Showing 77 results

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.

RECORDED: Vancouver (B.C.), 1984-03-13 SUMMARY: Born 1921. Family history, from China to Canada. Work in home as a child. Mother's work in home. Growing up in Victoria's Chinatown on Fisgard and Cormorant Streets. Shopping for food daily in Chinatown. Kindergarten at Oriental [?] Home. Education at Chinese school and public school. Chinese women working in stores as clerks; their chores and responsibilities. Farm work in Saanich. Tea room women in restaurants. Nancy as an adult. Foot binding -- mother. Kitchen technology. Nancy's experience as a domestic. The discrimination she experiences as a Chinese woman.

RECORDED: [location unknown], 1984-03-24 SUMMARY: [No content summary is available for this tape.]

SUPPLIED TITLE OF TAPE(S): Janet Judd : women postal workers, 1950s-1960s RECORDED: Vancouver (B.C.), 1979-07-17 SUMMARY: TRACK 1: Janet Judd was hired as a part-time postal clerk and then became full-time in 1960. She was one of the first women to achieve this position. The conditions at that time in the post office were "horrifying"; no air conditioning; working for hours while standing; loss of hearing due to noise; mandatory examinations to determine wage increases. When she applied for work in the post office, she resisted placement in a clerical position and fought to become a clerk. Later, she fought to become the first woman dispatcher. Mrs. Judd was the sole support for eight children, and was pregnant when she began to work at the post office. Her case helped to establish both the principle of maternity leave for postal workers, and through this the recognition by the post office that women were a permanent part of the workforce there. TRACK 2: With other women clerks, she resisted male co-workers who harassed women clerks. She became active in the association as a steward. Some of the issues which came up consistently were: racist attitudes towards herself and other non-white workers; discrimination and patronage in hiring; the establishment of mirror surveillance systems in the bathrooms; establishing union recognition and the right to strike; shift changes and services for women with children. During the 1965 strike, management tried to bring scabs in through an old CPR tunnel; the union stopped this. Mrs. Judd had been a student at Strathcona School, and was deeply affected by the Japanese internment, as many of her closest friends were interned. She has been active in many Black organisations, including the Negro Citizens' League, and other civil rights groups.

SUPPLIED TITLE OF TAPE(S): Phyllis & Richard Whisker : community life during the Vancouver Island miners' strike, 1912-1914 RECORDED: Ladysmith (B.C.), 1979-08-08 SUMMARY: TRACK 1: Both Phyllis Whisker and her husband Richard came from coal mining families. Richard worked in the coal mines as a boy, before the 1912 to 1914 strike. The strike occurred when the United Mine Workers organised because of unsafe conditions. The 72nd Highlanders were brought in to put down the strike and arrested miners in Extension, Ladysmith and Nanaimo. Mrs. Whisker's father was secretary of the union and was forced to go to New Zealand to find work, as he was blackballed for his union activities when he was released from prison. Mrs. Whisker's mother was a member of the Women's Labour League and fought for it to retain its labour orientation. Women were present on picket lines during the strike in support of their husbands and the strike in general. The women were independent and willing to take risks. The community pooled its resources during the strike, living off hunting, fishing and gardening. The company evicted the miners' families during the strike. The strike resulted in long-term hostilities in the community between the families of strikers and strike-breakers. TRACK 2: Mr. Whiskers later worked in the wood industry as a rail man.

SUPPLIED TITLE OF TAPE(S): Pearl Moreau : Fraser Cafe workers get organized RECORDED: New Westminster (B.C.), 1979-07-26 & -08-02 SUMMARY: TRACK 1: Mrs. Moreau, nee Wong, began to work in Vancouver in 1944 as a waitress-in-training. The conditions were deplorable; five dollars a week to ten dollars a month, a ten-hour day, and half an hour for lunch with no other breaks. She had a child, then returned to the Fraser Cafe in 1955, leaving her child with her mother while she worked. The Fraser was a union shop, and after seeing the union attain a raise of only two cents any hour, she determined to become active, seeing many important issues for women -- equal fringe benefits, sick benefits, and sexual harassment. Workers supported each other to resist sexual harassment by the boss, a recurring problem for waitresses. The union worked towards the principle of equal pay. She participated in negotiations, served on the VDLC, and ran for hostess. TRACK 2: She found herself at times at odds with her union and voted independently. She eventually ran against Ed Carlson for president as an opposition candidate, claiming a need for stronger democracy in the union.

