vermont in 1845, whereas the 1900 entry claims that Julia was born in Tennessee. The transcribed census of 1880 lists Julia Boutwell as twenty-seven years old, George Boutwell as forty, and Blanche as four, while the original, hand-written census information clearly records their ages as thirty-five, thirty-seven, and eight respectively. Julia Boutwell listed her occupation as “keeping house.” The same 1880 census lists Blanche as having been born in Kansas; according to her death certificate, however, she was born in Missouri and the Seattle Daily Times of 16 March 1911 claims that she was “born and reared in California” (11). Her siblings are as follows: Lucy E. Boutwell, sixteen years old; Geneva Boutwell, six years old; Orville H. Boutwell, four years old; Gertrude Boutwell, two years old. Seattle Daily Times, 3 March 1905, 11. See Riverside Daily Press, 20 May 1915, 7. US Bureau of Census, 1900. Kofoed was born in Cattaraugus County, Randolf, NY. See Ancestry.com, “Family Data Collection,” Perry Christian Kofoed. See also Los Angles California City Directories, 1888–90. “This Evening’s Concert,” Morning Olympian (Olympia, Washington), 1 March 1899, n.p. Gernot d’Albert was accompanied by Bremner in “his interpretation of Andelusia by Sarasate and the Cappirccioso of de Beroit. More than ten years later, on 14 February 1909, under “Events of the Week,” the same paper now lauded her as a “brilliant dramatic soprano.” 1724 Spring Street, Seattle. The recital was a Christmas concert that took place at the 1st Presbyterian church on 18 December 1901. Seattle Daily Times, “With the Musicians” (Seattle, wa), 14 Dec 1901: 1. Seattle Daily Times, 3 March 1905, 11. In addition to those references cited, see Seattle Daily Times, “In Musical Circles” (Seattle, wa), 30 April 1905, 45; Washington State Journal and Adams County News, “The Kofoed Concert” (Ritzville, wa), 9 Jan 1907: 9; Washington State Journal and Adams County News, “Congressional Church. Sings at Church,” 16 Jan 1907: 6; Seattle Daily Times, “Recital for Mrs Kofoed,” 8 Sept. 1907: 3. Seattle Mail & Herald, 29 April 1905. The same photograph was republished in the Idaho Daily Statesman in 1906 under the headline “Much Accomplished Last Year by Musical Societies.” Ibid., 14 February 1909, n.p. See also Oregon Journal, 20 Oct 1907: 50; Oregon Journal, 24 Nov 1907, 23; Oregonian, 1 Dec 1907, 31; Oregonian, 4 Jan 1908, 9; Oregon Journal, 26 Jan 1908, 16; Oregon Journal, 1 March 1908,18; Oregon Journal, 26 Apr 1908, 19; Oregon Journal, 31 May 1908, 22; Oregon Journal, 1 Jun 01, 1908, 7; Oregon Journal, 2 Jun1908, 6; Oregon Journal, 7 Jun 1908, 22; Oregonian,12 Jun 1908, 14; Oregonian, 27 Jun 1908, 11; Oregonian, 8 Dec 1908, n.p.; Oregon Journal, 7 Feb 1909, 48; Oregon Journal, 14 Feb 1909, 48;Oregonian, 11 March 1909, n.p.; Oregon Journal, 14 March 1909, 48. The Idaho Daily Statesman heralded her as a “Distinguished Artist.” See “You Are Invited.” On 16 August 1906, the paper reported that she opened the Columbia Theatre and again on 5 September 1906 it was relayed that she sang for the Irrigation Congress’s fourteenth annual assembly. See “Big Day for Members.” On 16 December 1906, the same paper announced that she helped form the St Cecelia Ladies Choral Society and became its first president. See “Brief Local News.” She was described as “chief soloist” and “honoured

294

14 15 16 17 18

19

20

21 22

23

24 25

Ky m B i r d

guest” in January of 1907 at a concert for the Apollo Club of Vancouver. See “Society,” the Idaho Daily Statesman. The Morning Oregonian of December 1907 announced her engagement to sing popular songs at the White Temple on the 17th of the month, to be followed the next evening by “a dramatic recital” at the same venue. See Morning Oregonian (Portland), 11 December 1907, n.p. The paper revealed in March of the following year that she was developing plans to sing at the “Laymen’s Missionary Movement.” See “Complete Plans for Banquet,” Morning Oregonian. In June of 1908, the Morning Oregonian gave out that she had sung for members of the “Eastern Star” at their memorial service at the Masonic Temple. See Morning Oregonian 12 June 1908, n.p. She is listed first in the column “Among the Musicians” in the Seattle Mail and Herald of January 1905 and again as an “honoured guest” in the society pages of the same newspaper. In 1909 she was a member of the Schubert Quartet. See “Musical Young Ladies Club at Heilig.” For society news see “Renewing the Support.” “Much Accomplished Last Year by Musical Societies,” 31 December 1906, n.p. See also “Brief Local News,” “St Cecilia Society,” the Idaho Daily Statesman, 16 December 1906, n.p. “Musical Young Ladies’ Club at Heilig,” Morning Oregonian (Portland), 11 March 1909, n.p. Morning Oregonian (Portland), 11 December 1907, n.p. Reinhardt, personal telephone interview with Mendonça, November 2009. See US Bureau of Census, 1910. Both Blanche and her daughter Gwendolyn are listed as lodgers in the household of Clothilde Martel in Manhattan. Blanche was likely divorced rather than widowed, based on Perry Kofoed’s obituary, which states that he died on 28 July 1929 leaving behind his wife Mrs Anna Halstein Kofoed. See also Seattle Daily Times, 29 July 1929, 2. See Oregonian (Portland), 24 May 1908, 2. Edwin Parker Bremner is designated E. Palmer Bremner. See the Seattle Sunday Times, 22 January 1911, 11, where it is reported that Mrs Blanche Irbé Kofoed, “a well-known singer of this city was married Wednesday evening to Mr Edwin Parker Bremner, one of the wealthy lumbermen of Vancouver, bC, [who] was at one time in the service of the Canadian Government.” Los Angeles Times, 20 May 1915, 3. See also Riverside Daily Press, 20 May 1915, 7. The collection includes: “The Dairy Maid” dedicated to the Dairy Association Show in Columbus, Ohio in 1917; “Smiling Eyes”; “Caroling Bird”; “The French Minuet”; “Fairy Land of Dreams”; “Life’s Lesson”; “The Fairies’ Colleen”; “The Swimming Lesson”; “Snow”; “Prayer”; “Marching Song”; “Chiéla”; “Balloons! Balloons! Who Will Buy?”; “Here Is My Voice”; “May-Bells Ring.” E.P. Bremner died on 10 October 1936, at the age of sixty-nine. See Certificate of Death: Edwin Parker Bremner. Filed 14 October 1936. Province of British Columbia, Department of Health and Welfare, Division of Vital Statistics. Reg. Dist. No. 2040. “Re: Blanche I. Bremner – File #45.921.” bC Archives. Letter from F.A. Matheson to Carl M. Stewart, Esq, Official Administrator, 24 January 1959. According to a letter dated 31 July 1958 from B.F. Bryson, M.D., Superintendent, Home for the Aged, to Bremner’s daughter, Mrs Louise Gwen Reinhardt of Tujunga, California, Bremner lived in a “home for the aged” for a few months before being admitted to the hospital in the spring of 1958, at the age of eighty-seven, on account of her being “mildly disoriented and delusional.” See Bremner file, bC Archives, in which “Clinical Chart(s)” repeatedly designated her as “delusional” or “grandiose” (1).

My S oul-Mat e : A n I nt roduct ion

295

26 See “Ward Notes” 12 and 14 May 1958. See also letter dated 24 June 1958 from B.F.

27

28

29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40

41

Bryson, M.D., Superintendent, Home for the Aged, to Bremner’s daughter, Mrs Geo. S. Reinhardt, Tujunga, California in which Bryson states: “she is still very confused mentally, is occasionally restless and very delusional in her thinking.” See several documents titled “Clinical Chart,” Provincial Mental Health Services, over the course of her stay at Essondale. In a letter dated 9 September 1958 from B.F. Bryson, M.D., Superintendent, Home for the Aged, to Bremner’s daughter, Mrs Geo. S. Reinhardt, Tujunga, California, Bryson states that “your mother is in receipt of the Federal Old Age Pension of $55.00 a month which actually goes directly to the office of the Official Committee in Victoria who administers your mother’s affairs and he, in turn, forwards $6.00 monthly to our Business Office here which is available to your mother for her use for any extras or luxuries that she would like to have.” See also Bremner’s obituary, 30 September 1958 Vancouver Sun. It reads as follows:“bremner – Blanche Irbé. Widow of Edwin P. Bremner of Vancouver, bC. Born 1866, died Sept. 28th, 1958. Singer, writer, composer, painter, humanitarian. Deceased leaves 1 daughter, L. Gwendolyn Reinhardt & 2 grandsons. Richard Reinhardt & Robert H. Cromwell, all of Los Angeles, Calif., brother – George Boutwell of Jacksonville, Fla. Private Funeral.” See “Funeral Director’s Report.” See also log of patience’s visitors, collected in Bremner Fonds, bC Archives. “A Song of Thanksgiving” was published in the poetry section of The Idaho Daily Statesman on 29 November 1906: n.p. “Way Down in Texas” was published in the Dallas Morning News, 28 March 1942, 3. There seem to be no advertisements or reviews in the press indicating her plays were performed. Bremner’s vocal textbook also usually begins its exercises with a religious hymn that focuses on strengthening the voice. Some of these include Mary Edgar, Amy Redpath Roddick, Kate Simpson Hayes, and Constance Lindsay Skinner. See Oregonian, 11 March 1909; the Oregon Journal 14 March 1909. Kallmann, A History of Music in Canada, 168–71. See “British Columbia, Theatre in,” Oxford Companion to Canadian Theatre, 61. Kallmann, A History of Music in Canada, 171, 178. Ibid., 162. Ibid., 174. Ibid., 176. Ibid., 174. See Vance, History of Canadian Culture, 209–10. Emma Alani, born Emma Lajeunesse, was of French-Canadian descent and the most famous Canadian opera soprano soloist of her time. After training in the United States and France, Albani made a name for herself performing opera in Europe, eventually becoming a “favourite of Queen Victoria.” Indeed, it was Albani’s embrace of European musical sensibilities that helped to make her an international sensation. Like most homegrown stars of her generation, “there was little” in Albani’s work to “mark [her] out as Canadian,” despite “remain[ing] at heart a French-Canadian.” Nevertheless, she was as much of a sensation at home as she was abroad, owing in part to the shift in Canadian musical taste away from the ballad operas of the eighteenth century to the Italian and French grand opera of which she had become a master. Ibid., 215.

296

Ky m B i r d

42 See advertisement, “Voice Culture,” the Idaho Daily Statesman, 6–31 August 1906, n.p.;

43

44

45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53

1–6 September 1908, n.p. The advertisements read: “Mrs Blanche Irbé Kofoed. Teacher of Singing, Italian method. Voices tested at studio, 422 Idaho Street.” See “Miss Polk to Give Clinic Program on Young Voice,” Dallas Morning News 14 March 1953, n.p. “Miss Polk is a specialist in the field under discussion, having studied the BremnerGarcia Pre-Adolescent Vocal Apparatus Development method with Mrs Blanche Irbé Bremner.” For a short note on Senor Ivan Morawski see the Grand Rapids Herald, 25 June 1900, 3. See also the Idaho Daily Statesman, 6 September 1942, n.p. For an elaboration of the life and work of Pauline Viardot see Kendall-Davies, The Life and Work of Pauline Viardot Garcia, 3. See “Voice Culture.” The Idaho Daily Statesman, 6–31 August 1906; 1–6 September 1908, n.p. Evans, Frontier Theatre, 264. Ibid., 264; Vance, A History of Canadian Culture, 78. Preston, “American Musical Theatre,” 18. Ibid., 22–3. Ibid., 24. Krasner, “Birth Pangs,” 66. Preston, “American Musical Theatre,” 18. Hurwitz, A History of the American Musical Theatre, 38.

My Soul-mate: A Musical Comedy 1918 b L a n C H e i r b é b r e m n e r (18 7 1–19 5 8 )

CH a r aCt er s babbette tess Courtney PatriCia roberts JaCk Larason roDney vanHorn orCHestra (Time: the present. Place: Tess Courtney’s boudoir, Piping Rock, Long Island. Tess is giving a hunting-party on the morrow.) (Properties: Table, couch, chairs, piano, writing desk, telephone, case with hunting trophies, etc.)

AC T I

Scene i (Enter Babbette, the “French” maid. Babbette begins taking cups and trophies from a glass case, dusts them and arranges them about the room. Takes mounted fox’s tail from case, shakes it out ready to hang up and sings The Tale of a Fox.)i

i

Likely written by Bremner; there is no extant musical text.

298

Blanche Irbé Bremner

babbette: Oh this is the end of a perfect fox, Oh this is the end of a fox. To the tail of the fox give an ear, You’ll hear something awfully queer. For this sad tale tho’ long, makes a very short song. Sh! Sh! Now listen and hear: Oh I am the fox’s t-a-a-a-a-ail! So long and so sad that I w-a-a-a-a-ail! I was little and wild so they hunted me down, These bipeds who came from country and town. I never did nothing to them a-tall, But they wanted my brushi to hang in their hall. Oh! Oh! No! No! Oh! Oh! No! No! I’m only a tail, that’s all, that’s all! I’m only a tail, that’s all. (Enter Tess.) tess: Was that a hymn you were singing, Babbette? babbette (Looks critically at tail.): Sure Mum, I didn’t know was it a “him” or a “her.” tess: Babbette, when I advertised for a maid, I distinctly stated that she should be French. Did you understand that? babbette: Sure Mum, an the Butler explained it too, when I came. tess: And are you French? babbette: I hope you don’t think o’im German! tess: Je voudrais que vous parlassiez français. babbette: If yez plaze, Mum, while I’m masterin’ the English language, I’ve taken a vow not to spake a word of Frinch, otherwise oi’ll be lavin’ of yez. tess: Where were you born? babbette: Cork, Mum.1 tess: “Cark, France,” I don’t seem to remember it. What is your other name, Babbette? babbette: Bridget, Mum. tess (Suddenly enlightened.): Oh! Has the mail come, Babbette? babbette: Do yez mane the gardener or the iceman? tess: My letters! (Holds up a letter.) babbette: Sure, an I’ll see. (Exit Babbette. Re-enters with letters on a tray. Exits.) tess (Opens all the letters, glances over several.): Oh, brother Will’s old friend, Jack Larason! What a pity Will isn’t here. (Enter Babbette with tray on which is a calling card.) tess (Reads.): Patricia Roberts. Oh, show her in! i

“The bushy tail, or bushy part of the tail, of an animal; spec. that of the fox.” oed, s.v. “brush.”

My Soul-Mate: A Musical Comedy

299

(Enter Pat. Rushes in without being “shown in.” Elaborately dressed in auto togs.i The two girls embrace.) Pat (Sings I’ve Got A Ducky New Car.):ii Oh I’ve got a ducky new car, My daddy just gave it to me, Oh he’s a dear, is my dear dad, He gave it to me ’cause I’m never bad! Oh I’m as happy as happy can be, I know how to drive it so beautifully, I take off the brake, shift the gear, Up hill on high with never a fear, I stop and start with perfect ease, Make graceful turns your heart would please. I know what to do if I puncture a tire, I’m some little chauffeur, if you should inquire! Tra la la la la, like birds on the wing. Away! Away! Dull cares to fling! Like flight of comet, like shooting star, Away! Away! In my ducky new car! tess: My, I’m so glad to see you. I was so afraid you might not come and it’s our last hunt, for goodness knows how long. All the men are leaving for the front. Pat: Yes, I know. You couldn’t keep me away. Besides, I had to leave New York. This was providential! tess: Lovely! What have you been up to now? Singing anywhere? Pat: Not enough to keep my self respect. tess: I thought the Metropolitan people had made you an offer.iii Pat: Did. But, Mother and Dad said, “nothing doing.” Dad bought me off with my new car.2 tess: Any new love affairs? Pat (Disgustedly.): I should say not! I’m engaged. (Shows huge diamond.) tess: Whew! Love affair, my Lord! Congratulations!

i

“A coat; any outer garment.” oed, s.v. “tog.”

ii

Likely written by Bremner; there is no extant musical text.

iii No doubt a reference to the Metropolitan Opera House, Manhattan, founded in 1883. See “The Metropolitan Opera: Our Story,” accessed 22 July 2018, https://www.metopera.org/ About/The-Met/.

300

Blanche Irbé Bremner

Pat: Speak not those words, “love affair, congratulations!” The odious wretch! Tess, I’m almost crazy. Look at me carefully, love. Aren’t there wrinkles on my fair young brow and silver threads among the gold?i3 tess: Who is he? (Telephone rings. Tess answers it.) Tess: Yes? This is Mrs Courtney. Oh, how do you do? Yes, I just got your note. Yes, indeed, you must come. Brother Will has done nothing but sing your praises since your college days together. Have you heard from him, since he went to the front? Yes, come this afternoon and have tea with me. Who are you putting up with? Rodney VanHorn! Oh, then you must be coming to the hunt tomorrow? Lovely! I also have a friend for the hunt, Miss Patricia Roberts, I want you to meet her this afternoon. Yes, Yes, Miss Patricia Roberts of West End Avenue, New York. You know her? Lovely! Goodbye, Mr Larason. Until four o’clock. (Hangs up.) Pat: Wh ... wh ... what name did you say? tess: Jack Larason, of Boston. He says he knows you. Pat (Despairingly.): Oh, oh, oh. I ran away from New York to escape him! tess: I don’t understand. Pat: He’s it! He’s the wretch! (Sings A Maiden’s Woes.)ii Oh the woes that a maiden knows! They follow her steps wherever she goes. Since Adam reigned her troubles began, And they are all caused by that demon man! He breaks her heart and rides away, If you ask him why he has nothing to say. Oh men are triflers and villains bold, And not to be trusted ’til very old! Oh the woes, the woes, the woes, Oh the woes that a maiden knows! They follow her steps wherever she goes! tess: Well, of all things! Why, Will said he was a regular fellow. He sounded good over the phone. What does he look like? Pat: I don’t know! I never saw him! I never want to! i

“Silver Threads among the Gold” (1872), written by H.P. Danks, based on a poem by Eben Rexford. History Matters. The U.S. Course on the Web, accessed 30 June 2019, http:// historymatters.gmu.edu/mse/songs/question4.html.

ii

Likely written by Bremner; there is no extant musical text.

My Soul-Mate: A Musical Comedy

301

tess: Never saw him and engaged to him? Are you crazy? Pat: It’s all the fault of the Ramseys, George and May. I was with them for one of their crazy house parties. They had invited Jack Larason, urging myself (I found out afterward) as the chief attraction. But, he wrote that he couldn’t come because he was in the pest-house.i tess: Good gracious! The pest-house! Why? Smallpox? Pat: They thought so. He broke out. tess: But, they wouldn’t let him write? Pat: Oh, they fumigated his crazy letters, or something. Then they found out it was only chickenpox, but that was afterward. He wrote the Ramseys when they first locked him up and enclosed a note to me. He said smallpox was a trifling camouflage compared to his disappointment in not meeting me. It was a deliciously devilish letter! So, I answered it. tess: Pat! You need a keeper! Pat: Well, when he got out he wrote another. A perfectly good, respectable letter. But, in every phrase, he managed to infuse a “dare-you-to-write-to-me.” I ... I ... I just couldn’t take the dare! I ... I ... just had to go him one better. I just had to, Tess! tess: Very interesting! Very Pat-like! Go on, make a clean breast of it. What happened then? Pat: Well, it kept up until I was getting a letter a day. And, they were some letters. tess: Go on. Pat: I wrote once a week, but I tried to keep my end of the thing up. Then, one day, I got a letter that made all his other efforts seem like amateur rehearsals. It made me wild, for I knew I could never top it. Then I had a crazy inspiration. In a coy, little note, and in broken sentences, I accepted his “honorable offer of marriage.” tess: Gracious, this is rich. What next? Pat: Next, the crazy thing came back with a frigidly formal note thanking me for the honor, and with it came this perfectly good, three karat sparkler. I love the ring. tess: If you feel that way, why don’t you want to meet him? You’ve got to meet the man sometime if you are going to marry him. Pat: Marry him? Good gracious, I wouldn’t marry him! Why, he can’t even write a decent letter since I accepted his proposal that wasn’t a proposal. tess: Well, why don’t you break with him then? Pat: No! He started it and he will have to end it. If I could only think of some way to make him do it. I barely write him a frappédii line occasionally, but the crazy thing just won’t break it.

i

“A hospital for people suffering from an infectious disease.” oed, s.v. “pest-house.”

ii

Cold, in the sense of lacking affection or warmth of feeling.

302

Blanche Irbé Bremner

tess: Of course not! It is your place to send back his ring and ask for your release. Pat: Maybe. But, that’s just what I don’t want to do. Send back this perfectly good ring. Oh Tess, just think of my having to meet him today. I can’t! I just can’t! Babbette, please bring my things. tess: Oh, please don’t go! It’s been so long since I’ve seen you! Pat: I must go. I wouldn’t stay and meet him for ... a farm! I’ll have to miss the hunt tomorrow, too. tess (Begins laughing.): I’ve thought of a way to get you out of this scrape, and save your ring too. Will you stay if I promise to make him break the engagement? Pat: Oh yes, yes! Oh Tess, you always were the dearest thing on earth, and the cleverest! Tell me quick! tess (Still laughing.): It would be a scream! You used to be quite some actress in college, but I suppose you’ve forgotten how to act now? Pat: I have not! But, much good it will do me! Quick, tell me how will you make him break the engagement? tess: Depends upon how good an actress you are! Has Jack Larason seen your picture? Pat: He has not. tess: And you are sure you want to break? Perhaps when you see him you will not be so anxious. Pat (Indignantly.): I’m going home. tess: No you are not. I just asked to be sure. Aunt Betsy was here last week and left some of her clothes. Aunt Betsy weighs nearly three hundred pounds. Betsy’s clothes will soon fit Patsy, by the aid of some perfectly good feather pillows. When Jack Larason calls this evening, a coy maiden of about fifty, weighing three hundred pounds, will lovingly welcome him and sing her entire “repertory” to him. “In the Gloaming,” “Spanish Cavalier,” “White Wings,” “Where Is My Wandering Boy Tonight,” “Can She Bake a Cherry Pie,” “My Grandfather’s Clock.” Know any of ’em? If you don’t, I’ve an old album.i (Curtain.)

i

For “In the Gloaming,” “Spanish Cavalier,” and “White Wings” see below. “Where Is My Wandering Boy Tonight” (1903), Henry Burr; “Can She Bake A Cherry Pie” (n.d.), usu. referred to as “Billy Boy,” a traditional US folk ballad; “My Grandfather’s Clock” (1876), Henry Clay Work.

My Soul-Mate: A Musical Comedy

303

Scene ii (Rodney VanHorn’s den. Jack Larason is walking back and forth tearing his hair and talking to Rod. Both men are in officer’s uniform.) JaCk: Of all the infernal luck! I came down here to get out of seeing her. The minute I arrived in New York, I sent flowers and said I was ordered to sail immediately. roD: What’s the row? Who is she? JaCk: Oh, a girl I’m engaged to. roD: Whew! It will happen in the best of families. Can’t you buy her off? Anything I can do to keep it out of the courts, command me. JaCk: Don’t be an ass. You’ve got it wrong. I never saw the girl. Never want to. roD (Sings I Thought – That I Thought – When I Thought It.):i I thought what I thought when I thought it. Ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho! (Laughing.) For young men are so very reckless! Ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho! (Laughing.) And girls will be girls, God bless ’em! Tra, la, la, la, la, la, la. And sometimes bad boys do distress ’em, Tra, la, la, la, la, la, la. And innocent youth has its pleasure, So why should you not be engaged? As long as Dame Grundy is smiling,4 So why should you be so enraged? I thought what I thought when I thought it, Ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho! (Laughing.) For young men are so very reckless, Ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho! (Laughing.) Strange case of absent treatment, what? Didn’t think it of you, ole top!ii JaCk: It was all the fault of those darned Ramseys. Wait ’til I see George! They had planned for me to meet her at one of their cussed weekends, then I broke out with teething rash and the learned mDs sent me to the pest house. To while the time away, I wrote her a note, just for the devil of it. roD: Yeh! That’s the devil of it.

i

Likely written by Bremner; there is no extant musical text.

ii

“In familiar or affectionate forms of address.” oed, s.vv. “old top.”

304

Blanche Irbé Bremner

JaCk: Yeh! Her answer made me sit up and take nourishment! When I got out, I wrote her a “come-again-if-you-dare.” Durn it all! roD: I take it she came? JaCk: Yeh. Well, I kept on, and she kept on (confound the girl!), and we kept on! My khaki!i Those first letters of hers were corkers!ii roD: So, then you proposed, you big mutt?iii JaCk: Well torpedo me,iv if I know when I did it, but I must have. I wrote her one night when one of her letters had sort of gone to my head. roD: I suppose nothing else had gone to your head that night? JaCk: Oh, I’d had a few high balls and the same number of cocktails. That’s all I remember. roD: Bad case. What did you say? JaCk: Gawd knows! The answer was a calm, cool, and collected, prim, pure, and chaste acceptance of my “honorable offer of marriage!” My “honorable offer of marriage,” get that! roD: No, it seems she got it. What next? JaCk: Her letter scared me, it buffaloedv me, it hypnotized me, it caught me with my gas mask off and no dugout handy.vi I went out in a daze and bought her the largest blue-white headlight that treacherous tradesperson showed me. roD: If her letters were such hot shot before, I suppose it would be indelicate to think what they are now? JaCk: Hot shot nothing! My helmet!vii I’m going to start a refrigerating plant with no outlay. I’ll just use her notes instead of ice. roD: Well, if she’s so frigid and you are so frappéd, why don’t you call it off? JaCk (Sings I Am Engaged.).viii When I meet a lovely girl that’s sweet and, Here will stand this dreadful, dreadful pact. I’m not a cad, so I must act the dutiful, I am engaged, it is the awful fact.

i

One of several exclamations associated with the contemporary war.

ii

“Slang. Something ... very striking or astonishing, e.g., a monstrous lie.” oed, s.v. “corker.”

iii “A person who is awkward, ignorant, or blundering ... Also without negative connotation: a person, a fellow. oed, s.v. “mutt.” iv An exclamation associated with the war. v

“To overpower, overawe, or constrain by superior force or influence; to outwit, perplex.” oed, s.v. “buffalo.”

vi Exclamations associated with the war. vii An exclamation associated with the war. viii Likely written by Bremner; there is no extant musical text.

My Soul-Mate: A Musical Comedy

305

I have not seen the lady who’s engaged me, Unknowing, I would pass her on the street. My horrid plight it is that has enraged me, For now the time has come when we must meet. Oh, for a day, for a day! Oh, for a day, for a day! I long to ride away, away! I long to ride away! I long to ride away, away! I long to ride away! roD: Say, ole Don Juan, what would you give me if I got you your freedom? JaCk: Name your price! Tell you what I’ll do: you give a farewell feed to the fellows at Sherry’s and I’ll foot it. roD: Sure thing! All the fellows of our mess,i of course. Then there are about twenty of the old scouts from the Varsityii that haven’t gone over yet. That will be about twenty. Then that bunch over at West Point,iii they’ll come over and we’ll ... JaCk: Hold on there! You haven’t got me out of this mess yet. How are you going to do it? roD: I wish you would not interrupt me when I am busy. This is an important matter. It’s going to be a dinner to remember, when the boys are “over there.”5 Has Mrs Courtney ever seen your ugly mug? JaCk: No. roD: You’re a pretty bum actor; but, I guess in a case of self-preservation, you can get by. I am going down, now, to Mike O’Reilly’s film studio and get some properties. You’ve got to put yourself in my hands and obey orders. This time tomorrow you will be gloating over your freedom. JaCk: In that case, go as far as you’d like. I’ll do anything you say, murder not excepted. roD: Of course, we’ll start with caviar and terrapin.iv JaCk: Caviar and terrapin, you big heir apparent! You’ll be all-firedv lucky if you corruptly obtain three cubes of sugar spice and a small wafer of bacon. “Hoover” heard of such a thing.6

i

“Each of the groups into which a military unit or ship’s company is divided, the members of each group taking their meals together.” oed, s.v. “mess.”

ii

“University.” oed, s.v. “varsity.”

iii West Point is the United States first and most prominent Military Academy (est. by Thomas Jefferson in 1802). West Point, “A Brief History of West Point,” accessed 30 June 2019, https://www.usma.edu/wphistory. iv “A name originally given to one or more species of North American turtles.” oed, s.v. “terrapin.” v

“Extremely, thoroughly.” oed, s.v. “all-fired.”

306

Blanche Irbé Bremner

roD: I note the pun, it hath a punch, not to say a puncheon.i But, what we’re talking about now is this here luncheon. Will Mr Hoover let us have some Chin chop-suey girls for boutonnières, thinkest thou?7 JaCk: Sure thing! There are more girls than anything else on earth these days. Hoover won’t mind. There were several Chin Chop Suey damsels. Which were you thinking of? roD: The ones that wear black veils.8 I’m going now for your habiliments,ii your accoutrements of this afternoon’s warfare. Smile on, little one. (Curtain.)

AC T I I

Scene i (Time: afternoon of same day. Place: Tess’s boudoir. Tess, daintily dressed in afternoon gown, is putting the last touches on her room before Pat’s performance. She selects an old song album and laughs as she opens it and puts it on the piano rack. Babbette bursts into the room as though frightened.) babbette: Ah, sure mum, an’ the fat lady freak from Fourpaugh’s circus has made her escape and has got in here!9 I wint to put towels in wan of the guest rooms and there she was a-sittin’ knittin,’ as much at home as yez plaze and about tin times as large. And, sez I, “Where the divil did yez escape from?” And the auld freak laughed at me. I thought yez aught to know what was in yer house. tess (Laughs.): Sh! Sh! Babbette, you must help us! That was Miss Pat, dressed up that way for a very special purpose. You mustn’t let on this afternoon that there’s anything unusual about her. May we rely upon you? babbette: Is it a joke? tess: Well, something like that. babbette: Ah, sure an it’s a good one! Ye may count on me, Mrs Courtney, to help it along. (Sound of distant bell ringing. Babbette goes to answer. Tess goes to side door.) tess: Be ready to come out the minute I call, Pat! Pat (Invisible.): I’m all ready. (Babbette ushers in Rodney Van Horn, dressed in officer’s khaki. Jack is dressed in golf cap and Harvard sweater with no collar under an ill-fitting frock coat, not overly clean white-duckiii troui

“A pointed or piercing tool.” oed, s.v. “puncheon.”

ii

“Outfit, accoutrement, equipment, array, attire, dress,” but spelled in the plural, as it is here, also entails “fittings, apparatus, furniture, gear, outfit, rigging; as of a ship,” thus invoking the military. oed, s.vv. habiliments.

iii “Cotton fabric ... used for small sails and men’s (esp. sailors’) outer clothing.” oed s.v. “duck.”

My Soul-Mate: A Musical Comedy

307

sers, heavy tan shoes, and red tie with huge, diamond horseshoe pin. He is adorned with a great, bushy, flaming red football of a wig, beetling,i black eyebrows, and a fierce black moustache. He has on very large shell-rimmed specs and carries a cane with an enormous bulldog knob. Tess gasps in amazement and horror at the sight of him. She looks at Rod reproachfully.) roD (Rod screens Jack during greeting and then steps aside disclosing him.): Mrs Courtney, let me present Will’s and my old football friend, Jack Larason. You’ve heard us speak of him. (Laughs.) You aught to see Jack play football. Good old Jack! (Laughs a great laugh.) tess (Sarcastically, significantly, and disdainfully.): Oh yes, I’ve often heard Will and you rave about Jack Larason. I shall tell Will when I write that I have at last seen him. (Jack writhes at her words. Rod laughs.) JaCk: Er, yes, er, good ’ole Bill. Just tell him that you saw me. tess: I am sure you are just dying to see your friend, Miss Roberts. (Calls.) tess: Patricia, my love! (Enter Pat. She is padded until she can hardly waddle. She wears a slicked-back, black wig streaked with gray, from which gray “ringlets” and “tendrils” are plastered down in profusion on her old-made-up face. On the crown of her head, standing straight up and surrounding a long-stemmed red rose, is a bunch of wirey, coal-black curls, tied with a broad, red ribbon which is arranged in a large bow in front. Her dress is made short, a-la-mode, with wide sport-stripes running around the skirt. Her legs are padded and she wears white stockings that have large red polka-dots and large white slippers tied on with crossed red ribbons. She stands looking at them languishingly, with arms outstretched toward Jack. Jack and Rod are more bowled over even than Tess was at the sight of Jack. They pretend to faint, each supporting the other from falling.) Pat (Advances into the room with outstretched arms Singing My Soul-mate, My Affinity.)ii Oh, when I was awakened this morning, How little I dreamed that kind fate, With never a wink or a warning, Was bringing to me my soul-mate. How little I dreamed that my ego, My soul-mate, was calling to me, Together, forever, shall we go, He comes now, my affinity! Tra, la, la, la! So happy are we! Tra, la, la, la! So happy and free! Tra, la, la, tra, la, la, tra, la, la, la!

i

“Projecting, overhanging.” oed s.v. “beetling.”

ii

Likely written by Bremner; there is no extant musical text.

308

Blanche Irbé Bremner

My soul-mate! My affinity! (Pat’s solo is followed immediately by the same song, with Tess, Babbette, Jack, and Rod each singing their own version.) tess: Come Rod, these two young lovers probably have many things to tell each other. And, (significantly.) I have a few things to say to you, Mr Van Horn! JaCk: Rod, don’t you go. You stay here! (Rod laughs. Tess pulls him away.) roD: Tell Miss Roberts about your dogs, Jack. tess: Sing for Mr Larason, Patricia, my love. (Exit Tess and Rod.) (Enter Babbette with tea-tray, which she places on table.) (Exit Babbette. She uses pantomime and is seen to be spying and listening.) Pat (Gurgles.): Ooh yes, I shall sing my whole repertory for my fiancée. But, first I must give my boy a cup of tea. (She pours tea and waddles over and hands it to him. He watches her as though fascinated.) See, I serve thee with my own fair hands. (She waddles back for the cream and sugar.) How many lumps, Johnnie? (It is too much for him and, at the “Johnnie,” he drops the cup and saucer which crash and break.) Oh naughty, naughty, careless little boy, haf to have him hands ’panked! Him did bweak the lady’s nice china, so him did! (Grotesquely and with great difficulty, because of her padding, Pat gets down on her hands and knees and picks up the pieces. She sings, Here at Thy Feet.) i See, beloved one, here am I at thy feet! Dost think me cute, Beloved? Dost think me sweet? Thou the sturdy oak shall be, I the clinging vine, Oh what blissful, blissful bliss, When thou art mine, and I am thine! (As she sings, she keeps trying to move on her knees closer to Jack. He keeps pushing his chair back until it encounters some obstacle and he is cornered. She makes him help her up and in doing so accidentally brushes her “feather-duster tuft of curls” all over his face. She walks over to the piano.) JaCk: For heaven’s sake don’t sing. Pat: Oh, I know you think it would be too much trouble, but it won’t be a teenty, Weenty, tiny bit of trouble. And, I want to find out what my boy’s favour-ite song is, so I can always sing it for him. What is your favorite song, Johnnie? JaCk: Oh, if you will sing, any old thing, I don’t care! Pat: Do you like the old songs best, too? Oh, I’m so glad. Do you like “Sliver Threads Among the Gold?” JaCk: I don’t know. I don’t care for ’em among the black! i

Likely written by Bremner; there is no extant musical text.

