Canadian Social History

During World War II, Canadian women made significant contributions to the war effort on the military, industrial, and home fronts.  As historian Ruth Roach Pierson notes, “three services of the Armed Forces were opened to women” and “an unprecedented proportion of women left the domestic sphere to enter public employment and service.”  However, while massive war mobilization engaged women at unprecedented levels, the involvement of women in what were regarded untraditional gender roles caused discomfort amongst both Canadians and in particular the government.  Interestingly, in parallel to massive mobilization, the Canadian government initiated a propaganda campaign.  Central to this propaganda campaign were posters.  Inexpensive to produce, print, and distribute within a short period of time, the government also discovered that posters could convey messages to the general public more strongly and effectively than the written or spoken word alone.  Indeed, despite being essentially ephemeral objects, government-issued posters actually witnessed sustained exposure and heightened significance during wartime.  However, these posters were more than mere battle-cries to rally the troops.  Rather, these posters focused on traditional representations of masculinity and femininity.  As such, I would argue that posters became a means for the government to alleviate the concerns over the involvement of women in the war effort.  Instead of reflecting the reality of massive mobilization, these posters depicted traditional gender roles as the foundation for the war effort.  In this post, I will analyze the specific elements of these posters, focusing in particular on how concepts of masculinity and femininity were constructed.  Second, I will also explore how masculine and feminine characterizations and representations defined traditional gender, gender roles, and gender relations.  And finally, I will conclude with an analysis of how successful these posters were in alleviating the challenge to traditional gender roles caused by massive mobilization.

Visual Images and Historians

As visual historian Joshua Brown notes, “Our consciousness of the past is inextricably bound by pictures.”  However, a general overview of historiography reveals that historians deem pictures (whether they be illustrations or posters) inferior to the written or spoken word.  Indeed, most scholarly work fundamentally focuses on textual or oral based primary sources to provide evidential support to an argument.  And while on the occasion pictures are used, the main purpose is to supplement the historian’s existing thesis rather than being the central tenet to the argument.  I would argue that such a scholarly approach is a mistake.  Pictures, such as wartime posters, can provide historians a different insight than those of textual or oral based primary sources.  Pictures are a powerful medium that engage people differently than text or spoken word alone.  As such, an analysis of a picture can provide a new perspective previously unseen when solely relying on textual or spoken evidence.  But what should a historian do when analyzing a picture?

Analyzing Pictures – A Process

To analyze a picture is to start a process of asking specific questions about the presented image.  When analyzing wartime posters, start with questioning the actions of those in the poster.  For example, what is the main actor of the poster doing?  And what are the figures in the background doing?  The type of artwork used in the poster should also be considered.  Is the poster a pen or an ink drawing?  Is the image a photograph?  Despite being fundamentally image-based, wartime posters also contained text or cutlines.  A historian needs to ask what these cutlines say/mean?  In addition, historians should understand how the typeface used in cutlines influenced the message of the poster.  Of course, these wartime posters were created as propaganda, and as such the symbols and myths portrayed in the poster become important elements to understanding the message that is being conveyed.  By asking these questions, we can develop a fuller understanding of wartime posters and their influence on Canadian society.

Construction of Masculinity and Femininity

By applying this methodology, it becomes more apparent how the concepts of masculinity and femininity were  constructed in wartime posters.  For example, masculinity was characterized as courageous, heroic, fearless, honourable, and overwhelmingly patriotic.  In the “Let’s Go Canada!” poster (see figure 1), the main actor is a male soldier who is holding a bayonet and charging into war.  Behind the soldier is the union flag and on the soldier’s uniform is a badge with the word Canada emblazoned.  The image of a male soldier charging into war for Canada also appears in the “Canada’s New Army Needs Men Like You” poster (see figure 2).  This time, the soldier rides into battle on a motorbike, both a symbol of modernity (underlined by the cutline “Canada’s New Army”) and of physical power (the motorbike and its rider are depicted as muscle-bound with the strength to overpower the land – a clear attempt to address the concerns around the futility of no-mans land that demoralized soldiers in World War I).  The poster also depicts the mythology of the honourable and courageous male soldier, shadowing the motorbike is a medieval knight in shining armour gallantly riding horseback into battle.