CALL NUMBER: T3601:0001 SUPPLIED TITLE OF TAPE(S): Lil Stoneman : The Women's Labour League and the Mothers' Council RECORDED: North Vancouver (B.C.), 1979-07-30 SUMMARY: TRACK 1: Lil Stoneman came to BC in 1913. Her father was a sail maker who hoped to start a canvas cover business in Saskatoon. She had an Oxford certificate and was able to teach with this, and so went to normal school. She first taught in Harris in a one-room school, and then in Lenning; living with a local family. In 1920, she married a master painter. In 1924, the BC economy was already in a slump, and by the early 1930s they were forced onto relief. They received eighteen dollars a month for two people. She became active in the unemployed movement as it formed to protest the distribution of food by gunnysack as opposed to script. She went to the relief office to represent recipients and participated in organisation on a local level; forming neighbourhood committees, block committees, halls and associations. Mrs. Stoneman joined the Women's Labour League. It organised for jobs, supported the unemployed's struggles, and fought for birth control. She returned briefly to Saskatchewan and organised there. The W.L.L. eventually became the Mothers' Council. They organised demonstrations for clothing, as well as food. TRACK 2: The Labour league grew in its membership and groups formed on Vancouver Island. She was secretary. The League was accepted into the local Council of Women. Mrs. Stoneman studied with Becky Buhay while she was in BC, researching the history of working women's struggles. Mrs. Stoneman was present at the "Battle of Ballantyne Pier" (1935), where she narrowly escaped from the police as they attacked striking longshoremen. CALL NUMBER: T3601:0002 RECORDED: North Vancouver (B.C.), 1979-07-30 SUMMARY: TRACK 1: During the war, the Mothers' Council fought for decent allowances for soldiers' wives. [TRACK 2: blank?]; CALL NUMBER: T3601:0003 RECORDED: North Vancouver (B.C.), 1979-07-30 SUMMARY: [No content summary available.];

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.

SUPPLIED TITLE OF TAPE(S): Josephine Hallock : the Union label committee RECORDED: Vancouver (B.C.), 1979-09-12 SUMMARY: TRACK 1: Mrs. Hallock was born in Nottingham, England, and raised in Scotland. She came to Canada in 1931 to marry. The marriage did not occur and she entered the workforce, supporting herself thro;ugh work as a grocery clerk, a housekeeper and later, a hospital worker at the General Hospital. She became involved in organising domestic workers with the Trades and Labour Congress in 1943. The campaign centered on inclusion in the BC Labour Code, minimum wage legislation, raising wages and securing decent conditions. The provincial cabinet rejected proposals for these improvements on the grounds that the government could not intervene into a man's home to organise or affect his servants: a man's home was his castle. The campaign eventually faded out. Mrs. Hallock and her husband opened a small business and took out cards with the HREU. TRACK 2: She had been involved with the Women's Unit of the Civic Employees Association at the hospital and considered returning to work, but did not do so. Mrs. Hallock was active later on in organising office workers into OTEU Local 15. She served on the VDLC for many years and in 1954 became active in the Union Label Committee. She has focused on the union label work for many years and has popularized the notion of buying union and displaying the union label.

