Sarah Carter (1) (1954–)

A history of the women's suffrage movements in Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and Alberta, which were the first provinces in Canada to extend the right to vote to women in 1916. Carter outlines the long campaigns in each province, exploring the various issues that were rolled up in women's suffrage and noting some of the major personalities who were involved in each province's movement. Carter doesn't shy away from the harsh realities that the suffrage movement was primarily focused on the interests of white, British-Canadian women, particularly those of the middle and upper classes. Suffrage was entangled with the colonialist agenda and included many members who held the predominant racist views of the time, particularly in regards to First Nations and Metis individuals. In Alberta in particular, many prominent members of the suffrage movement would later become major advocates for eugenics and forced sterilization in the 1920s. These women are complicated and while they did good work, it was flawed and incomplete. A comprehensive history of the major events of the suffrage movement on the prairies, which doesn't shy away from the fact that we still have a long ways to go.… (meer)