My Soul-Mate: A Musical Comedy

309

Pat: Speaking of silver threads reminds me of my hair. Have you noticed, Johnnie, that I have a few silver threads? JaCk (Sarcastically.): Now that you speak of it. Pat: Well, those came from early piety when I was very, very young. I used to be a wonderful child. They came when I was a mere child, three or four years ago. JaCk: A mere child, three or four years Ago? Oh helmet! Pat: But don’t you mind, I hope to bring the colour back. (Pat goes close to him and waves her “tuft of feather duster curls” at him.) These tufts of raven curls are their natural colour, Johnnie. (She sits down at the piano.) Now be sure and tell me when I come to your favour-ite, Johnnie, or just let your face light up, Johnnie, I’ll watch your face. (She Sings Medley.)10 “Way down upon the Suwanee River, i Far, far away. There’s where my heart is turning ever ...” I can see by your face that it isn’t your favour-ite. It didn’t lighten up. “In the gloaming, oh my darling, Think not bitterly of me …” JaCk: Oh for heaven’s sake, stop, stop! Pat: Don’t you like “In the Gloaming?”ii JaCk: I loathe it! Pat: Oh, I know. You like something livelier! (With great archness and abandon, she plays the first eight bars of “There’ll be a Hot Time in the Old Town.”)iii Isn’t that inspiring! But, maybe a man’s song is your favour-ite? (Sings.) “Rocked in the cradle of the deep, I lay me down in peace to sleep ... ”iv (His face doesn’t light up.) “A Spanish cavalier, stood in his retreat, And on his guitar played a tune,

i

Stephen C. Foster, “Old Folks at Home” (1851), Florida Department of State, accessed 30 June 2019, http://dos.myflorida.com/florida-facts/florida-state-symbols/state-song/.

ii

Annie Fortescue Harrison; lyrics from a poem by Meta Orred, “In the Gloaming” (1877?), “American Quartet,” the Public Domain Review, accessed 30 June 2019, https:// publicdomainreview.org/collections/in-the-gloaming-american-quartet-1910/.

iii Theodore A Metz (composer); Joe Hayden, “There’ll Be a Hot Time in the Old Town Tonight” (1896?), lyricist, Library of Congress, accessed 30 July 2019, https://loc.gov/item/ ihas.200207459. iv Emma Hart Willard, “Rocked in the Cradle of the Deep” (1853), Yale Book of American Verse, Bartleby.com, accessed 30 June 2019, https://www.bartleby.com/br/248.html.

310

Blanche Irbé Bremner

Dear ...”i (He still doesn’t light up.) “Nita, Juanita, ask thy soul if we should part ...”ii (She tries another.) “White wings they never grow weary, They carry me cheerily over the Sea …”iii (Makes another attempt.) “Bring back, oh, bring back ...” iv (Jack shows exasperation.) “Oh don’t you remember sweet Alice, Ben Bolt?” Sweet Alice so good and so true.v Johnnie, I am surprised that you don’t like sweet old love songs. But, maybe Johnnie, you like lullabies? Lullabies! Lullabies! (Sings.) “Go to sleep, my little pickaninny,” Mammy’s gwine to smack yo if yo don’ Hush-a-by, hush-a-by, little pickaninny. Mammy’s little pickaninny coon.vi JaCk (with his hands over his ears.): Oh, my Aunt Maria! Oh my helmet!vii Stop, stop, for the love of St Cecilia,viii stop! Pat (significantly.): Johnnie, do you not love children? JaCk (hopefully.): I do not! Squalling ix little brats!

i

William D. Hendrickson, “The Spanish Cavalier” (1871), Archive.org, accessed 23 July 2018, https://archive.org/details/TheSpanishCavalier, accessed 30 June 2019.

ii

Caroline Sheridan Norton, “Juanita” (1855?), Library of Congress, accessed 30 June 2019, https://www.loc.gov/item/ihas.200002478/.

iii Lesley Nelson Burns, “White Wings” (1880?), Contemplator.com, accessed 30 June 2019. https://www.contemplator.com/america/wwings.html. iv Allegedly written by H.J. Fulmer (Charles E. Pratt), “My Bonnie Lies over the Ocean” (1881), the Ballad Index, accessed 30 June 2019, http://www.fresnostate.edu/folklore/ballads/ DTmybonn.html. v

Thomas Dunn English, “Ah! Don’t You Remember Sweet Alice, Ben Bolt” (184?), Hymnary. org, accessed 30 June 2019, https://hymnary.org/text/o_dont_you_remember_sweet_alice.

vi Author and date unknown, also called “Georgia Lullaby,” “Little Alabama Coon,” “Go to Sleep My Little Pickaninny,” Lullaby Link, accessed 23 July 2018, http://www.lullaby-link. com/go-to-sleep-my-little-picaninny.html. vii An exclamation associated with the war. viii The patron of musicians. ix “That squalls or screams.” oed, s.v. “squalling.”

My Soul-Mate: A Musical Comedy

311

Pat (sighs.): What a pity, but then you will probably learn to love them. I am going to adopt some from the asylum. JaCk: Have all you want, but none for me. Pat (Sighs and continues to sing): “I cannot sing the old songs, Their charm is sad and deep.”i JaCk (With mock enthusiasm.): Right you are! Don’t try Miss ... er ... Pat, Patricia. And might I venture to suggest that you are also wasting your time and talents in trying to sing the new ones as well. Pat: Why, Johnnie, everyone raves, just raves, over my singing! JaCk: I can easily believe they might, if they listened to it very long. Pat: But, I’m so temperamental, I just must find some way to express myself. But, there is another way. I can dance! Can you play the piano, Johnnie? JaCk: I cannot! Pat: Oh, too bad! It would be so nice to have you play while I dance. But, I am sure you can whistle. JaCk: No, I can’t. Never could learn the proper pucker. Pat: Oh, too bad! Well then, I’ll have to whistle for myself, while you clap your hands. Clap them good and loud, Johnnie, and be sure and keep perfect time, so’s not to throw me out in my steps. I call this “The Dance of the Tragic Caterpillar.” Now, don’t forget to clap your hands to mark time. (She whistles tune of “I Am Engaged” and dances to represent the undulations of a caterpillar.ii She finishes the dance and stops.) (The orchestra whistles also.) I call this next dance The Evolution of a Passionate Rosebud. Don’t forget to clap. (She whistles “The Last Rose of Summer,” dances a few turns and stops.)iii Now, Johnnie, I’m going to let you guess the title of this dance. (She whistles “My Soul-mate” and dances the most absurd and exaggerated “dance.” Finally sinking exhausted and panting into his arms. He puts her in a chair.) Fan me, Johnnie, fan me quick!

i

Claribel (Charlotte Alington Barnard), “I Cannot Sing the Old Songs” (1868), Petrucci Music Library, accessed 30 June 2019, https://imslp.org/wiki/Category:Barnard%2C_ Charlotte_Alington.

ii

Charles M. Alexander?, “At Last I Am Engaged” (1900), Archive.org accessed 30 June 2019, https://archive.org/stream/charlesmalexande00alexiala/charlesmalexande00alexiala_ djvu.txt.

iii Thomas Moore, “set to a traditional tune called ‘Aislean an Oigfear’ or ‘The Young Man’s Dream” (1792), “The Last Rose of Summer,” orig. transcribed by Edward Bunting (1792), Project Gutenberg Self-Publishing Press, World Heritage Encyclopedia Edition, accessed 23 July 2018, http://self.gutenberg.org/articles/eng/The_Last_Rose_of_Summer.

312

Blanche Irbé Bremner

(Jack grabs two napkins from tea table and twirls them violently before her. An electric fan in the wings raises a perfect hurricane, blowing about papers, etc.) Oh, thanks, that’s a plenty! What a queer way to fan one. JaCk: It’s the way us barbers always dry faces. Pat (Almost faints for real.): Barbers! (While Jack exults, she takes a moment to recover herself.) You haven’t guessed my dance yet, Johnnie. JaCk: Oh, I should say it was the last waddles of the Christmas goose! Pat: Oh, aren’t you playful! I’m sure you must know it was the wooing south-wind, blowing the clinging vine. JaCk (Goes limp.): Somebody fan me, quick. Pat: Is anything the matter, Johnnie? JaCk: Miss Roberts, I would like to ask you a question. Pat: Oh, call me “Pat,” just as you did in your letters. I’ve always wanted to hear you say it. JaCk: All right then ... er ... Pat, will you please tell me who wrote those first letters I got from you? Pat: Now Johnnie, you are not going to begin to scold, are you? Will you be dweffle, dweffle cwossi if I tell you that it was a friend of mine who wrote them? My closest friend. A lovely, lovely girl. JaCk (Exclaims in an aside.): I knew it! (To Pat, eagerly.) You say she is a lovely girl: not married, is she? Pat: Oh my no, only engaged. JaCk: Just my luck! Was she engaged when she wrote those letters? Pat (Demurely.): Not all of them. JaCk (Fiercely.): But some of them. See here, have I been made the butt of someone’s sport? Did her fiancée see those letters? Pat: Now, don’t scold! JaCk: Answer me, please? Pat: Y-y-y-yes! JaCk: All of them? Pat: Y-y-y-yes, every one! JaCk: Curses! I suppose you’ll be telling me next that he also saw my fool letters to you! Pat: Y- y - y - yes, Johnnie. JaCk: Do you think that honorable? Pat: Well, you see, she enjoyed your first letters so much and she gave so much thought to answering them, that I thought she deserved some reward. And, by the way, Johnnie, who wrote your letters for you?

i

Dreadful, dreadful cross.

My Soul-Mate: A Musical Comedy

3 13

JaCk (Considers.): That wasn’t to be told, but I don’t mind confessing it was a fellow who went to college at the same time I did. Pat (In an aside.): I knew it! JaCk: Miss Rob ... er ... Pat, since I saw your temperament, as expressed in the “wigglin’ caterpillar,” “passionate pumpkin vine,” and “waddlin’ Christmas goose,” I have been wondering ... if ... er ... Miss R ... er Pat, do you think we are temperamentally adapted? Pat (Eagerly.): Are you asking for your freedom, Johnnie? roD (Rod has been listening and before Jack can commit himself he bursts into the room.): Tell Miss Roberts about your dogs, Jack. JaCk (With renewed courage.): I say, do you like dogs? Pat (On guard.): What kind of dogs? JaCk: Any kind of doggone dog. Pat: No, Johnnie, I’m afraid I don’t like those kind. JaCk: Well, bulldogs and wolfhounds, and Russian boarhounds and Alaskan Huskies, and bloodhounds. Oh, lots of other kinds. I thought I better tell you that I always have dogs around me. I’ve got lots of ’em. Pat: Just how many have you got? JaCk: Er ... I’ve got ... er ... sixteen of ’em. Hope you like dogs, that’s all! Pat (Hopefully.): Oh, but Johnnie, sixteen! Surely, you wouldn’t let a mere matter of dogs come between two loving hearts? Now, if it was fifteen or fourteen, or thirteen or even twelve or ten or five, or two or one, one very, very, very, tiny, teeny, weeny, itty-bitty Pekinese? JaCk (Triumphantly and brutally.): Nope! Not one less! Seventeen! Pat: You said sixteen. JaCk: I had forgotten one. (Significantly.) And besides, there’ll be more next week. Pat: But, surely if I asked you to give them up? JaCk: Nope! Not one! My dogs and me shall never part! All eighteen of ’em! I eat with ’em and they always sleep with me: always will! Pat: But, if you had to choose between them and your little, clinging vine? JaCk (Hopefully and eagerly.): Miss Roberts, am I to understand that you are asking for your freedom? (Pat is nonplussed. Babbette has been listening. She now bursts into the room.) babbette: Excuse me, Miss Patricia, but that auld, snappy, mangy dog that ye asked Mrs Courtney to give you to feed to your pet bear, is all crated and ready to sind, and the butler says shall he sind it express or parcel post? Pat: (Again takes up the fray.): Thank you, Babbette, express the dog. He will make a good, square meal for my poor, dear Jock. (Exit Babbette.)

314

Blanche Irbé Bremner

I’m sorry, Johnnie, in a way, about your twenty-eight dogs. But, after all, there is a providence that takes care of such things. My pet bear, that you heard the maid speak of, dotes on dogs. He eats them. (Jack is nonplussed. Rod has been listening and now comes to Jack’s rescue.) roD (Enters.): Don’t forget to tell Miss Roberts about your pet mountain lion, Jack. Tell her about that time it escaped and got into the zoo and began killing off all the bears in the pit. Ho! Ho! Ho! (Exit Rod.) babbette (Enters.): Excuse me, Miss Patricia, but the snake has gone! Pat (Startled.): The snake? babbette: Sure! Yer pet snake has escaped. Pat (Understands.): Oh, Babbette, you gave me such a fright! I thought something had happened to my dear, little pet. JaCk: Good Godfrey, a pet snake! What kind of a snake? (Pat again nonplussed.) babbette: ’Twas a most beautiful boy constructor, ef yez plaze, sur. Pat: Don’t worry about him, Babbette, this is just one of his little, playful ways. He will be all coiled up in my bed waiting for me when I get home. There’s a special little opening in the wall made for him to get in. JaCk: Great Scott! Immortal Walter!11 A boa constrictor! Good Heavens! (Rod has been listening: he is completely bowled over.) roD (Enters. Aside.): A pet snake! Coiled up in bed! Suffering Tomcats! What next? (An inspiration strikes Rod, impromptu. He puts his hand in his pocket and takes out a very small, silver whisky flask, which he conceals from everyone but the audience.) Come old man, time to take your drops! Excuse me, Miss Roberts, but Jack must take his medicine. He has fits and becomes very violent unless he takes his drops, regularly. Come old chap, now don’t make your usual fuss. (Walks toward Jack, flask hidden in hand.) JaCk (Backs away.): Oh, I say, that’s not in the bargain! (Rod continues to advance upon him.) Oh say, old man, cut it out! It’s a little too thick! roD (To Pat.): He always makes trouble when he has to take his medicine. It’s past time now and he’s liable to become violent any moment. JaCk: You better believe I am, if you don’t drop this nonsense! (Rod suddenly pounces upon Jack and pins his arms. Jack struggles violently.) roD: Just what I feared, he’s becoming violent! Won’t any of you help me with this maniac? He must take his medicine. babbette (Babbette rushes out and instantly returns with a broom. She hits Jack once over the head with the brush part and stands with it raised threateningly.): Take your medicine, you spalpeen you!i Do as the gintleman tells ye. i

“A common workman or labourer; a farm-worker or harvester.” oed, s.v. “spalpeen.”

My Soul-Mate: A Musical Comedy

3 15

JaCk (Jack catches sight of the flask in Rod’s hand and stops struggling instantly.): All right, old man, give it to me. (Rod now struggles to keep the flask in his own hand. Jack gets it and drains it. The two men look at each other, both grinning.) JaCk: I feel quite fit now, thank you! But not at all “fitty.”i Don’t think I’ll have an attack for quite a while. roD (Ruefully.): You aught to, darn you, it was half full! (Rod walks over to Pat and speaks in a low tone.) Miss Roberts, as a true friend, I would advise you to ask for your freedom. You saw how violent he was and that is nothing to what he is sometimes. No clinging vine could handle him. And every time he sees a snake he has a fit, medicine or no medicine. tess (Comes in swiftly and interposes.): Well, why don’t you tell him to break it off. He aught to have sense enough to without being told, when he knows all about that snake. It isn’t as though Miss Roberts had concealed the facts from him, that she has a pet boa constrictor that she always sleeps with. Pat: I guess Johnnie will get used to my snake after a while. tess (Crosses swiftly to Jack.): Mr Larason, in view of your malady and the effect snakes have on you, wouldn’t you think it advisable to seek your freedom from all ... er ... sentimental alliances? roD (Rod crosses swiftly to the pair.): Oh, as to snakes, old hero, if you take doses of that medicine the size you just took, and take ’em often enough, you’ll get so used to seeing snakes that one more or less won’t count. (Tess glares at Rod. Rod laughs and offers her his arm. They go out, plainly to have a quarrel, arguing which should break with the other.) (Pat and Jack stand looking at each other, each for the moment silenced while trying to think up some new tactics, each unwilling to give up the contest to make the other break the engagement.) babbette (comes rushing in.): Oh, excuse me, Miss Patricia, mum, but come quick! Sure we’ve found yer reptile! It hadn’t gone home to bed at all, at all, but some way it got into the crate with that auld dog that ye was goin to feed to yer bear. And, sure mum, come quick and pull it off, for it’s a swallerin of the dog, that it is. Pat: Oh Johnnie, come help me! You love dogs, come help me rescue this one. But, you mustn’t hurt my little snakey. (Jack starts as though he would follow her request. Babbette picks up the broom and stands brandishing it at him.) babbette: Indade, and ye don’t go! It’s fits ye have, medicine or no medicine, if ye see a snake. And it’s no fit ye’ll be after havin’ in this house, unless it’s across my dead body ye have it. JaCk: Darn! (Jack dodges Babbette’s broom and bolts. Sound of violently slammed door. Tess and Rod come running in.) i

Inclined towards having a fit.

316

Blanche Irbé Bremner

tess: What was that noise? Pat: It was Johnnie at the door. I think, maybe, he is having one of his fits. roD (Anxiously.): Did you ask for your release, Miss Roberts? Pat: No. tess (Eagerly.): Did he? Pat: No. (Tess and Rod turn savagely upon each other.) tess: This is all your fault, Rod Van Horn. But for you, that insufferable brute would have broken the engagement. roD: Quite the contrary, Mrs Courtney. Excuse me for contradicting, but you repeatedly prevented Miss Roberts from asking for her release. Miss Roberts, if you have any message of that nature to send, I shall be most happy to take it to Mr Larason. Pat (Complacently.): Oh no, I will not tax your kindness. roD (Hotly.): Well, after the entertainment given him in Will’s sister’s home, I don’t think Miss Roberts can expect to ever hear from him again. tess: In referring to his entertainment in my house, I suppose you mean the medicine drops so delicately administered to him. And, I think Miss Roberts will survive if she does not hear from him again. roD: Then I am to tell him he is free? Pat: Of course, you will tell him whatever you please, but I am not free. (She flourishes her hand with the engagement ring.) roD: So you refuse to break the engagement? tess (Exasperated.): Since you are so eager to have an engagement broken, Mr Van Horn, perhaps one will do as well as another. (She takes off his ring and hands it to him.) roD: (Protesting.): Aw, Tess, this isn’t yours and my affair, you know! tess: No, but you have been pleased to make it your affair and meddle. So now, good afternoon Mr Van Horn! I wish you joy of your football hero. (Exit Rod very crestfallen and subdued.) babbette: (Enters.): Sure an I’m glad that’s over with. My St Patrick forgive all the awful talk about snakes!12 Sure ’twas scandalous! But, I couldn’t think of anything worse. Pat (Shudders.): Ooh! I’ll see bears and snakes in my dreams tonight! A snake in my bed! Ooh I’ll be afraid to go to bed! Tess, I wish you could have seen me do the “tragic caterpillar,” the “passionate rosebud,” and the “wooing Southwind, blowing the clinging vine.” tess: Oh I saw you! So did Rod! It was too much for me, I had to beat a retreat or howl. babbette: Sure an I saw ye, too, Miss. It was great! You aight to go on the vaudyville!i i

Vaudeville.

My Soul-Mate: A Musical Comedy

317

tess: I’d like to see you dance some time when you are not à la Aunt Betsy. Pat: I’m sorry, Tessie, that I was the cause of your engagement being broken. That was a nice chap. I didn’t know you were engaged. tess: Don’t you worry! It was Rod’s turn to keep the ring overnight. He’ll give it to me at the hunt tomorrow. Pat: Oh the hunt! The football hero will be there, too! I’m going home! tess: I’m sorry I couldn’t make him break, Pat. Pat: It wasn’t your fault, you and Babbette did noble. It was just his cussedness. (Curtain.)

AC T I I I

Scene i (Time: Two hours after last act. Place: a wooded country road. Pat is discovered at rise of curtain painfully examining her broken-down car.) Pat (Tries to start car.): Oh, my daddy, when shall I ever get home! (Sings My Bad-Little, Mad-Little Car.)i My bad-little, mad little roadster, Has made up its mind now to balk, ’Tis many long miles to my dwelling, But my only hope is to walk. I can’t think what may be the matter, I’ve seen that the spark plugs are bright, I know she has plenty of water, And the carburetor is all right. I’ve shifted the gear in fine frenzy, In neutral, in high, and in low, The clutch I have used per directions, But still the mean thing will not go. Oh what a day! What a day! Adventure from morning ’til night, Night draweth near, stars now appear, To gaze on my vexatious plight. (She feels her injured ankle and painfully limps over and seats herself on a fallen log.) Oh my daddy! But, it’s lonesome in these old woods, with night coming on. (Looks around fearfully.) My, it’s dark in here! I wonder if there are any bears in i

Likely written by Bremner, for which there is no extant musical text.

318

Blanche Irbé Bremner

these woods? (There is a noise.) My, what was that? I believe it was a bear! Oh, I wish someone would come along. Perhaps, I’d better sing to keep myself cheerful, and it might frighten the bears away, too. (The warbling of birds is heard.) (Pat Sings Caroling Birds.)i Caroling birds their vespers now sing, Heavy with honey the bees wing their way, Crimson the sun sinks in the west, There in a glory endeth the day, Still is the forest, silent the glade, Deer o’er the woodland, now falls even’ing shade, Angelic visions quiet my fears, As Heav’n at last shall banish my tears. (Jack and Rod, dressed in khaki uniforms and with game bags and guns, have come upon the scene.) JaCk (Steps forward.): Good evening! Pat ( frightened scream.): O-o-h! JaCk: I beg your pardon. I didn’t mean to startle you. Pat: Oh, I thought you were a bear. (Rod laughs his big laugh.) JaCk: What’s the trouble, a breakdown? (Not recognizing her out of costume, Jack is obviously smitten with Pat.) Pat (Smitten with Jack): Yes, and I cannot find what is the matter. I’ve done everything I can think of to start it. And, I sprained my ankle getting under the car to see if there was too much gasoline in the differential, or anything. roD (Laughing.): Gas in the differential? Pat (With dignity.): I sprained my ankle trying to see. Do you suppose there isn’t enough transmission grease in the carburetor or something? roD: Ha, ha, ha! Transmission grease in the carburetor, that’s a good one! Pat: (With offended dignity.): I’m sure I’m glad to know there is something amusing in my misfortune. JaCk (Glares at Rod.): Please pardon our ill-timed mirth. (Nods to Rod to go.) roD (Laughs, starts to crawl under the car.): Old Don Quixote, friend of my youth: you better chug over to the main road and put up an sos to the first car you see.13 Pat (Disdaining Rod.): Oh, please don’t go! I don’t want to be alone! roD (Peers out from under car. To Pat.): Alone, eh? (Laughs.) Don’t forget the lovin’ little “boids” in the trees. They are still singing their vespers, and my middle name is “Bear-killer.” (To Jack.) Smile on, little one, chug along over there and get someone to rescue the perishing.

i

Likely written by Bremner; there is no extant musical text.

My Soul-Mate: A Musical Comedy

319

JaCk: You will be perfectly safe – I wouldn’t leave you otherwise – and I must get assistance for you. I’ll be back in a moment and I’ll be within call. (Exit Jack.) roD (Crawls out from under car.): Well, there’s no gas in the differential. Ho, ho, ho! Pardon me, but you must know this part of the island pretty well to know about this short-cut. I thought I knew everybody hereabout. Pat (Coldly.): I do not live here, but I very frequently visit my friend, Mrs Courtney, who does. roD (Suddenly alert.): The deuce you say! Did you visit her today? Pat: Yes, I did. roD: Was there anyone else visiting her? Pat (Hesitates.): I don’t know any reason why I should discuss Mrs Courtney’s affairs with you. roD: Oh, Tess wouldn’t mind, she and I have quite an affair of our own. Better be a good little girl and tell me. Just think what would happen if a bear should come and I should crawl under the car. Pat: I do not know what concern it is of Mrs Courtney’s inquisitive neighbours. But, since you are such a charming, well-mannered adolescent, and are so intensely interested, no, I was Mrs Courtney’s only guest. roD (Rod slaps his knee and roars.): This is richness, not to say mellifluence! Aye, ’tis effulgence! Ho, ho, ho! (Laughing uproariously.) Yaw-hoo, yaw-hoo. (Rod yodels for Jack. Jack comes running.) JaCk: What’s the trouble? roD: No trouble ever, whatever, whichever, whatsoever – high, low, Jack, or anywhere! Everything’s salubrious and the stork flies high! But, you stay here and pussyfoot the strange mystery of the obdurate joy-machine, while I chug-chug over and string entanglements across the highway. Smile on, little-one! (Exit Rod. Goes off singing, I Thought What I Thought, etc. Pat and Jack look at each other and smile. There is an expressive silence.) JaCk: Now we must see what the trouble is. Pat: I’ve tried to think of everything the man told me to be sure and do. JaCk: (Looks the car over.) Have you plenty of gas? Pat: Gas? JaCk: Yes, gas. Pat: What gas? JaCk: Why, to make the car go! Pat: Oh, you mean gasoline! Oh yes, it was all completely fitted out with gasoline and everything when I got it. JaCk: How long ago was that? Pat: Nearly two weeks. JaCk: Driven much? Pat: Oh yes, constantly.

320

Blanche Irbé Bremner

JaCk (Investigates.): Whew! No wonder you couldn’t start her: dry as a bone! Would it not be more comfortable for you to sit in the car while you wait? Pat: Perhaps it would (She tries to rise but cannot.) Oh, my ankle! It hurts! JaCk: How cruel of me not to have remembered! Your ankle must be bandaged at once to prevent its swelling. If you will permit me? Pat: Are you a doctor? JaCk: No, but I’m a soldier and have a little first aid knowledge. (He proceeds to tear up his handkerchief and bandages Pat’s ankle.) Now, if you will lean on me, I think we can get you to the car. (Pat tries to rise but faints. Jack revives her.) Pat: Oh yes, you may think of me, if you don’t forget to. JaCk: Could there ever be any hope for me, if I were to allow myself to think of the possibility of being something more than a friend sometime? Pat: Why really Mr ... Mr (Pretends to have forgotten his name, refers to card.) Mr Larason, I couldn’t control your thoughts, you know, could I? JaCk: How good you are to me! I will try to fight faithfully for you and for my country, and then when I return – if I return – I will woo and hope to win the loveliest girl on earth. Pat: Perhaps I should tell you that I am engaged. JaCk (Staggers from shock.): Engaged? Engaged! Oh heavens! Why did it have to be that I should meet you too late! Well, I suppose I must be resigned. Unless, tell me, are you sure that you love him? Pat: Yes, I think I really do! JaCk (Groans.): I should rejoice in your happiness, shouldn’t I, little girl? Well, I hope I’m not a cad. I wish you every blessing that life can give. If your lover is a soldier, I hope he may return to you at the end of this terrible war to make you happy and to be happy himself. The lucky fellow! Pat: Oh, I don’t know. I sing, and he doesn’t like my singing, and I can’t give it up. But, I don’t think I can give him up either. JaCk: He doesn’t like your singing? Why he must be a fool! I would love your singing! Pat: Oh you might not. Are you sure? JaCk: Sure? Just try me. Pat: All right, I will! (She sings My Soul-mate.) JaCk (Listens in perplexity at first, then in amazement.): I have heard that once before today. Who are you? Pat: (Laughs.) I’m Pat. JaCk: Not Patricia Roberts? Pat: The same, if it please you. JaCk: Then I am the lucky fellow! (Pat laughs and shows her ring.) And we’re, we’re engaged!

My Soul-Mate: A Musical Comedy

321

(Pat and Jack sing My Soul-mate. Rod, Tess, and Bab enter, the latter dressed for motoring. A perfect understanding is upon their faces. They join the song making a quintet.) f inis

notes The title was originally spelled My Soul Mate, with all other references in the text spelled “soul-mate”; I have placed a hyphen in the title also. 1 Babbette is obviously French but claims to be from county Cork, south-west Ireland, where

2 3 4

5

6

7

8

9

10

a large percentage of the domestic servants in the US came. See Bryan, “The Biddies,” accessed 30 June 2019, https://www.americanhistoryusa.com/biddy-irish-domestic-servantsin-early-america/. Pat’s parents reinforce lingering negative attitudes to women on the stage. This song is also used in Clara Rothwell Anderson’s Joggsville Convention. “The surname of an imaginary personage (Mrs Grundy) who is proverbially referred to as a personification of the tyranny of social opinion in matters of conventional propriety.” oed, s.vv. “Mrs. Grundy.” See Sister Mary Agnes, The Red Cross Helpers: A Patriotic Play. This was a common expression during the First World War, originally used by the American military to refer to the Western front. See oed, s.v., “over there.” This pun on Herbert Clark Hoover (who eventually became the thirty-first president of the United States, 1929–33) recalls Hoover’s war work as head of the United States Food Administration and his mission to reduce food consumption overseas. Appointed by President Wilson, he succeeded in cutting consumption of foods needed overseas and avoided rationing at home, yet kept the Allies fed.” See “Herbert Hoover,” The White House, accessed 17 July 2019, https://www.whitehouse.gov/about-the-white-house/presidents/ herbert-hoover/. Chop suey girls worked in the “The Chop Suey Circuit,” derogatory slang for largely Asianowned revues of Asian and Asian American entertainers, designed for Caucasians audiences. For an early advertisement for a Chop Suey Girls performance see Variety magazine, May 1912, accessed 30 June 2019, https://archive.org/stream/variety26-1912-05#page/n79/search/ chop+suey. Some Chop Suey girls, like “Dorothy Sun, at Forbidden City, wore a veil and harem pants” to perform orientalism. See Kwan, “Performing a Geography,” 120–36, accessed 30 June 2019, http://sites.uci.edu/aas55fall2016/files/2016/09/09.27-Kwan-Chop-Suey-Circuit-.pdf. “Adam Forepaugh (1831–1890) [was] a notable circus proprietor who owned and operated several circus shows from 1865 until his death 1890 and was a major competitor of P.T. Barnum and Ringling Brothers.” See “Adam Forepaugh and Sells Bros. Circus,” Circuses and Sideshows, Robert L. Parkinson Library and Research Center, accessed 30 June 2019, http:// www.circusesandsideshows.com/circuses/adamforepaughcircus.html. In the only extant version of Bremner’s script (held by Mount Saint Vincent University Library), the text has crossed out from this phrase to “Pat (Sighs and continues to sing),” indicating that she may have wanted to excise this medley. Nevertheless, it is not clear if

322

Blanche Irbé Bremner

these emendations were made by Bremner herself or by someone else and, if they were made by Bremner, whether she intended them to be permanent omissions or omissions for a single production. 11 This “expression of surprise” is associated with Walter Scott whose greatness was announce in the poem “The Wars of Bathurst 1830.” oed s.vv. “Great Scott.” 12 St Patrick is the patron saint of Ireland. 13 Usually referring to “a person who attempts to do an absurdly impossible thing or to carry out an impossible ideal.” oed, s.vv. “Don Quixote.” Derived from the eponymously named character in The Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote of La Mancha, Miguel de Cervantes (1605).

