Overview

In Organizing Rural Women Margaret Kechnie looks at the history of the Federated Women's Institutes of Ontario, popularly known as the Women's Institutes (WI), from the time the first branch was formed at Stoney Creek in 1897 until federation in 1919. Kechnie challenges the popular mythology that the WI began when Adelaide Hoodless called on farm women to organize and received an overwhelming response. She reveals that Hoodless had little to do with founding the WI, that early response to the organization was both disappointing and discouraging, and that for the first thirty-four years of its existence the WI was led by men, who defined the constitution of the organization and set many of its policies. Kechnie places the WI within the context of the country life movement emanating from the United States, arguing that Ontario farm women's attempts to organize should be viewed as part of the Department of Agricultural's efforts to revive the flagging fortunes of the Farmers' Institutes and encourage farm women to embrace ""scientific home management"" in order to modernize farm homes and discourage the depopulation of Ontario's farms.While many men and women within the farm community supported the government's attempts to encourage ""book farming,"" many others resisted the state's educational initiatives and identified with the independent farm movement. In order to ensure the success of the WI the Ontario Department of Agriculture provided funds to hire organizers and the organization was encouraged to develop branches outside farming areas, even if this meant ignoring the needs of farm women. By the end of the World War I the WI had become one of the largest women's organizations in the province but was widely known not for its emphasis on scientific home management but for its community activism.

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"""This book sets the history of this important women's organization into context in rural Ontario, and ties it to the urban reform movement of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. It is a solid piece of research."" Linda Ambrose, Department of History, Laurentian University"

""This book sets the history of this important women's organization into context in rural Ontario, and ties it to the urban reform movement of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. It is a solid piece of research."" Linda Ambrose, Department of History, Laurentian University

This book sets the history of this important women's organization into context in rural Ontario, and ties it to the urban reform movement of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. It is a solid piece of research. Linda Ambrose, Department of History, Laurentian University

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