Rose Henderson: A Woman for the People
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by Peter Campbell
McGill-Queen’s University Press, Montreal, 2010
393 pp., illus., $44.95 hardcover
You won’t find Rose Henderson’s name in the Dictionary of Canadian Biography or the Canadian Encyclopedia. She doesn’t even have a Wikipedia page. Yet, in early twentieth-century Canada, this widowed mother was likened to Florence Nightingale and Joan of Arc and described as “the premier Labor woman of Canada.” When she died in 1937, the flags in Toronto were flown at half-mast.
Rose Henderson was a feminist, social reformer, and working-class advocate. Always an independent thinker, Henderson adjusted her rhetoric and agenda as Canada was shaken by two world wars and the Great Depression. Historians have therefore found her difficult to categorize and her story has gone largely untold.
Peter Campbell fills this gap in the historical record with Rose Henderson: A Woman for the People. Campbell scoured primary sources and secondary literature to provide us with a detailed biography of a complex historical figure. While his thorough approach will delight an academic reader — especially one with a background and interest in the history of Canadian feminism, labour, social reform, or the Canadian left — it will likely tire a general reader.
An important contribution to Canadian history, Campbell’s book remedies a historical oversight and honours Henderson’s unwavering commitment to other people.
— Joanna Dawson (Read bio)
Joanna Dawson is Canada's History Society's Acting Director of Programs.