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| "Never retract, never explain, never apologize - get the thing done and let them howl." |
"Never retract, never explain, never apologize -
get the thing done and let them howl."
McClung Biography
Born Nellie Letitia Mooney in Chatsworth Ontario in 1873, to an Irish Methodist father and a Scottish Presbyterian mother, McClung and her family moved to Manitoba to homestead in 1880. Learning to read at the age of 9, McClung graduated from a Winnipeg normal school in 1889 and received her first teaching assignment in Manitou, Manitoba. Manitou offered McClung many opportunities which provided a training ground for her later political work. In 1890, at a Young Ladies Bible Class she met Annie McClung, a woman she would later say was "the only woman I have ever seen whom I would like to have as a mother-in-law" (Clearing in the West). McClung set out to meet Annie's pharmacist son Robert Wesley McClung; they married in 1896. Nellie and Wesley McClung had five children and had, from all accounts, a strong and happy marriage.
Living in rural Manitoba at this cultural and historical time proved to be extremely influential and enabling to McClung’s written and political work. Her awareness of and passion for everyday rural people and their plight inspired McClung to an impressive range of actions and roles. At an early age, she received a series of Dickens novels from her brother; inspired by his social critiques, she was determined to become a writer. She would later reflect that she wanted to become a writer "to do for the people around me what Dickens had done for his people. I wanted to be a voice for the voiceless as he had been a defender of the weak" (Clearning in the West).
In addition to publishing sixteen volumes of work, including novels, fiction, essays, autobiographies and speeches, Nellie McClung was also an influential activist for labour issues, workers' rights, women's suffrage, and married women's property rights. In 1921, she was elected to Alberta's legislature and fought for women's rights and prohibition. When, in 1928, the Supreme Court of Canada unanimously decided against women holding public office on the grounds that they were not "persons," McClung and four other women (known as "The Famous Five") fought what was to be known as "The Persons Case" all the way to the Privy Council in Britain. In 1929, the Privy Council reversed this decision and called women's exclusion from public office "a relic of days more barbarous than ours" ( qtd in Canadian Encyclopedia, Vol. 3, p 1645). McClung was also active in organizations such as the Winnipeg Political Equality League, the Canadian Women's Press Club as well as suffrage and temperence organizations in Alberta. She was served as the first woman member of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation from 1936-1942 and represented Canada as a delegate for the League of Nations in 1938.
Nellie McClung as Social Activist
Temperance:
Although McClung’s marriage and family life were generally very happy, McClung was not blind to the sufferings she saw in the people around her. Particularly troubling to her were the sufferings of women and children. In the eyes of the law, women were considered to be legally on par with the insane, criminal and children and thus had few rights to property: if a woman had any money or property they legally belonged to her husband as did her wages and their children . McClung was troubled by the absence of legal recourse in cases of spousal abuse and sufferings. McClung saw numerous examples of fathers and husbands drinking away the family’s wages leaving their wives and children hungry. She also saw the connections between alcohol abuse and spousal abuse; men who came home drunk, frequently beat their wives and children. Because women did not have rights to their children or property, leaving an abusive situation was very difficult for most women. Similarly, because women were not granted the right to vote, they had little voice or influence with politicians who could alter laws.
In order to help alleviate the suffering she saw, McClung targeted what she saw as the root of women’s and children’s sufferings: alcohol. McClung became active in the Women’s Christian Temperance Union and campaigned for Prohibition. She believed that prohibition was the only way to alleviate the sufferings emerging from widespread drunkeness. After the success of McClung’s first book, Sowing Seeds in Danny, her mother-in-law arranged for McClung to read from her book at local Temperance Union meetings. McClung’s ability to speak convincingly and powerfully emerged at these meetings and she became a popular speaker.
Woman Suffrage and "the Women’s Parliament"
In her work for Temperance, McClung soon noticed that prohibition was only part of the problem relating to women’s lives. Because women lacked the right to vote, they also lacked a voice, power and influence with the politicians who could enact Prohibitionist legislation. McClung soon realized that without the right to vote, reform in women’s lives would be slow coming. In addition to campaigning for temperance, McClung added woman suffrage (the right to vote) to her activist speeches. McClung was an effective and moving speaker and she spent an increasing amount of time writing and speaking about prohibition and women’s suffrage. In twenty years, McClung spoke at over 400 public meetings, sometimes speaking three times a day. Although she had her critics— particularly liquor and beer companies and those who believed women should not have the vote— McClung was a popular speaker who addressed issues convincingly, effectively and frequently with her trademark humour. Once, when engaged to speak at Toronto’s Massey Hall, the venue was packed until there was standing room only; thousands had to be turned away (Merritt 157).