9 Acadia A n Introduction k y m bi r D a n D ta n Ja H a r r ison

Acadia (1920) by Mary Tryphosa Kinley Ingraham is a short closet drama that takes as its subject women’s education and participation in the Baptist faith. It spotlights the public role women played in Baptist history and mythology in eastern Canada, particularly at Acadia University, where Ingraham completed post-secondary education and spent most of her tenure training women for careers in library science. It is a condensed, allegorical tale of a woman’s spiritual and political journey that conveys an interest in the history of the university and its sectarian support of equality in the debate on women’s university acceptance. It is designed to construct a counterpublic of female supporters that feminizes Baptist enlightenment by imagining women’s spiritual struggle as one between a mother and daughter. Mary Tryphosa Kinley was born on 6 March 1874, the second daughter of six children of Elizabeth (née Wilkinson) and the Reverend Robert Bruce Kinley of Cape Wolfe, Prince Edward Island. The granddaughter, daughter, and niece of Baptist preachers, she was baptized into the faith by her father, as were her mother and siblings. Her life was steeped in the religious and educational milieu of east coast Baptist traditions.1 Her father became a quasi-itinerant preacher who held pastorates in Alberton, Cape Wolfe, East Point, Knutsford, and Tyne Valley. Her mother was said to have been “self-sacrificing” and to have “created a home atmosphere that molded the character of the children.”2 Although poor, Ingraham was the beneficiary of Baptist broad-mindedness when it came to women’s education. She attended local primary schools, undertook high school at the Prince of Wales College in Charlottetown, and after her graduation enrolled in the provincial Normal School where she studied to become a teacher. In 1890, the still young Mary moved with her family off the island to Paradise, Nova Scotia, a centre of late-nineteenth-century Baptist activity where her father was pastor for the next six years.3 There, in 1891, Kinley assumed her first teaching position.4 In January 1893,

324

Ky m B i r d a n d Ta n j a H a r r i s o n

9.1 Mary Kinley Ingraham upon graduation from Acadia in 1915.

she returned to the formal pursuit of her own education and enrolled in Acadia Ladies Seminary in Wolfville, Nova Scotia.5 Her humble background was unlike the majority of her classmates. She confided in letters to her sister Triphena that “I try to put my pride in my pocket – but it is hard. There are some girls here who spend in a year as much as Pa’s entire salary upon their own sweet selves. There are few, if any, as poor as I am.”6 On 4 October 1906, at the age of thirty-two, Mary Kinley married Joseph A. Ingraham, a seventy-year-old farmer from North East Margaree, Cape Breton.7 Their engagement may have transpired due to her father’s new agricultural connections; but it is unknown when they met or how long they knew each other before marrying. Ingraham’s new husband was ill from the outset of their relationship. After nursing him for over three years she found herself not only a widow but virtually impoverished and obliged to settle his considerable debts.8 Longing for an intellectual life, but also desperate to find work, Ingraham left Nova Scotia for the “Boston States.”9 She worked as a grammar school principal and as a housekeeper at a school for girls and the combination of these occupations caused her health to seriously deteriorate. In time, her Baptist connections guided her south to Atlanta, Georgia, where she accepted a teaching post at Spelman College. A historically Black female seminary, Spelman’s curriculum was well suited to Ingraham’s pedagogical abilities and religious beliefs. Her health, nevertheless, continued to worsen

Acadia: A n I nt roduct ion

325

and, following a serious operation, she left her job and returned home to Wolfville. After a period of convalescence, she joined her youngest brother in Wolfville and both began university at Acadia, she as a mature student.10 In 1915, at the age of forty-one, Ingraham graduated with an honours bachelor of arts in English and classics. She completed her master’s the following year.11 She settled in Wolfville and taught at her alma mater, the Acadia Ladies Seminary, where her colleagues recognized her “outstanding literary ability.”12 Her professional reputation came to the attention of Acadia University president Dr George B. Cutten, who offered her the position of head librarian.13 To prepare for her new appointment, she travelled to Boston where she engaged in library training at Simmons College. Upon completion in August of 1917, she was indeed appointed chief librarian of Acadia University, a position she held for the next twenty-seven years.14 From this point forward, Ingraham enjoyed the latitude to apply her considerable energy to a multi-faceted, public, and professional crusade that helped change the educational landscape for librarians of the Maritimes and encouraged women to adopt the vocation. She was a public force in the local community and gave many talks on books and libraries.15 She founded and led the Wolfville “English Club,” she was involved with the American Library Association, and she created close contacts with prominent Canadian librarians, some of whom considered her “the most active librarian in Nova Scotia.”16 She initiated the professional organization of libraries in the Maritime provinces by organizing its libraries into their first collective, the “Maritime Library Association,” for which she was secretary-treasurer between 1918 and 1944, its efficacious years. In 1936, she accepted the editorship of its revived publication arm, the Bulletin – a position she also occupied until her retirement. Over the course of her career at Acadia, she oversaw the unprecedented acquisition of sixty thousand new volumes, the greatest expansion of the University’s Emmerson Library since its founding in 1854. She designed and taught the first library courses in the region: courses that ran long after her academic tenure had ended. According to archived correspondence, Ingraham was well liked and respected by her students, and her love of literature and writing was contagious. According to her assistant, artist and long-time library colleague Helen Beals, women who graduated from her almost exclusively female classes went on to hold positions in libraries throughout Canada and the United States. Ingraham once said that “a developing civilization needs books as much as it needs railways and automobiles because the instinct for a sound, strong mental culture is in the best of our people, and may presumably lie dormant in the worst.”17 To this end, she spear-headed a motorized traveling library service, the precursor to the contemporary regional library system: Acadia sent two trucks, holding 2500 books, to one hundred and seventy-six locations across Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Prince Edward Island from the summer of 1930 to 1932.18 At the end of her career, Beals lauded her as having “made an outstanding contribution not only to the University but ... the library profession in all parts of the Maritime Provinces.”19 Ingraham retired in 1944 and in 1947 the university

326

Ky m B i r d a n d Ta n j a H a r r i s o n

9.2 Mary Kinley Ingraham’s official faculty photograph, circa 1928–29.

formally recognized her contribution to the institution when it conferred upon her the honourary degree of Doctor of Civil Laws.20 Ingraham returned to Paradise and remained active in the library profession. Declining health, however, forced her to relocate to her brother’s family in Livermore Falls, Maine and it is there on 20 November 1949 that she passed away at the age of seventy-five.21 Ingraham wrote throughout her lifetime. During her university career, she had several essays, poetry, and short stories published in the student paper, Acadia Athenaeum. She was an early member of the Canadian Authors Association and published articles, poems, and historical essays in various periodicals including the Canadian Bookman, Canadian Forum, Canadian Magazine, Culture, Dalhousie Review, Educational Review, Ontario Library Review, and Library Journal. She was also solicited to write articles for various newspapers in the region, including the Halifax Herald and the Maritime Baptist. Ingraham was a voracious reader and became a book reviewer during the 1920s for the Sunday Leader, the largest illustrated weekly in the maritime provinces in a column called “Our Book Review.”22 She wrote biographical essays for the same paper including one entitled “From Nova Scotia to Georgia,” which reflects on her southern experience abroad. Over the course of her career, Ingraham compiled a catalogue of the Eric R. Dennis Collection of Canadiana in the Library of Acadia University and a Preliminary List of the Published Writings of Women Graduates of Canadian Colleges and Universities. She published many book reviews and over twenty articles, several short stories, and verse, including a lengthy poem entitled A Month of Dreams. Many of Ingraham’s creative

Acadia: A n I nt roduct ion

327

writings were spiritual in nature. Although she was a Baptist, she had a reputation for delving into mysticism, a propensity evident in much of her poetry and prose.23 She left several unpublished biographical writings among her papers and fragments of works in progress. Since she self-published many works with the assistance of local printers, much of Ingraham’s writing is undocumented. Ingraham also wrote two verse dramas, Acadia and Ruth. She may have been inspired to do so by student Helen Starr, the first female editor of the Athenaeum. Starr wrote Spies: A Three Act Play of War, which was performed on 14 March 1919 by the library science class for the university community in Acadia’s College Hall. Ingraham published her closet drama, Acadia, about the founding of the university, in 1920. In June 1925, she published Ruth in Book Parlance, another short, spiritually based, women-focused dramatic work: it adapts part of the “Book of Ruth” that tells the biblical story of the widows Ruth and Orpah who are entreated by their mother-in-law, Naomi, to return to Bethlehem after their husbands’ deaths. Neither of Ingraham’s plays were performed, although one cannot help wonder if she hoped they would be taken up by the University Dramatic Society that had been formed in 1919.24 Despite its five acts, Acadia is a short play and a fine example of a dramatic work that engenders support for women’s post-secondary education. To this extent it harkens back to Sarah Anne Curzon’s 1882 closet drama The Sweet Girl Graduate on the same subject, a play that initiated this period in Canadian women’s playwriting.25 It also foregrounds women’s active place within the Baptist faith and endeavours to create a counterpublic of Baptist women who recognize and support it. While women had been attending university for two generations, this poetic drama sheds light upon the still precarious toe-hold they had within institutions of higher learning.26 Like all allegory, it has two diegetic levels. It is, on the one hand, a dramatization of the birth of the university and women’s place within it. On the other hand, it is a Baptist conversion of a female figure into a Christian and feminist consciousness. It opens with Acadia, a female god, awakened by her votaries from a “slumber” – the very language that was used to describe the Baptist intellectual awakening of mid-nineteenth-century Nova Scotia to which the founding of the university belonged.27 As in the moment of Baptist conversion, daughter Acadia is encircled by the community and called to do the work of mother Truth on earth by transforming the society into the “redeemed of the lord.”28 Acadia University’s heritage is as a sectarian institution and the play lionizes all of its early presidents, including John Pryor, Dr John Mockett Cramp, Edmund A. Crawley, and Artemus W. Sawyer, who were also Baptist ministers. It also immortalized the part the university played in the First World War. But in the limelight is the personified figure of Acadia, guided by her mother Truth, in a progress of political and spiritual enlightenment. For the playwright who penned the first history of Baptist women missionaries, the play’s main focus is Acadia’s relationship with Truth as a vehicle for spiritual enlightenment. Like the Baptists of Nova Scotia themselves, who renewed and revitalized their Christian faith, Acadia experiences a second conversion: Truth, at the behest of

328

Ky m B i r d a n d Ta n j a H a r r i s o n

9.3 Ingraham published Acadia herself and had her work printed by Davidson Bros, Wolfville, ns.

all her citizens, banishes “Ignorance and Blasphemy” and imagines for Acadia a utopia under God’s rule: in the real, history of the institution, Acadia’s conversion represents the “age of A.W. Sawyer,” who brings to the university a new curriculum and a new female constituency when he admits its first female students. Similar to several of the Christian-inspired dramas written during the period, particularly those by Clara Rothwell Anderson and Sister Mary Agnes, Acadia expresses an evangelical spirit that positioned women as public figures for a counterpublic of feminist Baptists that wanted to re-imagine the Christian experience from a woman’s point of view.

notes 1 Her ambitious grandfather, James Francis Kinley, hailed from Manchester, England. In

the 1820s he injured his hand in millwork and, after retraining as a teacher, immigrated to Canada and settled in Pei where he married, taught, farmed, built ships, and became a preacher. Three of his sons, including Robert, went on to become Baptist pastors. 2 Ford and Mellick, Historical Sketch, 60–1. 3 The Baptist church in Paradise, Nova Scotia, contains a sign with each pastor’s name and years of service. Letters to Ingraham’s father indicate that after retiring from his final pastorate he took up farming in Port Hilford on Nova Scotia’s eastern shore.

Acadia: A n I nt roduct ion

329

4 Few details of Ingraham’s early years are documented. However, in a 1924 interview she

5

6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16

17 18

19 20

21 22 23

24 25 26 27 28

gave for Maclean’s magazine’s “Women Worth While” series, she discloses that teaching in the public school system “appealed very little to her intellectual and deep-souled nature.” See Hay Shaw, “Maritime Librarian,” 68; see also the letter from Hay Shaw to Ingraham, 21 Mar 1924: 1944.001 Box 1 Series I. Correspondence (Incoming) File 8. 1924. ( Jan–Dec). Mary Kinley Ingraham/Esther Clark Wright Archives, Acadia University. According to the 1893 Seminary Calendar, there were three courses of study: literary, musical, and classical. The Baptists, although not always tolerant, “revealed a breadth of vision and breadth of mind remarkably free of fear or narrow prejudice” and supported the education of women. See Moody, “Breadth of Vision,” 28. See also “Ingraham to Triphena Kinley.” “Mary Kinley Ingraham to Triphena Kinley.” Hay Shaw, “Maritime Librarian,” 68. Ibid. This term was used by maritime historians to describe the out-migration of hundreds of thousands of young people in search of a better life in New England. See ibid., 70. She confided years later that “never had the story of my life seemed so absorbing as when I believed that within two months I might have to close the book forever.” Ibid. Jean H. Elliott, “Pioneers! O Pioneers!,” 261. Ibid. Ibid. Ingraham, “School Library,” 13. The English Club, which met during the 1930s, addressed many literary subjects, including styles of poetry through the ages. See box 5 of the Ingraham fonds for English Club material. See also E.M.A. Vaughan to Ingraham, 18 Dec 1925; Vaughan to Ingraham, 7 Apr 1927; R.R. Bowker to Ingraham, 8 Apr 1927; Keith MacKinnon email to Tanja Harrison, 10 Apr 2008, held by Tanja Harrison. Sexty, “Fire, Brimstone.” See ibid. A letter Mary Kinley Ingraham sent to newspaper editors on 30 June 1922 appears in her files asking for assistance in helping the library association to “put libraries, in every city, town and hamlet in the region.” See also Longley, Acadia University 1838–1938, 131. By 1931 her “bookmobiles” served eight hundred and fifty subscribers – substantially more than the university library itself. Beals, “Mary Kinley Ingraham,” 486. Blanchard, “Dr Mary Kingley Ingraham,” 153. Cullen, “Mrs Mary Kinley Ingraham,” 1. “Mary Kinley Ingraham to Findly Weaver,” 17 November 1923. “Mary Kinley Ingraham to The Stratford Company.” 2 Feb 1924. Ingraham Fonds, Esther Clark Wright Archives, Acadia University, Accession Inventory 1944.001. Box 2. Series II. Correspondence (Outgoing). File 70. 1924 ( Jan–June). Here she writes about projects she was working on, including a “record of psychic experience.” Longley, Acadia University 1838–1938, 122. Cullen, Sweet Girl Graduate. In 1875 Grace Annie Lockhart became the first woman in the British Empire to receive a bachelor degree (BSc). Longley, Acadia University 1838–1938, 15. Rawlyk, Champions of the Truth, 33.

Acadia: A Play in Five Acts 1920 m a r y k i n L e y i n g r a H a m (18 74 –19 4 9)

CH a r aCt er s tHe genius oF aCaDia trutH Learning sCienCe art tHeoLogy man woman war

AC T I T HE C OM I NG OF AC A DI A

CHorus: a-C-a-D-i-a a-C-a-D-i-a a-C-a-D-i-a aCaDia (Enter the Genius of Acadia.) aCaDia: Who am I? For upon my lovely head Star-dust hath blown. Where am I? From far regions of the dead I come to seek my own.

Acadia: A Play in Five Acts

331

Who called me? Waking on a golden bed I heard a mother’s moan, And a strong man did cry. From cliff to cliff in far infinity A hundred voices rolled, Above them all the Truth did call to me: “Oh daughter, rise and be. In lowly Scotiani valesii my people pray. Arise, and gather them to me, Gather my people to their ancient fold.” I know not who I am, nor whence I came. Strange memories arise, the cross and flameiii I seem to know, The rhythmic dancing of the spheres, The holy sacrament of tears, That from the home-sweet sorrows of the heart do flow. And on this breast have little children lain, I know the strong man’s pain, The spirit’s force inhibited, And I have wailed above a people dead. In far cathedrals dim I sure have raised with Gods the holy hymn, And bowed with them a reverent knee. Oh, all the love of God hath come to me! Death had a venomed sting, The grave had victory, But life again and once again would call “Awake, my child, and sing.” Sweet, ah, sweet that voice did ring, On many a mother’s bosom I have lain, On many a father’s knee, A holy sweet of God can never cease to be. i

“Chiefly in the names of geological or geographical features: of or relating to Nova Scotia.” oed, s.v. “scotian.”

ii

“A more or less extensive tract of land lying between two ranges of hills, or stretches of high ground, and usually traversed by a river or stream.” oed, s.v. “vale.”

iii Although the cross and flame are most closely associated with the United Methodist Church that officially adopted this image at their general conference in 1968, these are ancient symbols which in Christianity represent Christ and the Holy Spirit respectively. “The People of the United Methodist Church,” accessed 10 29 June 2019 http://www.umc. org/resources/cross-and-flame.

332

Mar y K inley Ing raham

And now to this dark land I come As homing pigeon home. That Blomidoni is mine, And these old hills divine. Who calleth me? (Enter Learning, Art, Science, Theolog y, Man, Woman, and War.) Learning: Who calleth thee? Oh daughter of the Sun, Whose radiant feet o’er golden sands have run, Abide, and make a home for me, I called thee. art: Oh Lady, God beloved in holier air, Bless thou this land so fair! The people will love me, So I may live in thee. All hail, Acadia! I called thee. sCienCe: Here must I dwell, Oh heart of good! My strength shall be thy stay, My way is hard, but ’tis a holy way, God will hallow all thy food. Abide, and make a home for me, I called thee. tHeoLogy: The book, beloved one, I bring with me. I seek a shrine, A holy home divine, The people loudly call for me, Acadia will give me home. O come, beloved, come, I called thee. man: I called thee, Lady, for my love of these, Art, Science, Learning, and Theology. For my sons’ sake I called thee: for the peace Thy God will give to those who dwell in thee, For the fair crowns that Learning bringeth me, And for the wonder of infinity That Science showeth me, For Art’s dear beauty too, And for the teaching of Theology. Who will declare my God in thee? All hail, Acadia! i

The Blomidon Cliffs are located on the Bay of Fundy, north of Wolfville.

Acadia: A Play in Five Acts

333

I called thee. woman: Oh sweet, I called thee too, a woman I, But yet fair Learning’s loving votary. Perchance I may not in thy chambers dwell, Home is my sphere, man saith, but softly tell Oh Lady dear, yea, sweetly whisper me, That if I wait and pray, a home for me Within thy hallowed walls may be. My sons now marry thee. All hail, Acadia! Woman wept for thee! Woman called thee! war: Move onward in thy majesty! A people wait for thee! Sister and wife to me, Yet mystic mother of me! All hail, Acadia! A land will know thee that hath long known me! All hail, Acadia! CHorus: a-C-a-D-i-a a-C-a-D-i-a a-C-a-D-i-a aCaDia (Enter Truth, veiled. She moves towards Acadia, who kneels for her blessing.) trutH: “In the beauty of holiness, from the womb of the morning, thou hast the dew of thy youth.”i aCaDia: Oh holy Truth! On the hills of God Thy chariot I heard! Oh lovely Truth! From the sleep of death I awoke at thy sweet word. CHorus: Truth has come in light and beauty, Holiest one of God on high! Truth, whose eyes have seen the viewless, Truth, who bore Eternity! How we love thee! Mother of all things that be! trutH: “The blessings of the God of my Fathers have prevailed unto the utmost bound of the everlasting hills; they shall be upon the head of Acadia, and upon the crown of the head of her who is now separate unto me.”1 CHorus: Lo, the Truth our hearts have longed for, i

Psalm 110:3. (Authorized [King James] Version)

334

Mar y K inley Ing raham

Angel of Shekinahi old! Love of earth and love of heaven, Bright and beautiful and bold! All will love thee, Lovely one in earthly mould! trutH: Righteous is the good, dear one, Mine own Acadia! But hard and all austere! God will liken thee to me, The sweetest of His loves that be, And thou art His and mine. But, dear And dearly honored daughter, fear! Down vistas of the future I can see, And from the chambers of the Vast I hear A Voice that prophesieth war! Come hither, War, and kneel to me! Thy voice will yet be heard afar. Thou, Learning, find a reverent knee! Art, Science, and Theology, Ye may not live here if ye love not me! Yea, bend on holy knee! This Man and Woman will not fail, Yet, children dear, the stoutest hearts may quailii Before the enemies of God and me! Ignorance, Sloth, and Bigotry Will hate His creature here. Acadia, the mother fair Of many a people yet to be! Fear not, thou one of God, for hosts encompass thee! Now circle her with charméd ring, In stately measure move, Acadia we ever sing, Child of Love! (All join hands making a circle and move with measured step around Acadia.) CHorus: With mystic zephyrsiii fanned, Let her enchanted stand, Strong in her youth! i

“The visible manifestation of the Divine Majesty.” oed, s.v. “Shekinah.”

ii

“Of a material (esp. living) thing: to decline from a natural or flourishing condition; to waste away; to fade, wither.” oed, s.v. “quail.”

iii “The west wind, esp. as personified, or the god of the west wind.” oed, s.v. “zephyr.”

Acadia: A Play in Five Acts

May Learning’s standard brave Over her ever wave, Daughter of Truth Royal her banners are! So let her life be fair, Steadfast and sure! All hail, Acadia! Loving thy chidingsi are, Thy precepts pure!

AC T I I T H E S OR ROWS OF AC A DI A

(Enter Acadia.) aCaDia (Turning to Chorus.): Sing to me, sons and daughters dear! Sing of the God of love! Weary I am, for Penury and Fear, The sordid Hates, the sordid Loves are here. Oh, call my soul above! Was it for this I came? These dragging feet That once in heavenly meadows were so fleet Now move but wearily, And very, very drearily. The Hours, with drooping wings, go halting by, The heavenly Truth I can no longer see, She hideth her bright face from me. Learning doth flout Theology, And Science looks on both with scornful eye, While Art, the beautiful, doth sleep. War, lazy grown, is but seditious here, And Man hath banished Woman. All I fear If Truth will not her faithful stronghold keep. But God is good, beloved! Sing to me, My songs of late have found a minor key, Sing of the God of good! CHorus: “Our God, our help in ages

i

“An angry rebuke.” oed, s.v. “chide.”

335

336

Mar y K inley Ing raham

past.”i (They sing the hymn through.) (Enter all.) man: Oh holy sweet of Learning and of Love, Comfort thy soul in hope. Thy God above Hath heard thy call, and thou art blessed in me. Think of the men who toil and live for thee, And think of many who will die for thee! The names of Pryor, Cramp, and Crawley live,2 Yea, let them live forever, let all give Due meed of praise to them, and let thy son, Sawyer, the scholar sweet, 3 Let him complete Their work so well begun. Live, Acadia! aCaDia: My children go unfed. Drear Penury Hath wrested Learning’s key. Learning: Sweet mother, I have loved thy children well, Straitly I nurture them, but they love me. Let the high chorus swell, That youth will ever raise to Mirth and Jollity. (Chorus sings a rollicking college song. Acadia throws off her dejection.) Learning (To Theolog y.): I crave thy grace, austere Theology, If I have flouted thee. tHeoLogy: “Let knowledge grow from more to more, But more of reverence in me dwell, That mind and soul, according well, May make one music as before But vaster.” Sweet my sister, pardon me, I will ever follow thee, I may never follow thee, Jehovah guide both thee and me! aCaDia anD aLL: Amen. sCienCe (To Theolog y.): Is it that thou and I, Theology, Must ever be at variance? Oh, dear To holy Truth are both, I ween,ii i

“Our God, Our Help in Ages Past” (1719), by Isaac Watts, Hymnary.org, accessed 29 June 2019, https://hymnary.org/search?qu=Our+God%2C+Our+Help+in+Ages+Past.

ii

“Opinion, belief.” oed, s.v. “ween.”

Acadia: A Play in Five Acts

The Truth shall be our queen. aCaDia: Call for the Truth, beloved, call, That she, the blessed, may return, Oh call! art: Sweet will be the answering call, For on her altar holy fires burn. CHorus: Come thou blessed of the Father, For thy people yearn for thee, Holy Truth, Neglect hath banished, Ignorance and Blasphemy! Come and bless us, Where thy people wait for thee! aCaDia: I heard a Voice! trutH (Unseen.): Acadia, Acadia, Acadia! aCaDia: Truth! tHeoLogy: Sisters and brothers, hear her call, And answer, “Sweet.” aLL: Swe-e-e-t! Learning: Oh, greatly answered! art: Come, Mother, love my beautiful! Thy loveliest child doth wail alone! aCaDia: Nay, darling, not alone! The Truth will make all beautiful. trutH (Still unseen.): Acadia, Acadia, Acadia! aCaDia: Mother belovéd! (Enter Truth.) trutH: Oh daughter, I was never far from thee! I did but hide my light, Now in a vision white I come to dwell forevermore in thee! woman: Acadia and Truth have kissed each other! war: A greater, grander work Truth brings to me. aCaDia: And to us all. trutH: Faction hath torn thee, Ignorance hath harmed, And Pettiness had sway. Here, all unarmed, War hath done naught but keep dear Peace away. But come, Acadia! Come with thy sons and daughters unto me, Come and cosmic be! Come in the light of all enscrolled On the tablets of infinity,

337

338

Mar y K inley Ing raham

Come and affrayéd be! Come in the thought of thy sin unrolled To Truth’s pure judging eye, Come and weep in my bosom’s fold, Come and ashaméd lie! Man will go to the feet of God, And will pardon Woman there. Learning will love the soulless clodi Till he build him fanesii of prayer, Science and Art will wedded be, And Love will hallow Theology. Acadia will dwell with me, And God will rule this university, The God who ruleth me. aLL: God doth rule thee. aCaDia: Far from the vast, Come to me, my dearest! All pain is past, Truth, when thou appearest! Once more we two, Faring forth together, Heart to heart anew, What need I care whither?iii aLL: What need we care whither? aCaDia: My bed of pain I leave. Ah, it was lone without thee! Now God my soul receive, So thine arms be about me! Strange portentsiv me affright, I go, I know not whither, But in the darkest night, Truth, we must be together. Ah, good thy love and mine will be, While we love in God together! trutH: And God will comfort thee and me,

i

“A coherent mass or lump of any solid matter.” oed, s.v. “clod.”

ii

“A temple.” oed, s.v. “fane.”

iii “Where.” oed, s.v. “whither.” iv “A sign, indication, or omen of a momentous or calamitous event which is about to happen.” oed, s.v. “portent.”

Acadia: A Play in Five Acts

And we rest in Him together!

AC T I I I WO M A N I N A C A D I A

(Enter Woman. She kneels to Acadia, who raises her.) aCaDia: What wouldst thou, daughter? woman: Mother beloved, love thou me! aCaDia: Tell me thy sorrow, sweet. woman: Man love me not, I may not live with thee, And Learning will have none of me. aCaDia: The way of Learning, ever hard, austere, And thorny oft, will sorely wound thee, dear. And if thou stay with Art and Science here, Thy children well may miss a mother’s care. For Man I came; for Woman, save in him, I have no place as yet. My way would dim The lustre of her eye, but she may share With him my chapels when he kneels in prayer, Nor love I less the Woman. Hard and grim, The Man must oft become for Learning’s sake, And toilsome is the way my sons must take. The learned Man loves not a learned bride. Content thyself in home and there abide. Fie on thee, daughter! man: Yea, shame her, Mother, shame the Woman there, And bid her cleanse her soul, who longs to share With Man the steep ascent to Learning sweet. woman: I only ask that I with thee compete. Let Learning judge me, and for Art I pray, For Science, too. Within her temple gray, I fain would offer incense. As for thee, Art flouts thee, as e’en Learning turns from thee. Science doth scorn thee oft, her jealous eye Loves not thy leaning to Theology. war (Jeering.): And wilt thou also share my love with Man? woman: I long have shared it. Judge me those who can. Did Joan of Arc not follow thee in all? Yea, to the burning.

339

340

Mar y K inley Ing raham

Learning: Man must humbly fall In penitential prayer for wronging thee! Well hath thy soul in every age withstood. Love but thy husband and thy babe, and good My love will be to thee, oh Woman sweet! But ah, beware, if thou with Man compete. sCienCe: “Thy desire shall be to thy Husband and he shall rule over thee.”i woman: To God alone let my desire be, And He will rule me. Mother Acadia, hear my prayer, And bid me ever deck thine altars fair. I will not be the slave of Man, I will his loving helpmate be, For only in an equal love may he rule me. man: Shame to the Woman who will say ’Tis not her fairest crown To love and honor and obey The Man who never treads her down, The Man who will enthrone her high, A very queen of chastity. woman: The little Man of earth Will never rule me, Save as the sheltering wing of God his love will be, And Man hath failed me utterly. art: Fool of the holy birth! man: What is the matter with my sweet? That which concerneth her I will complete. aCaDia: Oh Woman of the Holy All, Chastised in all That life hath brought to thee, And broken sadly on the wheel Of social use (I love the social use.) Now wail no longer for your love’s abuse, Your love of Holy All. Come hither Woman unto me! Come and a greatened Woman be!

i

Gen. 3:16. (av).

Acadia: A Play in Five Acts

341

But on thy hearthi let holy fires burn, Let little children love upon thy knee, Else go forever far from me. war: Oh lovely Woman, love the good! Love all the Gods whose tortured souls withstood The littleness of Man, The cruelty of Man, The petty tyranny of hell, Love Jesus well, But love your husband and your children well. tHeoLogy: Love well the God in thee. sCienCe: Come, oh Woman, unto me, Come and cosmic be! Come to the love impersonal, And find thy spirit there. Oh, mirrored in the sky, the sea, the air, The holy, cosmic Woman of the all Will ever smile on thee. art: She ever smiles on me. sCienCe: Go ever there, Where reigneth love impersonal, And find a holy altar fair. tHeoLogy: Yea, beloved, go to Him, Go to God Impersonal.4 The fire burning on His altar dim Will light the feet of those afar To this dear, lonely star, And they will guide you to the pierced feet of Him Who told you of God Personal. CHorus: “All hail the power of Jesus’ Name ...”ii (They sing the hymn through.) (Enter Truth.) trutH: Acadia, dear Woman of the All, Will open now her door to thee, Where Truth enthroned will ever hear thy prayer. The holy mother here Hath cap and gown for thee, her daughter dear. (Acadia gowns Woman.) i “The part of the floor of a room where a domestic fire is made or located.” oed, s.v. “hearth.” ii

“All hail the power of Jesus’ Name,” (1779), by Edward Perronet, Hymnary.org, accessed 29 June 2019, https://hymnary.org/text/all_hail_the_power_of_jesus_name_let.

342

Mar y K inley Ing raham

Now see that thou a lovely Woman be! I will not have my daughters aught but fair, And Woman ever must obey. Tell me the little Man of earth Will never conquer thee? His love must ever conquer thee, Or he has slain thee. Not yet doth God decree That Woman must not honor and obey.5 Oh Man, see thou to that, and humbly pray God give thee grace to love the Woman here. She who did once before thee kneel, A humble suppliant for thy love, For every sorrow thou hast made her feel Has turned from thee to God above. A greater creature now, her place In all is at thy side, If she outstrip thee in the race The sceptre must with her abide Oh, what a changéd world ‘twill be, When Woman rules thee! war (Laughing.) And I must die when Woman ruleth me! (Curtain falls.) CHorus (Behind the curtain.): “The voice that breathed o’er Eden …”i

AC T I V WA R

war: (To Acadia.): Great mother, call thy sons, for God is here, And Mars, His glorious Son. The tyrant hath his way, But let thy people pray, And on thine altars offer incense dear to Mars, almighty One. Now through thy soul the sword will pass, oh, sweet

i

“The voice that breathed o’er Eden” (1857), by John Keble, Hymnary.org, accessed 29 June 2019, https://hymnary.org/text/the_voice_that_breathed_oer_eden.

Acadia: A Play in Five Acts

3 43

The chrismi of the blood that flows from thee! A holy sacrament it is to me! All hallowéd be thy children’s bruiséd feet That press o’er burning battlefields for me, And good their death will be. CHorus: “The Son of God goes forth to War …”ii aCaDia: Here must I sit alone, while sons of mine Die on the battlefield, untended, stark?iii Learning: Yea, guard this sacred ark. In after days ’twill be a home divine For me and for my children. man: Mother mine, I will go forth to battle for the right, That thou and thine may find in darkest night A loving home where Peace may dwell. Now bless thy son who may no longer stay Within thy hall, for this is Mars’ great day, And manly Cutten will go forth to war6 If God permit. Thy sons who have gone on, Perchance in greater battlefields have nobler trophies won – The earthly fathers of Acadia7 – And good, dear Trotter listsiv the passing bell.8 Strange times are these, say not that evil days Have fallen here, so Truth’s sweet standard swell, Though moved no longer by the gentle breeze, But by the gusts that come down dark, dread ways, Perchance a wind from hell. woman: Now I am humbled, mother. Here I stay While Man goes forth to battle (To Man.) The Lord be with thee, brother. man: And with thy spirit sweet! war: Too many words are here. Man, come with me, And Truth, our unseen parent dear, Ever guide both thee and me! i

“Oil mingled with balm, consecrated for use as an unguent in the administration of certain sacraments.” oed, s.v. “chrism.”

ii

“The Son of God Goes Forth to War” (1812), by Reginald Heber, Hymnary.org, accessed 29 June 2019, https://hymnary.org/text/the_son_of_god_goes_forth_to_war.

iii “Of a person, his heart, etc.: Hard, obdurate. Also in good sense, firm, unyielding.” oed, s.v. “stark.” iv “Listen.” oed, s.v. “list.”

344

Mar y K inley Ing raham

In my hard hand I clasp your dainty ones – Sweet Learning, Art, and good Theology – My hand that soon will know but swords and guns. Fair Science, there is work to do, And thou must here abide. Love thou our own Acadia, And fail not from her side. aCaDia: Oh, that the Truth were here! trutH (Entering.): The Truth will ever bless her children dear! Now search your hearts to find me! I go hence Till blood-stained Earth be purged of her offence, And in the bosom of our God I rest. But not one tremulous sigh, Not one sad, lonely moan from those who die In love of me, but pitying, I will hear. Now list to War’s behest, For blood-red Mars doth mightily decree That for the sin of all ’gainst Love and me, Only through Pain can Earth be blest. aCaDia: Kyrie eleison!9 aLL: Christe eleison! (Exit Truth, followed by War and Man. Acadia sits drooping. Woman sits on a stool beside her, her head in Acadia’s lap. Grouped about in attitudes of sorrow are Learning, Science, Art, Theolog y. The following songs are sung and then the Dead March in Saul is played. As it dies away the curtain falls: “It’s a Long, Long Way to Tipperary …” i “My Soldier Boy to the War Has Gone” “A Mighty Fortress is Our God…” “Beautiful Isle of Somewhere…” “Dead March” in Saul. As music dies away curtain falls)

i

“It’s a Long, Long Way to Tipperary” (1912) was a popular First World War song by Jack Judge and Henry James Williams.

Acadia: A Play in Five Acts

AC T V PE ACE

(Enter Acadia and all.) aCaDia: Behold, I have walked through the valley of the shadow of death!i There Mars did walk with me, My soul was scorched with demons’ breath, But holy was the word He whispered there to me: “My rod and staff Will comfort thee.” His rod and staff! His rod and staff I could not bear to see! Sorely He chastened me: Where are my sons who loved upon my knee? Grim War did claim them all, A few he left with me. The sick and young, who yet did call, Ever did call to Him, Eager to clasp His banner grim, Eager to grant Death victory. And loving Woman, humbled now, Took Learning’s burden with a chastened brow. Oh, peace be with my dead! Methinks unseen by me they softly tread My halls. For them my work is finished now, My prayers have all been said. Now let the living praise the Truth. They come, my votaries fair, Learning as ever leading on, and there, Art, Science, and Theology. Here Man and Woman, lovely pair, Together bow at Learning’s knee. But War hath still a troubled brow. Oh, mighty son, fear not! The dove of peace is circling now Above this charméd spot. The stately steppings of the God of war May yet be heard afar. i

Ps. 23:4 (av).

345

346

Mar y K inley Ing raham

But Truth hath brought a glorious crown for me. (Enter Truth, who crowns Acadia.) trutH: Now, daughter, love and be! CHorus: a-C-a-D-i-a a-C-a-D-i-a a-C-a-D-i-a aCaDia! f inis

notes Published by Davidson Bros, Wolfville, ns. 1 “The blessings of thy father have prevailed above the blessings of my progenitors unto the

2

3

4

5

utmost bound of the everlasting hills: they shall be on the head of Joseph, and on the crown of the head of him that was separate from his brethren.” Gen. 49:26. (av). Edmund A. Crawley was an ordained minister and one of the driving forces behind the establishment of Horton Academy (1853–56), a Baptist institution of higher learning. John Pryor was a fellow minister, friend, and the second principal of Horton (1846–50): together they led the political campaign to establish Acadia College in 1839 and became its first two professors. Crawley taught philosophy and mathematics and Pryor instructed in Greek and Latin. Ordained in England in 1818, Dr John Mockett Cramp succeeded Pryor in 1851–53 and 1856–69 as Acadia College’s second president. He adroitly expanded the college professoriate, student population, endowment, and curriculum. See Longley, Acadia University, 21; 31. See also dcb Online, s.vv. “J Edmund Albern Crawley,” http://www.biographi.ca/en/ bio/crawley_edmund_albern_11E.html; “John Pryor,” http://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/ pryor_john_12E.html; “John Mockett Cramp,” http://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/cramp_ john_mockett_11E.html, accessed 29 June 2019. Artemus Sawyer held the degree of doctor of divinity and was a professor at Acadia College before becoming school president (1869–96). It was under his administration that women were granted admission to the institution. Sawyer also superintended the school’s transition from a college to a university (1891). See dcb Online s.vv. Aretemus Wyman Sawyer, http://www. biographi.ca/en/bio/sawyer_artemas_wyman_13E.html, s.vv. “Artemus W. Sawyer.” Baptist Encyclopaedia, accessed 29 June 2019. https://archive.org/details/baptistencyclope02cathuoft. “God is a personal Being. God is no mere impersonal intelligent principle ... God has revealed himself as ‘I’ and speaks to man as ‘you.’ He has a personal name (Ex. 3:14; 6:1–3). He possesses all the essential qualities of personality: he thinks (Psa. 92:5; Is 55:8f.); he wills (Psa. 115:3; Dan 4:35; Eph 1:5); he feels (Psa. 103:13; Jn 3:16); he acts (Gn 1:1). Above all, God is revealed as personal in his Son who has shown us that man can have a personal relationship with God and call him ‘Father’ (Mt 6:9).” See Milliken, Christian Doctrine, 28. Conventionally, it is held that the Bible tells women to obey their husbands, a sentiment to which there are many references. While Woman’s submission is important and necessary, Truth tells Acadia that she is not to submit to Man but to God: 1 Pet. 3:1–22; Col. 3:18; Eph 5:21–32. (av).

