Citizens of the City: Women and Montréal’s Municipal Election of 1910

Abstract

The Montréal municipal election of 1910 was not just the purview of men; women were engaged in this political process as campaigners but also, for some, as voters. This explicit political activity disrupts the traditional narrative that Quebec women were unengaged in voting activities or suffrage campaigns until much later. An attentive examination of women’s municipal engagement reveals the ways that women’s philanthropic activism, maternalist ideology, and organizational expertise created a space for them to define and shape their identities as citizens of the city and drew them into overt citizenship acts that would be formally prohibited to women on the provincial level for another 30 years.