One of McClungs most-quoted critics was the Manitoba Premier, Sir Rodmand Roblin who laughed at the idea of granting women suffrage. Roblin told McClung: "I don’t want a hyena in petticoats talked at me. . .I want a nice, gentle creature to bring my slippers." McClung would remember Roblin’s words and eventually would turn the tables on him.
McClung belonged to two groups which worked for women’s suffrage: the Canadian Women’s Press Club and the Political Equity League. These groups used speeches and conferences as a way to convince politicians to grant women the right to vote. On January 27, 1914, a delegation of women headed by McClung petitioned Manitoba’s parliament asking for the right to vote and, not unexpectedly, their request was declined by an arrogant speech by Roblin. McClung had been a brilliant mimic since childhood when she amused her father with imitations of her mother’s family and McClung paid careful attention to Roblin’s speech and mannerisms and used her mimic skills to her advantage.
Shortly after, the Political Equity League staged a play called "The Women’s Parliament" in a packed theatre in Winnipeg. In this play, men petitioned a female government asking for rights and the women turned the men down using the logic Roblin’s government had used. McClung was brilliant in her portrayal of the Premier. The Montreal Herald wrote about the event noting : "Last Thursday Sir Rodman spoke here and on Monday his feminine tormenter made him look ridiculous. She has introduced into this campaign the most telling weapon with which the bombastic Premier of Manitoba could be attacked and one which no person has ever wielded against him below so poignantly and effectively. All Manitoba has been made to laugh at Sir Rodman Roblin by Mrs. McClung" (qtd in Warne, Purple Springs, vi). A fictionalized version of the play is described in McClung’s 1921 novel Purple Springs (LINK WITH TEXT click here to read it)
Roblin was required to resign because of political scandals in May 1915. Suffragists were delighted with the new Premier, T.C. Norris, who had been a supporter of women’s rights. However, he reversed his stand once in power. He said that he could not introduce a suffrage bill into Parliament unless women could show that there was sufficient popular support for the bill. The women responded by collecting 40,000 signatures. On January 27. 1916 the Bill for Enfranchisement of Women was passed unanimously and women in Manitoba had the right to vote and the right to run for office. Alberta and Saskatchewan passed similar bills a few months later and women won the right to vote in federal elections in 1918. Women in Quebec had to wait until 1940 however.
The "Person’s Case"
In April of 1928, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled that the word "person" in Section 24 of the British North America Act did not include female persons. The justification for the decision was that since persons required for public office had to be "fit and qualified" for such an appointment, women were not eligible. Five Alberta women – Henrietta Muir Edwards, Nellie McClung, Louise McKinney, Emily Murphy and Irene Parlby - appealed the decision in Canada's highest court of appeal, the Privy Council of England. In a landmark decision, on October 18, 1929, the Privy Council ruled that women were indeed persons under the law, and so could be summoned to and serve as members of the Senate of Canada.
A sculpture by Barbara Paterson designed to commemorate the Person’s Case and celebrate the Famous Five was unveiled in Calgary by the Governor General of Canada on October 18, 1999. A year later, the second of Paterson’s monuments was unveiled in Ottawa. This monument is the first permanent Parliament Hill display memorializing women other than royalty.
Web Research Activities
Discussion/ Writing Activity
Include copy of the Play from Purple Springs.
Read the excerpt from McClung’s novel, Purple Springs and consider the following questions.
Links on McClung and Women’s Suffrage
Remembering The Famous 5: National Council of Women of Canada
Herstory Exhibit: good information and interesting illustrations
National Library of Canada: info on McClung
Good selection of links on McClung and also some information about the Nellie McClung Girl’s School in Edmonton
Additional Readings:
Benham, Mary Lile. Nellie McClung. Toronto: Fitzhenry and Whiteside, 1975.
Duley, Margot. Where Once Our Mothers Stood We Stand: Women's Suffrage in Newfoundland.
Hallett, Mary and Marilyn Davis. Firing the Heather: The Life and Times of Nellie McClung. Saskatoon: Fifth House Ltd., 1993.
Hancock, Carol. Nellie McClung: No Small Legacy. Northstone Publishing Inc. 1996
James, Donna. Emily Murphy. Toronto: Fitzhenry and Whiteside Limited, 1977.
Mander, Christine. Emily Murphy; Rebel. Toronto: Simon and Pierre, 1985.
McClung, Nellie L. Clearing in the West. Toronto: Thomas Allen , 1935.
McClung, Nellie l. The Stream Runs Fast. Toronto: Thomas Allen, 1945
Warne, Randi R. Literature as Pulpit: The Christian Social Activism of Nellie L. McClung. Waterloo: Wilfred Laurier University Press 1993