RECORDED: [location unknown], 1982-04-16 SUMMARY: [No content summaries or documentation available.];

RECORDED: [location unknown], 1982-04-19 SUMMARY: [No content summaries or documentation available.];

RECORDED: [location unknown], 1986-05-13 SUMMARY: [No content summaries or documentation available.];

CALL NUMBER: T3607:0001 SUPPLIED TITLE OF TAPE(S): Ellen Barber : early union organization in the laundries, 1914-1918 : [tape 1] RECORDED: Port Moody (B.C.), 1979-08 SUMMARY: TRACK 1: Mrs. Barber was one of the first women active in the Vancouver Trades and Labour Congress (an affiliate of the Trades and Labour Congress). She was involved in organising laundry and communication workers during the First World War period. In this interview, she describes union organisation during World War One; working conditions in the laundries; bargaining procedures; organising the unions; the laundry strike and its defeat; the formation of the Minimum Wage Board; the telephone workers strike. TRACK 2: Attitudes to women within the unions; working in the war industry in WWII; post-war layoffs of women workers; piecework; CCF involvement in the unions; her family's roots, and her decision to become a unionist; women's suffrage and its effects on working women; Oriental workers and parallel attitudes to women; the Shirt, Waist and Laundry Workers' International Union in the 1940s; the streetcar strike of 1918.;

CALL NUMBER: T3607:0002 SUPPLIED TITLE OF TAPE(S): Ellen Barber : early union organization in the laundries, 1914-1918 : [tape 2] RECORDED: Port Moody (B.C.), 1979-08 SUMMARY: TRACK 1: Depression use of female labour; the impact of the Russian Revolution on the labour movement; shipyard conditions; accidents in the laundries; women's organisations in the 1930s. [TRACK 2: blank.];

SUPPLIED TITLE OF TAPE(S): Suzie Fawcett : the Hotel Vancouver joins the CBRTGW RECORDED: North Vancouver (B.C.), 1979-07-18 SUMMARY: Suzie Fawcett grew up in Edinburgh, Scotland, coming to Canada in 1929 where she began work as a companion. She tried to learn nursing, but found the ten dollars a month impossible to live on. She became a salad maker at the Hotel Vancouver, then moved to take a position at the new hotel when It opened. The hotel was owned by CN/CPR and after 21 years of CNR ownership, the working conditions were good, although wages were lower than other less popular hotels. In 1942 the HREU tried to organise the hotel, signing the male waiters who struck the staff children's Christmas party. This tactic did not endear them to the other workers and the union campaign was crushed. The waiters, many of whom were senior staff members, were all fired. This upset the other staff members, who decided that a union was indeed necessary and proceeded to meet with the Canadian Brotherhood of Railway and Transportation and General Workers, who had jurisdiction over other workers in CN's employ. In 1950, the workers at the hotel struck in solidarity with other workers in the CBRT. The unionization improved wages qualitatively and insured that there was no depreciation of conditions. Mrs. Fawcett was Secretary-Treasurer of the local and represented the union at the CLC and BCFL conventions. She held other executive posts. She was strongly opposed to political unionism, believing that unions had to keep their autonomy from political organizations. She raised two children while working at the hotel. She thoroughly enjoyed her work with the hotel.

SUPPLIED TITLE OF TAPE(S): Anne Marshall : garment industry conditions in Vancouver - the ILGWU RECORDED: Vancouver (B.C.), 1979-06-11 SUMMARY: TRACK 1: Anne Marshall was born in Regina, Saskatchewan in 1907. At the age of 14, she left there to come to BC and find work after her father died. She worked as a waitress and became sympathetic to trade unionism in 1924, during the Longshoremen's strike, through her contact with strike supporters at work. She then became a babysitter for the owner of Sweet 16 dress shops. He taught her to sew, and she began to work in ladies' ready-to-wear. She married in 1928 and stayed home until WWII when she re-entered the workforce. The organization of the industry had begun by then. Working at Jantzen, she was exposed to the Bideau piecework system for the first time, and became angered by the conditions which they imposed. She was laid off, but in the meantime was approached by the unions to organize the shop. The VTLC was spearheading the campaign at that time. The workers were organized into the United Garment Workers. Later she helped to lead the local over to the International Ladies' Garment Workers Union which she felt had better shops. TRACK 2: She became a full-time organizer for the ILGWU in 1946/47 and stayed in that position for 16 years. Central issues in her union were the protection and integration of immigrant workers; equal pensions for women; piecework; racism; wages and hours of work; policing the contract, insuring that people got lunch hours and breaks.

