Memorable Manitobans: Margaret Stovel McWilliams (1875-1952)

Feminist, historian, author.

Born at Toronto, she graduated from the University of Toronto in 1898 and began her journalism career in Detroit. She came to Winnipeg in 1910 and was active in the women’s movement for years.

She was elected president of the University Women’s Club in 1913. She was first President of the Canadian Federation of University Women in 1919, President of the Women’s Canadian Club in 1922, and Winnipeg’s second female Alderman from 1933 to 1940. McWilliams was the author of Manitoba Milestones (1928), If I Were King of Canada (1931), and This New Canada (1948). She was married to Roland F. McWilliams.

She was frequently a Canadian representative at international conferences. McWilliams was instrumental in the resurrection of the Manitoba Historical Society in 1944, serving as its President from 1944 to 1948. The University of Manitoba awarded her an honorary doctorate in 1946. She died at Government House on 12 April 1952 and was buried in Old Kildonan Cemetery.

The Margaret McWilliams Awards, commemorating her contributions to Manitoba history, was inaugurated by the Manitoba Historical Society in 1955 as one of Canada’s first literary prizes.

See also:

Margaret McWilliams and Her Social Gospel: The Formation of an Interwar Feminist by Mary Kinnear

“An Aboriginal Past and a Multicultural Future”: Margaret McWilliams and Manitoba History by Mary Kinnear

Margaret McWilliams: An Interwar Feminist by Mary Kinnear
McGill-Queen’s University Press, Montreal & Kingston, 1991.

Sources:

“Mrs. McWilliams dies suddenly”, Winnipeg Free Press, 14 April 1952. [Manitoba Legislative Library, Biographical Scrapbook B10]

Dictionary of Manitoba Biography by J. M. Bumsted, Winnipeg: University of Manitoba Press, 1999.

This profile was prepared by Gordon Goldsborough.

Profile revised: 12 May 2011

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