The Newfoundland Women's Suffrage Movement: The Knowns, the Unknowns and Complicating the Mainstream

There are divergent theories about the origins of suffrage movements. How does Newfoundland fit into these narratives? What is known about the movement and what remains unexplored? How does this formative social movement complicate traditional histories of the former Dominion? Join us for a special keynote lecture by Dr. Margot Duley, for the “Up She Rises! A Public Forum about Women and Gender in Newfoundland & Labrador History” Symposium.

This is a free event but a ticket is required. Please reserve your free ticket online or by calling 709-757-8090.

This event is presented in partnership with The Newfoundland & Labrador Historical Society.

About the Keynote Speaker:

Margot I. Duley is the preeminent scholar on the history of the women’s suffrage movement in Newfoundland, and author of Where Once Our Mothers Stood We Stand: Women’s Suffrage in Newfoundland, 1890-1925 (1993) and Extraordinary Passages: The Life and Times of Margaret Iris Duley, Newfoundland's Pathbreaking Novelist (2024). Her enlarged and revised history of the suffrage movement (From Silence to Suffrage: Women's Path to Citizenship in Newfoundland, 1803-1949) has just been released by Boulder Books (2025). She is Professor Emerita of History and Women's Studies, Eastern Michigan University, and Dean Emerita, College of Arts and Sciences, University of Springfield. Dr. Duley has also contributed extensively to the community as a board member with the Newfoundland & Labrador Historical Society and with PerSIStence Theatre Company, for which she chaired a campaign to erect a statue to suffrage leader, Armine Gosling. Unveiled in June in Bannerman Park. it is the first singular statue to a named woman in the City of St. John’s and will be the first public statue in the province designed by a woman (sculptor Sheila Coultas). For the symposium, Dr. Duley will be revisiting her research on the suffrage movement and presenting new findings related to its complicated history.

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