1W1V Research
Political Pioneers: Women in Alberta Politics
Marjorie Scott
September 14, 2001
Background
As requested in the contract provided by the One Woman One Vote Committee, initial research
was undertaken on civic issues: e.g., crime, housing, poverty. After the focus of the project was changed to a salute to women in politics in Edmonton, I was directed to research historical information on former female city councilors. As with the provincial election, the time frame and limited access to research material required that restrictions be placed on the scope of the research.
As such, I chose to focus on three women who were pioneers in Edmonton, and, in one case, Alberta politics. Bessie Nichols was the first woman in Alberta to be elected to any political office, Izena Ross was the first female city councilor, and Margaret Crang was, and is, the youngest person ever elected to city council. By choosing these women, I also broadened the scope of the research to include not only city councilors, but also Edmonton Public School Board trustees. Some background information on the history of voting rights in Edmonton is also included to provide context.
Articles copied from subject files in the City of Edmonton archives are appended. As well, brief biographies on all women who have ever been elected to city council, and lists of candidates from the 1995 and 1998 civic elections.
Historical Context
- Between the years of 1883 and 1912, the only Edmontonians who could vote were those paying property taxes: Those qualified to vote were:
- . . . men, unmarried women and widows over twenty-one years of age who are assessed upon the last revised assessment roll of the municipality for income or personal property for $200 or upwards or who are named upon the said assessment roll as either occupants or owners of real property held in their own right or (in the case of married men) held by their wives for $200 or upward, and whose names appear in the voter's list founded upon such roll.
(North-West Territories Election Ordinance)
After Edmonton's incorporation in 1904, the tax requirement was lowered to $100.00. In 1912, municipal suffrage was extended to include men and women 21 years of age or older paying $50.00 or more yearly in municipal property taxes, and also "sons and daughters of such persons, if resident in the municipality." (Rek, p.11) By the end of the 19th century, most women in large Canadian citizens had the right to vote, with some restrictions such as property requirements.
The Municipal Election Act of 1970 defined a voter as any person at least 18 years old whose name appeared on the last revised assessment roll, or a person who was a Canadian citizen or British subject and who had resided continuously in the city for the year preceding election day.
In 1983, with the institution of the Local Authorities Election Act, British subjects who were not Canadian citizens could no longer vote municipally, and the property tax requirement was eliminated.
Until 1997, females elected to city council were referred to as Aldermen. On Monday, October 23 of that year, led by Michael Phair and Tooker Gomberg from War IV, members of council decided to move the to gender-neutral term "councillor". Council voted on the motion the following day, all councillors except Leroy Chahley, Terry Cavanagh and Robert Noce voting in favour of the change.
Pioneering Edmonton Women
- Bessie (B.H. Nichols)
Bessie Nichols was a reluctant trailblazer. The first woman in Alberta to run for public office, and the first to be elected, she had no thought of pursuing public office until the Local Council of Women approached Miss Nichols, then a law student, and asked her to run in the 1912 municipal election. She tried to decline, pleading ill health. "However", stated a report in the Edmonton Capital, "her supporters would have no such excuses and stated that it would not be at all necessary for her to take the stump, that if any stumping became necessary, they would see to it that plenty of speakers came forward to her cause". (Feb 3, 1912) Apparently, her popularity didn't end with women; the same article declared "political prognosticators say that she will run so fast that mere men politicians will seem to be going backwards".
In a pre-election speech, she asserted that she would "do [her] best to prove that a woman can show as much discretion, sympathy and executive ability as any man. (Edmonton Journal, February 17, 1962.)
She came second in the February 16 election, only to find that legally she couldn't sit as a trustee, as the city charter did not allow women to run for office. The Edmonton Journal's report on the dilemma contrived nicely to simultaneously support and demean Miss Nichols, stating in part that "[w]ith mayoral gallantry, Mayor Armstrong. . . and a great many others anxious to lay their velvet cloaks down in the melted snow, like modern Raleighs before a lady B.A., have requested Éthe legislature to correct the injustice done the women of the world, and more particularly of Edmonton, and to introduce the feminine gender into the city charter." (February 14, 1912).
The legislation was duly amended to allow for the election female school board members (but no other offices), and Miss Nichols took office, but her subsequent ill health led to her resignation in May 1913. However, her pioneering candidacy and election paved the way for other city women to become active players in the political process.
- Izena Ross
- In December 1921, Mrs. W. H. (Izena) Ross declared her candidacy for alderman in the civic election to be held that month. Her picture appeared in the Edmonton Bulletin alongside her announcement, which stated her platform: Mrs. Ross . . . will represent the Women of Edmonton in the Council, and special attention will be paid by her to all that pertains to the welfare and advancement of the women and children of the city." (December 10, 1921) The first female candidate for city council, she won election to a one-year term, almost immediately creating uncertainty and discomfort for the male members of council, not because of her political views, but because they were worried they might be unable to smoke in her presence:
- It was Mayor Duggan who undertook to sound out Mrs. Ross as to possible objections to smoking. With one of his best smiles the mayor fired the inquiry and drew the reply that no objections would be held. Once more had men's rights been preserved . . . Mrs. Ross expressed her appreciation of the welcome extended. She hoped that her presence would not prove an encumbrance or embarrassment to council members.
