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The Valiant Nellie McClung

The Valiant Nellie McClung

Name: The Valiant Nellie McClung
Brand: Barbara Smith
SKU: 9781772031461
Price: 19.95 CAD
Availability: InStock

Selected Writings by Canada's Most Famous Suffragist

SKU: 9781772031461

Barbara Smith

$19.95

Paperback / softback Trade paperback (US)

Although her name today is synonymous with the women’s suffrage movement in Canada, Nellie McClung’s long and varied career covered several fields—from social activist to elected politician, from novelist to journalist. McClung was instrumental in Canadian women gaining the right to vote before their British and American counterparts—2016 marks the one-hundred-year anniversary of women’s suffrage in Manitoba, Alberta, Saskatchewan, and British Columbia. She was also one of the Famous Five who in 1929 successfully petitioned a change in the British North America Act to include women as "persons," thereby allowing them to serve in the Senate. McClung was a household name by the time she was elected to the Legislative Assembly of Alberta in 1921, a post she held for five years.

When she settled on Vancouver Island in 1932, McClung was a highly esteemed public figure who had not only changed Canada’s political landscape and influenced women’s rights worldwide but had also raised five children and written a dozen best-selling books. From her beloved Island home, Lantern Lane, McClung continued to speak out against social injustice and inequality. In the late 1930s, she began to write a syndicated weekly newspaper column that served as social commentary for the years leading up to World War II. The Valiant Nellie McClung highlights a selection of those columns—covering themes as grave as war, as fundamental as the strength of the family unit, and as whimsical as the pleasure of gardening—and offers a unique reflection of our country’s history and an uncanny resonance today.

The Valiant Nellie McClung brings some of [McClung's] most significant writing into the public eye once again. It’s about time.

- Dave Obee, Times Colonist

“This book, composed primarily of her writings as a daily columnist for the Victoria Daily TImes newspaper over several years, presents her thoughts, values, and perspectives on many different topics - many of which are as central today as they were during the early 20th century. … The 41 columns included offer her views on topics as diverse as neighbours and home, reading, 20th century current events, writers and writing, and equality.”