Calgary & Southern Alberta - Women's Experiences: Pre-World War I

Calgary & Southern Alberta

Women's Experiences in the Pre-World War I Period

Women on the ranching and agricultural frontiers worked year-round. They provided food, clothing, and performed outside labour such as caring for the farm’s livestock, making butter, and growing gardens. For many women in southern Alberta the idea that men and women occupied separate spheres – men in the work force and women in the home – was not a reality. In many cases, particularly in the early homestead years, husbands and elder sons left the homestead to engage in labour that could bring to the family farm necessary cash for farm implements.

While their husbands were away, women ran the farm, planted crops, and cared for children. Mrs. Mae Olstad of Camrose, Alberta, in 1975 recalled life on the farm: "You know I was the veterinary on the farm and everything else…. He was no good at that at all and so if any animal got sick it was me. Oh I can remember helping a young heifer with her calf. She couldn’t have it…and I knew my husband was gone… When he went, he didn’t come back for awhile." Source: Harvest Yet to Reap, p. 54. In rural areas doctors were usually scarce and women cared for the sick and injured. Pregnant women relied on their neighbours or community midwives for assistance during childbirth.

Legally, women had few rights: they lacked basic property rights, In urban centres like Calgary and Lethbridge women likewise enjoyed fluid boundaries between the private and public spheres. Yet, their lives differed from rural women because they enjoyed more frequent social contacts, and young single women frequently worked before marriage. The types of employment women could take and train for, however, was limited.

A Pioneer Woman
Courtesy of the Glenbow Collection

Women shared farm work equally with men
Courtesy of the Glenbow Collection

The Youngs Sisters, owners of a newspaper and stationery store. Four of the few female members of Calgary's business elite, ca. 1908
Courtesy of the Glenbow Collection.

Female Employment in Alberta: 1901-1931 Percentage Male and Female Population over 10 Years of Age
Year	Alberta Male	Alberta Female	Canada Male	Canada Female
1901	69.1	6.0	74.2	12.0
1911	83.6	11.1	79.5	14.3
1921	79.3	11.2	77.5	15.3
1931	79.0	13.3	76.7	17.0

Source: Michael Palamarek. Alberta Women in Politics. Edmonton: Government of Alberta, 1989.

Female Employment in Alberta by Occupation, 1911-1931 Percentage
Occupation	1911	1921	1931
Servants	23.5	16.6	20.9
Teachers	10.2	14.6	13.6
Sales	4.9	6.3	6.2
Nurses	2.9	5.1	3.5
Clerical	N/A	N/A	16.3
Percentage of Total Female Labour Force	64.0	59.4	77.4

Source: Michael Palamarek. Alberta Women in Politics. Edmonton: Government of Alberta, 1989.

Marriage as an institution
Courtesy of the Glenbow Collection

Legally, women had few rights: they lacked basic property rights, divorce proceedings were harder for women, they could not vote, and they could not sit on juries. Although single or widowed women could acquire, hold, and dispose of property as a man, they could not homestead unless they were the sole head of the family. Married women could not dispose of or acquire land without their husband’s permission until 1906. Before the Dower Act was passed by the Alberta legislature in 1917, women could be left with nothing if their husbands died. The Act gave widows security by stating that they would receive the use of their husband’s homestead for life and that while he was alive he could not mortgage, encumber, or sell the property without his wife’s consent. In regards to divorce, while men only had to prove that their wives had committed adultery, women had to provide additional proof of cruelty and desertion. The law was not changed until 1927 when the Alberta Domestic Relations Act decreed that a woman could apply for judicial separation and alimony following a two-year separation from her husband. Women did not acquire equal rights over their children until 1920. Electorally, unmarried women who met certain property qualifications could elect and serve on school boards and, in 1894, widows and single women were granted the right to vote, but not hold office, in municipal elections. The degree to which the legal system reflected the patriarchal nature of early twentieth century society is evident in the punishment meted out for certain crimes: stealing cattle (14 years in prison); assaulting a male (10 years and a whipping); assaulting a woman (no more than 2 years).

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