“Each has a house of her own”: Purpose, Domesticity and Agency of First Nations Women in Canada’s Industrial School System, 1883-1923.

Abstract

This paper uses the lenses of gender and colonialism to examine the goals and actual outcomes of industrial schools, as well as the experiences of female students in a particular era—the 1880s to the turn of the century. The industrial school system was originally implemented in western Canada to train First Nations males in various trades such as farming, and to assimilate these students into the dominant Euro-Canadian society, but administrators changed their mind and decided to educate female students as well.  Specifically, the first three industrial schools created which laid the foundation for the system in the west (including British Columbia) will be the focus.  These schools are High River Industrial School in what is now Alberta, and the Qu’Appelle Industrial School and the Battleford Industrial School in Saskatchewan.  Two leading questions have shaped this study.

First, this work interrogates the various churches’ and government’s goals for female students in the industrial schools of western Canada.  This study argues that the Canadian federal government’s and various churches’ goals for the female students were twofold.  Initially the purpose of education for the female student was to create “proper” wives for the male students who would stand in place of the “non-educated” and “unassimilated” First Nations females who would otherwise, according to officials of the institutions, pull male graduates back into a life of “savagery.” However, as time progressed, the methods of educating female students changed.  Female students, with support from the government and the churches, took on the role of domestic servants both inside and out of the school as part of the “outing system.” However, administrators intended such positions to be temporary as the primary goal remained that female graduates would marry and conform to gender ideals at the time.

Second, the paper examines the “success” of the schools based on their projected outcomes and argues that the system was ineffective. Female students prevented the federal government and various churches from achieving their goals of making “proper” housewives through the industrial school system.   Many women kept their traditions after graduation by returning to their families and nations, and through activities such as leaving graduate colonies to attend traditional activities such as the Sun Dance.  Still others did not conform to Victorian ideals of womanhood when they became “breadwinners” through their work in domestic service.

This study concludes that while government and church administrators believed that the schools would teach female Aboriginal students how to conform to ideals of white, Victorian womanhood and would help advance the cause of “civilizing” male students, in the end, female students found employment outside of the home, the opposite of what administrators envisioned.