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Nellie McClung
Nellie Letitia McClung (née Mooney; 20 October 1873 – 1 September 1951) was a Canadian author, politician, and social activist, who is regarded as one of Canada's most prominent suffragists. She began her career in writing with the 1908 book Sowing Seeds in Danny, and would eventually publish sixteen books, including two autobiographies. She played a leading role in the women's suffrage movement in Canada, helping to grant women the vote in Alberta and Manitoba in 1916. McClung was elected to the Legislative Assembly of Alberta in 1921, where she served until 1926.
As a member of the Famous Five, she was one of five women who took the Persons Case first to the Supreme Court of Canada, and then to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, for the right of women to serve in the Senate of Canada. McClung was the first woman appointed to the board of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation in 1936. She served as a delegate to the League of Nations in Geneva, Switzerland in 1938.
McClung was born Nellie Letitia Mooney on 20 October 1873 in Chatsworth, Ontario, the youngest of six children of John and Letitia Mooney (née McCurdy). Her father had acquired 60 hectares (150 acres) of property in Chatsworth, but the soil was not of good quality and the family struggled to make ends meet. In 1880, when Nellie was seven, they moved to the Souris River valley, two hundred kilometers west of Winnipeg. Nellie graduated from the Manitoba Normal School when she was sixteen. After receiving her teaching certificate, she acquired a teaching position in Hazel, Manitoba, earning a salary of $40 a month. After teaching for eighteen months in Hazel, she moved to Manitou.
While teaching in Manitou, she boarded with the McClung family. She was captivated by Mrs. Annie E. McClung, a suffragist and provincial president of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union. Nellie stated that Mrs. McClung was the only woman she had met that she would like as a mother-in-law. Nellie married Mrs. McClung's son, Robert Wesley, in August 1896. They had five children between 1897 and 1911. She was involved in many local organizations, including the WCTU, the Methodist Ladies' Aid, the Epworth League, and the Home Economics Association.
The McClung family faced financial difficulties starting in 1905 when Wesley sold his pharmacy business. To help supplement their income, Nellie sought out paid writing work, writing short stories for magazines. She published her first novel, Sowing Seeds in Danny, in 1908. The book became a bestseller, selling 100,000 copies in Canada and the United States and making McClung $25,000 ($642,025 in 2021). With the success of her book, McClung was invited to speak at events throughout Manitoba and Saskatchewan, launching her career as a public speaker.
McClung's second book, A Second Chance, was published in 1910. By then, her reputation for speaking had reached Ontario, and she embarked on a tour of the province, with stops in Whitby, Hamilton, Peterborough, Kingston, Waterloo, and Toronto. Her speaking engagements were well received, with the Hamilton Herald reporting that she "took her audiences by storm". McClung would go on to write three more books throughout the 1910s, including In Times Like These, which has been regarded as an important statement of first-wave feminism. Throughout her career, McClung wrote sixteen books, including two autobiographies, and many poems, short stories, and newspaper articles.
In 1911, the McClungs moved to Winnipeg, where Wesley had been offered a position as an insurance broker. The following year, McClung and fourteen other women formed the Women's Political Equality League, an organization focused on women's suffrage. In 1914, the league petitioned the Conservative Premier of Manitoba, Rodmond Roblin, for the right of women to vote, but their request was denied. The next day, the Political Equality League staged a "Mock Parliament" at the Walker Theatre, with its members imitating government ministers. McClung had the role of Roblin, and repeated many of the arguments that the Premier had made the day before:
Man is made for something higher and better than voting... Men were made to support families... Shall I call man away from the useful plow and harrow to talk loud on street corners about things which do not concern him? Politics unsettle men, and unsettled men mean unsettled bills—broken furniture, and broken vows—and divorce... When you ask for the vote you are asking me to break up peaceful, happy homes—to wreck innocent lives.
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Nellie McClung
Nellie Letitia McClung (née Mooney; 20 October 1873 – 1 September 1951) was a Canadian author, politician, and social activist, who is regarded as one of Canada's most prominent suffragists. She began her career in writing with the 1908 book Sowing Seeds in Danny, and would eventually publish sixteen books, including two autobiographies. She played a leading role in the women's suffrage movement in Canada, helping to grant women the vote in Alberta and Manitoba in 1916. McClung was elected to the Legislative Assembly of Alberta in 1921, where she served until 1926.
As a member of the Famous Five, she was one of five women who took the Persons Case first to the Supreme Court of Canada, and then to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, for the right of women to serve in the Senate of Canada. McClung was the first woman appointed to the board of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation in 1936. She served as a delegate to the League of Nations in Geneva, Switzerland in 1938.
McClung was born Nellie Letitia Mooney on 20 October 1873 in Chatsworth, Ontario, the youngest of six children of John and Letitia Mooney (née McCurdy). Her father had acquired 60 hectares (150 acres) of property in Chatsworth, but the soil was not of good quality and the family struggled to make ends meet. In 1880, when Nellie was seven, they moved to the Souris River valley, two hundred kilometers west of Winnipeg. Nellie graduated from the Manitoba Normal School when she was sixteen. After receiving her teaching certificate, she acquired a teaching position in Hazel, Manitoba, earning a salary of $40 a month. After teaching for eighteen months in Hazel, she moved to Manitou.
While teaching in Manitou, she boarded with the McClung family. She was captivated by Mrs. Annie E. McClung, a suffragist and provincial president of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union. Nellie stated that Mrs. McClung was the only woman she had met that she would like as a mother-in-law. Nellie married Mrs. McClung's son, Robert Wesley, in August 1896. They had five children between 1897 and 1911. She was involved in many local organizations, including the WCTU, the Methodist Ladies' Aid, the Epworth League, and the Home Economics Association.
The McClung family faced financial difficulties starting in 1905 when Wesley sold his pharmacy business. To help supplement their income, Nellie sought out paid writing work, writing short stories for magazines. She published her first novel, Sowing Seeds in Danny, in 1908. The book became a bestseller, selling 100,000 copies in Canada and the United States and making McClung $25,000 ($642,025 in 2021). With the success of her book, McClung was invited to speak at events throughout Manitoba and Saskatchewan, launching her career as a public speaker.
McClung's second book, A Second Chance, was published in 1910. By then, her reputation for speaking had reached Ontario, and she embarked on a tour of the province, with stops in Whitby, Hamilton, Peterborough, Kingston, Waterloo, and Toronto. Her speaking engagements were well received, with the Hamilton Herald reporting that she "took her audiences by storm". McClung would go on to write three more books throughout the 1910s, including In Times Like These, which has been regarded as an important statement of first-wave feminism. Throughout her career, McClung wrote sixteen books, including two autobiographies, and many poems, short stories, and newspaper articles.
In 1911, the McClungs moved to Winnipeg, where Wesley had been offered a position as an insurance broker. The following year, McClung and fourteen other women formed the Women's Political Equality League, an organization focused on women's suffrage. In 1914, the league petitioned the Conservative Premier of Manitoba, Rodmond Roblin, for the right of women to vote, but their request was denied. The next day, the Political Equality League staged a "Mock Parliament" at the Walker Theatre, with its members imitating government ministers. McClung had the role of Roblin, and repeated many of the arguments that the Premier had made the day before:
Man is made for something higher and better than voting... Men were made to support families... Shall I call man away from the useful plow and harrow to talk loud on street corners about things which do not concern him? Politics unsettle men, and unsettled men mean unsettled bills—broken furniture, and broken vows—and divorce... When you ask for the vote you are asking me to break up peaceful, happy homes—to wreck innocent lives.
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