Coastal Women in Newfoundland & Labrador

From styling hair at the local beauty parlour to lighthouse keeping, women in pre-Confederation Newfoundland played a variety of roles. There were midwives, like Elizabeth Austin and Kirkina Mukko and ship owners like Jane Bartlett.

Children with Schoolteacher at Haystack, 1942

School children and pre-schoolchildren with teacher at Haystack. Haystack was a community in Placentia Bay, Newfoundland

Image reproduced by permission of the Maritime History Archive, Memorial University, St. John's, NL, PF-285.010. Haystack Reunion Photograph Collection.

However, the most common role that women took on outside the home was that of school teacher. They were often young, unmarried women who look barely older than the children they're charged with instructing. You can see this in a 1942 photograph from Haystack, Placentia Bay, where the teacher stands in the back row with her eldest pupils who range from pre-school age to adolescents.

Many women worked as "domestics" during the 19th and 20th centuries, providing live-in household help for working families. Some women travelled to St. John's for work, while still others went as far as Boston and New York to take on domestic posts within middle to upper-class households.

Other women found work on the vessels that travelled to and around Newfoundland and Labrador. Although mostly made up of men, several women worked as stewardesses on the coastal boats, changing beds and cleaning the cabins as well as any common areas on board.

Emma, FOMOWA Fishing Club Cook, 1919

Emma was the cook at the FOMOWA Fishing Club, Grand River, Codroy, Newfoundland.

In the spring of 1914 a group of prominent St. John's merchants and politicians purchased from John Cormier a house and land at the Forks Pool on the Grand River, Codroy, Newfoundland. There they established the "FOMOWA" Fishing Club - the club name was coined by taking the first two letters of the location and the names of its members - Forks (Pool on the river) and Foote (Samuel J.), Monroe (Walter S.) and Morey (J.), and Watson (Hon. Robert) and Warren (William. Robertson.). Each year the members traveled across the island, most likely by train, to the Grand River and for several weeks from late June to mid-July fished for salmon, trout, grilse and other species. When they weren't fishing they played golf, tennis and cricket on their property, and from time to time shared a few games of cards. Emma was the cook at the club.

Image reproduced by permission of the Maritime History Archive, Memorial University, St. John's, NL, PF-329.077. FOMOWA Fishing Club Records.

One of the most important roles that women played in rural Newfoundland and Labrador was that of midwife. With long distances between outport villages and the hospitals that populated more developed regions of the province, midwives played an invaluable role in the community. They delivered babies, paying equal attention to the mothers in labour, and very often they were called on for other medical matters—even undertaking the dead when no one else was available. To hear a firsthand account of midwifery in rural Newfoundland, listen to excerpts from an interview with Elizabeth Austin.

Both World Wars opened up the labour market to women in Newfoundland and Labrador, with so many of the working-aged men shipped overseas. There were opportunities away from the home front as well. Frances Cluett worked as a school teacher in Belleoram, Fortune Bay until she signed on as a volunteer nurse during World War One and spent four years as a medical aid in England, France and what was then Constantinople.

In this exhibit alone we learn the stories of a teacher-turned-war nurse, a ship owner, a photographer, two different midwives, a storyteller and accordion player, a homemaker and a rug hooker among many others.

Featured Links

Diversity Photo Gallery

Featured Biography: Frances Cluett

Featured Biography: Jane Bartlett

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