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100 YEARS - Women counted in Port Alberni

Alberni city councillor Cindy Solda asked about early female settlers in the Valley and editor Susan Quinn responds.
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Lower Argyle Street at Kingsway looks a lot different in this 1912 photograph than its present-day incarnation. Leonard Frank captured this image

Councillor Cindy Solda brought up at a council meeting last month the fact that much of the centennial media coverage to date is of men. She wants to know where the women are. Well, I can tell you that they weren’t in many newspaper clippings from 1912, and if they were, they were referred to as “Mrs.” and rarely by their first names.

I put the question to Maxine Munsil and to Gareth Flostrand from the centennial committee, and they were helpful with some names.

Muncil also shared a list of electors registered to vote in the municipal election that was published on Jan. 3, 1913 in the Advocate. Seventeen of the 91 names were women.

Women were entitled to vote in municipal elections by 1900, but not at any other level. Women were finally given the right to vote in federal elections in May 1918.

The facts about women in 1912 are slowly coming out of the woodwork.

editor@albernivalleynews.com