Forever Lunching: Food, Power And Politics In Ontario Women's Organisations¹

On June 8, 1942, a wartime editorial on the women's page of the Sudbury Star newspaper reported that local women were adjusting their food intake as an act of patriotism. “With the outbreak of war, the ladies cut down considerably on the quantity and quality of these post-meeting tea parties.” The writer was convinced that, “this step will, more than likely, be as beneficial to the women themselves as it will be to Canada's war effort. Women, the homemakers of the nation in particular, do too much eating at any rate. They are forever lunching — if not at meetings, at afternoon teas and the like.”2 One could read the Sudbury editorialist's sarcastic insinuation that women did “too much eating” as condescending, stereotypical, and perhaps even misogynist in tone. And yet there is truth to the fact that women's groups typically paid great attention to food whether it was wartime or not. Indeed very often, the culture of twentieth-century rural women's groups in Ontario did revolve around food. The real question of interest is this: How did women regard these activities, and what deeper meanings or purposes might lay below the surface of their preoccupation with food? The material for this paper is drawn from my study of the history of the Women's Institutes in Ontario, though these vignettes undoubtedly have many parallels among other women's organisations across North America in the first half of this century. American readers will recognise that rural Canada's Women's Institutes have much in common with state-sponsored Homemakers' Clubs and the educational activities provided to communities through the extension departments of state agricultural colleges. Women's groups like the Women's Institutes (WI) in rural Ontario have traditionally fulfilled a threefold purpose including social roles, educational instruction, and community work. Since the end of the nineteenth-century when women's organisations burst onto the social scene, to channel the energies of reformers and domestic crusaders alike, food has been central to their gatherings. At meetings sponsored by groups like the Women's Institute, women socialised over food, studied about food preparation, and served food to the community. It is time to begin theorizing about women and food in new ways; specifically, we need to think about how women themselves perceived food- related activities, and the meanings they attached to them. To begin the task of building theories around women and food, the writings of Rosika Parker on needlework provide a model for this revisionist task. Parker has shown that our initial interpretations of “traditionally female handiwork” are not simply what meet the eye. “The art of embroidery has been the means of educating women into the feminine ideal, and of proving that they have attained it,” Parker writes. “But it has also provided a weapon of resistance to the constraints of femininity.”3 According to Parker, “women have nevertheless sewn a subversive stitch — managed to make meanings of their own in the very medium intended to inculcate self-effacement.”4 In this paper, I will argue in a similar way that we need to look more carefully at the history of women and food to discover the ways in which women have used food to accomplish ends which are quite different from what we have originally assumed. How did women use food in order to resist the constraints of femininity or to subversively map out new meanings of their own when casual observers might have only assumed, as the Sudbury editorialist did, that women were “forever lunching”? Studying rural women's organisations through an examination of the records left by each local group, one is struck by the fact that virtually every monthly minute book entry ends by stating that “a lovely lunch was enjoyed by all,” or that “the hostess served a dainty cup of tea.” What is a researcher to make of this shared experience that was repeated every time the women met? Because it fell outside the parameters of the business portion of the meeting, no transcript of the ensuing discussions was recorded. One can only extrapolate about the conversations that were exchanged over the teacups. Was the lunch served here simply a social nicety that built pretension into the meetings and led to exclusive practices? The minute books do sometimes record that limits had to be placed on the menu that was offered, so that members would offer only sandwiches and one type of cake, but not pie. Evidently, some members had begun using the occasion of the monthly luncheon to demonstrate their families' economic status. It seems that some competition was brewing over who could serve the most extensive treats, and the members had to continually call themselves back to simplicity. Moreover, part of the female culture of the day was the demonstration of one's culinary skill and the monthly meeting became a site for exhibiting that talent. On more formal occasions, the minute book might record the names of those who had the honour of “pouring” at an afternoon tea. This duty often fell to young unmarried women for whom it was an occasion of both privilege and pressure. The purpose of the lunch, members reminded one another, was not to make a burden of the task of hosting, but rather to provide a forum to encourage friendships among the members. For many of the rural women who joined the Women's Institute, that monthly meeting followed, by a cup of tea, was an important antidote to the isolation they experienced in their work routines at home on the farm. Indeed, the opportunity to gather in an all-female setting was something they looked forward to and valued very much. The WI was particularly appreciated in the northern reaches of the province where sparse settlement dictated that one might otherwise rarely see another woman.5 Yet even for women living in more populated parts of the province where isolation was not necessarily so acute, the monthly meeting was a welcome diversion from routine. Wherever the branch was located, female bonding was one of the most prized outcomes resulting from the creation of new Women's Institutes. In countless cases, those friendships formed while food was being consumed. When the WI movement was in its early stages, as organisers wondered about the procedures they should follow at the regular meetings, concerns over the place of food were raised. The issue of whether or not to serve refreshments at the monthly WI meeting was debated in 1910. When the issue came to the floor of the Annual Convention in Toronto, some members complained that “they cannot get a large attendance without having afternoon tea,” while others were