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.];

SUPPLIED TITLE OF TAPE(S): Barbara Stewart : organizing restaurant workers during the Depression RECORDED: Vancouver (B.C.), 1979-06-17 SUMMARY: TRACK 1: Barbara Stewart first radicalized during the Depression. She was present in Regina in 1935 at a citizens' meeting called to protest the lack of jobs and support the On to Ottawa Trek. She was swept into the streets with many of the crowd by the attacks of the police and RCMP. She came to Vancouver in 1936 without a job, and was placed as a domestic by the YWCA. She moved on to waitress at Kennedy's, where she was laid off for her union sympathies. She then worked at the Melrose and then Love's Cafe. Waitresses worked four-way split shifts at that time. She participated in job actions like the following: waitresses wore their aprons for six weeks without washing them, to establish employer responsibility for laundry. TRACK 2: Restaurant work was very hard; it required physical labour and long hours of work. Women faced sexual harassment on the job. Some restaurants even tried to exploit waitresses as prostitutes. Most women who worked did so out of economic necessity rather than choice. Bill Stewart was the business agent of Local 28 during the 1930s and early 1940s. Mrs. Stewart later took over as business agent, traveling all over the city for twenty dollars a month. A major struggle of the union was to change the laws so that employers would have to provide transportation for waitresses after dark. Mrs. Stewart as business agent was also a delegate to the VDLC; She went into houses to organize them, and worked on the White Lunch and Trocedero strikes.

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.

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.

SUPPLIED TITLE OF TAPE(S): Bill White : women in the shipyards in World War II RECORDED: Vancouver (B.C.), 1978-08 SUMMARY: Bill White was president of the Boilermakers local in Prince Rupert during the war at the shipyards. Many women from the community entered the shipyards in 1941-42. Mr. White was active in defending women's rights to a job at the end of the war. In this interview, he describes conditions in Prince Rupert; the growth of the shipyards; battles between soldiers, workers and Native people; racism in Prince Rupert; response to the entry of women into the yards; attitudes towards the Japanese; anti-war sentiments; the no-strike pledge and the Labour Progressive Party. Mr. White was a member of the Trotskyist organisation at this time (1943). Women were brought into the Prince Rupert shipyards as helpers or improvers, after taking a several-months-long training course in welding. The helpers strung the burners' hoses, and the women were soon proficiently stringing their own hoses and cables. The shift would get off and drink at the Savoy Hotel; it became clear that women had been accepted into the yards when the crew accepted the women buying rounds of drinks. Women served as stewards in the union.

SUPPLIED TITLE OF TAPE(S): Daisy Brown : on staff for the HREU, 1945-1949 RECORDED: Vancouver (B.C.), 1979-07-13 SUMMARY: TRACK 1: Daisy Brown was born in Saskatoon and came to BC in 1944. She found a part-time job with the Hotel and Restaurant Employees Union in 1945 as an office worker, and then as business agent. In 1946-47, a joint campaign led by both the hotel union and building service union organised Vancouver hotels. Many women worked in the industry because they needed an income as single parents or deserted wives. The union in the restaurant and hotel area was weak relative to industrial unions or skilled craft unions, where workers were not isolated from each other and could stand together. Problems in organising included the transient nature of the work, and the continuous shifts. TRACK 2: Issues which came up included overtime, shift changes, uniforms and seniority. The union set a precedent in establishing a forty-hour week. The Only Fish And Chips and Love's Cafe were particularly militant restaurants. The hotel drive organised all but the Alcazar and Grosvenor hotels. The campaign included leafleting the hotels. The HREU staff was organised into the OTEU but later were shifted to the HREU. Mrs. Brown was active for a time in the OTEU. In 1948, the HREU leadership was deposed and were barred from office and membership in the union because of their left leanings. Mrs. Brown has held both staff and elected positions with the union.