While these posters of male soldiers combined patriotism with masculine characteristics of duty, strength, and fearlessness, posters that focused on women, characterized the relationship between femininity and patriotism as the polar opposite.  For example, in the poster “Keep these hands off! Buy Victory Bonds” (see figure 3), rather than fearlessly fighting the enemy, a mother and her child are depicted as vulnerable and weak in the face of the enemy.  In this poster, the artwork is crucial to understanding the message being conveyed.  The main female character, the mother, is drawn in soft tones implying a gentleness.  The child she is holding, also drawn in soft tones, is a newborn baby sucking on a pacifier.  In contrast, the enemy is portrayed as grotesque hands ready to snatch away the baby from the grasp of its mother.  As such, in this poster femininity is defined as nurturing and motherly, while at the same time vulnerable and weak.

Polar Opposites

Indeed, the polar opposite representation of the fighting male soldier and the vulnerable female mother can be seen as part of a larger attempt to use traditional characterizations of masculinity and femininity to define gender roles and gender relations on both the front line and the home front.  For example, posters such as “Whatever your job may be: Fight” (see figure 4) emphasized how the traditional role of men as breadwinners translated into soldiers fighting on the front line.  While posters such as “Your Shopping Basket Savings, Save More to Lend More” (see figure 5) stressed the importance of women as traditional housewives and frugal consumers, a role that supported the war effort on the home front.  Significantly, these posters also emphasized traditional gender relations.  As the poster “Until He Comes Back! Buy Victory Bonds” (see figure 6) illustrates, the role of the woman was to dutifully wait as a wife and mother until her husband returned from war.  In this poster, the husband is depicted in military uniform, his portrait framed on the wall behind his wife and child, symbolizing him as the head of the household.  Beneath the framed picture, is his wife and child, thinking about him and seemingly writing letters of support to him.

The Power of War Posters

So how successful were these posters in alleviating the challenge to traditional gender roles caused by massive mobilization?  As Ruth Roach Pierson notes, the mobilization of women for the war effort “was a clear case of state management of ‘human resources’.”  However, this management of “human resources” which seemingly had the potential to revolutionize gender roles in Canada failed.  As Roach Pierson adds; “The massive mobilization of women during the war years thus failed to secure them a genuinely equal place in the postwar public world.”  Indeed, after the war, “the older woman, the deserted wife or mother, or the woman whose husband earned too little or had no job remained in precarious positions.”  Despite the involvement of women in the military, industrial and home fronts, Canadian society returned to the gendered traditions depicted in wartime posters.  In fact, as Kristin Hulme notes in a recent study on women in the trades and industrial occupations, women today still “continue to be excluded from the trades and industrial occupations because of their gendered nature.”

Conclusion

In conclusion, while massive mobilization caused concern over the increasing involvement of women in untraditional gender roles, the Canadian government alleviated these concerns by using propaganda posters that depicted traditional gender roles as the foundation for the war effort.  I believe that historians asking why a gender revolution did not occur in post war Canada should analyze these propaganda posters to provide an answer.  Just as the wartime posters depicted Canadian success in the war based on traditional gender roles, notably Canadian society returned to traditional gender roles post war as if the contribution of women to the war effort was an apparition.  As such, rather than treat posters as supplementary evidence to support an argument, I believe historians should analyze wartime posters to understand gender, gender roles, and gender relations in Canadian society.

References

Ruth Roach Pierson, Canadian Women and the Second World War, Canadian Historical Association Booklet, No. 37 (Ottawa: 1983), 4, 26.

Joshua Brown, “Forum: History and the Web: From the Illustrated Newspaper to Cyberspace: Visual Technologies and Interaction in the Nineteenth and Twenty-First Centuries,” Rethinking History, 8:2 (2004), 253.

James W. Cook, “Seeing the Visual in U.S. History,” The Journal of American History, 95:2 (2008), 434.

James N. Druckman, “The Power of Television Images: The First Kennedy-Nixon Debate Revisited,” Journal of Politics, 65:2 (2003), 559-571.

Robert C. Williams, The Historian’s Toolbox: A Student’s Guide to the Theory and Craft of History (London: M.E. Sharpe, 2007), 164-165.

Kristin Hulme, “Making the Shift from Pink Collars to Blue Ones: Women’s Non-Traditional Occupations,” Labour/Le Travail, 57 (Spring 2006), 165.