convinced that food was unnecessary because they could “get along better without afternoon tea.”6 Not all of the delegates agreed. As one retorted, “That is not our idea. The social part is after our meeting is over, and we have the sandwiches and cup of tea. That is just how we get our members.” Another member from Preston, Ontario explained that some of their members walked five miles in the return trip and they needed to eat before they left for home. The Provincial Superintendent, George Putnam, conceded that local arrangements would vary and sometimes, like in the Preston case, food might be necessary. However, he added, “we regret that a few Institutes have allowed the lunch part of it to become the most prominent and apparently most interesting feature. We trust you will not do that.”7 Evidently, many branches did emphasise refreshments, albeit for different reasons. However, a shift away from food-centred meetings was emerging. A member from Waterloo County reported in 1911 that “a noticeable fact is that during the first year or so of a branch Institute, they are very much interested in the planning and preparing of foods, exchanging recipes, etc. But this is invariably replaced by other subjects.”8 Indicating that food was no longer the chief focus of her local WI group, another speaker echoed that same sentiment, pointing out that with the statistical strength of the WI movement, there was the potential to move beyond tea parties and fancy work. “We are a goodly company — ten thousand women. Let us not devote too much time to ice cream, crisp salads, and eyelet embroidery. There are greater things.”9 The greater things to which she made reference, included lectures from visiting professionals such as bankers and lawyers who spoke to the groups about how to ensure legal protection for themselves by opening joint bank accounts with their husbands and getting their names on the deeds to the family farms. For some local Institutes, especially those in Northern Ontario, it also included taking an active role in lobbying for female suffrage.10 Evidently, when the meetings closed with a shared cup of tea, members of the WI were sometimes thinking beyond female sociability to gender solidarity as they made strategies about their legal status, financial stability, or access to political rights. Although the monthly meetings were important occasions for socialising and for becoming informed on important issues of the day, the Women's Institute organisation also gained a reputation for being a leader in home economics education. “In the regular monthly meetings the members have an opportunity to pass on to each other the information gained in the school of practical experience…. The members often refer to the Institute as “‘The Great Rural University.’”11 The association with continuing education was not limited to those monthly meetings or tips shared from members' life experiences. The idea of the WI as ”rural university“ came from the fact that through this organisation, the Province of Ontario sponsored formal training in food preparation and nutrition through schemes know as ”short courses.“ These educational initiatives have caught the attention of historians. Terry Crowley has argued that WI initiatives provide one of the earliest Canadian examples of continuing education opportunities for women because the organisation worked in conjunction with the provincial Department of Agriculture and the Macdonald Institute in Guelph to provide the services of travelling lecturers.12 These instructors would visit rural communities to offer short courses of instruction in cookery, garment construction and agricultural techniques for women. This mode of course delivery arose out of the reality that the new educational facility built in Guelph, Ontario in 1903 at the provincial agricultural college was failing to attract farmers' daughters in the numbers that the school administration had predicted. The logical solution seemed to be that if young women could not come to the school, then the school should go to them. The very first short courses were offered off-site by Macdonald Institute in conjunction with the WIs of Haldimand County in 1912.13 Many rural women eagerly took up the opportunity to study without leaving home, at a cost that was affordable, and on a schedule that suited the rhythm of their unpaid work in the home or on the farm. The 1913 report to the Department of Agriculture described the typical format: “The attendance at these demonstration lecture courses varied from twelve to twenty, the time period usually occupying each afternoon for ten days.”14 This educational opportunity enjoyed sustained popularity over the next four decades, as the statistics provided in annual reports amply demonstrate. Even during World War I, when branch members were preoccupied with war work, attendance at the short courses remained consistently high. In 1915-16, fifty-five courses were offered throughout the province with an attendance of 21,643. During the war, rationing created a market for information on food conservation and a ten-day course was developed entitled, “Food Values and Cooking.”15 During the 1930s, the WI continued these courses and added some of longer duration. In 1936-37, thirty-five one-month “schools in Home Economics” were held across the province, with 1,038 women in attendance. In 1936, when it became clear that many homemakers found it impossible to attend classes on a continuous basis for several weeks, special five-day and three-day versions of the courses were created.16 In 1952, the annual report boasted that 551 short courses, most in a one-week format, had been offered and 14,498 women had attended.17 Obviously, the opportunities for formal instruction in food preparation and studies in nutrition were very popular indeed. Historians such as Robert Stamp, exploring domestic science education for women, have interpreted this phenomenon as evidence of a scheme to “teach women their God-given place” in society.18 Thus, education that centred on food has been seen as a form of social control, of limiting the career options of young women by channeling them into socially prescribed gender roles. As Margaret Kechnie has recently shown, attention to the pre-1920 records left by government officials and even by WI leadership confirms that this was indeed the agenda that many of the elite were seeking to accomplish.19 However, Ruby Heap provided a different approach to the question when she considered the experiences of the women who worked as educators in the field of domestic science. She argued that the academic disciplines of nutrition and dietetics were sites where some women made very successful careers for themselves