The truth about Canadian women
By Bobbie Smith
100
Canadian Heroines is an easy-to-read collection of vignettes
that should show up dog-eared in every high school napsack across
the country.
This well-researched, well-written tribute to Canadian women is surpassed
only by what these women were able to accomplish. With stories spanning
centuries, writer and historian Merna Forster captures aspects of
society revealed through these heroine's struggles for something better.
Forster's smooth magazine style of writing moistens the dryness of
historical writing for non-buffs and stirs a proud passion in the
breast of any Canadian female.
As
100 Canadian Heroines shows, the truth about Canadian women
is that their struggles did make a difference beyond simply being
'a good woman behind a good man' in so many areas of Canadian society.
Book
Jacket Design:
Andrew Roberts |
Their
struggles were not only for the right to vote, but also to study law
and medicine, to write for a living, to build schools, hospitals and
communities and to change the world.
The
role of Canadian women is often portrayed in history as a supporting
role but in fact, Forster puts these women out front as leading ladies
who fought against many obstacles also faced by men and won.
From the first page, the firsts of Canadian women astound. The first
Canadian bestselling novel was written by Margaret Marshall Saunders.
A Canadian woman Dr. Leonora Howard King worked as a doctor in Imperial
China more than sixty years before the famous Dr. Norman Bethune.
They were painters, poets, opera singers and activists. They ran hospitals,
schools, campaigns for the underprivileged and rescued slaves across
borders. The feats were not just interesting; they were acts of heroism
-- ones that today would be recognized by the Order of Canada and
more.
Every woman and every young girl you know deserves a copy this book;
and Forster deserves all the praise, for she, too, is a heroine for
bravely going into dusty archives and rescuing the stories of these
women's lives who should be models for all of us.
www.heroines.ca
