Editor, farm woman, feminist, writer, ardent agrarian, confidante, political maven, pacifist, birth control advocate. These descriptors only partially identify all that was Violet McNaughton.
The first women’s editor of The Western Producer was formidable, both before and after her tenure at the newspaper from 1925 to 1950. Much of her work was documented over the past year and posted last week on a web journal entitled Women and Social Movements.
Margaret Hobbs, associate professor of Women’s Studies at Trent University in Peterborough, Ont., researched McNaughton via Producer files, assisted by associate geography professor Susan Wurtele, also from Trent.
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Their paper, Violet McNaughton and Interwar Feminism in Canada, describes the development of prairie women through McNaughton’s tenure and includes many pages of her section, Mainly For Women, a long-time feature of the Producer. The Farm Living section is the descendent of McNaughton’s pages.
The dynamic McNaughton was “one of Canada’s best known champions of farm interests and women’s rights” by the time she was approached by co-editor Pat Waldron to take on the job.
It was a seminal time in prairie development, as McNaughton acknowledged in her first column dated April 2, 1925: “The west today is bubbling over with interest and activity. Wheat Pools and other pools; currency problems and reforms; and various kinds of organizatons seeking the remedy of our social and economic ills.
“Western women, as well as western men, are up and doing. Women are helping the men in economic endeavor and also defining more clearly their own field of action.”
McNaughton relentlessly sought input from women, encouraged them to be politically active and aware and is said to have answered every letter she received.
I cannot promise the same, but we do encourage letters here at the Producer and will continue to publish as many as we can.
That aside, we would do well to match McNaughton’s work ethic and sheer tenacity in support of her many causes.
The Hobbs/Wurtele paper resides on a site requiring a password to view, and I am working with administrators to obtain one that I can provide to you. Check this column for developments.
