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On September 10, 1939, Canada declared war on Nazi Germany. From that moment, hundreds of thousands of war workers — predominantly women — forged a new culture within the nation’s labour, home, and political environs.
Courage and Grit features dozens of amazing stories about these women — from farmers’ daughters to lawyers, impoverished immigrants to Rosedale elites, and high school students to great-grandmothers. Each narrative is unique, intimately personal, and painstakingly examined.
These never-before-told stories of faith, love, and sacrifice offer a culturally rich history of the women who served at home during the Second World War.
Generations from now, proud Canadians will search for the moment and the place when and where it started — the actual birth of equality of women and men in all the work that is accomplished in this country. When they read what Barbara Dickson researched for a decade and authored here in Courage and Grit, they'll discover that honest-to-goodness equality in Canada began when women left kitchens, farm fields, domestic work, office jobs and school (often while the men in their families fought and died in world war overseas) to serve the war effort at home in munitions plants like GECO in Scarborough, Canada. Bomb girls, the women “behind the men behind a gun” — made famous now by author Dickson — swore oaths of secrecy, stepped into overalls, worked nine-hour shifts, six days a week, through air raid drills and curfews, and delivered the armament "to speed the victory." But the bomb girls, Dickson also shows us, assured a fundamental cultural shift, the realization in Canada that "no longer were women expected to stay in the home ... with their wants and rights subjugated to those of men." Dickson has enshrined their service, their stories and now their right to equal recognition.
A fascinating account of young women, and some not so young, who joined the munitions work force in the Second World War. Oral history at its best.
These many stories of these many women pull back the curtain on the simple but transformative changes taking place in Scarborough and across Canada caused by the necessities of war. Women who grew up on farms became industrial workers, women who were expected to only work at home became industry leaders; and the world would never be the same ... As a Canadian, and a Scarberian, I am glad I now know part of my communities', and my country's, history.
What a beautiful gift! This book is truly a gift of love, and is a wonderful, insightful, glimpse for readers into what was the everyday life of everyday people, during extraordinary times. Brava!
- Introduction: The Quiet Keepers
- 1 Road of Birches
- 2 Mobilizing the Home Front
- 3 It’s Still a Man’s World
- 4 Women in Overalls
- 5 Fall of Hong Kong
- 6 Some Chicken! Some Neck!
- 7 Dieppe, Fought Well and Bravely
- 8 Bomb Girl Babies
- 9 Romance in War
- 10 It Takes a Village
- 11 Sisterhood
- 12 War Factory Workers Enlist
- 13 Where Never Lark or Even Eagle Flew
- 14 Getting an Education
- 15 Too Old to Serve?
- 16 The Industrial Crescendo
- 17 The Final Push
- Conclusion
- Acknowledgements
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Image Credits
- Index
- About the Author