Acadia: A Play in Five Acts

3 47

6 Under the presidency of the Reverend Doctor George Barton Cutten (1910–22), Acadia

expanded its curriculum, augmented the professoriate, and increased the number of university buildings. Cutten also inspired classes of boys to enlist in the War. See Moody, “Acadia and the Great War,” 143–4. 7 In the original text, “earthly” is crossed out and “early” has been penned in the margin. 8 The reverend Dr Thomas Trotter (1897–1906) stabilized the school’s financial resources, opened the Department of Theology, established a bachelor of science degree, and the first course in household science. See Longley, Acadia University, 105–7; 110–11. 9 “Kyrie Eleison (Greek for ‘Lord have mercy’) is a pre-Christian expression used constantly in all Christian liturgies ... St Gregory I (590–604) ... writes to John of Syracuse to defend the Roman Church from imitating Constantinople by the use of this form, and is at pains to point out the difference between its use at Rome and in the East: ‘We neither said nor say Kyrie Eleison as it is said by the Greeks. Among the Greeks all say it together, with us it is said by the clerks and answered by the people, and we say Christe Eleion as many times, which is not the case with the Greeks.’” See the Catholic Encyclopedia, s.vv. “Kyrie Eleison,” accessed 24 June 2019, http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/08714a.htm.

10 A Demonstration in Scientif ic Salesmanship A n Introduction z ay n a b a L i , k y m b i r D, a n D m e L a n i e w i L L i a m s

A Demonstration in Scientific Salesmanship is one of four commercial plays written by Madge Hamilton Lyons Macbeth, a theatre practitioner, literary writer, and journalist who began her long and distinguished professional career in the period before the First World War.1 It was created to sell merchandise to middle- and upper-class women who patronized the newly created phenomena of the department store.2 This form of promotion was an “original advertising scheme” that used theatre to appeal to women customers, while at the same time encouraging them to see and be seen in the public sphere. The department store shopping experience was feminist to the extent that it altered traditional power dynamics between men and women in which men had privilege, priority, and prerogative and women were their social inferiors; it created a space in which a female counterpublic challenged social norms based on these women’s new economic importance within the retail space. A Demonstration in Scientific Salesmanship is similarly premised upon a reversal of gender roles and, while fictional, nevertheless stages the subversive proposition that a woman is economically, socially, and politically empowered to buy herself what she wants and needs, including a husband. Through its combination of the department store as venue and the deployment of theatrical techniques (both of which serve as location and subject matter), the play “provoke[ed] visceral reactions” and encouraged women of the privileged classes to transgress their conventional gender roles. The most socially advantaged of all the playwrights in this anthology, Madge Macbeth (1878–1965), was born Madge Hamilton Lyons in Philadelphia somewhere between 1878 and 1883.3 She was the eldest daughter of American aristocrats Ann Elizabeth (Bessie) Maffit (1856–1932) and Hymen Hart Lyons (1852–1888), a pioneer of Jewish-American descent.4 Nicknamed “gipsy” for her olive complexion and dark hair, she was a pretty girl who was most influenced by her maternal British grandmother Maffit, a “radical,” “provocative,” and voracious writer, with whom she lived during her father’s illness.5 Madge was a very precocious child. At the age of

A D e mon stration in S ci e ntif ic S al es man ship: A n I nt roduct ion

349

10.1 Madge Macbeth dressed for high society.

just three she began to rewrite the Bible because, as she later said, of “the scarcity of wives provided for” in it!6 At about the same time, she “took part in a semiprofessional theatrical production called ‘Under the Mistletoe Bough.’”7 These were attitudes and activities that would inform her entire life. Not too long later she established a musical association called “The Sweet Harmony Club,” because scholastic “lessons were not enough to occupy me,” and launched her own newspaper, the Prospect Hill Trumpet: she bought the equipment to produce it with the money she made from staging Little Lord Fauntleroy with children in her neighbourhood.8 Madge’s sagacity “was considered cute,” but over time it caused her to be the target of innuendo and gossip: “many mothers considered me a disturbing influence for their little darlings.”9 While her mother encouraged her to “try to be normal,” she had decidedly unconventional aspirations, like wanting to make her own money, when she had been formed by a Southern culture where talk of money was unseemly.10 Not to be cowed, she even solicited advertisement from the local clergyman for her paper who demanded to know from her mother “where ... that child g[ot] the idea of putting the Church on a low commercial level?”11 While living with her father’s sister shortly thereafter in Baltimore, Madge attended the first of two exclusive private schools where “I spent hours in the theatre, finding

350

Z a y n a b A l i , Ky m B i r d , a n d M e l a n i e W i l l i a m s

10.2 Madge Macbeth toured as a mandolinist in her early twenties after graduating from Hellmut and before marrying Charles William Madge Macbeth.

my way about alone, and I pored over books, any books the grown-ups mentioned.”12 She sent her writing to newspapers and had much initial success, winning prizes including small sums of money for her stories.13 Madge was enrolled in Hellmuth College, London, Ontario in 1895, a finishing school for ladies.14 She developed a passion for Canada that would last a lifetime. Like so many literary figures during the period in which she wrote, she became a Canadian nationalist and “insisted on the necessity for a Canadian literature to be concerned with Canadian life and locales as an indicator of cultural nationalism.”15 At Hellmuth she was also editorin-chief of the Union Jack the school paper.16 After graduation, Madge spent “a few years performing as a mandolinist (1899–1901)” in Maryland.17 Her marriage to Charles William Macbeth, a graduate in civil engineering, University of Toronto, on 26 October 1901, one month after the birth of her first son John Douglas, ended her musical career.18 Macbeth became a Canadian citizen.19 Their second son Charles Lyons was born shortly thereafter. Madge and her husband wanted to return to Canada, so Charles readily accepted a position on the Georgian Bay Ship Canal project, whereupon the couple moved to Ottawa in 190320: “I loved it from the moment I stepped onto the platform of the old Grand Trunk Station. I have never wanted to live anywhere else.”21

A D e mon stration in S ci e ntif ic S al es man ship: A n I nt roduct ion

351

Macbeth revolved among a patrician cadre of high-ranking government officials and writers.22 A monarchist, an imperialist, and a New Woman, Yousef Karsh recalled her as an “indefatigable champion of women leading independent lives.”23 But, like other playwrights in this anthology, she promulgated liberal feminist values for the elite classes and domestic feminist values for ordinary working women.24 She nevertheless also contributed to the preeminent women’s organizations of her day and kept company with the era’s most influential women. At Hellmuth, she reported on the National Council of Women for Lady Aberdeen and in 1895 became Aberdeen’s secretary.25 She was a member of the Canadian Women’s Press Club and of the Canadian Authors Association, for which in 1939 she became its first woman president.26 She “discarded” her “hereditary ideas” that forbade ladies from undertaking paid labour and wrote to support herself and her family, a necessity after her husband died in 1908 of tuberculosis.27 As a young woman, she worked largely from home and her mother bankrolled many of her expenses; when her mother lost much of her money, the urgency for Macbeth to earn her own living again escalated.28 Given her desire “to be unmarried, to be queer, to be a lady, yet earn my own living” it is not surprising that she never wed again.29 “The knowledge that I was responsible for two children exhilarated even while it frightened me.”30 “I had to sell and sell fast, for either the refrigerator was leaking or ‘I had to buy boots for the boys.’”31 “In Ottawa I had known the bite of very real poverty.”32 Leaving her children with her mother in the capital, she began to travel extensively by herself as a journalist across Canada, South America, Europe, and the Middle East.33 Macbeth wrote, directed, and acted in plays almost until her death on 20 September 1965. “The play form of expression appealed to me. Love of the theatre crept into my blood and lodged there.”34 By her own account, she “had an excellent memory,” was “a quick study,” and “never plagued by stage fright.”35 “The world of the footlights, of make-believe, offered me a sort of refuge; also, it heightened the fragrance, music and intensity of an already intense life.”36 She recalls as a child enjoying the circus, parades, even funeral processions.37 She had initially wished to pursue acting as a career. A year after Charles’s death, she joined the Ottawa theatre scene. Macbeth was one of the original organizers of the Ottawa Drama League in 1913 and served as its president in 1915. She also “organized the Junior Drama League” and helped found “The Little Theatre,” opened by Granville Barker, for which she secured the auditorium in the National Museum and produced several plays.38 In order to comprehend department-store theatre and its relationship to Macbeth, women, and gender, one must first understand the new phenomenon of the “commercial palace” that was emerging in urban centres such as Paris, London, Manhattan, Boston, Philadelphia, Toronto, and in Ottawa.39 Such stores took their design cues from the theatre: exterior facades provided “an imposing visual spectacle” and large display windows erased the fourth wall by breaking “down spatial barriers to integrate art and commodities.”40 Their incorporation of elements of mise-en-scène and

352

Z a y n a b A l i , Ky m B i r d , a n d M e l a n i e W i l l i a m s

the association of these with consumption was intended to encourage women’s safe and legitimate movement within a public space. Department stores conjoined shopping with public performance: women were encouraged to take their time in these new retail spaces.41 The stores offered luxurious surroundings, attentive service, and plentiful amenities to cast consumers in the roles of exclusive members of a growing urban bourgeoisie; customers were themselves actors in a plush, ostentatious set that signaled their burgeoning socio-economic role. They transformed the nature of shopping from a purely “economic act” into “an agreeable and leisurely diversion in luxurious surroundings, laced with exciting events to relieve daily tedium.”42 Macbeth also cast her plays as educational and amusing.”43 In addition to selling goods, many stores were pseudo-women’s clubs, they “featured reading rooms, art galleries, and lounges where one could rest and socialize with friends.”44 “For this reason, the department store was celebrated by maternal feminists as an arena of freedom for women: the ‘right to buy for themselves, their children, and their households’ became, in the words of suffragist Elizabeth Cady Stanton, a ‘freedom from bondage, which afflicted their sex in other parts of the world.’”45 Thus, it comes not as a surprise that the reviews of Macbeth’s 1918 Commercial Pageant celebrate the creation of a distinct space for middle-class women that is urban Canadian as well as metropolitan European. Macbeth’s commercial pageants were also used to appeal to the mothers of the nation for their support in the war effort, as was consistent with the dominant iconography of women during the First World War where they were represented as the maternal and moral centre of the family, sacrificing sons for the greater social good.46 These pageants were frequently used to appeal to the nation’s mothers; several letters from Ottawa personalities and organizations, such as the Polish and Jewish Relief Fund, thanked Macbeth for her efforts. Archibald Jacob Freiman, Lithuania-born Jewish businessman, Zionist leader, and owner of Ottawa’s first department store where Macbeth’s plays were also performed, urged her during the conscription crisis to include the war effort more explicitly in her commercial plays and congratulated her afterwards for their originality, ability, and tact. Scientific salesmanship, the business ethic and practice of which Macbeth’s commercial plays formed a part, were a methodical and standardized business theory that department store owners and managers used to convert women patrons into consumers. Scientific salesmanship appreciated that saleswomen (vs salesmen) instinctively noticed the details of fashion, style, and taste, and spoke the language of persuasion required for successful sales transactions.47 Somewhat inadvertently, it helped stores to conjure a politicized oppositional culture specific to women’s gender identities and interests that relied upon women’s independence of action within this newly feminized commercial space.48 Contrary to societal expectations of female propriety, “scientific salesmanship” interpolated women upon whom the stores depended for custom and cash, as more equal to men: in such stores, “women as consumers … had a power out of all proportion to their power in the society as a

A D e mon stration in S ci e ntif ic S al es man ship: A n I nt roduct ion

353

10.3 Freiman’s Department Store, Ottawa, decorated for the royal visit of King George VI and Queen Elizabeth II, 1939.

whole, and managers [expressed] resentment at having to bow within the store to those whom they could dominate outside it,” according to historian Susan Peter Benson.49 In a society that shut them out of the labour market, scientific salesmanship provided women with a new and powerful financial position. Macbeth seemed to be aware of this when she stated in her advertising copy that her commercial pageants promised businessmen and audiences “a splendid spectacle ... showing the shopper to herself, and as she appears to many others.”50 Such plays contained “a humorous plot and witty dialogue” and “incorporate[d] an exhibition of … Dress” to provide “a gorgeous spectacle, an education and an amusement” in the art of department store shopping.51 Comprised of “vaudeville” sketches and staged in the afternoons, they “display[ed] certain goods more attractively than [could] be arranged over the counter.”52 They were an innovative approach to advertising that Macbeth felt was needed to attract customers to the department store, since traditional forms of advertising – “the sandwich-man,” “the hand-dodger,” and “engraved announcements” – offered only “questionable results.”53 They would, she insisted, produce a “store filled with good humoured people” and “a big crowd buying” the next morning – a crowd comprised mostly of women.54 To convince the assembled businessmen of the value of her approach, she presented A Demonstration in Scientific Salesmanship on 25 February 1920 to the Ontario Retail Clothiers’ Association in Toronto. Performances were also staged to raise funds for Ottawa

354

Z a y n a b A l i , Ky m B i r d , a n d M e l a n i e W i l l i a m s

10.4 Madge Macbeth’s self-styled advertisement in the Ottawa Citizen, 20 September 1920.

Women’s Canadian Club initiatives as well as for the Halcyon Club.55 One of Madge Macbeth’s earliest clients was A.J. Freiman: “heir of a rich merchant family” and a “long-time friend and benefactor” who considered the “commercial pageant to be a valuable and original medium for advertising,” he hired her for three years in a row to do two shows annually – one for the spring collection and one during “Exhibition Week,” the biggest week in Ottawa’s social calendar in the early twentieth century.56 A Demonstration in Scientific Salesmanship enjoyed positive reviews in the Ottawa Citizen and the Ottawa Journal. When it was staged by the “clothiers convention” at the King Edward Hotel, the Toronto World referred to it as a “farcical skit” that “showed clearly the fickleness of many buyers and the cleverness on the part of the salesgirl necessary to make a sale.”57 In addition to Freiman’s, the show garnered contracts with Miller’s, and Pedlow’s in Toronto, a department store in Hamilton, and the London Auto Association.58 It became so popular that Ottawa’s Retail Merchants’ Association staged it at their “annual smoker” with at least one of Ottawa’s leading merchants taking on a role. Macbeth recalls that Freiman even visited her in New York in 1919/1920 to “offer her own price if she would come back to Ottawa to produce another one” like it.59 A Demonstration in Scientific Salesmanship created counterpublics by raising private issues in the public setting of a department store, an act that was wildly inappropriate at the time of production. One way it did so was by obliquely raising the controversial issue of domestic abuse, which can be read as critiquing the politics that

A D e mon stration in S ci e ntif ic S al es man ship: A n I nt roduct ion

355

sanctioned male abusers under the (il)logic of a matrimonial “zone of privacy.”60 Like Macbeth herself, its main character, Melinda (Mel), behaves entirely incongruously for Western, middle- and upper-class women of the early twentieth century: her lack of conformity to gender norms contradicts societal expectations of women. The play showcases Mel’s rule-breaking behaviour and incites female shoppers in the audience to question their own assumptions about their public behaviour as women and as consumers. Through the interactions between Mel and the saleswoman (the latter of whom is equally as rebellious in her behaviour), the play disrupts women’s expectations of each other and of men.61 It showcases transgressive female desire and reduces the male models to mere sexual objects to be fondled (something between an escort and a man servant), or sales goods to be altered and exchanged. In this way, it forms a female counterpublic in which “the public display of private matters ... and the effects of shame and disgust ... can be tested, [and] in some cases revalued.”62 By arguing over what women want in a husband, it reduces men to their material utility in the context of a woman’s needs. Its audience “mediate[s] the most private and intimate meanings of gender and sexuality,” that is what it means to be a husband and, by extension, what it means to be a wife.63 The characters and their implicit refashioning of gender roles reflect Macbeth’s own iconoclastic adaptation of her position as mother and breadwinner for her family, as well as her decision to live her life as a romantically unattached, professional woman. A Demonstration in Scientific Salesmanship is a commercial play that challenges the sex and gender norms of its day. While it was written merely to sell merchandise, it reconceives the power dynamics between men and women and, like the venue in which it was staged, helped to create a female counterpublic that challenged social norms based on women’s economic importance as consumers and within the department store. Through its combination of the department store as venue and the deployment of theatrical techniques, it caused women to be a part of and identify with a social and cultural transformation that was feminist in inception. Premised upon a reversal of gender roles, it stages the rebellious conceit that a woman’s purchasing power liberates her economically, socially, and politically to buy herself what she wants and needs – including a husband.

notes I would like to thank Melanie Williams (ma student in interdisciplinary studies, York University) and Zaynab Ali (ma student in English, York University), for their research into the play and for their work in locating its source during our graduate class “Suffrage and Sexuality on the Stage,” in the fall of 2018. 1 A Demonstration in Scientific Salesmanship is based upon another commercial play written

by Madge Macbeth, entitled The Model Wife Shop, Madge Macbeth fonds, MG30-D52, Manuscripts: Short Stories, Scripts and Essays Series, Vol. 10 File 9, Ottawa: Library and

356

2 3 4

5

6 7 8 9 10 11

12

Z a y n a b A l i , Ky m B i r d , a n d M e l a n i e W i l l i a m s

Archives Canada. Advertisers who employed Macbeth’s plays had three other half-hour long skits from which to choose including: Paris under Ottawa Skies (n.d.), Madge Macbeth fonds, MG30-D52, Manuscripts: Short Stories, Scripts and Essays Series, Vol. 10 File 18, Ottawa: Library and Archives Canada. Macbeth says in “Don’t Forget the Commercial Pageant,” 22, that it is “a splendid spectacle ... showing the shopper to herself, and as she appears to many others.” It forms an attractive background for the display of nearly a dozen chic costumes and carries a sugar-coated warning that will entertain.” Paris under Ottawa Skies she called a “most unique and extravagant display of fashions ever shown in Ottawa, and probably the Dominion … [that] will bring Paris ... to the capital in a delightfully comprehensive manner. See “Paris Under Ottawa Skies.” I have no location for her other two commercial plays: The Romance of the Sweat Shop Model (n.d.) or When a Man Buys Gloves (n.d). Macbeth also wrote the following non-commercial plays: The More the Messier (Typescript n.d.), Manuscripts: Short Stories, Scripts and Essays Series, Vol. 10 File 10, Madge Macbeth fonds, MG30-D52, Library and Archives Canada; A Passion Play of the Ojibways (n.d), Manuscripts: Short Stories, Scripts and Essays Series, Vol. 10, File 19, Macbeth fonds, MG30-D52, Ottawa: Library and Archives Canada; A Problem Play in One Gasp (n.d.) Manuscripts: Short Stories, Scripts and Essays Series, Vol. 10 File 22, Macbeth fonds, MG30-D52, Ottawa: Library and Archives Canada. See also Boch, “Performing,” 3. Boch characterizes The Romance of the Sweat Shop Model as “a parody on moving picture methods” that “emphasize[d] a particular brand of clothing, for example Niagara Silk” and “When a Man Buys Gloves as “a gender satire ... of the uniformed male consumer.” See Benson, Counter Cultures, 21. Upper- and middle-class women formed the target demographic of the new department store. See Curtis, “Life and Times,” 110. P.L. Kelly, “Materialist Feminist Analysis,” 9. See Madge MacBeth, Boulevard Career, 4. As a very young girl she moved to Asheville, North Carolina “in a comfortable rambling frame house surrounded by a garden full of pets” and tended to by largely African American servants.” See also sFu Digitized Collections, “Madge Macbeth.” MacBeth, Boulevard Career, 8, 11, 17. Madge lived with Maffit and at her father’s untimely death from tuberculosis in 1888 she moved with her to a small town in an exclusive area in Maryland. MacBeth, Boulevard Career, 6; MacBeth, Over My Shoulder, 42, 38–9. MacBeth, Over My Shoulder, 97. MacBeth, Boulevard Career, 18, 30. See also MacBeth, Over My Shoulder, 8. Ibid., 6, 17. Ibid., 41. Ibid., 34, 29, 38. When she put on a community play it became a neighbourhood scandal: “at opening night the grown-ups laughed in the wrong place, drowned out the actors’ lines and exclaimed ‘That Madge!’ or ‘That child!’” The real spectacle of the show was Madge’s aberrant behaviour. Then there was the casting call for a semi-professional, charity performance of The Pied Piper of Hamelin when, at the age of twelve, she falls for a forty-year-old “brokendown actor cast for the lead.” Ibid, 36–7. Macbeth claims that while in Baltimore she saw “all the great actors and actress of the day,” the expense of which she afforded by saving “a small allowance,” “walking to school,” and “money derived from the sale of books and what I earned from competitions.” “At least one a week, I climbed to a spot only slightly lower than heaven ... from there I was transported into a fascinating realm of make-believe.”

A D e mon stration in S ci e ntif ic S al es man ship: A n I nt roduct ion

3 57

13 Ibid., 37. See also Gerson, “Madge (Hamilton) Macbeth.” Over the course of her career,

Macbeth used several pseudonyms including Madge Hamilton, W.S. Dill, and Gilbert Knox. 14 P.L. Kelly, “Materialist Feminist Analysis,” 94. 15 Ibid., 85, 159. At twelve, Madge became sick and was subjected to the rest cure and as a

16 17 18 19 20 21

22

23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31

32

result a friend of her mother’s “persuaded [her] to send me to school in London ... a change of climate and scene ... would restore my health.” MacBeth, Boulevard Career, 39–40. In Over My Shoulder, she recollects a strongly romanticized version of Canada (1) and feels she is “becoming a Canadian” (7). See also MacBeth, Boulevard Career, 48. P.L. Kelly notes in “Materialist Feminist Analysis,” 160, that “Macbeth moved, between 1924 and 1940, from supporting national literary standards to supporting international ones.” See also P.L. Kelly “Cultural Nationalism,” 382. MacBeth, Boulevard Career, 52. Gerson, “Madge (Hamilton) Macbeth.” P.L. Kelly, “Materialist Feminist Analysis,” 2; MacBeth, Boulevard Career, 69, 74, 96. MacBeth, Over My Shoulder, 21; Madge MacBeth, Boulevard Career, 86. See also P.L. Kelly, “Materialist Feminist Analysis,” 110. Douglas was a lieutenant-colonel in the Canadian army. MacBeth, Boulevard Career, 87; P.L. Kelly, “Cultural Nationalism,” 381. MacBeth, Over My Shoulder, 21–2. See MacBeth, Boulevard Career, 128. Canada commanded Madge’s imagination her whole life: “Oh, the majesty of the trees ... this was ... my country! My stupendous land. Never could I be poor while there remained such living grandeur to feed my soul upon.” See MacBeth, Over My Shoulder, 25–6, 28, 50–2, 56–7, 61; and P.L. Kelly, “Materialist Feminist Analysis,” 23–5, 50, 116–18. Among these socially prominent people were many writers, chief justices, cabin ministers, prime ministers, governors general, and their wives. MacBeth writes, “Real intimacy was achieved when one was invited to so-called private parties ... theatricals, or musicals.” MacBeth, Over My Shoulder, 7. See also Gerson, “Madge (Hamilton) Macbeth.” Macbeth explains, “Life was a continuous party, even when no parties were, so to say, being given; which was seldom.” MacBeth, Over My Shoulder, 25. As a young women Macbeth was also in the tutelage of Helen MacMurchy who encouraged her to do interviews of well-known people: her social connections and social capital, especially in Ottawa, as MacMurchy knew, gave her access to individuals that would and did foster her journalistic career. Ibid., 30, 49, 60, 124. See also P.L. Kelly, “Materialist Feminist Analysis,” 155. Karsh, “Madge Macbeth.” P.L. Kelly, “Cultural Nationalism,” 382. She also the journalism of Kate Simpson Hayes. MacBeth, Over My Shoulder, 11–12. Borealis Press, “Madge Macbeth”; P.L. Kelly, “Cultural Nationalism,” 382. MacBeth, Boulevard Career, 103. Ibid., 105; P.L. Kelly, “Materialist Feminist Analysis,” 11. See P.L. Kelly, “Materialist Feminist Analysis,” 17, for an elaboration of the meaning of “queer” during Macbeth’s time. MacBeth, Boulevard Career, 102. See ibid. “I still didn’t feel like a mother; rather like a father. I liked being head of a family. It gave me a heady sense of power.” See also ibid., 137. MacBeth, Over My Shoulder, 53. See ibid., 57. “The first stories I wrote after my marriage when the voice of the wolf grew louder on my doorstep and more savagely insistent, were sold to Street Smith. They were slight sketches submitted in long hand, and featured the lovable foibles of the coloured people.” MacBeth, Boulevard Career, 125.

358

Z a y n a b A l i , Ky m B i r d , a n d M e l a n i e W i l l i a m s

33 MacBeth, Over My Shoulder, 162–3; MacBeth, Boulevard Career, 114; Dagg, Feminine Gaze, 175. See

34

35 36 37 38 39

40 41

42 43 44 45 46

47 48

also Price, “Madge Macbeth Won Success,” 50, where Macbeth is quoted as saying, “I began to write ... with the deluded idea that it was something I could do at home.” See also P.L. Kelly, “Cultural Nationalism,” 381, where we learn that after penning her first short story, “Frieda’s Engagement,” published in Canadian Magazine in 1908, Macbeth went on to write for a variety of American and Canadian publications in an array of genres, including “articles, travel literature ... novels, drama, poetry, memoirs, speeches,” political interviews, radio mystery series, advertising copy, and commercial plays.” See also Gerson, “Madge,” 214, which states that she often published under her own name but also used two male pseudonyms, Gilbert Knox and W.S. Dill, in order “to avoid saturating the small Canadian … market” with a single literary persona. MacBeth, Boulevard Career, 22. See ibid., 21–2, 27. “When I was about seven, mother took me to my first real play – The Bohemian Girl” and one of her childhood productions was put on in a “real theatre.” In Hagerstown “I wrote and produce plays, mostly tragedies after the Greek pattern” performed in attics and back yards where [I] chose the players, acted, taught the other children to act, and had strong opinions “settings and costumes.” MacBeth, Over My Shoulder, 8. MacBeth, Boulevard Career, 22. MacBeth, Over My Shoulder, 120, 98. For an elaboration of Madge’s childhood involvement in theatre, see ibid., 97–105. MacBeth, Boulevard Career, 133–4. See also Gerson, “Madge (Hamilton) Macbeth.” See Lancaster, Department Store, 17. The world’s first department store, Le Bon Marché, had opened in Paris in 1852 and established many precedents, including the principles of free entry, free movement, and “spectacle and browsing.” Aristide Boucicaut, Le Bon Marché’s proprietor, incorporated design elements from the London and Paris expositions of the early 1850s into his store’s design. Rappaport, “New Era of Shopping,” 33. See also Lancaster, Department Store, 66. See Boch, “Performing,” 3, 7. Plays displayed the “specific goods the department store wanted to sell,” usually overstocked items. Macbeth wore “several of the costumes on display and made a running comment upon the virtues of whatever lines the store wanted to push. All this would be incorporated in a play of her own writing, which would be acted out on the women’s floor of the department store. The play would provide a unique medium for the department store’s particular needs in advertising. Fifteen salespeople should be cast in parts for the play.” Rappaport, “New Era of Shopping,” 31. See also Benson, 21. “Don’t Forget,” 22, and “Paris under Ottawa Skies.” Boch, “Performing,” 5. Ibid. The representation of women as maternal and moral is evidenced in the campaigns of the National Council of Women, the Red Cross, the Salvation Army, and wartime charities such as the Belgian Relief Fund, as well as to the promote recruitment and in the sale of Victory Bonds. Independent, commercial advertisers also used images of women to promote thriftiness on the home front. Benson, Counter Cultures, 148. See ibid., 85. The stores’ provision of so many opulent diversions had an unexpectedly adverse effect on sales: women patrons used the stores as a place for “socializing with … friends” rather than performing their roles as consumers, as store owners had intended.

A D e mon stration in S ci e ntif ic S al es man ship: A n I nt roduct ion

359

49 See ibid., 78. “As a general social rule, women – the majority of customers – were subordinate

50

51 52 53 54

55

56

to men – the majority of managers. But the microcosm of the department store created a more nearly equal balance of power, one that exploited the contradictions in the social construction of gender.” See also ibid., 94. Although the store was a public and therefore masculine territory, the money on which the store relied for survival was in the hands of women. Practically overnight, the male managers and store owners found themselves powerless and were quite aware of the irony of the situation in which they found themselves: “women as consumers in department stores had a power out of all proportion to their power in the society as a whole, and managers [expressed] resentment at having to bow within the store to those whom they could dominate outside it.” See Macbeth, “Don’t Forget,” 22. See also Benson, 116. Scientific salesmanship was considered the key to converting women patrons into consumers, as is evidenced by the number of textbooks focused on teaching the method and their publication dates: practically all were printed between 1905–33. See also Boch, “Performing,” 7, where he notes that “organizations like the Polish and Jewish Relief Fund” recognized Macbeth’s efforts in using commercial pageants “to appeal to the mothers of the nation to support the [War] ... and to raise funds. A.J. Freiman, who during the Conscription Crisis had urged Macbeth to include the war effort more explicitly in the Commercial Plays, congratulated her afterwards in reference to her originality, ability and tact for her successful efforts regarding the cause and does not fail to include a token of his appreciation for those who depended on her.” Macbeth, “Don’t Forget,” 22. Boch, “Performing,” 3. “The Pageant at Freiman’s,” Ottawa Citizen, 18 September 1920, 25. The author is unclear, but the letter in which this quotation appears is located in the Madge Macbeth fonds among Macbeth’s other pitch letters for the commercial play. 2.1. “Correspondence unsigned, undated – Letters received by Macbeth and copies of letters sent: 1921–24.” The Ottawa Women’s Canadian Club was founded in 1910 and like its all-male predecessor, The Canadian Club, was educational, academic, and patriotic. See “History of the Canadian Club and the Ottawa Women’s Canadian Club,” Ottawa Women’s Canadian Club, accessed 20 May 2019, http://ottawawomenscanadianclub.com/history/. For a reference to the “The Halcyon Club” see Deachman, “A Century Ago,” Ottawa Citizen, 8 Dec 2018, n.p., accessed 20 May 2019, https://ottawacitizen.com/news/local-news/a-century-ago-the-spanish-ladycame-to-ottawa-claiming-more-than-500-lives. Boch, “Performing,” 4. See ibid. “She charged him $200 for the campaign, another $50 for each following instalment, and an extra $50 for expenses. The invitation entitled ‘Don’t Forget about the Commercial Pageant September 23rd and 24th’ replaced the usual advertisement Freiman’s Department Store had running on the women’s page of the Ottawa Citizen. It called upon the leading Ottawa ladies to join in for ‘a splendid spectacle of beauty adorned in the most fetching habiliment. Certain it is that the people of Ottawa will never have a better opportunity for receiving information on fashion topics in so humorous and entertaining a manner.’” Macbeth promoted her commercial play and its economic benefits to department store owners and retail associations across Ontario and parts of America. Recipients include: the J.L. Hudson Co. department store (Detroit); the Robert Simpson Co. Ltd. (better known as Simpsons in Ontario); Smallman & Ingram Ltd. (London); the Retail Dry Goods Association (American department store trade association); and the Ottawa Retail Merchants Association. She sent pitch letters that included testimonials

360

57

58

59 60 61

62 63

Z a y n a b A l i , Ky m B i r d , a n d M e l a n i e W i l l i a m s

from previous satisfied clients, including department store owners, representatives of retail associations, and even members of parliament. Endorsements provided by A.J. Freiman (Freiman’s of Ottawa), Isaac Pedlow (mP, Renfrew South), Andrew McMaster (mP, Brome), and William C. Miller (secretary, The Retail Merchants’ Association of Canada). See also Freiman’s full-page advertisements in the Ottawa Citizen, 23 Feb 1918, 17, 18, and 20 September 1920, n.p. “Advertising is Business Asset,” Toronto World, 26 February 1920, 11, accessed 24 June 2019, https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=hqOjcs7Dif8C&dat=19200226&printsec =frontpage&hl=en. See Hamilton, Ontario – Our History, “Right House.” Probably, the Right House was situated on James Street North and relocated in 1875 to King Street East. The “new four-storey brick building was completed in 1893 at a cost of $100,000. At that time, it was the tallest building in Hamilton and became Hamilton’s first modern department store.” It was also the “first to employ lady clerks.” Boch, “Performing,” 4. Warner, Publics and Counterpublics, 30. As with the attempts to control female consumer behaviour, the attempt to control saleswomen’s behaviour failed due to the formation of a counterpublic. See Benson, Counter Cultures, 228, 265. The female workers coalesced, creating a “work culture … [that] stake[d] out a relatively autonomous sphere of action on the job … [wherein] informal, customary values and rules mediate[d] the formal authority structure of the workplace and distance[d] workers from its impact.” The more the male management attempted to direct the saleswomen’s actions, the more the saleswomen asserted their independence and competence as “skilled workers.” Saleswomen banded together, and sometimes also with the customers, against the male managers who sought to exploit women’s knowledge without offering sufficient incentive or reward to do so. Warner, Publics and Counterpublics, 62. Ibid., 57.

A Demonstration in Scientif ic Salesmanship 1918 m a D g e m a C b e t H (18 7 8 –19 6 5 )

CH a r aCt er s maDam (mme) meL (After short speech – enter Melinda carrying woolly dog.) meL: Ahem – I beg your pardon – mme: Yes? meL: Is this where the sale of husbands is going on? mme: Yes. meL: Ah – ha – would you mind – might I – I should like to see them. mme: (Rising.) Are you shopping for yourself or for someone else? meL: Oh, for myself ... yes, decidedly for myself. I’ve been promising myself one for ever so long, but what with one thing or another – ha – ha – well you know how it is. Now, I thought I’d like to buy … mme: Oh, you want to buy? meL: If I can see just what I want. mme: Have you anything in mind – I mean anything special? meL: Well, I almost always know what I don’t want. mme: Do you want the native goods or imported? meL: Oh, made in Canada, please. You see, I’m afraid of the duty. mme: Most people are afraid of duty. People with husbands overcome this unpleasantness by sidestepping it altogether. meL: Still I think if you had anything from the Hamilton Emporium – mme: Any particular cut? meL: N-n-no, but I should like a good one. I suppose the good ones are very expensive – on account of the strikes?

