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The following is excerpted from Linda Kay's The Sweet Sixteen: The Journey That Inspired the Canadian Women's Press Club.
Once underwritten by political entities or religious groups that espoused their own causes, most daily newspapers by the late 1800s were mass circulation journals attempting to appeal to a large audience. But without political or religious backers to fully fund a costly enterprise that was growing more sophisticated technologically, newspapers needed advertising revenue to stay afloat. Advertisers were eager to court women as the force behind most family purchases, so editors hired female writers expressly to attract female readers.
In 1886, Sara Jeannette Duncan became the first woman to break the gender barrier as a full-time employee at a newspaper in Canada. Hired by the Globe in Toronto – and later to become an acclaimed novelist – Duncan ushered in a new era for female writers in Canada, who were, for the first time, avidly recruited by astute editors and publishers across the country as these practical businessmen began to realize the economic value of including a “woman’s voice” in the newspaper.
Margaret Graham was certainly the beneficiary of the burgeoning move among big city editors to cater to female readers. On that June day in 1904, when Graham climbed the stairs at Windsor Station headquarters in Montreal and strode confidently down the long corridor leading to the offices of CPR publicity director George Henry Ham, she may have felt empowered by the clout she commanded as a journalist. She had just snared an important interview with the wife of Prime Minister Sir Wilfrid Laurier.
With self-assurance, she prepared to address the CPR publicity chief, whose affability was legendary. Described as “a large body of superfine humanity entirely surrounded by the Canadian Pacific Railway,” George Ham’s jovial nature and wry sense of humour made him one of the most popular men in the country at the time. But Margaret Graham, dubbed “Miggsy” by family and friends, was not in the mood for jokes. She had a serious mission.
(…)
In Ham’s office that day, Margaret Graham wasted no time telling the railway executive the reason for her visit. You take newspapermen to all your functions, she told him, whether it be steamship landings, hotel openings, sight-seeing tours, or world’s fairs. What about women? Why, Graham wanted to know, weren’t newspaperwomen accorded the same rights as men?
In his 1920s memoir, Ham sketched out his version of the fateful encounter. Graham, a “champion of women’s rights,” began to “cyclonically” tell him that the cpr had transported men, free of charge, on various excursions, while “women had altogether been ignobly ignored.” She then demanded to know “why poor downtrodden females should thus be so shabbily treated.” When she finished, indignation blazing from her eyes, Ham politely motioned for her to take a seat: “Sit down, Miggsy, sit down and keep cool.” But Margaret Graham was accustomed to speaking her mind and fighting for equal treatment. Born in 1870 and raised in difficult circumstances with few material resources, she had nevertheless achieved what few women of her era could hope to attain.
Saturday May 12,2 pm to 4 pm
Ottawa City Archives
100 Tallwood Dr. (Corner of Woodroffe)
To learn more about The Sweet Sixteen or to order online, click here.
For media inquiries, contact MQUP Publicist Jacqui Davis.
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