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Archival description
Women--British Columbia--Social conditions--1918-1945
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Ruth Bullock interview : [Diamond, 1979]

SUPPLIED TITLE OF TAPE(S): Ruth Bullock : women in the C.C.F. and workforce, 1935-1950 RECORDED: Vancouver (B.C.), 1979-07-25 SUMMARY: Ruth Bullock grew up in Beaton, B.C. She attended school until the age of 10 and a half, when her father was killed in a mining explosion, leaving her mother as the single support of five small children. The family later moved to a sheep ranch on Saltspring Island. At 17, she left the farm and became a domestic in Hatzic for $15 a month. Later, she moved to another farm for $20 a month. There were no unions for domestics and they were not protected by government legislation. She first married in 1929 and soon had a daughter. Ruth grew up in the radical Scots tradition, first becoming interested in birth control after her daughter's birth and difficult delivery. She joined the newly formed C.C.F. in 1932-33, where she met Vivian Dowding of the Parent's Information Service. At this time, unions were very weak. The Spanish Civil War further radicalized her and she helped to support the struggles of the unemployed and the Longshore Strike. She later left her husband. In 1944 she became interested in the Trotskyists, disagreeing with the Labour Progressive Party's no-strike policy in the war industries. She worked in a canning factory where the workers resisted speed-ups and the distribution of poor quality food to the rank and file soldiers and high quality food to the officers. She was a member of the I.W.A. Women's Auxiliary, and assisted in organizing clerical workers at Burrard; Drydocks in the 1950s.

Ethel Thompson interview

RECORDED: Fort St. John (B.C.), 1973-12-18 SUMMARY: Arrival in area. Gardening attempts. Wild berries galore. Sheep. Brush fence. Hunting. Women's Institute started in October 1933 -- Christmas program, hospital. School started in 1934. Box-social auctions. No roads at all. Log houses -- two bedrooms and big room. Candy making. Rug hooking. Health nurses visited. Nutrition. Cheese making. Oven canning -- berries, meat (moose, chicken, deer; rabbits were diseased). People brought cows in with them. Froze dairy products in winter and buried them in summer. Huge quantities of garden produce. Homesteads -- lots were claimed, then abandoned for jobs in the city. Mostly people from Saskatchewan. Magazines. Library started. Effects of isolation.

Mary Hamilton interview : [Stewart, 1975]

PERIOD COVERED: ;1908;-;1951 RECORDED: [location unknown], 1975-07-24 SUMMARY: Mary Wallace Hamilton, born in New Westminster, 1891, is a 1908 graduate of Victoria High School. McGill University graduate. Types of students who completed their high school education in 1908. Parental influence and encouragement concerning a girl's academic achievement. Opportunities for women; clerking, teaching, nursing or secretarial work. Role of women in school life. General attitudes towards women and education. Women's opportunities -- changes through the years.

Emily Nuttall interview

SUPPLIED TITLE OF TAPE(S): Emily Nuttall : organizing hotels in the 1940s RECORDED: Toronto (Ont.), 1979-12-31 SUMMARY: TRACK 1: Emily Nuttall (nee Watts?) was born in Winnipeg in 1913. She worked in the trade union movement in Winnipeg and then Toronto before coming to Vancouver in 1944. This interview covers her career as a union organizer and president until 1946. She describes working in the restaurant industry in the 1930s; working in the Bartenders Union office; launching the organizing drive in the war industry canteens, restaurants and hotels; support from the Boilermakers and Machinists; winning cab fare for women working late shifts in restaurants; effect of the legalization of unions on conditions; for organisation during the war; the Georgia Hotel drive (a one-day blitz wins a contract); winning a BC master agreement; establishing shifts and hours through the first contract; thrown out of the Belmont Hotel while organising; servicing restaurants; sexual harassment; women were the best union members -- "give me a picket line of good dedicated women and they will out-picket any man". TRACK 2: Women's issues include dressing rooms; broken shifts; sexual harassment; childcare not an issue; no-strike pledge and industrial action; negotiations. Winnipeg childhood; mother was a women's rights activist, father was a trade unionist. Skills needed by organisers -- empathy. HREU International and conservative leadership; defeat of Progressives in 1946; Cold War; local under trusteeship for refusing to clean out "Reds"; Ms. Watts loses position as organiser; chauvinism towards women in the trade unions; women not taken seriously; women participate during the war; after trusteeship, male leadership.