362

Madge Macbet h

mme: Our guaranteed husbands never strike. But perhaps you would rather have a clock or something from the boxing department. meL: No – No – I need a husband. No doubt a clock is all right in its way, but I would like to see what you have. (MMe goes to case and brings out The Plumber. He sits on the floor and starts right in to join the elbow of a pipe.) meL: Ha – ha – ye-es, that’s awfully nice, isn’t it? Serviceable, too, eh? I simply love it – the dear, earnest thing. I suppose it’s awfully handy about the house – blessed old diddumi (Fondling the plumber.) mme: Exceedingly handy. He’s guaranteed to stop any gush. Shall I [deliver it] or will you take it with you? meL: Of course I do want something serviceable, only couldn’t it be a little more ornamental? mme: Of course, but for general utility, you can’t beat it. We have never had one returned, I assure you, and just now, with the price of labour so high, I think you would be satisfied once you got it properly installed. However, if you must have something ornamental – (Mme takes out Tuxedo. He drifts down to chair 1. Mel crosses to L. and stands admiring Tux.). meL: That’s lovely, charming, such an exclusive air. Yes, I love. Is it expensive? (Looks at tag.) Oh, it’s more than the other? mme: Yes, it’s a model that is hard to keep. meL: Does it give satisfaction? mme: Well, it’s a London product. We make occasional sales. What address? meL: You think it wouldn’t be very serviceable? mme: You said ornamental, I think? meL: Yes, to be sure – of course I did. (Drops muff which Tux does not pick up.). But I didn’t mean only ornamental. This looks so helpless – so – or useless – so easily spoiled. What about a combination? A hardier type? mme: I have one here. How is this? (Brings out Sport. Starts R., starts L., is stopped in C [by] Tux.)ii meL: Oh, that’s more like it – fetching – fascinating. Only, only he isn’t exactly what you might call house-broken, is he? mme: Well, you will find him most satisfactory for promenades, afternoon tea, and hotel dinners. On the turf, too, he will show to advantage and looks well in a smart club lounge. Of course, this type languishes in the house. meL: Then please show me something else. I don’t want anything that will suffer in the home.

i

oed,

s.vv. “blessed old diddum.” “An expression of commiseration addressed to a child and jocularly to an adult; hence used as a meaningless term of address to children, etc.”

ii

Illegible word in original.

A D e mon stration in S ci e ntif ic S al es man ship

363

mme: This model ought to suit you, then. (Brings out Dressing Gown. Mel clears to left. DG sits at table, R.) meL: It does seem to belong to the house, doesn’t it? mme: Oh, absolutely. It is especially designed for women who have wearied of going to evening bridges, cabarets, and the movies; for [women]i who want to spend every evening at home. Will you pay for it or have it charged? meL: Er – doesn’t something else go with it? mme: Oh, no, the licenses and rings are in another department. What name, please? meL: Well, I really – I can’t seem to make up my mind. Surely, you have something like a – a medium; you know rather serviceable and yet handsome enough to be ornamental; something which can live comfortably in the home and yet not be too perishable to take out. Something not too easily damaged or led astray? mme: Here is something which won’t spoil. A good sensible, practical model. It is a favourite with small women, the clinging vines, and invalids … (Brings out Ulste Mel falls back to C. then off to R.) meL: Oh, grand, noble, imposing, I say. mme: And durable. It will wear twice as long as any of these goods. meL: Wonderful, quite wonderful. But now, just for my purpose, couldn’t you find me something a little less like a public building? mme: Public building? meL: Yes, you know what I mean. This is just the thing for a park or a harbour, or something like that, but consider, in my little flat. Oh, it wouldn’t do at all, I am sure. (She looks in the showcase herself.) mme: Assuredly it is. That is the choicest thing we have to offer. It is designed especially for millionaires, salons, state dinners, diplomatic functions, you always find one at board or committee meetings and it is always in line for any sinecureii in the way of a stray title that may be lying about. meL: It’s very tempting. But I don’t believe ... Is it affectionate? mme: I can positively guarantee that there is not an affectionate bone in its body. meL: Oh, well that wouldn’t do at all. mme: What about this? (Brings out the parson.) meL: It doesn’t look very up-to-date, does it?

i

Illegible word in original

ii

oed,

s.v. “sinecure.” “Any office or position which has no work or duties attached to it, esp. one which yields some stipend or emolument.”

364

Madge Macbet h

mme: That’s just exactly what it is – the latest thing in the Forward Movement.i I can recommend this as heartily as anything from Toronto and feel that you can adapt it better than any of the others. meL (Dubiously.): What size is it? mme: A forty. meL: Well, if I get it home and don’t like it can I exchange it for two twenties? mme: We aim to please a customer in the first place. Now if you could give me some idea of what you do want. I go to tea at five. meL: Yes, I mustn’t keep you. I know I am a terrible nuisance, but it is so difficult choosing the first one. Now, when I come back next time, if I’d had two or three, I won’t be nearly so hard to please. mme: Is there is any alteration? meL: Yes, that’s a good idea. What about these two? If he could be a little more and he could be a little less. You understand me? mme: Perfectly. (Business of hat.) You see our alterations are guaranteed to be absolutely satisfactory. meL: Oh, no, no, that won’t do at all. You’ve spoiled both of them. They were much better as they were. Are there no more? mme: Well, I can’t think of any other varieties you could mention. I have shown you blond and brunette, short and tall, young and – er – younger, domestic and social, cheap and dear. Perhaps you had better try the Widowers Department. They have quite an assortment there, left over from the autumn. After all, there isn’t much difference in men on this side of the altar. It’s marriage that gives them variety. Three aisles to the left. meL: No, no. Just a moment, please. Here’s a picture in the advertisement. You haven’t shown me anything like this – mme: Ah, yes, that style. Well, we have just one left. It is in the window. It likes a window. Boy, boy, bring me our last model. (Box.) This is our best seller for women over sixty. You will find it in the wealthiest and most exclusive homes. (Bus of box.) meL: Oh, the cunning set, the adorable Angel, the little sweetheart. It’s very young, isn’t it? mme: And tender. Seems a pity to waste it on old maids, eh? meL: Is it expensive? mme: No, very cheap, to buy. meL: You mean that it is expensive to up-keep. mme: Well, this model is a sort of fad, you know, like hand-painted china, or the collection of scarabs, or that sort of thing. Some women prefer poodles, but when all’s said and done they are almost as great a responsibility. i

“the Forward Movement.” A late nineteenth-century Protestant evangelical movement in Britain, the US, and Canada that helped establish a social dimension to Christianity.

A D e mon stration in S ci e ntif ic S al es man ship

365

meL: And I suppose you don’t guarantee it. mme: Oh, dear me no. The risk is all your own. meL: Well, er, I think I must think. I can let you know by telephone I suppose. What is your number? mme: Never mind about my number. I’ve got your number – wasting a whole afternoon. meL: (Exit.) I suppose you wouldn’t rent one? aLL: Idiot. f inis

Appendix A Bibliography of Playwrights Included in This Edition (alphabetical by playwright)

Agnes, Sister Mary. The Arch of Success. Winnipeg: St Mary’s Academy, 1919. – “At the Court of Isabella.” The Last of the Vestals and Other Dramas. Winnipeg: St Mary’s Academy, 1914: n.p. – The Bandit’s Son. Winnipeg: St Mary’s Academy, n.d. – “The Best Gift.” The Best Gift and Other Short Plays. Winnipeg, St Mary’s Academy, 1923: 4–18. – Better Than Gold. Winnipeg, St Mary’s Academy, 1922. – “The Birthday of the Divine Child.” The Best Gift and Other Short Plays. Winnipeg: St Mary’s Academy, 1923: n.p. – The Carmelite Martyrs of Compiègne: Victims of the French Revolution. Winnipeg: St Mary’s Academy, n.d. – Children of Nazareth. Winnipeg: St Mary’s Academy, 1926. – Choosing a Model A Dialogue for Commencement Day. Winnipeg: St Mary’s Academy, 1914. – Christmas Guests: A Christmas Play for Girls. Winnipeg: St Mary’s Academy, 1915. – Cross and Chrysanthemum. Winnipeg: St Mary’s Academy, 1922. – “Crown for the Queen of May.” Catholic School Journal 28, no. 1 (Apr 1928): 23–4, 26. – A Day in June. Winnipeg: St Mary’s Academy, n.d. – A Day with Pegg y. Winnipeg: St Mary’s Academy, n.d. – “The Divine Guest.” The Best Gift and Other Short Plays. Winnipeg: St Mary’s Academy, 1923: n.p. – The Empress Helena or The Victory of the Cross. Winnipeg: St Mary’s Academy, 1915. – The Eve of St Patrick’s. Winnipeg: St Mary’s Academy, n.d. – “Forgotten Gifts: A Playlet for Thanksgiving Day.” Catholic School Journal 28, no. 5 (Oct 1928): 227–8. – A Happy Mistake. Winnipeg: St Mary’s Academy, 1924. – “Harvest of Years.” Winnipeg: St Mary’s Academy, 1924.

368

Appendi x A

– How St Nicholas Came to the Academy: A Christmas Play for Little Girls. Winnipeg: St Mary’s Academy, 1914. – An Irish Princess. Winnipeg: St Mary’s Academy, 1917. – Katy Did. Winnipeg: St Mary’s Academy, 1926. – The Last of the Vestals: A Historical Drama for Girls. Winnipeg: St Mary’s Academy, 1914. – “Legend of the Two Altar Boys.” Short Plays and Recitations. Winnipeg: St Mary’s Academy, 1922: n.p. – “Little Cinderella.” Short Plays and Recitations. Winnipeg: St Mary’s Academy, 1922: 4–13. – Little Saint Teresa. Winnipeg: St Mary’s Academy, 1923. – Mabel’s Christmas Party. Winnipeg: St Mary’s Academy, n.d. – Making Santa Claus a Missionary. Winnipeg: St Mary’s Academy, n.d. – Miracle of Saint Bride. Winnipeg: St Mary’s Academy, n.d. – Mary Magdalen. Winnipeg: St Mary’s Academy, 1918. – Mary Stuart and her Friends. Winnipeg: St Mary’s Academy, 1918. – “A May Festival.” The Best Gift and Other Short Plays. Winnipeg: St Mary’s Academy, 1923: n.p. – The Millionaire’s Daughter. Winnipeg: St Mary’s Academy, 1915. – Mother’s Birthday. Winnipeg: St Mary’s Academy, 1921. – “The New Governess.” Short Plays and Recitations. Winnipeg: St Mary’s Academy, 1922: 17–30. – “New Year’s Eve.” Short Plays and Recitations. Winnipeg: St Mary’s Academy, 1922: 31–7. – Old Friends and New. Winnipeg: St Mary’s Academy, 1917. – Our Japanese Cousin. Winnipeg: St Mary’s Academy, n.d. – The Paschal Fire at Tara. Winnipeg: St Mary’s Academy, n.d. – “A Patriot’s Daughter.” The Last of the Vestals and Other Dramas. Winnipeg: St Mary’s Academy, 1914: 113–37. – Pearls for the Missions. Winnipeg: St Mary’s Academy, 1923. – Plans for the Holidays: A School Play for Closing Exercises in the Grammar Grades. Winnipeg: St Mary’s Academy, 1915. – “The Point of View.” Short Plays and Recitations. Winnipeg: St Mary’s Academy, 1922. n.p. – Pontia, daughter of Pilate. n.p., 1928. – Queen Esther. Winnipeg: St Mary’s Academy, 1924. – The Queen of Sheba: A Biblical Drama. Winnipeg: St Mary’s Academy, 1915. – The Queen of Sheba and Other Dramas. Winnipeg: St Mary’s Academy, 1914. – The Red Cross Helpers. Winnipeg: St Mary’s Academy, 1918. – A Rose from the Little Queen. Winnipeg: St Mary’s Academy, n.d. – Rose of Canada. Winnipeg: St. Mary’s Academy, n.d. – “St Patrick’s Medal.” n.p., n.d. – St Patrick Speaks. Winnipeg: St Mary’s Academy, n.d. – Saint Teresa’s Roses. Winnipeg: St Mary’s Academy, n.d. – Schoolgirl Visions. Winnipeg: St Mary’s Academy, 1923. – Sense and Sentiment. Winnipeg: St Mary’s Academy, 1920. – A Shakespeare Pageant: Dialogue for Commencement Day. Winnipeg: St Mary’s Academy, 1915. – A Shower of Roses. Winnipeg: St Mary’s Academy, n.d. – The Step-Sisters. Winnipeg: St Mary’s Academy, 1917. – Sweetness Came to Earth. Winnipeg: St Mary’s Academy, n.d. – “The Spoiled Statue.” Short Plays and Recitations. Winnipeg: St Mary’s Academy, 1922: 38–9. – The Taking of the Holy City. Winnipeg: St Mary’s Academy, 1918.

Bibl iog raphy of Play w r ight s I ncluded i n T his Ed it ion

369

– “Those Shamrocks from Ireland.” The Last of the Vestals and Other Dramas. Winnipeg: St Mary’s Academy, 1914. n.d. – Their Class Motto: Duty First. Winnipeg: St Mary’s Academy, n.d. – Three Gifts for the Divine Child. Winnipeg: St Mary’s Academy, n.d. – “The Trial of the Weather.” Short Plays and Recitations. Winnipeg: St Mary’s Academy, 1922: 14–16. – “Ugly Duckling.” Catholic School Journal. 25 ? (April 1925): 31–2. – “Uncle Jerry’s Silver Jubilee.” The Best Gift and Other Short Plays. Winnipeg: St Mary’s Academy 1923: n.p. – “Valedictory.” Short Plays and Recitations. Winnipeg: St Mary’s Academy 1922: 44–5. – “Visit of the Magi: a Christmas plays for boys.” Catholic School Journal 33? (Dec 1933): 287–8. – “Way of the Cross.” N.p., 1921. – “When All Were Wrong but Me.” Short Plays and Recitations. Winnipeg: St Mary’s Academy, 1922: 42. – The Young Professor. Winnipeg: St Mary’s Academy, 1927. – Zuma, the Peruvian Maid. Winnipeg: St Mary’s Academy, 1922. Anderson, Clara Rothwell. Afternoon Tea in Friendly Village, 1862. Ottawa: J.T. Pattison, 1917. – Aunt Mary’s Family Album. Ottawa: Pattison Print 19-? – Aunt Sophia Speaks. Ottawa, n.p., 1940? – Aunt Susan’s Visit. Ottawa: n.p., 1917. – The Joggsville Convention. Ottawa: Progressive Printers 19-? – Let Mary Lou Do It. Ottawa: n.p. 19B? – Marrying Anne? Ottawa: n.p. 192B? – Martha Made Over. Ottawa: n.p. 19B? – Minister’s Bride. Ottawa: James Hope, 1913. – An Old Time Ladies’ Aid Business Meeting at Mohawk Crossroads. Ottawa: James Hope, 1912. – Wanted – A Wife. Ottawa: n.p. 19B? – The Young Country Schoolm’am. Ottawa: James Hope, 1920. – The Young Village Doctor. Ottawa: James Hope, 1915. Bremner, Blanche Irbé. Dr Buginski’s Will: A Comedy in Four Acts. [Typescript. U.S. copyright registered by author, Portland, Oregon, 1909 and Los Angeles, 1913. msv]. – The Hut in the Forest: A Fantasy in Three Episodes. [Typescript 1916. msv]. – In His Image. [Typescript. U.S. copyright registered by author, Portland, Oregon, 1909. msv]. – Juan: A Comedy Drama in Four Acts. [Typescript. U.S. copyright registered by author, Vancouver, bC, 1916. msv]. – Juan Haya. [Typescript. US copyright registered by author, Portland, Oregon, 1909. msv]. – Light: In Four Acts. [Typescript. US copyright registered by author, Berkeley, California, 1915. msv]. – My Soul-Mate: Musical Comedy in Three Acts. [Typescript. US copyright registered by author, Vancouver, bC, 1918. msv]. – The Nurse: A War Drama in Four Acts. [Typescript. US copyright registered by author, Berkeley, California, 1916. msv]. – The Search Light: A Drama in Four Acts. [Typescript. US copyright registered by author, Vancouver, bC, 1913. msv].

370

Appendi x A

Carter-Broun, Louise. The Awakening: A Playlet. [Typescript. US copyright registered by author, Toronto, 1915. msv.] – Blessing; A Comedy in Three Acts. [Typescript US copyright registered by author, 1920.] – Chérie: A Play in Four Acts. [Typescript. US copyright registered by author, Toronto, 1915. msv.] – Her Story; A One Act Playlet in Three Scenes. [Typescript. US copyright registered by author 1920.] – The Living Dead. [Typescript. US copyright registered by author 1918.] – Ma Adams; A Comedy in Three Acts. [Typescript. US copyright registered by author 1923.] – Maid, Wife, Widow. [Typescript. US copyright registered by author 1923.] – Out of the Dark; A Comedy in One Act. [Typescript US copyright registered by author 1921.] – The Ruling Passion. [Typescript. US copyright registered by author 1921.] – Sins of the Father’s. [Typescript. US copyright registered by author 1917.] – The Soldiers: A Playlet in One Act. [Typescript. US copyright registered by author, Toronto 1913. msv.] – St Tommy; A Comedy in Three Acts. [Typescript. US copyright registered by author 1921.] – Teddy’s Marriage: A Playlet in One Act. [Typescript. US copyright registered by author, Toronto 1916. msv.] Curzon, Sarah Anne. Laura Secord, The Heroine of 1812: A Drama and Other Poems. Toronto: Blackett Robinson, 1887. – “Sweet Girl Graduate.” Grip-Sack: A Receptacle of Light Literature, Fun and Fancy ( July 1882): 43–55. Groves, Edith Lelean. Britannia. Toronto: McClelland, Goodchild & Stewart, 1917. – Canada Calls. Toronto: McClelland, Goodchild & Stewart, 1918. – Canada Our Homeland. Toronto: William Briggs, 1900. – A Canadian Fairy Tale. Toronto: William Briggs, 1916. – Fancy Flag Drill. Canadian drills and exercises, No. 1. Toronto: William Briggs, 1900. – Fancy Flag Drill: We’ll Fight for the Grand Old Flag. Toronto: n.p., 1917–18. – Fancy Flag Drill: Rule Britannia. Toronto: n.p., 1917–18. – Grand March with Flags. Toronto: n.p., 1917–18. – How the Fairies Chose Their Queen. Toronto: n.p., 1917–18. – Holly Drill. Toronto: n.p., 1917–18. – The Key of Jack Canuck’s Treasure-House. Toronto: William Briggs, 1916. – The Making of Canada’s Flag. Toronto: William Briggs, 1916 and Toronto, McClelland & Stewart, 1918. – A Patriotic Auction. Toronto: McClelland, Goodchild & Stewart, 1918. – Patriotic Scarf Drill. Toronto: n.p., 1917–18. – Saluting the Canadian Flag. Toronto: n.p., 1917–18. – Santa Claus and the Magic Carpet; or, A Conspiracy against Santa Claus: A Christmas Comedy. Toronto: n.p., 1917–18. – Primary Pieces. Toronto: n.p., 1917–18. – Soldiers of the Soil and the Farmerettes. Toronto: n.p., 1917–18. – A Spring Fantasy. Toronto: n.p., 1918. – The War on the Western Front. Toronto: William Briggs, 1916. – The Wooing of Miss Canada. Toronto: McClelland, Goodchild & Stewart, 1917. Hayes, Kate Simpson. The Anvil: An Immigration Play in Three Acts. [US copyright registered by author, Victoria, British Columbia, 1927. msv.] – A Bargain Husband. 1897.

Bibl iog raphy of Play w r ight s I ncluded i n T his Ed it ion

371

– A Domestic Disturbance. Town Hall Theatre Theatre, Regina. 21 and 29 Dec 1892. – Divorce for $50. Winnipeg, 1893? – The Duplicate Man; or, Too Much A Godfather. 1897. – Midnight Express: A Play in One Act. [Typescript. US copyright registered by author, Winnipeg, Manitoba, 1927. msv]. – “Slumberland Shadows.” Prairie Pot-Pourri. Winnipeg: Stove, 1895. – T’Other from Which. Town Hall and Barracks theatres, Regina, May 1894. Ingraham, Mary Kinley. Acadia. Wolfville, ns: Davidson Bros., 1920. – Ruth 1, no. 8 ( June 1925): 56–7. Macbeth, Madge. A Demonstration in Scientific Salesmanship. “Advertising Corrected Typescripts (n.d.)” Manuscripts: Short Stories, Scripts and Essays Series. Vol. 9. File 2. MG 30 D 52. Madge Macbeth fonds. Ottawa: Library and Archives Canada. – The Goose’s Sauce: A Comedy in One Act. Toronto: Samuel French, 1935. – The Model Wife Shop – Corrected Typescript. Manuscripts: Short Stories, Scripts and Essays Series. MG 30 D 52, Vol. 10 File 9. – The More the Messier. Typescript n.d. Manuscripts: Short Stories, Scripts and Essays Series. Vol. 10 File 10. – Paris under Ottawa Skies. Ottawa Citizen. 17 Sept 1920: 21. Manuscripts: Short Stories, Scripts and Essays Series. Vol. 10 File 18. – A Passion Play of the Ojibways. n.d. Manuscripts: Short Stories, Scripts and Essays Series. Vol. 10 File 19. – A Problem Play in One Gasp. n.d. Manuscripts: Short Stories, Scripts and Essays Series. Vol. 10 File 22. – The Romance of the Sweat Shop Model. N.p. N.d. – When a Man Buys Gloves. N.p. N.d.

Appendix B Abbreviated List of Popular Amateur Theatre in the 1920s

Archibald, Olive. The Lost Queen. In Acadia Athenaeum 52, no. 7 ( June 1925). Baker, Ida Emma (Fitch). 15 plays in Dialogues and Dramas for School and Home. Toronto, 1928. Beer, Marjorie, and Doris McCarthy. A Fairy Play. Echoes, June 1922. Burkholder, Mabel Grace. 5 Plays for Children. Hamilton and Chicago. Callaghan, Francis. The Death of Sappho. In The Reed and the Cross. Toronto: Ryerson, 1923. Campbell, Helen G. An Argument in the Kitchen: A Collection of Plays Suitable for Use in Junior Red Cross Groups. Toronto: Canadian Red Cross Society, 1927. Edgar, Mary Susanne. [6 plays for children.] New York: Woman’s Press. – Sketches and Plays. Toronto: National Girls’ Work Board, Religious Education Council of Canada, 192-?. Fader, Catherine. The Test. In Educational Review 39, no. 2 (October 1924). Gillis, Annie. Slang. In Educational Review 39, no. 2 (October 1924) and no. 3 (November 1924). Glynn-Ward, Hilda. The Aftermath. In Poet Lore 27 (1926). Grannan, Mary E. A Toy Mutiny. In Educational Review 43, no. 3 (November 1928). Grayson, Ethel Kirk. Flower of the Storm. In Willison’s Monthly 2, no. 6 (November 1926). Gregg, Audrey. The Lie. In Acadia Athenaeum 55, no. 6 (April 1929). Harker, Lizzie Allen, and F.R. Pryor. Marigold (French), 1928. Holland, Norah Mary. The Awakening of the Lily and When Half Gods Go. In When Half Gods Go and Other Poems. Toronto: Macmillan, 1924 (children’s plays). Hopkins, Marion. The Spirit of Giving. In Educational Review 35, no. 4 (November 1920). Jarvis, Marjorie Mountain. The Most Lamentable Tragedy of the Topless Tower. In Echoes, December 1928. Lawrence, Margaret E. A Flag of Empire. In A Collection of Plays Suitable for Use in Junior Red Cross Groups. Toronto: Canadian Red Cross Society, 1927? (children’s play). – Preparations. In Acadia Athenaeum 52, no. 1 (November 1925). MacCabe, Zoa J. Aunt Sara Expects Company. In Acadia Athenaeum 52, no. 5 (April 1926). – The Coming of Susan. In Acadia Athenaeum 52, no. 3 ( January 1926). Mason, Marjorie H. Interrupted Plans. In Acadia Athenaeum 52, no. 9 (May 1926).

3 74

Appendi x B

Potter, Ida Elizabeth. Wanted – A Chauffeur. 1928. –Annabel’s M. I. Club. 1931. – At Hopper’s Corners. 1927. – Farmer Maxwell’s City Niece. – We Are Coming. Published largely by the author. Proudfoot, Lucy South. Christmas Festival of Play. In Educational Review 36, no. 4 (December 1921). Roddick, Amy (Redpath). The Birth of Montreal: The Key That Unlocks. In The Birth of Montreal, a Chronicle Play, and Other Poems. Montreal: Dougall, 1921. – The Venetian Garden and St. Ursula. In In a Venetian Garden and St. Ursula. Montreal: Dougall, 1926. – The Romance of a Princess. In The Romance of a Princess, a Comedy, and Other Poems. Montreal: Dougall, 1922. – The Seekers. Montreal: Dougall, 1920. Ross, Dorothea Lucile. Neighbours’ Business. In Willison’s Monthly 2, no. 7 (December 1926). Rostance, Mrs. A.J. David at Aunt Betsy’s and Wardle’s Christmas Party. In Scenes from Dickens, ed. J.E. Jones. Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1923. Sandiford, Betti Primrose. The Bone Spoon. In Six Canadian Plays, ed. Herman Voaden. Toronto: Copp Clark, 1930. – Crows. In The Canadian Magazine 58, no. 5 (March 1922). Shand, Beatrice. The Gift of the Nile and Strong Wid’s Choice. In Sketches and Plays. Toronto: National Girls’ Work Board, Religious Education Council of Canada, 192-?. Sharman, Abbie Lyon. A Somersault to Love. Toronto: Macmillan, 1926. Shaw, Beatrice. M. Hay. The Passing Hours. In Echoes, March 1925. Walley, M. Grace. Simple Dramatization of History. In Educational Review 35, no. 11 ( June–July 1921). Williams, Frances Fenwick. Which. In One Act Plays by Canadian Authors. Montreal: Canadian Author’s Association, 1926. Williams, Minnie (Harvey). The Romance of Canada. Toronto: Ryerson, 1923. Winlow, Alice Maude (Dudley). The Broken Flower. London: Fowler Wright, 1927. – The Miracle of Rose. In The Miracle of Roses and Poems. Vancouver: Chalmers, 1926.

Bibliography

“Adam Forepaugh and Sells Bros. Circus,” Circuses and Sideshows. Robert L. Parkinson Library and Research Center. Accessed 30 June 2019. http://www.circusesandsideshows.com/circuses/ adamforepaughcircus.html. Adcock, John. “Johnny Canuck.” Punch in Canada. Accessed 29 June 2019. punchincanada. blogspot.ca/2011/04/johnny-canuck.html. “Advertising Section N.C.M.S. Journal.” Music Supervisors Journal 5, no. 2, Franklin, Ohio: The Eldridge Entertainment House (1918): n.p. Agnes, Sister M. (Mary Ives). “Obituary: Death of, Choir Sister.” Chronicles of St. Mary’s Academy and College, Winnipeg, 2 April 1939, n.p. Alcoff, Linda Martin. Visible Identities: Race, Gender, and the Self. New York: Oxford University Press, 2006. American Red Cross. A Brief History of the American Red Cross. Accessed 27 June 2018. http://embed. widencdn.net/pdf/plus/americanredcross/uua0vkekh3/history-full-history.pdf?u=0aormr. “Among the Musicians.” Seattle Mail and Herald (Seattle, wa), 13 January 1905. Anderson, Clara Rothwell. Marrying Anne? Ottawa: n.p., 192–?. Arrell, Douglas. “The Cosmopolitan, the Cultural Nationalist, and the Egocentric Critic: Harriet Walker, Charles W. Handscomb, and Charles H. Wheeler in Winnipeg.” In Establishing Our Boundaries: English-Canadian Theatre Criticism, edited by Anton Wagner, 107–33. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1999. Aschheim, Steven E. The Nietzsche Legacy in Germany, 1890–1990. Oakland: University of California Press, 1994. Ashton, Edith Taylor. “The Macleod Years.” In Highlights from MacKay’s History, edited by Margaret Bunel Edwards, 31–3. Ottawa: LoMor, 1975: Auchinleck, Gilbert. A History of the War between Great Britain and the United States of America. Toronto: Maclear and Co., 1855. Internet Archive. Accessed July 2018. https://archive.org/ details/ahistorywarbetw00auchgoog. Bacchi, Carol Lee. Liberation Deferred? The Ideas of English-Canadian Suffragists, 1877–1918. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1983.

376

Bibliog raphy

Baker, William M. “Captain R. Burton Deane and Theatre on the Prairies, 1883–1901.” Theatre Research in Canada 14, no. 1 (Spring 1993). Accessed 9 April 2018. https://journals.lib.unb.ca/ index.php/TRIC/article/view/7233/8292. Balme, Christopher B. The Theatrical Public Sphere. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2014. Barber, Marilyn. “The Women Ontario Welcomed: Immigrant Domestics for Ontario Homes, 1870–1930.” Ontario History 723 (1980): 148–72. Barish, Jonas. The Antitheatrical Prejudice. Berkeley: California: University of California Press. Barker, Roberta, and Kim Solga. “Introduction.” In New Canadian Realisms: Eight Plays, edited by Roberta Barker and Kim Solga, iii–xiv. Toronto: Playwrights Canada Press, 2012. Barman, Jean. Constance Lindsay Skinner: Writing on the Frontier. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2002. Baskerville, Peter. A Silent Revolution? Gender and Wealth in English Canada 1860–1930. Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2008. Batte, Helen (Sister John Thomas). Rooted in Hope. A History of the Sisters of the Holy Names of Jesus and Mary of the Ontario Province. Windsor, Ont.: Windsor Print and Litho, 1983. Beals, Helen Dorothy. “Mary Kinley Ingraham of Acadia, Retires.” Ontario Library Review 28 (November 1944): 486–7. Beauchamp, Helen. “Scrapbook.” Winnipeg: St Mary’s Academy. Becker, Paula. “Knitting for Victory – World War I.” HistoryLink.org: The Free Online Encyclopedia of Washington State History. Accessed 29 June 2018, http://www.historylink.org/index. cfm?DisplayPage=output.cfm&File_Id=5721. Bengough, John Wilson. Confederation! The Much-Fathered Youngster. 1886. Ink on newsprint – photoengraving 31.5 x 25.3. The Birth and Torment of Miss Canada. Montreal: McCord Museum. – “Renewing the Lease.” 1886. Ink on newsprint – photoengraving 31.5 x 25.3. The Birth and Torment of Miss Canada. Montreal: McCord Museum. – Waiting for the Signal. 1886. Ink on newsprint – photoengraving 31.5 x 25.3. The Birth and Torment of Miss Canada. Montreal: McCord Museum. Benn, Carl. The Iroquois in the War of 1812. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2004. Benson, Susan Porter. Counter Cultures: Saleswomen, Managers, and Customers in American Department Stores, 1890–1940. Champaign, iL: University of Illinois Press, 1988. Berger, Carl. The Sense of Power: Studies in the Ideas of Canadian Imperialism, 1867–1914. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2nd ed., 2013. Bertolette, William F. “German Stereotypes in British Magazines Prior to World War I.” PhD Diss., Louisiana State University, 2012. Lsu Digital Commons, accessed 29 June 2019. https:// digitalcommons.lsu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=3725&context=gradschool_dissertations. Berton, Pierre. “The Pacific Railway Scandal.” In Political Corruption in Canada, edited by Kenneth M. Gibbons and Donald C. Rowat, 15–18. Toronto: McClelland, 1976. “Big Day for Members of Irrigation Congress.” Idaho Daily Statesman. 5 September 1906: n.p. Bird, Kym. “‘I want riches and position and standing among the other nations of the world’: Edith Lelean Groves’s The Wooing of Miss Canada and the Creation of Imperial Subjects in Children’s Drama of First World War Toronto.” Proceedings: Hawaii International Conference on Education, (26 June 2007): 6943–56. – “In the Beauty of Holiness, From the Womb of the Morning: Allegory, Morality, and Politics in Mary Kinley Ingraham’s Acadia.” Theatre Research in Canada 26, nos 1–2 (Fall 2007): 26–55. – “In the Habit of Independence: Cross-border Politics and Feminism in Two World War I Plays by Sister Mary Agnes.” Theatre Research in Canada 27, no. 2 (Spring 2008): 193–226.

Bibliog raphy

377

– “Leaping into the Breeches: Liberal Feminism in Sarah Ann Curzon’s Laura Secord and The Sweet Girl Graduate.” In Redressing the Past: The Politics of Early English-Canadian Women’s Theatre, 1880–1920, 17–58. Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2004. – “Leaping into the Breeches: Liberal Feminist Drag in Sarah Ann Curzon’s ‘The Sweet Girl Graduate.’” Journal of Australasian Studies (October 1996): 168–79. – “Lelean, Edith Sarah (Groves).” Dictionary of Canadian Biography. Accessed 21 May 2019. http:// www.biographi.ca/en/bio/lelean_edith_sarah_16E.html. – “Mock Parliament.” Canadian Encyclopedia. Accessed 11 February 2018. https://www.the canadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/mock-parliament-1914/. – “‘Mothers of a New and Virile Race!’: Liberalism and Social Purity in the Life and Works of Kate Simpson Hayes.” In Redressing the Past: The Politics of Early, English-Canadian Women’s Drama 1880–1920, 92–137. Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2004. – “No Blood on the Sheets: Lesbian History and Identity in the Life and Theatre of Amy Redpath Roddick.” In q2q: Queer Canadian Theatre and Performance, edited by Peter Dickinson, C.E. Gatchalian, Kathleen Oliver, and Dalbir Singh, 19–32. Toronto: Playwrights Canada Press, 2018. – Redressing the Past: The Politics of Early English-Canadian Women’s Theatre, 1880–1920. Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2004. Blanchard, J. Wilmer. “Dr Mary Kingley Ingraham.” Islanders Away (Charlottetown, 1992): 153. Boch, Christian. “Performing [for] the Urban Housewife.” Manuscript held by author. Booth, Michael R. Theatre in the Victorian Age. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991. – “Queen Victoria and the Theatre.” University of Toronto Quarterly 36, no. 3 (1967): 249–258. Borealis Press. “Madge Macbeth.” http://www.borealispress.com/Author/aid/378/Madge% 20%20Macbeth. Boutilier, Beverly. “Women’s Rights and Duties: Sarah Anne Curzon and the Politics of Canadian History.” Creating Historical Memory: English-Canadian Women and the Work of History, edited by Beverly Boutilier and Alison Prentice, 51–74. Vancouver: ubC Press, 1997. Bowker, Alan C. “Justice, Truth, Righteousness, and the Glory of God: MacKay Presbyterian Church, New Edinburgh, and the Soldiers Who Served and Died in the Great War.” Manuscript held by author. Boyko-Head, Christine. “Autobiographical Imprints in Nineteenth-Century Canadian Drama: Sarah Curzon’s Laura Secord: The Heroine of 1812.” Theatre Research in Canada / Recherches Théâtrales au Canada 22 (2001): 3–17. Bradbury, Bettina. “Women and Wage Labour in a Period of Transition: Montreal, 1861–1881.” Historie sociale / Social History 17, no 33 (May 1984): 115–131. Bremner, Blanche Irbé. The Bremner-Garcia Pre-adolescent Vocal Apparatus Development. Fourth Register. Songs and Teachers’ Manual. Vancouver, bC: n.p., n.d. – Letter from F. A. Matheson to Carl M. Stewart, Esq, Official. File 45.921, British Colombia Provincial Archives, Victoria, bC. – “Obituary,” Vancouver Sun, (Vancouver, bC), 30 September 1958 “Brief Local News,” “St Cecilia Society,” Idaho Daily Statesman (Boise, Idaho), 16 December 1906. Broadfoot, S. Rupert. Holidaying in Canada on the Ottawa. “Pine Lodge,” Bristol, qC: Queen’s Canada Fund, 1941. Brockhouse, Robert. The Royal Alexandra Theatre: A Celebration of 100 Years. Toronto: McArthur & Company, 2007.

