alternatehistory.com

Next update is done finally! This update is a couple sections I wanted to include in previous updates but couldn't quite figure out how to fit them in.

Part One Hundred Thirty-Five: Progressive Era Miscellany

Canadian Progressivism and the Quebecois Awakening:
As the progressive issues of women's suffrage and alcohol prohibition surged into the national forefront in the United States, so too did these issues become subject to debate to the north in Canada. Also as in the UniteD States, both movements were spearheaded by women's Christian groups. The most prominent progressive movement in all the Laurentian states was led by Edith Archibald of Newfoundland. Archibald was first active in her birthplace of Newfoundland and in Acadia where she lived in Halifax for much of her life. It was in Halifax that Edith Archibald became a founding member of the Laurentine branch of the Women's Christian Union in 1885. For several years, Archibald and the Women's Christian Union worked to promote women's suffrage and temperance in homes throughout Acadia and the isle of Newfoundland. While the issue was soon met with sharp criticism from the British consul in Newfoundland, it gained popularity in Acadia and nearby, and by the end of the century Women's Christian Union chapters were opening up in Canada in Montreal, Kingston, and Toronto.

As in the United States, the Canadian progressive movement was boosted by the arrival of the Great War on the North American continent. The Great War had two two large impacts on the success of the women's suffrage movement in Canada. First, the conscription of men into the militay during the Great War opened up the need and opportunity for women to participate in the economy more, including in more traditionally male factory jobs. Secondly and interestingly, the Great War brought Frederick William Borden and his cousin Robert Borden into the political spotlight. The Bordens had long lived in Acadia, but moved to Ontario shortly after the Irish diaspora. Frederick William returned to Halifax as a military surgeon and officer in the Royal Army of North America, and by 1899 was appointed Canadian Minister of Defence under the Liberal government of Edward Blake. Borden's ministry only lasted until 1905, but his modernization efforts of the Canadian military is often cited as the single most important reason the British dominions resisted the American invasion in the Great War as well as it did. During the war itself, Frederick William Borden returned to Acadia and led the defence of Halifax through the war. Afterward, he returned to Canada and contributed to Robert Borden's election to Prime Minister in 1911. The Borden wing of the Liberal Party rose to prominence as a more progressive wing of Canadian politics, supporting both the causes of women's suffrage and aclohol prohibition that had grown in support in Ontario and Montreal.

At a provincial level, alcohol prohibition had been enacted as a wartime measure in Ontario in 1909 by the province's Liberal government and remained in force following the end of the Great War. Soon after the election of Robert Borden as Prime Minister, Canada was considering prohibtiion on a national level. The effort for both the provincial measure in Ontario and the national campaign for prohibition were led by the fiery Liberal MP and former Methodist minister Hartley Dewart. Dewart's campaign in Canada led to a national referendum on prohibition being held in 1913. The vote was very controversial, being opposed by the Conservative Party as well as the largely Catholic population of the province of Quebec. However, despite the opposition, it gained substantial support in Ontario and Ojibwa[1] and passed with a vote of 56.2% to 43.8%. While the Liberal Party won the ensuing election in 1914 and Borden pushed women's suffrage through by the end of the decade, the passage of prohibition only deepened divisions within the country between Quebec and the rest of Canada. The French speaking, Catholic province frequently found itself on losing side of legislation.

This discontent with Kingston quickly found a home in the form of the Mouvement pour Quebec party led by Henri Bourassa and Lionel Groulx[2]. The Mouvement's main effort was to "awaken the identity of Quebec", promoting a separate French-Canadian identity through French education in Quebecois schools and appealing to the more conservative and rural farmers in the province. Groulx's influence in the party is primarily seen in the push against the anti-clerical policies enacted by Borden's Liberals. Groulx himself was a Pueblan Catholic by 1916 when the Mouvement was founded, and led proselytizing efforts to bring the majority of the Quebecois clergy under the influence of Puebla. Groulx found support from other Catholics in the province such as Joseph-Napoleon Francoeur, who railed against Prohibition and the perceived anti-French tilt of the nationally dominant Liberal Party. Another early prominent member of the Mouvement was Louis-Alexandre Tascherau, but Tascherau's support was more reluctant. Tascherau was not a member of the Mouvement, but begrudgingly supported the awakening as an opposition to the Liberal protectionism. Louis-Alexandre Tascherau had left the Liberals after Borden became leader as Borden returned to a policy of tariff reciprocity with the United States, raising tariffs following Canada's defeat in the Great War. Tascherau opposed the clericalism espoused by the Mouvement which hampered any attempts to convince the Independent Liberal Tascherau to join the party[3]. However, Tascherau supported French-Canadian nationalism and saw independence for Quebec as moving Quebec toward freer trade and a closer relationship with the United States, which Tascherau saw as vital for Quebec's economy. These divisions in Canada following the Great War would dictate American policy toward Canada. Over the following two decades, tensions in Canada escalated while Washington debated what America's foreign policy toward its neighbors should be.


