Content area
Full Text
Women Lead the Way: A History of the University Women's Club of Vancouver, 1907-2007. Jean Mann, Beverley New and Cathy Barford. Vancouver. University Women's Club, 2007. 145p. illus, bibliog.. no price given
Organizations usually sponsor the writing of their own histories for the pleasure of their members. Women Lead the Way: A History of the University Women's Club of Vancouver, published in honour of the Club's centennial, is no exception. Much of it details the Club's internal history, a fact highlighted in sidebars about contributions of individual members. Later chapters focus on caring for Hycroft, the Shaughnessy Heights mansion that the Club purchased in 1962 and rehabilitated largely through their own volunteer labour. Yet, the book is also a fine source of Vancouver's social history.
The chapters - organized roughly by decade -reveal how much has changed especially for women and their concerns. A small group of university educated women founded the University Women's Club (UWC) in 1907 to develop friendships and stimulate intellectual activity with likeminded women but they also believed that "they could be a force for the improvement of society, if not its redemption." (p. 14)
Not surprisingly, one of their first...