Violet McNaughton shaped the lives of the farm women of her time as long-time women’s editor of The Western Producer
REGINA — Long before Harris Turner and Pat Waldron founded The Western Producer, Violet McNaughton was rallying Saskatchewan farmers to support a progressive agenda.
She had, by 1923 when the paper was born, already amassed an impressive resume of organizing both men and women through grain growers’ locals and then the Saskatchewan Grain Growers Association. She championed women’s suffrage, led campaigns for various causes, including health care, and spoke out about rural women’s issues such as land rights.
That continued even after she joined the paper in 1925 to “conduct” the Mainly for Women page as a volunteer. By 1926 she was working for the paper full time and remained women’s editor until 1950. She continued to write a column for 10 more years.
McNaughton could be seen as an activist, or a journalist, or both. That’s a question historians have struggled with, too.
“I think she made herself into (a journalist),” said Nanci Langford, who is editing Georgina Taylor’s biography of McNaughton.
Taylor wrote her 1997 University of Carlton doctoral thesis on McNaughton and agrarian feminism and is considered an authority. However, she was unavailable for interviews.
Langford said the question is interesting and one she is asking herself as she edits the biography.
“Was the paper just a vehicle for activism and for spreading a certain ideological framework, or was she truly committed to being women’s editor for the sake of being a women’s editor?” she said.
The Mainly for Women pages were a lifeline for rural women isolated on farms and looking for connection to others. They wrote to McNaughton, and she replied. She tackled their concerns in her columns. And, she used the pages to discuss topics controversial at the time, such as birth control.
“To some extent, as the paper changed she wasn’t entirely happy with some of the changes that were happening in the modern era because it seemed a less personal point of view project and more of a standard paper,” Langford said.
“I think its roots are very much grounded in activism and as it evolved, that activism changed as the world changed.”
Taylor, in her thesis, writes more of McNaughton as activist.
“Between 1909 and 1918, McNaughton developed a distinctly agrarian feminist ideology which focused on farm women and their families,” she wrote.
“Her agrarian feminism had a significant impact on a new stream in the farm women’s movement in Canada that she, and the farm women she worked with, developed.”
The Women Grain Growers was the women’s arm of the SGGA and the first of the movements, followed by United Farm Women in other provinces, and eventually the National Farmers Union and its provincial organizations.
Taylor said McNaughton’s style was to co-operate, so these newer organizations often collaborated with the older organizations such as the Women’s Institutes and the Homemakers’ Clubs.
That she established the Young Co-operators page in The Western Producer speaks to her desire that everyone have a voice.
In her 1996 University of Saskatchewan master’s thesis, Christa Scowby examined the Mainly for Women pages from 1930-39 and their role in helping farm women create their identities.
She observed that McNaughton did indeed “conduct” the pages, publishing numerous articles by farm women and writing on subjects suggested by her readers.
She said that McNaughton the journalist was well aware of farm women’s concerns because she continued to work on the farm. The McNaughtons had struggled to keep their land during the 1930s and she could bring that experience to her work.
In the fall of 1931, The Western Producer ran a list of reasons why farmers should subscribe to the paper, Scowby wrote.
“Reason 11: Because no farm newspaper in Canada has so much claim to the esteem of farm women. The editor of the women’s department is a past president of the Saskatchewan farm women’s organization and is internally known for her practical contributions to the service of rural women.”
McNaughton printed letters with pen names so that the writers wouldn’t be identified locally. She edited the letters so they were factual and did not allow personal attacks.
She allowed some political letters to be published, even though she claimed most women were more interested in their homes and everyday life than politics.
And, she used her own column to promote her causes, such as encouraging women to vote or sign anti-war petitions.
Langford said Taylor writes that McNaughton shaped both farm women and female journalists.
“She really relied on the other women journalists to teach her her job,” said Langford.
“She referred (in her papers) to how much that original group of women journalists on the Prairies helped her figure out what she should be doing.”
That group included women like Lillian Beynon Thomas, who was a teacher before joining the Manitoba Free Press and also worked for women’s rights.
But how much McNaughton shaped the next generation of female journalists is unknown.
“I think there was maybe a bit of friction there eventually between her and the next generation about how things should be done,” said Langford.
“There was probably that shift, post-World War II, from being a much more personal approach to people in your journalism, down-to-earth people’s needs and wants and desires and realities, especially farm people’s realities, to being a more stepped-back professional approach.”
She said that was true of all professions as modernization occurred. People became less connected emotionally and personally.
Taylor has written that McNaughton was considered, at least in earlier days, the most influential farm woman in Canada.
“In some ways the farm community during those early decades of The Western Producer … the farm community of women was much more united and aware of each other across the provinces, farm families in general, and farm organizations,” added Langford.
“They were maybe in tune more than they are now.”
The paper had that uniting role, she said, before modernization took farms, and women, in different directions. Many farm women’s organizations no longer exist.
McNaughton never quite gave up activism. Even during her time at The Western Producer, she and the WGG organized the Saskatchewan Egg and Poultry Pool, a producer co-operative for women.
Asked what McNaughton’s legacy is, Langford said likely her practical skills as a leader and a teacher, which she had been in England before moving to Saskatchewan.
“I think she took her role as teacher into journalism. I think a lot of her contribution was opening people’s minds over those decades at the Producer. Their hearts, too.
“I suspect in her activism she probably used that same approach (of) opening people up to the possibilities.”
