Volume 29, Issue 3, May–June 2006, Pages 265–278
Feminisms and Print Culture, 1830-1930s, in the Digital Age
The periodical press and western woman's suffrage movements in Canada and the United States: A comparative study
Sypnosis
The
early achievement of woman suffrage in the North American West is
commonly explained in ways that elide the struggle involved. Building on
recent historical work that recovers the decades of struggle and debate
that preceded woman suffrage in the West, this article examines woman
suffrage discourse in two prominent regional publications: The New Northwest of Oregon, and The Grain Growers' Guide
of western Canada. Against explanatory narratives of western suffrage
as a gift or as a recognition of women's pioneering contributions, we
offer comparative studies of how these periodicals advanced strategic
representations; how they were determined by the conditions of their
emergence and engagement; and how they negotiated specific
interventions. By drawing these analyses together, we hope to contribute
to a broader re-evaluation of similarities and differences in women's
suffrage organizing across national and regional borders and to a
growing body of work on the specific contexts and interventions of
women's print culture.
Copyright © 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Victoria
Lamont is Associate Professor of American Literature at the University
of Waterloo (Ontario, Canada). She has published articles on western
American literature and culture in a/b: auto/biography Studies, Western American Literature, Legacy, and The Canadian Review of American Studies.