Effie Jones interview : [Diamond, 1979]

CALL NUMBER: T3588:0001 SUPPLIED TITLE OF TAPE(S): Effie Jones : The Housewives' League RECORDED: Vancouver (B.C.), 1979-07-31 SUMMARY: TRACK 1: Effie Jones was born in England and spent years of her youth in Wales, where she came into contact with the miners' struggles of the early 20th century. She came to Canada in 1919 and married, settling with her husband in Vancouver. Mr. Jones worked for BC Telephone. The Jones' home was the only one in the neighbourhood with a telephone during the Depression, and became a centre for people looking for work. They also had a vegetable garden and many chickens, as well as steady work, and helped to support many of their less fortunate friends and neighbours. Mrs. Jones began her political work with the CCF as a local executive member. Her experience with the CCF left her disillusioned and she left the CCF for the more active Communist Party. She worked in the Housewives' League, transforming it from a Liberal club into an organisation with branches across Canada. TRACK 2: The League worked on support for the Post Office occupation in 1938 -- the defense of the men arrested in the occupation, fighting evictions, and mobilizing to put people's belongings back into their homes. CALL NUMBER: T3588:0002 RECORDED: Vancouver (B.C.), 1979 SUMMARY: TRACK 1: When the war began, the Housewives League fought for soldiers' wives to receive an adequate and regular allowance. Effie Jones almost won the mayoral race in 1947. She ran for civic positions in later elections as well. She celebrated her 90th birthday in 1979. [TRACK 2: blank?]

Peggy Kennedy interview

SUPPLIED TITLE OF TAPE(S): Peggy Kennedy : women war workers -- Boeing Aircraft RECORDED: Langley (B.C.), 1979-06-05 SUMMARY: TRACK 1: Peggy Kennedy was born in [Hyder?], Alaska, emigrating to BC and studying at the University of Victoria. After the war was in its third year, she began to work at Boeing Aircraft. She was first a stores clerk and then a secretary to the foreman. She became involved in the union (IAM) and protested the lack of rest periods, participating in a sit-down which led to a lockout. Women at Boeing worked in electrical sub-assembly but not as machinists. Sub-assembly involved putting together a part of an aircraft. Women were working both in the Sea Island plant and the sub-plant of Georgia Street, where Mrs. Kennedy worked. Men and women received equal benefits and were paid for the job but did not receive equal promotion. Many of the women in war production were very young, both single and married, and for many it was their first job. Many women left their children with relatives; childcare was a major problem.. She worked monthly swing shift at Boeing and came to know many of the workers because of her job. She became involved with IAM as a rank and file member and began to write for the newspaper. She became a steward, secretary for the union and editor of the paper. The issues which faced the workers were rest periods, raises, consultation on production, and the abolition of supervision. After the war, both men and women were laid off, despite union efforts to shift the plant to consumer production through lobbies to Victoria and rallies.

Gladys Hilland interview

CALL NUMBER: T3593:0001 SUPPLIED TITLE OF TAPE(S): Gladys Hilland : IWA officer, Local 1-217 - World War II RECORDED: Surrey (B.C.), 1979-07-17 SUMMARY: TRACK 1: Mrs. Hilland grew up in Saskatchewan where she participated with her brother in the Farmers Unity League, an organisation of farmers allied with the Workers Unity League, which fought farm foreclosures. She married and moved to BC with her husband to look for work, becoming a waitress and a domestic. She took a job with a BC Forest Products sawmill as soon as women were hired, and worked at Sitka, piling lumber and as a sawyer. She was active in unionising the plant, arguing for the workers to leave the company union and join the IWA. She was elected secretary-treasurer of Local 1-217 of the IWA and served in that capacity until the split in 1948. She was one of the most prominent women in the labour movement in that position. As secretary-treasurer, she continued to organize for the union, speaking to IWA workers and helping them organize in their plants. TRACK 2: She was involved in the 1946 march to Victoria during the strike, and participated in numerous labour lobbies to Victoria. The post-war period and the Cold War led to hostility to the LPP leadership of the IWA. The leadership, dissatisfied with the drain of dues into the International, led a breakaway, forming the WIUC. Mrs. Hilland went with the WIUC. CALL NUMBER: T3593:0001 [cont'd] RECORDED: Surrey (B.C.), 1979-07-17 SUMMARY: During her term as an IWA officer, she fought for the payment of workers according to the job performed, not according to race or sex. Her own experience confirmed a belief that women were competent at all physical and intellectual tasks.

