Home Social Landscape Featured Articles Modesty and Meaning: Women in Alberta Local Histories

Modesty and Meaning: Women in Alberta Local Histories

by Nanci Langford, Ph.D.

1  |  Page 2  |  3  |  4  

Pictures of women available in public collections, such as archives and museums, are few in number compared to those available in private family collections. The community history makes it possible for many pictures from private collections to be shared in public records. Many images of women, in groups, and individuals, would never be available for public education except for their inclusion in community histories. The most common type of photograph is the family portrait, followed by posed group photos of women in organizations, or participating in a particular event, such as the opening of a church. The rarest are pictures of women alone or spontaneous photos of women doing their daily tasks, alone or in groups. A delightful but small collection of photos called “Women at Work” is found in the South Edmonton Saga. The editors gathered and placed together on a series of pages a variety of photographs demonstrating the broad range of women’s work activities in rural Alberta over four decades. These photos document what has often rendered invisible by popular accounts of women’s lives. Sylvan Lake’s history Sod Shacks and Wagon Tracks offers a sampling of “fashion” photos over several decades, although this series of photos would be enhanced by providing more examples from each period. When I look at women’s clothing in these photos and the high standards of dress they had to maintain, I am even more impressed with the effort women expended in laundering and pressing clothes under less than ideal conditions when water and other supplies were at a premium. Photographs tell us, more than words sometimes, of the diversity and scope of women’s work and leisure activities, and provide a sample of those moments and activities deemed significant enough to photograph. Perhaps it was because women’s work activities seemed so commonplace and unattractive compared to the composed family portrait where all were dressed in their finest, that they were infrequently recorded on film. Cameras were also rare in the early years of settlement and families were too busy doing the work to stop and photograph each other performing daily tasks. Those that we have of women at work are treasures indeed.

Accounts of families of the district, usually written by a living family member, make up the bulk of community histories. Their quality and style vary, but usually they are accounts of arrival, marriages, births, deaths, occupations and locations and occasional tragedies or successes. There is no way to ascertain how the family and its members interacted with the community, and contributed socially and materially to each other or their neighbours. One of Styles’ criticisms is of their uniformity, which seems surprising at first, when thousands of people are producing them over a period of fifty years. When I read these family stories I wonder which families have been left out? Were there Native, Metis, Chinese or other families integral to the life of the community who have been overlooked?

There are many factors that contribute to this uniformity. One is the reality that most community histories were developed by volunteer committees, and the format they chose, to have many authors writing family accounts, was the most efficient way to obtain comprehensive coverage of the community. Despite advice from consultants and experts, the family story format has remained a popular choice through three decades of publications. Another contributing factor to their popularity may be that communities used the history books of other communities as models for their own histories. It makes sense that there would be a competitive atmosphere and a sharing around the creation of these histories. Prizes were awarded by a number of organizations and by government for outstanding histories. This type of competition engenders uniformity, not uniqueness. The neighbouring community becomes the standard to both emulate and to better.

There are differences between community histories, and many communities are blessed with several publications which record their story. Red Deer has a collection of histories, written at different times and in different styles. One is by the Ridgewood Women’s Institute, who used the opportunity to highlight the history of their Institute branch in the first chapter. They won a national award for their publication. The most noticeable differences are those found by comparing single-authored books with those written by committees, committees being the most common. These histories are similar both in the ways in which they are organized, and in the way the settlement period in particular is remembered. Their uniformity suggests a popularized collective memory has guided their creation.

[<<previous] [continue>>]