One Hundred Years of Struggle

On the eve of celebrating the 100th anniversary of womens right to vote in Canada comes a book, the first in a series on womens suffrage and the struggle for democracy, by acclaimed historian Joan Sangster. The achievement of the vote in 1918 is often presented as a triumphant moment in the onward, upward advancement of Canadian women. In this beautifully illustrated book, acclaimed historian Joan Sangster looks beyond the shiny rhetoric of anniversary celebrations and Heritage Minutes to show that the struggle for equality included gains and losses, inclusions and exclusions, depending on a womans race, class, and location in the nation. Beginning with Mary Shadd Carys demands for equal rights for women and blacks in the 1850s and ending with Indigenous womens achievement of the vote in the 1960s, Sangster travels back in time to tell a new, more inclusive story for a new generation. The history of the vote, as Joan Sangster tells it, offers vital insights into our political life, exposing not only the fissures of inequality that cut deep into our countrys past but also their weaknesses in the face of resistance, optimism, and protest an inspiring legacy that still resonates to this day.