THE RURAL HISTORY & CULTURE ASSOCIATION
OF SASKATCHEWAN

“COME, my tan-faced children,
Follow well in order, get your weapons ready;
Have you your pistols? have you your sharp edged axes?
Pioneers! O pioneers”

Above is the first stanza in Walt Whitman’s epic poem, Pioneers! O Pioneers. First published in 1855, the poem runs for 26 verses as it extolls the virtues of the men and women who traversed the North American continent to build the modern United States of America.  Using this poem as its touchstone, Levi Strauss & Co. has launched a new advertising campaign (view video) declaring “This country was not built by men in suits.”  While clearly designed to sell blue jeans it is more than that according to Susan Hoffman, Levi’s Executive Creative Director: “We want to refresh and reinvent the idea of the pioneering spirit for the times in which we live” The campaign states: “I am the new American pioneer, looking forward, never back. No longer content to wait for better times… I will work for better times.”  It conjures up the image of people who succeeded despite hardship rather than simply whining about the unfairness of life.

The linking of the past to present  for inspirational purposes is a strategy that was very successful during Barrack Obama’s presidential campaign and it is not surprising that an advertiser is now adopting a similar approach. While there have been numerous ideological objections to the campaign, it is terrific to see historical ideas being re-invented for a new generation. That is the only way that history can really matter.

Boris Johnson, the Mayor of London, England, recently commented on a government crisis currently gripping Britain in an op-ed article he contributed to a British newspaper. Although his thoughts are about Britian’s situation, they pretty much hit the nail on the head when it comes to Canada and the United States as well. Thanks to Christopher  Moore’s blog who who drew our attention the following speech:

“We don’t need a constitutional convention. We don’t need to contemplate proportional representation, since that will only intensify the power of the party machines and create even more lobby fodder. We want a new breed of MPs who will consistently tell the whips to get stuffed; who will smash the brutal and intellectually enervating system of party discipline that turns Westminster into a kind of Seventies Leyland car factory, apathetically turning out badly assembled laws to plague the people of this country.

We need far fewer laws and far fewer MPs (400 would do fine). My advice to constituency parties is not to hire candidates unless they promise two things: to read every line of every Bill they are called upon to pass; and to vote according to their conscience, and not according to the wishes or orders of the whips.

That may gum up the machinery of law-making, and that would be all to the good. It may make it impossible for Parliament to produce yet another annual Criminal Justice Bill. It may make it more difficult for MPs to produce yet more laws telling teachers, doctors, nurses and other public servants how to manage their vocations.

If we had fewer MPs, and they were forced to concentrate on what they were actually doing, we would have much less legislation, and I can’t think of a better way of saving us all time, trouble and money.

We need a Parliament of rebels, and we need it now.”

Museum of Natural History in 1956 - Saskatchewan Archives Board picture

On this Mothers Day, it seems appropriate to report on the story of the inclusion of a woman on the frieze of the Royal Saskatchewan Museum that pays tribute to the Pioneers.

Early in the process of planning for the 1955 Saskatchewan Golden Jubilee, the provincial government decided to make its major Jubilee capital project a new home for what was then called the Provincial Museum, which had started in 1906, and which had been housed in a variety of locations. The new building would be called the Museum of Natural History and was to be built on the corner of College and Albert adjacent to what is now called the “old” campus of the University of Regina.  As the theme of the Golden Jubilee was to honour Saskatchewan’s pioneers, Herbert Garnier, a Winnipeg sculptor was contracted to develop the frieze and dedication.   

Garnier originally proposed a design that featured only a single male figure swinging a scythe.  The Museum’s advisory committee, which included a number of individuals who would play major roles in Saskatchewan’s cultural history in the next several decades, such as Jubilee Executive Director Fred McGuinness, Provincial Archivist Lewis Thomas and Legislative Librarian John Archer, disagreed with Garnier and argued that a female figure had to be included.  In a letter to the minister responsible for the Museum they demanded that a woman be included: “It would be an appropriate tribute to the pioneer women of Saskatchewan and we believe that the omission of a pioneer woman from this design would be widely criticized.” Garnier resisted and contended that the design should be left to his discretion. He claimed that the addition of a female figure would ruin the “verticality” of the design, and “…there were many difficulties in selecting an appropriate dress for the [female] figure.” The committee was unimpressed with Garnier’s position. “Mr. McGuinness,” according to the minutes of the committee meeting, “stated that the committee were [sic] concerned with developing a memorial legend, which would be acceptable to some 900,000 residents of the province and not artistic license.”  The dedication ultimately included both a woman figure and a female child figure. These additions represented women’s roles as both mothers and wives and acknowledged women’s specific contributions, just as the scythe by the man’s feet, symbolized men’s contributions. The fact all three figures stood on the wheat sheaves suggested the economic contributions of pioneers were owed to the entire family not just to the men.  While some might dismiss the frieze as a symbol of patriarchy, I would argue that the frieze does show an appreciation for the value of women’s contributions and although within the confines of gender roles common during the era, it was still a sincere tribute to the women of Saskatchewan.