The Nicholsons of Richmond, Quebec were essentially middle class, although they often described themselves as working class.  The family was struggling between 1908-1913, so much so they were in grave danger of losing their beloved home Tighsolas. There was little work in Richmond, even for the best-educated and most respected of citizens, young or old.  Norman and children had no choice but to pack up and leave their pretty little town: Norman for the "northern" bush of Quebec and Ontario; the girls for other Eastern Townships towns, then for the big City of Montreal, with its exciting entertainments and terrible social problems; and Herbert for the Canadian West, which was booming. In Canada, it was a wheat and service world:  All the successful businessmen in Richmond seemed to own shops.

The very reason this website exists is because of the Nicholson family's need to work.

Father Norman, 59, went to work in the bush in La Tuque, Quebec and later in Cochran and Hearst Ontario on the Transcontinental Railway; son Herbert, 25, had to go out West to find work in banking or sales, mostly in Saskatchewan; daughters Marion and Flo got their degrees and went to work as teachers; daughter Edith, without a diploma, slaved as a low-paid teacher and then as a better paid secretary. Mother Margaret, 58,  couldn't bring in money unless she took in boarders--as was common for financially strapped middle class women of her day--but she didn't want to do that, or unless she went to work in the city as a matron and housekeeper for her daughters--which she almost did -  and she was the most talented of the lot! The story goes, she has been the first female telegraph operator in the Eastern Townships of Quebec. Margaret could whip up a shirtwaist in no time for her cash-strapped but fashion-conscious daughters. She could bake crowd-pleasing breads (using her elbow to test the oven's temperature) for the many visitors who dropped by, either relatives on vacation trips or gossip-garburating neighbours on 'her day at home' but, still,  she couldn't 'earn her own living' as she once complained in a 1913 letter.

READING ALL THE LETTERS on this site, then, is the best way to get a real feel for working life in 1910 (middle class perspective).  Reading the articles under Education as well as  Feminism and Women's Suffrage is also recommended.  Reading the one page biographies of the family members would be of benefit too.

Women and Work

The Situation of Working Women in Montreal, as described by the Montreal Council of Women to Laurier's Royal Commission.  1912

Keystone image of women weaving in Montreal Factory. 1910 era

The Royal Commission on Industrial Training and Technical Education: The working world in Canada was becoming so muddled, what with industrialization and the opening of the West, that the Federal Government got involved in education to find ways to make education prepare children for future work.

Manual Training Movement: making good little workers.

Away from Nature: The Problem with Factories

Building the Canadian Railway. Life in the Bush.

The New "Profession of Homemaking"  What does it matter if there's no money in it!

Does Love Matter to A Suffragette: Great Gertrude Atherton Article.

Why Teachers Hate Their Jobs.

How a teacher should comport herself (McGill Normal School 1902)

The Purpose of Education:

Henry Ford has a new idea: he pays his workers well 1914

One Man, Many Careers. Like many of his contemporaries, Norman Nicholson, born 1854, had a number of jobs in his lifetime.

The so called oldest profession: the Montreal Council of women describes the situation in 1909.

Making the Farm a Factory (farming 1910 compared to 1860)