Great dames / edited by Elspeth Cameron and Janice Dickin.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Brock, Peter, author.

Contributor:

Cameron, Elspeth, 1943- editor.

McGinnis, Janice P. Dickin (Janice Patricia Dickin), 1947- editor.

Series:

Heritage

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Women--Canada--Biography.

Women.

Canada--Biography.

Canada.

Genre:

Biographies.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (351 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Toronto, [Ontario] ; Buffalo, [New York] ; London, [England] : University of Toronto Press, 1997.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

"Great Dames is a collection of biographical sketches, memoirs, and essays about twentieth-century Canadian women from all walks of life. While attempting to capture the meaning of the ordinary lives of extraordinary women, it also explores the possibility of challenging, even subverting, the traditional view of life writing as an endeavour to 'summarize and fix in time the public careers of public men.' The fifteen essays represent a variety of alternative approaches to feminist biography, including chronology narrative, thematic exploration, multiple biography, conversations between biographer and subject, interviews, diaries, and even fictional accounts." "In selecting their subjects, from Mennonite refugee women to an Ojibwa ethnologist, the contributors were asked to consider women who would be unlikely candidates for longer biographies; in the course of their research, however, it became clear that the lives of at least two of the chosen subjects warranted book-length examination. The selection also attempts to address perceived gaps in regional, class, racial, and disciplinary representation in life writing."--Jacket.

Contents:

'Write down everything just as you know it'

Victims of the times, heroes of their lives

Driving towards death

Dear Ruth: this is the story of Maggie Wilson, Ojibwa ethnologist

Casting light on women in the shadow of the law

From Bovarysme to Automatisme (and beyond)

The wrong time and the wrong place

Settling the score with myths of settlement

Anna of Intola: a Finnish-Canadian woman with Sisu

Soaring to new heights

Marion Hilliard

'By title and by virtue'

Elizabeth Allin

'Out of a cardboard box beside our bed like a baby'

Evelyn Garbary.

Notes:

Includes index.

Description based on print version record.

ISBN:

1-282-04541-5

9786612045417

1-4426-7550-0

OCLC:

923072158