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Beatrice Alice Brigden (1888-1977) was Canadian social reformer, first-wave feminist, writer, and politician in the early 20th century. She advocated for birth control, gender equality, and economic security at a time when such views were considered radical.
Brigden was a founder of the People's Forum Speaker's Bureau, the Labor Women's Social and Economic Conference, and Indian-Métis Friendship Centres, organisations that have had lasting impacts on labor rights, women's rights, and Indigenous advocacy in Canada.
Brigden was born 30 January 1888 in Hastings, Ontario, Canada, the daughter of William Brigden, a Methodist, and Sarah Jane Wood,[1] a Quaker.
When Bridgen was one, her family moved to a farm about 20 miles north of Deloraine, Manitoba.[2] In 1908, Brigden began her schooling at Albert College in Belleville, Ontario, studying arts and vocal expression. After one year, she transferred to Brandon College[1] and, in 1910, she received a diploma in public speaking.[3]
A year later, she began studying at the Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto.[1][4] Bridgen graduated with a degree in psychology and vocal expression from the Conservatory in 1912.[1] The same year, her family moved to Brandon where she remained until the 1930s.[5]
Early social advocacy
As part of her training at the Royal Conservatory, Brigden visited local factories and hospitals to provide workers and patients with uplifting entertainment. The experience raised Brigden's awareness seeing first-hand the unsanitary conditions and poor working conditions of labourers.[6] Together with her mother's Quaker ideals,[7] it helped to give birth to Brigden's social conscience.
Brigden went on to join several organizations, including the Women's Missionary Society, the Epworth League, the church choir, and the temperance organization, the Royal Templars, assuming positions of leadership to gain skills and learn about administration and command.[8]
Methodist social worker
In 1913, Brigden began negotiating with the Methodist Church to teach social purity.[9] In 1914, Brigden and the church came to an agreement and Brigden began training in La Crosse, Wisconsin as a Methodist social service worker,[10] bolstered by self-directed study on sexual behavior and the psychology of sex.[11]
There were few, if any, women in the Methodist social worker pool and Brigden was responsible for arranging her own itinerary, as well as writing her own lectures and creating the promotional materials she needed.[12] Some of her lectures were presented as social service pamphlets by the church.[13] Her focus for the lectures was on women, as she was prohibited from addressing men, and the strictures of the time did not allow her to address men's responsibility for their behaviors but rather trained women to be the "guardians of virtue".[14] Still, Brigden's topics were considered shocking at the time: alcoholism, sexually transmitted diseases, unwed mothers, women's equal right to participate in work, the right to birth control and choice to determine family size.[15]
Brigden spent six years lecturing on sex education and social ills throughout Canada.[9] Increasingly, Brigden found herself turning away from the church and more toward socialism.[16] Her work and studies led her to the conclusion that it was necessary to address economic issues to bring about real change, foreshadowing a later move into politics.
After the end of World War I, Brigden questioned the purpose of war and attributed a lack of commitment to peace and disarmament in part to the church's failure to support peace and speak out about the harm of war.[17] She was seen as a radical by conservative church members who did not believe that the church's mission extended beyond spiritual spheres.[18] These concerns were compounded by the lack of the Methodist Church to provide any meaningful response to help the strikers of Winnipeg General Strike of 1919 and her continuing concern about the limited opportunity she had as a woman for financial security.[19]
Labor Church movement
Brigden resigned as a Methodist social worker after six years and joined the Brandon Labor Church where she served from 1920 to 1928.[9] Although the Labor Church limited the roles she could play and the positions she could attain, the social philosophy of the Labor Church was more in line with her own[20] desire to help the working classes and immigrants.[21] Brigden ran study groups and children's programs for the church and worked with its socialist ministry[22] until the church ceased to exist in 1928.[23]
People's Forum Speaker's Bureau
In the early 1920s, Brigden organized the People's Forum Speaker's Bureau,[24] which included speakers such as John Queen, Anna Louise Strong, Frank Underhill, J. S. Woodsworth and others. The forum was not affiliated specifically with any party, but their sympathies clearly leaned toward labor.[25] The organization sponsored many conferences dealing with labor and women's social and economic situations.[26]
Cooperative Commonwealth Federation
