More Than a Footnote : Canadian Women You Should Know

“The book makes fascinating reading, not least of all because Wells writes so well… Like her documentaries, her book is incredibly well researched and her prose sings, bringing these mostly forgotten women to life.”

Many books about the history of Canada tend to focus on the contributions of men, making it appear that women had only a minor role in the formation of this country. In More than a Footnote: Canadian Women You Should Know, Karin Wells fills in the gaps in Canada’s history with stories of women who made a difference in this country, from artists to mathematicians, giving readers a better understanding of some of the people who helped to build Canadian society. Wells is a CBC documentary producer and three-time recipient of the Canadian Association of Journalists documentary award. She has worked as an actor, a schoolteacher and briefly as a line worker at a pea factory before pursuing a career as a lawyer. In 2011, she was inducted into the University of Ottawa’s Common Law Honour Society. She was born in the U.K., grew up in British Columbia and later moved to southwest Ontario. More Than a Footnote highlights women, but not just the famous and accomplished. While several chapters are about women who were well-known in their fields, others are accounts of women whose accomplishments were largely unknown outside their immediate circles.

The book begins with the story of Mina Benson Hubbard Ellis, who set out in the early 20th century to map Labrador after her husband died in that same attempt. Cellist Zara Nelsova, meanwhile, reinvented herself to participate in making music, while Beatrix (Trixie) Helen Worsley became the first person, male or female, to graduate with a PhD from Cambridge University in the newly created discipline of computer science. Female scientists, three Métis women married to white men, a westerner in China during the Communist revolution, a Japanese-Canadian broadcaster and a woman overseeing a creative and revenue-generating mat-weaving project in Labrador are some of the other accounts in this book. Although several of the chapters in More Than a Footnote deal with women in the sciences, the variety of subject matter shows that women have had an influence over a wide range of fields. Even if their contribution was mainly to help guide their husbands through the Canadian wilderness and make sure they survived the harsh conditions, these women helped establish communities and set examples for future generations to follow. To some extent the chapters are connected, some more naturally than others. For example, Mina Benson Hubbard Ellis arranged for Zara Nelsova’s father to receive a cello for his teenage daughter, connecting the first chapter very closely to the second. Other connections are much more tenuous, and the author soon abandons her attempt to link the different subjects to each other. Despite that change, however, the overall theme helps to unite the different chapters.

More Than a Footnote is a well-written and compelling account of women who have made a difference in this country. Photographs scattered throughout the text help to provide a background for the stories, and the author’s introduction gives readers insight into her process of choosing and researching her subjects. It’s a good choice for anyone interested in learning more about women’s contributions to Canadian society.

"Karin Wells fills in the gaps in Canada’s history with stories of women who made a difference in this country, from artists to mathematicians, giving readers a better understanding of some of the people who helped to build Canadian society."