McClung in 1910. Photo credit - Wikipedia

An author, legislator, social reformer, and women’s rights activist. One of the Famous Five who campaigned to include women as persons.

Born Letitia Ellen Mooney on a farm at Chatsworth, Ontario, grew up in Manitoba. She had received formal education only when she was nine, learning reading and writing and discovering the wonders of literature, which shaped her liberal thinking. At 16, she got her teaching certificate from the Winnipeg Normal School and started teaching at Hazel school near Manitou, Manitoba. As a teacher, she implemented her progressive views regarding girls’ education, including introducing football for girls and boys.

In 1892, at 19, she took a teaching position at the Manitou school and stayed at a family of a Methodist minister. The minister’s wife, Annie E. McClung, was a women’s suffrage supporter and the provincial president of the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU), who inspired and influenced McClung to become an active member of the organization. She developed a romantic relationship with the family’s second son, Wesley, and the couple married in 1896. After the wedding, she stopped working but remained socially active in the WTCU, and other organizations, including the Methodist Ladies’ Aid, Epworth League for Methodist youth, and the Economics Association.

At the age of 29, McClung wrote a short story for a contest in an American family magazine. Although she did not win, the story was the basis for her first novel, Sowing Seeds in Danny, published in 1908. It became a best-seller, and afterward, McClung continued to publish articles, short stories, and books in Canada and the US. In her writing, she expressed her beliefs on social issues, such as laws against women, battering of wives and children, single motherhood, and the land and culture right of the native population.

In 1911, McClung and her family moved to Winnipeg, where she joined the local women’s organizations, including the Canadian Women’s Press Club and the Local Council of Women. She co-founded the suffrage’s Political Equality League and became one of the most effective public speakers for the cause. In the 1914 elections, McClung played a leading role in the Liberal campaign against the Conservative Premier of Manitoba, who opposed women’s suffrage. She did not enjoy the fruits of her success because when Manitoba became the first province in Canada to grant women the vote in 1916, she already lived in Edmonton, Alberta.

In Edmonton, she continued her activism, fighting for various causes, such as women’s suffrage, property rights for married women, mothers’ allowances, prohibition, factory safety legislation, and medical care for school children. After WW1, she continued the campaign for suffrage, emphasizing the importance of women’s contribution to society after they had filled in for the men working positions during the war.

In 1921, 48 years old McClung won the Liberal seat at the Alberta Legislative Assembly, serving in this position until 1926. In the following year, she became part of what became known as The Famous Five. A group of five women, Emily Murphy, Louise Crummy McKinney, Henrietta Muir Edwards, and Irene Parlby, petitioned the Supreme Court to recognize women as Persons. Though rejected in Canada, they appleade to the British Privy Council, who ruled that women included in the term Persons, thus can serve in the Senate.

In 1933, McClung moved to Lantern Lane in Vancouver Island, where she invested herself in writing, completing her two-volume autobiography Clearing in the West: My Own Story, published in 1935, as well as four more novels and various short stories, essays, and a syndicated column. She was a member of various social organizations, continued to give public speeches, and in 1936 she became the first woman to be appointed to the new Canadian Broadcasting Corporation board of governors. In the last ten years of her life, McClung suffered from arthritis and heart problems that limited her activities. She died at the age of 78.

Share:

This post is also available in:
Español

“Never explain, never retract, never apologize. Just get the thing done and let them howl.”

Fun Facts

She had five children.
Throughout her life, she published 16 books.
Her physical experiences during her first pregnancy led her toward maternalism - a belief that women are not victims of nature rather blessed beings with a divine purpose.
She was considered a maternal feminist, believing that the instincts of women benefit their political participation.
In 1914, she staged a mock Women's Parliament at Winnipeg’s Walker Theatre. She played the patronizing male delegation, exposing the absurdity of the opponents' arguments to women's suffrage.
In 1938, she was the Canadian delegate to the League of Nations in Geneva.
She supported Eugenics and Alberta’s Sexual Sterilization Act, believing that humanity can be improved by sterilizing people with disabilities and mental illnesses.
In 1954, the government of Canada named her a Person of National Historic Significance.
Her house in Calgary, Alberta, is designated a heritage site.
Two of her houses were restored, relocated to Manitou, Manitoba, and opened as museums.
Several schools and libraries in Canada are named in her honor.
Five of her statues stand in Canada. Three with the group of the Famous Five.
The Famous Five women were honored in various ways. They were featured on the Canadian 50-dollar bill, an 8-cent stamp, received the title of honorary senators, featured in statues, and on a plaque in Canada's Senate Chamber that reads - "To further the cause of womankind these five outstanding pioneer women caused steps to be taken resulting in the recognition by the Privy Council of women as persons eligible for appointment to the Senate of Canada."
Two of her houses were restored, relocated to Manitou, Manitoba, and opened as museums.