Barbara Smith

The Valiant Nellie McClung Barbara Smith

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.