378

Bibliog raphy

Browne, Jefferson B. “Key West: The Old and the New” (1912): Floripedia: A Florida Encyclopedia, “Key West: Key West Education.” Accessed 27 June 2018. http://fcit.usf.edu/florida/docs/k/ keys04.htm. Bryan, Dan. “‘The Biddies’ – Irish Domestic Servants in Early America.” American History USA, 18 May 2012. Accessed 30 June 2019. https://www.americanhistoryusa.com/biddy-irishdomestic-servants-in-early-america/. Bryson, B.F. (superintendent, Home for the Aged) to Mrs Louise Gwen Reinhardt (daughter of B.I Bremner) of Tujunga, California. 24 June 1958 and 31 July 1958. Bremner Fonds, British Colombia Provincial Archives, Victoria, bC. Buckland, Theresa Jill. Society Dancing: Fashionable Bodies in England, 1870–1920. Houndmills, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011. Buckley, Suzann. “Ladies or Midwives? Efforts to Reduce Infant and Maternal Mortality.” In A Not Unreasonable Claim: Women and Reform in Canada, 1880s–1920s, edited by Linda Kealey, 131–49. Toronto: Women’s Press, 1979. Buckner, Phillip, and R. Douglas Francis. “Introduction.” Canada and the British World: Culture, Migration, and Identity. Vancouver: University of British Colombia Press, 2006: 1–9. Budnick, Carol. “The Performing Arts as a Field of Endeavour for Winnipeg Women, 1870– 1930.” Manitoba History 11 (1986). Accessed 18 June 2017. http://www.mhs.mb.ca/docs/mb_ history/11/performingarts.shtml. – “Theatre on the Frontier: Winnipeg in the 1880s.” Theatre Research in Canada 4, no. 1 (Spring 1983) Accessed 15 February 2017. https://journals.lib.unb.ca/index.php/TRIC/article/view/7475/8534. Burr, Christian. Spreading the Light: Work & Labour Reform. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1999. Careless, J.M.S. “The Cultural Setting: Ontario Society to 1914.” In Early Stages: Theatre in Ontario 1800–1914, edited by Ann Saddlemyer, 18–51. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1990. Butterill, Chris Keegan. The Early History of St. Mary’s Academy. Winnipeg: University of Winnipeg, St Paul’s College, 1983. Canada. Anonymous. 1870. Ink on newsprint - Leggotype, 18.3 x 21. The Birth and Torment of Miss Canada. Montreal: McCord Museum. Canadian Northwest Territorial Exhibition, Regina, n wt (1895). Archive.org. Accessed 4 July 2019. https://archive.org/details/cihm_06972/page/n4. Carter, J. Kameron. Race: A Theological Account. New York: Oxford University Press, 2008. Carter, L.J. Obituary, Enterprise, Silver City, New Mexico, 21 April 1916: n.p. Catholic School Journal. “Plays for Catholic Schools.” (November 1923): 284; (November 1927): 281; (December 1927): 329; (April 1928): 37; (May 1929): 93; ( June 1929): 143. Chapman Catt, Carrie, and Nettie Rogers Shuler. Woman Suffrage and Politics: The Inner Story of the Suffrage Movement. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1926. Accessed 22 June 2018. http://memory.loc.gov/cgibin/query/h?ammem/nawbib:@f ield%28N UMBER+@ band%28rbnawsa+n6874%29%29. Chaput, Hélène. Synopsis S.N.J.M. 1874–1984: Une histoire sommaire des Soeurs S.N.J.M. au Manitoba / A Syllabus of S.N.J.M. History in Manitoba. Saint-Boniface, Manitoba: Académie Saint-Joseph, 1985. Christie, Marjorie Lowrey. “Mons Angelorum.” In Complete Poems of Marjorie Pickthall. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1926. – “The Woodcarver’s Wife.” University Magazine 19, no. 2 (1920): n.p. – The Woodcarver’s Wife and Later Poems. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1922.

Bibliog raphy

379

“Chroniques 1909–1936.” Sisters of the Holy Names of Jesus and Mary of Manitoba Fonds. Winnipeg, Manitoba: Archives of the Saint-Boniface Historical Society/La Société historique de Saint-Boniface. “Clever Authoress Writes of Children.” Toronto Star (Toronto, on), November 1917. Cleverdon, Catherine L. The Woman Suffrage Movement in Canada. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1974. “Clinical Chart.” Provincial Mental Health Services, Mrs. B. Bremner. Bremner Fonds, British Colombia Provincial Archives, Victoria, bC. Coates, Colin M., and Cecilia Morgan. Heroines and History: Representations of Madeleine de Verchères and Laura Secord. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2002. Coffin, William F. 1812; The War and its Moral: Canadian Chronicle. Montreal: John Lovell, 1864. Internet Archive. Accessed May 2018. https://archive.org/details/1812waritsmoralc00coff. “Complete Plans for Banquet.” Morning Oregonian (Portland, Oregon), 28 March 1908. Connolly, L. W. “The Methodist Church and the Theatre in Canada, 1884–1925.” In Drama and Religion, edited by James Redmond, 53–63. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1983. Cook, Ramsay. The Regenerators: Social Criticism in Late Victorian English Canada. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1985. – “The Triumph and Trials of Materialism 1900–1945.” In The Illustrated History of Canada, edited by Craig Brown, 377-466. Toronto: Lester & Orpen Dennys, 1987. Cook, Ramsay and Wendy Mitchinson, eds. The Proper Sphere: Woman’s Place in Canadian Society. Toronto: Oxford University Press (Canadian Branch), 1976. Crossley, Hugh Thomas. “A Practical Discussion of the Parlor Dance, the Theatre, the Cards.” 1895. Archive.org. Accessed 6 June 2018. https://archive.org/details/cihm_02135. Crowe, Eyre Evans Crowe. The History of France 5. London, uk: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1868: 189. Google Books. Accessed June 2019. https://books.google.ca/books?id= ccJ WA A A A M A AJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=Eyre+Evans+Crowe,+The+History+ of+France,+Vol.+5+(London,+1868),+189. Cupido, Robert. “Appropriating the Past: Pageants, Politics, and the Diamond Jubilee of Confederation.” Journal of the Canadian Historical Association 9, no. 1 (1998): 155–186. Cullen, Dorothy. “Mrs. Mary Kinley Ingraham, 1874–1949.” Bulletin of the Maritime Library Association 14, no. 2 (1950): 1–2. – “Sweet Girl Graduate.” In Canada’s Lost Plays: Volume Two: Women Pioneers, edited by Anton Wagner, 140–54. Toronto: Ctr, 1979. Cullen, Frank. Vaudeville Old and New. New York: Routledge, 2006. Curry, Blanche Radford. “Whiteness and Feminism: Déjà Vu Discourses, What’s Next?” In White Looks Like: African American Philosophers on the Whiteness Question, edited by George Yancy, 243–262. New York: Routledge, 2004. Curtis, Tara L. “The Life and Times of a Literary Chameleon: Madge Hamilton Lyons Macbeth.” Master’s thesis, University of Guelph, 1996. Accessed 17 May 2012. http://www. collectionscanada.ca/obj/s4/f2/dsk2/ftp03/MQ27490.pdf. Curzon, Sarah Anne. “The Ballad of 1812.” In Laura Secord: The Heroine of 1812: A Drama and Other Poems, 69–83. Toronto: C. Blackett Robinson, 1887. – Canada in Memoriam, 1812–14: Her Duty in the Erection of Monuments in Memory of Her Distinguished Sons and Daughters. Welland, on: Telegraph, 1891. – Laura Secord: The Heroine of 1812: A Drama and Other Poems. Toronto: C. Blackett Robinson, 1887. – “A Paper Read Before the Wentworth Historical Society, November 18, 1891.” Journal and Transactions, Vol 1 (1892): 106–114. CIHM A02075.

380

Bibliog raphy

– The Story of Laura Secord. Niagara Falls, on: Lundy Lane Historical Society, 1891. – Sweet Girl Graduate. Grip-Sack 1 (1882): 43–59. Dagg, Anne Innis. The Feminine Gaze: a Canadian Compendium of Non-Fiction Women Authors and Their Books, 1836–1945. Waterloo: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2001. Accessed 20 January 2019. https://books-scholarsportal-info.ezproxy.library.yorku.ca/en/read?id=/ebooks/ebooks0/ gibson_crkn/2009-12-01/2/402612#page=1. Dale, Ron. “History: The War of 1812 Forging a Nation.” Niagara 1812 Legacy Council Archives. Accessed 9 July 2019. http://discover1812.com/about/history. Darroch-Lazowski, Vivian, Leslie Ann Crawford, and Laura Ponti-Sgargi. Not One, But Many: On the Centennial of the Women’s Institute (1897–1997). Manitoulin Island, on: Ice Lake Press, 1997. Davidoff, Leonore and Catherine Hall. Family Fortunes: Men and Women of the English Middle Class 1780–1850. New York: Routledge, 2003. Davies, Robertson. “The Nineteenth-Century Repertoire.” In Early Stages: Theatre in Ontario 1800–1914, edited by Ann Saddlemyer, 90–122. Toronto: U of Toronto Press, 1990. Davis, Tracy C. and Ellen Donkin. “Introduction.” In Women and Playwriting in Nineteenth-Century Britain, edited by Tracy C. Davis and Ellen Donkin, 1–12. Cambridge, uk: Cambridge University Press, 1999 Day, Moira Jean. “Elizabeth Sterling Haynes and the Development of the Alberta Theatre.” PhD diss., University of Toronto, 1987. – “Elizabeth Sterling Haynes.” The Canadian Encyclopedia. Last modified 16 December 2013. https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/elizabeth-sterling-haynes. Day, Moira, and Marilyn Potts, “Elizabeth Sterling Haynes: Initiator of Alberta Theatre.” Theatre Research in Canada 8, no. 1 (Spring 1987). https://journals.lib.unb.ca/index.php/tric/ article/view/7375/8434. Deachman, Bruce. “A Century Ago, the Spanish Lady Came to Ottawa, Claiming More Than 500 Lives.” Ottawa Citizen, 8 Dec. 2018. Accessed 20 May 2019. https://ottawacitizen.com/news/ local-news/a-century-ago-the-spanish-lady-came-to-ottawa-claiming-more-than-500-lives. Dehli, Kari. “They Rule by Sympathy: The Feminization of Pedagogy.” Canadian Journal of Sociolog y / Cahiers canadiens de sociologie 19, no. 2 (1994): 195–216. Derksen, Celeste. “Out of the Closet: Dramatic Works by Sarah Anne Curzon Part One: Woman and Nationhood: Laura Secord, The Heroine of 1812.” Theatre Research in Canada/ Recherces Théâtrales au Canada 15, no. 1 (1994): 3–20. https://journals.lib.unb.ca/index.php/ TRIC/article/view/7211/8270. – “Out of the Closet: Dramatic Works by Sarah Anne Curzon Part Two : Re-Dressing Gender Inequality: The Sweet Girl Graduate.” Theatre Research in Canada/ Recherces Théâtrales au Canada 15, no. 2 (1994): 123–35. https://journals.lib.unb.ca/index.php/TRIC/article/view/7198/8257. Devereux, Cecily. Growing a Race: Nellie L. McClung and the Fiction of Eugenic Feminism. Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2005. DiCenzo, Maria et al. Feminist Media History: Suffrage Periodicals and the Public Sphere. London, uk: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011. Drake, Earl G. “The Fair and the Fairer Sex.” Saskatchewan History 61 (1955): 56–63. Edwards, Henrietta Muir. “Imperial or National.” In Documenting First Wave Feminisms Volume I: Transnational Collaborations and Crosscurrents, edited by Nancy M Forestell and Maureen Moynagh. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2014. Edwards, Margaret Bunel. “The Anderson Years: 1904–1934.” In Highlights from MacKay’s History, edited by Margaret Bunel Edwards, 35–41. Ottawa: LoMor, 1975

Bibliog raphy

381

Eldridge, Henry Carleton. “Just a Bit of Cloth but It’s Red, White and Blue.” Eldridge Entertainment House, 1907. Elliott, James E. Strange Fatality: The Battle of Stoney Creek, 1813. Montreal: Robin Brass Studio, 2009. Elliott, Jean H. “Pioneers! O Pioneers!” Canadian Library Association Bulletin, 10 June 1954: 261. Englis, A.P. The Happy Pair. 1886. Ink on newsprint – Photoengraving, 31.5 x 25.3. The Birth and Torment of Miss Canada. Montreal: McCord Museum. English, John R. “Wartime Elections Act.” Canadian Encyclopedia. Accessed 20 July 2018. https:// www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/wartime-elections-act/. Errington, Elizabeth Jane. “‘Information Wanted’: Women Emigrants in a Transatlantic World.” In Canada and the British World: Culture, Migration, and Identity, edited by Phillip Buckner and R. Douglas Francis, 10–28. Vancouver: University of British Colombia Press, 2006. Evans, Chad. Frontier Theatre. Victoria: Sono Nis Press, 1983. “Events of the Week.” Morning Oregonian (Portland, or), 6 September, 1909. Filewod, Alan. Committing Theatre. Toronto: Between the Lines, 2011. – Performing Canada: The Nation Enacted in the Imagined Theatre. Kamloops, bC: Textual Studies in Canada, 2002. – “The Nation on Parade: The Empire as Mise en Scene.” Textual Studies in Canada, Spring 2002:11+. Accessed 28 Sept. 2019. https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/A90251243/EAIM?u=yorku_ main&sid=EAIM&xid=20c9bb7f. – “Theatre, Navy and the Narrative of ‘True Canadianism.’” Theatre Research in Canada 13, nos 1 and 2 (1992). Accessed 8 July 2019. https://journals.lib.unb.ca/index.php/TRIC/issue/ view/661. “The First World War: 1914–1918.” Canadian Red Cross. Accessed 4 July 2019. http://www.redcross. ca/whrio-we-are/about-the-canadian-red-cross/historical-highlights/the-f irst-worldwar-1914-1918. Fischlin, Daniel. Canadian Adaptations of Shakespeare Project. University of Guelph, Version 2. Accessed 27 June 2018. http://www.canadianshakespeares.ca/index.cfm. Fisher, Susan R. Boys and Girls in No Man’s Land: English-Canadian Children and the First World War. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2011. Ford, John Alexander and Henry George Mellick. Historical Sketch of the East Point Baptist Church. Kentville, ns: Kentville Publishing, 1933. Forestell, Nancy M., and Maureen Moynagh, eds. Documenting First Wave Feminisms. Volume I: Transnational Collaborations and Crosscurrents. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2014. – Documenting First Wave Feminisms. Volume II: Canada – National and Transnational Contexts. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2014. Forsyth, Louise H. “Three Moments in Quebec Theatre History: Les Faux Brilliants by FélixGabriel Marchand and by Jean-Claude Germain.” Theatre Research in Canada / Recherches théâtrales au Canada  2, no. 1 (1981): n.p. Accessed 15 May 2017. https://journals.lib.unb.ca/ index.php/TRIC/rt/printerFriendly/7518/8577. Foulkes, Richard. Church and State in Victorian England. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997. Friedl, Bettina, ed. On to Victory: Propaganda Plays of the Woman Suffrage Movement. Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1987. From Halifax to Vancouver. Anonymous. 1886. Ink on newsprint - Photoengraving, 31.5 x 25.3. The Birth and Torment of Miss Canada. Montreal: McCord Museum.

382

Bibliog raphy

“Funeral Director’s Report.” Blanche Irbé Bremner Fonds, British Colombia Provincial Archives, Victoria, bC. Gauvreau, Michael and Ollivier Hubert. The Churches and Social Order in Nineteenth- and TwentiethCentury Canada. Montreal: McGill-Queens University Press, 2006. Gay, George I and H.H. Fisher. “Preface and “Chapter 1 – The Origin of the Crb.” Public Relations of the Commission for Relief in Belgium: Documents Volume II. Stanford California: Stanford University Press, 1929. Accessed 9 July 2019. https://www.idesetautres.be/upload/Public%20 Relations%20Commission%20for%20Relief%20Belgium%20Gay%20Fisher.pdf. “Généalogie.” Papers. Winnipeg: St. Mary’s Academy. Gerson, Carole. “‘Dragged at Anne’s Chariot Wheels’: L.M. Montgomery and the Sequels to Anne of Green Gables.” Papers of the Bibliographical Society of Canada 35, no. 2 (1997): 143–159. – “Madge (Hamilton) Macbeth.” Canadian Writers, 1890–1920. In Dictionary of Literary Biography 92, edited by William H. New. Literature Resource Center. Accessed 24 June 2019. http://link.galegroup. com/apps/doc/H1200004046/LitRC?u=yorku_main&sid=LitRC&xid=e8b6a0ff. Gillis, Stacy and Emma Short. “Children’s Experiences of World War I.” World War I. The British Library. Accessed 5 July 2019. http://www.bl.uk/world-war-one/articles/childrensexperiences-of-world-war-one. “The Girl Scouts of America: Light Up the Leader in Every Girl.” Accessed 27 June 2018. http:// juliettesscouts.yolasite.com/history.php. Glassberg, David. American Historical Pageantry: The Uses of Tradition in the Early Twentieth Century. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1990. Glenn, Susan A. Female Spectacle: The Theatrical Roots of Modern Feminism. Cambridge, ma: Harvard University Press, 2000. Gordon, Eleanor and Gwyneth Nair. Public Lives: Women, Family and Society in Victorian Britain. Ed Eleanor Gordon and Gwyneth Nair. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2003. Gordon, Ishbel Maria, Marchioness of Aberdeen and Temair. The Canadian Journal of Lady Aberdeen, 1893–1898. Toronto: Champlain Society, 1960. Accessed 6 June 2018. http://champlainsociety. utpjournals.press/doi/abs/10.3138/9781442618015_4. Government of Canada. Canadian Territorial Exhibition Will Be Opened at Regina, N.W.T. Ottawa: Government Printing Bureau, 1895. https://archive.org/details/cihm_06972/page/n5. Graham, Elizabeth. “Schoolmarms and Early Teaching in Toronto.” Women at Work, 1850–1930. Toronto: Canadian Women’s Educational Press, 1974. Greenblatt, Miriam. War of 1812, 2nd ed. New York: Facts on File, 2003. Grimstead, David. Melodrama Unveiled: American Theatre and Culture. Berkeley, Ca: University of California Press, 1988. Groves Vertical File. “Schools Mourn Famed Leader in Mrs. Groves.” Toronto District School Board Archives. Gustavson, Wesley C. “Competing Visions: Canada, Britain, and the Writing of the First World War.” In Canada and the British World: Culture, Migration, and Identity, edited by Phillip Buckner and R. Douglas Francis, 142–156. Vancouver: University of British Colombia Press, 2006. Habermas, Jürgan. The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere. Cambridge, ma: mit Press, 1995. Hall, Catherine, Keith McClelland and Jane Rendall. Defining the Victorian Nation: Class, Race, Gender and the British Reform Act of 1867. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000. Hamilton, Ontario – Our History. “The Right House.” 6 November 2017. Accessed 20 May 2019. https://www.facebook.com/HamiltonPast/posts/202245586991728.

Bibliog raphy

383

Hardy, Edwin Austin and Honora M. Cochrane. Centennial Story: The Board of Education for the City of Toronto, 1850–1950. Toronto: Toronto Board of Education, 1950. Harman, Barbara Lee. The Feminine Political Novel in Victorian England. Virginia: University of Virginia Press, 1998. Harrison, Tanja. “The Courage to Connect: Mary Kinley Ingraham and the Development of Libraries in the Maritimes.” Library & Information History 28, no. 2 ( June 2012): 75–102. Harvey, Ruth. Curtain Time. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1949. Hastings, Paula. “‘Our Glorious Anglo-Saxon Race Shall Ever Fill Earth’s Highest Place:’ The Anglo-Saxon and the Construction of Identity in Late Nineteenth-Century Canada.” In Canada and the British World: Culture, Migration, and Identity, edited by Phillip Buckner and R. Douglas Francis, 92–110. Vancouver: University of British Colombia Press, 2006. Hay-Shaw, Beatrice M. “Maritime Librarian Would Not Permit Fate’s Blows or Frail Physique to Stop Her.” Maclean’s Magazine 37, no. 15 (November 1924): 68–70. Hayes, Kate Simpson. “Letters to Morgan.” H.J. Morgan Papers. Ottawa: National Archives. MG 29, D61. – Papers of Mrs Kate Simpson Hayes. Regina: Saskatchewan Archives Board. R-2.15. Heaman, E.A. The Inglorious Arts of Peace: Exhibitions in Canadian Society during the Nineteenth Century. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1999. Heathorn, Stephen. “‘For Home, Country and Race’: The Gendered Ideals of Citizenship in English Elementary and Evening Continuation Schools, 1885–1914.” Journal of the Canadian Historical Association 7, no. 7 (1996): 105–24. “Henry Dearborn.” The US War of 1812. Accessed 8 July 2019, http://theuswarof1812.org/ commanderdetail.aspx?commander=107. Hickey, Donald R, ed. The War of 1812: Writings from America’s Second War of Independence. New York: Library of America, 2013. Historical Statistic of Canada. Ed. Urquhart et al. 2nd Edition. Ottawa, Canada: Statistics Canada, 1983. “History of Guiding.” World Association of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts. Accessed 20 October 2018. https://www.wagggs.org/en/about-us/our-history/. Hochman, Adam. “Race Suicide.” Encyc, 29 April 2014. Accessed 6 June 2018. http:// eugenicsarchive.ca/discover/encyclopedia/535eedb87095aa0000000250. Hodkinson, Yvonne. “Restaging the Past.” Female Parts: The Art and Politics of Female Playwrights. (Montreal: Black Rose Books, 1991): 5–15 Holdsworth, Nadine. Theatre and Nation. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010. Hurwitz, Nathan. A History of the American Musical Theatre: No Business Like it. New York: Routledge, 2014. “Incorporations.” Los Angeles Times, 16 July 1914. Ingraham, Mary Kinley. Book Parlance. Editor. Wolfville, ns: Vol. 1 (1924–25) – Vol. 2–4 (1926–29). – “Ingraham to Findly Weaver,” 17 November 1923. Ingraham Fonds, Esther Clark Wright Archives, Acadia University. Accession Inventory 1944.001. – “Ingraham to The Stratford Company,” 2 February 1924: Ingraham Fonds, Esther Clark Wright Archives, Acadia University. Accession Inventory 1944.001. – “Ingraham to Triphena Kinley, 6 January 1893.” Ingraham Fonds, Esther Clark Wright Archives, Acadia University, Accession Inventory 1944.001. – “Library Meeting.” The Halifax Herald (Halifax, ns), 11 May 1935. – A Month of Dreams. Wolfville, Nova Scotia: Published by the author, 1932.

384

Bibliog raphy

– A Preliminary List of the Published Writings of Women Graduates of Canadian Colleges and Universities. Wolfville, ns: The Committee, 1943. – “The School Library.” Home and School Quarterly 8, no. 2 ( January–June 1940): 13. – “Secretary’s Report.” Bulletin of the Maritime Library Association. (1 September 1928): n.p. Ingraham, Mary Kinley, and Helen Dorothy Beals, Catalogue of the Eric R. Dennis Collection of Canadiana in the Library of Acadia University. Wolfville, ns: Acadia University Library, 1938. Irvine, D.J. Editing Modernity: Women and Little-Magazine Cultures in Canada, 1916–1956. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2008. Jaffin, Jonathan H., “Medical Operations.” Medical Support for the American Expeditionary Forces in France During the First World War,” master’s thesis, Faculty of the US Army Command and General Staff College, 1990. Accessed 4 July 2019. https://history.amedd.army.mil/booksdocs/wwi/Jaffin/. Johnstone, Tiffany. “A New Woman of the Canadian West: E. Cora Hind (1861–1942).” Women’s Suffrage and Beyond: Confronting the Democratic Deficit. Accessed 27 May 2019. http:// womensuffrage.org/?p=21388. Jones, Heather. “Feminism and Nationalism in Domestic Melodrama.” Essays in Theatre 8, no. 1 (November 1989): 5–14. Julien, Marie. “Biographical notes on Sister M. Agnes.” Manuscript. n.d. St. Mary’s Academy Archives. Kallmann, Helmut. A History of Music in Canada, 1534–1914. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1987. Kaplan, Michael. “Louise Carter.” 20 November 1957. Variety Obituaries 1957–1963. Vol. 5 (New York: Routledge, 1988): n.p. Karsh, Yousuf. “Madge Macbeth.” Yousuf Karsh Master Photographer of the 20th Century. Accessed 17 May 2019. karsh.org/photographs/madge-macbeth. Kealey, Linda. “Canadian Socialism and the Woman Question, 1900–1914.” Labour/Le Travail 13 (1984): 77–100. Kee, Kevin. “Hugh Crossley (1850–1934).” Online Encyclopedia of Canadian Christian Leaders. 1998. Accessed 6 Jun 2018. http://www.canadianchristianleaders.org/portraits-collection/hughcrossley-1850-1934/. – “A Night at the Theatre, Hugh Crossley, John Hunter, and the Marketing of Late Mainstream Protestant Revivalism.” Revivalists: Marketing the Gospel in English Canada, 1884–1957. Montreal: McGill-Queen’s, 2006. Kelly, Katherine E. “Introduction: The Making of Modern Drama.” In Modern Drama by Women 1880s–1930s: An International Antholog y, edited by Katherine E. Kelly, 1–16. Routledge: London and New York, 1996. Kelly, Peggy Lynn. “‘Cultural Nationalism and Maternal Feminism’: Madge Macbeth as Writer, Broadcaster, and Literary Figure.” In Framing Our Past: Canadian Women’s History in the Twentieth Century, edited by Sharon Ann Cook et al., 381–4. Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2014. – “Introduction.” Shackles. Madge MacBeth, 1–61. Ottawa: Tecumseh Press, 2005. – “A Materialist Feminist Analysis of Dorothy Livesay, Madge Macbeth, and the Canadian Literary Field, 1920–1950.” PhD thesis, University of Alberta, 1999. Kendall-Davies, Barbara. The Life and Work of Pauline Viardot Garcia Volume 1 - The Years of Fame, 1836–1863. London, uk: Cambridge Scholars Press, 2004. Kennedy, Dennis. The Spectator and the Spectacle: Audiences in Modernity and Postmodernity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009.

Bibliog raphy

385

Kilde, Jeanne Halgren. When Church Became Theatre: The Transformation of Evangelical Architecture and Worship in Nineteenth-Century America. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005. Kinahan, Anne-Marie “Transcendent Citizenship: Suffrage, the National Council of Women of Canada, and the Politics of Organized Womanhood.” Journal of Canadian Studies 42, no. 3 (Fall 2008): 5–27. Knowles, Norman. Inventing the Loyalists: The Ontario Loyalist Tradition and the Creation of Usable Pasts. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1997. Knowles, Richard Paul. “Voices (Off ): Deconstructing the Modern English-Canadian Dramatic Canon.” In Canadian Canons: Essays in Literary Value, edited by Robert Lecker, 91–111. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1991. Knox, James Samuel. The Science of Applied Salesmanship. Vol. 2. Knox School of Applied Salesmanship, 1911. Accessed 24 June 2019. http://lcweb2.loc.gov/service/gdc/scd0001/2013/20130917005sc/201 30917005sc.pdf. Koester, C.B. Mr. Davin M.P. Saskatoon: Western Producer Prairie Books, 1980. Kraditor, Aileen S. Ideas of the Woman Suffrage Movement. New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 1981. Krasner, Orly Leah. “Birth Pangs, Growing Pains and Sibling Rivalry: Musical Theatre in New York, 1900–1920.” In The Cambridge Companion to the Musical, 2nd Edition, edited by William A. Everett and Paul R. Laird, 54–71. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002. Kritzer, Amelia Howe. “Comedies by Early American Women.” In The Cambridge Companion to American Women Playwrights, edited by Brenda Murphy, 1–18. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999. Kurtz, Harold. The Second Reich: Kaiser Wilhelm II and his German. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1970. Kwan, SanSan. “Performing a Geography of Asian America: The Chop Suey Circuit.” The Drama Review 55, no. 1 (Spring 2011): 123. Accessed 30 June 2019. http://sites.uci.edu/aas55fall2016/ files/2016/09/09.27-Kwan-Chop-Suey-Circuit-.pdf. Lancaster, Bill. The Department Store: A Social History. Leicester: Leicester University Press, 1995. Landow, George P. “The Literary Canon.” In Victorian Web: Literature, History, and Culture in the Age of Victoria, edited by George P. Landow. Brown University, 2016. “Last Night’s Concert.” The Morning Olympian (Olympia, wa), 2 March 1899. Leavey, Peggy Dymond. Laura Secord: Heroine of the War of 1812. Toronto: Dundurn Press, 2012. Lehman, Engel. The American Musical Theatre. New York: Macmillan Publishing Co., 1975. Leitch, Susan R. “The Stephen Secord and Hannah DeForest Family.” United Empire Loyalists’ Association of Canada. Accessed 9 July 2019, http://www.uelac.org/Loyalist-Info/extras/ Secord-Stephen/Secord-Stephen-family-history.pdf. Leiter, Samuel L. “Clouds.” Encyclopedia of the New York Stage, 1920–1930 Vol. 1 (New York: Greenwood Press, 1985): 630 Lenton-Young, Gerald. “Variety Theatre.” In Early Stages: Theatre in Ontario 1800–1914, edited by Ann Saddlemyer, 166–213. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1990. Levin, Lawrence. “Foreword.” In Melodrama Unveiled: American Theatre and Culture, edited by David Grimstead. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988. Levine, Caroline. “Strategic Formalism: Toward a New Method in Cultural Studies.” Victorian Studies 48, no. 4 (Summer 2006): 625–657. Library of Congress, Catalogue of Copyright Entries. Vol. 1918–1923. Lindgren, Allana C. “Amy Sternberg’s Historical Pageant (1927): The Performance of ioDe Ideology During Canada’s Diamond Jubilee.” Theatre Research in Canada 32, no. 1 (2011): 1–29. Llewellyn, Kristina R. Democracy’s Angels: The Work of Women Teachers. McGill-Queen’s University Press, Montreal & Kingston, 2012.

386

Bibliog raphy

Longley, Ronald Stewart. Acadia University 1838–1938. Kentville, ns: Kentville Publishing, 1939. Loring Frances and Florence Wyle fonds. Miss Canada. 192-?. Loring Art Photos. 400–470. Ca otag sC029. Black and White Prints of Sculpture. Art Gallery of Ontario. “Louise Carter.” International Movie Database. Accessed 1 July 2018. http://www.imdb.com/ name/nm0141782/. Macbeth, Madge. “Advertising is Business Asset.” Toronto World. 26 February 1920: 11. Accessed 24 June 2019. https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=hqOjcs7Dif8C&dat=19200226&printsec= frontpage&hl=en. – “Big Fashion Show.” Ottawa Citizen (Ottawa, on), 25 February 1918. – Boulevard Career. Toronto: Kingswood Press, 1957. – “Don’t Forget the Commercial Pageant.” Ottawa Citizen (Ottawa, on), 20 September 1920. – “The Fashion Show.” Ottawa Citizen (Ottawa, on), 26 February 1918. – Over My Shoulder. Toronto: Ryerson Press, 1953. – “The Pageant at Freiman’s.” Ottawa Citizen (Ottawa, on), 18 September 1920. MacGill, Elsie G. My Mother the Judge: A Biography of Judge Helen Gregory MacGill. Toronto: Ryerson, 1955. MacGill, Helen. “Daughters, Wives & Mothers in British Columbia.” Ottawa, 1913: 2–61. Microform. Daughters, Wives, Mothers in British Columbia: Supplement. Microfilm, Canadian Institute for Historical Microreproductions., no. 65445. MacKay and New Edinburgh Presbyterian Church, Ladies Aid Society. “Minutes Book of the Board, 1901–1920.” MacKay United Church Archives, Ottawa. MacKay United Church. “MacKay United Church – Our History.” Accessed 7 August 2020. https://www.mackayunitedchurch.org/history-of-mackay. MacKenzie, John. Propaganda and Empire: the Manipulation of British Public Opinion, 1880–1960. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1984. MacMurchy, Helen. “Edith Lelean Groves.” Everyday Children: A Book of Poems. Toronto: The Committee in Charge of the Edith L. Groves Memorial Fund for Underprivileged Children, 1925: 11–30. Macpherson, Margaret. Nellie McClung: Voice for the Voiceless. Montreal: xyz Publishing, 2003. “Madge Macbeth.” Borealis Press. Accessed 24 June 2019. http://www.borealispress.com/ Author/aid/378/Madge%20%20Macbeth. “Madge Macbeth.” SFu Digitized Collections. Accessed 8 July 2019. digital.lib.sfu.ca/ceww-826/ macbeth-madge. Madokoro, Laura, Francine McKenzie, and David Meren. Dominion of Race: Rethinking Canada’s International History. Vancouver: University of British Colombia Press, 2017. Maguire, Constance Anne. “Convention and Contradiction in the Life and Ideas of Kate Simpson Hayes, 1856–1945.” ma Thesis University of Regina, 1996. Mahan, A.T. The Life of Nelson: The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain Vol. 2. Cambridge, ma, 1897. Malcolmson, Robert. A Very Brilliant Affair: The Battle of Queenston Heights, 1812. Toronto: Robin Brass Studio, 2003. Malinsky, David. “Congress Bans Theatre! Journal of the American Revolution. Accessed 20 July 2018. https://allthingsliberty.com/2013/12/congress-bans-theatre. Malloy, Sister Margaret. “The History of St. Mary’s Academy and College and Its Times.” Master’s thesis, University of Manitoba, 1952. Martin, Ben. “Theatre in the Nineteenth Century.” Accessed 20 July 2018. http://homepage. smc.edu/martin_ben/TheaterHistory/nineteenth.htm.

