Working for the Common Good

In Working for the Common Good, Madelyn Holmes details the political policy work of eight social democratic Canadian women and highlights their largely unrecognized struggles and accomplishments.

Throughout their political careers, Agnes Macphail, Thérèse Casgrain, Grace MacInnis, Pauline Jewett, Margaret Mitchell, Lynn McDonald, Audrey McLaughlin and Alexa McDonough worked towards curing society’s economic and social ills. They raised their voices for world peace from the 1920s to the 2000s. They were incensed about economic inequality in Canadian society and advocated for policies to reduce poverty. They fought for social justice for Indigenous peoples, Japanese-Canadians, Chinese-Canadians, Muslim-Canadians and the imprisoned. The profiles in this book illustrate the many ways these politicians embraced the cause of gender equality and served as role models for generations of Canadian women.

Madelyn Holmes is the author of Forgotten Migrants: Foreign Workers in Switzerland before World War I; Lives of Women Public Schoolteachers: Scenes from American Educational History; American Women Conservationists; and Students and Teachers of the New China. She lives in Burlington, Vermont.