(Edmonton Journal, December 16, 1921)
- Unfortunately, though a innovator in one area, Izena Ross proved to be all too traditional in her views of women's role in society. In 1935, she was elected to the Edmonton Public School Board, a post she would hold for ten years. In 1943, Velva Hueston, a teacher with the public board, married during the school term, and did not resign, as married women, even those on continuous contract, were expected to do. (Only women who were the sole financial support of their families were exempted from this). The newlywed, now Velva Thompson, wrote a strong letter to the school board citing the fact that the provincial School Act did not allow for such discrimination between men and women. Mrs. Ross and some other members of the School Board, objected strenuously:
- Mrs. Ross considered that it may be that this decision now may react very unfavourably later on. When the status of men and women was declared equal by an Act of the Dominion Government the possibility of two salaries in the family was considered very unwise . . .At present the organizations dealing with juvenile delinquency feel that it is much wiser that women stay in the home and thus have better control over their families.
(A Century and Ten, M. A. Kostek, p.340)
Obviously, women who worked outside the home at the same time as their husbands were not only depriving deserving men of employment, but also contributing to the juvenile crime rate. (To be fair, this was not an uncommon point of view for the time; until the late 1950s, women working for the federal civil service were subject to marriage-related job restrictions). Members of the school board supporting this discrimination (including Mrs. Ross) fired off a letter to the Alberta government requesting that the act be amended to allow for termination of continuous contracts of female teachers who married. Luckily, the trustees' request was denied, and Mrs. Thompson continued to teach. In a 1999 article in the Edmonton Journal, writer Tom Barrett suggested that the small city park named for Mrs. Ross might instead honour Mrs. Thompson for her contribution to the lives of Alberta women. ("They ougttha name a park after you", Nov. 16, 1999)
- Mrs. Bryce J. (Esther) Saunders
Mrs. Saunders declared her candidacy for city council on December 4, 1923, the first female since Izena Ross to do so. The Edmonton Bulletin, who referred to her as "the woman candidate" reported that she believed she would "be able to give valuable service inasmuch as a woman's advice on matters pertaining to health and children and similar matters would not come amiss (December 5, 1923). A beneficiary of female political mentorship, she was nominated by her friend, public school trustee Mrs. E.T. Bishop. Mrs. Saunders enjoyed considerable support from the women of Edmonton who, she said, "felt that their entry into the public affairs of Alberta entitled them to be represented upon the city council of Edmonton. . . she asked for the support of all present toward the attainment of the objective the women of Edmonton had set." (Edmonton Bulletin, November 22, 1923) She also had some active male supporters, most notably her husband, Colonel Saunders, who helped recruit campaign volunteers.
Unfortunately, her campaign was not successful. Garnering only 380 votes, she came tenth in the aldermanic race at a time when only six positions were available. No woman would sit on city council until 1933.
- Margaret Crang
At the age of 23, the brilliant Margaret Crang was elected to city council, then and now the youngest person to have held that position. A self-declared "out-and-out socialist", by the time she commenced her campaign, she had already completed degrees in arts and law, as well as obtaining a teaching certificate. A well-rounded and vigorous individual, she had also excelled at sports while in high school and university, becoming captain of the U of A swim team for several years. The Edmonton Bulletin, also obviously impressed by Ms. Crang, stated, "At a time when every individual is putting all effort into making the world a little less difficult, there is every reason to believe that women, with their growing interest in public affairs, will take this opportunity to stand behind a brilliant young representative of their sex." (November 1, 1933)
Her election platform was humanitarian, focusing on Depression relief efforts, socialized medicine, public ownership of utilities and programs with fair wages to allow people to work "rather than to continue the demoralizing system of dole in its most aggravating form. " (Ibid) She won her seat handily, and was re-elected in 1935. In addition to her council duties, she was a national representative to the League against War and Fascism, a member of the Canadian Business and Professional Women's Club, and sat on the board of the Royal Alexandra Hospital.
A visit to Spain, however, proved her political undoing. While in Spain following her attendance at a world peace conference in Brussels, (she slipped into the country via a tunnel on the French border) she visited Madrid and the battlefronts of the Spanish Civil War. She expressed her support for Spain's anti-fascist forces, and even fired a gun in the general direction of the mountains in which the rebels were stationed. Prophetically, she declared that Spain is merely the front line trench of a fight which will occur all over the world between democracy and fascism" (Edmonton Journal, July 21, 1996). When she returned to Edmonton, she found that she had been roundly criticized in Canadian newspapers for "taking potshots" at rebel troops, supposedly in contradiction of her peaceful beliefs. She denied the charge, but it continued to haunt her, significantly hampering her chances in the three provincial government elections in which she subsequently ran, and lost. Dr. Walter Morrish, her opponent in the 1936 provincial election, said "a vote for Miss Crang will be a vote for the destructive element in this city." (The Strathconan, June 17, 1986).
Disillusioned with politics, she left politics working as a reporter at the Montreal Gazette until being diagnosed with Cushing's disease, a chronic disorder affecting the adrenal glands. She died in 1992.
Appendix A
Appendix B
Appendix C
|
contact us
