Nelly McClung and Canadian Feminism
Nellie (Helen) Leticia Mooney McClung was born in 1873 near the town of Owen Sound, Ontario, Canada. In 1880 she moved along with her family to farm near Millford in the Tiger Hills southwest of Brandon , Manitoba (Hallett and Davis 34 û 36).
As a young girl, McClung was already a pioneer û an orientation that would shape and inform her entire life as a feminist, a political official, and an activist committed to the causes of feminine emancipation and equality and temperance (Hallett 230 û231). This brief report will describe McClungÆs contributions to the causes that she espoused and her place in Canadian history.
After the Mooney family moved to Manitoba, Nellie went to Winnipeg as a sixteen-year-old with only five years of formal education. There she studied at Normal School, becoming a school teacher (ôNellie McClungö 1). She then moved to Manitou, boarding with the family of the Reverend James and Annie McClung, whose son (Wes) she would marry. She is said to have been profoundly influenced by Annie McClung, who introduced her to the WomenÆs Christian temperance Union (WCTU) and may have been instrumental in opening the younger womanÆs eyes to the problems faced by women in the pioneer environment (ôNellie McClungö 1).
McClung enjoyed several distinct careers. Before World War I, she established herself as a popular author whose books celebrated rural life and the Western ideal of independence and the superiority of country over city life (ôNellie Leticia [Mooney] McClungö 1). Over time, she would combine authorship of fiction with essays and polemics on womenÆs rights and other issues, including temperance and the importance of living a moral and upright life. As a teacher and public speaker and author, McClung became politically involved in the life of her community and, later, of all Canada.
McClung was very much representative of the waves of reform...