The Canadian Journal of Lady Aberdeen, 1893 - 1898. Edited with Introduction by John T. Saywell. Champlain Society, No.38

Toronto. The Champlain Society. 1960. 24cm, lxxxiv,517p., with 2 portrait illustrations, limited to 550 copies, this being #142, original crested red cloth, t.e.g., a fine copy. (Cdn). In 1893 Lord Aberdeen became Governor General of Canada and he and Lady Aberdeen traveled extensively in Canada. Her journal is an important source of insight into the problems and times in the country during the 1890's. The appendix contains a biographical dictionary of principal persons and lists the members of the household. Far more important, however, was her work with women's organizations. A staunch Presbyterian and Gladstonian Liberal, a woman of great poise and boundless energy, she was an aristocrat-democrat with a strong social conscience. She believed that women represented an enormous, unused capacity in Canada, and that they would be a civilizing force in an untamed country. She was instrumental in forming the Canadian branch of the National Council of Women. Despite fierce opposition from the medical establishment, she created the Victorian Order of Nurses. The social family compact in Ottawa, Montr‚al and Toronto opposed and ridiculed her projects. Her attempts to use Rideau Hall to cool the racial and religious passions of the 1890s and to break down social barriers did not endear her to the local establishment. -John Saywell "Encyc Can