Appendix

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On April 16, 1911, in Sault Ste Marie, Angelina Napolitano killed her husband, Pietro, with an axe.  In the article, “Murder, Womanly Virtue and Motherhood: The Case of Angelina Napolitano, 1911-1922,” historians Karen Dubinsky and Franca Iacovetta explore the causes behind the murder, the resulting trial, and its fallout.  In doing so, Dubinsky and Iacovetta argue that “the social meanings attached to the woman’s life, and especially her crime, were profoundly shaped by prevailing assumptions about gender, race, and class.”  Dubinsky and Iacovetta draw this conclusion by taking what could be categorized as a “gender history” approach to their subject.  But what is gender history and how does it differ from women’s history?

Gender History vs Women’s History

Gender history while looking to understand the experience of women does so by emphasizing the interconnectedness and complexity of multiple categories such as gender, class, and race/ethnicity.  This differs from women’s history where the focus has been on understanding the historical role and identity of women as women.  As such, gender history, while being relatively new, has undoubtedly changed the historiography in regards to studying women.  I believe that the main reason behind the historiographical shift is the methodology driving gender history.  A gender history approach reframes our understanding the role of gender in constructing race/ethnicity and class identities.  This reframing, in turn, allows historians to explore the gendered nature of society.  For example, Dubinsky and Iacovetta in their article, analyze the ethnic/racial and immigrant background of Angelina Napolitano in relation to her gender.  While Dubinsky and Iacovetta note that “Napolitano was an atypical victim of abuse,” they argue that the resulting trial and subsequent social fallout, “sheds light on situations that, to varying degrees, many more immigrant and non-immigrant women faced during the period.”   In fact, as Dubinsky and Iacovetta saliently observe, their method of historical analysis not only helps understand the experience of women, their analysis also “contributes to the literature on immigration and to studies of racial ethnic prejudice.”

Domestic Violence

In this post, I will explore Dubinsky and Iacovetta article, analyzing the strengths and weaknesses of gender history in studying the history of women.  Firstly, I would argue that by employing a gender history approach, Dubinsky and Iacovetta help reveal how gender-based ideologies are constructed.  They do so by considering the “theme of domestic violence.”  Through exploring this theme, Dubinsky and Iacovetta reveal “the varied meanings contemporaries attached to more general notions of marriage, womanhood, and motherhood, and to women who act as agents.”   However, in revealing how gender-based ideologies are constructed, Dubinsky and Iacovetta focus less on femininity and rather instead stress more the importance of males and masculinity in the lives of women such as Angelina Napolitano.  This, in turn, raises fundamental questions about the future direction of gender history and candidly asks how far away from the traditional emphasis of women’s history is too far.

Gendering class

Unquestionable, nevertheless is the significance of Dubinsky and Iacovetta’s article in broadening our understanding of the relationship between gender, class, and race/ethnicity.  The strength of the article stems from the way gender history offers multidimensional perspectives that ultimately produce new and fascinating directions for further study.  For example, Dubinsky and Iacovetta look to place the actions of Angelina Napolitano in a socio-economic context by analyzing class in relation to gender.  Firstly, they describe the deterioration of the Napolitano marriage “against a backdrop of acute financial insecurity and Pietro’s deepening sense of failure as the family’s chief breadwinner.”  By viewing this sense of failure, through a lens of what I would call “gendering class,” Dubinsky and Iacovetta are able to argue convincingly that, “[Pietro’s] crisis in masculinity appears to have been triggered by his inability to purchase a family home and manifested itself in bouts of drunkenness and increasingly cruel behavior towards his wife.”

Gender and race/ethnicity

Dubinsky and Iacovetta’s analysis of race/ethnicity and gender paints a similar picture, emphasizing the centrality of stereotypical male traits in understanding the social depiction of Italian immigrants.  Dubinsky and Iacovetta first note how Italians were “treated as a highly suspect group prone to drink, overly sexual, and highly excitable and temperamental.”  They then argue that these stereotypes when viewed through a gendered lens illustrate how contemporaries held “deep-seated concerns about the sexual threats that men, especially foreign men, posed to women.”  These connections between race/ethnicity and gender are telling, especially in the example of the Napolitano case where Dubinsky and Iavocetta note how “Pietro Napolitano provided a fitting villain: the ‘foreigner’ who preyed on women’s bodies.”

Conclusion

So what can we conclude from Dubinsky and Iacovetta’s article?  What are the strengths and what are the weaknesses of gender history when studying the history of women?  Firstly, we need to understand the methodology involved in writing gender history.  The emphasis on the interconnectedness of categories such as class and race/ethnicity arguably pushes the role of males and masculinity onto centre stage.  Is this a weakness when studying the history of women.  Perhaps, as seemingly this marginalizes the role of women in historical analysis.  However, I would suggest that by emphasizing the role of males and masculinity, we can begin to understand the power dynamics that women such as Angelina Napolitano faced.  The actions of Angelina Napolitano, although murderous, suggest an attempt confront the unequal gendered world she lived in.  As such, I would argue that future historians of gender should seek a balance between the working of masculinity as well as femininity.

