Discipline, Bodies, and Girls’ Diaries in Post-Confederation Canada

Abstract

In lieu of an abstract, here is an excerpt from this article: Diaries written in Canadian schools by Marjorie Saunders, the Bowlby sisters, Kathleen Cowan, Sadie Harper, Mary Dulhanty, and Bessie Scott show readers what does and does not require confession at the moment of writing. The forms of discretion summoned in their diary writing adumbrate the limits of subjectivity suggested by a culture with its newly produced category for “girlhood.” Although I focus on Canadian examples, the tendencies that occur in these diaries are evident in American and British diaries too, suggesting that this was a widespread phenomenon tied to certain class positions, particularly a middle-class position. According to the researchers who examine the girlhood diary of Manitoban Mamie Pickering, written in the 1890s, “the nineteenth century middle classes developed their own particular version of girlhood, the ideals of which coincided with the ideals of their social class” (Williamson and Williamson, “Mamie Pickering’s Reading, Part Two” 54). And while these class identifications may not be limited geographically, I would argue that historical variability is linked to geography in the case of writing school diaries: women’s access to education occurred unevenly and was available in specific locations at specific times. The middle class is more easily attainable in certain places and at certain times, and post-Confederation Canada was one of the places where it was more easily attained.