We Shall Persist

Women in Atlantic Canada won the right to vote and to run for office only after long, vigorous, and exhausting campaigns for the Great Cause. We Shall Persist explores the distinctive political contexts and common problems faced by advocates for women’s suffrage and wider rights in the Maritime provinces and Newfoundland.

This regional suffrage movement was part of a web of human rights and social reform efforts that long predated the First World War. Despite virulent opposition in the press, the legislature, universities, churches, clubs, the home, and on the job, most nonindigenous women won enfranchisement shortly after the war. This victory curbed the most blatant political misogyny and prepared the way for more rights, including election to public office, minimum wage legislation, improved social assistance, and access to birth control. Yet sexism was not the only form of discrimination to be overcome. Heidi MacDonald critically and sensitively addresses inequities within the movement, including its disregard for Indigenous and African-descended women.

We Shall Persist captures both the long campaign and the years of disappointment. Suffrage victories across Atlantic Canada were steps in an unfinished and contentious march toward gender, race, and class equality.