L. Frank Baum's Mary Louise:
The suffragist movement in the United States saw a flourishing of literature surrounding women in the early 1900s. During the American involvement in the Great War, many women gained temporary employment in traditional male positions as the United States moved to a war footing and many working age men signed up to fight on the front line. Women authors such as Louisa May Alcott and Harriet Beecher Stowe had gained some notoriety in the 19th century, but American literature written by women did not gain real traction until the 20th century.

Aside from female authors, a growing number of American novelists around the turn of the century became supporters of women's suffrage and wroter ground breaking works with a more liberated portrayal of women. One of the more prominent authors in this respect is, somewhat amusingly, L. Frank Baum. His most remembered works, the Mary Louise series of novels, were written primarily for children, but the series of children's detective stories did play a role in changing the view of women. As a series aimed at children, the Mary Louise novels had the most impact on the generation growing up in the 1910s rather than his own generation. Baum was politically active in fighting for universal surrage both in the Finger Lakes region of New York where he spent his early life and in Pembina, where he edited the Aberdeen Pioneer newspaper.

The Mary Louise series of books were originally written as stories for his two daughters Joslyn and Matilda. The title charcter, Mary Louise Brewster, is named after one of L. Frank Baum's sisters, and the series of novels features the child detective Mary Louise investigating crimes and solving mysteries[4]. In the first book in the Mary Louise series, fifteen year old boarding school student Mary Louise Brewster discovers that her grandfather has been accused of treason against the United States for alleged actions aiding the Canadians in the Great War. Mary Louise looks into the allegations with the assistance of Emma Van Dyne, the daughter of a New York City detective who was trained to be an investigator by her father. The two heroines eventually prove Mary Louise's grandfather innocent[5]. This first book followed previous themes of young girls and women in more independent roles in previous books written by Baum, but the two independent young heroines took off and quickly became a best seller among teenage girls of the early 20th century.

The first novel in the Mary Louise series was published in 1910. Baum, wishing to capitalize on the success of the Mary Louise books and the increasingly prominent debate over the role of women in society after the Great War, published twelve more books featuring Mary Louise Brewster and Emma Van Dyne over the next fifteen years. In later books, the two girls traveled around the country with Mary Louise's grandfather and Emma's father. These later books featured not only independent working women as the two heroines aged, but also touched upon other pertinent issues of the time. In Mary Louise in Red Feather Lake, Mary Louise makes a case for an Indian in Pembina to be granted birthright citizenship. This was heavily drawn from Baum's own life experiences running a newspaper in southern Pembina. However, while the books were ahead of their time for their portrayal of women, there were some parts that show Baum still had to acquiesce to publishers' more conservative demands. This is most evident in the last book, Emma Van Dyne Meets Her Match, where Emma at the age of twenty-four meets and marries a man by the end of the book. Baum in private letters expressed dissatisfaction with this conclusion, having wanted Emma Van Dyne to remain single and independent. Even so, Baum's novels and others were an inspiration for a generation of women growing up and reaching adulthood at a time when women were increasingly entering the economy and had just gained the right to vote.

[1] Ojibwa is a Canadian province ITTL consisting of OTL northwestern Ontario north of Lake Superior and south of the Albany River
[2] Lionel Groulx eventually rose through the Pueblan Church ranks and would later be elected Pope Gregory XVIII
[3] I wanted to have Tascherau be supportive of Quebec nationalism ITTL, but realized he wouldn't be a good fit with the Mouvement pour Quebec with the circumstances of its founding here.
[4] The series is loosely based on Baum's OTL series THe Bluebird Books.
[5] This is a clsoe summary to the OTL first in the Bluebird books.