Nellie McClung

At 77 years old, Nellie McClung physical status not available right now. We will update Nellie McClung's height, weight, eye color, hair color, build, and measurements.

The McClung family faced financial difficulties starting in 1905, when Wesley sold his pharmacy business. To help supplement their income, Nellie sought out paid writing work, writing short stories for magazines. She published her first novel, Sowing Seeds in Danny, in 1908. The book became a bestseller, selling 100,000 copies in Canada and the United States and making McClung $25,000 ($642,025 in 2021). With the success of her book, McClung was invited to speak at events throughout Manitoba and Saskatchewan, launching her career as a public speaker.

McClung's second book, A Second Chance, was published in 1910. By then, her reputation for speaking had reached Ontario, and she embarked on a tour of the province, with stops in Whitby, Hamilton, Peterborough, Kingston, Waterloo, and Toronto. Her speaking engagements were well received, with the Hamilton Herald reporting that she "took her audiences by storm". McClung would go on to write three more books throughout the 1910s, including In Times Like These, which has been regarded as an important statement of first-wave feminism. Throughout her career, McClung wrote sixteen books, including two autobiographies, and many poems, short stories, and newspaper articles.

In 1911, the McClungs moved to Winnipeg, where Wesley had been offered a position as an insurance broker. The following year, McClung and fourteen other women formed the Women's Political Equality League, an organization focused on women's suffrage. In 1914, the league petitioned the Conservative Premier of Manitoba, Rodmond Roblin, for the right of women to vote, but their request was denied. The next day, the Political Equality League staged a "Mock Parliament" at the Walker Theatre, with its members imitating government ministers. McClung had the role of Roblin, and repeated many of the arguments that the Premier had made the day before:

McClung campaigned for the Manitoba Liberal Party in both the 1914 and 1915 general elections. The McClungs moved to Edmonton, Alberta, after Wesley was offered a promotion. The Liberal Party won the 1915 election in a landslide, and Manitoba became the first province in Canada to grant women the right to vote in January 1916 under the new Liberal government, exactly two years after the Political Equality League had petitioned Premier Roblin.

In Alberta, McClung continued to fight for temperance, healthcare, and women's rights. In the 1921 general election, she was elected to the Legislative Assembly of Alberta for the constituency of Edmonton as a member of the Liberal Party. McClung was one of two women who were elected, the other being Irene Parlby, a member of the United Farmers. The United Farmers of Alberta formed the government, with 38 out of the possible 61 seats. McClung often broke ranks with the Liberal Party to support the more socially progressive United Farmers' legislation, working with Parlby on resolutions that benefitted women. McClung ran for office again in the 1926 general election for the constituency of Calgary, but lost by 60 votes.

McClung was one of five women, along with Irene Parlby, Henrietta Muir Edwards, Emily Murphy, and Louise McKinney, who put forward a petition in 1927 to clarify the term "persons" in the British North America Act 1867, and determine the eligibility of women to serve in the Senate of Canada. The case, called Edwards v Canada (also known as the Persons Case), was taken to the Supreme Court of Canada, which ruled that women were not "qualified persons" and thus were ineligible to serve in the Senate. The ruling was appealed to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, which at that time was Canada's highest court. In 1929, the Judicial Committee overturned the Supreme Court's decision, and the first woman, Cairine Wilson, was appointed to the Senate the following year.

McClung was appointed to the board of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) in 1936 by Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King, the first woman to serve on its board. King invited her in 1938 to serve as a delegate to the League of Nations in Geneva. McClung felt that the League was "bogged down by purposeless disputation and empty speeches", and that many delegates cared more about getting credit than working towards a meaningful goal.

Source