The Woman's Page: Journalism and Rhetoric in Early Canada

by Janice Fiamengo

Overview

In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, journalism, politics, and social advocacy were largely male preserves. Six women, however, did manage to come to prominence through their writing and public performance: Agnes Maule Machar, Sara Jeannette Duncan, E. Pauline Johnson, Kathleen Blake Coleman, Flora MacDonald Denison, and Nellie L. McClung. The Woman's Page is a detailed study of these six women and their respective works.

Focusing on the diverse sources of their rhetorical power, Janice Fiamengo assesses how popular poetry, journalism, essays, and public speeches enabled these women to play major roles in the central debates of their day. A few of their names, particularly those of McClung and Johnson, are still well known today, although studies of their writings and speeches are limited. Others are almost entirely unknown, an unfortunate fact given the wit, intelligence, and passion of their writing and self-presentation. Seeking to return their words to public attention, The Woman's Page demonstrates how these women influenced readers and listeners regarding their society's most controversial issues.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780802095374
Publisher:	University of Toronto Press, Scholarly Publishing Division
Publication date:	09/15/2008
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	256
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.64(d)

About the Author

Janice Fiamengo is an associate professor in the Department of English at the University of Ottawa.

Editorial Reviews

‘This study is compelling in its assembling of an archive of early Canadian women’s writing and speaking and in its balanced and lucid account of women as professional writers negotiating complicated and resistant structures of politics and ideology.’—Cecily Devereux, Canadian Literature vol206: Autumn 2010

From the Publisher

'This study is compelling in its assembling of an archive of early Canadian women's writing and speaking and in its balanced and lucid account of women as professional writers negotiating complicated and resistant structures of politics and ideology.'

Canadian Literature vol206: Autumn 2010 - Cecily Devereux