References

Karen Dubinsky and Franca Iacovetta, “Murder, Womanly Virtue, and Motherhood: The Case of Angelina Napolitano, 1911-1922,” Canadian Historical Review, LXXII:4 (1991), 506, 507, 508, 509, 518, 522, 523.

Christopher Moore’s essay on the marriage of Marie-Louise Cruchon focuses on the harbour town of Louisbourg in Ile Royale, analyzing the marriage of Jacques Rolland, an apprentice merchant originally from the Breton village of Hédé, to Marie-Louise Cruchon, the elder daughter of widow Thérèse Boudier Cruchon.  In the essay, Moore carefully details Rolland’s initial interest in Louisbourg, as well as his courtship of Marie-Louise Cruchon.  This courtship soon turned to marriage in 1742, however, by the end of 1743 Rolland would humiliatingly flee Louisbourg without his wife and without a career.  While on one level, the value of Moore’s essay seems restricted to offering a history of the marriage of Marie-Louise and a glimpse into the society of Louisbourg.  However, at another level, I would argue that because the essay focuses on the institution of marriage and the wider social dynamics of marriage, Moore offers us an opportunity to firstly explore the factors that forged Marie-Louise’s marriage, and to secondly compare these factors with those that shaped marriages in New France.  By doing so, we can utilize marriage as a vehicle for understanding the essential characteristics of colonial society in eighteenth century New France.

Perception of Marriage

Before analyzing Moore’s essay, I want to explore the popular perception of marriage.  In North America, the popular perception of marriage is of a private domestic act.  Although customarily vows are exchanged in a public setting, the institution of marriage is seemingly a private matter that resides behind the closed doors of the family home.  However, I believe it is necessary to rethink this perception.  While the exchanging of vows has traditionally “tied the knot” between a man and a woman, the institution of marriage itself has always held larger social consequences.  Not only does the act of marriage change the martial status of the couple (and as such often their standing within the community), the saying of “I do” designates them into the role of being either a husband or a wife.  This role designation (becoming either a husband or a wife), has historically created a model for marriage where the husband is the head of the family and the “bread winner,” while the wife is defined as the submissive dependent.  This model, whether realistic or not, thus has become a template for establishing relationships within society.  Therefore, I would argue that rather than perceiving marriage as solely a private domestic act, marriage should also be seen as a public institution that reflects and shapes the essential characteristics of society.

Using this perception of marriage, we can begin to analyze the factors that forged the marriage between Marie-Louise Cruchon and Jacques Rolland.  As Christopher Moore notes, first and foremost the marriage was an alliance.  While Rolland’s merchant activities meant that he was becoming more well known in Louisbourg, Rolland was more than aware that marriage into a local family would help him develop as a businessman.  Prior events in Louisbourg demonstrated to Rolland that marrying a local girl made good business sense.  Novice merchant Blaise Lagoanere had married the eldest daughter of wealthy employer Michel Daccarette, accruing a good number of clients in the process.  However, a fellow Daccarette employee, Jean-Baptiste Lascorret, without any martial ties or social connections failed in his business ventures in Louisbourg.  Lascorret would leave Louisbourg and die attempting to make a new start in the Caribbean.

Social standing in New France

At the same time that Rolland sought to establish himself in the social circles of Louisbourg, Marie-Louise Cruchon’s mother, Thérèse Boudier Cruchon, was seeking to maintain the family’s social standing.  Thérèse Boudier had become the head of the Cruchon household after the death of her husband, Jean-René Cruchon.  Jean-René’s death had left the family struggling on the poverty line, getting by on a low income garnered by their limited craft work.   To maintain their social standing the Cruchons presented a façade. However, clearly the struggle to keep up the façade took its toll on Thérèse Boudier.  After being introduced to Jacques Rolland a social function in 1741, Thérèse Boudier built up a relationship with Rolland, ultimately ending up with Rolland marrying the widow’s eldest daughter.  While Rolland was neither a socially desirable military officer or civil official, he was in the eyes of Thérèse Boudier a wage-earner with potential.  The alliance and thus the marriage was born.