In 1922, Brigden established the Labor Women's Social and Economic Conference (LWSEC) annual study groups in 1922[19] in an attempt to address the imbalance in men's and women's political education and women's self-confidence. The organization spread throughout western Canada, having chapters in each major population center.[27] The LWSEC studied a wide variety of issues from access to birth control to wages to legal concerns;[28] health care, dental care, government sponsored hospitals and unemployment insurance to agricultural debt, lack of irrigation, and cooperative markets;[29] and free textbooks to[30] the intellectual equality of men and women.[31] By the middle of the 1930s, the group[32] merged with the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation.[27]
Political career
1921 elections
In 1921, Brigden was invited to run for office on the Dominion Labour Party ticket.[33] However, at the time, Brigden was caring for her aging parents as well as teaching classes for developmentally-challenged children for the local school board and turned down the offer. However, she did agree to become a campaign worker for Robert Forke[34] on the Progressive ticket, which he handily won.[35]
1930 elections
In 1930, Brigden ran as Brandon's first federal Labour Party candidate on a Farmer-Labour platform.[36][37] but lost to Conservative Candidate David Wilson Beaubier. She was one of only ten female candidates that year, none of whom won their bid for a federal seat.[38] After her loss in the 1930 election, she moved to Winnipeg and[39] began submitting articles to the ILP Weekly News and the Manitoba Commonwealth.[40]
Co-operative Commonwealth Federation
In 1933, she was one of only 21 women who attended the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation Conference in Regina,[36] to formally establish the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation party (CCF)[1] and launch its Regina Manifesto.[41]
In 1936, Brigden ran as ILP-CCF Candidate in the Manitoba general election. She did not win a seat in the election[42] but later ran in both federal and provincial elections.[2] CCF became the New Democratic Party in 1961 and she remained active in the party until 1975.[43][1]
Later life and advocacy
First Women's Pan American Congress
In 1947, Brigden attended the Primer Congreso Interamericano de Mujeres held in Guatemala City, Guatemala as the delegate for the Winnipeg Local Council of Women. The conference was called by the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom to discuss women's issues, pacifism and promote inter-American policies for dealing with armament, human rights, economic security, and many other topics.[44]
Indian-Métis Friendship Centres
Between 1954 and 1958, Brigden served on the Indian and Métis Committee. She was recognized as an advocate for women's rights and an ally and advocate for aboriginal people and pressed for the opening of the Indian-Métis Friendship Centres to address the needs of urban aboriginal people.
In 1958, after four years of planning, a resolution was passed to open a referral centre to help first nations persons relocating to urban areas access the social services available. The first center opened in 1959.[45] She continued to be active on the Board and in attendance at Conferences for the Indian and Métis Committee until 1969.[1]
Leadership in other women's organizations
Brigden served in multiple capacities for many different women's groups. She was a past President of the Winnipeg Council of Women, an organizer of Provincial Council of Women, a member and delegate to international meetings for the University Women's Club, Chairman of the Arts and Letters Committee of the National Council of Women, a member of the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom, an organizer of the SHARE and Open-Door Club for Canadian Mental Health Association, founder of the Indian-Métis Friendship Centres, and an organizer of Women's Model Parliaments.[2][42]
Honours and awards
In 1970, Brigden was honored by the Manitoba Historical Society receiving a Centennial Medal. She also received the Manitoba Golden Boy Award in recognition of her civic efforts. Brandon University awarded her an honorary degree in 1973.[46]
Death and legacy
Brigden died on 22 February 1977 in Winnipeg, Manitoba and was buried in the Napinka Cemetery.[46]
Publications
Bridgen wrote an autobiography entitled One Woman's Campaign for Social Purity and Social Reform,[47] which was reproduced in 2014 in Forestell and Moynagh's DocumentingFirst Wave Feminisms. Volume II, Canada - National and Transnational Contexts.[48]
↑ Campbell, Allison (1 August 1991). Beatrice Brigden: the formative years of a socialist feminist, 1888-1932 (Thesis). Winnipeg, Canada: University of Manitoba. pp.39–40. hdl:1993/3625. ocm72817817.
↑ Moore, A. Mary (21 July 1970). "A good neighbor to all". The Brandon Sun. p.5. Retrieved 27 February 2025.
↑ López, Matilde Elena (August 1947). "Balance del Primer Congreso Interamericano de Mujeres"(PDF). Balance del Congreso de Mujeres (in Spanish). Guatemala City, Guatemala: Instituto Universitario de la Mujer de la Universidad de San Carlos de Guatemala. pp.1–15. Archived from the original(PDF) on 21 June 2015. Retrieved 21 June 2015.
↑ "Beatrice Brigden fonds". Archives of Manitoba. Manitoba, Canada: Ministry of Information Services. Retrieved 6 July 2015.
↑ Forestell, Nancy M.; Moynagh, Maureen Anne, eds. (2014). Documenting first wave feminisms. Volume II: Canada - national and transnational contexts. Studies in gender and history. Toronto, Ontario, Canada: University of Toronto Press. ISBN978-1-4426-6660-3.
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