Agents of Empire: British Female Migration to Canada and Australia, 1860s-1930 / Edition 1

by Lisa Chilton

Overview

The period between the 1860s and the 1920s saw a wave of female migration from Britain to Canada and Australia, much of which was managed by women. In Agents of Empire, Lisa Chilton explores the work of the women who promoted, managed, and ultimately transformed single British women's experiences of migration.

Chilton examines the origins of women-run female emigration societies through various aspects of their work and the responses they received from emigrants and settled colonists. Working in the face of apathy in the community, resistance by other (usually male) managers of imperial migration, and agency exerted by the women they sought to manage, the emigrators endeavoured to maintain control over the field until government agencies took it over in the aftermath of the First World War.

Agents of Empire highlights the aims and methods behind the emigrators' work, as well as the implications and ramifications of their long-term engagement with this imperialistic feminizing project. Chilton provides tremendous insight into the struggle for control of female migration and female migrants, aiding greatly in the study of gender, migration, and empire.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780802094742
Publisher:	University of Toronto Press, Scholarly Publishing Division
Publication date:	05/09/2007
Series:	Studies in Gender and History Series
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	272
Product dimensions:	6.01(w) x 9.02(h) x 0.62(d)

About the Author

Lisa Chilton is an assistant professor in the Department of History at the University of Prince Edward Island.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments     vii
Abbreviations     ix
Introduction     3
'With This Sign I Conquer': Middle-Class Female Emigrators and the Management of Imperial Migration     17
Safe Passage: Narratives of Women in Transit     40
'Grit and Grace': A New Class of Women for the Colonies     66
Letters 'Home': Female Emigrants and the Imperial Family of Women     97
Welcoming Women: Reception Work in Canada and Australia     118
Domesticating Canberra: The Federal Capital Commission and the Domestic-Servant Project     152
Conclusion     173
Notes     183
Index     235