Mcclung
The biography, "Firing the Heather: The Life and Times of Nellie McClung," was written by Mary Hallet and Marilyn Davis. It "succeeds in establishing McClung's importance, and the cause of women, firmly on par with male-focused reform causes of the time." This review will summarize the book's narrative briefly, and the authors' attempt to provide Canadians with a deep appreciation-long overdue-for this exceptional woman who in so many ways was ahead of her time, and whose life and work have affected us all." In addition to summarizing the authors' work, this review will state and discuss the book's arguments, commenting upon its persuasiveness, its supporting evidence, its strengths and weaknesses, and its addition to or revision of the evidence found in the textbook, Destinies. Ultimately, this review will justify the book as a good source for studying the topic of social reform in Canada during the early 1900s.
Nellie Mooney was born in Ontario in 1873. Here she learned to find a voice for herself in response to her repressive Mother. The authors of Firing the Heather comment that Nellie acquired character traits from both of parents: humour from her Father, and backbone from her Mother, which combined to make Nellie the successful reformer she came to be. Nellie was educated in Manitoba where her family moved when she was about six years old. She taught for several years, and married pharmacist Wesley McClung, who promised to support Nellie in her writing career. They had a solid marriage, and "the demands of raising four sons and a daughter fuelled her commitment to women's emancipation." In 1908, Nellie's best-selling novel, "Sowing Seeds in Danny," was published. Nellie's work deeply reflected her reformist views. Her fiction stands as some of her best (and most extreme) feminist propaganda. "Propaganda was precisely her intention. If you have a good idea, she remarked, what's wrong with propagating it, whatever the means? So in novels like...
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