Henrietta Edwards

{{Short description|Canadian women's rights activist (1849–1931)}}

{{Use Canadian English|date=September 2021}}

{{Use dmy dates|date=December 2022}}

{{Infobox person

|name = Henrietta Edwards

|image = Henrietta Edwards.jpg

|imagesize = 150px

|caption =

|birth_name=Henrietta Louise Muir

|birth_date = {{Birth date|1849|12|18|df=y}}

|birth_place = Montreal, Canada East

|death_date = {{Death date and age|1931|11|10|1849|12|18|df=y}}

|death_place = Fort Macleod, Alberta, Canada

|other_names =

|known_for = Women's rights activist

|occupation = {{hlist|Suffragist|author}}

|spouse = {{marriage|Oliver C. Edwards|1876|1915|end=d.}}

}}

Henrietta Muir Edwards (18 December 1849{{spaced ndash}}10 November 1931) was a Canadian women's rights activist, author and reformer.{{cite encyclopedia |url=https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/henrietta-louise-edwards/ |title= Henrietta Muir Edwards

|last1=Silverman |first1=Eliane Leslau |last2=McLeod |first2=Susanna |encyclopedia=The Canadian Encyclopedia |publisher=Historica Canada |edition=online |date=20 November 2020 |access-date=14 May 2023}}

She was the eldest of "The Famous Five", along with Emily Murphy, Nellie McClung, Louise McKinney and Irene Parlby, who fought to have women recognized as "persons" under the law, and for the woman's right to vote in elections.

She was born Henrietta Louise Muir in Montreal as well as lived in Montreal. She grew up in an upper-middle-class family that valued culture and religion. Edwards became active in many religious organisations, where she grew disenchanted with old traditions where the exclusion of women was acceptable.{{cite book|last=Sanderson|first=Kay|title=200 Remarkable Alberta Women|year=1999|publisher=Famous Five Foundation|location=Calgary, Alberta|page=3|url=http://www.ourfutureourpast.ca/loc_hist/page.aspx?id=917773|isbn=0-9685832-0-2|access-date=23 July 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150924080054/http://www.ourfutureourpast.ca/loc_hist/page.aspx?id=917773|archive-date=24 September 2015|url-status=dead}}

Biography

Edwards was born on 18 December 1849.

As a young woman, Edwards and her sister Amélia founded a Working Girls’ Association in Montreal in 1875 to provide meals, reading rooms and study classes. This would become one of Canada's first YWCAs. They also published a periodical, The Working Women of Canada, which helped to bring working conditions into the public eye. This project was undertaken at their own expense, and was funded from their earnings as artists.{{cite book|last=MacEwan|first=Grant|title=Mighty Women: Stories of Western Canadian Pioneers|year=1995|publisher=Greystone Books|location=Vancouver, British Columbia|pages=27–32|isbn=9781926706344|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=k_92tQ5OnhEC&pg=PA26}}

She married Dr. Oliver C. Edwards in 1876 and they had three children: Alice, William, and Margaret. They moved to Indian Head, Northwest Territories (now Saskatchewan), in 1883. Oliver was the government doctor for the Indigenous reserves there, and she continued to pursue women's rights and feminist organizations on the prairies.

In 1890, Edwards's husband fell ill, so the family moved to the nation's capital, Ottawa. There, Edwards "took up the cause of female prisoners", while also working with Lady Aberdeen, wife of the then Governor General of Canada, to create the National Council of Women of Canada (NCWC).{{cite book|last1=Sharpe|first1=Robert J.|last2=McMahon |first2=Patricia I. |title=The Persons Case: The Origins and Legacy of the Fight for Legal Personhood |url={{google books|HOwC1vcGgcEC|plainurl=yes|page=39}} |year=2007 |publisher=University of Toronto Press |location=Toronto, Ontario |page=39 |access-date=23 July 2015 }} The NCWC was founded in 1893, the same year the Canadian government commissioned Edwards, who was also an artist, to paint a set of dishes for the Canadian exhibit at the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition.

Edwards served for 35 years as their chair for Laws Governing Women and Children, and because of her expertise in this area of the law was appointed chair of the organization's Provincial Council of Alberta. With Lady Aberdeen she also helped establish the Victorian Order of Nurses (VON) in 1897.

