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The article reviews the book, "Countercurrents: Women's Movements in Postwar Montreal," by Amanda Ricci.

The article reviews the book, "United Apart: Gender and the Rise of Craft Unionism," by Ileen A. DeVault.

The article reviews the book, "Crossing Boundaries: Women's Organizing in Europe and the Americas, 1880s-1940s," part 80 of the Uppsala Studies in Economic History series, edited by Pernilla Jonsson, Silke Neunsinger, and Joan Sangster.

The article reviews the book, "Reform, Labor and Feminism: Margaret Dreier Robins and the Women's Trade Union League," by Elizabeth Anne Payne.

This article reviews the book, "Women, History, and Theory," by Joan Kelly.

This article reviews the book, "Out to Work: A History of Wage-Earning Women in the United States", by Alice Kessler-Harris.

This paper examines women in the Canadian socialist movement to illuminate their role within the institutional life of the movement and to analyze the ideological dimensions of the "woman question" before 1914. Socialist adherence to the primacy of woman's role in the home and to the family wage ideal, as well as their ambivalence toward working women, and an undeveloped vision of woman's role under socialism — all served to reinforce a secondary role for women in socialist organizations. Suspicion of bourgeois women's organizations and of autonomous women's groups generally, hampered socialist women from assuming leadership roles with some notable exceptions. While socialist analysis pointed to the exploitation of women as both workers and wives and mothers, women's issues and organizations remained peripheral and subordinale to the main task of overthrowing capitalism.

The article reviews the book, "Be Wise! Be Healthy! Morality and Citizenship in Canadian Public Health Campaigns," by Catherine Carstairs, Bethany Philpott, and Sara Wilmshurst.

The article reviews the book, "Making the Best of It: Women and Girls of Canada and Newfoundland During the Second World War," edited by Sarah Glassford and Amy Shaw,

This article reviews the book, "Work for Mother: The Ironies of Household Technology from the Open Hearth to the Microwave," by Ruth Schwartz Cowan.

[This book] re-creates the experiences of Canadian women on the left in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, a crucial period when women became more prominent in the work force, in labour unions, and in politics, where they fought for, and ultimately won, the vote. The book examines discourse on women's work and on attempts to regulate it; labour activism, including formal membership in unions and parties as well as women's auxiliaries and organizations such as the Women's Labor League; and women's militancy during the First World War and the troubled postwar period. The author argues that while women helped mount an opposition to the inequalities inherent in industrial capitalism, they also had to struggle to move beyond the supporting role they were forced to play in the very movements to which they belonged. Kealey explores what the left thought about women's participation in politics and in left-wing organizations across the country, and also looks at the nature of that participation itself. The scope of her book puts it in the forefront of its field. --Publisher's description. Contents: Only a Working Girl': Women's Work and Regulation, 1890-1914 -- Gender Divisions: Women in Labour Organizations, 1890-1914 -- 'A Socialist Movement Which Does Not Attract the Women Cannot Live': Women in the Early Socialist Movement -- 'Full of the Spirit of Revolt': Women in the Socialist Party of Canada and the Social Democratic Party --  'Wanted -- Women to Take the Place of Men': Organizing Working Women in the Era of War and Reconstruction -- 'This Crimson Storm of War': Women, War, and Socialism -- 'No Special Protections...No Sympathy': Postwar Militancy and Labour Politics.

The article reviews the book, "Bent Out of Shape: Shame, Solidarity and Women's Bodies at Work," by Karen Messing.

The article reviews the book, "Medicare’s Histories: Origins, Omissions, and Opportunities in Canada," edited by Esyllt W. Jones, James Hanley, and Delia Gavrus.

Joan Sangster's "Beyond Dichotomies" (left history, 3.1, Spring/Summer 1995) is a polemic on the relationship between women's history and gender history. As such, it tends to bring out issues and highlight debates but, at the same time, it sometimes inevitably simplifies and potentially misrepresents in order to address important points. As friends and colleagues, we would like to take issue with some of the assertions and suggestions made in Sangster's piece. We think it is important to debate these issues and we hope to make a contribution. Such issues are central in feminist historical debates internationally and, while individuals who write Canadian women's history and gender history have clearly borrowed from the intemational literature, there has been no sustained Canadian "debate," at least not in print. --Introduction

This collection of essays focuses on the experiences of women as poliutical activists in twentieth-century Canada, both in the mainstream of party politics and in groups outside the mainstream. The latter include women in the socialist and labour movements, the farm and peace movements, and women active in variouss ethnic communities. Expanding the notion of politics, the authors highlight the widespread naturee of women's activism - particularly at the local level - and challenge the easy formulation that women were primarily interest in the vote and lost interest in politics when they acquired it. Some of the essays suggest that even the suffrage campaign has been misrepresented as solely a middle-class movement. Women evolved their own styles of political pparticipation shaped by local contexts, class, culture, family, and life cycle. Women often organized at the community level, and worked both in combination with men and in women-only settings. Contributors to the volume explore women's involvement in organizations from the political left to right, and women's efforts to shape Canada's political priorities and activities. Politically minded women often found that their best outless for commitment and service was through women's organizations, which addressed their needs and provided a base for effective action. --Publisher's description

The article provides reviews of: Women's History Sources: A Guide to Archives and Manuscript Collections in the United States, 2 v., edited by Andrea Hinding / review by Linda Kealey -- Marxism and Culture: The CPUSA and Aesthetics in the 1930s, by Lawrence H. Schwartz / review by Peter Fitting -- A Bibliography of Canadian Folklore in English, compiled by Edith Fowke and Carole Henderson Carpenter / review by Laurel Doucette.

A century of women's work history in Australia and Canada reveals both similarities and contrasts. Women workers in both countries have faced persistent occupational segregation and lower pay, justified by the "family wage" ideal of a male breadwinner and the accompanying perception of women's paid labour as secondary, less skilled and transient. While Canada's female labour force has historically demonstrated a significant proportion of immigrants from countries other than England, Australia's female labour force contained fewer immigrants but revealed a visible minority of Aboriginals who have demonstrated labour militancy in several well-known disputes in this century. Perhaps the most striking differences between the two countries, however, relate to the extent of the Australian state's involvement in wage tribunals and in the compulsory arbitration system, both of which have given women improved wages and "a floor of protection." By contrast, state intervention in Canada was minimal until well into the 20th century when minimum wage laws were passed during and after World War I. Despite these differences there are areas of similarity, particularly in this century as women workers tended to mobilize at roughly the same time, not only in unions and work places but also in neighbourhoods, ethnic communities, rural areas and to some extent in labour and left wing political groups. Modern feminist movements in both countries have waged some successful campaigns to change not only government views and agendas, but also those of trade unions. Thus, while Australian women have perhaps been more successful at "playing the state" depending on the government in power, both groups of women are increasingly faced with the challenge of government retreat from egalitarian policies under the onslaught of a right-wing, corporatist agenda.

Contents: Pt. 1. Manuscripts. Pt. 2. Newspapers. Pt. 3. Pamphlets. Pt. 4. Government documents -- Addenda -- Index.

Pays homage to the feminist social and cultural historian, Natalie Zemon Davis (1928-2023).