Buster Foster interview

SUPPLIED TITLE OF TAPE(S): Harold (Buster) Foster : The IAM and union women in World War II RECORDED: Vancouver (B.C.), 1979-06-06 SUMMARY: TRACK 1: Buster Foster was an engineer; burned in an accident in the early 1930s, he was forced onto relief. Social workers harassed relief recipients throughout the Depression. During both world wars, he worked in the shipyards. He participated in the 1919 solidarity strike with the OBU in BC. During World War II he supervised thirty-five to forty women in the shipyards as steward for the union. There were few grievances filed by the women. TRACK 2: After the war, he voiced his concern that two people in a family should not be working when there were only adequate numbers of jobs for one family member. Despite the no-strike pledge, the International Association of Machinists, which he represented, went out on a seven-day job action during the war, resulting in the Richards Commission. Conflicts existed in the IAM over Canadian autonomy and control by the International over Canadian funds and policy.

Myrtle Bergren interview

CALL NUMBER: T3602:0001 SUPPLIED TITLE OF TAPE(S): Myrtle Bergren : working to build the IWA -- a staff person remembers RECORDED: Nanaimo (B.C.), 1979-06-28 SUMMARY: TRACK 1: Mrs. Bergren was born in England, coming to Canada in 1925 when her family came to farm in the Okanagan where they lived through the Depression. She left school at 13, working for fifteen cents a day on an asparagus farm. Later she worked at housework for ten dollars a month until 1939, when she worked in a bakeshop, attending stenography classes in the morning. She then worked at the Kelowna Courier for sixty-five dollars a month, moving on to the Princeton courthouse as a stenographer. There she joined the Civil Servants' Association, despite the anti-union atmosphere in her office and her own mistrust of unions. She spent two years in the air force during the war and in 1946 was offered a job with the International Woodworkers of America at thirty-five dollars a week, which she accepted. Her attitudes towards unions changed rapidly, and she became a strong union militant when she saw unions in the context of class society. She also joined the Communist Party. She worked for the IWA until the split in 1948. She studied with Becky Huhay about the role of women in society. TRACK 2: She married Hjlamer Bergren, an organiser for the IWA, moved with him to Lake Cowichan in 1946, and worked with the Women's Auxiliary there. In 1948, the IWA leadership led a split and formed the Woodworkers Industrial Union of Canada, a Canadian union. The Bergrens had relocated in Vancouver, but now returned to Lake Cowichan where they organised for the WIUC, and their house became the centre of union activity in the area until the dissolution of the WIUC. Women played a major role in many of the union's activities, including the 1946 march to Victoria during the strike. CALL NUMBER: T3602:0002 SUPPLIED TITLE OF TAPE(S): Myrtle Bergren : working to build the IWA -- a staff person remembers [continued] RECORDED: Nanaimo (B.C.), 1979-06-28 SUMMARY: TRACK 2: Mrs. Bergren lent a hand in organising for the United Packinghouse Workers of America in her native Okanagan in 1946. She also wrote "Tough Timber", about the early organisation of the IWA, as well as many short stories.

