Women Who Made the News

The first newspaperwomen were employed to attract female subscribers and advertising revenue. Once hired, they found themselves confined to a narrow range of specialties that catered to conventionally defined women's interests - home-making, fashion, and high society - and most were patronized by their male peers. But these women journalists did more than simply deliver female consumers to advertisers. Some of them eventually made names for themselves as commercial reporters or political and even war correspondents. By making news about women for women, they created a distinctly female culture within the newspaper, chronicling the increasing participation of women in public affairs. Women Who Made the News is the story of the women who helped raise Canadian women's collective awareness of each other and of their achievements in the period leading up to World War II.