An English, Protestant, Upper-Class Feminist on the Grand Tour: Elizabeth Smith Shortt in Great Britain and Europe, 1911

Abstract

A prominent feminist within Canada, Elizabeth Smith Shortt travelled with her husband to Great Britain and Europe in 1911. The ensuing trip revealed her maternal feminist perspective, but it also disclosed racial, religious and upper-class sentiments which often overshadowed her feminist values. Maternal feminism inclined Smith Shortt towards a conservative reform of society while racial, religious and class exclusiveness predisposed her towards a more intolerant and selfish ethic. Smith Shortt failed to resolve this conflict in the old world and it remained problematic upon her return to Canada. Elizabeth Smith Shortt, figure feministe importante au Canada, voyagea avec son mari en Grande Bretagne et en Europe en 1911. Ce voyage revela la perspective maternelle de son feminisme, mais aussi des sentiments raciaux, religieux et aristocratiques qui masquerent souvent ses valeurs feministes. Le feminisme maternel entraina Smith Shortt vers une reforme conservatrice de la societe alors que l'exclusivisme racial, religieux et de classe la predisposerent a une morale plus intolerante et egoiste. Smith Shortt ne reussit pas a resoudre ce conflit lors de son sejour dans le Vieux Monde et il resta problematique apres son retour au Canada. The dominant feminism in early twentieth-century Canada was maternal feminism. The early historical works on this subject concentrated on the suffragists and presented them "as heroines, organizing lobbying campaigns and overcoming the prejudices of their day to win the vote."' In response, Wayne Roberts developed a more critical perspective, pointing out that most suffragists and other feminists of the era were essentially "conservative."2 The main responsibility of a proper lady was being a good wife and an even better mother. Larger issues in the outside world were only confronted as an extension of women's primary role within this familial context. Other historians of women agreed with Roberts that the maternal feminists were conservative, but indicated that this assessment needed amendment. Wendy Mitchinson revealed that, if the ladies of the Women's Christian Temperance Union were not full feminists, they were at least "social feminists" while Veronica Strong-Boag demonstrated that after 1894 the basically conservative National Council of Women was "a major instrument of feminine nationalism, reform and ambition."3 Some suffragists such as Nellie McClung moved beyond reform and spoke out for what Strong-Boag later identified as a potentially radical doctrine of "equal rights."4 More recently, Mariana Valverde has recognized the positive vision that women in the social purity movement shared in the years between 1885 and 1925: "the movement was held together not only by its attacks on vice but by a common vision of the pure life that individuals, families and the nation would lead in the near future."5 There was a positive as well as a negative dimension in the activities of these maternal feminists. Elizabeth Smith Shortt participated in the social purity movement and she eagerly embraced its ideals. However, while maternal feminism and the principles of social purity inclined her towards a cautious, conservative reform of society, racial, religious, and class exclusiveness predisposed her towards a more intolerant and selfish ethic. This paper seeks to explore these paradoxical responses in Smith Shortt within the framework of a trip she took to the old world with her husband Adam in 1911. Thus, it endeavours to address another concern raised by Valverde: "The history of Canadian feminism has until the present been researched basically as a Canadian phenomenon, but first-wave feminism had an international dimension and some of its aspects - particularly its intellectual history - have to be understood in this international context."6 By the second decade of the twentieth century Smith Shortt was widely acknowledged as a leading feminist within Canada. Indeed, in 1912 the Toronto Globe numbered her among the "representative women" in the country's upper class. …