May Martin interview

CALL NUMBER: T3603:0001 SUPPLIED TITLE OF TAPE(S): May Martin : industrial organization in the hotel and restaurant industry, 1940s RECORDED: North Vancouver (B.C.), 1979-07-23 & 25 SUMMARY: TRACK 1: May Martin (nee Ansell) came from Capetown. She left school at the end of grade 9 and worked as a grocery clerk, hotel worker, and waitress. She moved from Canada to the U.S.; then to Montreal, Halifax, Toronto, and Windsor, where she stayed until 1941. She then drove west with her husband, searching for work. Her first interest in the HREU came as a result of working in a restaurant where the women union organisers were being harassed by the boss. She went down and joined the HREU and worked in the union houses. She moved to the Yukon in 1942 and organised for the HREU in Whitehorse. In 1944 she was elected business agent upon her return to Vancouver. Mrs. Martin was a strong proponent of industrial organisation, although the HREU was a member of the craft-oriented TLC. From 1945 to 1946, the HREU signed a master agreement with the majority of restaurant employers and began to organise the hotels. The union helped to establish a new and better minimum wage law for women, as well as restrictions on women working late hours, which forced the employer to furnish better shifts. TRACK 2: Mrs. Martin attended the 1946 convention of the union at which the syndicates threatened the internal opposition and retained control of the International. Mrs. Martin and other Canadian delegates were physically threatened, and the opposition leader was shot. Soon after this, the International organised to remove her and Emily Watts, despite membership protests. CALL NUMBER: T3603:0001 RECORDED: North Vancouver (B.C.), 1979-07-23 & 25 SUMMARY: TRACK 1: In 1946, before she was removed, Mrs. Martin spoke on the radio defending a woman's right to a job and a union, as a union member and official. [TRACK 2: blank.]

IWA Women's Auxiliary of Lake Cowichan

CALL NUMBER: T3604:0001 SUPPLIED TITLE OF TAPE(S): IWA Women's Auxiliary of Lake Cowichan : [tape 1] RECORDED: Lake Cowichan (B.C.), 1979-08-09 SUMMARY: TRACK 1: This is a composite tape [i.e., a group interview] with five former members of the Lake Cowichan Women's Auxiliary of the IWA: Eva Wilson, Lori Belin, Lil Godfrey, June Olsen and Mary Greenwell, who were active in the Women's Auxiliary during the 1930s and 1940s. The women tell of their family and work backgrounds and their subsequent involvement with the union auxiliary. The women come out of very different backgrounds, some with strong trade union families (Nanaimo miners), and others from anti-union backgrounds. Most came to Lake Cowichan as young women who had married loggers. June Olsen, however, came as a teenager, grew up in Lake Cowichan, and joined her friends in the auxiliary. Conditions in the 1930s were primitive; couples lived in shacks without plumbing or electricity, the hospital was in Chemainus, and the road was terrible. TRACK 2: The Women's Auxiliary was pulled together in the 1930's by Edna Brown with the help of some of the organisers for the union. It helped to cut across the isolation that many of the young wives experienced, and to draw them into the struggle to organise the woods. The organiser went from home to home and to isolated logging camps, organising the auxiliary. Women were concerned with safety (because logging was and is an extremely dangerous business), as well as getting a better road to the hospital, and protecting and providing funds and cover for the union organisers. CALL NUMBER: T3604:0002 SUPPLIED TITLE OF TAPE(S): IWA Women's Auxiliary of Lake Cowichan : [tape 2] RECORDED: Lake Cowichan (B.C.), 1979-08-09 SUMMARY: TRACK 1: As the auxiliary developed, its functions expanded and it became the central instrument in creating a community at Lake Cowichan; providing social events, education, and political involvement; establishing the P.T.A., Red Cross, swimming lessons, theatre group, doing war support work, getting fresh milk into the town, organising a children's parade, Dominion Day and Labour Day events, a Lady of the Lake contest, and coordinating with other women's groups, as well as supporting the union's activities. The members attended conventions of the union and federated auxiliary in Vancouver and Eugene (Ore.), and were instrumental in forming auxiliary policy across the IWA because of the large numbers and success of their organisation. TRACK 2: In 1946, during the march to Victoria during the strike, the Lake Cowichan women marched in the front of the trekkers. In Victoria, they organised food and lodgings with other auxiliaries. In 1948, the Lake Cowichan Auxiliary split; the majority of its members went with the WIUC. These years saw some violent confrontations, for example at Iron River, where the IWA crossed WIUC picket lines. The women and their husbands were excluded from the new IWA auxiliary at Lake Cowichan after the WIUC collapsed, and some of them became involved in the co-op, while others later did support work for the IWA when their husbands re-entered the IWA.