Bibliog raphy

387

Mastrandrea, Maria. “An Addition to the Mock Parliaments: The Vancouver Mock Parliament of 1911.” Final Paper, “Canadian Women’s Theatre in English.” York University, 2010. Mavor, James, and Ishbel Gordon Aberdeen. Book of the Victorian Era Ball. Toronto: Rowsell & Hutchison, 1898. Accessed 11 July 2018. https://archive.org/details/cihm_02845. “McClelland and Stewart.” PC Museum. Accessed 21 May 2019. https://pcmuseum.ca/ companyprofile.asp?id=155. McClintock, Anne. Imperial Leather: Race, Gender, and Sexuality in the Colonial Contest. New York: Routledge, 1995. McClung, Nellie L. In Times Like These. Toronto: McLeod and Allen, 1915. – Purple Springs. Toronto: Allen, Boston & New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1922. – The Stream Runs Fast. Toronto: Thomas Allen, 1945. McCoy, Erin Ruth. The Historical and Cultural Meanings of American Music Lyrics from the Vietnam War. Accessed 29 June 2018. https://ir.library.louisville.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1939& context=etd. McDonald, Robert A.J., and Jean Barman, eds. Vancouver Past: Essays in Social History. Vancouver: University of British Columbia, 1986. McKenzie, Ruth. Laura Secord: the Legend and the Lady. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1971. McPherson, Kathryn. Bedside Matters: The Transformation of Canadian Nursing, 1900–1990. Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1996. Mendelson, Alan. “Grip Magazine and ‘the Other’: The Genteel Antisemitism of J. W. Bengough.” Histoire sociale / Social History (2007): n.p. Accessed 19 November 2016. http://hssh. journals.yorku.ca/index.php/hssh/article/viewFile/37036/33624. Milliken, Jimmy A. Christian Doctrine for Everyman: An Introduction to Baptist Beliefs. Nashville, TN: CrossBook, 2010. “Minute Book.” “Nominations locales 1904–1929.” Sisters of the Holy Names of Jesus and Mary of Manitoba Fonds. Winnipeg, Manitoba: Archives of the Saint- Boniface Historical Society/ La Société historique de Saint-Boniface. “Minutes Book of the Board, 1901–1920.” MacKay and New Edinburgh Presbyterian Church, Ladies Aid Society. MacKay United Church Archives, Ottawa. “Minutes of the Board of Education.” (Toronto: Toronto School Board 1925): 13. “Miss Polk to Give Clinic Program on Young Voice.” Dallas Morning News (Dallas, tx), 14 March 1953. Mitchinson, Wendy. “The wCtu: ‘For God, Home and Native Land’: A Study in NineteenthCentury Feminism.” In A Not Unreasonable Claim: Women and Reform in Canada 1880s-1920s edited by Linda Kealey, 151–67. Toronto: Women’s Press, 1979. Monod, David. The Soul of Pleasure: Sentiment and Sensation in Nineteenth-Century American Mass Entertainment. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2016. Moody, Barry M. “Acadia and the Great War.” In Youth, University and Canadian Society: Essays in the Social History of Higher Education, edited by Paul Axelrod and John G. Reid. Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1989. – “Breadth of Vision, Breadth of Mind: The Baptists and Acadia College.” In Canadian Baptists and Christian Higher Education, edited by G.A. Rawlyk, 3–29. Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1988. Morgan, Cecilia. “‘Of Slender Frame and Delicate Appearance’: The Placing of Laura Secord in the Narratives of Canadian Loyalist History.” In Gender and History in Canada, edited by Joy Parr and Mark Rosenfeld, 103–19. Toronto: Copp Clark, 1996.

388

Bibliog raphy

Morgan, Fidelis. The Years Between: Plays by Women on the London Stage, 1900–1950. London, uk: Virago, 1994. “Much Accomplished Last Year by Musical Societies.” Idaho Daily Statesman (Boise, iD), 31 December 1906. Murphy, Terrence and Roberto Perin. A Concise History of Christianity in Canada. Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1996. Murray, Louisa. “An Appeal to Patriotic Canadians.” Review of Laura Secord: The Heroine of 1812, by Sarah Anne Curzon, Week, September 1891: 362. – “The Story of Laura Secord, 1813.” Review of Laura Secord: The Heroine of 1812, by Sarah Anne Curzon. Week, September 1891: 675. Myers, Gustavus. “The Distribution of Railway Subsidies.” In Political Corruption in Canada, edited by Kenneth M. Gibbons and Donald C. Roowat, 19–32. Toronto: McClelland, 1976. Neilson, Carmen J. Private Women and the Public Good: Charity and State Formation in Hamilton, Ontario, 1846–93. Vancouver: University of British Colombia Press, 2014. New, Beverley. “Regarding your inquiry about the play performed by members of our Club in January 1914.” Letter to Maria Mastrandrea. 8 December 2009. ms. University Women’s Club of Vancouver, Vancouver, British Columbia. “New Jersey Recognizes the Right of Women to Vote,” 22 February 1797. The Heritage Foundation. Accessed 4 July 2016. http://www.heritage.org/initiative/first-principles/primary-sources/ new-jersey-recognizes-the-right-of-women-to-vote. Nicholas, Jane. “Gendering the Jubilee: Gender and Modernity in the Diamond Jubilee of Confederation Celebrations, 1927.” Canadian Historical Review 90, no. 2 (2009): 247–74. Nickerson, Hoffman. The Turning Point of the Revolution: Or, Burgoyne in America. Port Washington, NY: Kennikat Press, 1967. Nicoll, Allardyce. British Drama: An Historical Survey from the Beginnings to the Present Time. Fifth Edition. New York: Barnes & Nobel, 1962. Accessed 20 July 2018. https://archive.org/details/ britishdrama001751mbp. Noonan, James. Canada’s Governors General at Play: Culture and Rideau Hall from Monck to Grey. Ottawa: Borealis, 2002. – “The Earl of Dufferin 1872–1878.” The Governor General of Canada. Office of the Secretary to the Governor General. Accessed 13 November 2016. http://www.gg.ca/document.aspx?id=15406. – “Fredrick A. Dixon.” Canadian Encyclopedia. Accessed 20 May 2019. https://www. thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/frederick-a-dixon. O’Neill, Patrick B. “Nineteenth Century Theatre in Regina.” Manuscript held by the author. “Osborne, Marian Francis.” Accessed 18 July 2018. http://digital.lib.sfu.ca/ceww-927/osbornemarian-francis. Ottawa Women’s Canadian Club. “History of the Canadian Club and the Ottawa Women’s Canadian Club.” Accessed 20 May 2019. http://ottawawomenscanadianclub.com/history/. “Paris Under Ottawa Skies.” Ottawa Citizen (Ottawa, on), 17 September 1920. Pateman, Carole. The Disorder of Women: Democracy, Feminism, and Political Theory. Cambridge: Polity Press, 1989. Pater. “What Do People Say.” Toronto Daily Mail, 18 March 1881. Payne, J.L. “The Displacement of Young Men.” Canadian Magazine (August 1893): 469–70. Peake, Linda M. “Establishing a Theatrical Tradition: Prince Edward Island, 1800–1900.” Theatre History in Canada 2, no. 2 (1981): 117–32. Pendle, Karin. Women & Music: A History. Bloomington, in: Indiana University Press, 2001.

Bibliog raphy

389

“A Pertinent Question.” Anonymous. 1886. Ink on newsprint - Photoengraving, 31.5 x 25.3. The Birth and Torment of Miss Canada. Montreal: McCord Museum. Phillips, Nicola. Women in Business, 1700–1850. Woodbridge, Suffolk: The Boydell Press, 2006. Pickles, Katie. Female Imperialism and National Identity. Manchester and New York: Manchester University Press, 2002. Players’ Guild of Hamilton Ontario. “Garrick Club.” Accessed 6 October 2017. http://www. playersguild.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=category&layout=blog&id =10&Itemid=108. Pranishnikoff, I.J. “Setting the Task.” 1875. Ink on newsprint - Photolithography, 39.8 x 28. The Birth and Torment of Miss Canada. Montreal: McCord Museum. Prentice, Alison, Paula Bourne, Gail Cuthbert Brandt, Beth Light, Wendy Mitchinson, and Naomi Black. Canadian Women: A History. Toronto: Harcourt, 1988. – Canadian Women: A History, 2nd edition. Toronto: Harcourt, 1996. Preston, Katherine K. “American Musical Theatre Before the Twentieth Century.” In The Cambridge Companion to the Musical, 2nd Edition, edited by William A. Everett and Paul R. Laird, 3–28. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008. Price, Elizabeth Bailey. “Madge Macbeth Won Success as Writer By ‘Cruel, Heart-Breaking Puchner, Martin. Stage Fright: Modernism, Anti-Theatricality, and Drama. Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press, 2002. Pullen, Kristen. Actresses and Whores: On Stage and in Society. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005. Radmacher, Kimberley. “Making a Case for Eliza Lanesford Cushing: Possible Feminist Readings of The Fatal Ring.” 2009. Accessed 29 August 2017. http://kimberleyradmacher. com/academic_writing_samples. Rappaport, Erika D. “A New Era of Shopping: The Promotion of Women’s Pleasure in London’s West End, 1909-1914.” In Gender and Consumer Culture Reader, edited by Jennifer Scanlon 30–47. New York: New York University Press, 2000. Rawlyk, G.A. Champions of the Truth: Fundamentalism, Modernism, and the Maritime Baptists. Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1990. Reeves, Phyllis. 75th Anniversary: The University Women’s Club Vancouver. Vancouver: University Women’s Club of Vancouver, 1982. “Renewing the Support.” Life. 24 January, 1918, 157. Reinhardt, Richard. Personal telephone interview with Marlene Mendonça. November 2009. Revzin, Rebekah E. “American Girlhood in the Early Twentieth Century: The Ideology of Girl Scout Literature, 1913–1930.” Library Quarterly 68, no. 3 ( July 1998): 261–75. Rioux, Jean-François, and Robin Hay. “Canadian Foreign Policy: from Internationalism to Isolationism?” Ottawa: The Norman Paterson School of International Affairs. http://www. carleton.ca/csds/occasional_papers/npsia-16.pdf. Roberts, Barbara. “Purely Administrative Proceedings: The Management of Canadian Deportation, Montreal 1900–1935.” PhD dissertation, University of Ottawa, 1980. Roberts, Wayne. “‘Rocking the Cradle for the World’: The New Woman and Maternal Feminism, Toronto, 1877–1914.” In A Not Unreasonable Claim: Women and Reform in Canada, 1880s–1920s, edited by Linda Kealey, 15–45. Toronto: Women’s Press, 1979. Robinson, Agnes. Papers. Regina Saskatchewan Archives Board. R-423. “Robinson to Give Noonday Lecture.” Bend News-Times. 2 March 1921: 50. Rostecki, Randy R., and Jackie A. Ritchie. St. Mary’s Academy. Winnipeg: St Mary’s Academy, 1994.

390

Bibliog raphy

Ruether, Rosemary Radford. “American Catholic Feminism: A History.” In Reconciling Catholicism and Feminism? Personal Reflections on Tradition and Change, edited by Sally Barr Ebest and Rob Ebest, 3–12. Indiana: Notre Dame University Press, 2003. Russell, Hilary. Double Take: The Story of the Elgin and Winter Garden Theatre. Toronto: Dundurn Press, 1989. Ryan, Mary. Habermas and the Public Sphere. Ed. Craig Calhoun. Cambridge, ma: mit Press, 1992. Saaler, Sven. “The Kokuryukai (Black Dragon Society) and the Rise of Nationalism, Pan Asianism, and Militarism Japan, 1901–1925.” International Journal of Asian Studies  11, no. 2 (2014): 124–160. Sabiston, Elizabeth. Private Sphere to World Stage from Austen to Eliot. Aldershot, uk: Ashgate Publishing Co., 2008. Saddlemyer, Ann. “Introduction.” In Early Stages: Theatre in Ontario 1800–1914, edited by Ann Saddlemyer, 3–17. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1990. – “Forum – On the Necessity of Criticizing Criticism.” Theatre Research in Canada 8, no. 1 (Spring 1987). Accessed 9 April 2018. http://www.lib.unb.ca/Texts/TRIC/TofC.html. Salter, Denis. “At Home and Abroad: The Acting Career of Julia Arthur (1869–1950).” Theatre Research in Canada 5, no. 1 (Spring 1984). Accessed 19 June 2017. https://journals.lib.unb.ca/ index.php/tric/article/view/7446/8505. – “Hector Willoughby Charlesworth and the Nationalization of Cultural Authority 1890–1945.” In Establishing Our Boundaries: English-Canadian Theatre Criticism, edited by Anton Wagner, 137– 76. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1999. – “The Idea of a National Theatre.” In Canadian Canons: Essays in Literary Value, edited by Robert Lecker, 71–90. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1991. Savage, Candace. Our Nell: A Scrapbook Biography of Nellie McClung. Halifax, ns: Goodread Biographies, 1985. Scullion, Adrienne. “Introduction.” In Female Playwrights of the Nineteenth Century, edited by Adrienne Scullion, liii–lxxxviii. London, uk: Everyman, 1996. Seattle Mail and Herald (Seattle, wa), 29 April 1905. Cover picture of Mrs Perry C. Kofoed (Blanche Irbé Bremner). Seattle Daily Times. 29 July 1929: 2. Obituary of Mrs Perry C. (Anna) Kofoed. A Session of the Provincial Legislature in 2014 A.D. University Women’s Club of Vancouver. Vancouver, 14 April 1914. Sexty, Suzanne. “Fire, Brimstone, and a Spot of Tea: The Beginnings of aPLa.” (20 January) 2005. Annual Conference of the Atlantic Provinces Library Association in Charlottetown, P.E.I. 1 June 2001. http://www.ucs.mun.ca/~ssexty/fire.html. Shafer, Yvonne. American Women Playwrights 1900–1950. New York: Peter Lang, 1997. Shaw, Bernard, The Quintessence of Ibsenism. London, uk: Walter Scott, 1891. Accessed 24 May 2019. https://archive.org/stream/quintessenceofib00shawrich/quintessenceofib00shawrich_djvu.txt. Shome, Raka. “Whiteness and the Politics of Location.: Postcolonial Reflections.” In Whiteness: The Communication of Social Identity, edited by Thomas K. Nakayama and Judith Martin, 107– 28. Thousand Oaks, Ca: Sage, 1999. Simoens, Tom. “Warfare 1914–1918 (Belgium)” 1914–1918 Online. The International Encyclopedia of the First World War. Accessed 4 July 2019, https://encyclopedia.1914-1918-online.net/article/ warfare_1914-1918_belgium. Skene, Reg. “Harriet Walker.” The Canadian Encyclopedia Online. Accessed 26 April 2017, http:// www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/harriet-walker/.

Bibliog raphy

391

– “C.P. Walker and the Business of Theatre: Merchandizing Entertainment in a Continental Context.” In The Political Economy of Manitoba, edited by James Silver and Jeremy Hull, 128–50. Regina: Canadian Plains Research Centre: University of Regina, 1990. Smith, Mary Elizabeth. Too Soon the Curtain Fell: A History of Theatre in Saint John 1789–1900. Fredericton: Brunswick Press, 1981. “Society.” Idaho Daily Statesman (Boise, iD), 16 August 1906. “Society.” Idaho Daily Statesman (Boise, iD), 6 January 1907. The Soldiers playbill. Royal Alexandra Theatre, 31 May 1915. Performing Arts Theatre Files, Special Collections, Toronto Reference Library. Baldwin Room, Royal Alexandra Theatre, April–July 1915. Spector, David. “From Frivolity to Purposefulness: Theatrical Development in Late Nineteenth Century Winnipeg.” Canadian Drama 4 (1978): 40–51. Sperdakos, Paula. “Canada’s Daughters, America’s Sweethearts: The Careers of Canadian ‘Footlight Favorites’ in the United States.” Theatre Research in Canada 20, no. 2 (Fall 1999). Accessed 6 June 2018. https://journals.lib.unb.ca/index.php/TRIC/article/view/7084. – “Dora Mavor Moore: Before the New Play Society.” Theatre Research in Canada 10, no. 1 (Spring 1989). Accessed 27 May 2019. https://journals.lib.unb.ca/index.php/TRIC/article/ view/7324/8383. Statistics Canada. “Population, by Age and Sex, Census Dates, 1851–1976.” Table A78–93. Accessed 20 May 2019. https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/11-516-x/sectiona/A78_93-eng.csv. – “Population, by Marital Status and Sex, Census Dates, 1871–1976.” Table A110–124. Accessed 20 May 2019. https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/11-516-x/sectiona/A110_124-eng.csv. – “Population, Canadian, Other British and Foreign-Born, by Sex, Census Dates, 1871–1971.” Table A260–269. Accessed 20 May 2019. https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/11-516-x/ sectiona/A260_269-eng.csv. “St Cecelia Society.” Idaho Daily Statesman (Boise, iD), 16 December 1906. Stevenson, Jill. Sensational Devotion: Evangelical Performance in Twenty-First Century America. Ann Arbor, mi: University of Michigan Press, 2013. Stowe-Gullen, Augusta. “Stowe-Gullen Papers.” Toronto: Victoria College, University of Toronto. Strachey, Lytton. The Illustrated Queen Victoria. London, uk: Bloomsbury, 1921. Straznicky, Marta. “Margaret Cavendish and Closet Drama.” Criticism 37, no. 3 (1995): 355–390. Strong-Boag, Veronica. “Canada’s Women Doctors: Feminism Constrained.” In A Not Unreasonable Claim: Women and Reform in Canada 1880s–1920s, edited by Linda Kealey, 109–130. Toronto: Women’s Press, 1979. – Parliament of Women: The National Council of Women of Canada, 1893–1929. Ottawa: National Museums of Canada, 1976. http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctv16rhp. Strong-Boag, Veronica and Carole Gerson. Paddling Her Own Canoe: The Times and Texts of E. Pauline Johnson (Tekahionwake). Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2000. Stuart, Ross. “E.R. Parkhurst at the Toronto Mail and Globe, 1876–1924.” In Establishing Our Boundaries: English-Canadian Theatre Criticism, edited by Anton Wagner, 95–106. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1999. Szakolczai, Árpád. Comedy and the Public Sphere: The Rebirth of Theatre as Comedy and the Genealog y of the Modern Public Arena. New York: Routledge, 2013. Taylor, Alan. The Civil War of 1812: American Citizens, British Subjects, Irish Rebels, & Indian Allies. New York: Vintage, 2011. Taylor, Miles. “John Bull and the Iconography of Public Opinion in England c. 1712–1929.” Past and Present 134 (Feb.1992): 93–128.

392

Bibliog raphy

“This Evening’s Concert.” Morning Olympian. 1 March 1899. Thompson, John Herd. “Davin, Nicholas Flood.” Dictionary of Canadian Biography. http://www. biographi.ca/en/bio/davin_nicholas_flood_13E.html. Torgovnick, Mariana. Gone Primitive. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1990. Tutt, Juliana. “No Taxation Without Representation in the American Women’s Suffrage Movement.” Stanford Law Review 62, no. 5 (2010): 1473–5. US Bureau of Census. 1880. “George H. Boutwell.” Accessed 21 June 2019. https://www. censusrecords.com/Search?FirstName=George%20H.%20&LastName=Boutwell%20 &CensusYear=1880. – 1910. “Blanche Kofoed (Blanche Irbé Bremner).” Accessed 21 June 2019. https://www. censusrecords.com/Search?FirstName=blanche&LastName=kofoed&State=New%20 York&CensusYear=1910. Valverde, Mariana. The Age of Light, Soap, and Water: Moral Reform in English Canada, 1885–1925. Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1991. Vance, Jonathan F. A History of Canadian Culture. Toronto: Oxford University Press, 2009. “Voice Culture.” Idaho Daily Statesman. 6–31 August 1906; 1–6 September 1908 Vollaro, Daniel R. “Lincoln, Stowe, and the ‘Little Woman/Great War’ Story: The Making, and Breaking, of a Great American Anecdote.” Journal of the Abraham Lincoln Association 30, no. 1 (Winter 2009): 18–34. Wagner, Anton, ed. Brock Bibliography of Published Canadian Plays in English, 1766–1978. Toronto: Playwrights Press, 1980. – Women Pioneers. Vol. 2 of Canada’s Lost Plays. Toronto: Ctr, 1979. – “Saving the Nation’s Aesthetic Soul: B.K. Sandwell at the Montreal Herald, 1900–1914, and Saturday Night, 1932–1951.” In Establishing Our Boundaries: English-Canadian Theatre Criticism, edited by Anton Wagner, 177–198. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1999. “Ward Notes.” Blanche Irbé Bremner. 12 May 1958, British Columbia Archives and Museum. Ward, Peter. White Canada Forever: Popular Attitudes and Public Policy Toward Orientals in British Columbia. Montreal. McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1990. Warner, Michael. Publics and Counterpublics. New York: Zone Books, 2005. Whittaker, R.C. “‘Entirely Free of Any Amateurishness’: Private Training, Public Taste and the Women’s Dramatic Club of University College, Toronto (1905–21).” Nineteenth-Century Theatre and Film, Special Issue: Amateur Theatre in the Long Nineteenth Century 32, no. 2 (Winter 2011): 107–32. “Who We Are.” The Girl Scouts of the United States of America. Accessed 29 June 2018. www. girlscouts.org/who_we_are. Williams, Dave. Misreading the Chinese Character: Images of the Chinese in Euroamerican Drama to 1925. New York: Peter Lang, 2000. Wilson, Barbara M., ed. Ontario and the First World War, 1914–1918. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1977. Wilson, Kathleen. The Island Race: Englishness, Empire, and Gender in the Eighteenth Century. London, uk: Routledge, 2003. Wojczak, Helena. “British Women’s Emancipation Since the Renaissance: Local Elections.” History of Women.org. Accessed 27 May 2019. www.historyofwomen.org. “Women as Legislators in Their Mock Parliament.” Evening Star (Toronto, on), 20 February 1896. Wood, Lily. “Drill of the Stars and Stripes.” In Catalogue of Entries of Books and Other Articles 16., 674. Washington: Government Printing Office, 1898. Woolf, Virginia. Common Reader. New York: Harcourt and Brace, 1953. “You Are Invited.” Idaho Daily Statesman (Boise, iD), 16 August: 8.

Contributors

zaynab aLi is a master’s student in English at York University. She plans on pursuing her PhD in English with a focus on world literature. Her interests lie in the politics of labelling, identity, and the (mis)representations of marginalized groups. kym birD is associate professor of drama in “Culture and Expression,” Department of Humanities, Faculty of Liberal and Professional Studies, at York University. An award-winning teacher and scholar, her field of research is early Canadian women’s drama, about which she has written many articles. Her book Redressing the Past: The Politics of Early English-Canadian Women’s Drama, 1880–1920 (McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2004) won the 2004 Association of Canadian Theatre Research Ann Saddlemyer Prize. Professor Bird lives in Toronto with her partner Frances Latchford, and “the hounds”: Quincey, Finnegan, McIntosh-Applesauce, and their new sister Gizmo. LaureL green is a dramaturg, director, and arts manager who works across Canada and internationally with a focus on new play development and festival curation. She lives in Calgary, Alberta, working as the festival producer for One Yellow Rabbit’s High Performance Rodeo. Formerly the director of artistic programming at Alberta Theatre Projects, she holds an honours ba from York University and a master’s from the University of Toronto Graduate Centre for the Study of Drama. Her research into Louise Carter and The Soldiers was presented at the Canadian Association of Theatre Research Catr/aCrt in 2010. tanJa Harrison is the university librarian at Mount Saint Vincent University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. She holds a ba (Classics, English, German) from Bishop’s University and a master’s in library and information studies from Dalhousie University (Beta Phi Mu). She was formerly the university librarian at nsCaD University, the only independent art and design school in Atlantic Canada. She has also held leadership positions in a variety of professional library and local historical associations. While serving as an academic librarian at Acadia University she

394

Cont r ibutors

researched the archival papers of Mary Kinley Ingraham. She continues to study Ingraham’s work and explore the history of other maritime women pioneers in libraries and print culture. meLanie wiLLiams is a high school English and history teacher with the Dufferin-Peel Catholic District School Board. She is currently pursuing her master’s degree in interdisciplinary studies at York University. Her scholarly work focuses on Canadian women travelers and explorers of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

Index

Figures indicated by page numbers in italics. abduction, in literature, 285n9 Abercrombie, W., 149n2 Aberdeen, Lady. See Gordon, Ishbel Maria, Marchioness of Aberdeen and Temair Acadia (Ingraham), 10, 26, 323, 327–8, 328; playtext, 330–46. See also Ingraham, Mary Tryphosa Kinley Acadia Ladies Seminary, 324, 325, 329n5 Acadia University (Acadia College), 325–6, 327, 346nn2–3, 348n6, 348n8 Acland, Christian Henrietta Caroline Fox-Strangways, 57, 119n49, 120n55 Acland, John Dyke, 119n51, 120n55 Albani, Emma, 291, 295n40 Allan Gardens Theatre (Allan Gardens pavilion), 9, 42, 125, 265, 269n14 “America, My Homeland” (song), 241n20 Anderson, Clara Rothwell: acquaintance with other women writers, 16; background and family life, 179–80; comedies and Christian convictions, 21, 29, 182–4; John Matheson (novel), 182; photograph, 180; public-private spheres and, 25; racism and, 45; venue for plays, 18, 42, 181; writing career, 181–2, 187n15; plays by: Afternoon Tea in Friendly Village, 1862, 183, 184; An Old Time Ladies’

Aid Business Meeting at Mohawk Crossroads, 25, 181, 183; Aunt Mary’s Family Album, 183, 184; Aunt Sophia Speaks, 183, 184, 187n8; Aunt Susan’s Visit, 183–4, 185; Here Comes the Bride, 183, 184; Marrying Anne?, 183, 184; Martha Made Over, 183, 184; Minister’s Bride, 183, 183; photograph of unknown production, 186; Wanted – A Wife, 183, 184; The Young Country Schoolma’am, 25, 183, 184; The Young Village Doctor, 183, 184. See also The Joggsville Convention (Anderson) Anderson, Peter William, 180, 180 Andrew Mercer Ontario Reformatory for Females, 127, 151n18 Anglin, Margaret, 31 Archibald, Olive, 47n21 architecture, theatre, 39–40, 53n163 Aristotle, 154n43 Arrell, Douglas, 53n155 Arthur, Julia, 31 Auchinleck, Gilbert, 115n6, 117n30, 124n92 Ava, Archibald Hamilton-Temple-Blackwood, 2nd Earl of, 35 Baker, Ida Emma (Fitch), 47n21 ballet, 30

396

Index

Balm, Christopher, 15, 26, 40, 42, 43 Baptist Church, 323, 327, 329n5 Barber, Marylin, 21 Barrymore, Ethel, 49n25 Battle of Beaver Dams, 116n24, 117nn27–8, 117n30, 120n57, 121n68, 121n73, 123n86, 123n90, 124n91 Battle of Copenhagen, 122nn78–9 Battle of Queenston Heights, 115n10, 117n28, 117n38, 118n42, 118n45, 122n81 Battle of Stoney Creek, 115n8, 115n12, 116n16, 117n27, 118n42 Battles of Saratoga, 119n48, 119nn53–4, 120n55 Beals, Helen, 325 bear’s grease, 208n Beauchamp, Helen, 220n16 Beautiful Plains (mb), 155n53 Beecher, Henry Ward, 28 Beer, Marjorie, 47n21 Belgium, 240nn14–16 Bell, Henry, 122n77 Bengough, John Wilson, 266 Benn, Carl, 121n68 Benson, Susan Porter, 353 Bentham, Jeremy, 155n57, 182 Bernhardt, Sarah, 29, 31 Beynon, Francis Marion, 16, 50n74, 132n5, 158 “Big Knives” (“Long Knives”), 121n69 Bijou Theatre (Winnipeg), 37, 42, 125 Bisshopp, Cecil, 117n30, 118n42 Blackall, Clarence, 39 blackface, 185 “Bloody Boys” (“Irish Greens”) company, 121n73 Boch, Christian, 355n1, 359n50 Boerstler, Lieutenant Colonel, 116n23, 117n26 Boer War, 269n9 Booth, Michael, 28, 31–2 Borden, Robert, 23, 267 “Boston States,” 324, 329n9 Bourassa, Henri, 217, 246 Boutwell, George H., 286, 292n2, 293nn3–4 Boutwell, Julia, 286, 293n4 Bowbeer, C., 149n2 Braham, John: “The King: God Bless Him” (song), 120n58

Bremner, Blanche Irbé: background and family, 286–7, 289, 292n2, 293nn3–4, 294n18, 294n20; Christianity and, 290, 295n30; end of life, 289–90, 294n25, 295nn26–7; lack of acquaintances with other women writers, 17; musical career, 287–8, 289, 291, 293nn7–8, 293n13, 294n22; photographs, 287, 288, 293n11; playwright career, 289, 290, 295n29; poetry by, 290, 295n28; plays by: The Nurse, 25, 290; The Search Light, 290. See also My Soul-Mate (Bremner) Bremner, Edwin Parker, 289, 294nn19–20, 294n23 Bright, Jacob, 153n35 Britain, 39, 47n13, 153n34, 153n36, 270n British Columbia, 132n8, 290–1 Britishness, 15, 21–3, 55. See also nationbuilding Broadfoot, S. Rupert, 187n1 Brock, Isaac, 115n11, 117n28, 117n38, 118n44 Brooklyn Eagle (newspaper), 242 Broun, Cobrun, 243, 250n14 Brown, A., 149n2 Brown, George, 283n1 Brownlee, Louisa Alberta Griffin, 8 Brudenell, Edward, 120n56 Budnick, Carol, 31, 38 Burgoyne, John, 119nn52–4 Burkholder, Mabel Grace, 47n21 Burlington Heights (Hamilton), 116nn15–16, 118n42 Burnham, Clara Louise, 8 Callaghan, Francis, 47n21 Campbell, F.R. (possibly Mrs S. Campbell), 149n2 Campbell, Helen G., 47n21 Campbell, Wilfred, 8 Canada: citizenship, 50n76; First World War and, 246, 284n6; immigration policy, 285n12; Jack ( Johnny) Canuck character, 269n23, 284n3; Miss Canada character, 266–7, 269n18, 269n22, 284n3; population, 49n41 The Canada Citizen (newspaper), 56, 57 Canadian Authors Association, 16, 181, 326, 351

Index

Canadian Historical Scenes (pageant), 36 Canadian Monthly and National Review, 23 Canadian Suffrage Association, 20, 57 Canadian Territorial Exhibition (Regina), 156, 163n2 Canadian Women’s Historical Society, 16, 60 Canadian Women’s Press Club, 16, 17, 42, 132n5, 155n52, 158, 351 Canadian women’s theatre, early: approach to, 6–7, 14, 45–6; acquaintances between playwrights, 15–17; audiences and social contexts, 41–2; Britishness and, 15, 21–3, 55; canonization and, 7–9, 11; changes within, 14–15; as civic participation, 42–3; comedies, 43–5; concerns addressed by, 4–5, 6–7, 8–11, 15; context and dating of, 11–12; as counterpublic, 6, 15, 26, 40–6; diversity and representation, 8; Hart House Theatre and, 14; imperialism and, 21–2; little theatre (la petite scène), 12; playwrights, 43, 46n1; racism in, 44–5; realism, 12, 14, 246; recovery of, 11, 47n13; venues, 42; whiteness and, 22–3, 266–7. See also theatre canonization, 7–9, 11 Careless, J.M.S., 29 Carter, Betty-Lee, 242, 244 Carter-Broun, Louise: acting and movie career, 242–3, 245, 249n5, 250n18; background, 242, 248n2; death, 245, 249n8; as feminist icon, 248; Haswell and, 243–4, 249n9; lack of acquaintances with other women writers, 17; photographs, 13, 243, 247; playwriting, 43, 243, 244, 245; plays by: The Awakening, 245; Bedfellows, 244; Chérie, 245; Clouds, 244; The Joy of Living, 244; Teddy’s Marriage, 245. See also The Soldiers (Broun) Catholic School Journal, 215 Cavendish School, 159 Chamberlain, A., 149n2 Charlesworth, Hector, 12, 47n16 Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz (queen of England), 123n84 Chekhov, Anton, 47n19 Chinese people, 45, 55n180, 219 Chlapowski, Helena Modjeska, 31

397

Chop Suey Circuit (chop suey girls), 321nn7–8 Christianity: Acadia (Ingraham) and, 327–8; Anderson’s comedies and, 182–4; Bremner and, 290, 295n30; female religious orders, 214, 220n4; feminist concerns and, 19, 182; Forward Movement, 364n; God, 346n4; Jesus Christ, 117n32, 154n43, 240nn12–13; “Kyrie Eleison,” 348n9; public-private spheres and, 20; racism and, 20, 23, 219; social gospel, 21, 179, 182–4; theatre and, 28–9, 51n111, 182, 215 citizenship, Canadian, 50n76 civic participation, 42–3, 130–1 Clark, Thomas, 123n90 class, 29–32, 39, 40 Clay, Lilly, 29 closet dramas, 58. See also Laura Secord: The Heroine of 1812 (Curzon) clothing: for women, 151n12; for young boys, 178n1 Clyma, Caroline Hane, 262 coal oil (kerosene), 208n Coffin, John, 120n60 Coffin, W.F.: 1812: The War and Its Moral, 57–8, 115n6, 115n12, 116n24, 121n65 Cohan, George M.: “Over There” (song), 239n6 Coleridge, Samuel Taylor, 182 colonialism. See nation-building comedies, 43–5, 55n174. See also musical comedy commercial plays, 348, 352, 353, 358n41, 359n50. See also A Demonstration in Scientific Salesmanship (Macbeth) conavacco, 126 Cook. C., 149n2 counterpublic, early Canadian women’s theatre as, 6, 15, 26, 40–6 Cowan, Amelia M. (Kent), 149n2 Cowley, R.H., 264 Cramp, John Mockett, 346n2 Crawley, Edmund A., 346n2 Crerar, Caroline, 49n27 Crooke’s tube, 151n16 Crossley, Hugh Thomas, 28, 50n103 Cull, Ann, 8

