Perfect addition to anyone shelves who are interested in gender history. Great to read different takes on the suffragette movement

This book is wonderfully written but a very 'dense' read. The story focuses on Emily van der Meulen, who lives in England during the the suffragette era and then moves to Canada in 1912 and lives in central province. The story is amazing but stressful at points, due to the many important aspects of her life and the amazing changes that occurred during the Victorian and Edwardian era. I learned a lot from the book but also looked up a lot of information - not a negative, the book was so interesting I wanted to know more about some details. Amazing!

Highly recommend this memoir for anyone who is interested in the suffragette movement or history buffs. The collection of essays is insightful and moving moving from her time as a suffragette to a homesteader, perfect for any feminist.

This is a story of Ethel and her early years as a suffragette and her participation in protests, rallies, hunger strikes, and arrests. Then how she eventually married and left England to build a home with her husband in Canada, which was a sharp change from her previous life and presented tough new challenges. Great photographs are included which makes the story more interesting. What a great family history to have.

Filled with great facts and thoroughly researched this book weaves together the facts to turn an interesting tale of a wonderful topic into a must read.

From Suffragette to Homesteader
Exploring British and Canadian Colonial Histories and Women’s Politics through Memoir
by Emily van der Meuilen, ed.
Fernwood Publishing
Biographies & Memoirs , History
Pub Date 03 Sep 2018
I am reviewing a copy of From Suffragette to Homesteader through Fernwood Publishing and Netgalley:
Ethel Marie Sentance wrote a memoir for her husband Clarence in 1952. It was given to him for a present on their fortieth wedding anniversary on August.19th of that year. The memoir began in 1883 and details Ethel’s compelling story. When she was in her early twenties Ethel became a suffrage the, because she became frustrated with the inequality women faced.
Ethel participated in rallies, sold Suffragette papers, took part in meetings. In 1912 she married and relocated to the parties of Saskatchewan in order to become a homesteader.
I give From Suffragette to Homesteader five out of five stars!

Doctoral Thesis in Disguise
I got this book thinking it to be a memoir of a woman whose life went from fighting for suffrage to homesteading the Canadian frontier as presented by her great grand-daughter. While the memoir is there, it is sandwiched between boring academic papers. The memoir only makes up about 25% of the book. A good portion of the first part is spent defining 'memoir', biography and autobiography. The author then uses the term 'life story' for the rest of her paper. The author finds another half dozen or so areas to educate us about how to read a memoir in the context of the times it was written. The author then tries to use this woman's life as an example of today's world. The author of that paper uses two main sources of academic thought, both of whom are dead. She uses phrases like so-and-so would have thought this about that, essentially putting the author's words into her source's mouth. Her main takeaway from this memoir is that the reason that this couple made good was not from 40 years of hard work, but rather because they were white.
The final half of the book seems to be a collection of theses on assorted topics. These include the history of the women's suffrage movement in Britain, the effects of race and empire in the British suffrage movement, how immigration handbooks promoted colonial Britain in Canada, rethinking of suffrage in colonial Canada, examining the daily lives of pioneer women on Saskatchewan homesteads, Sewing and household skills that helped the indigenous woman, and finally ending with a timeline of Women and the Vote in Canada which more about modern equality of women and not just the right to vote.
The memoir is written by Ethel Marie Sentance (1883-1952). Much of the story is out of order, not like bouncing from topic to topic or year to year, but like partial paragraphs and sentences being mixed up (1,2,7,3,8,4, etc). In the first paper, that author explains that while Ms. Sentance was imprisoned, she must have endured force-feeding and just didn't mention it in her memoir because she didn't want her family to know. It is my position that if she had endured that hardship, she would have owned up to it proudly as a badge of honor. This woman, in 1912, refused the 'obey' part of the wedding vow and because of that was not married in her church but at the Registry. There are parts in the memoir that are entitled; 'Excerpt from memoir:' That makes me believe that this delightful story has been 'edited' and it is not in its original form. I enjoyed the memoir and would suggest skipping the other nonsense and just reading this wonderful woman's words. She led quite a life!
I would not recommend this book in its current form. It reads like a college text. I received this book for free and this is my honest review.

An insightful and analytical collection of essays peppered with historical data that offered a revealing look into the history of one suffragette, who then went on to tackle life as a homesteader. Entertaining and educational, this is a book for anyone interested in the history of the political fight for women's rights.

I especially liked the first part regarding the memoir or the author's great-grandmother. So simple yet so revealing of suffragettes' life at the debut of the century and of life in Canada (I never knew they were so open minded about education in the early 1900s). The photos were just as fascinating. As for the essays, some of the information was new to me. I'd recommend this book to anyone who believes voting is as natural as having tap water.

This was interesting read. I wish more details about the author's family had been left intact. I really liked the memoir aspect. I think the other chapters, while interesting, were a detraction. Except for chapter 7, which supplements the life of women out on the prairies, the other chapters' extrapolation were a difficult fit into the panorama of the memoir, and should have been curtailed drastically, perhaps,more as footnotes.