Anita Andersen interview

SUPPLIED TITLE OF TAPE(S): Anita Andersen : the Trocadero strike RECORDED: New Westminster (B.C.), 1979-[09-03 & 12] SUMMARY: TRACK 1: Mrs. Andersen was born in Princeton, where she and her family experienced the collapse of the Princeton mines (the Granby Mines) and the disastrous economic consequences. She was subsequently orphaned and moved to Vancouver where, as a very young girl, she worked for several families as a domestic; this was one of the few alternatives for working class women who needed a place to live, food and work, and who were basically unskilled. Her sister also worked as a domestic, and they both began to radicalize, due to the influences of the longshoremen's strikes -- and for Mrs. Andersen, her interests in Yugoslavian cultural activities. She came a busgirl and organised for the HREU at the Trocadero Cafe. The Cafe was struck, and a contract was eventually achieved, but the central organisers were fired and blacklisted, including Mrs. Andersen. She continued to work for the union until she moved to the Yukon in the 1940s. TRACK 2: Returning to BC, she worked for the Jubilee Summer Camp; as a cultural organiser the Yugoslavian community; and with consumer organisations.

Anna Arthur interview

SUPPLIED TITLE OF TAPE(S): Anna Arthur : lower mainland BCGEA RECORDED: Coquitlam (B.C.), 1979-07-25 SUMMARY: Mrs. Arthur was born in Victoria BC; she graduated as a teacher during the Depression, but was unable to find work (early 1930s); she married and returned to the workforce in 1943. She began to work at the Boys' Industrial School as a special education teacher; the staff began to organise into the BC Government Employees Association, in order to have a say in teaching policy, wages and hours or work. They linked up with workers at nearby Essondale. Part of the demands made by women were for equal pay for equal work; this issue really involved Mrs. Arthur. The BCGEA workers faced many setbacks, including the hostility of employers and a refusal by the government to institute a check-off system. Anna Arthur was involved in organising the union, and was elected to the provincial executive in the later 1940s, representing the Essondale branch (1947-1949). Many of the issues concerned working conditions -- for example, the lack of decent housing for student nurses. Later, while working for the federal government, she became the local president of PSAC, organising for equal pensions for women and equal insurance benefits in the local.

Vivian Dowding interview

SUPPLIED TITLE OF TAPE(S): Vivian Dowding : early birth control organizing in B.C., 1930s RECORDED: Vancouver (B.C.), 1979-07-24 SUMMARY: Mrs. Dowding was a pioneer of birth control in BC. She was a member of the CCF and is still active in the NDP. Her work was influenced by Margaret Sanger and other early pioneers of birth control in North America. She was employed by the Kaufman Rubber Company, distributor of birth control devices in Canada. She describes conditions in working class communities during the 1930s; the distribution process for birth control devices; attitudes towards family planning on the part of Church and Kaufman; the role of the CCF in promoting birth control. She often faced harassment by the police when visiting towns to see women. She only saw people who were recommended by word of mouth, as public distribution of birth control was prohibited. While Kaufman saw birth control as a way of freeing government from having to support unwanted members of a surplus labour force, Mrs. Dowding and many women like her, saw birth control as a first step to liberate women and alleviate the misery and poverty of many working class families.

