The Origins of She Named It Canada

By Pat Davitt

A graphic history of Canada, by the Corrective Collective:
Patricia Davitt, Colette French, Marge Hollibaugh, Andrea Lebowitz, Dodie Weppler, Karen Cameron, Cathy Walker and Barbara Todd.

The year was 1970. The Vancouver Women’s Caucus was only a year or so old, and we had a number of projects on the go, but somehow we always were ready to take on one more….especially if it sounded interesting.

And this one was interesting. It appeared that a delegation of women from North Vietnam was scheduled to visit Canada in the spring of 1971, according to the local group of Voice of Women, and the visitors wanted to meet with women in Canada who were against the Vietnam War, which was then raging. Even more interesting, the Vietnamese also wanted to meet with progressive women from the United States who were also against the war, hence their itinerary: visits to Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver, all Canadian cities close to the border.

It seemed to the Canadian women who had attended a planning conference in Portland that most of our American sisters were woefully ignorant of anything Canadian, other than a vague idea that it was north, somewhere. We decided that we would help our American sisters to understand that Canada existed, was a country (a very large country) with its own history and its place in the world. We would start that process by writing a history of Canada that would appeal to them: a comic book.  Cathy Walker expanded that potential audience: “…then we realized it would also be good for Canadians to learn more about Canada’s history, especially from a progressive perspective. We were interested in creating a popular history…” for everyone to find intriguing, informative, readily accessible, and yes, to enjoy.

And we did. We called it “She Named It Canada…because that’s what it was called.”

But how did we do it, you ask…or not:

We were a group of eight women, some working and some in university, who more or less knew each other, some of us not so much or hardly at all, with one purpose that seemed so important, so interesting, so much fun…that we had to do it. Go figure.

As Dodie Weppler recalls, “every meeting, we each took a section to research.  Some historical incidents we were familiar with as a group.  For those, we just started an open ended discussion about how we could present our angle on it, in a humorous, but serious, way.  For particular periods or events where we were less knowledgeable, we would just go away and read.  There was a division of labour in these instances, and we would delegate the issues that needed further investigation.  I can still vaguely remember one particular section I was responsible for researching – some policy or other that was implemented on the prairies in the early years of the 20th century. We would then report on our findings at the next meeting, and once everyone understood the issues involved, we discussed how to present it. This always included Colette (our artist) who would make suggestions on how she could create it visually.

And Colette remembers: My inspiration for the drawings came directly from the discussions with the great group of women I worked with on this project, and from the excitement of being part of the women’s movement at that time. All kinds of neglected history, and especially, Canadian history, which for me, had been so boring in school, was being re-examined from a different perspective.

Dodie recalls that it was often Andrea or Pat who picked up the pencil and started to write down suggestions for the text to accompany the image.  Sometimes words came before images.  Ideas would be bounced around by everyone, but particularly between Pat and Andrea, who worked together as a very smart and very funny team.  I am not saying the rest of us didn’t have input.  We all did research and all threw in ideas.  But when formulating the exact wording, the lead definitely came from Pat and Andrea – although they were receptive to any ideas that were thrown into the pot and were probably spurred on by them.  I don’t recall any time when we were stuck for ideas or found it difficult to get things down.  Everything seemed to come together when we met.  One or maybe two weekends were entirely spent working on the project.  I am sure Marge would have brought some wonderful homemade dishes and we were in continual session – possibly at Andrea’s place, but maybe Pat’s.

Dodie more or less sums it up: I remember at the time feeling very happy that I was involved in the project.  It was a creative experience and a very productive time.  We were a very strong group of committed women working together. And we had a sense of humour.  What more can be said?

Did we get it done on time? Just barely. The conference was held at UBC over a weekend; we (at the press) finished the printing, folding and collating of that first edition mid-afternoon on the final day, and sped up to the university to get there before everyone went home. It was close, but we made it!

And yes, there is still one more thing: “She Named It Canada” went on to be a Canadian best seller! Hah!

Well, there is one additional frequently asked question:  Why the heck did we call it: “SHE Named It Canada”? Answer: because it was at least a subtle mention of the other gender in the story of the history of Canada, a gender that we considered quite important, actually.  The history books that we read through to write this account barely mentioned (if at all) that there were any women in Canada. Being a women’s group, and indeed a women’s liberation group, we could not write a whole account of Canada’s growth as a nation without any mention or depiction of the female gender: hence the inclusion in drawings of a woman washing the floor, or minding the children, or hanging out the wash, or….well, you get the idea. And then there was Queen Vic! Had to give her a nod, right?