GUELPH – A University of Guelph professor has written a new book about the history of women’s recreational activities in the small towns of Dresden, Tillsonburg and Elora
Pursuing Play: Women’s Leisure in Small-Town Ontario, 1870-1914 is written by Rebecca Beausaert, a professor at the University of Guelph.
The unique and illuminating stories told in this book celebrate how complex and busy small-town life at the turn of the century really was, and how much of a role women played in creating opportunities for leisure.
As athletes like Summer McIntosh become household names following the 2024 Olympics, this book reveals the ways Canadian women in the late 1800s and early 1900s broke down barriers in order to engage in sports and exercise like croquet, ice skating, and bicycling.
Some of the more salacious stories, relating to law-breaking, cultural appropriation, and even taboo discussions of women’s rights like suffrage, property laws, and labour legislation, bring to light fascinating parts of small-town Ontario history.
Pursuing Play will be launching as part of the Rural History Roundtable series at the University of Guelph on Sept. 26 and an excerpt from the book — which describes a “Spinsters’ Convention” held in Elora in 1903—can be viewed on the blog found at uofmpress.ca/blog/pursuing-play-excerpt.