Marion Sarich interview

CALL NUMBER: T3621:0001 SUPPLIED TITLE OF TAPE(S): Marion Sarich : organizing working women in the 1930s and 1940s RECORDED: Vancouver (B.C.), 1979-08-31 SUMMARY: TRACK 1: Ms. Sarich was born in Princeton, BC and later moved to Saskatchewan, later returning to BC. She started work as a domestic at the age of thirteen for five dollars a month and then moved on to several different positions. She began organizing domestics in the 1930s and worked with the Housewives' League to get a charter from the AFL. The TLC could not decide which union should receive jurisdiction and the campaign died. Ms. Sarich then began working as a busgirl at the Trocedero Cafe, helping to organize it. The cafe was struck and she and her sister, Anita Sarich, were blacklisted, but the strike helped to initiate a campaign to organize the restaurants. During the strike they received extensive support from the public. She also participated in drives to organize Army/Navy and Woolworth's helping whenever organizers were needed, and taking no pay. TRACK 2: The HREU fought for special classes for women; equal pay, protection at night for waitresses getting off shift and requiring transportation. Ms. Sarich participated in pickets of restaurants which were guilty of unfair labour practices. She also supported the unemployed men in the post office. Local 28 tried consistently to join with the Bartenders local 626, but the latter refused amalgamation. In the 1940s she assisted in the organization of the Canadian Seamen's union, which later became the SIU (1948). CALL NUMBER: T3621:0002 RECORDED: Vancouver (B.C.), 1979-08-31 SUMMARY: TRACK 1: Mrs. Sarich remembers Norman Bethune's visit to Vancouver; solidarity with Spanish orphans through the Girls Brigade to Aid Spanish Orphans. In the 1950s she became a postal worker and has been active in the unions. [TRACK 2: blank?]; CALL NUMBER: T3621:0003 RECORDED: Vancouver (B.C.), [date unknown] SUMMARY: [No content summary available for this tape.];

Liz Wilson interview

SUPPLIED TITLE OF TAPE(S): Elizabeth Wilson : unemployed struggles in the 1930s in Vancouver RECORDED: Vancouver (B.C.), 1979-05-26 & 27 ; 1979-06-04 SUMMARY: TRACK 1: Mrs. Wilson describes the conditions and the struggles of the unemployed during the 1930s. A meeting on the Cambie Street grounds was broken up by police on horseback with riot sticks. The organizers were deported. She worked for the CCF to build Dorothy Steeves' campaign. Inhabitants of Vancouver East were particularly militant, fighting evictions and assisting the less aware West Enders. Mrs. Wilson was forced onto relief; she had formerly worked as a waitress. After a demonstration at the Holden Building, Gerry McGeer read the Riot Act at the cenotaph (1935). Relief recipients all received the same marked clothing. Women received thirteen dollars a month on relief. Andrew Roddan, the minister of the First [United?] Church, preached to the unemployed and visited False Creek, and distributed loaves of bread to the shantytown of unemployed men. The Communist Party was central in leading the unemployed. TRACK 2: Women during the Depression faced great difficulties in controlling unwanted pregnancy. Many women resorted to abortion using knitting needles or slippery elm. Only one local doctor, Dr. Telford, dispensed birth control. The welfare system provided constant harassment of recipients by social workers. Deserted women were forced off relief and onto alimony, but most of their husbands never paid up.

Jan [pseudonym] interview

RECORDED: Vancouver (B.C.), 1984-02-23 SUMMARY: Born 1921. Early family genealogy -- Vancouver. Early childhood and work -- helping mother in home, and early wage labour on farms and in factory. Brief discussion of Exclusion Act. Family laundry business; explanation of work in laundry, including male/female responsibilities. General discussion of women's work in B.C., including mother's work as seamstress. Children and child bearing. Chinese women and marriage. Husband's occupation. Occupation after marriage in family business. Church activities. Childhood friends and activities. Shopping. Kitchen and utensils -- changes in technology.

April [pseudonym] interview

RECORDED: New Westminster (B.C.), 1984-02-24 SUMMARY: Born 1920. Early genealogy. Childhood experience -- not much participation in home duties. Little discussion of Exclusion Act. No wage work as child. Mother's work in vegetable gardens, factory work. Pay. Teenage years -- worked in grocery store as clerk. Marriage. Children and childbirth expectations. Discussion of Chinese women she knew. Church activities. Work in family restaurant after marriage. Shopping and utensils. Cooking.

