Agnes Macphail, Canada's first woman MP, is a heroine for our times: an accomplished politician, committed feminist and a complex, well-rounded human being.
A democratic populist who emerged politically during the post-World War One farmers' revolt, Macphail helped build the alliance that became the CCF, ending two-party domination of national political life. She later served the CCF as Ontario's first woman MPP.In all her activities Macphail was an outspoken advocate of equality and human rights, working tirelessly to win recognition of women's rights, to reform the penal system and to secure international peace. Strong convictions, openness to new ideas and devotion to democratic values were Maphail's distinguishing characteristics.
Agnes MacPhail and the Politics of Equality recounts the career of a Canadian political pioneer, while simultaneously presenting twentieth-century Canadian history from a woman's perspective.

Terry Crowley is professor of history at the University of Guelph, and is editor of the journal Ontario History. Among his books are Clio's Craft: A Primer of Historical Methods; One Voice: A History of the Canadian Veterinary Medical Association (with C.A.V. Baker); Agnes Macphail and the Politics of Equality, which won the W.C. Good Writing Award of the Rural Learning Association; and Canadian History to 1867: The Birth of a Nation. Dr. Crowley has contributed sections on the French regime to The Concise History of Christianity in Canada and rural labour in Labouring Lives: Work and Workers in Nineteenth-Century Ontario, which won the Ontario Historical Society's J.J. Thalman Award.

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