Ebooks for the Classroom+Faculty

Organizing Rural Women : The Federated Women's Institutes of Ontario, 1897-1919
ISBN: 9780773570726
Platform/Publisher: Ebook Central / McGill-Queen''s University Press
Digital rights: Users: Unlimited; Printing: Limited; Download: 7 Days at a Time
Subjects: Social Science;

In Organizing Rural Women Margaret Kechnie looks at the history of the Federated Women's Institutes of Ontario, popularly known as the Women's Institutes (WI), from the time the first branch was formed at Stoney Creek in 1897 until federation in 1919. Kechnie challenges the popular mythology that the WI began when Adelaide Hoodless called on farm women to organize and received an overwhelming response. She reveals that Hoodless had little to do with founding the WI, that early response to the organization was both disappointing and discouraging, and that for the first thirty-four years of its existence the WI was led by men, who defined the constitution of the organization and set many of its policies.