within the as or these instructors were more than of some government scheme of social Not only was the field of domestic science for the instructors of courses, but the women who took up these educational opportunities placed a great of on what they were The records we have which the of of members taking these courses, whether or those through this has recently reminded us that need to of into what she “the of for that women in of organisations were When exploring groups like the need to of into a similar by that if the women were related to home then they were being and When women their experiences in WI courses, they reported opportunities for sociability with other skill in practical from which they could make and that the One in is a young from Northern Ontario, who of course work through the WI in and her of and the instruction as a of her young the educational opportunities arose through formal courses or through information at regular monthly meetings, the opportunity to was to women. at the That time of the has around The no And without to the Women's A will be the When home to the be the way When WI for the When this day there is no no one home, the is out And a he will One would be to which was more valued by this the new or the afternoon away from her In to prescribed gender roles, the her to her She explained that not only did he also welcome the of she would on her but as the of the to to the Women's new found not that of of her it the about gender roles. was her he would have to special in her just to That my is there is no For she is a member of the I eat my and I tea For my is a as she can She is a paper on she will read at the I make my own and up the And all the from the When women get as no they will, The first do is to pass a new For to make it both and just to to all in some need not at home for tea Was the my We are having a of some To lecture at the This was that women's preoccupation with food at WI was simply a for more social that would political to women while would be to and the about new for the of in the home were even after women did the to there is to the association women's meetings, food and For large numbers of women, access to educational opportunities domestic science was an important first step in the of For this was their first occasion to move in a outside their own and the only way to continuing education. of their of women found that these courses them access to formal That was For in domestic science was a step At a very this that some women about how to become more so that they could have more For leaving their to study food a shift in the of while husbands to for themselves in the the that shift was of but just as could to this that women would to and to use that political to the construction of work in the home. the about gender were women did a greater in the through their work with food. This is most when one attention to WI members and their work in community Women's work in community food was most often for the purpose of What did this work to the women who were in Because of their role in community food and the they from that work, women had an important in community often the on the women the financial to provide a community meeting was the with the Women's “The women had a It was to provide a place for the community to meet for social and And so they had that would the of their food they a and to a report in the local “the has been the of social and life of were for many It has been used as a in The Institute sponsored a In Ontario the WI branch to a for the community They could then who would use that for what purpose and at what In over their allowed the Institute women to the of community there was more on here than with the that a was the women could be on to make the Although they did provide the lunch, by women were that them to what the next community might The Annual a typical of women who their to the local and to those “the the This had been in a very and when the Institute, through the school this to the attention of the the to for the if the Institute would the of it — an interesting of community Yet work with the usually beyond to As an extension of domestic in for one's own women took on the to be community when they to provide nutrition for the of the community through school lunch from the In her study of the Women's Institutes of has argued that members their skill to the community in practical ways to In Ontario Institutes, women by the of and that act way to political lobbying for and in the WI members that the of was a means to the officials into greater for these through The way to a shift in the of work when these women beyond their of food into the of by their own names to for the women should get on the How are we to get a member from the Women's Institute in her at the Ontario WI Convention in has to go and it a of I have been to a school meeting I to that her members to do the a of you will go to these school meetings, because has to of the work. We have a great about the work we have but we about the the work. I think there be a great many women with the Institutes, or the work that has been could not have been a of for the school was only the That food way to more political book of women's organisations can with their about women and food. As interested in women's and especially the meanings which women for themselves around those we be to look more at the records that are left to For what might it when a minute book simply reports that “The members then enjoyed a lovely cup of are that there was more on than just a of ladies a tea when the records that “The members to a short course on what are we to make of In many cases, it was more than just a to “teach their For some of the it in fact have a for continuing education and an early step political and In the same when a community was the was that “the members of the Institute to provide This was much more than just a shared community that “the ladies could be on to It was often a for those women to make That those same women had an opportunity to the social organisation of the community by the use of the community For some women, their in school them the political to one of their own as an to for them in the of At one minute book of an organisation like the Women's Institutes are because of the way in which they record the What those are the social meanings which members of women's organisations attached to food in the first half of this century. of the records that while it was invariably the ladies who provided the foods, those meanings for the were women forever it was a social but in many it was their first step access to community or political

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