Ruth [pseudonym] interview

RECORDED: Victoria (B.C.), 1984-02-28 SUMMARY: Born 1913. Genealogy of family and early childhood in Vancouver. Growing up near Chinatown. Family participation in tailor business. Work in home and school. Poverty of family life. Marriage and life after. Work in in-laws' home and family responsibilities. Children and child care. Church activities. Shopping in Chinatown. Cooking, cleaning and washing clothes experience. Technological change in the kitchen.

Ying [pseudonym] interview

RECORDED: Vancouver (B.C.), 1984-03-13 SUMMARY: Born 1924. Family history from 1800s, from China to Canada. Growing up in Vancouver's Chinatown and working in family store on Pender Street. Father died -- mother owned and ran store. Discussion about store. Food preparation. Women working on farms, picking beans. Ying's experience working in a factory. Chinese women's work in general. Discussion of tea room women and domestics. Chinese women working as store clerks. Women not going out of doors -- remaining inside. Ying's life as an adult and a married woman. Cooking. Ends with short discussion of foot binding.

Waiking Lee [pseudonym] interview

RECORDED: Vancouver (B.C.), 1984-04-01 SUMMARY: Born 1909. Early family history; parents' arranged marriage. Father's business in Ladysmith, early 1900s; poverty. Mother's work in home, from morning until evening; arduous labour. Household chores. All the children participated in home work. 12 Chinese women in Ladysmith while she was growing up. Women had gardens, sold produce. Move to Nanaimo. Mother's labour -- sewed for tailors, ran store and laundry. Waiking Lee worked for her family -- did everything for the store. Marriage: she eloped, family upheaval -- very unacceptable thing to do. Marriage. Went into a wholesale business. Hotel business. Thoughts on her life as "a life of hardship".

Chinese women and work in B.C. collection

  • PR-1754
  • Collection
  • 1984

The collection consists of oral history interviews with Chinese women about their experiences working in British Columbia from the 1920s to the 1950s. The interviews, with nine first-, second- or third-generation Chinese-Canadian women, were recorded in Vancouver, Victoria and New Westminster during the first half of 1984. The project focused on "women's work" (whether paid or unpaid), including work in the home and in family businesses. The interviews discuss the kind of work these women did; what they experienced; how they perceived their roles in the family and the Chinese community; and the legislative policies which affected their work and their lives. The interviewees are to remain anonymous, and should be referred to only by the assigned pseudonyms. In addition, two of the interviews are closed to public access.

Adilman, Tamara

Behind the Kitchen Door project oral history collection

  • PR-2248
  • Collection
  • 1983-1984

In 1983 and 1984, the History Division of the National Museum of Man sponsored "Behind the Kitchen Door", an oral history project documenting the day-to-day experiences of British Columbia women in their households during the years 1900-1930. The project was administered through the Modern History Division of the British Columbia Provincial Museum.

The collection consists of 64 Interviews on 71 audio reels with Victoria and Vancouver area women. The focus is the otherwise undocumented day-to-day activities of maintaining and running a home in B.C. The interviews were conducted by Kathryn Thomson, Lynn Bueckert, Kathy Chopik and Catherine Hagen.

National Museum of Man (Canada)

Maria Santatori [pseudonym] interview

CALL NUMBER: T3689:0001 PERIOD COVERED: 1908-1964 RECORDED: Vancouver (B.C.), 1979 [summer] SUMMARY: Born in Fernie, BC; parents are of Italian descent; third eldest of seven children; after the 1908 Fernie fire, in which the two elder siblings died, family moved to Nordic, Alberta; was sick throughout childhood; attended five years of school; was blind from age ten to twelve; was married at fifteen after the birth of a child; was naïve about men and sex; mother was Catholic, but Anna attended a ;Protestant church in Nordic because there was no Catholic church in that community; talks of her first husband and his work in the railway and subsequent divorce; worked in Vancouver as a waitress; custody and care of her two children from her first husband; her second husband was away from home working around BC; discusses her husband's problem with alcohol; worked all her life and managed to purchase a house and two small businesses; she talks about and describes various members of her family, and discusses taking boarders in her home between 1959 and 1964.