Socio-economic forces in New France

But were the socio-economic forces that forged the Rolland-Cruchon marriage alliance in Louisbourg typical for New France?  Allan Greer’s book, The People of New France, presents an overview of the social history of New France that offers a similar picture of marriage as Moore’s essay.  While Greer suggests that arranged marriages “were almost unheard of,” he argues that “in finding a husband and setting up a household might be considered a ‘benefit,’ given the difficulties attached in this society to the single life.”  Indeed the people of New France sought to avoid the single life, realizing that marriage became a means to surviving the pioneering difficulties of New France.  As Greer notes, “it was difficult to imagine pioneering without a mate and without the prospect of children.”  This stressing of importance in marriage for human survival meant for the women of New France marrying earlier and having more child-bearing years than their European counterparts.  For the men, marriage meant becoming the “breadwinner” to support a burgeoning family.  However, this socio-economic duty often meant time away from the family home on fur-trade expeditions or military operations.

Conclusion

So what can we conclude from the history of Marie-Louise Cruchon and Jacques Rolland marriage as well as the marriages of the people of New France?  Firstly, by adopting an understanding of marriage as an institution that had wider social dynamics, we can place marriage at the centre of both Louisbourg and New France societies.  As such, through an analysis of marriage we can identify the essential characteristics of colonial society in eighteenth century New France as being rooted in socio-economic factors.  However, perhaps most significant of all, the value of studying the institution of marriage for social historians is the opportunity to focus on subjects with agency that navigate through a world structured by material conditions.

References

Christopher Moore, “The Marriage of Marie-Louise Cruchon,” in Louisbourg Portraits: Life in an Eighteenth-Century Town, (Toronto: Macmillan, 1982), 55-117.

Nancy Cott, Public Vows: A History of Marriage and the Nation, (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2000).

Allan Greer, The People of New France, (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2009).

An immigrant to Canada who murdered her abusive husband in 1911, igniting a public debate about domestic violence and the death penalty.

Connect the life of Angelina Napolitano with immigration at the turn of the century, as well as the rights of women, and the theory of separate spheres.

Canadian feminist, political and social activist, involved in the suffrage and temperance movement.

McClung came to prominence during World War I, arguing how the important role that women played in the war effort should be translated to social and political rights (the public realm).

Challenged the conventions of the “separate spheres” ideology of the nineteenth century. However, as Carol Bacchi notes, “most Canadian suffragists were social reformers and members of a social elite … [who] asked that women be allowed to vote in order to impress certain values upon society, [including] Protestant morality, sobriety and family order.”

An anthropologist, Carol Devens has focused on gender and aboriginal peoples. In her article, Separate Confrontations: Gender as a Factor in Indian Adaption to European Colonization in New France, Devens argues that the efforts of the aboriginal women of New France to protect their interests as women may have been the means to ensure, even down to the present, the persistence of Native culture and ideology through women’s identity.

Introduction

From the 1890s to the 1930s, Canada witnessed the transition from industrialism to the age of industry. In the age of industry, capital and labour relations became strained, as industrial expansion transformed the Canadian workplace. Skilled workers were displaced, new immigrants joined the workforce, and business and government bureaucracies became feminized. At the end of World War I, social tensions between capital and labour reached a tipping point. On May 15, 1919, 30,000 workers in Winnipeg walked off the job – the Winnipeg General Strike had begun.

Historiography

Historians have recently placed the Winnipeg General Strike within a larger context of labour unrest from 1917 to 1925. As Craig Heron notes, the statistics on strikes and union membership suggest that long-established divisions within the trade union movement were giving way to a “remarkable spirit of working-class unity and class consciousness.”

Theories

Why? Because of the stresses of World War I. Serious erosion of real wages after 1917 and the sense that the working-class had been asked to make an unfair contribution to the war effort.

The workers’ revolt was a critique of industrial capitalism in Canada.

Steven Penfold article on class and gender.

Controversies

The revolt quickly faded when prosperity collapsed in mid-1920.

Economic reasons – labour stronger when economy stronger.

Business countered with labour management, company pension and health plans.

Old divisions within working-class. Skilled workers undermined by mass unionization.

Sources and methods

American leaders of United Mine Workers of America failed to support radical leadership of Cape Breton miners.

Events and incidents

Winnipeg General Strikes

Increase in strikes and union membership

Conclusion

Consciousness of class topped racial, gender factors post World War I. However, make-up of Canadian working-class is class, race, and gender.