21 May 2014, Starts: 17:15

 With a woman and an axe: the labour of Scottish emigrant women to rural Canada, 1800-1850

Talk by Elizabeth Ritchie

Ross House, Dornoch

One man encouraging emigration to Canada exclaimed that Scots could make a success of themselves whether they came with 'great working sons or with only useless girls'. However for many emigrant families it was these 'useless girls' who were the key to their success. This paper explores the work that Scottish emigrant women did as they created new farms out of the old growth forests of British North America in the early nineteenth century: how important was traditionally female work like dairying, to what extent were work practices carried over from the old world to the new, and how did new settlers divide up the work between men and women?