Cultivating Community: Women and Agricultural Fairs in Ontario- Book Launch
University of Guelph Rural History Roundtable
Thursday, February 17, 2022 – 2:30 PM – 4:30 PM EST
About this event
Jodey Nurse, Research Assistant Professor, University of Waterloo
The RHRT is celebrating the publication of University of Guelph alumna Jodey Nurse’s first monograph, Cultivating Community: Women and Agricultural Fairs in Ontario. Join us as Nurse highlights women’s diverse roles as agricultural society members, fair exhibitors, performers, volunteers, and fairgoers during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Nurse shows that women used fairs’ manifold nature to present different versions of rural womanhood. Although traditional domestic skills and handicrafts, such as baking, needlework, and flower arrangement, remained the domain of women throughout this period, women steadily enlarged their sphere of influence on the fairgrounds. By the mid-twentieth century they held space in venues previously closed to them, including the livestock show ring, the athletic field, and the boardroom. Through fascinating stories and colourful detail, Cultivating Communities adds a new dimension to the social and cultural history of rural women, placing their activities at the centre of the agricultural fair.
Latest posts by Jodey Nurse (see all)
- New Book – Cultivating Community: Women and Agricultural Fairs in Ontario - April 13, 2022
- Cultivating Community: Women and Agricultural Fairs in Ontario – Book Launch - February 16, 2022
- Not Without Precedent: Debating Changing Food Systems - February 8, 2022