McCallum - Indigenous Women, Work, and History 1940-1980

Over the past ten years, I have been privileged to devote much of my time to learning about the rich history of Indigenous women in Canada. I drew a lot of inspiration from stories of womens dynamic twentieth-century experiences, be they told to me in person, in books, or through the sometimes lucid but often messy, complicated and veiled archival record. The women whose lives I have studied worked with integrity in their given fields and strived to nurture the lives of their loved ones and advocate for their families and communities. They made, at times, what must have been difficult personal decisions while seeking out opportunities large and small to effect change in their own lives, their communities, and the world around them. Thinking through the significance of their work has been an honour.

This book is the result of many generous conversations, ideas, criticisms, acts of inspiration, and words of encouragement, and I am grateful for the time, work, and friendships that have gone into its making. Many thanks to the individuals who shared their knowledge in the research of this project, including Ann Callahan, Myrna Cruickshank, Eleanor Olsen, and Dorothy Stranger, and a special thanks to Ruth Christie, who took me canoeing around Loon Straits and, over many lunches, visits, and tours, has taught me more about the cultural, social, and political histories of Winnipeg, Selkirk, Lake Winnipeg and the second best river in the world, the Red. Thanks also to the Aboriginal Nurses Association of Canada, Faye Isbister-North Peigan, Rosella McKay, Carol Prince, Marilyn Sark, and Marilyn Tanner-Spence for their time in the history of nurses project. Thank you to those who made this research possible, Ryan Eyford, Mary Young, Leslie Spillett, and Judith Bartlett, and to Margaret Horn, then at the Aboriginal Nurses Association of Canada, and Debbie Dedam-Montour at the National Indian and Inuit Community Health Representatives Organization for their help and interest.

Parts of this book were at one time a thesis, and I would like to thank my thesis committee, Dr. Adele Perry, Dr. Robin Jarvis Brownlie, Dr. Joyce Chadya, and examiners, Dr. Karen Dubinsky and Dr. Kiera Ladner, for the privilege of your engagement. Thank you, too, to the University of Manitoba Press for supporting this book and its ideas. Glenn Bergen saw that this book made it through to completion, and I am especially thankful to him. Thank you to the peer reviewers of the manuscript, you have helped to make this a better book. A huge thank you to good friend and sharp editor, Jill McConkey. Jill has seen this work from essays written when we were both students at the University of Manitoba through to its final draft and spent many hours copyediting and advising. For those hours and the many more spent road-trippin, pant-hitchin, and playin Cronk, thank you, friend.

Presenting my work to diverse intellectual communities has benefited it greatly. Taking part in the meetings of the Native American and Indigenous Studies Association was invaluable, as were the many on-the-house critiques, contributions, and conversations of an informal network of Indigenous historians from Ohsweken to Saskatoon to Auckland. Support from and engagement with the Aboriginal health research community in Manitoba and beyond, and especially the Manitoba First Nations Centre for Aboriginal Health Research (MFN-CAHR) and the Network Environment for Aboriginal Health Research (NEAHR), strengthened this work immensely. Also vital to developing arguments in this book was presenting them to various medical and medical history communities, including the Manitoba Association of the History of Nursing, the Aboriginal Nurses Association of Canada, and the Manitoba History of Medicine Society. At the University of Manitoba and the University of Winnipeg, a big thank you to staff, faculty, and friends in the history departments, including Carol Adam, Chris Dooley, Barry Ferguson, James Hanley, Esyllt Jones, Tom Nesmith, Angela Schippers, Eliakim Sibanda, Greg Smith, and Ravi Vaitheespara, for supporting this piece of work at different junctures and in different ways. Thank you also to the Universities of Manitoba and Winnipeg libraries staff, especially Janice Linton, for their unique research skills and assistance. I would also like to acknowledge University of Winnipeg students in my courses who have listened to the ideas in this book and provided thoughtful insights on themthank you. I am grateful for input and development from earlier publications; the conclusion is based on an article in the