My name is Dorothy Nixon. I am a Montreal-based freelance writer who caught the history bug after finding a trunk full of family letters from the Edwardian (Laurier) Era. I posted this Tighsolas website in April 2005 (it was about 100 pages) and since it has grown to over 750 pages, with 400 gifs. (It is now January, 2009.)

The Nicholson Story was used in 2007,2008, and 2009 at the McGill Faculty of Education in a course for 4th year teaching students about to embark on their 'practicum.'

A story I wrote about Marion appeared in September 2007 in the magazine Education Canada and three other essays incorporating Tighsolas themes (Margaret's BIG hat) followed.

Before posting the site, I did some research online, at McGill, the Westmount Library and the sadly dilapidated Atwater Library. I was shocked to see how few books there were on Montreal in the 1910 era which were not about the social elite. (Atwater claimed to house a unique collection, but I couldn't get at it.)

I read Cynthia R. Comacchio's The Infinite Bonds of Family Domesticity in Canada, 1850-1940. U of T Press, after posting this site, and can safely say that the Nicholson experiences support what she says about the era's middle class in Canada. Comacchio is the expert in Canadian family history.


Quote from the Women in World History website (George Mason U: History and New Media)

It (the website)  presents a collection of 300 letters and does a superb job of contextualizing the ways that the period's broader economic and social forces shaped this family's experiences.
…
"The Nicholson Family Letters" is an illustration of the excellent ways in which genealogical sources have relevance to a wide public."

Other Canadian historians like the site too. Reuben Roth of  OISE and Susan Neylan of Sir Wilfrid Laurier U wrote nice things on their website. Beth Cash of New York State's Technology in Education Program said she liked the website because it is a great example of a local history website. (She included it in a presentation she gave to social science teachers). Megan Hurst of Harvard's Online Collection described the website to me as 'a model family history site that really shows the intricacies of history.' Her Women Working Collection is marvellous, by the way.


Bibliography..


Books I did use for background ( other sources are cited right on the site):


J T (Terry) Copp: Anatomy of Poverty: The Condition of the Working Class in Montreal 1897- 1929

John Ferguson Snell: Macdonald College of McGill University; a history from 1904-1955. Published Montreal, Published for Macdonald College by McGill University Press, 1963.

Margaret Gillette's We walked very warily : a history of women at McGill. She's also written a bio of Carrie Derick, which I have not yet read.

Neil Sutherland's  Children in English-Canadian society : framing the twentieth century consensus 

Paul Axelrod's  The Promise of Schooling: Education in Canada, 1800-1914   U of T Press

Margaret Bennett's: Oatmeal and the Catechism (about Isle of Lewis Scots in Quebec)
.
J.I Little's Ethno-cultural transition and regional identity in the Eastern Townships of Quebec, (Ottawa, Ont. : Canadian Historical Association, 1989

Catherine Cleverdon's The Woman Suffrage Movement in Canada. U of T Press. 1987. From a 1940 thesis)
(Liberation Deferred by Carol Bacchi is another book (1976 thesis) on the Canadian Suffrage Movement. I just read it lately)

Robert Craig and Ramsay Cook's, Canada 1896-1921: A Nation Transformed Toronto. University of Toronto Press, 1987. Brown

Ramsy Cook and Wendy Mitchison's  Proper Sphere: Woman's Place in Canadian Society. Oxford University Press. 1976

The Richmond County Historical Society's Tread of Pioneers (Esther Healey of the Society has been very helpful. Her ancestor is mentioned in the letters. The Society's founder, Alice Dresser, also has a letter on the site! From 1910, Macdonald College. Alice sounds like 'a bright young thing',)

I also took a peek at the records of the Montreal Council of Women in the Bibliotheque National's archives. (What a beautiful place!)

My favorite resource without question:  The Canadian Institute for Historical Microfiche, which is now Canadiana.org. Check out their website for superb material on Canadian Women's Social History. Here's their site.