File:Women are Persons-two.jpg

File:WLMK unveiling plaque to Valiant Five.jpg W.L. Mackenzie King unveiled a plaque from the Canadian Federation of Business and Professional Women's Clubs{{cite web |url=https://bpwcanada.com/images/gallery/Famous_Five_Tablet/BPW_PLAQUE_1938.jpg |title=BPW Plaque 1938 |work=Canadian Federation of Business and Professional Women’s Clubs |access-date=22 September 2021}} honouring Edwards and her colleagues from the Persons Case (1938, Edwards' daughter-in-law at left)]]

Edwards and her family returned to the Northwest Territories around 1903, where her husband was posted to Fort Macleod as a medical officer to the Blood tribe.{{cite web |url=https://www.famous5.ca/henrietta-miur-edwards |access-date=14 May 2023 |publisher=Famous 5 Foundation |title=Famous Five Profiles: Henrietta Miur Edwards}}

During the latter period of the First World War, when supplies and morale were at a low, the Government of Canada selected individuals to assist in an advisory capacity about how to invoke stricter conservation measures. Mrs. Edwards was part of the selected committee, and it was the first time in Canadian history that a woman had been called upon for a review of public policy with the Government.

Edwards wrote two books about women and the legal problems she was trying to overcome: Legal Status of Canadian Women (1908){{cite book |last=Edwards |first=Henrietta Muir |title=Legal Status of Canadian Women |date=1908 |location=Calgary, Alberta |publisher=National Council of Women of Canada |url=http://eco.canadiana.ca/view/oocihm.72100/1 |access-date=1 October 2015}} and Legal Status of Women in Alberta (1921).{{cite book |last=Edwards |first=Henrietta Muir |title=Legal Status of Women in Alberta |date=1921 |orig-year=1917 |edition=second |location=Edmonton, Alberta |publisher=Department of Extension, University of Alberta |url=http://peel.library.ualberta.ca/bibliography/4302.html |access-date=1 October 2015}} She worked with Louise McKinney, Irene Parlby and Emily Murphy to "lobby the Alberta government for recognition of dower and matrimonial property rights."{{sfn|Sharpe|McMahon|2007|page=40}} This friendship and collaboration would be called upon again to fight for the Persons Case in the late 1920s, which established that Canadian women were eligible to be appointed senators and more generally, that Canadian women had the same rights as Canadian men with respect to positions of political power.{{cite encyclopedia |url=https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/persons-case |title=Persons Case |encyclopedia=The Canadian Encyclopedia |first1=Tabitha |last1=Marshall |first2=David A. |last2=Cruickshank |access-date=16 December 2021}}

Edwards was buried in Mount Pleasant Municipal Cemetery, Edmonton. The memorial erected to her memory reads "Let her own works praise her. Her delight was in the law of the Lord" Her date of death on the memorial is given as 9 November 1931.{{cite web |title=Henrietta Muir Edwards |website=Find a Grave |url=http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=pv&GRid=95715883&PIpi=75315719 |access-date=23 July 2015}} Her date of death is listed as 10 November 1931 in the Canadian Encyclopedia.

Legacy

In 1962, Edwards was recognized as Person of National Historic Significance by the government of Canada. A plaque commemorating this is placed at the entrance to Fort Macleod Post Office, Haultain Ave & 22 St., Fort Macleod, Alberta.{{DFHD|897|Edwards, Henrietta Muir National Historic Person|access-date=1 October 2015}} The "Persons case" was recognized as an Historic Event in 1997.{{DFHD|1809|Persons Case National Historic Event|access-date=1 October 2015}} In addition, in October 2009, the Senate voted to name Edwards and the rest of the Five, Canada's first "honorary senators."{{cite news |url=https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/famous-5-named-honorary-senators-1.811638 |title='Famous 5' named honorary senators |work=CBC News |publisher=Canadian Broadcasting Corporation |date=10 October 2009 |access-date=20 October 2011}}{{cite news |url=https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/albertas-famous-five-named-honorary-senators/article1320491/ |title=Alberta's Famous Five named honorary senators |work=The Globe and Mail |date=11 October 2009 |access-date=24 July 2015}}

References

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