UBC Press The Last Suffragist Standing book Paperback 284 pages

Canada’s vibrant suffrage movement was a complicated story of achievement and loss. The Last Suffragist Standing is an unprecedented study of a pioneering Canadian suffragist and politician, a New Woman who tested Canadian democracy.A rich product of archival and public sources, this biography of Laura Marshall Jamieson (1882–1964) opens a window onto the political and social landscape of the time. Veronica Strong-Boag chronicles Jamieson’s life from orphaned child of marginal Ontario farmers to member of British Columbia’s Legislative Assembly and Vancouver city councillor. The last suffragist in Canada to be elected to a provincial or federal legislature, Jamieson embraced issues such as factory labour conditions, minimum wage, feminist pacifism, housing, municipal franchise, and employment equality throughout her six decades of activism. Jamieson’s political radicalism was forged by the suffragist movement and the Great Depression, whetted by her exposure to mainstream and fringe activist groups, and tempered during her tenures in office.Strong-Boag’s meticulous research and deep knowledge of the history of the women’s movement and Canadian politics turn this compelling account of a woman’s life into an illuminating work on the history of feminism, socialism, internationalism, and activism in Canada.

Veronica Strong-Boag is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, professor emerita in social justice and educational studies at UBC, and adjunct professor in history and gender studies at the University of Victoria. She has received numerous prizes for her work, including the Tyrrell Medal in Canadian History, the Macdonald Prize in Canadian History, the Canada Prize in the Social Sciences, and a Senior Killam Fellowship. She is the general editor of the UBC Press series Women’s Suffrage and the Struggle for Democracy, the director of the pro-democracy website womensuffrage.org, and a member of the editorial board of Voices-Voix.