Imagen del autor

Nellie L. McClung (1873–1951)

Autor de Clearing in the West

21 Obras 259 Miembros 7 Reseñas

Sobre El Autor

Créditos de la imagen: Cyril Jessup (Gladstone, Manitoba, Canada, ca. 1905-1922)

Series

Obras de Nellie L. McClung

Etiquetado

Conocimiento común

Otros nombres
McClung, Nellie Letitia
Fecha de nacimiento
1873-10-20
Fecha de fallecimiento
1951-09-01
Género
female
Nacionalidad
Canada
Lugar de nacimiento
Chatsworth, Ontario, Canada
Lugar de fallecimiento
Victoria, British Columbia, Canada
Lugares de residencia
Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada
Edmonton, Alberta, Canada
Educación
Teachers College, Winnipeg, Manitoba
Ocupaciones
suffragist
novelist
short story writer
Politician
public speaker
teacher
Organizaciones
Women's Christian Temperance Union
Biografía breve
Nellie Letitia Mooney was born in Chatsworth, Ontario, and her homesteading family later moved to Manitoba. She trained as a teacher and taught in rural schools. In 1896, she married Wesley McClung, a pharmacist, with whom she had five children. She championed the causes of women's right to vote and temperance, and was a talented and dynamic public speaker. She had seen firsthand the suffering of women and children caused by neglect, overwork, poverty, and alcohol abuse. Thanks in part to her efforts, in 1916 Manitoba became the first Canadian province to give women the vote. Nellie McClung was one of The Famous Five (also known as The Valiant Five), Alberta women who put forward a petition to change the law that excluded women from holding political office. That petition was successful, and cleared the way for women to enter Canadian politics. In 1921, Nellie McClung herself was elected to the Alberta Legislative Assembly; she lost a bid for re-election in 1926. In 1938, she was the only woman member of the Canadian delegation to the League of Nations in Geneva, Switzerland. As a writer, Nellie McClung is best remembered for her highly sentimental first novel, Sowing Seeds in Danny (1908). She also wrote short stories and essays on the social issues she cared about, and a total of 15 books, including two other novels, The Second Chance (1910) and Purple Springs (1921). She's one of the figures in the statue of the Famous Five in Calgary's Olympic Plaza.

Miembros

Reseñas

I believe this is Nellie McClung's final book. It is a memoir, a collection of descriptions of diverse episodes in her life. The most interesting sections pertain to her work in having women officially declared as persons in Canada. In retrospect it seems unbelievable that anyone would have to struggle to attain the status of personhood for women, yet in McClung's time many vigorously opposed it, including Canada's Supreme Court. McClung and her colleagues, the Famous Five, were very clever in using different persuasive methods, including satire, to achieve their goals.

Throughout the book McClung emerges as an admirable and determined woman committed to women's rights, the temperance movement, and equal treatment of minority groups. She didn't believe in spending "precious strength in the indulgence of hurt feelings," realizing that anything worth fighting for was going to draw criticism. The book is not all hard-edged political drama. Included as well is observations on the beauty of the natural world, travel writing, and family life. ( )
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Denunciada
bkinetic | Aug 7, 2017 |
In the December email that John Mutford sends out at the start of each month to participants in his Canadian book challenge suggested that we should read a Nellie L. McClung book. He listed two titles: Sowing Seeds in Danny and The Second Chance as both are available online. I decided to see what I could get via my library and found Purple Springs via Link+.

My first impression of Purple Springs by Nellie L. McClung is that it's Anne of Avonlea for adults. At it's most basic it's about a young woman having returned from teaching college, ready to tackle her first year of teaching. After being rebuffed by her fiancé of three years, she sets off on the world of suffrage, temperance, and teaching.

Because she has the respect of the men around her, a good solid education, and enough self respect to withstand countless setbacks and rude statements, Pearl is able to say and do things that most women around her can't — or have stopped trying to.

According to the introduction, Purple Springs was inspired by the author's own time working in Winnipeg politics, in all the things her protagonist also works in. But as it's omniscient, third person fiction, she records the arguments for and against feminism with other characters, letting them sit there for the reader to sort out.

Along with campaign for women's rights, are the poetic descriptions of the harsh but beautiful prairie landscape. To this Californian, the landscape she paints is similar to central California but colder, darker, and snowier. Along with the harsh beauty is the isolation that many women and their children face: left alone during the winter months, with only the party line telephone.

The worst case is Mrs. Paine whose husband works in Winnipeg, leaving her and their son on the homestead with only the funds she can make from selling butter. He's trying to buy a hotel in the city but has given no thought to what his wife and son might want and with the law of the time, he can sell the house right out from under them and take the son with him without her input as she has no right to property or even her children.

Another woman, a widow and the owner of the eponymous ranch, pretends to be an unwed mother as its the only way to have legal rights as a parent over her son. Her father in law was willed the rights to the raising of her child when her husband was killed in a train derailment. It is better to withstand the ostracizing that comes with being an unwed mother than it is to lose her son to a man who barely knows her child and didn't approve of the marriage!
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Denunciada
pussreboots | otra reseña | Dec 14, 2014 |
I read a biography of Nellie McClung last year and found out she was an author. So, I decided to read one of her books.

Sowing Seeds in Danny is the story of people living in a small town in Manitoba. Pearl Watson is the main character. She is the eldest of nine children in a poor family. The story revolves around her family and neighbours, and her time working for a wealthy family. While this is a novel and it does have a plot line that reaches a suitable ending, it is also to some degree a portrait of several characters who interact peripherally, if at all. It also contains some messages on temperance, but these do not overwhelm the story.

I would recommend this book to those interested in looking at life in early Canada from a contemporary viewpoint.
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Denunciada
LynnB | otra reseña | Aug 3, 2010 |
While the frame of this story was rather contrived, the events and characters were quite delightful. This is a satisfying conclusion to the trilogy of novels featuring Pearl Watson and her family. This book demonstrates the suffragette interests of its author more directly - but not without humour.

I read the ebook, available here:
http://digital.library.upenn.edu/women/mcclung/purple/purple.html… (más)
½
 
Denunciada
francescadefreitas | otra reseña | Jun 4, 2007 |

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Estadísticas

Obras
21
Miembros
259
Popularidad
#88,671
Valoración
½ 3.4
Reseñas
7
ISBNs
107
Idiomas
1

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