And on That Farm He Had a Wife
Ontario Farm Women and Feminism, 1900-1970
Description
Because men typically owned the "family farm," farm women's economic welfare depended largely on the smooth negotiation of their interconnected roles. Yet the women Halpern uncovers were surprisingly outspoken about their devaluation on the farm and about patriarchal traditions and institutions that mistreated women generally. And On That Farm He Had a Wife shows how Ontario farm wives and daughters sought to improve their lives, chiefly through the home economics movement and Women's Institutes. They committed themselves to personal development, to elevating the nature and status of their work, and to public participation in social reform designed to help others as well as themselves. All of these efforts were an expression of their social feminism, which endured even with the dramatic changes in rural life at mid-century.
Reviews
"And On That Farm He Had a Wife makes a significant contribution to the field. Long after current theoretical disputes are forgotten, the primary research which Monda Halpern amassed and presented with great care will continue to stand on its own. No one has so thoroughly examined the documents of farm women's organization as Halpern has done here." Louise Carbert, Department of Political Science, Dalhousie University. "An important contribution to the existing literature. I found And On That Farm He Had a Wife very stimulating." Linda Ambrose, Department of History, Laurentian University of Sudbury