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.

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.

RECORDED: [location unknown], 1982-05-12 SUMMARY: [No content summaries or documentation available.];

SUPPLIED TITLE OF TAPE(S): Muriel Overgaard : CUPE -- BC's division president speaks RECORDED: Victoria (B.C.), 1979-08-07 SUMMARY: Mrs. Overgaard went to work after moving to Victoria in order to support her child. She worked at the Bay and then at Eaton's, where she managed Eaton's mail order department. She retired from permanent work to raise her family. She began to work at the school board part time, as the hours facilitated working mothers. In 1965, the school board workers organized into CUPE. She ran for local executive and won, service for eight years as local president. She then became president of the CUPE Island local, and BC treasurer, and is presently president of the BC division. She has also been active in the NDP. In the early 1970s she helped lead CUPE through the lock-out imposed by the Social Credit government. CUPE was the first union in BC to establish women's committees to insure the integration of women and their needs into the union.

SUPPLIED TITLE OF TAPE(S): Thelma Godkin : a woman's view of working in the woods RECORDED: Saltair (B.C.), 1979-08-08 SUMMARY: Mrs. Godkin was born Thelma Emblem in Nanaimo. At the age of 17, she began working as a waitress in Malahat. Her father got her a job in the sawmill in Chemainus, and she worked as a sorter and a band saw operator. She was an IWA steward in the mill. She left the mill and preferring to work outside, she became the first women to work in the woods, as a whistle punk. She first worked for "Gyppo" operations, but because of her proficiency was hired on by the largest operation in the Chemainus area. She describes the attitudes of male workers to her entry into the logging industry; a near escape from a forest fire; the tasks she performed at work. TRACK 2: Working early shifts; her childhood and attitudes towards traditional women's work; and the entry of more women into the logging industry.

The series consists of the executive records of the Ministry of Women’s Equality, and the preceding ministry, the Minister of Government Management Services and Minister Responsible for Women’s Programs (as it relates to women’s issues). Executive records are the administrative and operational records of the offices of minister, deputy ministers, and assistant deputy ministers.

In 1991, the Ministry of Women’s Programs and Government Services was disestablished, and two ministries were established: The Ministry of Women’s Equality and the Ministry of Government Services. At this time, the duties, responsibilities, and functions of the Minister of Women’s Programs and Government Services and Minister Responsible for Families with respect to women’s programs, including the Task Force on Family Violence, the Advisory Council on Services for Women, and the employment equity program were transferred to the Ministry of Women’s Equality (OIC 1377).

The records document a broad range of activities and interests of the ministries involved, as they relate to women. Some of the subjects covered here include: child care and the Community Care Facility Act; domestic violence and transitional housing; equal pay and employment equity; and Aboriginal women.

The records are comprised of meeting minutes and agendas, memoranda, briefing notes and estimates, and discussion papers. The records also consist of those relating to committees and task forces on which executive members served or were involved with in some capacity, including the Inter-Ministry Committee on Public Awareness on Violence Against Women, Task Force on Child Care, Advisory Council on Community Based Programs, and the Executive Committee. There is also substantial correspondence from private citizens, organizations, and businesses to members of the executive of the Ministry, as well as the Premier, Members of the Legislative Assembly, and correspondence addressed to other ministries which has been forwarded to the Ministry of Women’s Equality. Additionally, there are day planners of Deputy Ministers, Sheila Wynn and Isabel Kelly, and Penny Priddy’s schedules and itineraries, during the time that she served as Minister of Women’s Equality in 1991-1996.

RECORDED: [location unknown], 1986 SUMMARY: [No content summaries or documentation available.];

RECORDED: [location unknown], 1986 [summer] SUMMARY: [No content summaries or documentation available.];

RECORDED: [location unknown], [1979-09-05?] SUMMARY: [No content summaries or documentation available.];