398

Index

Cummings, James, 123n85 Cupido, Robert, 35 curfew ordinance, 127, 152n21 Curzon, Sarah Ann: background and family life, 55–6, 61n2; commemorative strategies for Secord, 58, 61n11; employment, 56; feminism and women’s organizations, 15–16, 57, 58; photographs, 10, 56; The Sweet Girl Graduate, 24–5, 55, 57, 60, 269n17, 327; in Toronto Women’s Literary Club, 55. See also Laura Secord: The Heroine of 1812 (Curzon) Cushing, Eliza Lanesford, 14, 49n28; The Fatal Ring, 14, 61n1 Cushman, Charlotte, 31 Cutten, George Barton, 325, 348n6 Danks, H.P.: “Silver Threads among the Gold” (song), 210n, 300n, 321n3 Davidoff, Leonore, 26 Davin, Henry Arthur, 158, 163n9 Davin, Nicholas Flood, 157–8, 159, 160, 163n12 Davin Report, 163n12 Davis, Tracy C., 7 Day, Moira, 14 Dearborn, Henry, 116n22, 117n29 Decau’s house, 117n26, 121n72 DeForest, Hannah (Widow Stephen), 118n40 De Haren, Major, 117n30, 123n86 de la Roche, Mazo, 14; Come True, 14; Low Life, 14; The Return of the Emigrant, 14; White Oaks, 14, 49n25 democracy, promotion of, 130–1 A Demonstration in Scientific Salesmanship (Macbeth), 10, 348, 353–5, 354, 359n56; playtext, 361–5. See also Macbeth, Madge Hamilton Lyons Dennée, Charles: “Sleep, Little Baby of Mine” (song), 261n6 Dennis, James, 117n38 department stores, 348, 351–3, 356n2, 358n39, 358n48, 359n49, 360n61 Dixon, Frederick Augustus, 8, 32, 52n132 Dolsen, Mrs, 127, 152n24 domestic abuse, 354–5

domestic (maternal) feminism: about, 21, 24, 50n81; Christianity and, 182; Curzon and, 58; department stores and, 352; vs equality feminism, 127, 132n6; Groves and, 262; The Mock Parliament and, 127, 132n6; The Red Cross Helpers (Sister Mary Agnes) and, 218 Dominion Drama Festival, 12 Dominion Women’s Enfranchisement Association, 15–16, 20, 57, 125, 129, 150nn3–4 Donalda, Pauline Lightstone, 291 Donkin, Ellen, 7 “Don Quixote” expression, 322n13 Dower Act (dower rights), 127, 154n47. See also inheritance laws Drew, Louise Lane, 31 drills, 239n2, 265, 283n2 Dufferin and Ava, Fredrick HamiltonTemple-Blackwood, 1st Marquess of, 32 Dufferin and Ava, Hariot Georgina HamiltonTemple-Blackwood, Marchioness of, 32, 33, 34, 43, 52n131, 52n133 Dufferin and Ava, Terence HamiltonTemple-Blackwood, 2nd Marquess of, 35 “The Duke of York’s March” (song), 120n58 Dunn, Violet, 245 Earl Grey competitions, 47n20 Edgar, Mary Susanne, 47n21 Edith L. Groves School for Adolescent Girls, 264, 265 Edmonton (ab), 48n22 education, 25, 261n4, 263–5 Edwards, Mae, 31, 51n120 Eldridge, H.C.: “America, My Homeland” (song), 241n20; “Just a Bit of Cloth but It’s Red, White and Blue” (song), 241n22 employment, by married women, 151n13, 151n17, 263 England. See Britain equality feminism, 24, 127, 132n6 Evans, Chad, 30, 39, 52n114 Evans, Thomas, 118n42 Factory Theatre Lab (Toronto), 220n17 Fader, Catherine, 47n21

Index

Faircloth, L.S., 149n2 fairy stories, 162, 164n26 Fawcett, Allan: Betsy Manners, 249n11 Federated Women’s Institutes, 20 feminism. See domestic (maternal) feminism; equality feminism Filewod, Alan, 12, 60 Finland, 141, 153n37 First World War: Belgium in, 240nn14–16; Canada and, 246, 284n6; children’s education during, 261n4; impact on theatre, 12; medical care, 239n8; Military Voters Act, 23; Red Cross and, 239n5, 239n7; Thus Spoke Zarathustra (Nietzsche) and, 241n21; Uncle Sam character and, 240n17. See also The Red Cross Helpers (Sister Mary Agnes); The Soldiers (CarterBroun); The Wooing of Miss Canada (Groves) Fisher, Susan, 265, 283n2 FitzGibbon, James, 16, 117n27, 121n68, 121n73, 123n89, 124n91, 124n93 Fitzgibbon, Mary Agnes, 16 flag drills, 239n2. See also drills Flagg, James Montgomery, 240n17 Flora (Roman fertility goddess), 120n63 Forbes-Robertson Amateurs, 48n22 Forepaugh, Adam, 321n9 Forestell, Nancy M., 22 Forester, M.C., 149n2 Forward Movement, 364n Fort Erie, 116n15, 118n42 Fort George, 115n10, 116n13, 117n26 Fort Ticonderoga, 119n52 Forty-First Regiment of Foot, 118n46, 121n64 Forty-Ninth Princess Charlotte of Wales Hertfordshire Regiment of Foot, 115n11, 116n16, 121n68, 121nn72–3 Foulkes, Richard, 182 Freiman, A.J., 352, 354, 359n50 Freiman’s Department Store (Ottawa), 353 Fröbel, Friedrich, 264 Gaiety Company, 29 Garcia, Manuel, 291 Garnier, John Hutchinson: Prince Pedro: A Tragedy, 61n13 Gates, Horatio, 120n55

399

Gauthier, Eva, 291 gender. See public-private spheres; women Germany and Germans, 219, 221n23, 240n10, 240n19, 267, 285n8 Gerson, Carole, 7, 23 Gilbert and Sullivan, 292 Gillis, Annie, 47n21 Girl Scouts, 240n18 Girl’s Friendly Society, 24 Glassberg, David, 265, 269n15 Glenn, Susan A., 247–8 Globe and Mail (newspaper), 244, 245–6 Glynn-Ward, Hilda, 47n21 God, 346n4. See also Jesus Christ Gordon, Eleanor, 24 Gordon, Ishbel Maria, Marchioness of Aberdeen and Temair: as liberal reformer, 33–4, 52n137; Macbeth and, 52n135, 351; pageants produced by, 33, 34–7; pictures of, 36, 38; support for theatre, 17, 32–3, 34, 43 Gotham Stock Company, 242–3 Gowan, Elsie Park, 14 Grain Growers’ Association, 132n5 Grannan, Mary E., 47n21 Grayson, Ethel Kirk, 47n21 Great Britain. See Britain “Great Scott” expression, 322n11 Gregg, Audrey, 47n21 Grip (magazine), 266, 269n17, 284n3 Groves, Edith Lelean: acquaintances with other women writers, 16–17; background, 262–3, 268n2; career in education, 25, 263–5, 269n6; photograph, 263; playwright career, 239n2, 265, 269n9, 283n2; social context, 42; venues for plays, 42; plays: Canada Calls, 266; How the Fairies Chose Their Queen, 265. See also The Wooing of Miss Canada (Groves) Groves, William E., 263 Habermas, Jürgen, 18 Hagan, Anna, 156 hair care, 208n Halifax (ns), 29, 51n107 Hall, Catherine, 26 Hamilton (on), 49n27, 360n58

400

Index

Hamilton (US Navy), 116n25 Hamilton, Cicely: How the Vote Was Won (with St John), 127, 132n9 Hammell, Agnes Agatha, 158, 163n9 Hammond, Percy, 244 Hanks, J.M.: The Fireworshippers (with Newcomb), 61n13 Harnage, Mrs, 119n50 Hart House Theatre (Toronto), 14, 49n27 Harvey, John, 115n8 Harvey, Ruth, 39 Haswell, Miss Percy, 243–4, 245, 248, 249nn9–10 Hayes, Kate Simpson: acquaintances with other women writers, 16, 17, 17; acting by, 31, 164n20; background and family, 156–8, 163nn8–9; feminist values and activities, 158–9; The Mock Parliament and, 132n5; photograph, 157; pseudonyms, 163n3; social context, 42; social purity and, 21, 159; venue for plays, 42; writing career, 158, 159–61, 163n7, 163n10, 164n18; plays: The Anvil, 159, 161; Cinderella or The Little Glass Slipper, 17, 156, 164n23; Divorce for $50.00, 160; A Domestic Disturbance, 160, 161; Duplicate Man (A Bargain Husband), 160; Midnight Express, 161; T’Other from Which, 160; The Writ, 164n22. See also Slumberland Shadows (Hayes) Hayes, Patrick, 156 Haynes, Elizabeth Sterling, 14 Henderson, G., 149n2 Hilborn, S., 149n2 Hill, Maria, 119n47 Hind, E. Cora, 16, 132n5, 152n24, 155n52, 155n58, 158 Historical Fancy Dress Ball (pageant), 36 Holland, Norah Mary, 47n21 Hoover, Herbert Clark, 321n6 Hopkins, Marion, 47n21 How the Vote Was Won (Hamilton and St John), 127, 132n9 Hughes, James L., 264 Ibsen, Henrik, 38, 47n19, 150n5; Doll’s House, 246 Iceland, 141, 153n37

Icelandic Women’s Suffrage Association, 132n5 Idaho Daily Statesman (newspaper), 288, 290, 293n11, 293n13, 295n28 immigrants and immigration policy, 20–1, 22, 55n180, 159, 285n12 Imperial Federationist League, 55 imperialism, 21–2. See also nation-building Imperial Order of the Daughters of the Empire (ioDe), 14, 20, 22, 50n64, 52n142 income, for women, 151n15 Indigenous peoples, 20, 47n14, 121n68, 124n91, 163n12, 290 Ingraham, Joseph A., 324 Ingraham, Mary Tryphosa Kinley, 323–7; background, 323–5, 328n1, 329n4; in Canadian Authors Association, 16, 326; Christian convictions, 29; library career, 325–6, 329n18; photographs, 324, 326; Ruth, 327; writing career, 326–7, 329n23. See also Acadia (Ingraham) inheritance laws, 153n26. See also Dower Act (dower rights) International Council of Women, 33 An Interrupted Divorce (play), 249n11 “Irish Greens” (“Bloody Boys”) company, 121n73 Isle of Man, 153n30 Ives, Edward, 213, 214 Ives, Elizabeth Hall, 213, 214 Ives, Mary Agnes. See Mary Agnes, Sister Jack ( Johnny) Canuck character, 269n23, 284n3. See also The Wooing of Miss Canada (Groves) Jamieson, Mrs Rev. W.N., 152n24 Janauschek, Fanny, 31 Japan, 284n5 Jarvis, George Stephen Benjamin, 123n83, 123n89 Jarvis, Marjorie Mountain, 47n21 Jesus Christ, 117n32, 154n43, 240nn12–13 Joan D’Arc ( Jeanne D’Arc), 247, 260n2 Joffre, Joseph-Jacques Césaire, 261n3 The Joggsville Convention (Anderson), 4, 5, 10–11, 179, 184–6; playtext, 188–212. See also Anderson, Clara Rothwell

Index

John Bull character, 270n Johnny Canuck. See Jack Canuck character Johnson, Pauline, 17, 34, 37, 52n138 Jones, Heather, 246 Jones, J.E., 47n21 “Just a Bit of Cloth but It’s Red, White and Blue” (song), 241n22 Karsh, Yousef, 351 Keene, Laura, 31 Kelly, P.L., 357n15 kerosene (coal oil), 208n Kerr, William Johnson, 121n66 Kesteloot, Chantal, 240n14 Kinahan, Anne-Marie, 20 “The King: God Bless Him” (song), 120n58 Kingsley, Charles, 182; Hypatia, 114n2 “The Kings Own” (Eighth Regiment), 115n10 Kinley, Elizabeth (née Wilkinson), 323 Kinley, James Francis, 328n1 Kinley, Robert Bruce, 323, 328n3 Kirby, William, 61n2 Kofoed, Louise Gwendolyn, 287, 288, 289, 291, 294n18 Kofoed, Perry Christian, 287, 293n6, 294n18 “Kyrie Eleison,” 348n9 Landow, George P., 7–8 Lang, Andrew, 164n26 Langtry, Lillie, 31 Laura Secord: The Heroine of 1812 (Curzon): about, 55, 60; British patriotic songs, 120n58; characters, 115n5; as closet drama, 58; comparison to The Soldiers (Carter-Broun), 248; cow and milk bucket anecdote, 117n35; feminist concerns of, 9–10, 26, 58, 60, 115n4; footnotes, 114n3; historical sources, 57–8, 115n6; impact of, 57, 58, 60, 61n8; imperialism in, 22; page from original manuscript, 59; playtext, 62–114; racism in, 45, 60; on slavery, 116n21; wildlife and nature in, 120nn61–2; woman tavern-keeper anecdote, 123n89. See also Curzon, Sarah Ann Laurier, Wilfrid, 22, 268, 285n11 Lelean, Nicholas, 262

4 01

Lewis, Jeffreys, 31 Licensing Act (1737), 30 Lincoln, Abraham, 154n46, 155n49 Linton, Elizabeth (Eliza) Lynn, 154n48 little theatre (la petite scène), 12 Local Councils of Women, 20 Locke, Robinson, 249n5 Lockhart, Grace Annie, 329n26 Loew, Marcus, 39 London dock strike (1889), 155n58 “Long Knives” (“Big Knives”), 121n69 Loring, Frances, 266 Lossing, Benson J., 115n6 Low, Julliette Gordon, 240n18 Lowell, James Russell: “The Present Crisis,” 155n61 Lowery, R.T., 51n114 Lyons, Hymen Hart, 348 Maber, Gladys, 218 Macbeth, Charles William, 350, 351 Macbeth, John Douglas, 350, 357n19 Macbeth, Madge Hamilton Lyons: acquaintances with other women writers, 16, 181, 357n22; background, 348–51, 356nn4–5, 356nn11–12, 358n34; in Canada, 52n135, 350–1, 357n15, 357nn21–2; commercial plays, 352, 353, 355n1, 358n41, 359n50; non-commercial plays, 355n1; Ottawa Drama League and, 48n22; photographs, 349, 350; professional and writing life, 351, 357nn30–1, 358n33; pseudonyms, 357n13; on woman’s virtue, 28; plays: The Model Wife Shop, 355n1; Paris under Ottawa Skies, 355n1; The Romance of the Sweat Shop Model, 355n1; When a Man Buys Gloves, 355n1. See also A Demonstration in Scientific Salesmanship (Macbeth) MacCabe, Zoa J., 47n21 McCarthy, Doris, 47n21 McCarthy, Justin H.: An Outline of Irish History, 114n1 McClelland, Goodchild & Stewart (publisher), 265, 269n10, 283n McClintock, Anne, 266 McClung, Florence, 132n5 McClung, J.A., 152n24

402

Index

McClung, Nellie: acquaintances with women writers, 16, 158; in The Mock Parliament, 129, 130, 131n3, 132n5, 132n14, 151n14; photograph, 130; on women’s organizations, 21 MacDonald, John A., 163n12, 283n1 McDonell, M., 149n2 MacDonnel, Ann Botham (Lee), 8 Macdonnell, John, 117n38 McDonnell, Mary, 126 MacDougall, James Brown: Miss Canada’s Reception, 283n MacGill, Helen, 16, 132n5 MacGregory, Mary Esther (Marion Keith), 181 McIlwraith, Jean Newton, 8 MacKay, Christina, 187n5 MacKay, Isabel Ecclestone, 14, 187n3 McKay, Thomas, 187n4 MacKay Presbyterian Church (Ottawa), 18, 42, 180–1, 187n1, 187nn3–5, 187n9 MacKenzie, John, 35 MacMurchy, Helen, 16–17, 268n2, 357n22 McPherson, Kathryn, 25 Madison, James, Jr, 117n36 Mae Edwards Players, 51n120 Maffit, Ann Elizabeth (Bessie), 348 Mair, Charles, 8 Majestic Theatre (Toronto), 40 Manitoba, 155n62 Manitoba Equal Suffrage Club, 155n52 Manitoba Free Press (Manitoba Daily Free Press), 30, 129, 130, 131n2, 155n52 Manitoba Political Equality League, 20, 129, 132n5, 155n52 “The Maple Leaf Forever” (song), 282n Margaret Eaton School of Literature and Expression, 13 Marie Antoinette (queen of France), 285n7 Marriage Act (1753), 284n4 Marseillaise hymn, 279n Mary Agnes, Sister: background, 213, 220n2; lack of acquaintances with other women writers, 17; pageants and, 241n23; photograph, 214; playwriting, 215–17, 220n14, 220n16, 221n19, 239n9; religious and professional life, 29, 213–15; social context, 42; venue for plays, 42; plays:

A Day with Pegg y, 216, 220n17; Dialogues, 216; Mary Magdalen, 216, 217, 218, 220n18; A Patriot’s Daughter, 116n19. See also The Red Cross Helpers (Sister Mary Agnes) Mason, Marjorie H., 47n21 Mason, W., 149n2 Massey, Vincent, 14 maternal feminism. See domestic feminism Mazzini, Giuseppe, 155n59 melodrama, 30, 51n113, 246 Melville Church Group: Aunt Susan Tibbs of Pepper’s Corner, 185 Mennonites, 155n56 Mercer prison. See Andrew Mercer Ontario Reformatory for Females Merrit, Catherine Nina, 8, 47n20; Charles Mair’s Tecumseh, 58; When George the Third Was King, 58 Merry, Anne Brunton, 31 Military Voters Act (1917), 23 Mill, John Stuart, 153n35 Miss Canada character, 266–7, 269n18, 269n22, 284n3. See also The Wooing of Miss Canada (Groves) Mitchell, Roy, 14 The Mock Parliament: about, 125, 131; 1893 Winnipeg performance, 125, 126, 129–30, 131nn2–3, 149n1, 152n23–4; 1896 Toronto performance, 125, 126, 127, 149nn1–2, 150nn8–9, 152n22, 269n14; 1911 Vancouver performance, 127, 132nn5–6; 1914 Winnipeg performance, 127, 130, 132nn5–6, 151n14; as conavacco, 126; concerns addressed by, 9, 127, 132n8, 151nn11–15, 151n17, 151n19, 152nn21–2, 153n26; costumes and stage props, 131n3; democracy, promotion among women, 130–1; equality vs maternal feminism in, 127, 132n6; high-profile suffrage participants, 126, 131n4, 149n2, 150n9, 158; impact on suffrage efforts, 127, 129; media coverage, 129–30; missing dialogue, 150n5; playbills, 16, 128; playtext, 134–49; repeated lines and directions, 151n10; social context, 42; sources for text, 125, 149n1; support from women’s organizations, 16, 150n3; venues, 9, 42

Index

modernism, 12. See also realism Monod, David, 28 Montreal Community Players, 49n27 Moore, Dora Mavor, 47n20 morality, 27–9, 50n103, 51n107, 321n2 Morawski, Ivan, 291 Morgan, Fidelis: The Years Between, 7 Morgan, Henry James, 58 Morning Olympian (newspaper), 287, 293n7 Morning Oregonian (newspaper), 288, 289, 293n13 Morris, Clara, 31 Mosier, George (character), 118n41 Mowat, Oliver, 150n7 Moynagh, Maureen, 22 Mrs Grundy character, 321n4 Muir, Alexander: “The Maple Leaf Forever” (song), 282n Municipal Franchise Act (1869), 153n34, 153n36 Murphy, Emily, 16, 158 Murray, Louisa, 57 musical comedy, 291–2 My Soul-Mate (Bremner), 10, 286, 291–2, 321n10; playtext, 297–321. See also Bremner, Blanche Irbé Nair, Gwyneth, 24 Nast, Thomas, 240n17 National Council of Women of Canada (nCwC), 17, 20, 24, 33, 42, 49n52, 158, 351 nation-building: Britishness, 15, 21–3, 55; imperialism and, 21–2; pageants and, 34–7, 265–6; patriotic societies and, 240n11; whiteness and, 22–3, 266–7 nativism, 20–1, 152n25, 159, 268 Neilson, Carmen J., 269n18 Nelson, Horatio, 1st Viscount, 122nn78–9 New Adamless Eve (play), 29 Newcomb, C.F.: The Fireworshippers (with Hanks), 61n13 New Jersey, 153n33 New York Star (newspaper), 243 New York Times (newspaper), 244 New York Tribune (newspaper), 244 Niagara-on-the-Lake, 117n33

403

Nietzsche, Friedrich: Thus Spoke Zarathustra, 241n21 “Nine Tailors Make a Man” (sartorial adage), 120n57 Noonan, James, 34 North West Mounted Police barracks (Regina), 160, 160 Norton, John, 124n91 Novar, Helen (Nellie) Munro-Ferguson, Viscountess of, 35 Noxon, A. (Brant), 149n2 nursing profession, 25 opera, 30 operetta, 30, 292 Orr, W.H., 149n2 Osborn, Lynn, 245; Such Things Have Happened, 249n11 Osborn, Marian, 14 Ottawa Citizen (newspaper), 354, 359n56 Ottawa Drama League, 48n22, 52n135, 351 Ottawa Free Press (newspaper), 158 Ottawa Journal (newspaper), 354 Ottawa Women’s Canadian Club, 353–4, 359n55 “Over There” (song), 239n6 “over there” phrase, 321n5 pageants, 34–7, 52n142, 241n23, 265–6, 269n15 Parker, Hyde, 122n79 Parkhurst, E.R., 51n113 Pateman, Carole, 17 Patrick (saint), 322n12 patriotic societies, 240n11 pearls, 240n12 Perrigard, Pauline Bradley, 14 Pickles, Katie, 20, 22, 35 Pickthall, Marjorie: The Woodcarver’s Wife, 49n27 Players’ Guild of Hamilton, 49n27 Polish and Jewish Relief Fund, 352, 359n50 Polk, Daisy, 291, 296n42 Potter, Ida Elizabeth, 47n21 Pranishnikoff, I.J.: Setting the Task, 266 Primrose League, 154n45 Princess Opera House (Winnipeg), 40

404

Index

Procter, Henry, 118n43 Proudfoot, Lucy South, 47n21 Pryor, John, 346n2 public history, 58, 266 publicity, 26–8, 40 public-private, The Mock Parliament: publicprivate spheres and, 24 public-private spheres, 17–26; about, 17–19; Christianity and, 20; contradictions and cross-cutting discourses, 23–6; imperialism and, 21–2; nativist attitudes and, 20–1; pageants and, 34–7; professional legitimacy and, 25; publicity of theatre and, 26–8, 40; war discourses and, 26; whiteness and, 22–3; and women’s organizations and movements, 19–20, 26 Puchner, Martin, 26–7 Puck, 162, 178n2 Quaker character, 115n7, 116n17 Quebec, 29, 47n14, 217 race and racism: criticism of, 50n74; in immigration policy, 55n180, 285n12; in Laura Secord (Curzon), 45, 60; nativism, 20–1, 152n25, 159, 268; in The Red Cross Helpers (Sister Mary Agnes), 45, 219; in theatre, 44–5; war and, 117n37; whiteness, 22–3, 266–7; in The Wooing of Miss Canada (Groves), 45, 284n5 Radmacher, Kimberley, 14, 61n1 railway scandals, 151n11 Rainsford, W.S., 29 realism, 12, 14, 246 Red Cross, 218, 221n20, 239n5, 239n7 The Red Cross Helpers (Sister Mary Agnes), 10, 26, 45, 213, 217–19, 239n1, 239nn3–4; playtext, 222–38. See also Mary Agnes, Sister Red Ensign (flag), 79n Redmond, M.A., 149n2 Redpath, John, 187n4 Reese-Burns, Ethel, 48n22 Reeves, Fanny, 31 Reform Act (1832), 18 Regina Council of Women, 17, 164n23

Regina Town Hall, 42 Reinhardt, Richard, 288 Reynell, Mrs, 119n50 Rideau Hall, 32, 33, 34, 34 Riedesel, Baroness von, 57, 119n48 Right House (Hamilton), 360n58 Riverside Daily Press, 290 Roblin, Rodmond, 129 Roddick, Amy Redpath, 8, 47n21, 187n4 Rose, J.M., 149n2 Ross, Dorothea Lucile, 47n21 Rostance, Mrs A.J., 47n21 Rothwell, Benjamin, 179 Rotopschin, Fyodor Vasilyevich, 122n74 Rough Rider hat, 270n Royal Alexandra Theatre (Toronto), 41, 243–4, 249n10 Royal Commission on Chinese Immigration, 55n180 Ruskin, John, 154n42 Rutherford, Annie O., 126, 149n2, 150n9 Sabiston, Elizabeth, 15 Saddlemyer, Ann, 7, 27, 45 St Croix Courier (newspaper), 163n3, 163n7 St David’s Mill, 118n39 St John (nb), 29 St John, Christopher: How the Vote Was Won (with Hamilton), 127, 132n9 St Mary’s Academy for Girls (Winnipeg), 214–15, 216, 220n8, 239n7, 239n9 St Mary’s College (Winnipeg), 215, 220n9 Salter, Denis, 15 Sandiford, Betti Primrose, 47n21 Sandman character, 165n Sandwell, Bernard, 12, 47n16 Savigny, Spence S.F., 149n2 Sawyer, Artemus, 346n3 schools. See education scientific salesmanship, 352–3, 359n50 Scott, Walter, 322n11 Scott-Siddons, Mary Frances, 31 Scullion, Adrienne, 47n13 Seattle Daily Times (newspaper), 286, 287, 293n4 Seattle Mail & Herald (newspaper), 287–8, 288 Secord, James, 116n18, 116n24, 118n45, 121n65

Index

Secord, Laura, 118n45. See also Laura Secord: The Heroine of 1812 (Curzon) Secord, Stephen and David, 118n39 secularization, 182–3, 184 sexuality, 28–9, 30 Seymour, Frederick, 242, 249n3 Seymour, Philomine, 242, 248n1 Shafer, Yvonne, 47n13 Shakespeare, William, 162, 164n26 Shand, Beatrice, 47n21 Sharman, Abbie Lyon, 47n21 Shaw, Beatrice M. Hay, 47n21 Shaw, Bernard, 47n19, 150n5 Sheaffe, Roger Hale, 115n10, 118n42 Shea’s Hippodrome (Toronto), 39 Shirley, Louise P., 292n2 Shome, Raka, 22 “Silver Threads among the Gold” (song), 210n, 300n, 321n3 Simon Fraser University Digitalized Collections: “Canada’s Early Women Writers,” 7 Simpson, Anna W. Elaine (“Bonnie”), 157 Simpson, Burke Hayes, 157 Simpson, Charles Bowman, 156–7, 163n8 Sinclair, Catherine, 31 Sisters of the Holy Names of Jesus and Mary, 213–14 Skene, Reg, 38, 53n150 Skinner, Constance Lindsay, 8, 43, 55n172; The Birthright, 55n172 slavery, 116n21 “Sleep, Little Baby of Mine” (song), 261n6 Slumberland Shadows (Hayes), 10, 21, 45, 156, 161–2, 163n4; playtext, 165–78. See also Hayes, Kate Simpson Smith, Alice Maude, 8 Smith, Charlie T., 51n120 social gospel, 21, 179, 182–4 social purity, 21, 156, 159, 162 The Soldiers (Carter-Broun), 10, 12, 26, 242, 244, 245–8, 249nn11–12; playtext, 251–60. See also Carter-Broun, Louise soubrette (character type), 31 Spence, Mrs F.S., 131n4 Sperdakos, Paula, 12, 31, 47n20 Stanton, Elizabeth Cady, 352 Starr, Helen, 327

405

Sternberg, Amy, 52n142 Stevens, Hattie, 131n4, 149n2 Stone, Lucy, 153n32 Stoney Creek, 116n15. See also Battle of Stoney Creek Stowe, Emily Howard, 55, 126, 126, 150n4 Stowe, Harriet Beecher, 154n46 Stowe-Gullen, Augusta, 126, 126 Strachan, Dr, 121n64 Straznicky, Marta, 58 Strindberg, August, 47n19 Strong-Boag, Veronica, 7, 23, 27, 34 suffrage: arguments against, 154nn38–9; Biblical support for, 155n60; in Britain, 153n34, 153n36; Curzon and, 57; Davin and, 163n12; deceased voters on electoral lists and, 151n14; in Finland, 153n37; in Iceland, 153n37; in Isle of Man, 153n30; in Manitoba, 155n62; Mazzini and, 155n59; The Mock Parliament and, 9, 127, 129; nativism and, 152n25; in New Jersey, 153n33; taxation argument for, 153n31; in Toronto, 150n6; whiteness and, 23; in Wyoming, 154n40. See also The Mock Parliament Szakolczai, Arpad, 44 Tavernier Company, 51n120 teaching profession, 25. See also education Tecumseh, 121n70 Tengmalm’s owl (“death-bird”), 121n67 Terry, Ellen, 31 theatre: architecture for, 39–40, 53n163; Christianity and, 28–9, 51n111, 182, 215; class and, 29–32, 39, 40; closet dramas, 58; comedies, 43–5, 55n174; commercial plays, 348, 352, 353, 358n41, 359n50; drills, 239n2, 265, 283n2; immoral reputation of, 27–9, 50n103, 51n107, 321n2; Lady Aberdeen, promotion by, 33–4; Lady Dufferin, promotion by, 32–3; melodramas, 30, 51n113, 246; pageants, 34–7, 52n142, 241n23, 265–6, 269n15; publicity of, 26–8, 40; realism, 12, 14, 246; recovery of women’s contributions, 11, 47n13; respectability among middle- and upper-class women, 30–2, 39; variety

406

theatres, 29–30; visiting troupes from abroad, 11–12, 290–1; in West, 30, 51n114. See also Canadian women’s theatre, early theatre art movement, 47n19 Thomas, Lillian Beynon, 16, 132n5, 158 Tiden, Fred, 245 tobacco, 152n20 Torgovnick, Mariana, 285n9 Toronto (on), 39, 150n6 Toronto Evening Star (newspaper), 129–30, 151n12 Toronto Public School Board, 126, 151nn12– 13, 151n17, 263–4, 265, 269n6 Toronto Telegraph (newspaper), 246 Toronto Women’s Literary Club, 20, 55, 150n4, 150n6 Toronto World (newspaper), 354 Town Topics (arts and society paper), 38, 53n150 Trades and Labor Council, 132n5 Tremayne, W.A., 8 Trotter, Thomas, 348n8 Tuscarora people, 121n71 übermensch, 241n21 Uncle Sam character, 240n17, 271n Unitarianism, 155n57 United Kingdom. See Britain United States of America, 28, 31, 43, 54n175, 240n17, 290–1. See also War of 1812 University College, 60 University of Toronto, 14, 56 Valverde, Marianne, 60 Vance, Jonathan, 42 Vance, Mrs A., 126, 149n2 Van Cortland, Ida, 31, 51n120 Vancouver (bC), 290–1 van Rensselaer, Solomon, 122n81 variety theatres, 29–30 venues, theatrical, 42 Vestris, Madame, 31 Viardat, Pauline, 291 Victoria (bC), 30, 48n22 Victoria (queen of England), 31–2 Victoria College Women’s Dramatic Club, 13, 14

Index

Victorian Era Ball (pageant), 36–7, 38, 53n148 Victorian Order of Nurses, 20, 33 Vincent, George Philips, 55 Vincent, John, 116n16 voting rights. See suffrage Wagner, Anton: Canada’s Lost Plays Volume Two: Women Pioneers, 7, 47n7 Wagner, Hazel Sheppard, 8 Walker, H. (Mrs George Walker), 149n2 Walker, Harriet (Hattie; aka Rosa Sub the Matinee Girl), 16, 37–9, 42, 53n150, 53n155, 132n5, 132n9 Walker, John Henry, 284n3 Walker, Ruth, 132n5 Walker Theatre (Winnipeg), 42 Wallace, William Ross: “What Rules the World,” 155n51 Walley, M. Grace, 47n21 war, and public-private spheres, 26 Ward, F.C. (Mrs Fred C.), 131n4, 149n2 Warner, Michael, 6, 19, 24, 26, 27 War of 1812: Americans, 116n13, 116nn22–3, 117n26, 117n36; Battle of Beaver Dams, 116n24, 117nn27–8, 117n30, 120n57, 121n68, 121n73, 123n86, 123n90, 124n91; Battle of Queenston Heights, 115n10, 117n28, 117n38, 118n42, 118n45, 122n81; Battle of Stoney Creek, 115n8, 115n12, 116n16, 117n27, 118n42; Battles of Saratoga, 119n48, 119nn53–4, 120n55; Decau’s house, 117n26, 121n72; FortyFirst Regiment of Foot, 118n46, 121n64; Forty-Ninth Princess Charlotte of Wales Hertfordshire Regiment of Foot, 115n11, 116n16, 121n68, 121nn72–3; “Irish Greens” (“Bloody Boys”) company, 121n73; Niagara Peninsula, strategic positions on, 116n15; St David’s Mill, 118n39; woman tavern-keeper anecdote, 123n89; “Yankee Doodle” (song), 120n59. See also Laura Secord: The Heroine of 1812 (Curzon) Wartime Elections Act (1917), 23 Watson, Eva, 183 Watson, Samuel James: Ravlan, 61n13 Wellington, Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of, 122n80

Index

West, theatre in, 30, 51n114 whiteness, 22–3, 266–7. See also nationbuilding; race and racism Whittaker, Robin, 14 Widow’s Mite, 219, 240n13 Wiggins, Lottie E., 131n4, 149n2 Wilhelm II (Kaiser of Germany), 240n19, 261n5 Williams, Frances Fenwick, 47n21 Williams, Minnie (Harvey), 47n21 Williams, Percy G., 242–3, 249n4 Winlow, Alice Maude (Dudley), 47n21 Winnipeg (mb), 30, 37, 40, 125 Winnipeg Free Press (newspaper), 158, 159 Winnipeg Operatic Society, 160 Winnipeg Telegram (newspaper), 130 Winter, Lieutenant, 116n25 Winter Garden (Toronto), 39, 53n163 Wolfville “English Club,” 325, 329n16 women: architecture and, 39–40, 53n163; Bible on, 346n5; class and theatre, 29–32, 39, 40; department stores and, 348, 351–3, 356n2, 358n39, 358n48, 359n49, 360n61; employment and married women, 151n13, 151n17, 263; equality feminism, 24, 127, 132n6; imperialism and, 21–2; income, 151n15; as maternal and moral, 358n46; nativism and, 20–1; organizations and movements, 11, 19–20, 21, 26, 187n20; pageants and, 34–7; as performers, 247–8; publicity of theatre and, 26–8, 40; publicprivate spheres and, 17–19; rescuing male family members from battlefield, 118n45; scientific salesmanship and, 352–3, 359n50; theatre participation among middle- and upper-class women, 30–2, 39;

407

theatre’s immoral reputation and, 28–9, 50n103, 51n107, 321n2; whiteness and, 22–3. See also Canadian women’s theatre, early; domestic (maternal) feminism; suffrage Women’s Canadian Historical Society of Toronto, 57 Women’s Christian Temperance Union (wCtu): central platform of, 153n28; curfew ordinance, 127, 152n21; Curzon in, 15, 57; establishment of, 20; The Mock Parliament and, 15–16, 42, 125, 126, 129, 132n5, 150n3; on social problems, 153n27; on theatre, 30; on tobacco, 152n20 Women’s Liberal Federation, 154n45 Wood, Vlatilda Vinev, 31 The Wooing of Miss Canada (Groves): about, 262, 268; concerns addressed by, 10, 26, 266, 267–8, 285n10; cover of, 267; imperialism and nationalism in, 22, 35; Jack Canuck character, 269n23, 284n3; Miss Canada character, 266–7, 269n18, 269n22, 284n3; playtext, 270–83; racism in, 45, 284n5. See also Groves, Edith Lelean World War I. See First World War Wrigley, G., 149n2 Wyoming, 154n40 “Yankee Doodle” (song), 120n59 Yeo, James Lucas, 116n14, 118n42 Yeomans, Amelia, 127, 152n24, 153n29 Youmans, Letitia, 131n4 Young Women’s Christian Association, 20, 24, 132n5 Zephyrus (Greek god), 120n63