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Wilfrid Laurier University

And still they answered the call: The women of Waterloo County, 1939-1947 (Ontario)

Abstract

dc:description

The objective of this thesis is to examine aspects of the experience of women in Waterloo County during the Second World War. Waterloo County, with its strong industrial base and unique concentration of training centres for both the army and navy women’s corps, provides an ideal opportunity to study women’s experience of war and to relate it to the existing historiography, especially the dominant work, Ruth Roach Pierson’s They’re Still Women After All: The Second World War and Canadian Womanhood. The argument of this thesis is that evidence from Waterloo County suggests that Pierson has underestimated both qualitative and quantitative changes in the role and self-image of women during the war years. The view, advanced by Pierson, that women failed to build upon their war-time experience to achieve liberation in the post-war world is directly contradicted by employment data from Waterloo County and other evidence. This thesis suggests that much was accomplished and most of it was of lasting value.

Degree

thesis:*
Name thesis:degree_name
Master of Arts (MA)
Discipline thesis:degree_discipline
History
Year dc:date
2002

Author and committee

dc:creator, dc:contributor.*
Author dc:creator
  • Moran, Heather L.
Contributors dc:contributor
  • Terry Copp

Subjects

dc:subject × 2

Identifiers

dc:identifier.*
Repository record dc:identifier
https://scholars.wlu.ca/etd/40

Chain of custody

source
Harvested from
Wilfrid Laurier University
Base URL
scholars.wlu.ca/do/oai/
Last updated
2026-08-21
Source record
OAI-PMH GetRecord
citation

Moran, Heather L.. And still they answered the call: The women of Waterloo County, 1939-1947 (Ontario). 2002. https://scholars.wlu.ca/etd/40