The New Day Recalled: Lives of Girls and Women in English Canada 1919-1939

Notes: The author's "starting date, 1919, is the year in which women in Canada gained the right to vote in federal elections. (Suffrage was still not universal, however)" (p. 153). "Strong-Boag uses what she calls the modified life course approach in seeking answers to ... questions. There are age-related life course transitions common to all women: childhood ... paid employment, courtship and marriage, housework and child care, and growing old. In its unmodified form the life course method follows women in the same age group through one or more such age-related transitions. The figures for women in this age group are then compared with those for women of a different age group. For example, in the chapter 'Working for Pay' we learn that in 1921, 39.8% of women between the ages of 20 and 24 were in the labour force. In 1941 the figure for this age group was 47.4% " (p. 153). "The author weaves around this structure a multi-faceted and balanced account, drawing on a variety of sources such as correspondence, biography, newspapers, magazines, advertising, government reports, legislation, and parliamentary debates" (p. 153). "For expert and non-expert alike this study makes accessible a crucial period in the history of women in Canada" (p. 154).

Subjects: Women - Canada - Social conditions - Book reviews; Girls - Canada - Social conditions - Book reviews; Women - Canada - History - 20th century - Book reviews