CALL NUMBER: T3689:0002 PERIOD COVERED: 1925-1979 RECORDED: Vancouver (B.C.), 1979 [summer] SUMMARY: Discusses her relationship with her five children; second husband died in 1966; took in Hungarian refugees, approximately 1957; describes the renters in her home. Her husband cared for her when she had a hysterectomy and was sick and depressed; finally sold the house in 1972; has been in poor health and has had cancer; felt she has always tried to help a lot of people if they are in need; regrets ;marrying so young and naïve. She considers that living on Vancouver's skid road in the East End at present is bad, especially with muggings; relates how muggers once ran her down and stole her groceri;es and the ninety cents she had; she understands what being poor means, as she had in the past gone to the Salvation Army for a meal.;

Nellie Chu [pseudonym] interview

CALL NUMBER: T3706:0001 PERIOD COVERED: 1910-1979 RECORDED: Vancouver (B.C.), 1979 [summer] SUMMARY: Born n Vancouver; father came during the gold rush; lived in Kamloops until the fire; family moved to Vancouver/New Westminster area; went to school in Vancouver's East End; talks about family members; after her father died, Lillian and sister Ruth were boarded in a home in Victoria; describes experience in Victoria; returned to Vancouver and babysat to earn money; apprenticed to a hat maker; worked in a Chinese restaurant to help support family. Married at the age of 20, didn't last; adoption of two nephews, talks of the deaths of her natural and adopted daughters; description of her house.

CALL NUMBER: T3706:0002 PERIOD COVERED: 1895-1979 RECORDED: Vancouver (B.C.), 1979 [summer] SUMMARY: Helped other Chinese ladies as an interpreter; active in many social organizations and activities since retirement; spends most days in Chinatown, and evenings at home; speaks of poor eyesight; born in 1895.

Grace Lo [pseudonym] interview

PERIOD COVERED: ;1900;-;1979 RECORDED: Vancouver (B.C.), 1979 [summer] SUMMARY: Born in Victoria in 1913; father reported her birth to immigration and vital statistics as a boy; her marriage was an arranged match; speaks of her husband as a good person, but he gambles; was converted to Christianity and became happy; talks of her superstitious mother who predicted a short life for her, based on a fortune teller's prediction; returned to Canada from China in 1924 and lived in Vancouver Chinatown's Shanghai Alley; speaks of her children and their part-time work when they were young; speaks of the positive aspects of the Canadian government; refers again to her wishes of education for her children; talks of her involvement with community recreation activities since her retirement.

Mickey Dorsey and Eve Chignall interview

CALL NUMBER: T4084:0001 RECORDED: Williams Lake (B.C.), 1981-09-22 SUMMARY: An oral history interview with Hannah "Mickey" Dorsey and Eve Chignall, pioneers in the Chilcotin region. TRACK 1: Mickey Dorsey (born 1910 [1911]) recalls her childhood in Vancouver and Bella Coola; early adulthood; marriage; teaching at Anahim Lake; childbirth. TRACK 2: Eve Chignall recalls giving birth in Tatla Lake, where she moved in 1935; ranch work; marriage. Mickey Dorsey talks about pack; trains; relationship with native women on the reserve; isolation; medical emergencies with children.; CALL NUMBER: T4084:0002 RECORDED: Williams Lake (B.C.), 1981-09-22 SUMMARY: TRACK 1: Mickey Dorsey: family life, living conditions; getting water, provisions, clothing; teaching at Rose Lake. TRACK 2: More on school teaching: started Indian school at Anahim Lake (first in ar;ea); moved to Williams Lake to put two youngest children through high school; taught in Williams Lake for 13 years (taught coninuously, 1930-1976); changes in teaching methods.; CALL NUMBER: T4084:0003 RECORDED: Williams Lake (B.C.), 1981-09-22 SUMMARY: TRACK 1: Mickey Dorsey describes the routine of a typical spring day with four children, five years old or younger; setting trap lines in early morning; carrying water on yokes; fording a stream. TRA;CK 2: Family history (current); cattle drive and cattle train to Vancouver; sounds of the Anahim area -- birds, coyotes, snow, spring break-up; changes in life style, attitudes, new equipment, etc.;