Women in the 1920s

• Women in the Home

  • Seen as homeworkers
  • Girls’ education was aimed at preparing them for marriage and motherhood
• Women in the Workforce

  • Worked till they were married
  • Jobs such as secretaries, teachers, and nurses 
  • Earned just over $8 - 55 hours working week
  • Earned 54-60% of what men did  
• Women in the Politics

  • 1921 - Agnes MacPhail became first female MP
  • 1929 - Famous Five was a group of women from Alberta who fought for the right to have women appointed to the senate. This is the Person’s Case. fought this all the way to the highest court in England
• Emily Murphy: journalist, politician, legal reformer, and author. First woman magistrate in Canada and the British Empire. Her appointment as police magistrate in Alberta, her appointment was challenged on the grounds that women were not persons according to BNA Act
• Irene Parlby: first female provincial cabinet minister in Canada. Canada’s delegate to the League of Nations in 1930. First president of the United Farm Women of Alberta. 
• Nellie McClung: suffragist, prohibition activist, author. Elected to Alberta legislature in 1921
• Henrietta Edwards: journalist and suffragist. Fought for equal rights of wives and mothers/ started Working Girls’ Association in Montreal in 1875.
• Louise McKinney: involved in the Dominion Women’s Christian Union. Elected to Alberta legislature in 1917